by Nick Louth
They finished the piece to camera just in time. A huge armoured car thundered past the satellite truck and up the street towards where they were standing. Wyrecliffe hefted the camera and tripod, and with Shalwaz shrank into a doorway as the eight-wheeled Russian-built monstrosity rolled past them into the square, sending protesters scattering. It was followed by two police vans. Helmeted riot police spilled out of the rear doors, some armed with shotguns or stubby rifles, but most with batons. Whump, whump. A series of tear gas grenades were fired. The projectiles described a lazy, smoky arc before crashing to the ground with a clang among protesters. People ran in all directions, and at least four lay on the ground.
* * *
Now it was getting dark, Kat was getting concerned that she’d seen no sign of Khalil, Antarah nor Basinah. The demonstration, which had been a festival until the light failed, was now turning ugly. Large groups of youths with scarves around their mouths were moving purposefully towards the far police line, some armed with stones. In the far distance flames were leaping from two overturned police cars, and a phalanx of riot police were advancing across the square. There were repeated gunshots and several tear gas grenades arced over the heads of the crowd, leaving zigzag trails of white smoke. Her fear was made flesh when she a group of protesters carrying a man with blood streaming down his face. It was Khalil.
‘Khalil, my god what happened to you?’
‘He was beaten by the police,’ one of the men said.
Kat went with them to the Red Crescent dressing station, which now looked like a fully-fledged battle casualty station with hundreds of injured. There were at least three bodies covered in sheets. The medics had no time to treat those with minor wounds, so having secured antiobiotic cream and bandages from a harried volunteer, Kat found herself bandaging Khalil’s head. He was more concerned by his badly bruised hand, stamped on during the beating. The crowd around them was getting more restive, so Kat made a decision.
‘Let’s get out of here. Come back with me to the dubious comforts of the Hotel Budi Aswan. I can look after you better there.’
It was almost midnight when Kat and Khalil got there. The leering receptionist, still on duty, looked up from the football to give her a suspicious glance as she helped Khalil up the stairs. As soon as she shut the door, Kat sat Khalil on the bed and redressed his head wound. A huge bruise had split open the crusted cut.
‘You might be hurt somewhere else. Let’s have your jacket and shirt off and I can take a look.’
Khalil let her gently ease him out of his shirt. His well-muscled torso showed a couple of bruises, but no cuts. ‘Let’s check your legs.’ Kat laid him flat on the bed, but he looked shocked when her hands went to his belt. ‘Didn’t you ever play doctors and nurses when you were a kid?’ she laughed.
* * *
Once the package was wrapped and broadcast, Wyrecliffe managed to get to the hotel bar by 8.45pm. Zurski, as promised, was there, crammed in at a drink-laden table with half a dozen others where BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson was telling an anecdote. Wyrecliffe, Guinness in hand, approached the group and saw that everyone, Simpson included, stopped talking to look in his direction. Not at him, but behind him. He turned to see a rather familiar beautiful dark-haired woman in a sharp grey business suit, set off by daringly orange shoes and matching earrings that only she could get away with.
Taseena.
Her smile seemed to light up the room. She winked at Wyrecliffe, but then walked past him to greet the others, many of whom seemed to know her. When the hugs and the air-kisses had finished, she turned to him. Wyrecliffe kissed her on the cheek and said: ‘Tas, it’s great to see you. I thought you weren’t coming until next week.’
‘It’s a flying visit. I’m off to Tunis tonight.’ Her huge almond eyes were almost amber in the subdued lighting of the bar. ‘But I have an ulterior motive. I’ve talked to the editorial board of ASB, and I think you might be interested in what they have to say. Let’s have dinner.’
She had booked a secluded table in the rooftop restaurant of the Grand Hotel. It was four or five blocks from Tahrir Square; close enough to get there quickly if required, but far enough away to mark a break from the mayhem of hourly news reportage. Jim Moore had been happy enough to take Wyrecliffe’s late ‘graveyard’ shift in exchange for his own early start the following day. As they arrived, Wyrecliffe couldn’t resist looking at the Al Jazeera scrolling headlines showing on the muted TV in the lobby. Crowds, it seems, were marching on the headquarters of Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party. Smoke was rising from the building. Wyrecliffe silently thanked Moore for his generosity.
