Circle Around the Sun

by M. D. Johnson

  She heard the guestroom door close and soon after, the sounds of Osita’s labored snores. After drying herself and putting on her pajamas she cleaned up the bathroom and headed for the living room, passing the guest room door. She noticed a wallet on the floor and checked to make absolutely sure Osita was still sound asleep before picking it up. She gave in to the temptation to look inside. She saw a photograph of Osita and an older couple in Ibo traditional dress. She turned it over and read “To my son, Obinna. No matter how far you are, you remain in my heart, Mum.” How odd, Emily thought; she refers to him as Obinna, not Osita or Osi. Maybe it’s his middle name. Another legacy of the Empire, she mused, on seeing the word, ‘Mum’. Hardly a typical British mum, resplendent in her purple Ibo robe and headdress. Strange, Emily wondered, how the British keep reproducing little Brits by word and deed even in the farthest corners of the world. The name Obinna, nonetheless, was not unfamiliar to her. She knew it meant ‘The wish of God’ in Ibo. This was the name Rose would have chosen for her first son, but she had given birth to a girl. She looked further, finding two German Auswiesekarten. One of the identification cards quite clearly said Osita Udokamma. The second showed his photograph and gave his name as Obinna Ubanwa; Ubanwa was Rose’s name prior to her marriage to Mike Otu. Emily also realized that in Nigeria an Ibo can have unlimited names. The common belief was names have power. Ubanwa meant, ‘May our family multiply’ and the Ubanwa tribe was a rich and powerful one. So why did Osita need two tribal family names? What was going on? Why did he need an alternative identity? Could this mean that Osita had something to hide? Maybe he was a drug dealer or a narc, maybe even a spy. Emily’s imagination ran wild. Was he even a doctor, she now wondered? He had, according to Rose and Mike, gone to good schools and had known them for years. And that was worth what? Maybe Mike and Rose were also part of some weird conspiracy. She continued going through Osita’s wallet. Five one hundred mark notes, Five twenty U.S. Dollar bills and a photograph of Rose, Mike and herself taken at the Cave, behind them stood The Schulkins. The Russian couple she had introduced to Rose and Mike were looking straight ahead, clearly oblivious to the direction of the camera. They had their eyes on someone else sitting with his back turned toward the photographer. Stuffing everything back into Osita’s wallet it occurred to her that she did not remember anyone taking pictures that night. Placing the wallet back where she had found it she checked once more making absolutely sure Osita was still asleep and opened the guest room door slightly. He was lying on his stomach, totally covered by the white featherbed, his head buried in the plush goose down pillow. His snoring left no doubt that he had seen or heard nothing.

  Emily went straight to her room with its muted terracotta walls and sat in the deep blue velvet chair she had brought from her home in England. It was very old and comfortable and it was the place she sat and pondered every problem she had had since she was three or four years old. Curled up on this chair she read stories to her cat Tibby and her dogs Spot and Blackie, always finding comfort in the chair’s faded lumpy old cushions. It was her respite and had always served as a reminder that, no matter how confused she was things would get better with the coming of the dawn. Curling under her “magic quilt”, as she had called its designs of moons and stars, and placing her feet carefully under its folds she at last fell into a deep slumber, her hands deftly massaging her stomach as if trying to bring some semblance of comfort and security to her unborn child.

  She awakened several hours after daybreak to the sound of the guest room door creaking, as if someone was checking outside the door. In a few seconds she heard numbers being dialed. She lay thinking to herself what a blessing her penchant for old, black British phones was. The sound of the dialing out could be heard even from two rooms away. A sound that would wake the dead, she thought, smiling. So now maybe we’ll shed a little light on who you really are, she said to herself softly as she moved quickly and quietly toward the door to where she could hear even more.

