by Frank Coles
‘What happened to you?’ I said.
Yasmin wrapped a towel around her hair in an upside down cone, the way women do. She walked naked across the room, casually, as if we really were long term lovers who had grown comfortable and blasé about our bodies. The robe hanging on the back of the door quickly changed that.
Was she stalling?
‘What happened Yasmin? You do realize you don’t exist anymore? You are now officially dead.’
She removed the towel from her head and aggressively dried her hair.
‘Yasmin!’
I grabbed the towel out of her hands.
‘What? What do you want from me?’ she said.
‘You are supposed to be dead Yasmin. A woman who looks like you was cut to pieces and found in the river. I’ve nearly been killed, twice. My friend may already be dead. So I want to know….’
‘What? What do you want to know?’
‘I want to know what’s going on Yasmin,’ I said desperately. ‘Talk to me.’
‘Just go David. It is not safe for you here. I will be fine.’
‘I need more than that Yasmin.’
‘Oh David, just go. You have your story, what more do you want from me?’ She walked over to the purse and grabbed the rest of the money inside. ‘Take this and GO!’
‘Not until you tell me what’s going on.’
‘Unnnh!’ she grunted, ‘Don’t you ever stop asking questions?’
I didn’t answer, just grabbed an arm and glared in her eyes. She grunted again and pulled away from me.
‘Please Yasmin,’ I said.
‘I made a deal with Faisal.’
‘What sort of deal?’
‘For my freedom.’
‘Your freedom? You don’t exist anymore, you’re dead remember?’
Her wet hair hung limply. She thrust her chin at me and fumed.
‘Who was the dead woman Yasmin?’
‘One of the Lebanese girls, Ditta…with Faisal’s friends…they went too far.’ She looked away. ‘It could have been me.’
‘What the hell have you done?’
‘He is bringing in more girls, younger girls.’
‘Like the blonde girl…Tish?’
‘Yes, she is my first one.’
‘Your first one what?’
Silence, then, ‘I know what he does to them when they arrive David.’ She glanced up at me. ‘So do you now. I have made a deal with Faisal that I will stop working with men and work with the girls he brings in.’
‘What do you mean work with them?’
‘I will train them when they arrive.’
‘You mean you will teach them how to be prostitutes?’
‘Yes, we will have a bigger apartment, a villa maybe, and I will look after the girls, teach them what they need to know.’
‘You’ll take over Faisal’s role is that what you mean?’
‘My lessons will be much less painful than Faisal’s, I will look after them.’
‘Like Faisal looks after you? Yasmin, you’re going to be a pimp, a madam, a fucking slave trainer. Do you think you’re doing them a favor? You’re just making it easier for Faisal.’
‘Yes. But that will make it easier for the girls David.’
‘Easier would be taking everything you have on Faisal and running so that he never does this shit again, spill the fucking beans.’ She bit her lip and stared, nervous and angry at the same time. ‘Easier on the girls would be killing him while he sleeps.’
She exploded, ‘And you would do all this would you David? Tell me how. Who would listen in this country to a woman without a passport, without money and without a man? You tell me who? Your charities? Your governments? Your politicians? They all ignore what’s going on here, even when they see it with their own eyes, you know this.’
Her fists clenched and her arms trembled.
‘You,’ she began barely able to get the words out. ‘You come here with your tears from one night of pain. You have no idea what it is like. Night after night after night, especially for the young ones, and you want me to walk out on them?’
‘I….’
‘This is not a nine to five David. There was no one there to help me, I have been alone all these years and I know what Faisal will do to those girls if I am not here, the same as he did to me, to you, the same as he did to Ditta.’
‘But it won’t get any better Yasmin, they may get gentler treatment from you, but they will still be used by Faisal and every John, Dick and fucking Harry who wants to poke fresh blood out of a baby.’
‘That is exactly why I have to stay.’
‘That is why you have to go; you’re just delaying the inevitable.’
We were both out of breath from shouting at each other. Tears were streaming down Yasmin’s cheeks. My ribs ached and the bones in my face felt crushed, broken, like us.
‘He’s never going to let you go,’ I said, reaching for her arm. She shook her head and shrugged me off. ‘Yasmin, just come with me, we’ll find a way out together.’
‘I can’t David…I just…I can’t….’ she said and ran out of the room, slamming the door hard.
I finished dressing. The mirror showed the face of man I barely recognized anymore.
Yasmin was in the bathroom with the door locked. I knocked.
‘You must go David.’
‘Not without you Yasmin.’
I leaned my head against the door and felt the pressure of her body on the other side. ‘Go without me. Nothing you can say will make me leave,’ she said.
‘What about us?’
‘There is no us.’
‘Yasmin….’
‘David,’ she moaned, ‘Why are you such a fool? It was just an act, do you not understand? Are you completely stupid?’
‘Bullshit…you’re lying.’
‘I took your money didn’t I?’
‘Yes, but….’
‘It was just a game, since the first day we met. I wanted nothing to do with you. Faisal was the one who made me call you back.’
‘Yasmin….’
