by Parker Bilal
‘Mundari. It is a very distinctive pattern and that might help us, because it is a relatively small community compared with others.’
‘It’s possible that this man, whoever he is, was mixed up in some kind of criminal activity. The fact that he was cut into pieces suggests his killers could be very dangerous people.’
‘It is the tragedy of a generation. The younger ones feel alienated. We try to give them a sense of belonging. They grew up in refugee camps without fathers. They look for leaders, older boys sometimes lead them into bad ways. There are limits to what the church can achieve, I’m afraid.’
Makana handed him a card with his telephone number.
‘Give me a call if you hear anything. Anything at all. No matter how small, it might help.’
As they strolled back along the veranda Father Saturnius indicated the building at the centre of the compound.
‘The church is a rock we must cling to. Our people have been in danger for centuries. We have lost our land, our families. Many dream of homes that no longer exist. They dream of making a new life abroad. The truth is that most of them must accept that this is where we have to make our home. Watch it!’
Makana had to swerve to avoid colliding with a girl coming out of the kitchen carrying a large plastic tub full of gleaming enamel plates. Around her neck she wore a distinctive silver cross.
‘Sorry, Father,’ she sang out as she went around them.
‘Watch where you are going, Estrella,’ Father Saturnius scolded before turning back to Makana. ‘A special meal is being prepared for the Christmas celebrations. Everyone is a little overexcited, I’m afraid.’
‘I think I understand your position, Father,’ said Makana as they continued.
The priest’s sharp eyes examined him carefully. ‘Maybe you do, and maybe you don’t. Take Cornelius for example. It is easy to comprehend his distrust.’ Ahead of them the gatekeeper perched on a lopsided stool, staring morosely at Makana with a malevolent look.
‘When Cornelius was a boy he was caught in the market in Khartoum stealing a mango. The judge ordered that his hand be removed, as prescribed by Islamic law. This despite the fact that the boy was not a Muslim. To him you will always represent the North, the Arab slaver, the fanatics who took away his hand.’
‘Maybe we all have to learn how to trust each other.’
‘I couldn’t agree more.’ Father Saturnius indicated the small trees and aloe vera bushes planted in split oil drums that dotted the wall. ‘The neighbours don’t like us here. This was a desolate patch of wasteland when we came here. Still, they call the police, claim drugs are being sold, that prostitution and gambling are taking place. They come out. We argue. They go away. All it takes is a spark and one day it will all go up in flames . . .’
Makana shook hands with the priest and approached the exit where Cornelius got reluctantly to his feet to open the gate for him. He had the sense someone was watching him. When he glanced back towards the row of buildings he saw the girl standing in the kitchen doorway and he remembered where he had seen her before.
Chapter Eight
Outside Makana found Sindbad in a heated discussion with two ugly men standing next to a battered Mazda the colour of a rotten banana. It wasn’t clear what was going on. Sindbad was nose to nose with the larger of the two. Both men wore cheap leather jackets. The smaller one stood to one side, looking idly on, smoking a cigarette.
‘Is there a law against parking here?’ Sindbad stepped forward, almost butting heads with the other man, who was obliged to step back. Despite his bulk, the big man was light on his feet, a legacy of his years in the boxing ring before he started driving for a living. ‘That’s all I’m asking. If there’s a law then show it to me.’
‘One of these days someone is going to teach you some manners.’
‘Sure, but you’d better bring your mother along to help you.’
Makana pushed Sindbad off to one side and led him away. He took it badly.
‘What are you doing, ya basha? I can take care of both of them.’
‘I’m in no doubt that you can. I just don’t think it’s a particularly good idea.’
He pushed Sindbad towards the battered black and white Datsun taxi and turned back to face the two men. They had the stamp of the Dakhliya all over them and clearly hailed from some branch of the security services.
‘What’s going on here?’
‘He’s a little hot-headed, your man there,’ said the second man, pushing off the Mazda to come forward. ‘We’re just doing our job.’
