‘Explain what to her?’ asked Slibulsky.
‘That I need you to be with Deborah tomorrow. Someone is out to get me, and I’m afraid he’ll try to do it through her.’
‘And where will you be?’
‘I’m on a bodyguard job all day. Can you have the branch managers meeting at the wine bar?’
‘No problem.’
‘Okay, then Deborah will call Lara tomorrow morning. And as for the reading, I know an author who’ll be reading at the House of Literature next week. His novel is called: An Occitanian Love, south of France, lavender fields, older man, young girl, “very movingly told, with a humorous slant, light, without avoiding the big questions in life …” ’
‘Are you drunk?’
‘Just quoting from the ad. I’m working at the Book Fair for a publishing house, and the author, Hans Peter Stullberg, is one of their stars. I’ll be meeting him tomorrow, and I’ll try to get a personal invitation for you and Lara. I’m sure Lara would like the occasion. It’s chic.’
‘Older man, young girl … I’m not so sure.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! What’s the matter now?’
‘Lara’s ex was here the day before yesterday. He’s the same age as her, up and coming rock star — you know the kind of thing, clever texts, all that shit — and I felt like my own granny. Hey, don’t ash on the carpet, please, and: Assam or Darjeeling tea? Enough to make you sick.’
‘Hmm.’
Luckily I heard Lara calling to him at that moment. She didn’t like Slibulsky to talk to me for too long.
‘Well, fine, then. I’ll go back to bed. So Deborah will be calling tomorrow morning?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and, ‘Sleep well,’ and we hung up. I recalled how in the old days Slibulsky had been a drug dealer, a bouncer, and even for a while a debt collector and henchman for one of the biggest pimps in Frankfurt. Life was a wonderful thing.
Then I undressed Deborah, put a nightdress on her and carried her to bed.
Chapter 12
In the morning Deborah phoned Slibulsky and Lara, and they agreed that Slibulsky would fetch her from home at ten, go with her to the butcher’s and the fishmonger’s, then take her to the wine bar and spend the rest of the day there with her. Lara was going to join them in the afternoon when the branch manager meeting was over.
‘You can choose any dish you like to make up for missing the reading, kitten,’ said Deborah. A little later she said goodbye and hung up.
‘What did she ask for?’
‘Chicken breast and salad.’
‘Wow.’
‘Well, it’s light, and we don’t often get asked for something really light.’
‘How about us?’
‘I thought you had to work all day?’
‘I’ll try to drop by later with Rashid. After two days at the Book Fair I need something sensible to eat.’
‘Shall I buy ox tongue?’
‘I love you!’
When Slibulsky arrived I quickly gave him Valerie de Chavannes’s address and phone number, and asked him to call in for the rest of my fee if he was near there in the next few days.
Then the first thing I did was to drive to my office. As I had expected, the door had been broken down, but otherwise everything seemed more or less in the right place. A minibook edition of the Koran lay in the middle of my desk, probably some kind of Best of the Koran. Inside was a handwritten inscription in German: For my sadly missed brother. It is never too late for the wisdom of the Prophet.
I put the little book on the bookshelf, called a joiner to repair the door and then drove to the Harmonia Hotel.
My second day at the Book Fair went more or less like the first. Rashid gave interviews and signed books, I sat behind him in the aromas from the hospitality room — this time there was cold ham and rocket pizza, sausage spread and Camembert rolls — and we went off to the toilets roughly every hour and a half. Rashid’s diarrhoea had cleared up, but he drank at least a litre of water per interview. In the evening Herr Thys, the lean, good-looking head of Maier Verlag, aged about fifty-five, gave a dinner in the restaurant of the Frankfurter Hof for authors and the upper echelons of the firm. Thys sat in the middle of the table, with Hans Peter Stullberg on his right, Mercedes García on his left and Rashid at the end of the table between the sales director and Thys’s cousin. I sat on my own at the next table, chewing the surprisingly dry saddle of venison in mango and bilberry sauce that the firm had ordered for all the guests.