‘David, understand! I don’t need you to rescue me, this is what I do. You are just a customer. I was just playing a role. Fulfilling your fantasies of being the big hero, nothing more.’
The surface of the door splintered when I punched it, leaving a fist shaped hole in the hollow interior of the imitation wood. She slammed it back from the other side and shouted angrily in a mixture of Arabic and Farsi.
‘Do you think you are the first man to fall for me?’
I had no answer for that.
‘People will be coming soon,’ she said more softly. ‘I will not leave here with you. Not tonight. Not ever.’
Despite her words every fiber in my body was still screaming kick the door down, drag her away from there, rescue her, but even if I did all of that she wouldn’t thank me, and we had nowhere to go. I felt her breath rattle against the door.
‘Go now David, before it is too late.’
She had made her decision. I had to make mine.
I took enough money for another cab and left her behind.
Chapter Thirty Seven
I made the driver wait outside the post office on Al Wasl Road. I wasn’t going back to the apartment but I needed cash and a way out. The private mail boxes conveniently acted as both a mail drop for the citizens of Dubai as well as a cheap no questions asked safety deposit box for people like me. With no keys I gave the attendant my password and he opened the box for me. I ignored the junk mail and retrieved my passport and the thick manila envelope from the bottom of the box. I slammed it shut, the last time I would ever use it.
The envelope contained a combination of leftover holiday dollars, euros, dirhams and sterling, enough to get me out of town and on a no frills flight out of the Middle East.
I had one last stop to make before I left town. After he protested that he didn’t have any credit a $20 bill persuaded the cab driver to let me use his mobile phone. Martin could onl
y be in one of three places if he was alive, the office, his villa or the hospital – I couldn’t remember his mobile number but the operator put me through to the Arabian Outlook switchboard. His secretary was working late as usual; and he was in his office.
He had made it. I had no idea how but he was still alive.
***
I told his anorexic secretary to tell him I was on my way. Thirty minutes of rush hour traffic later she informed me coldly that he didn’t want to be disturbed. I burst into his office anyway just happy that my friend was still alive. He nearly jumped out of the window when he saw me. He smiled, and then so did Khadim.
‘Ah fuck, sorry old son,’ Martin said, nodding in Khadim’s direction.
Hindsight told me that I hadn’t thought this through. If he was in his office the day after he’d electrocuted a tent full of gangsters it was because someone wanted him there rather than under a dune.
‘I told her not to let anyone in,’ he said.
‘Well you know how I am at taking advice.’
‘Yeah, you look great by the way…Mr. Potato Head.’
We both laughed. I couldn’t stop smiling, happy to see my friend alive.
‘You on the other hand look surprisingly good. No bruising, no swelling, whose cock did you have to suck to….’ He flashed me a look, ‘Oh.’
‘Don’t even go there Bryson. The only reason I’m still walking is because Arabian Outlook is now the mouthpiece for screw-the-world-enterprises over here.’
I’d already forgotten about Khadim. Martin’s personality always acted like a magnifying glass that made him stand out above anyone else in the room.
‘I’ll be tearing you a new arsehole in the pages of our mag by the way.’
‘That’s alright, I can’t use the old one,’ I said. Martin winced.
‘Yeah. Sorry about that. It’s damage limitation on the Sunset Heights project and anything else they can think of. You, my friend, are the sacrificial goat.’
Khadim was obviously amused by our banter.
‘Hello Khadim,’ I said. ‘Thanks very much for not shooting me.’
‘My pleasure,’ he said. ‘However I really wasn’t expecting to see you again.’
‘Don’t worry I won’t be bothering you anymore,’ I held up my passport. ‘I just wanted to make sure my friend was alright.’
‘If he does what he is told he will be fine. As for you I will escort you to the airport. Now.’ He commanded.
‘There’s really no need.’
‘Oh but I insist,’ he said grabbing my arm.
‘Of course you do.’
‘Pick up the latest edition on the way out,’ Martin shouted after us, ‘You’re going to love the cover.’
***
In the police cruiser we drove like any other madman on the road, but we were the police, we could get away with it. Then the traffic slowed to a stop as we neared defense roundabout. The driver put on his siren and forced his way through the stalled cars until we broke out into open space.
The traffic was being held back by two police cruisers. Behind them the road was blocked by Indian and oriental men in a wall of uniformed color. They formed a line nearly a hundred men deep that spanned the highway. The laborers from the construction site. All of them by the looks of it.
‘What are they doing?’ I said to Khadim.
He ignored my question and climbed out of the car to talk to his colleagues.
Then someone in the line of men raised a hand and they started to walk towards us. They swarmed over and around the stalled traffic. At first the policemen tried talking to them, then shouting. The laborers ignored them and just kept going.
The men were all smiles as they walked through the horns and hollers of either support or scorn from the cars.
More policemen arrived; they held their truncheons in hand but didn’t know what to do in such a public setting. Before they had a chance to think of something the journalists turned up and started to ask their annoying questions.
The atmosphere was ecstatic; the construction workers were scared but demonstrating anyway. After the pre-prepared, over-packaged consumer delights of Dubai something so spontaneous and meaningful couldn’t be anything other than fun.
