It was most likely that Jadaan despised his companion Mubarak in some way, or so we thought, and that Mubarak, in turn, inside that marvellous uniform, felt ashamed in front of Jadaan when he looked him up and down with his small sharp eyes.
This belief was confirmed when Mubarak stopped me one day and asked me to write a complaint for him to the head of the company.
“A complaint against whom, Mubarak?” I asked the question in the correct tone for an engineer addressing a guard six ranks below him, and he answered me:
“Against Jadaan. He refuses to clean the toilets when his turn comes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He used to get your servant to do it and give him three rupees.”
“What does it matter to you so long as the toilets are cleaned at the right time?”
He leaned against the wall. He was angry, and he explained excitedly:
“Listen, sir. For a week your servant has refused to do it. Do you know what he did? Well, he asked me to clean the toilets for five rupees.”
“And why doesn’t Jadaan do the job himself? Isn’t it part of his duties?”
He shook his head and brushed the dust from his arms.
“Yes, yes. But do you know why he doesn’t agree to do it? Well, he hasn’t come here to work.”
“Then what has he come here to do?”
He shook his head again, rather confusedly, and continued in a low voice:
“Well, I don’t know … but I believe that he has fled from his people.”
Mubarak sat on Jadaan’s bench and, looking at me with eyes full of malice, said:
“It happened a long time ago. He wanted to marry a girl with red hair, whom he saw once near his tribe’s encampment with men who had come to hunt the gazelle.”
Amazed, I said:
“Jadaan was in love?”
“Yes. Their sheikh ordered him to accompany the men and women hunting the gazelle. Do you know what? Well, he fell in love with her, and when she left he went out of his mind.”
Mubarak took a small twig and began to scratch up the earth aimlessly. Then he said:
“You know, they say many things there. Well, they say that she loved him too.”
“She loved him! Why didn’t they marry?”
“What woman with red hair would agree to marry a bedouin? He was a good man, but it was hopeless. You know what? Well, he divorced his wife!”
I got up, but before I walked away I asked:
“Why does he work here, then?”
“He said he doesn’t work here. He said that he merely sits here as a man may do anywhere in the world. Well, he said he had been through a great deal, and here a man can eat sitting down. Well, he said too that he wants to die here peacefully and doesn’t wish to return to his people. He’s mad, I say. Will you write the complaint?”
I walked to the door without answering him; then I went up the stairs to my room.