The Haha Man

by Sandy Mccutcheon

  ‘And that would be okay?’

  ‘It had better be.’ Chloë smiled darkly. ‘It’s not as if we’re going to call an ambulance for him, is it?’ She lit her cigarette and put her feet up on the balcony rail. ‘I reckon it’s gonna rain.’

  Layla was thinking it was time for her to go back to the hotel, check in with Ray, when the phone rang.

  ‘It’s for you,’ Chloë said, returning to the balcony with a cordless. ‘It’s Ray.’

  As Ray brought her up to date with the night’s events Layla’s heart rate rose. Then he casually dropped the news: Fossey was with him.

  Shocked, she held her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Fossey’s in Sydney.’

  Chloë’s mouth opened. ‘Christ!’

  Layla took her hand from the phone. ‘How does he feel about what I’m going to do?’

  There was a raw silence. Then Ray said, ‘I haven’t told him. I thought it was better coming from you.’

  ‘I’ll meet you at the hotel in an hour,’ she said and hung up.

  ‘What will you say?’ Chloë looked nervous.

  ‘I guess I’ll tell him everything.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t have any other choice really, do I?’

  ‘No, I guess not.’

  ‘And I did mean to tell him …’

  ‘It’ll be fine.’ Chloë kissed her cheek. ‘And once that’s out of the way, we can get on with this evening.’

  ‘That’s what I’m scared of.’

  Chloë looked at her with surprise. It was the first time since they had known each other that she had heard fear in Layla’s voice. ‘You’re scared too?’ she said quietly.

  Layla nodded.

  Beneath them the early morning city seemed oddly quiet, as though holding its breath while the sun marked time behind the clouds.

  It was still early when Karim, stiff and bleary-eyed, rang David at the hotel.

  ‘Can you go shopping for me?’

  ‘Sure. Name it.’

  ‘I need ammunition for the Glock.’

  ‘Shit, Karim!’ There was a pause and a long sigh. ‘Okay, okay — how much?’

  ‘If the pistol actually works, I will need only half a dozen rounds.’

  ‘It’s a …?’

  ‘Point four five calibre.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘I’m not fussy what sort. As long as they work,’ Karim said. ‘I need them before ten.’

  David swore again. ‘Listen, let me tell you about the kind of people who have bloody ammunition for sale. They don’t tend to get out of bed before lunch time.’

  ‘Then wake them.’ Karim hung up before David could respond.

  It was almost ten o’clock when David and Michael turned up. Michael was driving his van, loaded up with the equipment they would need at the warehouse.

  ‘These do you?’ David thrust an innocuous-looking paper bag into Karim’s hand. ‘You have no idea how much trouble —’

  ‘They’ll be fine.’ Karim didn’t bother checking. ‘Now, if you wait in the car, I won’t be a minute.’

  Michael and David, unused to Karim’s bluntness, exchanged glances but did as they were told.

  Karim waited until the front door closed, then he went through to the kitchen. In a convivial pall of cigarette smoke, Amir was drinking coffee with one of his men from the mosque. They looked up expectantly.

  ‘Have you got the documents?’

  ‘These?’ Amir handed him two passports and a small folder of papers.

  Karim glanced in the folder then put it down while he concentrated on the passports. He thumbed through them and was about to put them into his pocket when he noticed the visa in one. Not believing his eyes he flipped open the second one. It was the same. Both of them were business visas. Genuine.

  He opened the folder and was rewarded with the sight of a document which confirmed that DIMA had fast-tracked their applications — under instructions from the minister. It was signed by Robin Philson.

  He folded this into one of the passports and slipped them into his pocket.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ he said. Beckoning Amir to follow him, he went through the hall to the bedroom.

  The three men were still bound and gagged, propped against the wall on the far side of the room. As Karim and Amir entered, the guard got to his feet and placed the pistol in Karim’s extended hand.

  ‘Which one?’ Amir asked.

  Karim pulled the clip from the pistol and slotted the rounds in one by one. The prisoners watched every move. ‘I think we take the one called Basim.’