Thys did not look at all like the usual idea someone who didn’t know the book trade would have of a publisher. More like an estate agent or a fat cat banker, with a Prada suit, a chunky watch, hair slightly too long and a little too carefully tousled, and a rather odd, smooth and generally ironic smile that sometimes turned mischievous. He liked to quote Oscar Wilde, and mentioned his acquaintances among the famous. There was usually ‘a good Bordeaux’ to drink at such occasions, but first my working day wasn’t over yet, and second Deborah and her fresh, fruity wines in the wine bar had weaned me off oak-barrely blended wines once and for all.
‘… In Manhattan you have to go to Chelsea in the evening these days, of course. I was there recently with Brandon Subotnik …’ Thys paused for a moment and smiled craftily at the company before he went on, pleased with himself. ‘His next novel will very probably come out under our imprint …’ Thys stopped again, and it was a moment before everyone realised what the new interruption was meant for. Then began a general table-drumming of applause.
After the guest on her left had translated this news for her, Mercedes García cried vivaciously, in English with a strong Spanish accent. ‘I love Subotnik!’
‘Yes,’ said Thys, also in English, ‘love is the right word when it comes to Subotnik! What an amazing author and character! We have been best friends for years and, for example, he never misses sending birthday cards to me, my wife or even my children. With all his success he is still the same kind and attentive person he always was. And what a stylist,’ he added, reverting to German, ‘what a worker! I’m reminded again of Oscar Wilde. “I was working on the proof of one of my poems all morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again …!” ’
General laughter. Hans Peter Stullberg, rather well gone on Bordeaux, growled, ‘Wonderful!’
Around ten the company at the table slowly began breaking up. Many of them wanted to go on to other parties, others to a late reading, others again just wanted to reach the bar of the Frankfurter Hof as quickly as possible.
Thys had addressed Rashid only once during the dinner: ‘My dear Malik, I’m so sorry — this is a fantastic wine, won’t you at least try it?’
‘Thanks, Emanuel, but you know my rule: no alcohol.’
‘I know, my dear fellow, I know. All the same: cola with venison!’
Otherwise he was either having the new stocking and delivery system explained to him by the sales director, or listening to Thys’s cousin as she waxed enthusiastic about Morocco.
‘Marrakesh, Agadir, the mountains, the sea, the cliffs — what a beautiful country! And such nice people, and the food! My husband and I have thought of buying a little place somewhere on the coast there.’
Rashid remained taciturn all the time, generally saying just, ‘Aha,’ or, ‘Well, well,’ or, ‘I see it rather differently,’ and as far as I could hear he only once said two consecutive sentences: ‘Forgive me, but I’ve written several novels about Morocco. I’d be glad if you would read the book jacket copy some time.’
‘Oh, I know! And I have! All about a homosexual police detective. Great, and such a brave subject!’
So for Rashid the evening so far had been rather unsatisfactory, and I hoped that gave me a chance to keep my date with Sheikh Hakim.
While Thys’s cousin joined the small queue of members of the publishing staff that had formed around half the table as Stullberg was leaving, and the sales director was checking the bill, I bent over to Rashid. He was eating a m
ousse au chocolat. Like all the other authors, he was still sitting.
‘Can I have a word with you?’
‘You’re welcome to,’ he said, and he probably meant it.
‘I have a business meeting at eleven — it won’t take more than half an hour. I could fail to turn up, but that would be awkward for me. If you feel like a moment away from the Fair, maybe something small to eat — and it would be excellent — or a fortifying ginger juice or tea to drink, I’d take you to my wife’s restaurant. A couple of my friends are there, I’m sure you would like them, and after half an hour I’d be back and take you to the Frankfurter Hof or wherever else you want.’
‘Your wife has a restaurant?’
Before I could answer, Katja Lipschitz came over to us and said, ‘Sorry, Malik, but Hans Peter is leaving now, and you two won’t see each other again tomorrow.’
Rashid half rose from his chair and waved to Stullberg. ‘See you soon, Hans Peter! And I hope you feel better!’
