by Parker Bilal
‘I don’t want to do you any harm, but I think there is something you want to tell me.’
‘Are you mad? How did you find me? You must go, now. My husband . . . He will be back any moment.’
‘I see,’ said Makana. ‘And does he know?’
‘Does who know what?’ Her face flushed as if she had been slapped.
‘Does he know what kind of work you do for Farag?’
‘Go! My husband is coming now.’
The emotion in her voice betrayed a fear greater than anything Makana presented. She seemed to lose her balance and stumble backwards, letting the door swing open. Makana stepped inside. There was no resistance. The woman sank back on to a conveniently placed chair, clasping her hands together.
‘I knew this day would come,’ she whimpered. ‘Ya rabbi, what is going to happen now?’
‘I’m not here to hurt you,’ Makana said gently.
‘I have done nothing.’ She bit her index finger. ‘I knew you were police the moment I saw you.’
‘A woman in your position can’t afford to do nothing.’
‘I knew it would come to this,’ she repeated. ‘My husband will kill me if he finds out anything. Please, you have to go right now! I’m begging you.’
‘Maybe I should wait to talk to him.’ Makana folded his arms.
‘No, please! I swear, he’ll kill me.’ Pressing her hands to her face she began to sob, rubbing her fists into her eyes until the kohl ran, making her resemble a panda.
‘I swear I thought at first Farag was a decent man. I mean, I never liked him, but it’s a job. At the end of the day there’s no difference between one man and another. You’re all animals.’
‘Is Farag blackmailing Adil Romario?’
The woman stiffened and Makana realised he had made a mistake. Now her eyes narrowed.
‘You don’t know.’ She had one hand pressed to her heaving chest. ‘You have no idea. Ya satir, and I almost told you everything . . . I’ll bet you’re not even with the police.’
‘Tell me about the girl, the one in the movie with Adil . . . Mimi Maliki?’
‘That’s all you want?’ The woman pawed hopelessly at her tears with a handkerchief taken from her sleeve, smearing her face. ‘You men are all the same.’ Somehow she had found the strength of purpose to stand up to him. ‘I’m telling you to get out!’
There no longer seemed to be much point in fighting her. As he descended the stairs, Makana had to step aside to make room for a large man, who was huffing and puffing as he climbed. He didn’t raise his head as he went by.
Chapter Thirteen
This time Makana spotted the young man almost as soon as he left the building. Standing off to one side, back against the wall, folding away a newspaper, the man pretended to ignore him, but Makana knew immediately that he had seen him somewhere before. It wasn’t until he had almost reached the end of the street that he remembered where. Increasing his pace, Makana turned the corner and spun round on his heel, pulling up sharply. In his haste, the young man rushed round after him – and bumped straight into him.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, narrowly avoiding collision and moving aside quickly. As he made to move off, Makana stepped sideways to block his escape.
‘What’s the rush, brother?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ The man rocked back, head bobbing in wordless enquiry as he tried to find his way round.
‘Why are you following me?’ Makana again moved to stop him escaping. ‘The first time we met was near the zoological gardens, remember?’
The man’s eyes darted to left and right, seeking any avenue of escape. He was in his late twenties, a small man with unruly curly hair and an unshaven face. He wore jeans and a grey sweater and carried a large bag over one shoulder.
‘All right,’ he said, finally, giving up his evasion tactics. ‘Let’s discuss the matter.’ His keen, perceptive gaze surveyed Makana as he stabbed at the thick frame of his spectacles, bumping them higher on his nose. ‘Which paper do you work for?’
‘Who said I work for a paper?’
‘Okay, I get it, you’re freelance.’
Makana stepped towards him. The man backed off. ‘We’re getting away from the question I asked. Why are you following me?’
‘Following you?’ The young man attempted a laugh. ‘I want the same thing you want.’
‘Which is what?’
‘The story . . . Adil Romario, of course.’
‘What makes you think I’m interested in Adil Romario?’
‘Come on.’ The twitching of the journalist’s face betrayed his keenness. He was sure he had Makana now. ‘You were coming out of Hanafi’s building, then you were at the club. You were asking about Adil Romario.’
‘You seem to know a lot.’
‘I’ve been covering this story for a while. Nobody knows this team better than I do.’
The faint shadow of doubt in his eyes, however, suggested that he was wondering if perhaps he had met his match. Makana reached into his shirt pocket for his cigarettes and lit one. As a rule he didn’t like journalists. Most of them were lazy crooks, ready to beg, steal or lie their way to a good story, not caring who or what got trampled on in the process, least of all the truth.
‘Why don’t we sit down for a minute and compare notes?’ suggested the man. He gestured to a café nearby. ‘Maybe we can make a deal? A trade between professionals?’
‘A deal?’ Makana mused. ‘What kind of deal?’
‘We’re both in the dark. We pool our information and both of us gain.’
Makana was unconvinced, but he needed to find out how much the other man knew.
‘Okay, let’s talk.’
‘Not so fast,’ replied the journalist. ‘I need a coffee.’
