The Golden Scales

The

Golden

Scales

Parker Bilal

How doth the little crocodile

Improve his shining tail,

And pour the waters of the Nile

On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,

How neatly spreads his claws,

And welcomes little fishes in

With gently smiling jaws!

Lewis Carroll

Let the caller and the called disappear;

Be lost in the call

Jalal al-Din Rumi

Contents

Prologue

Part 1

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Part 2

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Part 3

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Chapter Thirty-eight

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-one

Chapter Forty-two

Chapter Forty-three

Chapter Forty-four

Chapter Forty-five

A Note on the Author

By the Same Author

Prologue

Cairo,
1981

 

 

The bright light struck her full in the eyes and for an instant she was blinded, as if struck by some ancient curse. Liz Markham reared back, completely stalled by the human mass that confronted her. Her heart racing, she began to run. Her child was somewhere out there, lost in this madness.

She stumbled. Behind her she heard someone make a remark that she couldn't understand. Several other people laughed. Darting away from the eyes that seemed fixed on her, closing in from every angle, she ran on. Glancing back, certain that someone was behind her, she moved away from the hotel, pushing impatiently through the crowd of tourists and tea boys, pushing at everything, knocking over tables, sending glasses and trays flying, hearing cries of astonishment and curses. But she didn't care. All she cared about at this moment was Alice.

Where had it all gone wrong? Her life, this trip? Everything that had happened since she had arrived in Cairo had turned out differently from the way she had expected. From the moment she'd stepped off the plane and been hit by the oppressive heat, the clothes instantly sticking to her back. It was supposed to be the end of September, for Christ's sake, and it felt like the middle of July in sunny Spain. It had seemed such a good idea at the time: get away from London, with all its weary habits and old accomplices. A chance to get clean, to start a new life. But what did she know about him, really? When she first met Alice's father he was just another of those listless young men hanging round the bazaar shops selling trinkets, or so it seemed. He and his friend had trailed behind them, her and Sylvia, calling out to them. It was irritating at first, and then it became a game, a challenge. Sylvia was always up for a challenge. And where was she now? Gone. Swept away in the urgent blue clamour of an ambulance that led to the dead end of a cold, impersonal corridor in the Accident and Emergency unit. Liz knew she didn't want to end like that.

He had been so charming, so confident. For three weeks they had been inseparable. That should have been the end of it, only it wasn't. Liz had been careless. When had she not been? The entire course of her life was marked by reckless impulses. She remembered how he had led her round the city and doors fell open before them. She liked that. As if she was somebody, as if they were important. They walked into a crowded café or restaurant and a table would be cleared for them in an instant. People bobbed their heads in respect. He had drugs too, in easy supply, and in those days that was something to consider. It wasn't meant to last. That was five years ago. It wasn't meant to change her life, but it did.

When she got back to England and discovered she was pregnant, Liz had straightened herself out for the first time in years. No booze, no smack. Clean living. She had seen enough horrors – children born without fingers – to know that she didn't want to run the risk. It didn't last, but it was something. A start, proof that she could do it if she wanted to. Alice was the best thing that had happened to her. Liz knew that it was worth it, that despite the difficulties of taking care of a small child – the tantrums, the constant demands – despite all of that, Alice made her mother want to be a better person. But she couldn't manage it in London. Too many temptations, too many open doors. Then it came to her, like a window opening in the darkness. Cairo. A new life. Why not? ‘Any time you need anything, Liz, you come to me,' he had told her.

All around her the little figures spun. Monkey kings and gods shaped like dogs, baboons, crocodiles and birds, all carved from green stone, or obsidian. A window stuffed with jewellery, silver crosses –
ankh
, the symbol of life. Miniature pyramids; some so big you couldn't lift them with both hands and others small enough to dangle from your ears. Turquoise scarabs. A window full of chessboards. Silvery blue mother-of-pearl, shooting arrows of sparkling light. A mad funfair.

‘Alice!'