  “British Consulate?” Osita said using his clipped upper class English accent, “Anthony Wallace-Terry please. Yes, I’ll wait. Of course, it’s no problem.” The voice continued, “Sir, yes it’s me, Ubanwa. Sorry it’s so early. Yes I’m fine. Good to talk with you too. Our boy Jalil has a hobby and I need to get together with you quickly. I can drive to Frankfurt immediately. No. No, really. Do not come down here. I think Shallal should be called in on this as well. I’ve got to check in at the hospital and then I’ll be on my way.” He put the phone down with a resounding click and got up from the chair, headed back across the guest room, tapped faintly and opened the door.

  ”Emily. Emily. Are you awake?”

  “Hmm. Hmmm. Yes, Osita,” she said feigning sleep, “What is it?”

  “I’ve got to go to the hospital. I’ll check back with you this afternoon. No need to get up.”

  “Osita. How are you feeling? Are you getting x-rays done?”

  “Yes, probably. Gotta go. I’ll ring you in a bit.”

  “Alright then. See you later, Osita.”

  She heard him stride across the floor and open the front door, and she listened intently as the sound of his steps grew fainter down the stairs.

  “What a bloody liar you are!” she yelled to no one. “And where the hell is your Nigerian accent, Osita soddin’ Udokamma?” Oh Christ, she thought herself, Why the fuck did I mention Mustafa’s trips to Morocco to this man? I trusted him, that’s why! So who the hell is he and what does he do? Obviously he’s attached to the Consulate, she said to herself in response to her own question, and who’s this Wallace-Terry person? No bloody wonder he knows everything about the Meinhof woman and Gudrun Ensslin. What have I done? Jesus Christ I can’t trust anyone. That bastard has used my friendship to gain information for someone in the Consulate. He has to be a narc or worse,” she sniggered to herself nervously. “He’s a bloody spy and I’ve been force feeding him information on everyone I know for weeks. This is pure bloody Hollywood. He’s a spy!”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “So what do I do now?” she asked the walls of her opulent apartment, as if expecting them to respond with some gem of wisdom. She dialed her father in England.

  The phone rang in the home of Ibrahim and Elizabeth Desai. The Desais now occupied ‘Wolfgate Hall’, the former home of Elizabeth‘s parents. The half-timber fourteenth century manor house was set on an isolated crag overlooking the ancient Cheshire plains south east of the walled Roman City of Chester. As a child Emily had watched her parents lovingly restore the home with period art and furniture. She had accompanied them to every auction, learning the trade of antiquity and boosting her love of ancient art. Her father was now a respected antiques dealer. He also traded in the stock market and was well respected in all of his business endeavors. Emily shared her mother’s passion for history, particularly the ancient Roman settlement of Chester and as a result of her father’s good fortune they had managed to combine old and new money, buying with it the interesting commodity of British respectability. Ibrahim the Arab, long since British naturalized was now socially acceptable. In his heart however he maintained the Middle Eastern values of his family, his tribe, and only then the rest of the world. He knew when he heard her voice that Emily was troubled. He urged her to come home, if only for a week or two, “Just to clear her mind,” he said comfortingly.

  Chester was beautiful even in winter. The gardens were resplendent with crocuses of every shade from pink through purple. It did not take long for her father to talk her into coming home. “I can arrange a flight for you and you can be here in a few days,” he said, trying to accommodate her before she could change her mind.

  ”That’s all right, Papa. I’ll make my own arrangements, stop at a couple of places on the way and get there in a few days. I’ll call you from London,” she told him before hanging up. She heard a strange clicking on the line as she put down the phone. And then it all began to make sense. Her phone was bugged! She had a feeling she was being watched in the pa
st few months, it started around the time she began visiting the boutique and met the Russian Professor and his wife. Were they perhaps the reason for all this, or was it because of Mustafa and his New Leftist friends?

  Her second call was to Rose Otu. It was time to set some traps and see what they caught! “Kadu, Rose,” she said using the Ibo greeting, “I just thought I’d let you know that I’m flying to London tomorrow and I’ll be taking the flight to Speke Airport from Heathrow. Daddy will pick me up. Don’t worry about me. Osita had a few problems while he was here the other night, I’m sure he told you. He was jumped on and his car was robbed.

