Dogstar Rising

by Parker Bilal

  Faragalla himself finally turned up. A bluff, clumsy figure of a man on skittish legs. His features were blurred by loose, hanging folds of flesh which gave his face a puffy, indistinct look. His eyes were jaundiced and swollen. Dressed in a shapeless two-piece suit that looked as if he had slept in it for a week, he wandered by like a man under heavy sedation, a handful of newspapers under one arm, and nothing more than a brief nod to Meera on the reception desk.

  ‘This is Mr Makana,’ she announced, leaping to her feet. ‘He’s been waiting for some time.’

  ‘Waiting?’ frowned Faragalla. ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘He says he has an appointment.’

  ‘An appointment?’ Faragalla peered at Makana. ‘What appointment?’

  ‘I believe Talal had a word with you, sir?’

  It took a while for the clouds to lift from the other man’s brows, but then he gave a start. He brushed a hand over his grey moustache and nodded his head.

  ‘Ah, yes. Yes, of course. You’d better come in.’

  Faragalla’s office was the most chaotic mess Makana had seen in a long time. It was hard enough working out where the desk was. Finding anything in the heaps of folders and files and papers that were stacked up in every conceivable spot around the room would have been an impossible task. A row of shelves had collapsed under the pressure and now slumped at an alarming angle into the far corner like a paper landslide. Faragalla fiddled with the air-conditioner switch, flipping it back and forth and thumping the unit with his hand until finally it wheezed into life, filling the room with an unhappy grinding sound and a faint current of warm, dusty air.

  ‘Have a seat, please.’ Faragalla disappeared behind a wall of paper as he sat down. He got up again and shifted an armful of files to the top of a filing cabinet, where they perched precariously, and began to go through his pockets. ‘Of course, Talal told me all about you.’ He finally found the pipe he was looking for. ‘He said you were an old friend of his father’s?’

  Back in the days when Makana was a police inspector in Khartoum, he had worked together with Talal’s father on a number of cases. Abdel Aziz fell foul of the authorities long before Makana did. He protested frequently and, being an intelligent man, managed on a number of occasions to outwit the regime’s legal goons, most of whom, he proclaimed indignantly, would never have managed to get into the Faculty of Law in his day, let alone graduate. Makana had tried but failed to persuade him to flee. Despite his being a prominent figure it was only a matter of time before the regime decided to rid themselves of him. Eventually he was charged with conspiring to overthrow the state and sentenced to death.

  ‘Talal tells me you were in some kind of trouble yourself.’ Faragalla was stuffing the bowl of his pipe with large, clumsy fingers. Flakes of tobacco fluttered left and right like insects scurrying to safety.

  ‘They were difficult times for everyone.’ Makana shifted in his seat and reached for his cigarettes. It was ten years since he had landed in this city and he wasn’t keen on going over all of that here and now. It all seemed a long time ago and far away. ‘Why don’t you tell me what is bothering you?’

  Faragalla had a match going by now and the big fleshy head nodded up and down like a baggy elephant as the flame veered sideways before being sucked into the bowl. In a few moments he had a forest fire going with clouds of smoke filling the room.

  ‘Yes. Well, it’s not as simple as all that. You see. A man in my business has to be discreet. You understand that? Reputation is everything and I don’t mind telling you there are a few people out there who would not shed a tear if I was to go out of business tomorrow.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  Faragalla’s eyes flickered up from the bowl of his pipe as if he detected a faint note of what might have been sarcasm. He let it go.

  ‘The point is I need a man who knows how to keep his mouth shut. Have you had coffee? I wouldn’t mind some myself.’ He reached for the telephone and Makana suppressed the desire to reach over and hit him with it. Instead he waited while Faragalla ordered his coffee and stoked his pipe some more and then rocked himself back in his chair.

  ‘It would help if I had some idea of what exactly we are talking about.’

  ‘I’m getting to that. The point is that we must have an agreement.’

  ‘What kind of agreement?’

  ‘You would answer directly to me. Anything you find, you tell me. Nothing goes outside this office unless I say so.’

  It was always something of a miracle to Makana that anyone ever hired him at all. A good deal of his job often involved actually working out why it was he had been chosen in the first place. Of course, nobody had much faith in the police, which didn’t hurt his cause. You don’t involve officialdom in any of your business because there was always a risk it might attract the wrong kind of attention. It was a system that was true only to itself, faithful to maintaining its own existence, to feeding its needs, its appetite for power. It wasn’t a place you went to for justice. On the other hand, it was also true that in most cases the kind of people who needed his services usually had something of their own to hide: a weakness, a character flaw, a crime – sometimes serious, usually minor. Enough, in any case, for them to turn to somebody who was outside the circle of influence. Someone who could be relied on to be quiet. Someone like Makana.

  ‘Discretion, that’s the key to this.’

  ‘I could use a little more information if you can spare it.’

  Faragalla stoked his pipe up some more, taking long puffs to keep the flame from going out, before plucking the stem out of his mouth and staring into the bowl as if he expected it to speak.

