Authors: Parker Bilal
‘Like I said, I’m not good with names. I’ll ask around.’
‘That would be kind of you.’
As he made to go Hamza’s eyes narrowed as two areas of his brain connected. ‘One second. You’re the one from Cairo, aren’t you? The one everyone is talking about?’ Without being invited, Hamza sat down. He glanced around him and lowered his voice. ‘You’re here to investigate the death of the Qadi.’
‘Where did you hear that?’ Makana asked.
Hamza dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. ‘I hear things all the time. Is it true what they say, that he was cut from his throat to his manhood?’
In a small town, information would have spread from any number of sources. The policemen on the scene, Sadig and the skinny officer whose name no one could remember, or even more likely from the man on the donkey who first found him, along with his faceless wife.
‘What did you think of him?’
‘Of the Qadi?’ Hamza sat back, a touch warily. Now he wasn’t sure who he was talking to.
‘It’s all right,’ Makana assured him. ‘I’m just trying to form a picture of the man. I need to understand why he was killed.’
‘Right, so I am helping you in your investigation?’
‘You could say that.’
Hamza relaxed a little. ‘Well,’ he began, warming to the task as if being interviewed by a magazine. ‘Nobody liked him. An old man who wanted everything to stay the same. We have plenty of those.’
‘He represented the law.’
‘Oh, he made sure the law suited him. That’s the other thing.’ With another glance over his shoulder, as if any number of eavesdroppers might have sneaked up on tiptoe. ‘He ran everything. Building permits, planning permission. All of that had to go past him and you can be sure he took his share. They all do. Between him and that sergeant there isn’t much left for the rest of us.’ The sorrowful look suggested his life was one of eternal suffering.
‘Sergeant Hamama?’
Hamza went on, ignoring the query. ‘I don’t envy you trying to find who killed him. Throw a stone off this balcony on market day and see who it strikes. Nobody liked him, not even that fool Mutawali, even though he is no doubt crying even as we speak. But . . .’ Hamza thrust a forefinger into the air, ‘there’s a difference between not liking the man, hating him even, for what he represents, and cutting him up like a kharouf.’ Hamza sat back and rested for a moment, breathing heavily. Then he got abruptly to his feet to return to his friends in the corner. He paused as he went by. ‘I wish you luck with your work, but whoever did this does not deserve to be punished.’
Makana sipped his tea. It wasn’t particularly good tea. The young men who frequented the place clearly preferred Coca-Cola and the like. It was a kind of haven for those who liked to think of themselves as belonging elsewhere. Somewhere more modern perhaps. A certain kind of male. When he arrived back at the hotel, he found Nagy standing in the doorway. He thrust his hands into his pockets and didn’t return Makana’s greeting, though he muttered under his breath as he went by, ‘I wouldn’t spend too much time in that place. People might get the wrong idea.’
In the lobby the television played to an empty room. Central Security Forces in full riot gear trying to control the crowds. Palestinian flags waved in the air like angry palm trees. A shot of the Mukataa in Ramallah showed a besieged Yasser Arafat waving from a window. He looked like a man who knew his time had run out. Israeli tanks rumbled through the streets. Women picked up their children and ran.
The phone rang the moment he stepped into his room, almost as if Zahra knew where he was and what he was doing.
‘How are you finding Siwa?’
Makana took comfort in her voice as he sat in the dark room. It was hard to believe that just over a week ago he had not known of her existence and now it almost felt as though he had come to depend on her presence, distant as it was.
‘It’s not all that unfamiliar actually,’ he said. ‘In a strange way I feel more at home here than in Cairo. It reminds me of Sudan.’
The sound of her laughter lifted his heart. ‘I’ll bet you’re the kind of man who can feel at home anywhere in the world.’
Through the window the lights on the mosque illuminated the muddy finger of the old minaret, carving soft shadows out of the ancient darkness. Down below a solitary figure walked along the narrow alley behind the hotel.
‘There’s something about this place which is different,’ he heard himself say.
‘It’s a strange place.’
‘I didn’t know you’d been here.’
‘A long time ago.’ There was a long pause. Then she said, ‘Last night I dreamed about Karima. I dreamed she was alive and dancing. Isn’t that funny?’
‘Why was she dancing?’
‘I don’t know. It was a celebration of some kind. Perhaps a wedding. Actually, I think it was my wedding. Isn’t that strange?’
‘What happened then?’
‘Oh, then I woke up,’ she said. ‘And it made me feel sad all over again.’
They talked about this and that, about the demonstrations and what was going on in the world and injustice in general. For a time Makana imagined having this kind of conversation every evening, of sharing his life. Millions of people did it. He had done it once, hadn’t he?
‘I sort of feel I’m being sidetracked by this business with the Qadi. As far as Musab is concerned, I don’t seem to be making progress.’
‘You’re still getting a feel for the place.’
‘By now I thought I would at least have found his family, but no one seems to know them.’
‘People move. It’s not so strange,’ she whispered.
‘I don’t know. It almost feels as if something happened back then. Something that changed everything.’
‘Something like what?’
‘I don’t know. I’m just speculating.’
How long they talked he couldn’t say, but it must have been close to an hour. It felt good to be able to share his thoughts with someone. Despite this, Makana slept uneasily, waking in the early hours, disorientated, listening to the sound of a lone dog barking in the distance. What was he doing here? For a moment he was puzzled. He tried to imagine Nasra’s life. The image to which he found himself returning was of her face, the last time he saw her alive, through the window of the car as it plunged through the rails and down into the river below. Could she really have survived?