The two men were physically opposites. The first tall, this one short, with skin like a lizard and a thin moustache. The tall one had a bent ear.
‘What job would that be?’
‘What do you think?’ asked the moustache. ‘What makes it your business, anyway?’
‘This man was waiting for me. We’re not breaking any laws. The car is perfectly fine where it is. So, if you have an official complaint, I’d like to hear it.’
‘I don’t answer to you. I asked you your business, and I’m asking again. What are you doing inside that church?’
‘Like I said, we’re not breaking any laws. And unless you have evidence that says otherwise I don’t see that has anything to do with you.’
‘How about we begin with not cooperating with officers of the state?’
‘You’re police officers?’
‘That’s right.’ Moustache grinned as he flipped up a grubby warrant card that identified him as Detective Sergeant Hakim of Giza prefecture. ‘This is my colleague Karim,’ Hakim said, nodding at Bent Ear.
‘You’re a long way from home.’
‘I could say the same about you,’ Hakim replied. ‘So what is your business here?’
‘A social call. How about yourselves?’
Hakim grinned. ‘You’re a funny guy. What kind of social call? You’re not Christians, are you?’
‘I don’t think there’s a law against being a Christian in this country. Not yet, at least.’
‘You have some kind of ID on you?’
Makana produced the battered card that identified him. Hakim studied it for a moment before handing it to the tall one who had sauntered over.
‘Makana. Funny name. Rings a bell though.’ Karim tapped the card against his hand before flipping it back.
‘Go on now. And make sure you keep King Kong over there chained up next time.’
Makana watched the two detectives head back to their car and wondered what their interest in the church might be. Rare to see such dedication these days, and somehow they didn’t strike him as the conscientious type.
The delay was made worse by the traffic, so that Makana arrived at the Diwan bookshop twenty minutes after the appointed time to meet Mourad’s sister. Not seeing Sahar in the café he assumed that she had given up and left, but decided to wander through the bookshop anyway, where he found her browsing through a stack of the latest novels, most of which Makana had never heard of.
‘Mourad and I often used to come here together. He’s more drawn to the factual stuff, biographies of politicians, history, stories about wars. I’m always trying to get him to read novels, but he thinks they are a waste of time. I suppose that’s what you expect from an engineer.’
‘Is that how he thinks of himself, as an engineer?’ It seemed to contradict the picture Makana was beginning to form of a dreamer who lacked focus and had possibly dropped out of university just before the end-of-term exams.
‘It’s an interesting question. Sometimes I think he is less realistic than I am. I suppose with him it’s this idea that there is so much to learn.’
They made their way back through to the café, where two well dressed ladies, fresh from the hairdresser by the look of them, were debating what a caffé latte actually was. The waiter, a young man with a nervous smile, was sweating under the pressure. Sahar asked for cappuccino. Makana ordered the same, if only to simplify matters.
‘I was hoping th
at you would be able to tell me that you were making progress,’ she began. ‘My parents are more worried than they like to admit. They don’t say it, but they think something terrible has happened to him.’
‘And you, what do you think?’
‘I don’t know what to think, really.’ She stared at the table. ‘The idea of losing him seems too awful to bear.’ Her eyes lifted to meet his. ‘I can’t believe he would go off without saying something.’
‘If he disappeared of his own free will it’s possible that he had a reason, perhaps something or someone he was afraid of. Did he ever mention anything like that?’
‘Never.’ Sahar shook her head.
‘Did you know he was working in a fast-food place?’
‘No. Why would he do something like that?’ She frowned. ‘What kind of fast-food place?’
Makana told her what he knew. Sahar was taken aback at first and then surprise gave way to anger.
‘He must have known how much that would hurt my parents. They did all they could to help him, and he knows we’re not rich. The restaurant doesn’t make as much as we like to think it does.’ Her eyes glistened and she dabbed at her tears with a paper napkin. ‘I can’t believe he would do something like that. Why not come and help us?’
