The man – the Arab, I shall call him – came right up to the door of my side of the car and peered in through the open window. I leaned away from him, praying that he would come not an inch closer. Without a doubt, he was one of the most blighted humans I had ever seen. His face had the eroded, eaten-away look of an old wood-carving when the worm has been at it, and the sight of it made me wonder how many other diseases the man was suffering from, besides syphilis.
‘Salaam,’ he mumbled.
‘Fill up the tank,’ I told him.
He didn’t move. He was inspecting the interior of the Lagonda with great interest. A terrible feculent odour came wafting in from his direction.
‘Come along!’ I said sharply. ‘I want some gasoline!’
He looked at me and grinned. It was more of a leer than a grin, an insolent mocking leer that seemed to be saying, ‘I am the king of the gasoline pump at B’ir Rawd Salim! Touch me if you dare!’ A fly had settled in the corner of one of his eyes. He made no attempt to brush it away.
‘You want gasoline?’ he said, taunting me.
I was about to swear at him, but I checked myself just in time, and answered politely, ‘Yes please, I would be very grateful.’
He watched me slyly for a few moments to be sure I wasn’t mocking him, then he nodded as though satisfied now with my behaviour. He turned away and started slowly towards the rear of the car. I reached into the door-pocket for my bottle of Glenmorangie. I poured myself a stiff one, and sat sipping it. The man’s face had been within a yard of my own; his foetid breath had come pouring into the car … and who knows how many billions of airborne viruses might not have come pouring in with it? On such an occasion it is a fine thing to sterilize the mouth and throat with a drop of Highland whisky. The whisky is also a solace. I emptied the glass, and poured myself another. Soon I began to feel less alarmed. I noticed the watermelon lying on the seat beside me. I decided that a slice of it at this moment would be refreshing. I took my knife from its case and cut out a thick section. Then, with the point of the knife, I carefully picked out all the black seeds, using the rest of the melon as a receptacle.
I sat drinking the whisky and eating the melon. Both were delicious.
‘Gasoline is done,’ the dreadful Arab said, appearing at the window. ‘I check water now, and oil.’
I would have preferred him to keep his hands off the Lagonda altogether, but rather than risk an argument, I said nothing. He went clumping off towards the front of the car, and his walk reminded me of a drunken Hitler Stormtrooper doing the goosestep in very slow motion.
Tabes dorsalis, as I live and breathe.
The only other disease to induce that queer high-stepping gait is chronic beriberi. Well – he probably had that one, too. I cut myself another slice of watermelon, and concentrated for a minute or so on taking out the seeds with the knife. When I looked up again, I saw that the Arab had raised the bonnet of the car on the right-hand side, and was bending over the engine. His head and shoulders were out of sight, and so were his hands and arms. What on earth was the man doing? The oil dipstick was on the other side. I rapped on the windshield. He seemed not to hear me. I put my head out of the window and shouted, ‘Hey! Come out of there!’
Slowly, he straightened up, and as he drew his right arm out of the bowels of the engine, I saw that he was holding in his fingers something that was long and black and curly and very thin.
‘Good God!’ I thought. ‘He’s found a snake in there!’
He came round to the window, grinning at me and holding the object out for me to see; and only then, as I got a closer look, did I realize that it was not a snake at all – it was the fan-belt of my Lagonda!
All the awful implications of suddenly being stranded in this outlandish place with this disgusting man came flooding over me as I sat there staring dumbly at my broken fan-belt.
‘You can see,’ the Arab was saying, ‘it was hanging on by a single thread. A good thing I noticed it.’
I took it from him and examined it closely. ‘You cut it!’ I cried.
‘Cut it?’ he answered softly. ‘Why should I cut it?’
To be perfectly honest, it was impossible for me to judge whether he had or had not cut it. If he had, then he had also taken the trouble to fray the severed ends with some instrument to make it look like an ordinary break. Even so, my guess was that he had cut it, and if I was right then the implications were more sinister than ever.
‘I suppose you know I can’t go on without a fan-belt?’ I said.
He grinned again with that awful mutilated mouth, showing ulcerated gums. ‘If you go now,’ he said, ‘you will boil over in three minutes.’
‘So what do you suggest?’
‘I shall get you another fan-belt.’
‘You will?’
‘Of course. There is a telephone here, and if you will pay for the call, I will telephone to Ismailia. And if they haven’t got one in Ismailia, I will telephone to Cairo. There is no problem.’
‘No problem!’ I shouted, getting out of the car. ‘And when, pray, do you think
