by Parker Bilal
‘Look, it sounds like you are in some kind of trouble. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me everything.’
Meera nodded, her eyes on the table. She reached for another cigarette and he lit it for her. She exhaled slowly. ‘Things are about to change. I can’t explain it all right now but . . .’ Her eyes lifted to meet his. ‘Perhaps if you talked to Ridwan. You could come to the flat, we could talk, all of us together. I might be able to persuade him.’ She sighed, staring out of the window. ‘This place, after a while it just closes in on you. You forget there is a world out there full of life.’
Chapter Six
Makana had no trouble finding another taxi to take him home. As he climbed out under the big eucalyptus tree and descended the path, the sun was setting and the water was streaked with change, purple and blue. There was no sign of Bassam today, but the smell of food frying came from behind the wooden shack where Umm Ali and her little brood lived, and although she couldn’t see him she called out a greeting as he went by.
‘Good evening, ya bash muhandis.’
‘Good evening, Umm Ali.’
Filling a bucket, Makana bathed in the timeless manner of pouring water over himself with a large plastic beaker. He watched the soap suds swirling through a hole in the bathroom floor to vanish downstream to the sea. Having washed and changed his clothes, he walked back up the incline to the road and joined the glowing red stream that slid like molten metal back into the city.
Since getting married, Sami Barakat had settled down in a small flat with his wife Rania who was also a journalist. The story went that they had known one another for years before love had struck its fateful chords. They now lived in an old red brick building on Adly Street, not far from the synagogue. From the outside it was an impressive, stylish affair from the turn of the last century. Inside it had high ceilings and an old elevator that Makana avoided, preferring to walk the five flights of stairs instead. There was a large living room/dining room that gave onto a narrow kitchen. Like most young couples, they never had time to cook and an invitation to supper implied they would be ordering in from one of the many takeaway places nearby. The low table was, as usual, laden with reading material: newspapers, magazines, journals of every description, which Sami proceeded to clear away in preparation for their meal. Rania came into the room carrying a tray of glasses, plates and cutlery. Her face broke into a beaming smile when she saw Makana.
‘We were wondering if you had forgotten us.’
Rania was easy-going and lively. When Sami had first found this place it had been dark and dingy as a monk’s cell. The brown walls were scarred with cracks and the air fetid. If it had been left to Sami nothing would have changed, not even the furniture, which looked as if someone had died in it. Now the room was bright with colour, with white walls on which a few prints, mostly done by Rania’s artist friends, had been hung. The two sofas and table, and the rug underneath it, were all new.
‘Why don’t we see you more often?’ she asked. ‘You’re working all the time.’
‘I had the impression it was you two who never have a spare moment,’ said Makana.
‘It’s true,’ she laughed, pushing her long black curls behind her shoulder. ‘If we were left to our own devices neither of us would probably come home at all. We would entirely forget about the existence of this marriage.’
‘What nonsense are you telling him now, ya habibti?’ Sami appeared bearing an armful of Stella bottles. ‘Would it be that easy to forget me?’
‘If you weren’t reminded from time to time that you had a wife to come home to you would completely forget my existence.’
‘Imagine, if this is married life after only one year, what will we be like after fifty years?’
Domestication seemed to agree with Sami. He had put on a little weight which made him cut an older and somewhat more dignified presence, although the hair was still a wild nest. He had become something of a celebrity. Publishing a couple of successful books had turned him into not only a well-respected investigative journalist, but a spokesman for political integrity. His weekly column in a satirical magazine, Abul-Houl (The Sphinx), had brought him a younger generation of readers. Nevertheless, he remained just as disorganised as ever, opening beer bottles with his teeth, having been unable to locate an opener. Handing Makana a foaming glass he settled down on the sofa opposite and prodded his spectacles back up his nose with a stubby finger.