They managed to make it across the wide boulevard of Al Tahrir Street without being run over. The café was a simple place with blue tiles on the walls. There were four metal tables with low wooden stools set around them. The place was crowded and appeared to be run by a gangly kid of about thirteen who was taking orders and juggling coffee pots on the stove with a dexterity that belied his age. The journalist held out his hand.
‘If we’re going to work together, we may as well introduce ourselves. I’m Sami Barakat.’
Makana ignored his hand. He remembered the name. This was the author of the article about unrest in the team.
‘Okay, Sami, let’s begin by you telling me what you are bringing to this little partnership?’
The hand wavered in the air and then sank slowly. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, I get the feeling I’ve been leading you around this story like a child guiding a blind man. What’s your angle?’
The other man squinted at him through the smoke. ‘It’s funny. You know, when I was following you, there were times I wasn’t even sure you were a reporter at all.’
Makana met his gaze evenly. ‘What else would I be?’
‘The usual. Maybe police, maybe security.’ Sami Barakat adjusted his spectacles.
‘Look, you’re the one who wanted to make a deal. I think you’re the one who needs to explain himself. How did you pick up on this story?’
‘Well, it’s simple, really. I’ve been covering football for some years now.’ Sami Barakat dropped his cigarette butt on the floor amid a muddy paste of coffee grounds and tobacco flakes, and lit another one. ‘You know how it is, nobody gives you a chance. You have to keep your eyes open for a big story that you can get clean away with. Well, this is my lucky break.’
Makana observed as the boy sauntered between the busy tables with all the flair of a dancer, sliding two cups of coffee and glasses of water between them before pirouetting away.
‘Okay, so what’s your take on Romario?’
‘The difference between a reasonably good player and an exceptional one is their ability to be in the right place at exactly the right moment.’ The journalist touched a hand to his forehead in a gesture of despair. ‘But recently this guy
is never in the right place at the right time. I mean, if he’s standing there and the ball rolls up and shakes his hand, he might just be able to put it in the net, but don’t ask him to go and fetch it.’
‘He’s overrated, then, in your opinion?’
‘He’s inconsistent.’
‘How do you explain that?’
‘I think he’s lost it. Love of the game, I mean. He wants out but he doesn’t know how.’
Sami Barakat sipped his coffee and lit another cigarette. It made sense. Adil had been brought up to be the star of Hanafi’s team. But he’d lost interest in the game. He was tired of being a hired monkey. He wanted to be respected in his own right. Was it possible that he felt resentment towards the very man who had picked him out of obscurity and set him on a pedestal?
‘It’s like everything else in this country,’ Sami Barakat continued. ‘We sold ourselves to the shaitan. Everyone wants to be nice to Hanafi so that he will be nice to them in turn. Nobody dares write the truth. Well, I did and I shall probably lose my job for it. It’s all rotten. It begins with politics, never wanting to print anything that might offend someone . . . the Muslim Brotherhood, the Ministers, even the President. We’ll forgive them all because the only thing for sure in this country is that sooner or later we all need a favour, and who better than Hanafi to do us one? He’s everyone’s generous uncle.’
‘And the rumours of Romario being picked up by a big European club?’
‘You surely don’t buy that?’ Barakat looked pained. ‘Who would take him?’
‘Hanafi has contacts, he might be able to swing it.’
‘Even Hanafi can’t pull off that miracle.’
Makana stirred sugar into his cup. ‘What about Clemenza? Could he set it up?’
‘The only thing Clemenza could set up is a card game.’
‘He must still have influence in Europe.’
‘I see where you are going with this.’ The reporter nodded. ‘Clemenza is as crooked as they come and he hates Hanafi enough to try something like that. But I just don’t believe it’s possible. Besides, Clemenza’s on the way out. He hasn’t won anything for ages and the players aren’t fond of him. And I hear his gambling debts are sizeable. He spends most nights losing at the tables in the Semiramis Casino. He could do with a little commission but he knows better than to try and promote Adil.’ Sami Barakat sat back and grinned. ‘So you’re not a sportswriter, eh?’
‘I never said I was.’
Barakat thought about this and commented, ‘I can’t say that I really understand what you are up to.’ Makana clicked his tongue but otherwise remained silent. Barakat took this as an invitation to continue speaking.
‘I’ve read your work, right? I just don’t know the face. I mean, that is exactly what is wrong with most journalists today. All too busy turning themselves into celebrities. They want to be the news, rather than report it. And here you are. Anonymous. Nobody knows your face. Now that’s something I can respect.’ He took another sip of coffee and lit a fresh cigarette. ‘The papers are only interested in scandal nowadays, not what they get up to on the football field, right?’
‘Millions of people would disagree with you there.’
‘Where are you going?’
As he paid for the coffee Makana told the boy to keep the change. In return he received a mock salute: ‘Shukran ya reis!’ Everyone was an actor in this town. Makana got to his feet.
‘Hey, hold on a minute!’ Barakat grabbed his satchel and followed Makana out into the street. ‘I thought we were going to work together on this?’
‘Then you thought wrong . . . and if you ever try following me again, you’d better hope I don’t catch you. Understood?’
