As the brothers entered the café their grandfather was addressing a young man no older than Gebre, a new member of the waiting staff and so, for Gabriel, a new audience. He was pointing a bony finger in the direction of the Fiat garage.
‘I helped to build that building. A garage made in the shape of an aeroplane, wings longer than an aeroplane: unsupported, made from stone but hanging in the air … like magic.’ He broke off from the tale to greet the boys. ‘I will tell you the rest of this story later, you will be amazed. These are my grandsons: Solomon and Gebre.’
The pair nodded a greeting.
‘Sit, boys, sit. What will you have? Pisseti yes? And coffee or something else?’
Solomon looked back towards the bar; behind the zinc counter was a tinted mirror flecked with gold. This mirror served the dual purpose of making the room feel larger than it was and of doubling the number of drinks on offer. It was a necessary doubling, the choice was small. They ordered two bottles of orangeade along with a plate of the small pizzas and their grandfather nodded his approval.
‘You can always order some more later, you can have everything you like today.’ He grinned at Solomon. ‘Did Gebre tell you? I won big money on the football.’ Gabriel reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a roll of brown notes secured with a green rubber band and some coins which he deposited on the table. ‘Manchester United versus Bournemouth.’
‘United won?’
‘No!’ The old man laughed. ‘Thankfully for me – and for you – they lost. I bet my money on Bournemouth. I like to back the underdog sometimes; you don’t win that often but when you do win, it feels very good.’ Gabriel poured an inch of beer into both the boys’ water glasses and lifted his own drink. ‘Let us drink a toast to the underdogs.’ The three of them clinked glasses and drank.
As he put his glass down Gebre caught the eye of a thin, middle-aged man sitting alone at the table behind his grandfather with an empty glass in front of him. The man wore a tired-looking brown suit and, as Gebre watched, he took a notebook and pen from his pocket and started to write.
Gabriel saw the look of concern on his grandson’s face and, turning in his seat, he jutted his chin in the direction of the man’s notepad. ‘We are just chatting about football here, my brother, nothing else. No need for you to be concerned.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, old man.’
‘Is that right? Then put the pen and paper back into your pocket.’ He turned back to Gebre. ‘Grandson, why don’t you take some of my money and buy our friend here a beer.’
The man gave a nod of thanks and put his notepad away. He rose and followed Gebre to the bar to make sure that the beer he’d been promised was imported and not the local Suwa beer.
Gabriel turned towards Solomon with his eyebrows raised. ‘Even here it happens.’
Solomon nodded. ‘Everywhere.’
‘Last week I went to try and find your grandmother, up at the graveyard. She was not where I left her – always on the move, that woman. It took me a good long time to find her and when I did I swear to God that there was a fellow at the next grave, listening to every word I said to her. That is how things are in Eritrea now; you can’t even talk to your dead without the government listening! No wonder the young leave.’ He drained his drink. ‘Damn them all. Please cheer me up, big grandson; tell me where you have been cycling today, tell me what you’ve seen.’
Solomon beamed as he described that morning’s cycle ride to his grandfather: all the way from Asmara down to Port Massawa and back again without a stop. The route took him over the mountains, a hard ride but also the one Sol loved best. ‘I was moving through the clouds for a mile or more, Grandfather. Coming down the mountain into Massawa you feel like you are flying.’
‘I believe you. Maybe I can come with you one of these days; you can put me on the handlebars.’
Solomon grinned. The plate of pizza arrived and he cut one in half and ate hungrily.
‘I am still trying to acquire that bike helmet you told me about, Sol, and the shoes too.’
Solomon shook his head. ‘Do not worry, I am doing fine with what I have. My latest times are as good as anyone else’s – on the track and on the road.’
His grandfather nodded. ‘Eat, eat. I need to talk to you about this some more but we will wait for your brother.’
In time Gebre returned with another bottle of beer for his grandfather and the orangeade. ‘I’m sorry. That man didn’t just want to drink your money, he wanted to justify himself as well.’