‘Thanks, Malik. Good luck for your new book. Great reviews! I hope the readers will flock in!’
Rashid sat down again. His mood seemed to have deteriorated even more, if anything. Without looking at me, he said, ‘Getting out of here for a moment might be a good idea.’
Just before we left the restaurant, while Rashid was getting his coat from the corner, I asked Katja Lipschitz if she could get me an invitation for two people to Stullberg’s reading in the House of Literature.
Surprised, she asked me, ‘You like Stullberg’s books?’
‘Well … please don’t say so to Rashid.’
‘Of course I won’t.’ She smiled understandingly.
We drove the first five minutes in silence. I steered my Opel down Kurt-Schumacher-Strasse, past the constable sentry house on the right. No one followed us. Rashid was looking gloomily out of the window. ‘I hope the readers will flock in!’ The best-selling Stullberg seemed to have finished him off for the evening.
Finally Rashid asked, as if to change the subject, ‘What’s your wife’s name?’
‘Deborah.’
‘Deborah?’ He turned to face me. ‘Is she Jewish?’
‘Her grandmother was.’
‘Didn’t that play any part in your marriage?’
‘We aren’t in fact married. I call her my wife because that’s in effect what she is, with or without papers.’
‘Aha!’ He leaned forward in the passenger seat and grinned at me. He had probably decided that he was damned if Stullberg was going to spoil the evening for him. Rashid suddenly became witty. ‘Like the Germans, eh? Married, not married, just so long as …’ He winked at me. ‘I don’t know any other country where so many people live together without being married.’
‘What do you mean, like the Germans? Want to see my ID?’
‘An ID is only a piece of plastic, Herr Kemal Kayankaya.’ He paused and waited for my reply. I let him wait.
Finally he changed the subject, but he stuck with ethnology. ‘I’m an Arab, yes, but I love the Jews.’
‘All of them?’
‘Oh, you …!’
I was glad when we arrived outside Deborah’s wine bar. He could talk all that nonsense with Lara.
The little bar was full, it smelled of food, it was loud, the waiter was sweating as he carried a pile of plates into the kitchen. Slibulsky, Lara, and Tugba from Mister Happy were there, with Raoul, an old friend and the owner of the Haiti Corner restaurant, Benjamin, another old friend and head of a refugees’ advice centre, and Deborah, who was taking a break and eating a slice of ox tongue with potatoes and mayonnaise. I felt like having the same later.
They all seemed rather tipsy, and already in high good humour. They welcomed Rashid, the waiter brought another chair, I gave Deborah a kiss and whispered quietly in her ear, ‘I’ll be back in half an hour’s time. Mind Slibulsky doesn’t slap your new guest.’
Deborah glanced at Rashid, who was obviously having difficulty keeping his eyes off Lara’s cleavage.
‘Back soon.’
In the street I looked again, and this time more thoroughly, for anyone shadowing us. That’s to say, I was really looking for Sheikh Hakim’s secretary. I was pretty sure it had been Methat following us the evening before. But all I saw was a small delivery van standing in the second row of parked vehicles at the next street corner. An elderly man and a girl sat in the front seat. Father and daughter, I decided.
Finally I got back into the Opel and drove to the station.
Sheikh Hakim was sitting at the table I had reserved. In front of him was a glass of water. He did not have any bodyguards around, or at least I couldn’t see them. Maybe they were stretching their legs outside.
At this time of the evening there were few guests left in Herbert’s Ham Hock, and most of those still here were quietly drinking their beer. All except for two old men in fine tweed suits, talking and laughing at the tops of their voices as they made inroads into the mountains of meat on their plates and a bottle of schnapps. There were no waiters in sight; they were probably out in the yard, smoking. A cleaning lady had begun wiping the floor, and the smell of the cleaning fluid mingled with the aroma of the specialty of the house. Herbert’s Ham Hock had been in existence for more than forty years, and as far as I knew the curtains and cushions had never been changed. Even if the place hadn’t been serving grilled or boiled ham hock all day, the restaurant would still have exuded the smell of animal fat from every pore. It was a Nazi joke for me to have invited Sheikh Hakim here.