‘Saha,’ he said, raising his glass in health before launching back into a speech on the state of the world which had begun on the way up the stairs. ‘We’re going backwards in time. This country used to be the vanguard of the Arab world. Books, movies, we made the best. Dissidents from less fortunate places flocked here in search of freedom. Not any more. You know how many books were published in this country last year? Less than four hundred. And the movies are the same romantic trash designed to keep our minds occupied while telling us nothing. Diversions.’
‘Tell him what Safwat said,’ Rania encouraged from across the room where she was calling in their order.
Sami leaned over the coffee table and reached for his cigarettes. ‘I wrote a piece about how the courts are dominated by judges who see themselves as religious figures. They even come to court dressed like imams. Okay, that fool Sadat amended the constitution to make Sharia the basis of Egyptian law, whatever that means, but we still have a constitution, we still have, in principle, secular courts, right? Wrong. Even the Supreme Court is bowing to this madness.’
‘Sometimes I worry,’ whispered Rania, coming to sit beside him. ‘It’s like the Spanish Inquisition. They judge us for our ideas. Who gives them the right?’
‘It’s not that bad yet,’ Sami said, trying to comfort her, ‘but it’s getting serious. Even good colleagues start to look for ways around it. They don’t come right out with it, of course. They say something like, Islam is the only way to resist Western decadence.’ He threw his head back and laughed. ‘What kind of a statement is that?’
‘They are afraid,’ said Rania, ‘that if they don’t conform they will be persecuted.’
‘Persecuted by whom?’ asked Makana.
‘By society,’ Sami’s glasses glinted with defiance. ‘The point is not about whether or not I am a Muslim, but whether you have the right to call yourself a better Muslim than me.’
All of this was beginning to sound a little too familiar. ‘I met someone today,’ Makana said, setting down his glass. ‘The wife of Ridwan Hilal.’
‘You met her?’ Rania’s eyes widened. ‘How?’
‘She’s connected to a case I’m working on.’
‘Now that’s enough, habibti. He can’t talk about his work. He would have to kill you.’
They all laughed. Sami, leaning forward to scoop a handful of peanuts up from the bowl on the table, went on. ‘His wife has reason to be worried. Sheikh Waheed recently repeated his statement about Hilal being an apostate. That lot won’t be happy until he is dead or in exile.’
‘Sheikh Waheed, the television imam?’ asked Makana. ‘I remember it as a disagreement about theology.’
‘It was nothing to do with theology,’ Rania corrected him. ‘It was much more simple than that. It’s about personal jealousy.’
‘You see how we agree about everything?’ Sami grinned.
‘Ridwan Hilal applied for the post of Professor of Arabic Studies at the university,’ Rania explained. ‘He had to submit his work to a faculty board for approval. Well, two of the board recommended him for promotion, but the third was Professor Serhan, who turned down the request. The decision had to be unanimous. Nobody understood. Hilal was highly respected and clearly deserved the post. He protested the decision and the matter was referred to another seven-man committee. By then the story had gone public. The television got hold of Sheikh Waheed and decided to stir things up.’
Sheikh Waheed was a controversial imam with the following of a pop star. The media loved him for his provocative declarations. Waheed enjoye
d shocking people. It made for good viewing.
‘Waheed is a government man,’ said Sami. ‘He makes them look like they are more Islamic than the fanatics. With him on their side no one can accuse them of not being religious enough.’
Rania continued the story: ‘When Waheed pronounced his verdict in his televised sermon one Friday afternoon after prayers, that was pretty much the end of it. Nobody dared go up against someone like Waheed. Not even government ministers disagree with him, and certainly not the university committee, which naturally voted to deny Hilal the post.’
‘Waheed then filed a civil case against Hilal,’ Sami went on, ‘accusing him of apostasy and of turning his back on Islam to marry a Christian woman. It was not just the end of his career, it was almost the end of his life.’
‘Once they smell blood, they go in for the kill,’ Rania concluded.
