by Parker Bilal
On the other half of the room the wall was bare but for a calendar pinned up with a nail displaying a picture of the Kaaba in Mecca lit up at night by garish green lights. There was also a single photograph stuck to the wall of a young man with the wispy beginnings of a beard around his chin and a distant look in his eye, dressed in a pilgrim’s white robes. This would be Mourad’s roommate. Portrait of a pious person, thought Makana.
‘What about the man who shares the room, any idea where he is?’
The porter shrugged. He might have been on another planet at the end of the universe for all he cared. Makana took a last look round. Hanging on a hook on the back of the door was an American-style cap, red with a logo emblazoned across the front that read Westies.
‘I’d like to speak to him, the roommate.’
‘Abdelhadi Wahab.’ The porter ran a gnarled finger across the name taped to the wall. ‘You might find him in the cafeteria.’
It didn’t sound encouraging. As the porter turned towards the door Makana leaned over to pluck the photograph off the wall and tucked it into his back pocket. The porter led the way down the stairs. Hands in the pockets of his worn-down coat, he strolled along with the confidence of a proprietor. A superior smirk rarely left his face. He owned this place, with its palace walks and fountains. In his eyes the students were just passing through.
The cafeteria was cavernous and noisy even though it was almost empty. A group of students at the far end were squealing and jumping up and down.
‘Exams are coming,’ said the porter. ‘Most people are studying.’
‘Is he here, Mourad’s roommate?’
‘They all look the same to me from here.’ There was a note of irritation in his voice. ‘I think I’ve seen him with that group.’ He gestured halfheartedly across the room. Clearly he had lost interest in Makana’s cause and was beginning to think whatever tip was coming his way wasn’t going to be enough compensation for his precious time. He produced a half-smoked cigarette from his pocket and asked for a light. Makana studied the narrow features as the man bent over the flame. He had the quick, furtive eye movements of a dog that expects to be set upon at any moment. The confidence was a role he pulled on, like the grubby coat.
‘You must hear a lot of things in your job.’
‘I mind my own business.’ He straightened up, smoke leaking from his nostrils like despair. One sincere hand rested flat against his chest. ‘On my honour, I do my job. You see the number of students here. Of course there are problems. You can’t have that many people in one place without problems.’ His gaze settled on Makana. ‘You come here asking about one student. Who can remember one face out of a thousand?’
Who indeed? Makana watched him saunter off and approached the group of students.
‘How’s the food?’
They laughed. ‘You don’t want to know,’ said one of the boys, rocking back precariously on the rear legs of his chair. A man who liked to live dangerously. It succeeded in drawing the attention of the girls who no doubt were waiting for him to fall flat on his back. In the meantime they fiddled with their headscarves and regarded Makana warily.
‘Mourad Hafiz, any idea where I can find him?’
‘Why, is his mother worried about him again?’
The laughter felt uncomfortable and gave Makana a chance to reassess the group.
‘You haven’t seen him then?’
‘What is that accent?’ He was enjoying his moment. ‘Another Sudanese? Is that all his parents could afford?’
One of the girls murmured something, cautioning him, but the young man was not going to miss an opportunity.
‘We should make you pay to get into this country. Then we’d see how many of you stayed around. No, listen, we pay taxes to keep this country going, and people like this just think they can walk in and help themselves.’
‘You pay taxes, really? That’s interesting.’
The young man scrabbled around for an answer. ‘I don’t mean me personally. I’m a student. I mean, in general. The people in general.’ The others were laughing now. The chair dropped back to the floor with a thump that drew more attention to his plight. He left the room, dragging a couple of boys with him. Of the two girls who had remained, one was a slight, pale girl with acne, wearing a cheap black scarf covering her hair, the other was darker in complexion and her gaze was steadier.
‘Do you study with Mourad? Are you friends of his?’
‘He doesn’t have many friends,’ the second one said. She spoke flatly, sure of her facts. The other one looked on.
‘Why is that?’
‘Because he’s different.’ She held a blue folder decorated with puppies and pop stars clutched to her chest like a shield. Her eyes glanced in the direction of the porter who stood by the door smoking. Talking to strange men was perhaps not to be undertaken lightly. ‘He’s dropping out.’
‘He said that?’
‘He doesn’t believe in it anymore.’
‘In what?’
‘This.’ She gestured at the institution they were standing in, as if it was obvious. ‘Education. The future. Everything.’
The second girl nudged her, as if to caution her.
Makana nodded at the counter. ‘Can I get you something? A drink, snacks, a sandwich?’
The second girl’s eyes lit up, but her smile faded as her more conservative friend put her foot down.
‘We have to get back to the library. We’re studying you know.’
‘I know. I’d just like to hear more.’
‘What is your interest in Mourad, anyway?’
‘His parents are worried about him. They’ve asked me to try and find him.’
‘We don’t know where he is.’
‘Well, maybe you know other things.’
‘Like what?’ Her eyes narrowed, suspecting a trap.
‘Tell me about this thing you’re studying, civil engineering, is it?’
