***
Shabana headed to Abu Kabir on market day. He left his donkey in the wekala - the donkey ‘garage’, as he called it - and hurried to the main café, al-Bursa, where both local and visiting traders and shoppers met. He took his time scanning the place, examining each face to see if he recognized anyone. His reason for coming wasn’t to buy, sell, or broker any deals, and God knows that the money he had in his pocket barely covered the fee of the wekala, a cup of coffee, a bit of muassel smoke, and the tea and sugar he needed to buy for the house. Money was scarce. He had come for a ‘change of scenery’ and to find out something new about the foreign visitor. He scrutinised the faces of the people coming in and leaving, as well as the passersby, but he couldn’t find a single person he knew.