‘Nice place,’ he said, after we had greeted one another.
‘I knew you’d like it.’
By comparison with the photographs of him that I’d seen on the Internet, Sheikh Hakim looked older, thinner, more haggard, greyer — an inconspicuous little man, almost bald, in a black suit. They probably prepared him for photos and public appearances with makeup. I even thought I remembered seeing him with a full, thick head of hair in some younger photographs. Did he wear a toupee in public?
‘Thank you for the little holy book.’ I took my jacket off and sat down opposite him. He looked at me with a chilly smile. ‘I’ve nearly finished it. Can’t wait to find out how the story ends.’
He gave that coughing laugh that I knew from the telephone, and his smile became a little broader but no warmer at all. ‘The way it ends is entirely in your hands.’
‘The little book?’
He did not reply. At the same moment a waiter came out of the kitchen, saw me and came over to our table.
‘A glass of water for me too, please.’
When the waiter left I asked, ‘Or did you mean Methat’s attempts to follow me?’
Without taking his eyes off me, he reached carefully for his glass and took a small sip before putting it down again equally carefully. He licked his upper lip.
‘At any rate, if I get my hands on him he can expect something from me.’
This time his smile was natural. Methat was probably some two metres tall and spent a lot of time in the gym. He must be very strong to have knocked my office door down just like that.
‘Herr Kayankaya,’ said Hakim finally, ‘never mind the talking. I want you to withdraw your statement incriminating my nephew. And I want you to do it tomorrow morning. As I understand from my nephew’s lawyers, that will be in your own interest. Your claims concerning what you say took place in my nephew’s apartment on that morning are so flimsy that, and I quote the lawyers, you would very probably end up in prison yourself for making a false statement. There is still time to put the whole thing down to momentary confusion, or alternatively, for instance’-he paused briefly — ‘to jealousy.’
‘Jealousy?’
‘Well, the lawyers strongly suspect that you were working for Frau de Chavannes on the morning in question.’
‘De Chavannes? Never heard the name.’
He looked at me expressionlessly, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Never mind, you’ll think up some pretext. As we all know, you don’t
lack for imagination.’
‘Thank you.’
The waiter brought my water, and I drank a sip. Hakim was watching me. Maybe he was just putting on a show, but he seemed very sure of himself. Did he have a surprise in store for me? Was there a group of holy warriors waiting round the corner of Herbert’s Ham Hock to beat my unbelieving soul out of my body if I refused to withdraw my statement? Or had Methat and his henchmen been sitting in the wine bar like normal guests while we talked here, waiting for Deborah to go outside and smoke a cigarette? Bonk, a blow on the head and off to Praunheim. I suddenly thought of the little delivery van. Suppose the girl was part of this? I’d put her age at fourteen at the most, but admittedly at a distance of ten metres and in the faint light of the streetlamps.
‘Do you know what I’d really like to understand? Why are you going to so much trouble for a little bastard like Abakay? I’ve heard that you improve your cash flow as a preacher by dealing in heroin, and I can well imagine that Abakay is being useful as a smuggler or dealer, but a really important man? You’re not so naïve as to trust someone like Abakay.’
His face didn’t move a muscle, only his eyes became a little thoughtful.
‘And as a cleric … I mean, Abakay sends underage girls out on the street. Is that pleasing in the eyes of the Lord?’
Just then his mobile rang. ‘Excuse me.’ He took the phone out of his trouser pocket, opened it and said, ‘Yes?’ Then he said no more for a while, and finally just, ‘Very well,’ before he closed the mobile and put it down on the table. I was sure that Turkish had been spoken at the other end, and Hakim had replied in German purely for my benefit. I was meant to hear how he conducted short phone conversations in which he was being informed about something or other — a precisely planned operation now in progress?
I realised that my mouth had gone dry, and drank some water. Should I call Deborah? Slibulsky? Ought I to let Hakim see that he was succeeding in frightening me?
Brother Kemal kk-5 Page 14