‘It’s not what you think. It’s about urban planning, social divisions. The way we use walls to separate the wealthy from the poor.’ She talked quickly, as if sure it was of no real interest to him.
‘Why do you think Mourad wanted to study that?’
The girl’s jaw dropped for a moment. It was an unexpected question. She seemed surprised that anyone would be interested in hearing her opinion.
‘He wants to change the world.’
‘Change the world how?’
‘Who knows? He’s a bit of a dreamer.’
Perhaps it was the surroundings, or maybe the tone of the conversation, but something had brought back memories of Makana’s brief time at university, a long time ago and far away. He had dropped out after only a year of history and politics, convinced that nobody could ever learn anything of value in such an environment. He had gone through it all simply to please his father, but the truth was that his heart wasn’t in it. In the huge, hot, overstuffed auditoriums professors sleepwalked their way through lectures they had delivered a thousand times, while students lolled half-consciously on their benches. They jotted down notes they did not understand. It wasn’t about expanding your mind or changing the world, it was about the perpetuation of a myth. His father was a subscriber to that myth, having never had the benefit of a university education himself. A schoolteacher who fervently believed that qualifications were the key to prosperity.
‘What can you tell me about his roommate?’
The girls looked at one another and rolled their eyes.
‘He’ll be in the library swotting away, or sucking up to the professor or something.’
Makana showed them the photograph he’d plucked from the wall of the dorm room. ‘Is that him?’ This elicited more giggling. ‘Have you seen him recently?’
The two were shaking their heads as they began to edge away. Makana managed to hand them his card, which was something at least.
‘You’ve been very helpful. I’d like to talk again, about Mourad. If you feel like it. Perhaps you could give me a
call?’ Asking for their numbers would be out of the question.
The porter had sidled up with his now familiar hangdog expression. Makana offered him a cigarette, which seemed to cheer him up. They walked over to the library and looked for the roommate, but without luck. As they came back outside the porter grew philosophical.
‘Not a bad life, eh? They hang around chatting and there’s a cushy job waiting for them at the end of it. Makes you wonder what makes them so special, doesn’t it?’
Makana couldn’t think of an answer to that. He found some money and pressed it into the porter’s hand. He didn’t expect him to be satisfied with it, but then some people never are.
Chapter Four
Makana dropped by the vice-president’s office on his way out to see if they had an address for Mourad’s roommate in Mohandiseen, which by some stroke of luck they did. Abdelhadi’s aunt was down as his next of kin. It seemed like a good omen, so Makana caught a taxi and went straight over there. As they drove up the broad avenue of Sharia al-Dowal al-Arabiya he noticed the maidan in front of the Mustafa Mahmoud mosque. Normally it was an unremarkable patch of scruffy grass hedged in by an ankle-high fence. Now it was covered with makeshift shelters, tents, blue and red tarpaulins draped over ropes strung between light poles. Cardboard boxes transformed into huts, walls, rooftops for precarious lean-tos.
‘It’s going to end badly,’ muttered the driver, a young man muffled up to the eyeballs inside a brown scarf.
It wasn’t the first time Makana had seen the camp. It had been there for months, but it was growing. A small island of displaced people in the middle of a six-lane river of moving metal.
‘Maybe they think they don’t have a choice.’
‘So what? Aren’t they in our country as guests? People have enough problems of their own.’
You couldn’t argue with that. There was an air of desperation over the squalid camp. Not so much the end of the line as a medieval siege. They were trying to get into the visible world and become real people, with rights. It wasn’t a wish that would be lightly granted. Makana craned his neck to look back. As they swung away from the roundabout, his eye caught a flash of a brightly coloured chicken on wheels. Bouncy red and yellow letters spelled out the name Westies. He had just enough time to read an address near the Hunting Club before the billboard was gone.
The image of the rotting, waterlogged head in the sack came to him. Dismembering a body required a lot of hard work. It wasn’t something you took on lightly. Bone, cartilage, sinews, tendons. So why go to all that trouble? The way things stood right now you could probably have dumped the body in the middle of Tahrir Square and no one would have been in any hurry to investigate.
Abdelhadi’s aunt lived on the fifth floor of an unremarkable yellow apartment building on Sharia Ramiz. Makana took one look at the state of the lift and decided to walk. When he leaned on the doorbell he heard it chirping away but nobody answered. Somewhere in the building Umm Kalthoum was wailing at full blast. The sound echoed down the stairwell as he descended again. He stood in the entrance and looked up and down the street, wondering what he was doing here.
Amir Medani’s office looked as though it had been recently ransacked. There was nothing unusual about that, though it was hard to fathom how anyone could operate in the midst of such chaos. Somehow he managed to run a highly efficient legal service. The international awards scattered about the room, holding down piles of folders or propping up shelves of books, testified to his success as a human rights lawyer. Amir Medani himself had the appearance of a nocturnal creature unused to daylight. His eyes blinked behind the small round frames of his spectacles as he gazed up from his desk.