  Amir nodded and gestured to his man. Together they stepped over to the young man and dragged him from the room. Karim slid the magazine into the base of the pistol grip and banged it home with his palm. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said quietly and returned to the hall, closing the door behind him.

  In the lounge Amir had pushed Basim into a chair. He looked terrified, his eyes following every movement around him.

  ‘He’s ready,’ Amir murmured. ‘I think he knows what is going to happen.’

  Karim walked over to the boy and touched his cheek with the pistol. The boy flinched, almost toppling off the chair. Karim kept stroking his face, almost lovingly. Then he pushed the gun into the back of the boy’s neck. He spoke very softly.

  ‘You know that you are not cut out to be a martyr. I’m afraid that you might have an accident before you get to perform your duties.’ He removed the pistol and ran his fingers through Basim’s hair. ‘But then, we could help you. If you are willing to tell us what you have planned, we might assist.’ He glanced up at Amir who was watching wide-eyed. ‘We would be happy to work with him, wouldn’t we?’

  Amir swallowed nervously, his eyes fixed on the gun. He was unsure of where Karim was leading. ‘Yes.’

  Karim stepped in front of Basim and squatted down. ‘You help us, we help you. Yes?’

  Karim sensed by the look in the boy’s eyes that if his mouth hadn’t been taped shut, he would have spat in his face.

  ‘Tell me about the air-fresheners. That’s how you spread the virus, isn’t it? Tell me where you placed them and we can stop a lot more people from dying.’

  Basim blinked and shook his head.

  ‘Fine.’ Karim stood. ‘Let me show you how people miss out on becoming shaheed.’ He picked up a small pillow off the floor and pushed the muzzle of the pistol into it. It would, he hoped, cut down some of the noise. Without another word he disappeared down the hall.

  A few seconds later there was the sound of a door closing and the man who had been guarding the prisoners came into the lounge. He was ashen-faced and looked at Amir for some explanation. Amir shook his head and they stood in silence, looking down the hall towards the bedroom.

  A muffled shot buffeted the air. Both men jolted in fright and Basim let out a low moan. There was a thumping sound, then silence. From outside came the noise of a car cruising slowly down the street. Amir moved towards the window to check.

  Another shot. This time the stillness was complete.

  Karim walked back into the room and tossed the remains of the pillow in the corner. He looked Amir in the eye. ‘I’m sorry that had to be done.’ He crossed to Basim, who was trembling uncontrollably, a wet stain spreading around the crotch of his trousers. Karim pushed the hot barrel hard into his cheek. ‘Now, are you going to talk to me?’

  Amir held his breath, willing the boy to nod.

  Karim sighed, took a step away and then spun back, bringing the whole force of his body behind the blow. His hand collected the boy’s head, jolting it and sending him sprawling off the chair. Karim kicked the chair out of the way and spat on Basim. ‘Then if you will not work with us to go to paradise, I will arrange to send you to hell.’

  The first few minutes were tentative. Both of them starting sentences and then halting, as though afraid that words were going to trap them.

  ‘I should have told you,’ Fossey said at last. ‘I thought somehow that the right moment would arrive, but it never
did.’

  There were so many things Layla wanted to say and so many she wanted to hear. The words of Faiz Ahmed Faiz came to her. She felt like the bird whose throat had been torn out before it could sing. The sky empty of song.

  ‘Me too,’ Layla said. It seemed so little. The room crowded her, pressing in and stifling her voice. She wanted to be somewhere wild. But her landscape was weighed down by buildings, by streets, by people. Outside the clouds were fractured and spears of sunlight stabbed downward. She longed for the storm to break.

  ‘I tried,’ he said, struggling, pulling at his fingers like a schoolboy. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘We forgot,’ Layla said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘To trust each other.’

  He watched her, silhouetted against the city and the sky. Then she turned, her face saddened. ‘I think we forgot how to laugh.’ She looked him in the eyes for the first time since they had come into the room. ‘And now it may be too late.’ Her words echoed between them. ‘Or perhaps we have come to a point where we need to reach deeper.’

