The Burning Gates

by Parker Bilal

  ‘There’s your son,’ he said quietly.

  ‘You think it’s that easy to go back?’ she sniffed, shaking her head from side to side. ‘I can never go back. It’s better my family thinks I am dead.’

  ‘Is that why you came here?’ Bilquis said nothing. She reached for another cigarette. Her hair had come loose from the ribbon that held it at the nape of her neck. ‘When you found out you were pregnant?’

  Her hand trembled as she held the flame up. ‘I knew that no matter how far I went, I would still feel their eyes on me, their filthy hands. But there is no way back. Not now . . .’ A long sigh escaped her. ‘And now, he’s what I live for.’ She took a long drag and looked up. ‘I don’t want him to know what I do. He’s still young but soon he will start to ask questions.’

  Makana looked around the room. The cracks in the walls, the flaking paint. The sound of voices raised in the next room.

  ‘How did you get involved with the Zafrani brothers?’

  ‘They own a lot of property. I had no way of paying the rent and one day someone came to make me an offer. One thing led to another. It’s not so bad. I’m an investment. They look after me for now, but one day I will be no good to them any longer. What do you want from me?’

  ‘Your special customer. He’s an Iraqi named Kadhim al-Samari.’

  ‘He’s the one you’re looking for?’

  ‘You know he’s a dangerous man.’

  ‘All men are dangerous in their own way.’

  ‘There’s a reward on his head.’

  ‘That’s why you’re after him? It must be a lot of money.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘There aren’t many like him.’ Bilquis examined the tip of her cigarette.

  ‘He’s worth a lot, but he’s very dangerous.’

  ‘What if I help you?’

  ‘Why would you help me?’

  ‘A reward like that . . . It could change someone’s life.’ She flicked ash onto the heap of potato skins.

  ‘You need to think about your son. What will he do if something happens to you?’

  ‘I am thinking about him. Do you think he will thank me for not acting when this opportunity was in front of me? This could be my ticket out of here.’

  She lit another cigarette and stared at the wall. ‘If I don’t do this I will think about it for the rest of my life. Every time I can’t afford something. Every time there’s a rat on the stairs. Every winter when we are freezing, and every summer when we can’t sleep for the heat. Every time he asks me for something I can’t give him.’ She turned her head to look at Makana. ‘Let me help you. We can split the money.’

  ‘I’m not interested in the money.’ Makana scratched a flake of paint on the door frame. ‘If something happened to you . . .’

  ‘So what? I’m not your responsibility. If I decide to do this it’s for me.’

  From where he was standing Makana could look out of the window and across to the other side of the street. Two women were chatting as they hung out their laundry. The streets around here were so narrow you could reach across and borrow a clothes peg if you needed to. Somewhere a couple was arguing. It sounded real, but then again it might have been coming from a television set.

  ‘How often does he come to visit you?’

  ‘Once a week, sometimes twice.’

  ‘Does he always call ahead?’

  ‘No calls. We agree a day and that’s it. He’s always on time.’

  ‘Do you know where he stays? I mean, does he ever mention a place in Cairo?’

  She thought for a minute. ‘No. He comes further than that. I don’t know where, but there is dust on his clothes and in his hair from the road. Not city dust. He’s a very neat man. Immaculate.’

  ‘You mean he might have come a long distance?’

  ‘The sea. He smells of the sea.’ She sniffed and rubbed a hand across her nose. ‘He carries a knife. A long one, which he keeps here, strapped to his arm.’ She indicated her left forearm – the sort of detail that you might learn from seeing a man undressing. ‘He travels everywhere with bodyguards. Two men are with him all the time. They check the room before he comes in. They wait outside the door while he’s with me. Two more wait in the car.’

  ‘You need to think about this very carefully.’

  ‘Look around you. Do you really think I have any choice?’

  Makana turned to leave and again stopped. ‘About the other night,’ he said, not sure why he felt the need to explain. ‘It’s not that I don’t find you attractive.’