‘I have a heart condition. My doctors prohibit anyone from sneaking up on me.’
‘I thought you would be expecting me.’
Amir Medani threw down his pen. ‘Months I don’t hear from you and then suddenly you appear without warning.’
‘Didn’t you give my name to Munir Abaza?’
‘Oh, yes, sorry about that. He said he was looking for a reliable investigator for one of his clients who had a problem. He hasn’t given you any trouble, I hope?’
‘Not yet.’
‘That’s good. I mean, he’s a useful person to know, has a hand in all kinds of pots. He moves with the high and mighty.’
‘So why the concern?’
‘Because he’s only truly loyal to one person and one person alone. Himself. Stay on the right side of him and you’ll be fine.’ The lawyer sat back and reached for a half-smoked cigar that rested in an ashtray. He examined it for a moment before snapping open a fancy silver lighter. In his early sixties, there was something about Amir Medani’s style that was elegantly outdated. Like the well-tailored suits he always wore, the fruit of another age, before he was exiled. They had not known each other in the old days. Unlike Makana, the lawyer had been active politically, organising rallies and secret meetings. He was accused of plotting to stage a coup d’état and leaving was the only way of avoiding the hangman’s noose. He looked at his watch.
‘You think it’s too early for lunch? I look at you and I think I haven’t eaten for a week.’ Without waiting for an answer he got up and led the way, slowing down only long enough to inform his staff, ‘We’re going for lunch.’ He waved. ‘Don’t contact me unless it’s a national emergency.’ The three women exchanged looks of concern.
‘I like to leave them alone from time to time. They need to learn to think for themselves. The education system in this country doesn’t encourage that.’
They went down the stairs and out into the street. Amir Medani led the way in a meandering fashion that involved stepping out into the moving traffic without warning, causing all manner of mayhem. He was oblivious. Makana followed him down a sidestreet to a secluded restaurant wedged between a perfume merchant and a mobile telephone dealer. If you didn’t know it was there you would never find it, which explained why the interior was almost deserted. Behind latticed wooden screens it lay like a hidden enclave of calm. A waiter detached himself from the shadows to greet them discreetly and lead the way to a table at the back.
‘They do very good fish, brought in from the Red Sea every morning.’
Makana thought about his experience that morning but decided not to make a fuss. Who knew what fish fed on normally? The Red Sea part sounded promising. He nodded his assent. Within seconds a glass of pomegranate juice had appeared in front of Amir Medani.
‘Good for the blood pressure, I’m told, and since I don’t have a problem I shall carry on drinking the stuff daily.’ Makana watched him drain the glass in one go. ‘They want to give me another award. I have become a symbol of the struggle for human rights in the Middle East. Strange to think of oneself as an icon. I feel like a hostage to a lost cause. Anyway, they want me to come to The Hague to receive it and the government is naturally trying to block it. They take us all for fools, but they know we can do little about it. And with all this refugee business going on they are making life difficult for all of us.’
‘I saw the camp.’
‘Don’t get too close. One of these days they’re going to clear it, and it’s not going to be a pretty sight.’ The waiter appeared bearing a tray of starters. Amir Medani carried on talking as the small plates were set out on the table. ‘It’s perverse. To punish the government in Khartoum the Egyptians are hurting those who have fled persecution in Sudan. They are getting it from both sides. The public has already turned against the protesters. Brotherhood between nations is fine, so long as we all remember our place.’
‘It’s not something I’ve given much thought to.’
‘That’s because you like to think you’re above it all. One of these days you’re going to wake up and realise that everything is political.’
‘This sounds like a speech I’ve heard before.’
‘Well, get used to it, because it’s coming again. You and I survive because we’re lucky enough to be making a living of sorts, bu
t many are struggling, especially if they have families.’
‘Something turned up on the riverbank this morning,’ said Makana. He described the severed head. ‘There’s not much to go on. It’s hard to even tell if it’s a man or a woman, but the ritual markings suggest it is likely to be a Southern male.’
‘Why go to all the trouble of separating the head from the body?’
‘To make it easier to dispose of usually. If the killer doesn’t want to draw attention to themselves, or simply for practical purposes, getting rid of the pieces is easier than a heavy body.’
‘Sounds like you’ve given this some thought.’
‘It’s not every day I have heads washing up on my doorstep.’
‘There’s some irony to it, though. Don’t you think?’
‘A severed head? In what sense?’
‘Well, our country has been at war with itself, North and South, for almost fifty years, ever since independence. Now, here we are concerned about one another.’
‘I’m not at war with anyone.’
‘Presumably this doesn’t interfere with the work you’re doing for Munir Abaza?’
‘Not so far, and besides, if I don’t take an interest, who will?’
‘Good point. Let’s eat.’
The fish had arrived, grilled to perfection. Makana’s qualms faded into the background.
Since no conversation with Amir Medani was ever lighthearted, the talk turned inevitably to the crisis in Darfur. Estimates of casualties ranged from two hundred thousand to almost a million.