Liz rushed on, her mind reeling. She turned, crashing into the arms of a woman balancing a tower of tin jugs on her head. Liz wheeled round. Nothing was as she recalled it. The streets, the noise, the leering men. It felt like a different country. Had she been so blind five years ago? So off her head that it didn't register? The bazaar she had recalled as an Aladdin's cave of glittering wonders. Now all she saw was row after row of cheap trinkets, clumsily fashioned artefacts designed to seduce the eye. To dupe rather than to satisfy the soul. The place made her sick, literally. At first she'd thought she must have eaten something that disagreed with her because she'd spent the first night crouched over the toilet bowl. Only it wasn't the food, of course, it was the drugs, or lack of them. Withdrawal symptoms. This was the first time she had really been clean since Alice was born. She'd lain in bed, feverish and weak but determined to carry on, the child tugging at her arm.

The only kindness she'd experienced here was in the warm reception given to her little girl. It was as if they recognised something in her, as if they knew Alice belonged here. Everywhere they went people smiled at the little golden-haired girl. Women, old and young, clucked and pinched her cheeks, tugged her pigtails. Men made swooping motions with their hands like birds darting around her head, making her squeal with delight. She was something of a novelty. Those were the moments when Liz had told herself everything was going to be all right. But there were other moments: when anxiety made her pace the room sleeplessly, scratching her arms, clawing at her throat, struggling to breathe in the oppressive air as the wail of yet another call to prayer echoed over the square. Moments when she thought her mission hopeless. She would never find him, or even if she did, what then? Liz was beginning to get the feeling that there was a limit to how long she could keep this up. Alice was impatient with her. As if she sensed her mother was out on a limb. Always asking questions, refusing to move, asking to be carried, clinging to her, dragging her down like a dead weight.

Then, yesterday afternoon, a man had walked straight up to Liz. No hesitation. Had he been following her? ‘I help you.' He led her to a narrow doorway opening into a shadowy interior. Narrow darts of light cut through slits set high in the walls, bouncing off the polished brass and tarnished mirrors. The place was deserted but for a man sitting against the far wall. His thick, lumpy features put her in mind of a bullfrog she had once dissected in the school biology lab years ago. His eyes were like hard black rivets, almost lost in the swollen face. His hair was smoothed straight back with scented oil. His whole body gave off an aromatic air, like an ancient eastern king. On the table in front of him stood a heap of tangerines on a huge round tray of beaten bronze, like the disc of Ra the Sun God as it travels westwards across the sky.

It couldn't have been that big a place, but to her mind the distance between the door and the far corner where he sat, waiting, stretched before her into infinity, as if she was shrinking and the room growing longer even as she walked. There was movement flitting through the shadows behind him. A couple of louts hung round by a counter on the left. Nasty-looking, but Liz knew the type and wasn't particularly afraid. She caught sight of herself in the mirror above his head, and despite the dim light could see that she looked terrible. Her hair was lank and lifeless, her face filmed with sweat and the sooty grime of the streets, which turned the towels in her hotel room black every night. Her eyes were ringed with red and swollen like eggs. He gestured for her to sit and so she did. Alice pressed herself to her side. The man's ugly face creased in a smile that made her blood churn.

‘Hello, little girl,' he said in English, stretching out a hand towards her daughter, fingers like plump dates. Alice shied away, pulling back, pressing herself in towards her mother. The smile waned. The fingers withdrew. The black eyes turned to Liz.

‘Tell me, why do you want to find this man so badly?'

‘Do you know him?'

‘Yes, of course. He is . . . an associate.'

His English was not bad. In itself, this was not surprising. Everyone in the Khan al-Khalili had at least one foreign language. It was a veritable Tower of Babel.

‘Associate?' Liz repeated, thinking it an odd word to use. ‘Where can I find him?'

‘He works for me. Or rather, he used to. Now he has . . . gone into business for himself.'

He bared his teeth in what might otherwise have been a smile and Liz felt a cold shiver run through her. Holding her gaze as the smile faded, he plucked a tangerine from the pile in front of him and handed it to the child. As she began to eat, sucking the little lobes of fruit contentedly, Liz felt uncomfortable that her daughter could so easily trust a stranger they had only just met.