The Burning Gates

by Parker Bilal

  ‘A fortune?’

  ‘And naturally, if you were to help me your share would be substantial.’

  ‘How substantial?’

  Barkley smiled and gestured around them. ‘Life-changing. You would be eating here every day.’

  ‘Supposing he’s not interested in selling?’

  ‘Everyone has a price, Mr Makana.’ Barkley smiled, reaching for his sunglasses. ‘I’m confident Mr Samari has his.’

  ‘And you have no qualms about dealing with a man your country has declared a war criminal?’

  ‘Mr Makana, let’s not be naive. I’m as much a patriot as the next man, but we both know some of the worst war crimes in history were committed by the United States of America itself. Let history be the judge.’

  ‘Samari has a substantial price on his head. Three million dollars. He’s wanted for human rights abuses.’

  ‘Believe me, these paintings are worth far more than that.’

  ‘I take it that you’ve never been tortured, Mr Barkley?’

  ‘No, I can’t say that I have.’

  ‘Well, I have. I don’t care about the reward, but I believe he should be handed in to face justice for his actions.’

  ‘Fair enough, if that’s how you feel.’ Barkley nodded his head slowly. ‘I can see that I did Kasabian a disservice. When he told me he had hired the best I was in doubt. People tend to exaggerate these things. In your case I can see that he was right to put his trust in you.’ Barkley got to his feet and held out his hand.

  As Makana walked away he thought to himself that it all sounded fine except for the fact that finding Samari was not going to be easy. Add to that the chance that even if he did succeed he might wind up like Kasabian, in which case he wouldn’t have much need for money ever again.

  As he came out of the hotel a bellhop came hurrying after him.

  ‘Sir, you dropped this,’ he said, holding out the little silver object. ‘A gentleman picked it up.’ He turned to search for the person. ‘Oh, he seems to have gone.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Makana, taking the phone. ‘Thank him for me when you see him again.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  In a taxi across town whose longevity would have put Sindbad’s old Datsun to shame, Makana clung to the door with one hand to stop it from yawning open every time they went around a bend, and still managed to talk to Sami. The driver was amused, grinning as if he hadn’t seen anything so entertaining in years.

  ‘I just heard about Kasabian,’ said Sami.

  ‘I’m on my way over to you now.’

  ‘Is it true that he was tortured?’

  ‘Where do you get your information?’

  ‘You know how it is, a policeman’s salary these days is hardly enough to keep a family of cats alive. Is it any wonder there are leaks?’

  Makana wondered what Okasha would say when he found out that details of Kasabian’s murder were already being passed to the press.

  ‘That would tie in with our friend, though, wouldn’t it?’ Sami was saying.

  ‘It certainly looks that way.’

  As he hung up he noticed the driver staring at him.

  ‘The brother is not from here, is he?’

  The curiosity Makana’s accent provoked was not new. He gave his usual answer and got the customary assurances of being welcome. He had a feeling that wasn’t going to be the end of it.

  ‘It’s not that I have anything against people coming here, you understand? I mean, it’s not their fault that people can’t find work. The old ways are gone. The factories, even the farms. Nowadays everything comes from China. One of them knocked on my door the other day. He had walked up eleven flights of stairs with a sack on his back.’ Makana stared ahead, desperately hoping for a break in the traffic. Two young men were sitting in the open boot of the car in front of them, looking bored, their legs dangling over the back. As a method of transport it didn’t look the most comfortable in the world, or the safest, but if it got you from one place to another what was the difference?

  ‘Don’t take it the wrong way. I’m only asking.’

  ‘What are you asking?’

  ‘Why would a man come all the way from China with a sack on his back to sell my wife a thing for taking the stones out of olives?’ The car eased forward half a length. The driver was still talking. ‘I’ve been eating olives since before I could walk and I never needed anything to take the stones out.’ The more he talked the less progress they made.