  ‘My grandfather started this business in the days of King Farouk. I grew up hearing tales of the glamour of the golden age, when tourists were gentlemen and ladies. Things have changed. The kind of client we deal with has changed, but our reputation goes back to those days.’

  It went some way towards explaining the air of decay that hung over the place. By the looks of things they were surviving on the last gasp of those glory days.

  ‘Talal said that maybe you could help to put my mind at ease. He said you have some . . . expertise in these matters?’

  ‘In what matters?’ Makana’s patience was being slowly drained. ‘Exactly what kind of threat are we talking about?’

  ‘Perhaps it is best if I show you.’ Faragalla produced a set of keys from his jacket pocket and opened a drawer in front of him. He rummaged around for a moment before producing a sheet of paper which he handed across to Makana. It contained a few lines, printed close together in a block at the centre of the page. Makana read slowly: ‘Have you considered him who turns his back upon the Faith, giving little at first and then nothing at all? Does he know, and can he see, what is hidden?’

  ‘What makes you think this is a threat?’

  ‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Of course. It’s from the Quran. I looked it up. The Sura of The Star.’

  ‘That still doesn’t make it a threat.’ Makana looked down at the letter again. ‘I mean, there’s no actual mention of a threat here. Nobody is explicitly saying they wish to do you harm.’

  Faragalla’s hand wavered in the air, a lit match flickering at his fingertips. ‘Talal led me to believe that you had dealt with these fanatical types and that you would immediately spot the danger.’ The match was burning perilously close to Faragalla’s fingers.

  ‘Fanatics?’

  ‘You know, Islamists. Jihadists. People who want to lead us back to the eleventh century.’

  ‘You think they sent this letter to you as a threat, because it contains a quote from the Quran?’

  ‘Isn’t that enough?’ Faragalla blew out the match before placing the charred remains carefully in the ashtray. ‘Let me explain something to you. This is a travel agency. We have been bringing Westerners into this country for years.’

  ‘Since the days of King Farouk,’ murmured M
akana.

  ‘Exactly.’ Faragalla fixed Makana with a beady eye. ‘So they come here, they visit the museum, take a few pictures of the pyramids, ride on a camel, and then what?’

  Makana waited.

  ‘They go back to their hotels where they drink wine and beer, and they sleep together in hotels, even when they are not married, mark you. During the day they throw off their clothes and display themselves publicly to the world as naked as the day they were born. Now I have nothing against them doing what they like in the privacy of their rooms, but I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that some people do not take such a liberal view of things.’

  ‘So, someone is targeting you because of your involvement with tourism?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Faragalla stared at Makana, temporarily lost for words. He started to speak, then stopped. Makana reached again for his cigarettes.

  ‘Let us assume for a moment you are right, that someone is threatening you. What do you think they want? I mean, the letter makes no demands. They are not saying shut your company down, they are not asking you to impose rules of behaviour on your foreign clients. So the question is, do they want to harm you personally? You follow me? Maybe it’s about you? Aside from the possibility that someone with a religious sensibility might be offended by how your guests behave, is there anything else, any other reason someone might want to harm you?’

  ‘Something like what? Isn’t that enough? Only a few years ago they were gunning tourists down in Luxor, taking potshots at trains. There have been kidnappings in the Sinai. I’m not inventing this!’

  ‘I meant, you personally, your company in particular.’

  ‘What difference does it make?’ Faragalla brandished the letter. ‘This makes it personal.’

  ‘Can you think of anyone who might have a reason to try and hurt you personally, or your company? Has anyone threatened to close you down?’

  Faragalla pulled a face. ‘These people don’t need reasons, they have divine right on their side. They are fanatics.’

  ‘Yes, you already said that.’ Makana examined the letter again. It was printed on cheap, low-quality paper full of imperfections. A couple of the letters were smudged around the edges and there were faint but regular ink spatters consistent with an old-fashioned printing press. He tossed the paper back on the desk. ‘It could simply be a joke. Not a very good one, perhaps, and in bad taste, but nevertheless . . .’

  ‘A joke? Who would dare such a thing?’ Faragalla’s jaw went slack.

  ‘A rival company perhaps? Someone who would like to scare you out of the business?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That’s what I’m asking you,’ said Makana patiently. ‘How many people have seen this?’

  ‘Nobody apart from myself and Meera, the girl in reception. She usually opens the mail.’

  ‘Could she have spoken to anyone?’

  ‘No, she is very discreet. Coptic. Well educated.’ Faragalla seemed to grow exasperated. ‘Look, will you investigate this thing or not?’

  ‘How many of these have you actually received?’

  ‘That’s the only one.’

  ‘You haven’t told me about your competitors. Who might profit from closing you down?’

  ‘Of course we have rivals, but quite frankly there are other ways for them to steal our business, this isn’t one of them.’ Faragalla reached for a glass of water on his desk and gulped it down like a man who had just made it across the desert. ‘Look, I really don’t understand why you refuse to take this seriously. It is clear to me that someone is trying to scare me. Why, I cannot say, but I would ask you to treat this matter with the respect it deserves.’