  Fossey was lost. His head spinning, searching for meaning.

  ‘Fossey, I need something from you.’

  ‘Yes?’ She could ask anything.

  ‘I need you to say that what I am going to do today, I do with your blessing.’

  Fossey searched her face for understanding. The words sounded so easy. And yet … ‘Layla, I really don’t know what you’re going to do.’

  ‘Will you listen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And don’t say anything until I’m finished.’

  Fossey pulled out the chair from behind the desk and sat. ‘I promise.’

  So she told him, and when she had finished speaking and could find no more words, she walked over and buried her face in his neck.

  The warehouse was eerie. It was so clean, so normal. It was hard to imagine that so many deaths could be traced back to this almost empty space. The small office cubicles at one end looked as though they had never been occupied: no dust, no scraps of paper or the rubbish one might have expected. Karim doubted the men had left even a fingerprint on anything. They found the boxes of air-fresheners, hundreds of canisters of Wild Vanilla, on pallets against the rear wall.

  Ray immediately took charge. ‘Nobody goes near them. If this virus is as virulent as we are led to believe, then even a single puff of that stuff …’ He left the thought hanging in the air. There was no argument.

  But although nobody went near the canisters, they were a constant, malevolent presence in the shadows. The notion that death was waiting inside the cans …

  By mid-afternoon Michael and David had begun to make progress. The inside of the warehouse was slowly being transformed. Under David’s watchful eye, the temporary partitions that had made up the office cubicles had been taken apart and reassembled. The main door had been opened to allow Michael’s van to reverse in, and Amir and his team had unloaded it then begun a cable roll-out, carefully following Michael’s instructions.

  Karim went through the warehouse trying to find something he could use as leverage with the still silent Basim. There was nothing. The boy had retreated deep inside himself, to a place not even fear could reach. Eventually Karim gave up, stowed the now blindfolded Basim in a corner behind a pallet of canisters, and went out to organise food.

  Ray spent most of the day on his mobile, checking and rechecking with his contacts that they had tabs on the minister’s movements. His major task still lay ahead of him. Paranoid and watchful, he paced around looking worried.

  ‘Will you be ready on time?’

  Michael looked up from where he was testing one of the cameras. ‘You can always make things better. But we will have most stuff working.’ He called to David, who was rigging the first of the lights. ‘Are we going to be ready?’

  David just grinned.

  ‘And you?’ Michael asked. ‘Will you be ready?’

  Ray gave a noncommittal shrug. ‘I’m ready. It all depends …’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On whether it works.’ He gave a dry laugh. ‘It could all fall in a heap.’

  ‘And then we’re all in the shit,’ David said.

  ‘No. You guys will be okay. Just remember to say you had no idea what the hell we were doing.’

  This was greeted with roars of laughter.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Ray asked.

  Michael sat down and started to roll a cigarette. ‘It’s funny, Ray, because it’s true. We have no idea what the hell any of us are doing.’

  Ray gave a wry smile. ‘Okay. If I work it out, you’ll be the first to know.’

  ‘I’ll want that lot moved out of the way though,’ Michael said, pointing to the pallets of air-fresheners.

  Ray nodded. ‘That’s fine. But remember, nobody touches the cans themselves, okay?’

  ‘I’ve told my men if they come near I will cut off their hands,’ Amir said.

  ‘That should do it,’ Ray said. He turned back to David and Michael. ‘I’ll see you tonight. Remember, by eight o’clock the place has to be set to go and everyone in position. If the whole thing goes belly-up I’ll send a message.’

  ‘Sure,’ David said.

  ‘If it’s only one car coming down the street, prepare to start rolling. If it’s more than one, I suggest you get out the back as fast as you can.’

  He dressed very slowly, not once taking his eyes off her. Then he leaned over and kissed her forehead. ‘Later,’ was all he said.

  For another fifteen minutes she lay there. Then she slid her feet to the floor and walked reluctantly towards the bathroom. Her hesitation was not just about leaving the bed and the warm fug of their lovemaking; she knew that when she went in there she would become Rabia again and, one way or another, it would be for the last time.