  When they arrived Makana waited for the driver to find change, resisting his usual tendency to tell him to keep it. In the end a pair of torn and dog-eared notes made their way out through the window and Makana tucked them into his shirt pocket making a mental note to give them to the first Chinese he came across. Once at the Info Media centre, Makana found Sami was not there. ‘He went on a food run,’ Nefissa, the woman with the curly hair, told him. Makana found him in a sanbusak place in Huda Sharawi Street. It took a while to push through the crowds. Was it Makana’s imagination or did everyone do nothing but eat? Sami was perched on a stool beside the cash register reading a book, oblivious to the chaos around him.

  ‘We’re going to adopt him,’ the club-footed man behind the cash register said. ‘We’ll change the logo to a picture of him sitting there with a book and a pastry. The students will love it. They’ll think they’ll get smarter just by eating here.’ He chuckled like a locomotive running out of steam.

  ‘No wonder it takes you so long to eat,’ said Makana.

  Sami looked up as a young boy in a plastic apron wearing a paper hat appeared with a warm bag full of freshly baked sanbusak for him. The two men pushed their way back out through the crowds thronging the doors. Outside a woman knelt on the pavement holding up a handwritten sign, itself something of a miracle in a country with forty per cent illiteracy. The shaky letters only added to the mystery: ‘Where is Al-Baghdadi?’ Makana handed her the change from the taxi.

  ‘I can’t go back to the office,’ Sami was saying. ‘Rania is annoyed with me again.’

  ‘What have you done this time?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve lost track. I’m beginning to think it’s something I did in a previous life.’ Sami turned to look at Makana. ‘Did you ever, you know, have doubts . . . ?’

  ‘Doubts?’

  ‘I mean, when you were married.’ Sami hesitated. He came to a halt and stood there for a moment. ‘Forget it,’ he said, dismissing the subject with a wave. ‘It’s insensitive of me to even ask.’

  They walked back in silence, Sami lost in his thoughts. In the spacious offices above Midan al-Falaki they found Rania beside herself.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she demanded.

  ‘I went to get lunch, remember?’

  Rania ignored Makana completely, an indication that she was not in the best of moods. The others in the room appeared to sense domestic strife and were keeping their heads down. She folded her arms.

  ‘We have deadlines to meet, remember?’

  ‘The good people of Holland can surely wait for us poor fellaheen to feed ourselves?’ Sami edged past Rania and walked up and down between the desks distributing orders. The others, while glad to receive the food they had been waiting for, kept their thanks discreet. Rania turned her back and walked away as Sami retreated behind his desk. His old leather satchel and his battered laptop were dumped on a table loaded down with heaps of files. Makana found a chair that was more or less in one piece and sat down while Sami busied himself with his computer. He talked as he clicked away, one hand reaching for the opened bag of savoury pastries that lay between them.

  ‘Help yourself,’ he said, not taking his eyes from the screen. ‘So are you out of work yet?’

  ‘Not exactly. I met the mysterious American, Charles Barkley.’

  ‘That’s his name?’ Sami frowned. ‘Like the basketball player?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to carry on looking
for Samari? You must be insane. He’s the number one suspect in the murder of your former employer, remember?’

  ‘We don’t know that for a fact.’

  ‘How much fact do you need? I’d say one man cut to pieces is enough for most people.’

  ‘How do you get all these details?’

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ said Sami, biting into a golden pastry. ‘Trade secrets. They’re best when they’re warm, by the way.’ He pointed. ‘See, I was right.’ Makana moved round to look at the screen. ‘The woman. You know, the one in the street just now, asking for money?’

  ‘The one with the sign?’ Makana remembered her. ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s been there for ages. It’s only a matter of time before they take her away. Here, look at this.’ He tapped the screen where a document headed Egyptian Environmental Observer Agency was displayed. ‘It’s one of those NGOs that you’re never sure whether to trust or not. They produce reports that usually show what a wonderful and clean country this is. You get the picture.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Well, that woman’s husband lost his sight. You remember what her sign said?’

  ‘“Where is Al-Baghdadi?”’

