by Parker Bilal
He looked up to see a tall, uncertain man standing awkwardly before him. His prematurely thinning hair was combed back from his narrow forehead. His clothes while neat were too big for him. The eyes were a shade of grey, clouded with some murkiness that Makana could not quite decipher. In his hand he clutched a paper napkin. A spot of cream dotted the corner of his mouth.
‘It is you, isn’t it?’
The eyes widened and the smile revealed teeth that were yellow and uneven. They stood out against his pale skin like discordant notes on a sheet of music.
‘I said to my wife, I was sure it was you.’
The woman standing behind him hovered uncertainly. She was a rather plain young woman wearing make-up and clutching a shiny plastic handbag adorned with gold buckles big enough to sink a small boat. They made an odd couple, confused and out of tune with their surroundings. Gentle music was playing in the background over the clink and clatter of plates and glasses.
‘You don’t remember me, do you? Ghalib Samsara?’
Makana did remember. A little over a year ago he had been hired by Samsara’s father. A long-time civil servant as honest as the day was long, but struggling to make ends meet. The family had once been wealthy, but over the years they had slipped down the scale and now lived in a building that was not only falling into ruin, but was about to be taken over by an unscrupulous speculator who was bribing local officials. Makana dug around until he found enough evidence to make the speculator back off. It had been a slow case but Makana could not recall having met the son on more than one occasion.
Makana, on his feet now, folded the newspaper and stepped towards the tall man, trying to edge him away. Ghalib Samsara took offence, sensing that Makana was trying to get rid of him. His face reddened and his jaw clamped tightly.
‘How is your father doing?’ Makana enquired, edging around him, until he could see over Samsara’s shoulder.
‘He’s much the same, thank you.’ Samsara’s voice was flat with disappointment. Makana realised he had wanted something from him, recognition perhaps. Was he trying to show off to his wife? Now his voice took on another tone. He regarded Makana stonily.
‘I’ve been abroad,’ he said, ‘studying. In Germany.’
‘That’s nice for you. Where in Germany?’
‘Hamburg. I studied engineering.’
The door through which Yousef had disappeared was now opening.
‘There’s no work here. You know how it is.’ The smile flashed with complicity, quick and far too bright. ‘It all depends on who you know.’
‘It’s not easy,’ Makana conceded.
‘Are you here alone?’ Samsara’s head turned to follow Makana’s gaze.
‘Actually, no, I’m meeting someone.’
The woman was tugging his arm, but Samsara hung on, his eyes widening with realisation.
‘I understand!’ he whispered. ‘You are working on a case.’
‘I really have to be going,’ Makana said. The door yawned open to reveal Yousef and the man in the suit shaking hands.
‘Of course. I just wanted to . . .’ Samsara smiled his crooked smile. What he wanted remained unclear. ‘Perhaps, when it is convenient . . . I am sure there is much for us to talk about.’
‘I’m sure,’ Makana said, without much conviction. He began moving towards the exit. Samsara shadowed him, walking sideways, still talking. If he had waved a flag over his head he couldn’t have looked more conspicuous.
‘Corruption. You must understand what I mean. A man like yourself.’
‘Corruption?’
‘Society,’ Samsara nodded. ‘We have sold our souls to the West, allowed them to turn this country into their playground. They do what they like. They walk through the old bazaar half-naked. Within sight of the mosque of Hussein. There is no respect.’
Makana turned and hurriedly handed the man his card. ‘Let’s meet and talk. Give me a call.’
‘She says I never stop talking.’ Samsara clutched the card as if it were a sacred gift. His eyes glowed. ‘I am learning to fly. Soon I shall go to America.’
Makana made a mental note to find out which airline would be mad enough to employ a man like this to fly their planes. Samsara beamed at him, amused. Then, like an actor leaving the stage, he bowed his head slightly and stepped back.
‘Fate has brought us together at this time.’
