The Templar Inheritance

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by Mario Reading


  He arrived early at the citadel and sat down on the edge of a fountain, near to the tourist office, to await her appearance. When other guides approached him he waved them away, saying that his guide was arriving shortly. After a while they gave up trying and left him alone.

  He stood up when Nalan appeared beneath the entrance arch. For a moment she did not see him, and he had the opportunity to observe her afresh. He had forgotten how small she was. Five foot five at the utmost. Her red-gold hair was gathered behind her head, from where it fanned out across her shoulders like a cloak. Her bangles and bracelets flashed in the early-morning sunlight. As she walked she glanced nervously to her left and right, searching for him.

  Looking at her, Hart caught himself wondering, yet again, what she had to be so anxious about. He finally decided that it was only a few days since she had been involved in a particularly gruesome car bombing, in which she had come very close to death, and which had been conducted in a place that held abominable memories for her. So it was hardly surprising that she should be suffering from some form of delayed shock. Christ, he was still in shock himself. Only that morning he had woken at 2 a.m. in his transit hotel in Istanbul, bathed in a muck sweat and babbling to himself about hangings. Such things took time to fade away. The memories were way too raw.

  Nalan saw him and stopped in her tracks, her face a mass of conflicting emotions. Then she hurried the last few paces towards him and they embraced, much to the consternation of the citadel’s curator, who seemed unused to such public displays of affection. When Nalan smiled apologetically at him, however, he smiled right back at her, and flapped a hand in generous condescension.

  Nalan stepped back and looked at Hart. ‘I’m sorry I hugged you in public, John. But when I saw your face I had to. All sorts of feelings welled up in me about what happened to us in As Sulaymaniyah. And we Kurds are an affectionate race.’ She smiled and canted her head to one side. ‘Although we don’t normally do it out of doors.’

  Hart had caught her scent again when he had hugged her – that elusive mixture of musk, jasmine and citrus that reminded him of the very first time he had consciously touched her, when he was dragging her up into the loft above the Red Interrogation House rape room to escape from their pursuers. Then, as now, she appeared to talk one way and act another – her body language, as it were, was out of sync with her words. Hart, inured to the way Western women responded, was unused to it, and it unsettled him.

  ‘No need to apologize. I loved your hug. I think the curator did too. You should have seen his face when you ran up to me like that.’

  Nalan turned away and checked out the other guides. Her expression darkened. ‘Do you really want to see around the citadel?’

  ‘I thought it would be as good a place as any for us to talk.’

  ‘Yes. It is. A very good place. But there is also the bazaar. Just round the corner. That might be better. I shall have to cover my hair, though. I think we will go there instead. We stand out far too much here.’

  Hart had already caught the direction of Nalan’s gaze, and the man she had directed it towards. He knew enough about her by now to trust to her instincts. He watched while she tucked in her hair and settled her hijab about her shoulders.

  ‘Why the hijab there and not here?’

  Nalan shrugged. ‘It is complicated. Sometimes, in Kurdistan, we women are free, and sometimes we are not. It is not as bad here as in Iran, though, where if you do not wear the hijab in public the Ershad – who are their “guidance” or morality police – will intervene and force you to cover yourself after beating you with sticks. Or if you wear too much lipstick, female Basij officers from the Revolutionary Guard will scrape it off your lips with a razor.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘It is true, John. What happens in the house and what happens in public are two different things entirely. Think of it like Britain in the 1950s, when everyone wore hats outside the house, and if you did not conform to this you were worthless.’

  Hart had to stifle a laugh at Nalan’s choice of example. ‘Until President Kennedy broke the taboo at his inauguration.’

  ‘The taboo. Yes. But there will be no President Kennedy here. And certainly not in Iran until the mullahs are gone.’

  Situated one block down from the citadel, the Erbil bazaar was a mass of colour, light, and movement when contrasted to the citadel’s sand-coloured uniformity. From the moment one entered the main gate each separate sense was assailed – seeing, hearing, smelling, touching. Carpets, rugs and silks hung over the walkways. Gold and silver jewellery glittered behind the windows of shops, where tea-drinking mothers-in-law were busy negotiating the dowries of their future daughters-in-law with hard-faced merchants and their mercurial assistants.

  The bazaar was laid out in sections – all the goldsmiths in one quarter, the butchers in another, the spice merchants in another. Over here for carpets, across there for the near-ubiquitous female jeans, which, like the innumerable varieties of hijab, were displayed on semi-realistic plastic dummies that all looked eerily alike. Women in pairs and trios were browsing the stalls – men were going about their business carrying, bartering, or taking their mid-afternoon breaks in the teahouses, smoking their rented hookah pipes. Policemen in bright blue shirts dodged amongst the crowds, checking whilst not seeming to check. The place was run like a well-oiled machine that merely gave the outward impression of chaos.

  ‘Yallah, yallah,’ shouted men pushing trolleys piled high with goods. And it was always men. The few women sellers usually sat cross-legged beside their wares, fanning themselves with the ends of their hijabs or khimars, and refusing to meet the eyes of any men but those they already knew, or who formed part of their family. It was alien but not alien – Hart had been to dozens of such places during his career, but each of them had a marginally different dynamic that required both active thought and appropriate response from the bystander.