A hand slapped the window and I looked into a smiling face I recognized, those slightly distant eyes. ‘Mani?’ I said.
He grinned and shouted something, more faces that I recognized from the construction site squashed up against the window and then the surge of bodies swept them forward.
I caught Khadim’s eye. He stared back, confidence gone. When the crowd cleared he pushed through the pack of journalists and got back in the car.
‘That was great,’ I said to him, ‘good for them.’
‘They will pay for this,’ he said.
‘Sure, when no one is around to see I’ll bet.’
He smirked but didn’t answer.
With lights and sirens blaring we made the airport in less than ten minutes, easily doing 200kph the whole way.
Khadim and his companion walked me into the Emirates Airline terminal and spoke to a uniform on the front desk. A tall, serious looking man in a cream dishdash appeared and talked to Khadim. His muscles bulged through the fabric and he spoke into a mouthpiece in his ear. He scanned my passport and walked us quickly through customs. The money stayed in my pockets.
We sat in a small plain white room that looked out over the airfield. Khadim sat across from me becoming increasingly restless.
‘Why didn’t you shoot me?’ I asked him.
‘I have my reasons,’ he said deflecting my question.
‘C’mon, Khadim. I know you’re not part of the team. You avoided playing with the cattle prod as well, and now you’re putting me on a complimentary flight instead of taking me to your friends.’
‘I do things because I have to Mr. Bryson. Why do you insist on asking so many questions?’
‘I have my reasons.’
We sat in silence for a moment, listening to the sounds on the other side of the door. Thousands of confused tourists wondering which way to go.
‘So why is the head of the Anti-Human Trafficking Department so heavily involved with human trafficking?’
‘Let me ask you this, if you were close to the people who ran things, and you knew that no matter which law you tried to implement it would simply be ignored because of who was involved, how would you try and stop bad things from happening?’
‘I honestly don’t know.’
‘Neither do I,’ he said and smiled. ‘I simply do what I can, when I can.’
‘So you’re a good cop in a bad system.’
‘No I am a bad policeman, I don’t always follow orders, but I am a good man.’
‘Are you?’
‘You are still breathing are you not? As is your little Yasmin and that boisterous friend of yours. I’m afraid I couldn’t prevent what happened to the girl in the creek.’
‘But why?’
‘If this was your world what would you do? Things are changing, power is shifting, and even your people will have to change. Do you think the Americans will last forever?’
‘Do you? How about Oil?’ Or Islam?
He chuckled, ‘Perhaps you think us uncivilized? But I learnt my history in your schools,’ he smiled, ‘your kings killed their wives when they wanted more, we build ours another house. Tell me, which do you think is more civilized?’
‘It’s easy to blame culture Khadim, we each choose our own actions.’
‘I simply try to be noble Mr. Bryson, to do the right thing,’ he said as the door opened, ‘so should you.’
Khadim stood up and turned to leave.
‘Hamza told me Orsa killed your Uncle,’ I said.
The captain flinched but he didn’t look back. His shoulders rose and fell and he said, ‘When did he tell you this?’
‘On the boat, just before you arrived.’
He walked stiffly out and left me in the hands of the cream colore
d official; who escorted me onto a plane bound for London just as the door was closing. The cabin crew led me to a seat in the rear across from two British men, strangers in mid-conversation. One wore his England Coeur-de-Lyon football shirt proudly and the other a conservative blue, gold buttoned, double breasted suit.
Both stared at my battered face as I took the empty window seat across the aisle from them.
‘Christ mate, you look like you’ve been in the wars.’
I nodded confirmation and rested my head against the window. I could barely keep my eyes open but was forced to as we were made to listen to the safety announcements and unwelcome adverts.
The two men talked loudly and openly to each other about the hotels in Dubai, the bars, the beaches, those funny Arabs with the best cars money could buy and their hand-me-down driving skills.
I heard the businessman say, ooh those women, they sent this Russian girl up to me one night, my god you should have seen her, just beautiful, and all for me. I heard his satisfied laugh.
The football supporter said, that doesn’t really do it for me old son, not my cup of tea, she may tell you her name is Nadia and tell you how wonderful you are, but it’s all bollocks innit? It’s a fantasy ‘cause who knows how that girl got there? Do you?
Why do you care?
Why don’t you? She’s somebody’s daughter for god’s sake and there you are ‘avin her sent to your room as if she’s a fucking Caesar salad or something. You’re fucking slime, blokes like you really wind me up, you know?
I heard movement, then: Oi, elephant man, mind if I sit next you? No? Good. Now see, if this bloke here was to go to a prostitute I’d understand. I mean who’s gonna float his boat with a battered mush like that, hey?
I fell deeply asleep.
Chapter Thirty Eight
A uniformed stewardess shook me awake at Gatwick. I was the last passenger on the plane. I talked my way awkwardly through customs and then headed straight back to departures. I found an overpriced coffee shop and drank as many sugary lattes as I could handle.
The long sleep had revived me and as my brain began clicking through the gears I realized I was about to be shafted again. My name dragged through the dirt as a sexual deviant so that the real horrors could remain hidden but marketable.