Makana watched him go, wondering absently what it was that was ailing the man. When he looked round again Yousef stood before him.
‘I told you to stay in the car.’
‘I wanted to get a newspaper.’
‘If I tell you to do something I expect you to do it.’
‘I was never any good at taking orders.’
‘Yeah, I can see that.’
Outside, Yousef lit a cigarette. A cool breeze swept up from the river. ‘In this business there are plenty of opportunities. If you play your cards right I will show you.’ He blew smoke into the air above Makana’s head. ‘But first you have to learn to do what you’re told.’
Chapter Five
The rest of the day proved a fruitless waste of time. At around six Makana decided that enough was enough. He waited until he saw Meera begin to pack up her things and then, with a loud yawn, he got to his feet and said goodbye to everyone, receiving barely a murmur in return. Downstairs in the arcade he lingered outside a shop selling ladies’ footwear, shoes of the most extravagant and impractical styles he had ever seen. Lacquered and adorned with shiny buckles and spiked heels, they resembled medieval torture instruments. The young woman arranging the window display glanced nervously at Makana as if to ask what he was staring at. Makana ignored her and took his time lighting a cigarette. If high heels had been around in the time of the Prophet, they would no doubt have been designated haram, but then so would many aspects of modern life, including cigarettes, and then where would we be? he wondered. When he glanced round he saw Meera appear at the foot of the staircase. When she spotted him she gave a start, then carried on towards the entrance.
‘You were waiting for me,’ she said flatly. It was an observation, not a question.
‘Do you mind? I just thought we might be able to speak more freely away from the office.’
She looked at him for a long time before making up her mind.
‘Very well,’ she said, then led the way down to the street and raised her hand for a cab. A moment later they were driving in the direction of Tahrir Square and the river. Meera sighed. She shook her hair free as she settled back in her seat, letting the warm air blow through the open window into her face.
‘There are days when I can’t breathe in there, when I just want to scream.’ She was looking out of the window as she spoke, as if she had forgotten he was there. ‘It’s stifling. Everyone is afraid of losing their job, of being replaced. That’s why they don’t trust you. They think you are there to fire them.’
‘And you’re not worried?’
She brought her gaze round to him. ‘I know your real reason for being there. I heard Faragalla talking on the telephone. You’re a detective. You’re here to find out about the letters.’
The late-afternoon traffic surged forward in spurts. The cars rolled like loose cogs in a slow-moving mechanism, jamming and freeing themselves according to their own built-in logic. People were hungry and tired, and ahead of them was a long journey home. The horns like discordant trumpets sounding the retreat from battle.
‘You said letters. I’ve only seen one.’
‘There are more.’
‘Why did Faragalla only show me one?’
‘Because he doesn’t know about the others.’
‘But you do?’
She nodded as they crossed the river to Zamalek which lies in the middle of the Nile. Meera directed the driver to let them out under the 26th July bridge.
‘Did you know that this island was once a marshy plot of land with a handful of fisherman living on it?’
‘I had no idea,’ Makana
confessed.
‘Well, it’s true. Nobody is completely sure, but the name Zamalek may derive from the Armenian word for straw hut. Khedive Ismail built a summer palace here to get away from the heat and now look at it,’ she gestured at the stylish, crumbling buildings clinging together for comfort as more cement blocks rose up, eating away the remaining fields and villas.
‘Palaces are overrated. You don’t belong in a place like the Blue Ibis.’
‘Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?’ She met his gaze evenly, leaving Makana momentarily lost for words. On Ahmed Sabri Street they passed St Joseph’s Church founded by the Catholic Fathers of Verona.
‘My father taught in a school they built in Khartoum,’ said Makana without thinking. ‘Bishop Comboni.’
‘They fled here when your Mahdi decided to persecute them.’
‘You certainly know your history.’
‘If we don’t learn from the mistakes of the past we are condemned to repeat them.’
‘Karl Marx?’