Gabriel nodded.
‘He says there are reports of illegal meetings here – people who harbour ill will for the government.’
Their grandfather gave a snort of laughter. ‘Almost every man and woman walking down the Dekemhare Road fits this description.’
Gebre smiled but lowered his voice. ‘I suppose, but you should be careful, Grandfather, he says they are investigating economic crime too. Information about people bringing things over the border … stealing from Red Sea Shipping.’
Gabriel gave a shrug. The ruling party owned and ran the Red Sea Shipping Corporation – but not very well, they often lost track of shipments and some of the things they lost ended up in Gabriel’s hands. The boys’ grandfather glanced back at the man in the brown suit, who was bending the ear of the barman while glugging his second free beer.
‘I am not so worried. Remember what I tell you, boys: when thief robs thief – God laughs.’
5 Arabs Got Talent
DATELINE: The Seti Hotel, Cairo, Egypt, January 26 2011
It had seemed like a good deal at the time, but now Carver wasn’t so sure. Patrick had offered to record all the interviews they needed; in effect, do almost all the work. In return William would swim the twenty lengths his doctor had recommended. Carver had spent the day in bed, sleeping off a hangover – a real humdinger. Now Carver came to think about it, the hangover was partly Patrick’s fault. It was Patrick who’d bought the piss-poor Polish vodka and Patrick who’d watched while he drank the whole damn bottle. Now here he was, trunks on underneath his trousers and more or less ready to go; he just needed the other hotel guests to bugger off. Swimming was bad enough without an audience – the idea of being watched as he wandered around half naked and waded into the shallows was unbearable.
At least the pool at the Seti Hotel was decent: thirty metres long and clean, though slightly over-chlorinated in Carver’s opinion. It was flanked on both sides by palm and pine trees and when the wind blew, the higher branches swayed and showered pine needles across the water and the surrounding garden. Carver looked at his watch then lay back on the sun lounger and stared upwards; a gust of dry Cairo air moved through the trees displacing a handful of needles, which dropped, bouncing off the roof of his sun umbrella. The sound reminded him of light English rain and he let his mind wander.
They’d been schlepping around North Africa for a month now, working seventeen- and eighteen-hour days with barely time to stop or think. The Seti was the first decent place they’d stayed in, or rather the first decent place he’d stayed in. Patrick was staying elsewhere – in a crappy little hotel down in the centre with nothing to recommend it other than it overlooked Tahrir Square. He felt a little guilty about this arrangement but he’d won the coin toss fair and square and Patrick didn’t seem to mind. Carver had been bitten to hell by bed bugs in Tunis and got food poisoning for breakfast in Casablanca; maybe he deserved a little feather bedding? A gentle breeze ruffled the swimming pool; most of the other hotel guests had packed up for the day but there was still a group of women, Russian he thought, sitting down in the shallows, chatting and swinging their feet in the water. They talked loudly and with the confidence that comes from knowing that few others can understand your conversation. Carver stared at them in the hope that this might encourage them to leave; it didn’t – they glared back.
The double doors opened with a loud creak and Patrick stepped somewhat gingerly on to the balcony; t
he wrought ironwork was rusted to green and broken in places but the grey cement floor seemed solid enough. His room at the Royal View was a poky little single at the top of the building with a bare light bulb and the narrowest of beds, but it had a clear view of Tahrir Square and that outweighed all the disadvantages. The plan had been that one of them stay here – with a box seat on what might soon be the biggest story in the world – while the other took a room up the road at the Seti, where they had proper comms: a reliable power supply, Wi-Fi, working telephones and so on. At first Carver had argued that he should take the room at the Royal View but Patrick suggested they toss for it, with whoever called the coin correctly getting the more comfortable option. Patrick tossed the coin and when it landed in his favour lied about the outcome. Carver had had a hard time of it in Tunisia and Morocco, he was run down and Patrick thought the rest would do him good. What’s more there was a swimming pool at the Seti Hotel and therefore a chance that William might do some exercise. Exercise that had been recommended in the strongest possible terms in the doctor’s note that Patrick had found stuffed down at the bottom of Carver’s plastic bag.
