shiny silk suit and sat at his desk, although Royan knew that he
preferred a more comfortable robe and a cushion on the rugs of the
floor. He noticed her glance and smiled deprecatingly. 'I have a meeting
with some Americans this afternoon.' .. She liked him. He had always
been kind to her, and she owed him her job at the museum. Most other men
in his position would have refused. Duraid's request for a female
assistant, especially his own wife.
He asked after her health and she showed him her bandaged arm. 'The
stitches will come out in ten days.'
They chatted for a while in a polite manner. Only Westerners would have
the gaucherie to come -directly to the main business to be discussed.
However, to save him embarrassment Royan took the first opportunity he
gave her to tell him, 'I feel that I need some time to myself. I need to
recover from my loss and to decide what I am to do with the rest of my
life, now that I am a widow. I would be grateful if you would consider
my request for at least six months' unpaid leave of absence. I want to
go to stay with my mother in England.'
Atalan showed real concern and urged her, 'Please do not leave us for
too long. The work you have done has been invaluable. We need you to
help carry on from where Duraid left off.' But he could not entirely
conceal his relief She knew that he had expected her to put before him
her application for the directorship. He must have discussed it with his
nephew. However, he was too kind a man to relish having to tell her that
she would not be selected for the job. Things in Egypt were changing,
women were emerging from their traditional roles, but not that much or
that swiftly. They both knew that the directorship must go to Nahoot
Ouddabi.
Atalan walked with her to the door of his office and shook her hand in
parting, and as she rode down in the lift she felt a sense of release
and freedom.
She had left the Renault standing in the sun in the Ministry car park.
When she opened the door the interior was hot enough to bake bread. She
opened all the windows and fanned the driver's door to force out the
heated air, but still the surface of the driver's seat burned the backs
of her thighs when she slid in behind the wheel.
As soon as she drove through the gates she was engulfed in the swarm of
Cairo traffic. She crawled along behind an overloaded bus that belched a
steady blue cloud of diesel fumes over the Renault. The traffic problem
was one that seemed to have no solution. There was so little parking
available that vehicles lined the verge of the road three and four
deep,' choking the flow in the centre to a trickle.
As the bus in front of her braked and forced her to a halt, Royan smiled
as she recalled the old joke that some drivers who had parked at the
kerb had to abandon their cars there, for they were never able to
extricate them from the tangle. Perhaps there was a little truth in
this, for some of those vehicles she could see had not been moved for
weeks. Their windscreens were completely obscured with dust and many of
them had flat tyres.
She glanced in the rear-view mirror. There was a taxi stopped only
