Brother Kemal

by Jakob Arjouni

  Apart from that, the circles turned with impressive regularity. ‘Hey, you! It’s ages since we met … Absolutely delighted … I love your interview/dress/contribution to the debate in the Berliner Nachrichten … Oh, there’s So-and-So, I must just have a word with him … back in a minute.’

  There was nothing for me to do but smile and shake hands now and then. Although alcohol during a job as a bodyguard was strictly taboo on principle, several times that evening I toyed with the idea of indulging in a small beer. The danger of an assassination attempt seemed to me as slight as the likelihood of Rashid’s novel reaching the best-seller list without the headline ‘Author Stabbed by Religious Fanatic in the Frankfurter Hof’.

  At one twenty I delivered Rashid by taxi to the Hotel Harmonia. Ten minutes later Deborah got in, dropped her handbag on the floor and laid her head on my shoulder.

  ‘Read anything good?’ she murmured.

  ‘Read what?’

  ‘Well, isn’t there a Book Fair going on?’

  Even the taxi driver laughed quietly. As he did so, I noticed a pair of headlights following us in the rearview mirror. On the Bockenheimer Landstrasse, I asked the taxi driver to shake off the car for a twenty-euro tip.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Deborah was alert at once, lifting her head from my shoulder as we suddenly turned full speed into Mendelssohnstrasse.

  ‘Someone’s following us.’

  Luckily she was too tired to worry.

  We raced round two more corners and jumped a set of red lights, and then we were rid of the car following us.

  At home Deborah fell asleep at once on the sofa, while I called Slibulsky.

  ‘Hey, any idea what time it is?’ he whispered.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I need your help tomorrow. Urgently.’

  ‘It’s not a good time. I have our monthly meeting with the branch managers of my firm at midday tomorrow, and Lara wanted to go to a reading with me tomorrow evening. Don’t you know the Book Fair is on?’

  ‘Yes, I know. The Book Fair.’

  ‘Or something like that. Anyway, someone’s going to read a bit of his book to us, what’s its name, wait a minute … Yes, everything’s okay, sweetheart, go back to sleep. It’s Kemal calling.’ I heard a kiss and some murmuring. Lara didn’t particularly like me because I didn’t make any effort to take her religious quirks seriously. Slibulsky didn’t take them seriously either, but he tried not to show it.

  ‘I’ll just go into the kitchen … Right,’ he went on, at a normal volume, ‘so like I said, he’s going to read us a bit of his book. Something philosophical, but straightforward and humorous, Lara says. He looks the way Monty Python would have done a French pop star. Kind of long soft hair, and a blasé face like an ad for aftershave.’

  ‘Lara really seems to like him.’

  ‘She thinks he’s super cute and wildly intelligent, and the sight of him makes me feel sick.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to spoil your evening. I’ll find someone else.’

  ‘Very funny. I just don’t know how I’m going to tell Lara. And if she goes on her own you can bet the philosopher will try to get his claws into her.’

  Lara was twenty years younger than Slibulsky, looked like Christina Ricci, and always dressed so that her pretty breasts and behind would show to advantage. I could understand that. What I couldn’t understand was why Slibulsky, although she had been living with him for more than four years and as a freelance jewellery designer was more or less living on his money, still seemed to be afraid of losing her at any time and thus missing out on the chance of his lifetime. Although as I saw it, Lara loved him very much, if in her own bitchy way, but that’s how she was.

  ‘Maybe Deborah can explain it to her.’

  Lara had been in awe of Deborah ever since finding out about Deborah’s Jewish grandmother. Once she had turned up at our apartment on a Friday evening with a plaited loaf and candles, intending to celebrate the Sabbath. With the words, ‘You go on watching the sports programme, I’m sure this isn’t your sort of thing,’ she left me sitting on the sofa. It wasn’t Deborah’s sort of thing either, but for once she went along with Lara’s more or less correct ritual just to be friendly, although she said afterwards that from the next week she had to go to a sommelier course on Friday evenings. It was almost true; the course was on Thursdays.

  ‘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 secon
d 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 mousse 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.