‘Perhaps he didn’t want to be a burden. He thought he could make some money on the side. Is that so strange?’
‘We’re a small family, Mr Makana. We’re very close. He knows how much the restaurant means to them, especially my father.’
‘Then maybe this was his way of breaking free?’
Sahar looked at him for a moment. ‘You mean taking a job just to spite them?’
‘Not necessarily. He’s a young man. He needs to make his way in the world. This job gave him independence, a chance to prove he could do things his own way. It made him less dependent on your parents for money that is in short supply.’
‘But why keep it a secret?
‘Perhaps he knew it would upset them.’
‘I suppose you might have a point.’ Sahar stared down at the folded napkin in her hands. ‘He knew the sacrifices that were being made to allow him to study.’
‘Did he resent that in some way, being dependent?’
‘I don’t know. I know that he almost refused to go to university. My parents insisted. They wanted their son to have what they never did.’
‘What about you?’
‘Me?’ The question seemed to take Sahar by surprise. She allowed herself a half-smile. It was a tense, awkward effort.
‘You seem to bear more than your fair share of the weight.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean, there’s Mourad off pursuing a career, which leaves you at home, literally in the kitchen helping your parents. It doesn’t give you a lot of time to be yourself.’
‘I don’t really think about it all that much.’
The coffee arrived and she began to stir patterns in the layer of frothy milk on top. Makana studied his cup. Things had changed, he decided, if this was what a cup of coffee was nowadays. He reached for the sugar bowl the way a drowning man might clutch at a twig.
‘I’ve always been more closely connected to the restaurant,’ Sahar continued. ‘There are a few things I would change.’
‘You mean, to modernise the place?’ A scattering of sugar grains seemed to help calm the effervescent milk.
‘We need to get young people to come in. My parents think differently. They see themselves as upholding a tradition, which means serving exactly the same dishes that my grandfather did.’
‘But you don’t?’
‘I think we need to move with the times.’
‘How does Mourad feel about it?’ The milk had finally subsided to the point where Makana dared to take a sip. Underneath the frothy façade the coffee was watery and faint. A cigarette might have improved matters, but he suspected this wasn’t that sort of place.
‘Oh . . .’ Sahar put a hand to her forehead as if to think. ‘He’s always seen himself as rather special. You know how it is. The boy in the family . . .’ Her voice tailed off, as if reading his mind, hearing the touch of resentment in her voice. Looking out towards the street she tried to correct herself. ‘I mean, he’s always seen himself as different, as if he had some important purpose in life.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘When he was a kid he was always getting crazy ideas. He would run away and we would all have to go out and search for him. Once he’s got his heart set on something he never gives up. He won’t stop until he gets it. That’s why he and my father were always arguing.’
‘What did they argue about?’
‘The same things fathers and sons always argue about,’ she shrugged. ‘The way things are done. Nothing serious.’
‘What about politics? Does he take an interest in that?’
‘Not really. He thinks it’s all quite hopeless.’ She sipped her coffee quickly. ‘I mean, everything is such a mess. The economy. He says we’re all part of a great big game. Democracy is a farce. We don’t even have a country any more.’
‘What did he mean by that?’
‘Just that it’s been hijacked by those in power. He says we have no values any more. All we believe in is money and getting by.’
‘Sounds like quite the idealist.’
‘I never took any of that too seriously. A lot of hot air. He would never do anything about it. It’s all pie in the sky. Now he’s studying engineering. Before that it was agriculture. He wanted to end famine, find a way to grow enough food for the world. One day Africa will feed the world, he used to say. I would laugh at him.’
*
In Makana’s view, idealists, like fanatics, should never be underestimated. He had already pulled his Cleopatras from his pocket when the waiter caught his eye. With the exaggerated gestures of a professional mime, he indicated the sign on the wall behind Makana. He still had the perpetual smile of an idiot who has been kicked in the head by a horse, but had cheered up somewhat. The two ladies were comparing the flavour of their coffee, their cups now adorned with traces of lipstick.
