by Parker Bilal
‘Allah alone knows why I bother,’ he sighed, rolling his eyes skywards, forever convinced that people never fully appreciated the tenderness and love he put into his cooking.
Makana was almost too tired to eat. What he looked forward to most of all was sleep. The stench of kerosene seemed to have eaten its way through his clothes and the pores of his skin to his very soul. The heady fumes threatened to overwhelm him, flooding his mind with thoughts of Nasra. As he watched everyone begin to help themselves to the food, Makana knew he would not rest until he found out the truth. But perhaps that would have to wait for another day.
‘According to Sami,’ Rania was saying, ‘we are already living in a dreamland. A country that only exists in our imagination. We don’t know if we’re awake or sleeping. Lights, movies, music. It’s all a tune of enchantment, keeping the country asleep. Who is going to wake us up?’
‘Be careful what you wish for,’ said Okasha, chewing fiercely. ‘You have no idea what you might unleash once you let the djinn out of the bottle.’
‘That is so true,’ Talal replied absently. He wasn’t looking at them. Rania followed his gaze until both of them were staring upwards.
‘Isn’t that New York?’ she said.
They all turned to gaze up. A drama was being played out on the screen above their heads that would influence the next decade in ways none of them could yet imagine. Makana would look back on this moment time and again, sitting there in Aswani’s. The stunned expressions of confusion and bewilderment, and finally, fear.
‘That’s a really bad pilot,’ Talal said, only half-joking.
‘It’s not an accident,’ Rania said, as the scene was replayed, over and over again even though the tickertape along the bottom of the screen said ‘Live’.
In that moment a strange silence seemed to fall over the group, the restaurant, the city, the entire world. It was as if time was standing still. The image of the two dark towers rising into the clear blue sky seemed almost medieval, a throwback to a world of invincible fortresses and impregnable city portals. Out of one corner of the screen the arrowhead that was a jet airliner curved slowly, inevitably, towards its target. At the point of collision there was something incredibly graceful and tragic about its movement, as if this was part of a complex choreography, like the motion of the planets, an errant star that exploded into a ball of flame before their very eyes.
Makana found himself thinking about Ghalib Samsara. He wondered where he was at that moment. But it was Rania who spoke first, whispering the words that were on all of their lips, almost as if she were speaking their thoughts aloud:
‘Now there’s going to be trouble,’ she said.
A Note on the Author
Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub. Mahjoub has published seven critically acclaimed literary novels, which have been widely translated. Dogstar Rising is his second Makana Mystery. Born in London, Mahjoub has lived at various times in the UK, Sudan, Cairo and Denmark. He currently lives in Barcelona.
By the Same Author
(writing as Jamal Mahjoub)
Navigation of a Rainmaker
Wings of Dust
In the Hour of Signs
The Carrier
Nubian Indigo
The Drift Latitudes
Travelling with Djinns
The Makana Mysteries
The Golden Scales
Also available by Parker Bilal
The Golden Scales
‘An enthralling read’ Guardian
Former police inspector Makana, in exile from his native Sudan, lives on a rickety Nile houseboat in Cairo, scratching out a living as a private investigator. When he receives a call from the notorious and powerful Saad Hanafi, he is thrust into a dangerous and glittering world. Hanafi is the owner of a star-studded football team and their most valuable player has vanished. His disappearance threatens to bring down not only the businessman’s private empire but also the entire country. Makana encounters Muslim extremists, Russian gangsters and a desperate mother hunting for her missing daughter, as his search stirs up painful memories, leading him back into the sights of an old and dangerous enemy...
‘The Golden Scales shows modern Cairo as a superbly exciting, edgy and dangerous setting for crime fiction. Parker Bilal has delivered an absorbing, complex, lively novel to match’ The Times
‘Richly evocative … It delivers much more than efficient intrigue. Via the experiences of a family exiled from Sudan, we see and feel all the drama of Egypt on the brink of change’ Independent
‘A vivid, energetic work … shows the extremes of wealth and poverty in Egypt before the Arab spring, while Makana’s personal history offers heartbreaking insights into loss and exile’ Sunday Times
‘Whisks the reader straight to the dark heart of Cairo ... His prose has a subtlety that is rarely found in crime novels’ Economist
Copyright © 2013 by Jamal Mahjoub
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except
in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
For information address
Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR.
ISBN: 978-1-62040-130-9
First U.S. Edition 2013
This electronic edition published in February 2013
www.bloomsbury.com