  ‘Which, as I am sure you are aware, refers to Abdel Latif al-Baghdadi, historian and physician of the twelfth century. It’s also a reference to a certain Al-Baghdadi Eye Clinic.’ Hot sauce dribbled over Makana’s fingers and he had to scrabble for a paper napkin. ‘The other day you mentioned Qasim Abdel Qasim, remember?’ Makana, his mouth full, bobbed his head. Sami looked despairingly at him. ‘You know what your problem is? You’re out of practice.’

  ‘Go on,’ Makana managed, trying not to make more of a mess than he had to.

  ‘Well, I’ve seen that woman for weeks now. I always pass her and it seems such a sad case, you know? Husband promised an operation and then goes blind because the clinic never materialised. I mean, these people waited for years hoping for a cure, and then nothing. So I started looking into the clinic and discovered it had been halted because of this report.’

  ‘The Egyptian Environmental Observer Agency?’ Makana managed to clear his throat.

  Sami rolled his eyes. ‘Most of us eat every day. Let me order tea.’ Sami called out and somehow it was relayed elsewhere. ‘So, where was I?’

  Makana swallowed. ‘The clinic was halted.’

  ‘Right. The report claimed that a scandal involving dumped chemical waste from a battery factory made the land uninhabitable. Obviously a clinic could not be built there.’

  ‘Where’s the catch?’

  ‘Sounds suspicious, right? I looked up the group that produced the report. Once upon a time the Egyptian Environmental Observer Agency used to receive funding from the European Union. One of those nice little organisations that makes them feel they are making the world a better place.’

  ‘Used to? You mean, they don’t any more?’

  ‘It happens, but with something like this, connected to the environment, you would have to do something pretty bad to make them cut back on their support.’

  ‘Something bad like . . . ?’

  ‘Like falsifying statistics or changing the outcome of a report.’

  ‘You have evidence of that?’

  ‘Evidence?’ Sami frowned. ‘They all want to keep it quiet. The Europeans for being duped and the rest of them for the usual reasons. Guess who’s on the board of this particular envir­onmental agency?’

  ‘Qasim Abdel Qasim? Coincidence?’

  ‘There’s no such thing, remember? You taught me that,’ Sami smiled.

  ‘So what happened to the land where the clinic was due to be built?’

  ‘Now you’re getting somewhere.’ Sami nodded at the screen and Makana moved round again. ‘It was bought up for a fraction of what it’s worth by Miramara Holdings. They are busy building a luxury housing complex even as we speak. The Isis Greens Resort.’

  ‘Very nice, and who owns this little dreamland?’

  ‘The usual grey people. A consortium, shell companies and the like. People in politics.’

  ‘Including our friend?’ Makana lit a cigarette and began to feel normality returning.

  ‘Including Qasim Abdel Qasim, yes.’

  Makana sat back. It occurred to him that there was nothing unusual about a figure like Qasim making money out of a deal that had been derailed for no apparent purpose other than making certain people rich. It was the opposite, in fact. It made you wonder if Zayed Zafrani didn’t have the right idea. How did you put a stop to this kind of exploitation of the system? The answer was you didn’t. You couldn’t. Nobody could. It had evolved into a national pastime. This was the way things were done. Women sitting on pavements were fossils, ancient relics with their prayers and miracles. Ignore them for long enough and the earth would swallow them up.

  Tea arrived and Sami leaned back, hands behind his head, his mind elsewhere. Makana sipped his tea. It was so sweet it tasted like some kind of embalming fluid, capable of preserving the body for centuries.

  ‘Dalia Habashi has a friend called Na’il who seems to be in trouble. I think he deals drugs.’

  ‘There’s a whole circle of them,’ said Sami. ‘They live a charmed life, like characters in a soap opera of their own making. They dance the night away in exclusive clubs.’

  ‘What kind of drugs are we talking about?’

  Sami held his hands wide. ‘The expensive kind. Uppers, downers, acid, Viagra, whatever. Nowadays I hear cocaine is in fashion. It seems the Colombians are using a new route. The fastest way across the ocean from South America to West Africa and then up by land, through Spain into Europe. Some of it finds its way in this direction.’