‘His interests changed all the time. When he was a teenager he wanted to run away and join the Palestinian freedom fighters. He would get upset and launch into these long tirades at anyone who would listen.’
‘What about this Abdelhadi he shared a room with?’
‘A strange one. He took things. Mourad asked for another room. Nothing happened. I think he’s quite religious. Mourad hates people who take their religion too seriously.’
‘You say he took things. What kind of things?’
‘Just things. Books, pens. Mourad even caught him trying on his clothes once,’ Sahar giggled.
‘How about girls?’
‘No, he never had time for that kind of thing.’
‘You mean he isn’t interested in girls?’
‘Oh, no, I don’t mean to imply . . .’ She was momentarily embarrassed. ‘He likes girls. It’s just that most of them at university, that’s all they think of. He thought it was all a bit shallow.’
‘Can I get you anything else?’ The beaming waiter interposed himself, picking up Makana’s barely touched cup. Makana gave him a look which sent him away.
‘Please go on.’
‘Well, the way he saw it, politics was hopeless. People spend all their lives dreaming about making money. They don’t think about changing their environment. We’re stuck together like chickens in a cage, he would say. Urban planning would give him a chance to make this city a better place to live.’ The idea made her smile. ‘We need air to breathe.’
‘If it’s so important to him, why disappear now, just before the end-of-term exams?’
‘I don’t know. That’s what worries me.’
Sahar gave him the names of a couple of people who might talk to him.
‘He doesn’t make friends easily. Those that he does have tend to be like him, people who keep to themselves.’
‘Wh
at does he spend his money on?’
‘He doesn’t, not really. He’s not interested in fashion, or clothes. He did buy a computer. I was surprised at that.’
‘Is that unusual?’
‘Well, it was an Apple PowerBook. You know how expensive they are.’ Makana would have hazarded a guess but didn’t want to make an issue of it. ‘Anyway, he wanted to keep it a secret. I understand that. Our parents wouldn’t understand spending money on something like that.’
‘Where is this computer now?’
‘I don’t know. It should be in his room.’
Makana sat back. He avoided her gaze. Sahar seemed to be waiting for something that he couldn’t supply. Answers, when all he really had was more questions.
‘My parents are not young, Mr Makana. This matter is affecting their health.’
‘If Mourad had wanted to disappear, where would he go? Is there some favourite place he might have in mind? Somewhere you went as children?’
‘Nowhere that I can think of. And why would he run away without telling us, his family?’
‘People run away for all sorts of reasons. He could simply need some time to himself.’
‘I’m afraid for him,’ Sahar said as she got to her feet. ‘I was really hoping I could tell my parents that you were making progress.’
‘Soon. These things take time.’
He remained where he was long after she’d left, until he noticed the waiter on the other side of the room still smiling at him, and decided he’d had enough of the place.
Chapter Nine
There were a thousand reasons why a young man might disappear for a few weeks. The proximity of the exams might have put pressure on Mourad, spurring him to get away from it all, to lose himself in the anonymity of unfamiliar territory. He might have fallen in love, lost his head to a whirlwind passion and be hidden in some secret corner of the world, oblivious of the concern he was causing at home. To a young man worry was something you didn’t need to concern yourself with just yet. Its time would come, and when it did there would be plenty of it – his parents were proof of that. Up to a point, Makana had no cause to worry about Mourad’s well-being. He believed there were enough benign possibilities to explain his absence. In all likelihood the young man would turn up, unharmed and no worse off, stricken by a guilty conscience possibly, but secretly glad that he had had the courage to follow his dreams. At the back of his mind, however, there was a stirring that upset this picture, a loose thread in this story, something that wouldn’t shake itself out into a real worry but remained a concern. Until it emerged, Makana decided he might just as well pursue the case that fate had delivered to his doorstep. The severed head preoccupied him in a way that he could not quite explain. It had something to do with his past, with unresolved issues that lingered out there on the edge of his mind. It left him restless and unsettled.