He gazed down at Tahrir Square. A steady stream of people had arrived through the day and a fair chunk of the square – the equivalent of a football pitch in size or slightly bigger, now belonged to the protesters. Patrick smiled as he remembered the recent lecture he’d had from his colleague about using football pitches as a unit of measurement. Patrick had suggested that William might be using it too often.
‘People know how big a bloody football pitch is. You want me to say one hundred and twenty yards by seventy yards?’
He went on to catalogue the comparisons that were and weren’t acceptable as far as he was concerned. Twice the size of a double-decker bus was fine; half the height of Nelson’s Column was okay. Using Wales as a standard unit of measurement was not. Patrick had noticed that Wales was now used to measure everything from forest fires to American states to oil slicks and Carver was against it. ‘All it tells you is that something is quite big.’
‘Better to say half a million football pitches?’
‘Wales is as big as two million football pitches. I checked.’
Inside the protesters’ football-pitch-sized space, tents were being erected and larger makeshift structures built from planks of wood and tarpaulin: they were settling in. Patrick reached for his phone and checked the Twitter feed belonging to Tsquare Lawan, the activist whose posts he’d started following. Dozens of people were posting about the protests but a lot of it was rubbish. Patrick had grown to like Lawan; the information he put out was clear and reliable, and the odd tweet could even raise a smile. Patrick scrolled through to find the most recent posts. He’d grown used to Lawan’s habit of posting first in Arabic and then a few moments later in basic but competent English. Sure enough:
@tsquarelawan
Fellow Egyptians watching Arabs Got Talent … there’s a better show: Tunisia Got Freedom! Watch that!
@tsquarelawan
At school we learn that history is made by powerful men or economic forces but …
@tsquarelawan
… sometimes it changes because a few thousand people can hold on to a square … come!
Patrick smiled and gazed down at the square; most likely Lawan was in there somewhere. A couple of bonfires were going now and a string of caged light bulbs marked the perimeter of the protesters’ camp. The scene reminded Patrick of Marrakech and the Djema el-Fna market. He’d been there with Rebecca – their first foreign holiday together – and more recently with Carver. The second visit had been significantly more stressful and a good deal less romantic than the first. Patrick made a tally of the last month: four different countries, eight different cities, a dozen flights at least.
They’d started in Tunisia covering the story of a young street-seller called Mohamed Bouazizi who had set fire to himself in protest at police harassment and political corruption. Bouazizi ran a fruit and vegetable cart and had worked hard for years, supporting his own family from the age of eight as well as giving any spare food he had to people even poorer than himself. His self-immolation had triggered a wave of popular dissent and Carver and Patrick arrived in Tunisia in time to report on the early stages of that protest. William had hoped that he might get a chance to interview Bouazizi and they camped out at the hospital for a few days. When the kid died, Carver and Patrick produced obituary pieces for any outlet that would take them: local radio, national radio and the World Service. The protests grew, as did interest in the story and the Tunisian President ended up fleeing to Saudi Arabia, washing up in Jeddah, the same city where the Saudis had sheltered Idi Amin. Carver and Patrick covered it all and after Tunisia travelled on first to Yemen and then Morocco before Carver decided that Egypt was where the real battle would take place.
The larger part of Tahrir Square that wasn’t under occupation remained open to traffic, and volunteers were directing vehicles at several intersections but with mixed success. From where Patrick stood it looked more like a banger race than a working roundabout. No one seemed sure who had right of way. A taxi had stopped in the middle of the road and the driver was making a half-hearted attempt to untwist his car bonnet, which had been dented and distended in a collision with a city bus. The bus had stopped as well and a hastily convened jury, made up of passengers, pedestrians and some of the young demonstrators, was being asked to pass judgement on the crash. Eventually, after much shouting and by majority decision, they agreed that the bus driver should give the cabbie a few notes. This done, the jury turned their attention to the broken car. Using hands and elbows they wrestled the metal back into a shape such that the bonnet would stay shut, at least until the driver could reach a garage.
