The Arabesk Trilogy Omnibus by Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page A
Authors: Jon Courtenay Grimwood
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someone useful, she’d amended the arrest sheet from performing abortion to practising unlicensed female circumcision and kicked Sosostris free with a warning. Two months later, she’d gone looking for the woman with a search warrant in one hand and a business proposal in the other.
Now everyone Lady Jalila knew came to the clinic—even Coroner Mila, the new City Magistrate for Women, who usually regarded matters faecal as being beyond mention, like sex.
Lady Jalila smiled sourly. Everybody fucked. The coroner-magistrate just withheld her approval because Lady Jalila didn’t bother to hide the fact.
“All done, then?” asked the Greek woman, looking up. Tall, hipless and small-breasted to the point of clinical androgyny, Madame Sosostris had the body most of her clients secretly craved, whether or not they realized it. Her very shape gave them a target at which to aim. A reason to keep coming.
“Then I’ll let you dress…”
Madame Sosostris always waited for the client to return before leaving them to change back into their clothes. Of course, Lady Jalila was more than just a client. She’d quickly become Madame Sosostris’s dear friend and ally, an invaluable patron for a woman practising therapies not entirely approved of by Islamic mullahs. Her husband was Mushin Bey, Iskandryia’s Minister for Police, respected deputy of General Koenig Pasha himself.
Madame Sosostris left the room at an elegant glide.
Next Tuesday, decided Lady Jalila climbing into a white CK thong that no longer felt tight round the hips. That was when she’d visit next. She shuffled her full breasts into a sports bra and looked round for a mirror, forgetting there wasn’t one. Though it didn’t matter: she’d still be thin enough to check her shape in the glass when she got home for lunch, after she’d dropped in to check on Nafisa.
All in all, a good morning’s work. Her white jacket now clung in the right places without bulging in the wrong ones and the matching silk skirt hugged her hips without wrinkling. Lady Jalila wore white because white went with her swept-up blonde hair and her husband liked clothes that emphasized the difference in their age. Thirty-one might be old enough for all of her friends to have large families but to the sixty-five-year-old Minister of Police it seemed positively childish. But then, Mushin Bey still thought of her as the seventeen-year-old she’d been when she first joined the women’s police force. All blonde hair, blue eyes and innocence.
Lady Jalila pushed her feet into a pair of Manolos, then picked up the Dior bag that contained her credit cards and smiled.
Long may it remain so.
Lady Jalila let herself into her cousin’s madersa, frowning at the door Khartoum had left unguarded. Nafisa always had been slack with her house boy.
The glassed-over knot garden was hot as a steam bath, bringing Lady Jalila out in an instant flush. She knew her cousin claimed not to be able to afford air-conditioning except in her own little office. But what was the point of owning a famous garden if it was uninhabitable for most of the summer?
“Nas?” Lady Jalila used her pet name for Nafisa.
Nothing.
Passing the liwan with its cooling marble slab now dusty and dry, she stepped out into the open courtyard and stopped to breathe deeply. Early July in El Iskandryia was often humid and hot, but nothing like as cruel as that covered garden.
“Nas?”
The silence was complete. Made deeper by the absence of running water in the courtyard in front of her.
Lady Jalila started to climb the qaa steps, hearing her heels ring on the stone slabs. Cousin Nafisa didn’t approve of Lady Jalila’s kitten heels: they made scars in the marble. At the top of the stairs, she hesitated. To her left was the large tiled expanse of the qaa proper. While straight ahead was the cubicle of Lady Nafisa’s office, cool and air-conditioned, created by filling space between arches with sheets of smoked glass.
That was
Now everyone Lady Jalila knew came to the clinic—even Coroner Mila, the new City Magistrate for Women, who usually regarded matters faecal as being beyond mention, like sex.
Lady Jalila smiled sourly. Everybody fucked. The coroner-magistrate just withheld her approval because Lady Jalila didn’t bother to hide the fact.
“All done, then?” asked the Greek woman, looking up. Tall, hipless and small-breasted to the point of clinical androgyny, Madame Sosostris had the body most of her clients secretly craved, whether or not they realized it. Her very shape gave them a target at which to aim. A reason to keep coming.
“Then I’ll let you dress…”
Madame Sosostris always waited for the client to return before leaving them to change back into their clothes. Of course, Lady Jalila was more than just a client. She’d quickly become Madame Sosostris’s dear friend and ally, an invaluable patron for a woman practising therapies not entirely approved of by Islamic mullahs. Her husband was Mushin Bey, Iskandryia’s Minister for Police, respected deputy of General Koenig Pasha himself.
Madame Sosostris left the room at an elegant glide.
Next Tuesday, decided Lady Jalila climbing into a white CK thong that no longer felt tight round the hips. That was when she’d visit next. She shuffled her full breasts into a sports bra and looked round for a mirror, forgetting there wasn’t one. Though it didn’t matter: she’d still be thin enough to check her shape in the glass when she got home for lunch, after she’d dropped in to check on Nafisa.
All in all, a good morning’s work. Her white jacket now clung in the right places without bulging in the wrong ones and the matching silk skirt hugged her hips without wrinkling. Lady Jalila wore white because white went with her swept-up blonde hair and her husband liked clothes that emphasized the difference in their age. Thirty-one might be old enough for all of her friends to have large families but to the sixty-five-year-old Minister of Police it seemed positively childish. But then, Mushin Bey still thought of her as the seventeen-year-old she’d been when she first joined the women’s police force. All blonde hair, blue eyes and innocence.
Lady Jalila pushed her feet into a pair of Manolos, then picked up the Dior bag that contained her credit cards and smiled.
Long may it remain so.
Lady Jalila let herself into her cousin’s madersa, frowning at the door Khartoum had left unguarded. Nafisa always had been slack with her house boy.
The glassed-over knot garden was hot as a steam bath, bringing Lady Jalila out in an instant flush. She knew her cousin claimed not to be able to afford air-conditioning except in her own little office. But what was the point of owning a famous garden if it was uninhabitable for most of the summer?
“Nas?” Lady Jalila used her pet name for Nafisa.
Nothing.
Passing the liwan with its cooling marble slab now dusty and dry, she stepped out into the open courtyard and stopped to breathe deeply. Early July in El Iskandryia was often humid and hot, but nothing like as cruel as that covered garden.
“Nas?”
The silence was complete. Made deeper by the absence of running water in the courtyard in front of her.
Lady Jalila started to climb the qaa steps, hearing her heels ring on the stone slabs. Cousin Nafisa didn’t approve of Lady Jalila’s kitten heels: they made scars in the marble. At the top of the stairs, she hesitated. To her left was the large tiled expanse of the qaa proper. While straight ahead was the cubicle of Lady Nafisa’s office, cool and air-conditioned, created by filling space between arches with sheets of smoked glass.
That was
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