  She met his gaze evenly. ‘It’s because of what I do. You don’t have to explain.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not that. It’s that you remind me too much of what I’ve lost.’

  She stared at him for a moment. A fleeting expression crossed her face. He wasn’t sure what he read there – the shadow of a former self perhaps. For a brief moment he imagined he saw her as she might have been six years ago, before her fate took an unexpected turn. Then it was gone and the flat, coldness of her eyes came up to meet his.

  ‘Then perhaps you should start thinking of me as who I am rather than who you would like me to be,’ she said, and closed the door gently in his face.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Makana opened his eyes to find the sun high in the sky. The river in the early morning always seemed like something of a small miracle. A cool breeze ruffled the water.

  Although he had slept it felt as if he’d spent most of the night thinking. The grizzled face of Mek Nimr, his old sergeant, had risen out of the shadows to haunt him once more – a small man who had transformed himself into a monster. Makana blamed himself for never having seen it coming, until it was too late. Mek Nimr had spent years quietly building up a grudge towards the world, cultivating his own envy of those in society who had been more fortunate than himself, including Makana. Mek Nimr had no loyalties, no moral code. All the years he had worked alongside him, Makana had never fully understood him, which made the betrayal, when it came, all the more shocking. But it was the vehemence of it that had surprised him the most. Mek Nimr changed according to the way the wind was blowing. If they said be a pious man of God he could become that at a click of his fingers. It made no difference to how he behaved. What he craved was power and money, anything else was just a means to that end.

  Makana felt the familiar twinge of guilt. At having got out of there, leaving people like Mek Nimr in charge. What else could he have done? Perhaps the world would have been a better place if he had thrown himself on the pyre and sacrificed his own life. Who knew?

  When Bilquis told him her story he had understood what she was talking about. He knew the world she had escaped from. He had seen the inside of those torture chambers. And he knew the man whose narrow eyes would have been on her while she was being abused. Mek Nimr. He was sure of it. It was impossible for Mek Nimr to have engineered their meeting – even he was incap­­­able of that – still, irrational though it was, Makana couldn’t help feeling there was some kind of message in all of this, a message meant for him alone to grasp.

  Aziza’s voice calling from down below brought him back to the present.

  ‘Ya bash muhandis. Wake up, there are men here to see you.’

  ‘Good morning,’ he said, yawning. Looking past her, he was surprised to recognise the two somewhat overweight men standing at the top of the embankment looking down. He even remembered their names. Didi and Bobo. They wore cheap imitation leather jackets and had acquired sunglasses somewhere along the way. They stood with their hands clasped in front of them and their legs apart like men who had watched too many gangster films. Neither of them spoke, but it was clear why they had come: their master had summoned him again.

  Makana washed and dressed and made his way up the path to meet them. The man behind the wheel of the Toyota Land Cruiser was wearing the same type of sunglasses. Someone must have stumbled over a lorryload of the things. Makana got into the back as indicated. They dro
ve fast. Neither man spoke. When Makana asked where they were going, the one sitting next to him just grunted and said nothing. He had assumed they would be returning to Zafrani’s riverboat and so was surprised to find the car heading in the opposite direction. Makana looked out of the window and watched the city flying by. The driver applied his customary skills, intimidating other road users and racing up behind anyone who got in his way, flashing his lights and leaning on the horn until they shuffled aside. It was effective enough and they made short work of the traffic and were soon skirting around the hills east of the city.

  Ten minutes of fast driving through barren brown landscape brought them to a series of compounds set behind high walls and wire fences. Giant billboards announced them as Greeneland, Homeland Estates, Regal View and finally, Isis Greens Resort No. 1. They skirted the perimeter and Makana spotted a piece of faded cardboard blown by the wind up against the fence. On it were the words ‘Where is Al-Baghdadi?’ and Makana recalled the woman sitting on the pavement downtown. Then the car slowed and they spun through an open gateway.