‘George Santayana. Spanish philosopher. Now why would someone like you know Marx?’
‘Someone like me?’
‘You know what I mean.’
She led him down tree-lined streets to a chic café called the Alhambra. Modern and bright, it was filled with students from the design school carrying outsize folders and plastic document rolls. Meera seemed to be quite at home here, as if this was her natural environment. The café’s proprietors, a jovial couple in their thirties, both greeted her with the familiarity of a regular visitor. She ordered something called a latté and Makana, feeling out of his depth, agreed to have the same. He followed her across the room to a table by the window.
He watched her as she lit a cigarette. He hadn’t seen her smoke all day. Freed from the confines of her job she handled herself with a confidence he hadn’t witnessed at the Blue Ibis offices. Makana allowed his eyes to rest on her hands. They were slim, elegant hands, with slender wrists and long fingers that tapped impatiently on the table.
‘Why are you working at the Blue Ibis?’
‘The oldest reason in the world – I need the money. We need the money.’ She tapped ash with the tip of her index finger. ‘Three years ago I taught English Literature at Cairo University. My husband had a good post. Then one day he was fired. Just like that. It was a huge scandal, but there was no going back. He lost his job, everything. My contract was due to be renewed and it wasn’t. As simple as that.’ Meera paused and looked up, a smile on her face for the woman who brought over the tall cups of coffee, waiting until they were alone again before resuming her story.
‘My husband was denounced as an apostate. The evidence, they claimed, lay in his writings, which were an insult to Islam, and in the fact that he had married a Christian.’
‘Your husband is Ridwan Hilal?’
Makana was familiar with the story, which had been the cause of much debate at the time. It had created a huge stir, even in the international press. Considered a landmark case in the fight to keep Cairo University secular, it had failed spectacularly. Hilal was effectively ostracised, thrown to the wolves. A sign of just how conservative things had become. The attention from around the world only made his case all the more hopeless. He was seen not only as an apostate but as being in the pay of those secular forces in the West determined to bring down Islam.
‘Nobody at the Blue Ibis offices knows your real identity?’
‘No, and that’s how I want to keep it.’ Her eyes flickered upwards to meet his.
‘Your lives were in danger. Why did you never go abroad?’
‘Running away is not my husband’s style.’ Meera stared out of the window at the young people going by. ‘It’s not that we were short of opportunities. There were offers of refuge from all kinds of institutions.’
‘But you decided to stay.’
‘Up until now, yes. My husband’s work is about uncovering truth in all those old texts. He couldn’t hide if he wanted to.’
‘Truth comes at a heavy price these days.’
‘I know,’ she said quietly, leaning her elbows on the table. ‘And besides, this is our home. We both believe in this country. Somehow, despite everything, there is something here that is unique and worth fighting for. We’ve always believed that . . .’
‘Until now?’
‘Now I’m no longer sure. I used to think it’s what you do with your life that counts, not how long you live.’
‘And now you think that perhaps it might be smarter to live a little longer.’
‘If these letters are really a threat.’
‘You said there were more than one. How many exactly?’
‘I’ll come to that.’ Meera let the air out of her lungs slowly as she stubbed out her cigarette. ‘You haven’t touched your coffee.’
Makana lifted the tall glass and examined the frothy substance. He preferred his coffee plain and black. Still, out of courtesy he sipped.
‘Tell me about your husband, what does he do nowadays?’
‘He does what he has always done. He works. Night and day. He’s writing a book. It will probably be published abroad, where it will be highly acclaimed. Here, naturally, it will be banned. It doesn’t matter to him. What matters is the work.’
‘That’s quite a sacrifice for anyone to make. I mean, it’s not your fight.’
‘Of course it’s my fight,’ she retorted angrily. ‘It’s everyone’s fight. It is about the soul of this country. The complex diversity that makes us who we are. If we lose that, we lose everything.’
‘But you choose to hide your identity at work.’
