Authors: Parker Bilal
‘Look, I can see you’re worried, but I’m not exactly sure what I can do.’
‘You could talk to him. You could go to this mosque and find out what he’s up to.’
‘I could.’
Dalia stared at him for a moment. Her eyes seemed hollow, devoid of life somehow. Then she began gathering up her things, snapping cigarettes back into her bag.
‘You’re right. I’m sorry for bothering you. This was a terrible mistake.’
She got up without touching her coffee. Makana sighed. He watched as she put on her dark glasses and headed for the door. Through the window he watched her hail a taxi. In a moment she was gone. He took a sip of his coffee and pushed it aside. It tasted worse than it looked. He was the only person in the place now. The waiter was asleep, his head resting on his hand. Makana lit another cigarette. He wondered what it was that ever gave people the idea he could help them.
The Mustafa Mahmoud mosque was set within the relative calm of a green or almost green barrier that broke the flow of Dowal al-Arabiya Street. The six-lane carriageway swept by, cutting a swathe through the modern district of Mohandiseen. The patch of yellowed grass deserved a medal for survival. Or perhaps a monument. Something modest and unobtrusive. The white-painted mosque could make no claims to belonging to a classical age of great architecture or having been built by one of the legendary figures that cluttered this city’s history. The small building was dwarfed by the apartment buildings that surrounded it on all sides. It was a strange oasis in the midst of all that concrete and flying metal.
Back in the heady days of 1960s Nasserist socialism this had been open farmland allocated to young technocrats. It was named the
mohandiseen
after the engineers who were to bring the country into the modern era. As idealism faded and the city expanded, agriculture gave way to construction and yet more construction. By the 1970s comfortable villas had sprung up only to be crushed in turn by the flood tide of a population that refused to stop expanding. The fine houses were pummelled back into the ground to make way for rows of apartment blocks jammed one up against the next, twenty storeys high, to accommodate a growing middle class that demanded modern flats within striking distance of downtown.
To reach Zayed Zafrani, Makana first had to get past his henchmen, who sulked and stubbornly refused to let him by. Compared with his brother’s guard dogs, Didi and Bobo, these men had an oddly spiritual aspect to them, like warriors from another age. They carried themselves with a certain reverence. Their beards and fixed stares suggested paramilitary training, very possibly in Afghanistan or Chechnya. Fighting the good fight for Allah. Eventually, when word filtered back, Makana was allowed through to the inner sanctum. At the back of the mosque an adjoining compound housed a clinic and a storeroom for donated clothes, medical supplies, food.
Inside stood a slim figure, dressed in traditional clothes. The light from the high window fell over him like a shroud. He was busy dispensing packets of pasta and rice to families in need. A woman with a child in her arms and three more in tow thanked him over and over, imploring the Almighty to bless him. He resembled a performer of miracles rather than an emperor of organised crime. To be fair, Zayed had always had a softer touch than his rather more unpredictable brother Ayad. He motioned for his bodyguards to fall back and invited Makana to stroll along with him on what felt like a rehearsed tour. He pointed out the stockpiles of food. Sacks of rice, enormous tins of oil and beans.
‘For decades now the government has failed to help the weakest in society. There are millions in this city who are barely surviving. People are ignorant of this. They are blinded by newspapers and television that keep up a steady diet of new hospitals and factories being inaugurated by the Raïs and his heir apparent. Factories that close in a matter of weeks. Hospitals that remain empty because the contractor didn’t do his job properly and can’t be repaired because the money has vanished.’ Zayed Zafrani lifted his hands in resignation. ‘One day the people will wake up and realise that things should not be like this. In the meantime, we do what we can.’
‘I ran into your brother the other day.’
‘My brother and I have different interests. We are nine brothers and sisters and he took care of all of us. My father was useless. A weak man. He squandered his money on drink and other women. He abused his wife and children. In the end he got what he deserved.’