‘Come on, news junky. Time to relax a bit,’ Taseena said, seizing his arm and guiding him up the stairs and into the cool of the roof garden. The roar of Cairo’s evening traffic was pierced by the ululation of police sirens and the screeching of tyres, but Wyrecliffe tried to ignore it as they studied the menu.
Once they had shared a few sips of wine, she took an envelope from her bag. ‘This is the offer. Better terms and universal business class travel. But we will need a decision soon. I want you to head-up our coverage at Sharm.’
In six weeks Sharm el-Sheikh was going to host the most ambitious Middle East peace conference since Camp David in 1978. The Madrid Quartet: the UN, the EU, the US and Russia, were all in line. Israel had agreed a temporary halt on settlement building in the occupied territories, and Hamas had agreed to put away its rocket launchers. Egypt, desperate to assert its traditional role as leader of the Arab peoples, wouldn’t let the current turmoil in Tahrir Square derail it.
‘I’m willing to give you the lion’s share of the big interviews. You’d never get that chance at the BBC so long as Gerald Monaghan’s around.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ Wyrecliffe said. ‘Yes, I’m flattered. But this is a change after what you said in London.’
‘Well, I should have made allowances for the complexity of your life at that time,’ Taseena responded. ‘The BBC bomber and all that. You certainly make some tangles for yourself.’
‘Though I know you won’t believe me, my intentions were entirely honourable,’ he laughed. ‘I did nothing other than try to help the girl.’
Taseena smiled and took his hand. ‘At the risk of loading even more onto your plate, I have a confession to make. Do you remember our weekend in Alexandria?’
‘Could I ever forget?’ Wyrecliffe recalled the wonderful four days they spent together in February 1990 in the fading grandeur of the Cecil Hotel. They had made love almost continuously, it seemed, only breaking for meals. They had been precious moments, between him returning from South Africa from covering the release from prison of Nelson Mandela, and starting a new assignment in the Balkans. For her it was the last weekend before starting a job in Paris as a senior banking correspondent for a French magazine..
‘So you remember when I told you I was pregnant, Chris. We talked about having the baby.’
‘I remember. We were walking along the esplanade.’ Wyrecliffe recalled that walk as if it was yesterday. From the site of the Great Library of Alexandria to the ruins of the Lighthouse of Pharos. The last rays of the light catching Taseena’s face, her hair billowing in the cooling Mediterranean breeze. She had never looked more beautiful. A stroll drenched in history, not only for where it was, but because it was the time when his dreams of being with her for ever had started to crumble.
‘I knew that you had a young child already, a wife back home.’ Taseena said. ‘I felt selfish asking you to be a father again. But I did want that baby.’
‘I know you did. I felt very guilty for what I said.’
‘For persuading me to have an abortion?’
‘Yes. I still do. Especially not being able to be there in Beirut when you went into hospital.’ The wistful, bitter-sweet memories of that moment were now enshrined in his heart, locked up but never forgotten.
She said nothing for a long moment. He felt her assessing him somehow, as if maki
ng a decision.
‘Chris. This is where the apology comes in,’ she said, taking both his hands in hers. ‘I’ve wanted to tell you this for many, many years. I never did have the abortion.’
Wyrecliffe’s mouth fell open and a gasp escaped him.
‘I couldn’t face it. And I wanted to be a mother.’
What are you telling me?’ Wyrecliffe felt himself spinning out of control.
She leaned across the table and whispered. ‘I am so, so sorry that I never told you. Chris, I had a little boy.’
He watched as tears filled her eyes. His own tongue was thick with a knot of questions that he could not articulate.