Chapter Fourteen
Like Makana’s awama, most vehicles in this city resembled artefacts hijacked from a museum rather than any modern means of transport. Taxis sputtered, minivans squealed and heavy old buses lumbered by like ageing elephants heading for the graveyard. Trailing billowing tempests of acrid black smoke, the herds migrated daily, back and forth across the metropolis, packed with people on their way into town or out, on their way to work or home to their families, to sleep, to make money, to dream. The things that keep the world turning.
If Umm Ali had any dreams it was difficult to guess what they might be. The way she talked about her late husband one might have surmised that his death was the answer to a fervent prayer. Her problems had ended ten years ago when Allah decided to take him from her. Alive, he was nothing but a headache: ‘Men! With their needs and their urges! When Allah says let every man till his field as he sees fit, that doesn’t mean every night!’ It was a favourite subject with her, the departure of her beloved from this world. He had managed to give her four children and, as she never failed to remind her tenant, ‘Our Lord knows he was trying his best to give me another when his moment came.’
Makana always felt a pang of sympathy for the departed husband, particularly when she came to this final detail. Umm Ali never seemed to tire of reminding him that she had once been the object of one man’s passionate affections, wafting before him like a diaphanous veil the possibility that there was no reason why this should not happen again, if Allah chose that path for her.
Umm Ali’s eldest boy was away in the army. Her pride and joy, she would parade him endlessly around for the first day or two whenever he came home, waiting on him hand and foot, until she got tired of seeing him lounging about doing nothing all day but smoking cigarettes and sleeping. Then she would put him to work. For a few days he would hoe the fields reluctantly and fix everything and anything that had broken down in his absence, with a resigned but content smile. But by the end of the week he too had grown tired of the close family embrace and would be packed up and ready to return to his barracks. ‘Only two more days to go,’ he would confide to Makana, cadging a cigarette before his mother’s strident voice sought him out once more. His eyes were already shining with anticipation, seeing himself leaping on to the back of an army lorry, bumping along a road towards a lonely outpost, to stand guard over who knows what useless strategic target.
Next in line were two girls who couldn’t have been more different. One was trapped in the midst of plump adolescence, wiggling her broadening hips at the slightest glimmer of attention, while the younger one was skinny as a cane and cross-eyed, which people often assumed meant she was retarded when actually she was probably smarter than the lot of them put together. She helped her mother with the garden, which was their main source of food and regular income, and carried the vegetables with her to the stall they set up on a mat under the eucalyptus tree by the road. The last child was the little delinquent whom Makana would regularly catch going through his things, looking for something of value. He was the one who was handy with the pliers.
‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ Umm Ali, helpful as always, called out, as he reached the narrow plank that led on board. ‘The telephone has been ringing.’
The sun was setting as Makana climbed the stairs to the rear deck. He often sat up there late into the evenings to read, when the insects were not too bad and there was kerosene in the old lamp on those occasions when the power was cut. Most of the time you didn’t need lights; the glow from the city provided more than enough illumination for most things, with or without the electricity connected. Late at night a surprising serenity fell over the city, when the traffic started to die away and the moon appeared as a ghostly shadow hovering over the skyline. Everything seemed to be holding its breath. Then a sort of clarity would come over his mind. Now he reached for the telephone and dialled all the numbers for Mimi Maliki in Adil Romario’s address book. Once again he had no luck and on the last attempt was about to hang up when, after about twenty rings, a hoarse voice answered: ‘Who is it?’
‘My name is Makana.’
‘Do I know you?’
‘I got this number from Adil Romario. I’m doing a story on him.’
‘On Adil? And you want to talk to me?’
‘How much?’
‘What?’
‘How much will you pay me?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Makana. ‘What do you think is fair?’
‘Two hundred US dollars,’ she blurted out, as if the number had just come into her head.
‘That’s a lot of money.’
‘Ya salaam! Did I call you? No. You want to talk to me or not?’
‘Fine. It’s a deal,’ said Makana. ‘Where do I find you?’ She gave him an address in Heliopolis and before he had time to say anything more she hung up.
Makana sat back and watched the last traces of light draining from the sky. A band of amber ringed the western horizon. The river turned a deep shade of magenta. The memory of Liz Markham’s battered body would not leave him. It was a distraction that kept nagging at him. Why would anyone torture her? He needed all his energies focused on Adil Romario, but he couldn’t shake off the idea that there was a connection between Liz Markham and whatever malign forces were at work in Adil’s case.
Or maybe it was just his own sense of guilt, taunting him for having been unable to save his own daughter seven years ago. Restlessly, he got to his feet and went over to the aft railings. Seven years ago he had looked down into this same river and watched his wife and daughter disappear before his very eyes.
No matter how many times he told himself there was nothing he could have done to avoid what happened, Makana still returned to it in his mind over and over, running through the course of events, trying to understand if there was something he might have done differently, if this might have affected the final outcome. The memory was like a physical wound that wouldn’t heal. He carried it with him constantly, could not leave behind the pain and regret. He could still recall the swaying of the battered blue police pick-up as it juddered down the rocky slope that first day, when it all began to go wrong.