Makana was familiar with the rumour that the Zafrani brothers had driven their father out into the desert and buried him up to his neck in the burning sand. They left him like that for three days, and then ran over what was left of his head with a pickup. The brothers had been inducted into the life of crime by an uncle on their mother’s side of the family, an ageing patriarch who was rumoured to be still alive somewhere, like Osiris ready to return from the tomb.
‘Your brother says you’re trying to go legitimate.’
Zayed Zafrani produced a modest smile – not a quality he was over-endowed with. ‘Our retail businesses are successful. We give the people what they want at an affordable price. Modern appliances that free them up from daily chores. Women have an important role to play in society.’
‘You mean when they know their place?’
Zayed Zafrani shrugged the distinction off. ‘The people are the backbone of this country.’
‘It sounds like you’re thinking of going into politics.’
Zafrani laughed, ‘I’m sorry, I forget that I am speaking to a cynic. We are trying to create an alternative society. Unlike the president’s son and his coterie of bandits we do not seek to enrich a small elite of our friends. One day their heads will roll. I truly believe that. They represent the moral corruption of the West, the very thing that has placed us where we are now. They sell us out to big multinationals that come in and buy up this country for small change. A few men grow rich, the rest of us stay poor.’
‘You’re not doing too badly,’ observed Makana.
‘Yes, but at what price to the soul of this beautiful country?’
Makana refrained from comment. He was still having trouble believing this was not all part of an act.
‘It doesn’t sound as if you and your brother are reading from the same book. I visited his club and he seems to be making friends with a lot of those people you’re talking about.’
‘My brother has his own way and I have mine.’
‘Still,’ said Makana, looking around them. ‘Talk like that can land you in prison or worse.’
‘It would be a small price to pay for a part in history.’
‘Now you do sound like a politician.’
Zayed Zafrani laughed lightly. ‘The people yearn for justice, for fairness, for a chance in life. This government is too busy looking after itself to care about the common man. This is what the message of our prophet is to us.’
‘That’s why you’re helping the poor?’
‘We do what we can, with our limited resources.’
Not so limited, thought Makana as he peered into the clinic and saw a room full of high-tech equipment. Heart scanners. The latest technology. Bright and shiny new, as if they had been unpacked last week.
‘Where does all of this come from?’
‘Thanks be to God there are enough good Muslims in the world who know that wealth is nothing compared with doing the will of Allah.’
‘Gulf Arabs? Oil sheikhs? And enough of them are friends of yours?’
‘We have medical facilities that are the envy of hospitals in the West. We have doctors willing to give of their time and skills freely.’ They had to step aside as a van was backed up to the door of the storeroom. ‘Gifts from our wealthy brothers in the Gulf,’ he smiled.
A chain of young men and women began relaying cartons inside with brisk efficiency. Makana read the logos printed on the sides of the boxes of medicines going by.
‘It all sounds very noble.’ Makana pulled out his cigarettes and lit one. Zafrani frowned.
‘My brother believes in the old ways, in violence and intimidation. I can no longer be a part of that. On the Day of Resurrection the book on every man’s soul will lie open. I saw the error of my ways. I hope one day Ayad will also. Perhaps even you.’
‘Don’t count on it.’
Zafrani smiled, a crinkling of the eyes. ‘I believe that the way to change the world is through the hearts and souls of the people, not through their pockets.’
It struck Makana that he was looking at the more dangerous of the two brothers. Zayed was smart and devious. For all his swagger and bluster, Ayad Zafrani was easier to read.
‘Between the two of you, you ought to be running this country.’
‘Perhaps in a way we are.’ The smile faded quickly. They had reached an open area behind the mosque where a row of tired-looking flowers had been recently planted. They looked grey and unhappy in this urban setting. Zafrani ordered one of his men to fetch some water. The guard looked unhappy at the prospect of getting his clothes dirty for the sake of a few flowers. Nevertheless, he wandered off and came back with a bucket.
‘Actually, I came here to find someone.’