  Rose answered that she knew nothing at all about it!

  Our lad Osita had certainly lied, she thought to herself. He had distinctly told Emily that he was talking to the Otus and if he had by some strange coincidence only spoken with Mike, there was no doubt that Rose would have known about the incident by now. Emily added nothing further.

  “Emily, we will take you to Frankfurt Airport. It’s no problem for us.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’ll leave tomorrow by train to Frankfurt. I love trains and I really need some solitude.”

  “Em, at least let us drive you to the Hauptbahnhof.”

  “Really, it’s alright Rose. Listen, must go now. I’ve got some errands to run downtown.” She said goodbye quickly and authoritatively.

  Within minutes she began to pack her lightest suitcase. Loading up with sweaters, long skirts and trouser suits with elastic waist bands and boxy jackets to accommodate her expanding girth, she grabbed her trench coat, headscarf and sunglasses. She then went into her wall safe and removed her passport and her emergency fund of thirty-one hundred Deutche Mark bills, the same amount in British Pounds Sterling and three hundred U.S. Dollars.

  In the bottom compartment of the safe was a Hungarian made Tokagypt 9mm Parabellum pistol. Guns like this had a somewhat of a checkered history and were very difficult to trace. This particular one had been made in Hungary and had, along with thousands of others found its way to Egypt in the late fifties when Egypt under President Nasser was no longer able to purchase arms from the U.S. Government. When the Egyptians tired of the powerful weapon with long range accuracy, arms traders worldwide began soaking up the surplus. Several of these pistols had come into the hands of Ibrahim Desai who had trained his daughter in their use and maintenance. Oddly enough, American arms dealers had bought a surplus stock and they had been stamped with the name Firebird. Firebirds were becoming increasingly popular on the Heidelberg black-market and could fetch as high as 500 Deutche Marks in the street. Weighing about 1.9 lbs and measuring about seven and a half inches long with a seven round magazine sliding into its grip, it was easy to handle and to conceal. Emily trusted the weapon and felt safe with it in her possession. With this she was prepared for anything. Checking the apartment once more for signs of obvious flight she planted small pieces of folded paper in between desk drawers so she could detect them having been opened whenever she decided to return. She then left some paper clips in strategic places that would drop into the desk drawers when opened and finally placed cotton strands on every door in the place. Anyone opening them would loosen the cotton. Emily then set the burglar alarm, which she knew would not stop professionals but at least would deter her landlady and left.

  She knocked on her landlady’s door and explained she was going out of town for a few days. She left her parents home number as a contact point in case of emergency and gave her the mail box key. “I’ve set the alarm on the front door,” she added, just before leaving. Knowing the point was well taken she left in confidence.

  Emily unlocked her cream colored 1968 Mercedes 230Sl Rallye and loaded up. Within minutes she was on the Autobahn crossing Germany, heading towards the French Border and on to Calais where she would take a hovercraft twenty-three miles across the English Channel to Dover and home.

  The following morning she reached Calais. The journey, although arduous under the best of circumstances had enabled her to form a plan of action. She would tell her parents everything that had happened so far, her fears about Osita, and Mustafa’s connection to Meinhof and Ensslin and hope that they could advise her. It was not as though she had committed a crime. Emily had been more than honest with Osita thinking that he was a friend. How could she have known that he was perhaps pumping her for information, which was what she now suspected? Worse yet, how much did Mustafa Jalil know about Osita, and why did he have friends like Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin? How deep, she now wondered, was his involvement with their organization?

  She braced herself for the Channel crossing. The English Channel is without a doubt the most uncomfortable journey by sea short of being lost in the Bermuda triangle. The waves are high, the channel is choppy, and the blessing of a hovercraft as opposed to conventional boats is that little or no motion is felt by the passengers. She decided to have her car washed while on board the hovercraft and stretch her legs for half an hour. After only one stop in the past eighteen hours Emily was feeling hungry. It may have been the trendiest and fastest way to cross the channel but there was certainly no gourmet cuisine in sight. Seeing a vending area which looked like a large kitchen island staffed by olive skinned people probably from Greece or Turkey, she quickly placed her order from the card taped to the wall. She selected a large bratwurst on rye bread and a mug of steaming tea, and then stood looking out of the window, mesmerized by the dark grey water.

