Authors: Parker Bilal
‘You think this Musab fellow is mixed up in what happened to the Qadi?’
‘It’s probably just coincidence,’ said Makana, turning back to him. ‘But I’d like to talk to someone from his family.’
‘I don’t see how that might help.’
‘It’s the way this kind of thing works. You never know what you’ve got until you pull it out of the water.’
‘Not much fishing goes on around here,’ said Wad Nubawi, exhaling through his nostrils. He flicked the cigarette butt out into the street. ‘We prefer meat that is so fresh you can still feel the animal’s heart beating.’ He grinned, showing off his gold tooth.
As he approached his hotel, Makana spotted Hamama’s pickup parked outside with the second of the sergeant’s adjutants, the skinny police officer without a name, leaning on it smoking and staring forlornly at the ground. In the doorway stood Ayman, the hotel porter, looking as if he’d been left behind by life. He grinned when Makana held a finger to his lips and watched as he slipped around the corner, down the narrow side street which took him behind the hotel. Looking up Makana saw the window of his room was open. The corner of a cloth flew out, slapping against the shutter to produce a tiny explosion of dust. Cleaning his room sounded like an historic event, although probably it was simply an excuse for Nagy to go through his things in case there was anything of value that Sadig had overlooked.
A few minutes later he turned a corner and saw the row of bicycles lined up outside the rental shop. A figure emerged and he recognised Nagy’s daughter, Rashida. She stopped and looked back to exchange a smile with Kamal, before moving on.
When Makana walked in Kamal waved him through to the rear of the shop. A small door led out of the back where the motorcycle stood. He had done a lot of work on it clearly, but it still looked as though it ought to be in a museum.
‘What’s this?’ Makana pointed to an axle sticking out at right angles from the rear wheel.
‘It used to have a sidecar. They used them to carry guns and attack the Germans.’ Kamal shrugged as if all of that made as much sense as anything.
‘Will it run?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ There was something slow and patient about the boy that Makana liked. ‘I took it to pieces. It’s as good as new. Better even.’ He grinned.
‘Better? Where did you get spare parts?’
‘Sometimes you find them, others you have to improvise,’ shrugged Kamal, rubbing a rag over the dial of the speedometer.
‘How much do I owe you?’
‘You don’t have to pay anything. The doctor has been paying me for years to fix it.’
‘Take this anyway.’ Makana thrust a handful of notes into his hand. ‘You might not get the chance again.’
Starting the machine up brought all of Makana’s doubts back. The thing was unwieldy and heavy, but when Kamal showed him how to turn the throttle up the engine seemed to settle into a steady, reassuring thump, and once on the road it felt solid beneath him. By the time he had got out to the lake he was beginning to enjoy himself. He hadn’t ridden a motorcycle since he was in the army signals corps and then too, by some strange quirk of fate, it had been another English machine. A Triumph.
Luqman was sitting out by the water’s edge when Makana got there. He smiled when he saw the Norton.
‘It takes a brave man to trust his life to a machine like that.’
‘Either brave or stupid, I’m not sure which,’ agreed Makana as he managed to haul it up onto its stand.
The lake was serene. Still and calm. Far off in the distance two dark rags flapped low across the water. Impossible to say what kind of birds they were.
‘No customers today?’
‘Not yet,’ Luqman glanced around the collection of junk that passed for furniture and turned back again. ‘They tend to do their sightseeing in the morning. Sunset. That’s the time for them to come out here. You know, relax after a hard day.’
‘It must be exhausting.’
‘There’s a lot to see. The oracle of Amun, where Alexander came to ask his fate.’
‘Sounds like you know a lot about it.’
The narrow shoulders lifted and dropped. ‘People expect me to know everything. A Coke and a smile, isn’t that what they say?’
‘I’m the wrong person to ask,’ said Makana. ‘What is that?’
Luqman turned to look at the faded poster of the flute player and the tortoises. He smiled.
‘Topkapi in Istanbul. Have you ever been?’ Makana shook his head. ‘Well, in the seventeenth century they would have very elaborate parties in the palace gardens. These creatures would wander around with lamps on their backs. It must have been magical.’ Luqman shrugged. ‘I just like the idea of the tortoise keeper with his flute. Why are you here anyway? More questions?’
‘Not really. I just thought I’d come out here and look around.’
‘Is this really what you do for a living?’
‘It’s not much, but it’s what I’ve always done.’
Luqman offered his American cigarettes. ‘This land,’ he began, gesturing around them with his lighter before holding the flame for Makana, ‘it has been in my family for centuries. There’s something honest about working the land, you know.’
‘You mean, in contrast to running a tourist café?’
‘For example. In the old days it felt like clean money. I grew up with that. My whole family working the land. We weren’t rich, but we survived.’
‘Times change.’
‘It’s human nature. Someone sees an opportunity to make some money and work a little less, so they sell it off piece by piece. But the money doesn’t last for ever and one day it runs out and there’s no land to work and the hotels close down, or they only employ people who are young and have a certain training.’ Luqman stared off into the distance. ‘People don’t think ahead.’
‘But you’re still here.’
‘I tried living abroad, but I came back.’ Luqman gestured at the lake and the desert beyond. ‘I never get tired of looking at it.’
A chattering of voices brought their attention to the road where a group of three tourists appeared, with sunglasses and hats, the boys in shorts, the girl sensibly dressed in long trousers.
‘I’m sorry, business calls.’
‘Looks like you have enough to keep you busy.’
‘It’s peanuts.’ Luqman shook his head. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but it was the Qadi and his friends who make the big money. We eat the crumbs that fall from their table. And now, with all this in Palestine . . .’ Luqman clicked his tongue. ‘People in America think that it’s all one place and after the 9/11 attacks the only people who dare to come here are the brave ones, or the crazy ones who don’t care.’