‘It was what you might call a lynching,’ offered Sami. ‘Hilal was a specialist and widely regarded as quite brilliant in the field of Arabic studies.’ His voice trailed away as he went into the kitchen to fetch more beer.
Makana thought about Meera and her clandestine existence at Blue Ibis Tours. Every day she carried with her the memory of how her husband was made an outcast and how their marriage was condemned publicly. No wonder she wanted to keep her identity secret. It also explained the horror she must have felt on opening those letters for the first time. Naturally she assumed those words were meant for her.
‘No one dared stand up for Hilal,’ Sami was saying. ‘He was tried by silent complicity.’
There was a ring at the door announcing the arrival of their food. A young man in a baseball cap appeared. While Sami paid him, Rania carried it through to the kitchen and unpacked it onto plates. In the old days, Sami would have served it directly from the boxes it came in, but times had changed and plates were now in order. Soon a small feast was arrayed before them on the low table. Roast chicken, kibba and taamiya rissoles, along with a range of salads. For a time the talk was restricted to comments on the food, and the merits of one takeaway service versus another. It was a conversation Sami and Rania appeared to have had before.
‘Hilal’s work is very important,’ Rania said, continuing their conversation. ‘He published a book about ten years ago, The Quran and its Context. At the time no one paid much attention, but it argued that any written text is a product of the age in which it is written. So in order to understand the consequences of the Quran fully it has to be studied in relation to society at the time.’
‘He was careful,’ Sami interjected. ‘He didn’t dispute the eternal nature of Allah’s word, just the historical setting in which it was interpreted.’
‘We still interpret the Quran according to what was written fourteen hundred years ago.’
‘Hilal’s point,’ Sami went on, ‘is that he believes we must protect religion from being distorted by those who wish to turn it to their own ideological purposes.’
‘And that put him on a collision course with Sheikh Waheed.’
‘Exactly,’ they both said in unison. Sami and Rania looked at one another and simultaneously broke into spontaneous laughter.
‘We’ve been arguing about this guy for years,’ Sami explained.
Makana realised how long it had been since he had spent an evening with friends. When he wasn’t working he tended to withdraw from the world into a kind of seclusion, rather like a monk.
‘I’m telling you,’ Sami said as they began to clear up the remains of their meal, ‘I love this country as much as anyone, but I am seriously considering leaving.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Rania chastised him. ‘Where would we go?’
‘Who knows? Just as long as we don’t have to deal with all this bullshit any more.’
‘I never counted you as one who gave up that easily,’ said Makana.
Sami wagged his head ruefully. ‘I’m telling you, this is not a battle you can win.’
His wife punched him gently on the arm. ‘He’s right, you’re not the kind to give up.’
‘Maybe I’m getting old,’ Sami laughed, but the look in his eye said he wasn’t joking.
When Makana finally took his leave, it was long past midnight and everyone was beginning to yawn. Sami walked him down to the street to find a taxi.
‘You were getting pretty serious there,’ Makana said.
‘Well, it gets me down. Sometimes I can’t see anything in this country ever changing.’
‘I saw your story on the murders in Imbaba.’
‘Street kids. No one wants to talk about the subject, which is one reason the police are doing so little. They run away, usually because they are abused at home, which is another taboo subject. They come to the city, where they fall prey to unscrupulous people.’
‘What about all this talk about ritual killings?’
‘Nonsense being stirred up by, among others, our friend Sheikh Waheed. It’s a smokescreen, the same old method of pretending nothing is wrong with our society. It’s all external forces. In this case the Copts.’ Sami sighed. ‘It’s all part of the plan.’
‘What plan is that?’
‘The one to keep us all occupied, fighting amongst ourselves. Muslim against Christian. Poor against poor. So we don’t notice that the government is screwing us all.’ Sami raised a hand as a lone taxi trundled by and squeaked slowly to a halt. The driver stared at them sullenly through the windscreen.
‘If you want to know more, I’m going to visit Father Macarius on Friday. He runs the church over there.’
