Authors: Parker Bilal
‘You have to have one nowadays. Otherwise the world will forget you.’
‘You say that as if it’s a bad thing.’
Barazil laughed and slapped the table, hee-hawing like a donkey. ‘I swear, half of the things you say I can’t understand, and the other half make me cry tears.’
Like all good salesmen, Barazil was a showman. Makana had been considering the idea of a mobile telephone for longer than he cared to admit. The old landline was sluggish and unreliable and Umm Ali had the inconvenient habit of disconnecting the line when he was late with the rent, although she would swear on the life of her late husband that she had never tampered with it. The idea of being available at all times of the day and night, regardless of where you happened to be, made sense in many ways. On the other hand, who wanted to be available all the time?
‘How much are you charging for these things?’ Ali asked, prodding the items on the table with a wary finger.
‘I swear on my mother I would never ask anything more than a fair price.’
‘Don’t get him started on his mother,’ said Makana, glancing over to see where Aswani was with the food. The grills behind the counter were billowing smoke and flame through which Aswani’s helpers rushed back and forth. At times they looked as if they were stoking a steam engine, at others fighting a fire. At the centre of the storm stood the portly figure, issuing orders like a field marshal, inspecting every dish before it went out. The place was crowded. Large groups of traders from the bazaar, wholesale vendors, craftsmen, all gathering at the end of the day. There were the odd visitors, the occasional tourist who looked about them with wonder and a degree of unease, a little unsure if they wanted to do this after all. And then there were the night owls, the nocturnal creatures who flitted from place to place doing the rounds, looking to pick up any opportunities that might be available; newspaper vendors, boys bearing trays of cigarettes and chewing gum, ballpoint pens and lighters. People like Barazil, who was hastily tearing off strips of bread and dipping them into the appetisers with the enthusiasm of a man who has no idea where his next meal will be coming from.
‘What happened to your mother?’ asked Ali, undeterred.
‘My mother sold me to a circus when I was six.’
‘That’s terrible. How much is this one?’
‘That,
ya sidi
, is the best I have,’ Barazil gulped between mouthfuls. ‘You have good taste.’
‘Were you really in the circus?’
‘For ten years I was jumping through flaming hoops, climbing ropes, turning cartwheels. I slept in a box of straw with a chimpanzee. Until I was twelve I thought he was my closest relative. Because you are a friend of the
basha
I will give you a fair price. You can take pictures with this one and play music.’
‘Music, really?’ Ali’s eyes widened as he leaned forward eagerly for the demonstration. Makana was all but forgotten. He turned the instrument over in his hands and thought about the envelope of cash in his pocket. The time to buy such a thing was now, rather than wait until money became scarce again.
‘Is this the smallest you’ve got?’
‘Small, you want small. All you have to do is say so.’ Barazil reached into his pocket and with a flourish produced something that would have fitted into a packet of cigarettes. It folded open. ‘This is my very own, but you know what? You can have it. Just say the word. It’s brand-new. Less than a week out of the box. Try it.’
It looked like a toy. To his alarm it begin to vibrate in his hand. Makana looked up. Barazil was grinning, displaying a row of yellowed teeth, speckled with scraps of chopped parsley. He was holding up another device.
‘I’m calling.’
‘What do I do?’
‘Just press the green button. You can change the tone if you like. I have hundreds of different ones. Your favourite song. Happy Birthday. Sheikh Imam. Amr Diab. Whatever. You name it.’
You couldn’t fault Barazil for lacking enthusiasm. He never tired of explaining things to potential customers, even those who stubbornly refused to grasp even the most basic concepts.
‘When you finish you just press the red one and the call is over. There are other features. You can hold one call on the line and answer another, for example. You can store all the telephone numbers you have in it.’
Makana weighed up the device in his hand. ‘How much?’
Barazil segued smoothly into his closing routine. ‘No, no really. I can’t take your money.’
‘Just give me a price.’
‘I can’t. I swear on my mother’s grave.’
‘I thought she sold you to the circus?’ Ali looked up from the device he was studying, from which an alarming range of songs was already emanating.
‘That doesn’t change the fact that she’s my mother.’
‘Give me a price for both of them,’ said Makana. Ali began to protest, but Makana indicated for him to be quiet. Barazil, sensing victory, named a price. Makana offered half that and eventually they settled somewhere in the middle.
‘You drive a hard bargain,’ sighed Barazil as he got to his feet. Aswani was approaching bearing heaped platters of grilled fish, but Barazil knew not to overstay his welcome. ‘From the mouths of my children,’ he said, tucking his money away.
‘I thought you were married to a chimpanzee,’ said Aswani. ‘I didn’t know they could have children with men.’
But Barazil was already gone. Makana began to eat. The fish was grilled to perfection. Aswani squeezed lime juice liberally over the smoke-blackened scales and withdrew. Ali was oblivious. He sat poring over his new device, as delighted as any child with a new toy.
‘You understand this means you have to bring the car in for me to fix.’
‘I’ll have a word with Sindbad, but he’s very attached to that car. Eat before it gets cold, then tell me what you know about Kasabian.’
When Ali Shibaker first arrived in Cairo he had decided he would turn exile into an opportunity to develop his artistic talents. He had taught at the Institute of Fine Arts in Khartoum, restricting his own creative work to spare time and holidays. The dream of transforming himself into a real painter was more romantic idealism than pragmatism. Kasabian had been helpful right from the start.
‘I went to see him early on. I showed him my paintings and the man gave me money to tide me over. Never asked for anything in return, always fair on prices, never had a problem with him.’