  Construction was still under way. Clouds of fine dust in the distance testified to work in progress. An unsurfaced path that might one day become a road curved around the outside of a row of unfinished houses. The style suggested some kind of meeting of a Spanish hacienda topped with icons from the ancient world – the architectural equivalent of a car crash. Statues of the falcon god Horus were set into niches in the walls, while figures of Isis lay around on pink marble pedestals.

  The driver took a fork away from the main track that led over a hump to reveal an almost surreal explosion of green. Isis Greens, as in golf greens. Clearly a priority in a country unable to produce enough food to feed its population. What self-respecting Egyptian would purchase a home in the desert if it wasn’t equipped with a golf course? He was gazing upon a gaudy miracle, a promised land for the modern age. Beyond the undulating green veldt the earth resumed its usual dull brown hue, broken and without a hope.

  As they slowed to a halt, Makana could make out a man standing on a ridge swinging a club: the large, now familiar, figure of Ayad Zafrani killing time. Didi and Bobo followed him over. The grass was damp and springy underfoot, like a lush carpet. Zafrani stood and waited for him, king of all he surveyed.

  ‘Ever try your hand at this game?’

  It wasn’t the kind of question that demanded a serious answer, but then Ayad Zafrani wasn’t interested in opinions. All he needed was an audience.

  ‘It relaxes the soul.’ Zafrani spread his broad chest and sucked air into his lungs. He was beaming like a boy with a new toy. ‘Out here I can breathe. It’s amazing, isn’t it? Five minutes from the city and we are in another world.’

  ‘They’ll be storming the gates to get in.’

  ‘Oh, it’s going to be very exclusive.’ Zafrani raised a gloved hand. He was all decked out for the occasion. A pink shirt and chequered trousers with a matching cap. It was a little disconcerting, watching a man struggle to transform himself. ‘Only a select few will be allowed in.’

  Makana allowed himself a moment to survey the estate behind them. ‘Are there really that many wealthy people in this country?’

  ‘You’d be surprised. Land is the greatest investment of all. It’s where the real wealth of Egypt lies, in the earth. Construction, that’s what it’s all about.’

  ‘Why have you brought me here?’

  ‘I thought you’d like a little fresh air, some exercise.’

  ‘Didn’t this use to be government land?’

  Zafrani waggled his hand. ‘You’ve been investigating. I wouldn’t have expected less.’ He indicated the way down the grassy incline. ‘If you were to take an interest in the business side of things I might be worried, but I know these matters hold no interest for you, which is why we make such good partners.’

  ‘Partners?’

  ‘Certainly. After all, we’re doing what partners do, are we not? We help one another in ways that can be mutually beneficial.’

  Ahead of them was the skeleton of an unfinished clubhouse. Concrete walls had been erected on the sides and back. There was a roof also, but the front appeared to be open.

  ‘When it’s finished, there will be windows all the way up to the sky. When you sit down to eat it will feel like you’re flying over the course. We’re bringing in a chef from Italy. One of the best.’ Zafrani chuckled to himself. The golf club swung loosely in his hand. They stood for a moment and contemplated the building. ‘I’ll let you into a secret. I have a dream that one day presidents and heads of state will be seated in there, discussing great plans, signing treaties that will change the world.’

  ‘Everyone’s entitled to dream,’ said Makana. And perhaps it wasn’t such an unlikely prospect. The Zafrani brothers had their sights set on increasing their political influence. ‘And I suppose it helps to have business partners like Qasim to help turn a plot of land designated for an eye hospital into a golf course.’

  ‘It all depends on how you look at things.’ Zafrani pressed a hand to his chest, the picture of honesty. ‘I myself don’t believe a clinic would ever have been built here. It’s all about keeping the wheels turning.’ He circled a finger in the air to illustrate his theory. ‘Someone wins a contract to build a hospital but then decides that it’s too much of an expense anyway, so they sit on the land until someone else comes along to take it off their hands.’