The following morning the lean, hard Sadig was waiting in one of the armchairs in the lobby, eying Nagy’s daughter, who was serving him coffee in a cup with a saucer, the way they did for the tourists. The porter, Ayman, an oddly misplaced giant with a perplexed expression, was also watching the girl, although slyly, out of the corner of his eye from across the room where he was mopping the floor in his bare feet. Sadig whispered something to the girl, grinning like a cat. Catching sight of Makana wiped the smile off his face. He came to his feet and rushed over to block his exit.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘Why, am I under arrest?’
Sadig hooked his thumbs into his belt and stretched himself to his full height. ‘The sergeant sends his compliments. He asks if you will assist with interviewing foreign visitors in the hotels.’
‘Why? You need more time to search my room?’
The corporal nodded towards the street. ‘The sergeant is waiting.’
Hamama rolled up as they emerged from the hotel.
‘There’s no time to waste. You have to interview them all before they have breakfast and disappear. I’m counting on you.’ He pointed at Makana as he rolled off.
The exercise proved a waste of time. They drove round half a dozen hotels and attempted to interview a selection of tourists, most of whom were either half asleep, or trying to eat their breakfast in peace. It became obvious that a number of them suspected the appearance of Sadig and Makana as the prelude to some kind of a scam designed to relieve them of their holiday savings. Some did not speak English – or if they did it was not a form of the language known to Makana. Others claimed to understand it but clearly did not. Throughout all of this Makana had to contend with Sadig’s sarcastic comments about how shameless these people were, how they had no respect for the customs of the country they were in, which of course did not prevent him from leering at the women, which in turn did nothing to decrease the tension and caused a good degree of bad feeling in some cases. It made Makana wonder all over again at Sergeant Hamama’s wisdom in sending this man along.
‘It’s a waste of time,’ Sadig announced as they emerged onto the street for the tenth time. ‘I knew it would be.’ The tall officer climbed back into the police car and started the engine. Makana leaned down to the window on the passenger side.
‘You talk as if it doesn’t matter who killed the Qadi.’
Sadig leaned back and stared at Makana. ‘Everyone says you’re so smart, well, let me tell you something, in case you haven’t worked it out for yourself already. Nobody is ever going to come to trial for this murder.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Because it’s the way things work around here. People protect their own. And besides,’ grunted Sadig. ‘The old fool had it coming if you ask me.’
With that he slammed his foot down and the battered car veered away, very nearly taking Makana’s arm with it. Across the street, he saw Wad Nubawi leaning in the doorway of his supermarket. When he noticed Makana watching him he disappeared inside. Makana crossed the street.
When Makana came in Wad Nubawi was staring at a shelf of tins and marking something on a sheet with a pencil stub as if it was of immense importance.
‘I see you’re making friends,’ he murmured, without turning his head.
‘A man was killed. They asked for my help. I can’t really say no.’
‘Everyone knows you’re here to help the police. No secrets around here.’
Makana stared at a packet of biscuits level with his eyes. On the shiny label a long-haired blonde prince waved a sword. He couldn’t quite work out the connection between contents and image.
‘I get the impression he was an unpopular man.’
‘Who, the Qadi?’ Wad Nubawi stopped his counting and went back to the start of the row to begin again. ‘He interferred in people’s business. Around here people don’t like that.’
‘It’s a Qadi’s job to interfere, isn’t it?’
‘I wouldn’t know about that.’ Wad Nubawi grunted. He sighed and started on the same row for the third time.
‘Did you know him?’ Makana moved along the shelves, following a trail of images. A giant tuna fish leaping from a foaming sea. A chesnut tree covered in red blossom on a hillside. A beaming wife holding up a bowl heaped high with steaming okra to cheer a weary husband. Each item seemed to contain its own built-in plot, bringing adventure and good fortune to your dining table. Happiness and well-being in return for the consumption of their contents.
‘Everyone did. Look,’ Wad Nubawi gave up all pretence of trying to work. He tossed the pencil and paper onto the counter alongside the cash register and helped himself to a date. ‘I don’t know what you are getting at. There was no fight between me and the Qadi, understood? He did his job and I did mine. That’s my freezer the old fool is lying in even as we speak. How do you think people are going to feel next time they come to put their hand in there for a bag of falafel?’
The image of the dead Qadi lying frozen in Doctor Medina’s garage was still fresh in Makana’s mind. He could see how it might not sit well with customers and keeping the news quiet around here was probably not an option.
‘Did you ever come across a man named Musab Khayr?’
‘Musab Khayr? Let me see . . .’ Wad Nubawi sucked his teeth and stared at the ceiling for a moment. ‘No, I can’t say that I recall that name.’ He fished for a cigarette under the counter and lit one in a single move. The smoke seemed to change the colour of his eyes, making them even more grey and evasive than they had been before. He was lean and efficient in his movements, with no excess use of energy.
‘I thought everyone around here knew everyone else.’
‘We know how to mind our own business. It’s not like in the big city.’ Wad Nubawi watched Makana as he smoked. ‘What has any of this got to do with the Qadi’s death?’
‘Nothing. Everything. You know how it is with this kind of investigation. It’s almost impossible to say how things are connected.’
‘They say you’re an expert.’
‘I’m not here to find out who killed the Qadi.’
‘But you’re helping Hamama.’
‘As long as the sergeant feels I can be useful then I am happy to assist.’
‘But you’re really here about this other man?’
‘Musab Khayr was married to a girl from here. Nagat. They ran away together.’
‘It happens.’ The grey stubble on Wad Nubawi’s lean face vanished in a cloud of smoke. His eyes turned the soft colour of honey as he looked off through the window at the sky. ‘People think life will be easier for them out there. They have no idea. Usually, it’s worse.’
Maybe anything was better than being trapped in a place like this, thought Makana, but he didn’t say it. He was staring out of the window at the square, trying to imagine a young couple planning to run away to a new life. Or were they running away from something?