Makana watched him transform himself as he walked away, smiling and greeting the newcomers, helping them to decide where they wanted to sit. It was easy to see why they trusted him. He had a charm and worldliness about him that set him apart from the other people Makana had met so far, all of whom could lightly be characterised as provincials. Luqman had travelled, certainly to the big cities of Alexandria and Cairo, and further afield. It seemed like a pleasant existence, just sitting by the lake waiting for people to come by and give you their money, but Makana knew it wasn’t quite as idyllic as it looked. He sensed a bitterness about Luqman that suggested an underlying resentment. He wondered how deep it ran. There was no doubt that Luqman was smart, but was he capable of violence? Aren’t we all, Makana thought, given the right circumstances?
The tourists had stopped to examine the Norton. Luqman pointed and Makana felt obliged to wander over.
‘Is it yours?’ one of the men asked in accented English. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with the healthy look of one who drank a litre of fresh milk every morning. The three were chattering amongst themselves in their own language. The one who had asked the question was clearly an aficionado.
‘It’s not mine,’ Makana admitted. ‘I just borrowed it.’
‘Ah.’ They were German and seemed to appreciate machines.
‘Have you been here long?’ Makana thought that he hadn’t seen them on the hotel round he had done with Sadig that morning.
‘This is our last day. Tomorrow we take the bus back to Cairo.’ This time it was the girl who spoke. She had an alert expression. She wasn’t interested in motorcycles. The two boys were still walking around the machine, commenting on this or that, as if they had come across a living specimen of an extinct life form.
‘You didn’t happen to be out here the other evening?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘You mean when there was that accident?’
‘Yes, a man was killed.’ Makana could see her expression change. She called to the others, but they waved her off, too busy fussing over the Norton.
‘We heard it was an accident. He drowned, no?’
‘It is still under investigation.’
The woman examined him with a wary eye and glanced over at the boys, who were completely engrossed in the matter of the motorcycle. She had the manner of the well-seasoned traveller. Short hair and practical clothes. She had also clearly learned to be wary of local men trying to impress her and regarded Makana with some caution.
‘We’re trying to gather all the information we can get.’
‘You are with the police?’
Makana skipped over the question. ‘We visited all the hotels this morning, I didn’t see you.’
‘We left early. We wanted to see the sunrise from above the Temple of the Oracle.’
‘The temple, of course.’
He was about to turn away when she said, ‘We cycled past here the other evening.’ She hesitated, calling more insistently to the boys. A conversation ensued between the three of them. The girl grew visibly more agitated. Makana glanced at Luqman who shrugged his shoulders.
‘He was already dead,’ the girl blurted out. The boys let out cries of dismay.
‘They don’t want me to speak. They think it will complicate things for us. We don’t want to get involved.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Makana. ‘There’s no need to worry,’ he said to the boys who were becoming more aggressive now, trying to draw the girl away. She fended off their hands, starting to cry now.
‘The man was already dead. We didn’t do anything wrong!’ The two young men turned their backs on her. She faced Makana. ‘There was . . . a woman.’
Makana examined the German girl. In these climes she was an exotic creature, with her fair hair and blue eyes. He wondered which of the two men she was involved with? Neither one, or perhaps both? Who could say what their habits were? They were on holiday, they should be allowed to do what they liked. When their time was up they could go home to their regular, ordered lives, and all of this would slowly fade. He recalled the Qadi. A short, squat, middle-aged man wearing robes. Grey beard that was trimmed along the line of his jaw. A touch of vanity.
‘A woman? Are you sure?’
‘Yes. We saw a woman. Alone. You understand? You never see them alone. Always two or three.’
‘Yes. What time was this, can you remember?’
‘Around three. It was hot.’
So, some hours before the body was discovered by the farmer and his wife. When he asked if she could describe the woman, the German girl shook her head.
‘But they all look the same, no?’
‘Yes, of course they do. They all look the same.’
She gave Makana a long look, as if she had entrusted him with something valuable and then she turned away, hesitated, as if she had some last comment to add, and then left, jogging back to where the two men waited close to the road. The three of them got on their bicycles and started back to town.
Makana watched them go. Luqman was standing behind him.
‘Sorry, it looks like I lost you some business there.’
‘Maalish,’ said Luqman philosophically. ‘But don’t pay too much attention. She sounded confused. You know what it’s like. She probably wants to appear more interesting than she is.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Makana.
‘Strange though. You see a dead person and don’t report it?’
‘They don’t trust the police. They didn’t want to get mixed up.’
‘Yes, but still,’ Luqman muttered. Makana went back to the Norton. He had anticipated problems starting it again. His natural lack of faith in the durability of things. But to his surprise it took just two kicks of the starter and the engine was purring nicely. The German boys gave a roar of encouragement as he passed them on the road. Perhaps there was a living to be made in this, Makana thought to himself. He ought to begin charging.
The road between the lakes was long and straight as an arrow. The grey colour of the water and the distant outcrops gave the landscape a sense of having been drained of all living matter. Even the sky had the same ghostly, half-dead appearance. At the end of the lake he kicked the gear into neutral and coasted to a halt. The road turned back towards town, but the other way snaked off into nowhere. From here, running in any direction you cared to choose, there was nothing but sand and dry outcrops of rock that stuck up like bony knuckles. To the south the camel routes led through a string of oases down to the corner where the borderlines of Sudan, Egypt and Libya met. An arbitrary point in the ground, the intersection of a cartographer’s ruler when the continent was being sliced up by the European powers. To the west and north was the Libyan Desert, which would deliver you through the distant ridge to the coast, or deeper into the Sahara. There wasn’t much else between here and the Atlantic Ocean, three thousand kilometres away.