‘He is your son. Our son. His name is Rifat. And now he is a man.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Wyrecliffe was reeling from the revelation. Taseena showed him some baby pictures on her phone, but confessed she didn’t have anything more recent than his mid-teens. The pictures she showed were of a thin-faced teenager, with watchful eyes and a skin darker than either his or Taseena’s. She explained that Rifat had until he was fifteen believed he was the child of her brother. When he was told the truth he had become distressed. Of course, it was quite understandable that he had become quite unruly and downright rude at times. She blamed herself for all the lies she had been forced to tell, and said that his upbringing would never have been possible without the support of her long-suffering brother and his wives. She confessed she hadn’t seen him herself for several years, after an unfortunate incident in Greece.
‘He called me a whore,’ she whispered. ‘A sharmuta.’
‘That must have been very upsetting.’
‘Yes. The thing is, Chris, that at some stage it is quite likely that Rifat may try to contact you.’
‘Does he know I’m his father?’
‘No, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t tell him, but he’s likely to make his own enquiries. He’s extremely intelligent, and very determined. I’m told he’s already been through my brother’s papers, including my letters to him. All I’m saying is that if he does contact you, try not to be shocked. Try to be accommodating. He’s really quite devout, but underneath it I’m sure he’s still as adorable as he was as a child.’
As Wyrecliffe saw Taseena off into her taxi for the last flight to Tunis, he had a vision of himself meeting this young man, and coming face to face with the tangled life of his earlier years. Having to tell Imogen. Having to tell Michaela and Philip. And worst of all, having to diffuse whatever hostility that this young man might reasonably have against him. What had she said his name was? Yes, that’s right.
Rifat.
* * *
January 29, 2011
It was 1.15am when Wyrecliffe awoke to the insistent ringing of the phone. He grabbed for it, and pulled the receiver close to his head. ‘Chris, it’s Jim. Put the TV on. Mubarak has fired his cabinet. There seems to be a full scale riot on in Tahrir. I’ve got to go. I know the handover is at 6am, but I’d appreciate being able to hand over to you an hour or so earlier.’
He thanked Moore, and assured him he would take over. Gunfire sounded sporadically far away, punctuating the distant lament of sirens. He had a headache and a sore throat. He’d finished off the bottle of wine after Taseena’s departure, then after an hour or two in the bar came back to his room and managed three hours sleep.
Relieved that the electricity was back on, he turned on the TV. He watched CNN for the next hour until the power went off again, then by the light of his headtorch reset his alarm, drained a bottle of mineral water and tried to go back to sleep. Next time he awoke with a start to the sound of clattering, banging and voices in the corridor. The TV standby wasn’t on. The electricity must still be off. It was 2.37am, and now he felt fully awake. He’d fallen asleep with the headtorch on, and had a bruise on his ear where the plastic clip on the elastic had bitten. He wandered into the bathroom, where two small shiny brown cockroaches were contesting feeding rights on the bristles of his toothbrush. They fled on a well-practised route under the washbasin as he approached. Wyrecliffe rubbed some paste into the brush, cleaned it with his hand under the tap for a few seconds, then began to vigorously clean his teeth. Three minutes later he was dressed and ready to go out.
He checked his mobile and found there was no signal. Not the first time. He considered knocking on Shami’s door, but thought better of it. There was supposed to be a relief crew coming in from London tomorrow, and she needed the sleep after today’s ruckus. Tonight’s reconnaissance he could manage with his digital recorder and a notepad. It would be perfect for radio. His old colleagues at Radio Four hadn’t stopped badgering him for material since the moment he’d arrived in Cairo. Now was the chance to get them what they wanted.