  ‘Well,’ said Hart, ‘this place is certainly private. There can’t be more than a couple of thousand people filtering through it at any given moment. Tell me, is there any particular reason why we are meeting here?’

  ‘Please keep moving. And when you see police coming, break away from me and pretend you are a tourist.’

  ‘I am a tourist. That much must be pretty bloody obvious to everyone.’

  ‘Still, John. Pretend.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Hart walked beside Nalan until they reached a quieter section which specialized in baskets, shoes and swatches of cloth.

  Nalan turned to him after one final check around. ‘Now. I need to ask you something. And you must answer me truthfully. It is very important.’

  ‘Fire away. I’m all ears, believe me.’

  Nalan glanced up at him to see if he was making fun of her, but the serious look on Hart’s face reassured her. ‘When we were above the rape rooms in the Amna Suraka. Crawling through the attic space with Rebwar. We passed something. A bunch of old metal, you called it. Just some old junk. What was it that you really saw there?’

  Something warned Hart that he should no longer attempt to prevaricate. No longer beat about the bush as he had the last time she had asked him the same question, when they had been in fear for their lives. ‘It was a Cinestar camera mount. The one we saw used to be state-of-the-art around 1990, when your parents were imprisoned. You often found them in helicopters. A camera mounted on them could move soundlessly. You could roll, tilt and pan with the help of an assistant. Do pretty much anything you liked, in other words.’

  ‘So Hassif was filming what went on in the room below?’

  ‘It seems like it, yes.’

  Nalan’s face took on a haunted look. ‘So he would have filmed all that happened to my mother? Filmed all the rapes? Filmed me having to watch?’

  Hart could scarcely bear to meet her eyes. ‘Yes. It seems likely. There was a hole in the floor beneath the Cinestar. It was there for a purpose, surely. They probably tricked it up with a two-w
ay mirror, which was taken away when the place was dismantled. I can’t imagine why whoever looted the place left the mount behind. It must have been an oversight. Those things are worth good money.’ Hart could tell by Nalan’s expression that his discursion wasn’t working. He tried to sweeten the pill a little. ‘Maybe Hassif was required to send the film on to Saddam Hussein to show what was happening in the prison? Maybe he was required to keep records? I should imagine the stock was all destroyed when Saddam’s palaces were looted. It is notoriously flammable.’

  Nalan’s eyes flashed at him. ‘No. Hassif was doing it for his own private pleasure. And nothing was destroyed.’

  ‘How can you possibly know that?’

  They breasted a corner of the walkway. Three policemen were coming towards them. Hart stopped to look inside a shop which specialized in the repair of electric hairdryers. A flat-screen television was booming in the background. A black-and-white Egyptian musical from the 1960s was playing – the women with heavy make-up and without hijabs, and wearing fashionably short skirts.

  Nalan moved on ahead of him and past the policemen, as if she were shopping alone. None of them gave her a second look. When they passed Hart they smiled at him as if to say, ‘Well? And how do you like our wonderful bazaar?’ Hart smiled back and pretended to blow-dry his hair. The policemen laughed politely, but – and he immediately regretted this – they would remember him now.

  He caught up with Nalan round the next corner.

  She turned to face him square on, ignoring the few customers hurrying by. ‘I know Hassif filmed what happened to my mother, and my own and my father’s very private humiliation, because he told me so. What you tell me now only confirms that what he says is true.’

  ‘Says? He is still alive? I thought the Peshmerga got him. I thought they killed them all.’

  ‘Not Hassif. He is like an oily rat that slips out of the hands of anyone who tries to catch him.’

  Hart looked around in consternation. ‘Is he here? Back in Iraq? Is that why we are being so circumspect?’

  Nalan shook her head. ‘He is not here. No. He would not last a moment in Kurdistan. We would put him up against the nearest wall and shoot him. He is across the border in Iran. And he wants me to go there and meet him.’

  THIRTY-THREE

  Hart and Nalan stood in the entranceway to a shuttered and barred shop. Hart glanced down the passageway between the shops to check if they were being watched or marked out in any way. It was fast becoming a habit. ‘If you go to Iran he will kill you.’

  Nalan gave a vehement shake of the head. ‘No. He is not as powerful in Iran as he was in Iraq. There, he is only a servant. Here, he was the master. He says he must tell me something. About my parents. Something I need to know.’

  ‘You don’t believe him, do you?’

  ‘Of course not. He is Hassif. Totally evil. But now I know he is in Bukan I have to go. I need to do this.’

  Hart put out a hand as if to stay her from leaving for the border at that precise moment. ‘But that’s just what he wants you to do. Can’t you see? You are one of the few remaining eyewitnesses to the crimes he committed. If the International Criminal Court ever gets hold of him, your testimony alone could see him imprisoned for life.’

  ‘They will never get hold of him. Iran will protect him. He works for them now. I told you this.’

  ‘Yet another reason why you should not go over there.’