  Staring into the water, she considered how the world seemed geared toward people who were fair-skinned and light eyed. Even on this boat crossing the bloody channel, all the menial tasks were performed by ‘gastarbeiters’, the guest workers, immigrants from the former colonies, in short, the peasants! Emily understood what it was like to be on the outside. Every school she had attended in her childhood seemed to have her on some sort of trial run until her background was known and her social worth evaluated. It was more than being the new kid on the block; her presence had forced many to cross cultural and racial lines. She remembered being the butt of jokes about her name. They had called her “Ducks Disease”. She had always outshone her competition and had done so because of who her parents were, not despite them. She was taught from infancy to succeed. Yes, she was half-Moroccan and she favored her father in looks. But for her it wasn’t a handicap, it was a major advantage. It was also a daily struggle to survive in a world where she was a cross between ‘them’ and ‘us’. Emily was fair haired and olive skinned, she looked permanently tanned with naturally two toned hair that was thick, glossy and abundantly curly. Anyone looking at her knew instantly that she was not wholly English.

  At Cheshire’s exclusive Streatham Preparatory and Grammar School as both a prefect and then head girl, Emily went on to win awards for piano and ballet. She learned to ride and became an accomplished horsewoman, representing her school internationally. Academically she achieved everything she set out to attain. Carrying herself with dignity and grace at all times, Emily had been trained by both parents to look the world in the eye and respect other people. Despite her diminutive stature, she had always emanated power and while it was obvious that she had grown up in a privileged environment she always protected the underdog at school. After leaving Exeter University Emily traveled, learned to speak four languages fluently and like a cat, she always landed on her feet in problem situations. She was a most fortunate young woman who was no one’s fool. Emily Desai had no illusions about the British upper classes. As a young woman of dual heritage in the nineteen sixties she would never be suitable enough to marry their sons, had she even wanted to. To them, it made no difference how much her father was worth or what he had accomplished to make himself one of the leading antique dealers in the country. Ibrahim would always be “that Arab” or “that bloody Wog” when things got rough. It was, her father explained, the belief of even the most simple-minded Englishman that he was ultimately superior to anyone not born in fair England or whose complexion was darker than blue. That was the
way things had always been and so they would certainly continue. The current antagonism toward the Middle East was not simply because of the establishment of Israel in 1948 or more recently the 1967 war. It was, according to Ibrahim Desai, because the Arabs of the world had suddenly begun to act like the English, taking without permission and selling back at a profit. Such action and nothing else was what the English just simply couldn’t abide. “The only way to succeed,” Ibrahim Desai had said, “is to have few friends, many acquaintances, grant favors and expect their return. And always, always, keep a hell of a lot of cash, readily accessible without a paper trail for emergencies.” Emily had heeded her father’s words!

  Emily readied herself to leave the hovercraft, passing through customs using her British passport and the honor system and headed out for Cheshire. In dense commuter traffic she crossed the A2, M2 and back on the A2 directly to London. She took the horrendous North Circular to the A5 to the start of the M1 at Edgeware then on to Rugby. Finally, bypassing Birmingham, a place she particularly disliked, she had no problem connecting smartly to the M6 Motorway North. After taking Junction 18 West, Emily decided to take the scenic albeit narrow winding road west to Chester. Emily had lived in several countries from Egypt to Germany, but she had found nothing to compare with this city that had been built two thousand years ago as Deva, a Roman encampment. It withstood abandonment by the Romans and attacks by the Saxons, who would later themselves fortify it against the Vikings. Looking at this glorious, ancient walled city, stretching out to the rolling Welsh hills, Emily Desai breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, she was home!