The Day of the Scorpion [antikvár]

PROLOGUE The writer encountered a Muslim woman once in a narrow street of a predominantly Hindu town, in the quarter inhabited . by moneylenders. The feeling he had was that she was coming î . i in search of a loan. She wore the burkha, that unhygienic head- M -to-toe covering that turns a woman into a walking symbol of ' ' , inefficient civic refuse collection and leaves you without even an impression of her eyes behind the slits she watches the gay world through, tempted but not tempting; a garment in all probability inflaming to her passions but chilling to her expectations of having them satisfied. Pity her for the titillation she must suffer. After she had passed there was a smell of Chanel No. 5, which suggested that she needed money because she liked expensive things. Perhaps she had a rebellious spirit, or laboured under a confusion of ideas and intentions. On the other hand she may merely have been submissive to her husband, drenching herself for his private delight with a scent she did not realize was also one of public invitation - and passed that day through the street of the moneylenders only because it was a short cut to the mosque. It was a Friday, and it is written in the Koran: 'Believers, when the call is made for prayer on Friday, hasten to the remembrance of Allah and leave off all business. That would be best for you, if you but knew it. Then when the prayers are ended, disperse and go in quest of Allah's bounty.' Perhaps, when the service was over, it was^her intention to return by the way she had come. If she was going to divine service then she was bound for the Great Mosque, which lies in the heart of the city. Its minaret is not the only minaret in Ranpur, but it is the tallest and the only one from which the call to prayer is made nowadays; the other mosques of Ranpur are no longer in use as houses of worship. Some of them have decayed, others less ruinous are used as storerooms by the municipality. There are still Muslims in Ranpur but the days are gone when the great festivals of the Id al-fitr and the I al-Adzha could fill the mosques with ' ; , '' I