  ‘Very well. How easy would it be to put you out of business?’

  ‘You are asking me to be frank with you, so I shall ask you to keep this to yourself.’

  ‘Not a word outside this office.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Faragalla rested his hands on the desk between them. ‘Now, the fact is that things have not been going well for some time. To be honest, we cannot survive another bad season.’

  ‘In other words, you hardly represent a threat to other travel companies.’

  ‘There is our reputation to consider. Our name is a respectable one. We have been running since—’

  ‘Since the days of King Farouk, yes, you mentioned it.’ Makana drew a deep breath. ‘If I am to investigate this I’ll need an alibi, a cover story. People out there have to think that I am here to work for you.’

  ‘That will never work,’ Faragalla snorted. ‘I’ve been letting people go, refusing to raise salaries. I could never explain taking on another person.’

  ‘Tell them I am assessing the company to come up with ways of improving efficiency.’

  ‘That might work.’ Faragalla seemed to cheer up for a moment. ‘How much do you charge?’

  ‘Sixty a day, plus expenses, of course.’

  ‘You don’t come cheap.’

  ‘If you want the job done cheaply, I’m sure you can find someone else.’ Makana made as if to rise.

  ‘Don’t be so hasty.’ Faragalla flapped a hand in the air. ‘All right. I don’t believe in cutting corners when it comes to matters of life and death. How long do you think it will take you?’

  Life and death seemed like an exaggeration to Makana. ‘If I knew that I would be better off making a living as a fortune teller. And I’ll need some expense money to start out with.’

  ‘Naturally.’ Faragalla nodded, reaching into his jacket for his wallet and began counting out notes onto the desk. ‘Just so long as we are clear,’ he said softly. ‘Anything that you find which is, shall we say, out of the ordinary, you will come to me directly, and to no one else.’

  ‘Any information I turn up is provided to the client, that is you. Nobody else.’

  ‘Good.’ Faragalla pushed the heap of notes across the desk.

  Makana picked a brown envelope, tipped the contents out onto the heap of disorder, and slipped the letter and the money inside.

  ‘Then I think we have an understanding.’

  Chapter Two

  The two of them went out to face the office. As agreed, Makana was introduced as an assessor whose job was to come up with new ways of improving efficiency. If anyone had difficulty believing the story they made no outward sign of it. There was scepticism on some faces, apart from Wael, the young man with the eager-to-please smile on his face, who actually stood up and applauded rather self-consciously, as if hoping this would improve his chances of surviving any imminent cull of existing staff. With a quick, dismissive wave, Faragalla disappeared back inside his own office and closed the door, leaving Makana to face the stares.

  ‘And there was me thinking we were in trouble,’ muttered Arwa, the woman in the leopard-skin headscarf, just loud enough for everyone to hear. The others went back to work one by one. Makana became aware of Yousef watching him closely from across the room, but he said nothing and after a time reached for his telephone and began speaking again.

  ‘Well, I suppose you’re eager to get to work.’

  Makana turned to find Meera, who now seemed unsure exactly what note to strike with him now. She led him along a narrow, gloomy corridor past a bathroom to a small room. They leaned in through the doorway. A row of old metal filing cabinets stood guard along one wall, suggesting that once upon a time some semblance of order had existed here. Now it was almost impossible to even get over the threshold due to a mound of folders and files stacked on the floor, climbing perilously in tottering heaps that looked dusty, forgotten and just about ready to keel over the moment anyone touched them.

  ‘This is our archive room,’ Meera explained. ‘There are files here dating back to the days of Ramses II. Just kidding. I mean, Mr Faragalla’s grandfather – Mustapha Bey.’ She pointed to a black-and-white picture of a man wearing a fez that hung at a lopsided angle on the far wall. ‘In those days it was rather a grand operation,’ she sighed, gazing at a poster on another wall which displaye
d the elegant old train carriages that used to transport travellers up the Nile. ‘People used to travel in style. Not any more, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But there are more tourists than ever.’

  ‘Everyone wants to see the world,’ she nodded, ‘but there’s only so much world to go round.’

  Opposite the archive room was a small kitchen. A picture of the company employees was stuck to the front of one of the cupboards with yellowed Sellotape. It showed a group of about twenty people, all lined up alongside a boat on the Nile. It looked like Upper Egypt.

  ‘Where was this taken?’

  ‘Oh, that’s Luxor. We have part of our operation there.’

  Makana leaned closer to the picture. ‘You’re not here.’

  ‘No,’ said Meera. ‘Before my time.’

  Makana peered at the photograph. He picked out Yousef and Arwa. Standing next to Faragalla was a young man in his twenties.

  ‘That’s Ramy. Mr Faragalla’s nephew. He is running our Luxor office.’

  ‘You seem to know your way about this place. How long have you been working here?’

  ‘About a year.’