  ‘And everyone makes a profit.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Zafrani smiled.

  ‘I expected to see you at the memorial service for Kasabian.’

  ‘Not my thing, funerals.’ He pulled a face. ‘I’m a very private man, as you know. I knew there would be a lot of people there. The press. It’s not good for me to be too much of a presence.’

  ‘Sure, that must be a worry.’

  Zafrani wasn’t listening. He stepped up onto the ground floor of the clubhouse. A chill wind blew through the open frame of the unfinished shell. He pointed out the details as they would materialise. A bar here, a television screen there, showing live golf from around the world, naturally. It was a marvel to Makana that there were people who had the time for such pursuits. Wasn’t there a Roman emperor who played his fiddle while the city burned around him?

  On the far side of the open space, Zafrani gestured for him to go through a doorway. A staircase led down into the basement. There wasn’t much light and Makana edged his way down, one hand on the wall, acutely aware that Didi and Bobo were a few paces behind him. He stepped into what Zafrani explained would eventually become the kitchens. The latest technology. All the gadgets needed to produce world-class cuisine. It was hard to see. In the faint glimmer of light that filtered through a row of narrow slits high up in the outside wall, Makana could make out something moving at the far end.

  ‘Why have you brought me here?’

  ‘Call it an invitation to the truth.’ Zafrani was still swinging the club as if it were a walking cane. ‘You see, I’m not sure how involved you are in all that’s going on, and I need to know how much I can trust you.’

  ‘What is it you’re worried about?’

  ‘What I’m worried about?’ Zafrani gave a meaty laugh. ‘You’re the one who should be worried, and yet you ask me. I like that. It shows character.’ He tightened the straps on his gloves and grasped the golf club with both hands. He took several steps into the gloom. ‘Now, this one understands, or at least he is beginning to.’ There was a whistling sound as the club flew through the air and a thud as it struck something heavy and soft, like a human body. Makana glanced back at Didi and Bobo and was relieved to see they hadn’t moved. He stepped forward.

  Hanging from some kind of hook in the ceiling was a man. His torso was naked and covered in blood. He spun lightly in a circle, revealing long weals and bruising on his back and sides. Makana could not see his face clearly. Zafrani grasped him by the hair and lifted.

  ‘Remember this one?’ It took a few moments for Makana to recognise Na’il
. ‘He doesn’t look like much, but take my word, he’s a slippery one. Selling drugs where he shouldn’t be selling, and telling stories to the police. Now, if there is one thing I cannot abide, it is dishonesty. A man you cannot trust.’

  A gangster with principles, thought Makana. If a moment ago he had been wondering where this was all leading, now he had his answer, and it wasn’t one he liked. How long had Na’il been here? What had Ayad Zafrani done to him in that time? By the smell and the state of his clothes, Na’il had been tied up here for several days. He wondered if Dalia Habashi had managed to get out of the country. He sincerely hoped she had.

  ‘You brought me here to see this?’

  ‘I want you to realise how seriously I take my work.’

  ‘Believe me, I don’t need any more convincing.’

  Zafrani nodded. ‘You understand, I’m a civilised man. I’m trying to do this in the most civilised way I can think of.’

  Makana refrained from comment. He lit a cigarette.

  ‘You’re mixed up in something,’ Zafrani went on. ‘I’m not sure you know how big it is.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me?’

  ‘Big, small, what’s the difference? It’s all about cooperation. Nothing gets done in this country without that.’ Zafrani’s face twisted into something resembling a smile gone wrong as he stepped back and swung the club again. This time the sound was different, sickening, as if something inside the body had snapped. A rib or two. It sounded like hitting a sack filled with fruit.

  ‘He’s not going to tell you anything he hasn’t already told you.’

  ‘That’s right, I’d forgotten. You’re something of an expert in this field, aren’t you?’ Zafrani held out the club. ‘Care to have a go?’