  As she looked into the mirror she thought of Dhanu, the young Hindu woman from Jaffna in Sri Lanka, who had become the heroine of the Tamil women. She saw her face as Rajiv Gandhi must have, that day back in 1991.

  ‘Hello, Mr Gandhi, I am Dhanu.’

  The Indian prime minister would have looked into the face that she had prepared in front of a mirror. Eyeliner, a trace of lipstick, eyeshadow.

  ‘I am Dhanu.’

  Yes, Rabia thought, Dhanu would have had this moment in front of the mirror, and she would have taken as much care with her make-up as she had with the girdle of grenades.

  Rajiv Gandhi would have seen that face. Taken her small hands in his. And Dhanu had exploded and he had ceased to be the prime minister of India. He had ceased to be.

  Shutting her eyes, Rabia let her fingers glide over her skin, mapping the contours of her face. It was a dangerous journey, because, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t avoid the message that the skull was just beneath the surface, waiting. When it came to a contest, the skull won every time. The skin would dry, peel, rot and fall away, and the skull would emerge. The veins and nerves, the fragile internal knitting, were just waiting for the one pulled stitch that could cause the entire being to unravel.

  Rabia brought her other hand up and laid her fingers across the sockets in the skull. Beneath her touch she felt her eyelids quiver and her eyeballs move. She opened her fingers and then her eyes and stared into the mirror, wishing it was full length so she could see all of herself.

  ‘I am going to do this,’ she said out loud. ‘I am going to do it because …’

  She imagined other women standing with her. Was that what the fidayeen, the suicide squads, felt? Did they have moments in front of the mirror, personal moments? Did they whisper Allahu Akbar, as they put on lipstick and kohl for the final time? Had Emily Pankhurst told her daughters to hurry up in the bathroom, because she wanted her moment of doubt?

  Rabia turned her head and examined her profile. Looking for signs of fear. Fear was probably what linked you. Not being alone was important, and being part of a heritage — even if it was one of terrorism … The thought. she was a t
errorist now.

  Her fingers ran down her face and dipped in the basin. She cupped her hands, scooped, and bent into them, enjoying the shock of the cold water on her face. She imagined that the aliveness would send a message to her skull to bide its time. Did Irish women political prisoners on hunger strike feel like this, or Tibetan nuns before self-immolation? Had Wafa’ Idrees felt like this before she made the journey from the Al-Amari refugee camp on the West Bank to the crowded Jerusalem street where she detonated her bomb? Or Dalal Maghrebi, who also joined the shaheeds — holy martyrs — that sprang from the female fidayeen? So many of them would have desired to live, but went out knowing they would die, not faltering. The French women who had lured Nazi officers to their deaths. The Jewish women who strapped explosives to the railway lines. The Palestinian woman, Leila Khaled, the failed 1970s hijacker, who had written to her mother from prison, grieving that she was not ‘sharing with my people in the battle’. Yes, for some people there were worse things than dying. Yet …

  You are being melodramatic, she reproached herself. You are not setting out to kill or to die. Nor are you worthy to be shaheed, nor even worthy of that devalued word, terrorist.

  She glanced at the device beside her clothes. It was smaller than she had imagined. She had tried it on for size. Neat and black, it fitted snugly onto the belt. But things did not always go according to plan — death could reach out for her.

  And if she ended up in prison? She would wall herself away. It was what she knew. Her great skill. She would remove her own identity, burn her documents and retreat inside herself. She would become an internal refugee. Stateless in her own body.

  She turned on the shower and stepped into the curtain of water. Enjoyed the needles of cold that dragged her into the present.

  As she stepped out and began to towel off, she heard the door to her room. ‘Yes?’ she called out.

  ‘It’s time.’ Ray’s voice sounded muffled through the bathroom door. ‘Will you be long? Fossey’s ready.’

  ‘Just out of the shower. Give me a couple of minutes.’

  She picked up the device and strapped it around her waist.