‘For obvious reasons. I’m a Christian, Mr Makana. When you are part of a minority you learn to avoid making yourself a target. How long do you think Faragalla would hold out? There would be complaints from the others about having to work alongside an apostate.’
‘Aren’t you exaggerating just a little? How can you be sure the others would object?’
‘Faragalla would run a mile at the mere hint of scandal. He would fire me for sure. You have no idea how long it took me to find that job.’ Meera paused, studying him for a moment. ‘You must come and meet Ridwan. We live just around the corner. It’s a small flat that used to belong to his grandmother. It’s all we have. We can’t afford to move out.’
After that she talked about her family. Her great-grandfather used to run a provisions shop around the corner on 26th July Street. They specialised in wine and imported delicacies from Greece, France and Italy. Back in the fifties and sixties they used to supply the big hotels. ‘It was a different world,’ she smiled. ‘When you see the pictures, it all looks so glamorous. They had style in those days.’ Eventually the family business folded. The clientele of old Greeks, Copts, Syrians and Europeans vanished into the woodwork or out of the country. The shop was turned into a snack bar for a time and then sold on, eventually becoming a currency exchange. Makana knew the place, where bearded men counted out banknotes, their fingers a blur.
‘On the bad days I think, what is the point? Why risk our lives for something that so few seem to believe in any more?’
‘You must have had opportunities to leave.’
‘We did. The Dutch, for example, offered to give us refugee status in Holland. A new life. Comfortable and safe. But what would we become? Stateless, homeless. Unable to come back. Who would we be? Have you any idea what that would be like?’
‘I think I can imagine.’
Meera smiled and bowed her head. ‘I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me. I should have guessed you are in exile. Can’t you go back?’
‘It wouldn’t be a good move.’
‘Then maybe you do understand,’ she said slowly. ‘I can’t bear the thought of leaving. If we were to turn our backs on this country it would end up in the hands of pious brothers and corrupt businessmen. Greed and piety, the two crosses we have to bear, if you will forgive me a little joke.’
‘You forget the army.’
> ‘Once you take off their uniforms they fall into one category or the other.’ Meera stirred the dregs in the bottom of her coffee cup. ‘Don’t you wish you could go home?’
‘I lost my wife and daughter,’ said Makana. ‘There’s nothing to go back to.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. For a time neither of them said anything. A noisy group of youngsters came in and made a big fuss moving tables together and scraping chairs. They had the look of soft, comfortably-off kids without a care in the world.
‘I feel like telling them to enjoy themselves while they can,’ she said. ‘In a few years’ time they will finish their studies and find themselves out of work.’
‘You miss teaching?’
‘Your students become a form of hope. It’s a shame, all that energy and enthusiasm going to waste. Don’t you like your coffee? I can ask for something else.’
‘No, thank you, it’s fine.’ Makana reached for another cigarette. ‘Why don’t you tell me about these letters. How many are there?’
‘Three. They arrived in the morning post. No stamp. No address. But there’s nothing odd about that. People drop letters off with Abu Salem downstairs. Everyone knows I open the post.’
‘And they all contained the same passage from the Quran?’
‘No, all of them are different, but from the same Sura.’
In the context of what Meera had just told him, about who she was and who her husband was, the idea of the letters being a threat addressed to her made more sense.
‘And you are convinced they were meant for you?’
‘Oh, yes. I mean, if I hadn’t been late that day Faragalla would never have seen them. Look,’ Meera said, ‘the Sura is addressed to the Arabs of the Jahiliyya, the age of ignorance before the coming of Muhammed and his message. It is addressed to pagans, idolaters, worshippers of stars.’
‘People like your husband.’
She nodded. ‘Someone must have found out my identity.’
‘But there is no specific threat, or demand in any of the letters.’
‘No.’ She hesitated.
‘Is there something more, something you’re not telling me?’
‘No, it’s nothing.’