As the taxi drove off, everyone went on their way and Patrick was left feeling rather impressed that the whole incident had been handled without any police involvement. There were police in the square but they were gathered in groups at the main entrances to Tahrir, sitting slumped in coaches resting and readying themselves for whatever the next day might bring. As he’d moved around the city centre that day, collecting material so Carver could rest, Patrick had a feeling that the regime and the protesters were drawing breath, preparing themselves for the next encounter, an encounter that both sides expected to be definitive.
Patrick pulled the doors shut and stepped back inside. He gathered his recording equipment together, checked his rucksack, closed his bedroom door and rode the antique Schindler elevator with its caged doors back down to the lobby. The walk from his hotel to Carver’s had been taking him around twenty-five minutes. He bet himself he could do it in twenty, glanced at his watch and set off.
Carver shaded his eyes and stared at the pool – shining that bright particular blue in the low evening sun. The only person doing any actual swimming belonged to the Russian women: a dark-haired girl, three or four years old, who was bobbing about in the deep end, close to Carver, her round face sandwiched in between two inflatable pink armbands. The girl was staring at him and when he nodded back, the look of concentration and twist of the mouth that he received in return made him grateful for the extra chlorine. Carver wagged his finger at the kid and immediately felt the Russian women’s attention turn again in his direction; there was another loud exchange of opinion before the girl’s mother grudgingly left her sun lounger. She made some minor adjustments to her metallic gold bikini before striding up the side of the pool. Bending low, the woman grabbed hold of an armband and dragged her daughter back towards the shallows.
Carver called after her. ‘Spasibo.’
On hearing this, the woman let go of the armband, turned back and spat one of the few Russian phrases Carver was familiar with plus an unnecessary English translation. He shrugged and turned his attention to the wooden hut with the palm-frond roof that served as the Seti’s poolside bar. He wanted a drink but knew that even one bottle of the crappy local beer would put paid to any swimming. And he’d promised Patrick that he�
�d swim.
The sun lounger Carver had chosen was situated close enough to the bar that he could hear the conversation taking place but not so near that he risked being drawn into it. The half a dozen men and women at the bar belonged to his tribe: foreign correspondents working for a range of international papers, radio and television networks. He tuned his ear and caught a mixed bag of accents: American, French and an Antipodean voice that he thought he recognised; he turned and took a look but the woman had her back to him and was wearing a headscarf. His fellow hacks were discussing a Muslim Brotherhood meeting they’d heard was taking place, a key meeting. They all knew it was happening but none of them knew when or where. Carver cleaned his glasses on his shirt-tail and glanced around the gardens. Zahra should be on shift by now; she’d know where the meeting was or, if she didn’t, she’d be able to find out.
The sun had left the pool now and the Russian women were on their way too. Carver stood, pulled his white shirt over his head, dropped his glasses on top along with his watch and shuffled out of his trousers. Twenty lengths – he could manage that. Then a beer.
There were several aspects of Cairo’s complicated geography that confused Patrick. Top of the list were the pedestrian passageways: narrow alleys that ran in between and sometimes right through the middle of buildings. They were so narrow that it was almost impossible for two people to cross without touching. Emerging from one of these – a clever shortcut, or so he hoped – Patrick stopped. He found himself standing next to a building site; workmen were pouring porridge-coloured concrete into the foundations of another new building. He crossed the road heading away from the commercial centre and into a more residential neighbourhood. The stench of diesel and rotting vegetables was temporarily absent. In its place, wood smoke, grilled meat and garlic. The locals were preparing their evening meals. The stretch of street he was on, with its thick, dark wooden doors and fractured pavement, seemed vaguely familiar but he decided to check the tatty tourist map that Carver had given him anyway.
A Single Source Page 5
