Dogstar Rising

by Parker Bilal

  ‘What did you do before this?’

  ‘Oh, this and that,’ she brushed a hand through her hair. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Somehow you don’t strike me as someone who belongs in the tourist business.’

  She met his gaze evenly. ‘And you don’t strike me as a management consultant.’

  ‘Fair enough. How does anyone ever manage to make sense of all this?’ he asked, gesturing at the archive room and the heaps of paper.

  ‘They don’t. This is the age of mass travel. The name of the game is speed. Get as many people into and out of the country as fast as possible. You have to push the prices down as far as they can go. The big foreign agencies demand huge discounts. So the only way to keep going is to increase the volume. People come to Egypt for the trip of a lifetime, but they don’t want to pay more than is absolutely necessary.’

  ‘You sound like you know a lot about it.’

  ‘I’m a fast learner, as I hope are you.’ Meera picked up a ledger and began to explain how their accounting system worked. There was a series of categories and codes. Hotels and resorts each had their own sub-headings, as did locations – Sinai, Aswan, Luxor, Valley of the Kings. Then there were packages – Nile cruises, adventure sports, diving, etc. Another set of codes applied to the tourists’ country of origin. Makana had never imagined how complex this business was. They needed interpreters who had fluent Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Russian, as well as English, French, German and Spanish.

  ‘You’ll excuse me if I say that this doesn’t look like the most efficient way of counting money in the world. How do you square all the accounts?’

  ‘Well, I’ll be honest with you, since you are here to help the company,’ Meera said, looking him in the eye. ‘That worried me at first, then I realised they just make it up.’

  ‘So that all the pieces fit?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Back in the main office the woman in the hijab, Arwa, muttered loudly: ‘This place is like a prison sentence.’ It wasn’t clear who the comment was aimed at exactly. She rummaged in an enormous handbag that took up most of her desk and produced a bottle of perfume which she proceeded to spray in a halo around her head, as if warding off evil spirits. ‘Did I tell you they took my nephew away? Nothing. No charges, no idea where he was or why. He just vanished.’

  ‘You’ll have to excuse her,’ Wael addressed Makana. ‘Arwa has her own special way of expressing herself.’ He ended with a chirpy giggle.

  ‘You can laugh, you don’t have responsibilities. They beat that boy so badly he still doesn’t walk properly. And for what? For wearing a beard? For declaring his love for Allah?’

  Wael was still laughing, although it wasn’t clear why. Arwa made a dismissive gesture.

  ‘If you had a family you might understand. Or maybe you’re not interested in marriage?’ A sneer twisted her features. ‘Is that it?’ Wael suddenly took a great interest in rooting through a heap of paperwork in front of him. Arwa chuckled, her fat fingers crunching the stapler as they might an insect.

  ‘Why don’t you give your overworked tongue a rest,’ snarled Yousef. His face had a rodent-like quality to it and he carried himself with the assurance of a man who is not afraid of much. He certainly commanded authority in that office. The others were silenced. When he smiled, a thin-lipped leer crossed the pockmarked face. ‘Mr Makana is here to help us. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘I’m certainly going to try.’

  ‘He’s going to try.’ The idea seemed to amuse Yousef. ‘You hear that? He’s going to show us the error of our ways. So why don’t you all stop complaining and get to work before he decides the solution lies in throwing you to the dogs.’

  Suddenly everyone had something else to do. The chatter of conversation died as if cut off by a knife. Yousef gave Makana one last look before turning away.

  By the time Talal turned up late that afternoon, Makana had already concluded that his love for Faragalla’s youngest daughter was a hopeless quest. He was also convinced that nothing but divine intervention could improve the fortunes of Blue Ibis Tours. What Faragalla really needed was a decent accountant with a sharp pencil. The company records were in a chaotic state. They were in such a hurry to take on new business they tossed aside old files the minute the tourists were on their plane home. He was willing to bet there was a small fortune buried there in outstanding debts and duplicate bills.

  Talal’s tall, bony frame was topped by a wild bush that he probably imagined made him look like a mad conductor. To most people, of course, he just looked mad. Cheerful by nature, he was greeted by the others with surprising warmth. Everyone seemed not only to know him but to be glad to see him. Makana watched from his corner of the room as Talal drifted round, perching himself on a desk here, sharing a joke there. He seemed capable of lifting everyone’s mood, even Arwa appeared to lighten.

  ‘Have you met our latest recruit?’ Wael asked, waving a hand in Makana’s direction. ‘He’s going to save us all from ruin.’

  ‘Of course he knows him,’ snapped Arwa. ‘They are compatriots, after all.’

  ‘Not all Sudanese are born knowing one another,’ Wael countered bravely.

  ‘We do actually know each other,’ Talal smiled. ‘In fact, I recommended him to Sayyid Faragalla.’ For a moment Makana wondered if he was going to get carried away and tell all.

  ‘You see?’ Arwa shook her head and Wael rolled his eyes.

  ‘In fact, I was hoping he was going to show his gratitude by buying me a cup of coffee.’

  Which was music to Makana’s ears. He was already on his feet reaching for his jacket.

