City of the Dead

either bank, and there was a number of isolated farms which lay closer to the protection of the town. Wrapping his scarf around his head to protect himself from the heat, Huy kicked the dust out of his sandals and set off for the nearest one.
    The furious barking of dogs which heralded his approach worried him, but the animals - two large black brutes of a kind he did not recognise - were tied to a hefty stake in the middle of the farmyard. There was no one about, which was not surprising in view of the time of day, so Huy, skirting the buildings — a simple low house flanked by a barn -in order to keep out of the dogs’ range, made his way to the nearest door and knocked. The dogs, aware that further action was impossible, retired to their patch of shade after loping around for a minute, and from there glared at him threateningly before giving up the whole idea, and lowering their heads on to their paws.
    The farmer was a brittle stick of a man, the colour of sweet wood and fuddled with sleep. He had been up since four, preparing his land for the coming flood, after which the country would swelter, sweating and harassed by mosquitoes, until Hapy passed on his way and the season of growth could begin. Huy had noticed the complicated system of irrigation ditches and slender canals which linked them, now dry and neglected, as he had left the city, and imagined the activity that would animate this countryside five months later, when the waters would have withdrawn, and planting could begin, following a frenzied cleaning and redigging of the veins and arteries of the country’s body.
    Aahetep’s parents’ farm lay further out from the city, but Huy was just able to discern it through the heat haze by squinting in the direction the farmer pointed.
    ‘But you can’t go now. Look where the sun is,’ said the farmer; and indeed the heat had suspended all life. The birds had disappeared from the shore, the crocodiles had withdrawn into deep shade or slunk into the water, where the tiny blisters made on the surface by their eyes were all that betrayed their presence. The farm dogs had become metamorphosed into low dark rocks.
    Huy shook his head. ‘I must.’
    ‘The heat will be too much.’
    ‘There is no time to wait. And I think they will not be sleeping.’
    ‘The parents perhaps. Raia and Tutu have as much to do as we have; but the daughter...’ he broke off. ‘There has been a tragedy.’
    ‘What sort of tragedy?’ asked Huy.
    The farmer regarded him coolly. ‘I thought you city folk knew everything. A death in the family. She’s got their little boy with her.’
    ‘Can I hire your donkey?’
    The walnut face looked at him, and the farmer spat. ‘Not in this heat, you can’t. But have some water before you set out.’

    Huy walked slowly, forcing himself not to hurry, knowing that the faster he went, the less chance he stood of making it, though the two farmsteads were not more than a thousand paces apart. He had spread his shawl to cover his back and neck as well as his head, and he had wet it in one of the farmer’s water jars, so that the going was not too bad, though the heat of the soil scorched his feet through his sandals. Long before he reached the other farm his shawl was dry and his lips and mouth were losing their moisture. Squinting against the sun as he approached the other farmhouse, Huy saw a pair of vultures wheeling high and far away to the north east. Specks that vanished and reappeared as they flew in and out of the sunlight. What dying thing out there had caught their attention?
    Raia’s dogs raised their heads at his approach and managed an exhausted growl, but allowed him to approach the house door without any other challenge. This farm was larger than the first, and small numbers of livestock were corralled in pens under palm leaf umbrellas about the yard. A slim white pig lay in the corner of one, fast asleep, its ears over its eyes. In another, five geese started up, staring at him with beady, intelligent eyes. It was a long time before anyone answered his knock, but at last the door opened a crack to reveal a pale face framed in ragged, undressed hair. The woman held a small child of about three on one arm.
    ‘Aahetep?’
    ‘Who are you?’
    ‘Huy. A friend of Nehesy.’
    Her eyes flickered into life and pain at the mention of her husband’s name, but she must have picked something up from Huy’s tone for no suspicion or enmity appeared in them, and she stood back,