  Nalan shook her head. ‘He sent me photographs, John. Of men doing things to my mother. He even knew my phone number to call me. Hearing his voice again on the phone made me go weak with fear. It was as if I was a little child again, back in the prison. I cannot understand this man. His given name, Rahim, means merciful and kind. How could God allow such a man to have a name like his?’

  ‘God made a mistake in Hassif’s case. A bad one.’

  ‘No. God is not responsible for filth like Hassif. They create themselves. A man like Hassif manufactures his own destiny. He will answer to God, yes. But that will come later. On this earth I want him to answer only to me.’

  Hart watched her for a moment, his eyes travelling over the familiar and yet unfamiliar features. ‘How can you possibly get into Iran?’

  ‘I am a Kurd. It is easy. I have cousins. Iraqi Kurds travel across the border all the time.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Why should I not be serious?’

  Hart burst out laughing. It was neither the time nor the place for levity, but he couldn’t help it. The expression on Nalan’s face when he’d asked her the question had been one of such outraged astonishment that for a moment she had looked like a surprised cat. ‘And me? Can I get into Iran just as easily?’

  ‘You? No. It would be impossible.’

  ‘And why, pray?’

  ‘Now you are not being serious, John. You cannot be seriously asking me this question.’

  ‘I am. Seriously.’

  She touched his arm and they began walking again. Soon they passed into a courtyard in which carpets were draped over frames and laid out flat on the ground, the better to be admired. They both stood looking at one of the carpets. When the shopkeeper came over to see if they wanted to buy it, both smiled and shook their heads simultaneously. The shopkeeper returned to his game of chess.

  Nalan turned towards Hart. ‘Any foreigner from the United Kingdom or the United States travelling from Iraq to Iran will be instantly under suspicion of being a spy. The border is very fluid, and many people cross – many, many lorries, and much oil and cement. But few foreigners. And all of these will be in tourist parties, or under special licence, with papers that have already been checked. Visas that have already been issued and certified. It is not a matter here of just turning up at the border and asking to be let through. When they find out you are a journalist—’

  ‘A photojournalist.’

  ‘A photojournalist then. To them this will be even worse. Cameras talk. And cameras can record. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards are not stupid. They will soon discover that you were involved in the recent bomb attack—’

  ‘Innocently involved.’

  ‘This is irrelevant. You killed a man, John. A man who was possibly Iranian. Or at least trained by the Iranians. Although no one will ever be able to prove this, of course. So they will have you on file already. You will be setting your head in the. . .’ She hesitated. ‘What is it? The French thing they executed people with during the revolution?’

  ‘The guillotine.’

  ‘You will be setting your head in the guillotine.’

  This time it was Hart who moved Nalan on. They were already being watched by both chess players, and various other of the shopkeepers. Was he becoming unnecessarily paranoid with all this talk of files and spies and police? ‘And illegally? Can one cross the border so that no one knows?’

  ‘Are we talking about you or me?’ She raised an eyebrow at him until he was forced to nod in affirmation.

  ‘Me.’

  ‘You do not speak Farsi, John. You do not even speak Kurdish. You are tall. And blond. And pale. A few days ago your face was on all the news programmes. In the papers. On the Internet. For you it would be suicide.’

  ‘But is it possible?’

  ‘Is it possible? Yes. Of course it is possible. People I know do it all the time. But you are not people. You are John Hart the photojournalist. John Hart the British spy. John Hart the Dish of the Day on the Revolutionary Guard menu.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  ‘And have you met your future husband yet?’

  Hart was sitting with Nalan in the back of the taxi which was taking them the ninety-five kilometres from Erbil to the Pank Tourist Village in Rawanduz. Outside the taxi windows the mountains rose up on either side of them in layers, as if some great hand had crafted them out of clay and interleaved them with vegetation and stunted trees, seemingly at random.

  ‘Yes. But I do not wish to talk about him.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’ Hart knew when
not to pursue a tricky subject. He looked out at the gorge. An untidy mass of water was cascading down the mountainside, circumventing a projecting rock onto which some madman had constructed a viewing platform. The platform looked in danger of being imminently submerged. ‘So why are we going to a tourist village?’

  ‘Because it is the only such place in Iraq. And because these are the Korek mountains, and where we stay in the village it is already 1,000 metres high. And because the Iranian border post at Piranshahr is only forty minutes further up the road.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘It is fine, John. You will be safe here. There is a rollercoaster. And a Ferris wheel. And a dry bobsled run. Bumper cars. A toboggan.’

  ‘Well that’s okay then. At least we can have a bit of fun while we wait for the police sweep.’

  He lingered in the reception area while Nalan confirmed both their rooms. He was surprised when a golf cart appeared outside and their luggage was piled in the back. They were driven to a pair of bungalows bordering a children’s playground.

  ‘I can’t get my head around this,’ Hart said, when their driver had left them. ‘We’re up in the mountains, just a few miles from the Iranian border, where some of the worst of the fighting took place during the Iran/Iraq War and beyond, and we’re staying in a holiday camp. Which, to my eye at least, seems pretty much empty. What the heck is going on here?’

  ‘Hazem Kurda built this place. He was a refugee from Saddam Hussein. He built this to show his confidence in a free Kurdistan.’

 

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