The hotel already had a subdued level of activity, and Wyrecliffe felt the familiar fluttering elation that came with being close to a big news story. Someone was lying snoring on a couch at the end of the corridor with a camera bag for a pillow. The lift was jammed with open doors. Two French journalists he vaguely recognised were talking loudly and smoking in the emergency stairwell. In the lobby downstairs, a bloodied CBS cameraman was telling a group of reporters about the brutality of the Egyptian police. His audience, a scruffy mixture of journalists, production staff and hangers-on alternated between listening to him and watching live TV footage of the riots on Al Jazeera. The grand windows in the entrance were now reinforced with plywood, and the revolving doors were taped off and blocked with bar stools. Two security men with long boots, trousers tucked in, were standing nearby, talking into their radios. Wyrecliffe showed them his BBC pass, and explained he would be going out. They led him on the now-familiar route through the underground car park. They wished him good luck. It was 3.04am
* * *
Kat awoke with a start to the sound of a distant gunshot. It was 3.15am. Khalil was lying unconscious, face down and breathing noisily in the bed beside her. In the pale light from the street his exposed side and tight muscled bum was a sculpture of polished mahogany, forested with a fine mat of hairs. His dark head, cradled in his own forearm, mouth distorted, exposed an armpit. She smiled at him as she dressed rapidly. There was action out there on the streets and she needed to witness it. She wrote him a quick note, closed the door quietly and slipped out onto the streets of Cairo, heading for Tahrir Square.
* * *
Wyrecliffe exited the hotel into a stream of people, many bearing flags, some with faces painted’ walking towards Tahrir Square. White military flares high above brilliantly compensated for the lack of street lighting, but smoke drifting across from the west softened the sharp shadows across the square. In the far distance was a line of riot police, and the occasional crash and whump of a molotov cocktail making an impact. The sour tang of tear gas hung in the air. There was a cacophony of firing, somewhere beyond, and lines of olive green military vehicles in the surrounding streets. It was only two minutes before he found a victim of the violence. A group of student-age men in jeans and T shirts were attempting to use a homemade Egyptian flag to half drag, half carry a heavily-built male colleague towards an ambulance a hundred metres away. Their movement was marked by a long, rough crimson smear across the square. Two others were running behind taking mobile phone pictures.
Wyrecliffe couldn’t help wishing Shami Shalwaz was with him, the flag draped in blood, would make terrific symbolic footage. As Wyrecliffe caught up to them, he introduced himself and asked what had happened. One of the men, a stocky fellow with a burgeoning moustache said that the victim had been shot by police from the rooftops. They all pointed towards a five storey building which they said snipers were using. As if to emphasise the point a shot rang out, kicking up splinters of stone nearby. They all ran as best they could to the ambulance, parked beyond a concrete fountain and bollards. One of the young men tripped, smashing his leg painfully into a bollard. Wyrecliffe helped him to his feet, and took over carrying the wounded man, who had one arm across his face and was moaning. Wyrecliffe clicked his
digital voice recorder, hoping the mobile phone-sized Olympus would capture the urgency and rising panic amongst the frightened young men. He voiced over a breathless narrative, describing their gradual approach to a row of ambulances, which already had a crowd milling around them. When they arrived a fierce argument began in Arabic between the paramedics and the protesters. Wyrecliffe asked a bespectacled young woman in a headscarf what was happening.
‘They say all ambulances are reserved for injured police, not protesters.’ She paused to shout at one of the officials standing nearby. Someone behind Wyrecliffe threw a shoe which hit the ambulance door. The young men gradually forced their way into the vehicle and manhandled their comrade aboard. In the cold light of the vehicle his wounds looked awful, clearly some deep chest and abdominal wounds. Fresh red blood was trickling down his nose and lips, contrasting with the thick, dark liquid which had congealed across his chest. He was racked by a brief cough, and spattered everyone with fine bloody droplets. One paramedic then said that the ambulance was defective, as the doors had been damaged in a collision, and couldn’t be closed. The argument continued. Finally, one of the paramedics relented, and radioed ahead. The vehicle started up, and set off with both doors still open and banging. Two more young men forced their way into the doorway. Someone else was running too, shouting.
Wyrecliffe peered out and saw a tall western woman in a badly-tied keffayah racing after them. ‘I’m a reporter, let me on!’
He leant out and, with the help of two others, pulled Kat Quinlan aboard. ‘Jesus, I thought I was going to have a heart attack.’
‘Good job you’re in an ambulance then,’ Wyrecliffe responded.