Makana watched the guard clumsily trying to keep his trousers dry and water the plants at the same time. He made what might have seemed a simple task incredibly complicated. Zafrani made a gesture and the bodyguard handed over the bucket and lumbered off, still shaking his leg.
‘A man named Na’il? Rides a motorcycle. I believe he comes here sometimes.’
‘A lot of people come here.’ Zafrani’s eyes twinkled behind his spectacles. ‘Our doors are open to all, even those who do not yet know the meaning of belief.’
Makana left him there, trying to perform the miracle of bringing withered plants back to life.
That night Makana took a taxi back across town to Maadi and the house of the winged lion. The two doormen in shiny tuxedos looked him over and shook their heads as if he was wasting their time. Makana held out his telephone.
‘Let’s call Mr Zafrani and see what he says. Do you want to talk to him, or should I?’
The two men exchanged a long glance, then the fat one behind the desk nodded his consent and the shaven-headed one stepped aside.
‘It’s nothing personal, but we get paid to do our job.’
Upstairs, Gigi smiled as if greeting an old friend and he leaned on the bar and tried to behave as if he was. Just another lonely man in need of diversion. Having shown her the chips he still had from his last visit, he sipped the watery drink that was put before him and signed the chit. Ayad Zafrani was onto a good thing. A place like this encouraged people to be bad, reckless, and spend more money. For a time he wandered around the roulette table. Never having played before didn’t seem like a disadvantage. None of the other players appeared to have much idea of what they were doing. They were more concerned with trying to outdo their friends. There was a lot of male camaraderie going on: middle-aged men grateful for a chance to leave their wives at home and play at being boys again. That about summed it up. The younger ones were trying to impress their elders. There was a lot of drinking and loud talking. If they got too loud or too boisterous, one of the wooden faces in a cheap tuxedo would step up and ask them quietly to tone it down. Ayad Zafrani ran a stylish establishment and Makana wondered how many of his clients actually knew who the owner was and how he made a living. To some it would only add to the thrill, a touch of danger.
One of the tuxedos was watching Makana from across the room. He had that fixed, canine stare that suggested he disapproved of something. Makana waved his glass at the bartender for a refill. It was basically iced water with a delicate hint of whatever the Scots had intended it to be. Makana held his glass up to the light. He understood the business of the paper napkin now; it made it harder to see the colour of the liquid inside.
‘Where did you learn to pour a drink?’ Makana tried to look like he was enjoying it.
The bartender mentioned a couple of places Makana had never heard of. Either there was a whole underground world of drinking clubs and clandestine bars or he had a lively imagination.
‘Maybe you’ve seen a friend of mine in here. An American. Funny guy. Frankie. Wears a crumpled suit?’
‘Mr Frankie?’ The bartender had maintained a sour expression on his face ever since Makana had first set eyes on him. Now it lifted slightly. ‘He’s been here a couple of times. Jack Daniel’s. Straight up. Likes to pour it himself.’
‘I’ll bet he does. Was he here with a friend?’
The sour face returned. ‘I thought he was
your
friend?’
‘Well, you know how it is. He owes me money.’
‘I’ve never seen him with anyone. He comes in alone and he leaves alone.’ The eyes narrowed some more. ‘He’s like you, he asks a lot of questions.’
‘Give me another drink, and this time try to get some of that whisky into the glass.’
Makana turned his back on the counter. The place was quieter this evening. He decided to take a stroll around the card tables. Only three of them were occupied by solitary players, alone or in pairs. Some of Kasabian’s hard-earned cash was deposited in the form of plastic chips on the green baize table, and the spinning wheel whisked it away into thin air and a dark pocket somewhere out of sight. There wasn’t much excitement there. A drunken man who resembled the editor of a national newspaper was throwing his money away and pawing the girl next to him, who Makana recognised from the line-up on his previous visit. There was nobody in the place who answered to a description of Kadhim al-Samari. No Iraqis as far as he could hear.