‘Sounds good. I’d also like to take a look at this Sheikh Waheed.’
‘He’ll be there, giving another of his hate sermons.’ Sami opened the car door and held out his hand. ‘Don’t leave it so long next time. Rania thinks I should invite more decent people around.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
Sami’s laughter echoed in his head all the way across the river.
Chapter Seven
The boy behind the counter was about twelve years old by Makana’s reckoning. He was wondering to himself how he had come to be running this café by himself and was about to ask when he saw Meera walking towards him up through the gloomy arcade. Now that he knew who she was, it occurred to him as strange that nobody had noticed how out of place she was in the Blue Ibis offices. She carried herself with poise and Makana was forced to remind himself that she was a married woman and that they were meeting for a purpose. She, too, seemed eager to stress the nature of their meeting and handed him a large brown envelope as she sat down.
‘I knew they were meant for me ever since I saw the first one. I don’t know why, I just stuffed them into my bag.’ Her eyes narrowed, then she sat back and regarded him for a moment. Her hair was different today, as if she had come out in a hurry and it hung loosely around her face. She didn’t look any the worse for it, in fact the opposite. Makana stirred his coffee. Outside in the arcade an old man was sweeping, moving along the cracked tiles with a broom over which a dirty rag had been draped. It slid back and forth like a strange undersea creature swimming through muddy water.
‘At first I thought it was some sort of cruel practical joke. I was ashamed, to tell the truth, and felt I should keep it secret. I didn’t tell anyone.’ Her fingernails tapped at the warped Formica at the edge of the table.
‘And now you’ve changed your mind?’
‘One letter might be a joke, but three? Somebody is trying to tell me something.’
‘And you haven’t talked about this to anyone?’
‘Not until now, no.’
Makana noticed the boy behind the counter lifting his head. The eyes widened enough to take a long look at Meera.
‘If someone does really mean you harm, perhaps you should consider varying your habits. How you travel, what time you come to work, that kind of thing.’
‘Ridwan and I have grown used to threats over the years. A few years ago someone tried to stab him in the street. The dangerous ones a
re the ones who give no warning. Now, have you thought about my invitation?’
‘Of course, I would be delighted to meet your husband.’
‘Then that’s settled. How about Sunday evening?’
‘Fine.’
As she was getting to her feet the boy came round from behind the counter. He was clutching a wet rag in his hands and stood there looking at her until she noticed.
‘Madame,’ he said. Meera turned and smiled.
‘Eissa? Is that you? What are you doing here?’
‘Oh, it’s just for a week or two, to help out for a friend.’
‘Eissa used to be one of my students, didn’t you? I used to teach him English.’
‘At the university?’ asked Makana.
‘No,’ laughed Meera. ‘And now you’ve found work here?’
The boy nodded his head, embarrassed in some way. Meera seemed to have a certain effect on men of any age, it seemed.
‘So I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of each other in the next few weeks.’
‘I’d like that,’ said the boy. He followed her to the door and watched her walk away. When he returned to the counter his head was bowed.
‘Can you get me some cigarettes?’ Makana called.
‘Sure,’ the boy nodded without looking up. ‘What kind?’
‘Cleopatra.’
As the boy disappeared through a back door, Makana noticed a pair of battered boxing gloves hanging from a nail hammered into the wall. He opened up the envelope Meera had given him. It was similar to the others. The typeset, the faint splatters of ink around some of the letters. An old-fashioned printing press. The paper was also the same cheap quality, roughly torn off at the ends, as if cut from a roll. Uneven and full of imperfections. The envelope was of the same poor quality, the edges coming unstuck. There was no address other than the words ‘Blue Ibis’. As for the text, Makana was fairly certain that it came from the same source:
Give no heed, then, to those who ignore Our warning and seek only the life of this world. This is the sum of their knowledge. You Lord best knows who have strayed from His path, and who are rightly guided.