Cairo had a strong tradition of welcoming refugees from the Arab world and beyond. Men and women had found a safe haven here for centuries, as well as a cultural climate in which to nurture their work; writers, poets, artists. Kasabian worked tirelessly on their behalf, set up exhibitions, often reaching into his own pocket to do so. In those early days, Ali had thought it might be possible. Over time he began to see just how difficult it was. The Egyptians had their own artists. To them, Ali would never be more than an exotic distraction. There were occasional breakthroughs, but not enough. Finding a teaching post met with equal resistance. When he finally came down to earth he opened a car-repair workshop. Cars had been a hobby of his since he was a teenager. In the evenings he retired to his studio above the workshop.
‘You didn’t have to buy me that telephone, you know?’
‘We’re celebrating,’ Makana reminded him. ‘You found me work.’
‘Just like in the early days,’ Ali nodded. ‘Remember that? We always shared what we had.’
‘Things haven’t changed all that much.’
‘You still haven’t told me what Kasabian has asked you to do for him.’
‘I’m not sure he would appreciate my talking about it.’
‘I understand. Just do a good job, will you? He’s important to me.’
Aswani appeared with more food. This time a handful of red snappers, along with salad and rice. For a time the two men occupied themselves with eating, then Ali’s curiosity got the better of him again.
‘Did you ever get to the bottom of that business with your daughter?’
Makana looked up, wondering where the question had come from. He reached for a napkin and wiped his mouth, having suddenly lost his appetite.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing ever came of it. Just rumours I suppose.’
‘The worst thing is not knowing.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
‘Something like that can drive a man mad.’
‘I try not to think about it,’ said Makana, reaching for his cigarettes.
Nothing more was said on the matter, but the mood had changed. While Ali ate and fiddled with his new possession, Makana smoked and looked around him. When they had finished eating he paid Aswani and walked Ali down to the main road to find a taxi.
‘Aren’t you coming along?’
‘No, I think I’ll walk for a bit.’
‘Probably ate too much,’ laughed Ali.
‘Yes, that’s probably it.’
‘Don’t forget to come by with the car, before it’s too late!’
Makana waved, then turned back to the city and the empty streets, the shuttered shopfronts, and began to walk.
Makana never gave up hope that one day he would find his daughter. By now Nasra would no longer be a child, she would be almost eighteen years old. He could only imagine how much she had changed. All his attempts to locate her had failed, and the hardest thing was coming to terms with the fact that there was nothing more he could do about it. For the moment, at least. He would find her one day, he was sure of it. He had to believe that, just as he was convinced that she was still alive.
For ten long years he had thought she was dead, that she had died along with her mother on that night when everything had changed for ever. But if life had taught Makana anything it was that it was never done with surprising you. When he first heard the rumour three years ago that she was still alive he had thought it a trick by his old enemies, a way of getting to him, of forcing him to come home. He had set about trying to find out, pulling as many strings as he could. None of his efforts had produced any substantial leads. If she was alive she was living a discreet existence, possibly under another name. Eighteen years old. Almost grown up. It would mean he had missed her entire childhood. A feeling of dismay came over him, filling him up like the dark water he had seen close over the car in which Nasra and her mother had vanished all those years ago.
A part of him had never managed to shake off the feeling of guilt that somehow he had caused their deaths. Hardly a day went by, even now, all these years later, when he didn’t feel that combination of shame and regret. It was impossible to shake off the feeling that he had failed them. He should have been able to find another way out, an alternative. He could have cooperated instead of stubbornly sticking to his principles. What did principles matter when measured against the life of a loved one? He could have yielded. How many times had Muna urged him to compromise? But he hadn’t listened. He was a detective, a police inspector, and his job was to uphold the law. ‘If we let them define what we believe in, then what do we have left?’ All around him everything he had believed in was being broken down. A free press, justice for all, the law, the courts, the judges. Everything was being twisted into new shapes that would give the regime the control it wanted. Makana refused to go along. Not the smartest plan in the world, which was why he ended up in prison, why he was beaten and tortured at the hands of his former adjutant, Mek Nimr. In the end he saw there was no way out. That the only option left to him was to flee, to leave the country and never come back.
Makana walked on, trailing through the deserted streets towards the distant pull of lights and movement. In all these years he had never managed to find any satisfactory answers to these questions, but that didn’t mean he would ever stop trying. So absorbed was he in his own thoughts that he almost went right by it.
The bar was set in one of the narrow, uneven alleys behind Nasser Station. A simple walk-in place, open to the street. Light spilled out of two entrance openings with their metal shutters rolled up. The walls alongside were adorned with faded logos advertising Coca-Cola and the familiar white star of Stella Beer. Chairs and tables were spread about on the uneven flanks on both sides of the road. An old, hand-painted sign on the wall read
Bar Kadesh
. The name was accompanied by a few roughly fashioned hieroglyphs and a chariot bearing Ramses II into war. The place had been around for decades, or perhaps even centuries.
Finding Marwan was easier than he had anticipated; before he’d even walked through the door he heard his name being called, and when he looked round he saw the large, clumsy figure fumbling with his trousers as he lumbered out of the shadows at the corner where the rather rudimentary toilet was.
‘I thought it was you.’
The light was behind him but Makana instinctively registered the silhouette.
‘How long has it been?’ There was a touch of irritation in his voice which reminded Makana of the outsized chip Marwan always seemed to carry on his shoulder. ‘Come on, have a drink with me, for old times’ sake.’
The interior was noisy but the clientele seemed to know Marwan well enough to get out of his way. The Kadesh Bar was known to be frequented by off-duty police and security officers. The lower ranks, non-commissioned officers, along with the kind of thugs they hired from time to time to do their dirty work. In no time they were seated around a table in the corner with two cold green bottles of Stella in front of them.