  Makana was jerked from his thoughts by the sight of Sami getting to his feet.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I have to get out of here,’ said Sami. ‘Sorry.’ He picked up his cigarettes and lighter and disappeared without another word. Makana sat there for a time. After a while he walked over to where Rania was sitting, typing on her computer from a printout next to her.

  ‘What’s up with him, Rania?’

  She passed her hands over her face. She looked drawn and tired.

  ‘I think he’s having doubts,’ she said.

  ‘Doubts about what?’

  ‘About our marriage, I suppose.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  Rania shook her head. ‘I don’t know. He’s been like this ever since we started talking about children.’

  ‘You want to start a family?’

  ‘I don’t have for ever. I’d like to get started as soon as possible.’

  ‘And he doesn’t?’

  ‘He doesn’t know what he wants,’ she sighed.

  It was getting on towards six o’clock as Makana arrived back at the awama. The day was almost done and he didn’t seem to have made any substantial progress. On the way home he stopped off at a little food stall off the KitKat roundabout to buy himself something for supper. The sanbusak seemed to have awoken his appetite. He picked up a pot of koshary – lentils, meat and pasta, all drowning in a rich tomato sauce. Then he walked back towards the big eucalyptus tree that overhung the riverbank and the path leading down to the awama. The sun was sinking. Makana tried to call Kasabian’s assistant. It was his third try. The first couple of times he thought perhaps he should give him a bit of time, considering that he was probably in shock. This time he hung on until someone finally answered.

  ‘Hello?’ said an old man’s voice. For a second Makana wondered if he had dialled the wrong number, then he remembered the gatekeeper with the crooked back.

  ‘I wanted to talk to Mr Jules,’ he said, aware of how absurd it sounded using the assistant’s Europeanised nickname.

  ‘Mr Jalal is not available,’ said the old gatekeeper drily, clearly not one for such frivolities.

  ‘I understand, but this is urgent. Can you tell him it’s Makana calling.’

  There was a long pause and the
n, ‘Let me see what he says.’ Makana heard the heavy receiver being laid down on the table in the hallway and the slow slap of footsteps retreating. It took a while. He studied the elegant shape of the bark curling from the tree. He could see why an artist might find it interesting to try and reproduce the lines, but hadn’t that already been done? Wasn’t that why people began painting squares and faces shaped like guitars? There was a scraping in his ear as the old bawab came back on the line. He cleared his throat like a senator about to make a speech.

  ‘I’m sorry, but Mr Jalal is not taking any calls today.’

  ‘Did you tell him who was calling?’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  ‘I see. Well, thank you.’

  ‘At your service, effendi.’

  As he descended the path Makana waved to Umm Ali, who was scattering seeds of some kind to a collection of chickens that wandered along the riverbank behind her. The treetops swept back and forth in the wind and the sky was that strange ochre colour that usually heralded a dust storm.

  ‘Looks like a haboob,’ he said to Umm Ali as he went by. She straightened up and studied the sky before shaking her head.

  ‘Not today,’ she said, ‘but soon.’

  The chickens meant fresh eggs, which had improved Makana’s diet somewhat. It seemed like the time to share some of Kasabian’s money while he still had some.

  ‘Umm Ali, I apologise for the delay,’ he said, counting out most of the money Zafrani had given him in exchange for the dollars he had spent at the club. ‘I’ve added a little extra for the inconvenience.’

  She clutched the notes to her bosom, her face lighting up. ‘I always tell people my tenant is as reliable as the sun. Even after a long night he always appears.’ She bounced away up the incline with remarkable speed and returned with a large bag of her homemade pickles. ‘These are made specially for you.’

  Thanking her as graciously as he could, Makana climbed the steps to the upper deck with a veritable feast in his arms. He called Fathi at the airport. He still hadn’t found any record of Kadhim al-Samari entering the country.