  On the ground floor a sad trail of lifeless shops lined a passage leading into the building from the street. The crumbling stucco around the entrance arch had been covered over by tacky sheets of chromed plastic adorned with gaudy kaleidoscopic tassels that fluttered in the occasional gust of wind. Somewhere an architect was turning over slowly in his grave. The dim arcade was lifted from the gloom by the white neon strip lighting covered in cobwebs that illuminated the shop displays. Cracks in the floor stood out like veins on the worn marble. Hijabbed mannequins stared glassily at Makana and Talal as they passed down to a narrow café set so far back that daylight barely reached it from the street. The distorted screech of excited music greeted them and the door appeared to be permanently jammed halfway open. Inside there was barely room for a grubby counter and a couple of tables that might once have been bright orange in colour but were now a shade of mud. Talal’s arrival was met by a brief nod of recognition from a heavy-set man whose right eye drooped severely to one side. He leered at them from behind the counter.

  ‘Look,’ Talal said as they sat down, ‘I know you are doing this as a favour to me, or to my father really, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ said Makana, idly watching the man behind the bar fishing a couple of cups out of a sink of dirty water. ‘Your father was a good friend.’

  ‘If you could only meet her, you would understand how much she means to me.’ Talal grinned like a schoolboy.

  ‘I’d love to meet her.’ Makana didn’t have the heart to tell Talal that to judge from the look on Faragalla’s face when his name came up, Talal had as much chance of impressing the girl’s father as the sphinx had of flying.

  ‘You would? When?’

  ‘I don’t know, anytime.’

  Makana had never had a son himself. He had hoped, of course, but when Muna delivered a girl he contented himself with that and Nasra was as dear to him as any son could ever have been, more so even. Muna used to tease him about it. Men always talk about sons, she used to say, but what they dream about is a daughter who will take care of them and admire them more than any son could ever do. But they were both gone now. Talal had lost his father and seemed to have turned to Makana to fill that absence in some way.

  ‘That would be great. I mean, I don’t have any family here, really, apart from my mother. I want her
to know where I come from. You understand?’

  Makana looked into the earnest young man’s face and nodded. ‘I understand,’ he said, reaching for his cigarettes. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  A boy of about thirteen came in through the door carrying a heavy bag. As he went behind the counter the man grabbed hold of him by the neck and dragged him out through a back door where he began to shout at him. Having finished shouting at the boy, the man came out and walked straight towards the door.

  ‘Hey, what about our coffee?’

  ‘The boy will see to it,’ muttered the man, who paused then and took his time to look Talal over as he lit a cigarette. ‘Muhammed,’ he called, raising his voice, his eyes still on Talal, ‘hurry up, people are waiting.’ Smiling, he then turned and walked out.

  ‘I understand you had more important things to talk about,’ the afro bobbed up and down energetically. ‘So now you’re on the case, right? You’re working?’

  ‘Actually, I’m not sure how much I can do here.’

  Talal looked pained. ‘I told him you were the best.’

  ‘It’s okay. I’ll take care of it.’ Makana had already decided he would give the Blue Ibis four days, a week at the most, and if nothing came up he would quietly break it off. That would give him enough money to get to the end of the month, if he was careful. As for Talal’s chances of marriage, he didn’t want to even think about how he was going to break the news to the young man.

  ‘You have to solve this one, really. My life depends on it.’

  ‘I’ll keep that in mind. Tell me about the company. How long have you worked for them?’

  ‘Oh, a couple of years now. On and off. It’s all temporary. In my position I have to move around from company to company, taking any work I can find.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I suppose I charge less than most interpreters. Well, I know I do. I have to. It’s the only way to have an edge. Nine times out of ten they would rather not hire a foreigner.’

  ‘You’re not a foreigner, your mother is from here.’

  ‘They take one look at your skin.’ Talal shook his head. ‘You know how it is.’

  ‘I get the impression business is not going too well upstairs.’ Makana lit a cigarette as the boy came out from the narrow space behind the counter to place two small glasses of coffee down on the table. As he straightened up he felt Makana’s gaze on him and his eyes darted away. Talal was still talking.

  ‘They live on their name, which is not bad. It still has some leverage. But you know, loyalty to hotels that had a good reputation twenty years ago doesn’t make much sense nowadays . . .’

  ‘Faragalla is slow to change. Who takes over when he goes? Your young lady?’

  ‘Bunny?’ Talal winced. ‘No, I don’t see her taking over. She hates the business.’

  ‘Who else is there, any sons?’

  ‘No sons. There is a nephew, Ramy.’

  ‘The one who is running the office in Luxor.’

  ‘Ah, you heard.’ Talal stopped stirring his coffee. ‘He’s a strange one. He didn’t tell anyone he was going, just disappeared from one day to the next. There was a story he was mixed up with some of the clients. Women. You know . . .’ The eyebrows bounced up to meet the afro. ‘I’d better be going. I have a piano lesson.’

  ‘Really, you’re learning to play the piano?’ It was lame, but it raised a laugh.

  ‘Very funny. No, I give lessons.’ The wiry young man turned his attention to the device in his shirt pocket. The wires on the earplugs had become tangled and he suddenly became interested in unravelling them, as if this was the most important task in the world. ‘Have you ever heard of the Conservatory in Vienna?’ Talal looked up to see the blank look on Makana’s face before going on. ‘Well, it’s simply the best school of its kind in the world.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

  ‘They invited me to audition. If they like my work I’ll get a scholarship to attend for a year.’

  ‘That’s wonderful.’

  Vienna seemed as far away as Mars. Why he should want to go there was beyond Makana.

  ‘There’s only one problem. To get a visa I need to prove I have enough money to live there for a year. Can you imagine how much that is?’ Tilal waited for Makana’s response. ‘I would need to rob a bank to get that kind of money.’

  ‘Things work themselves out.’ Which was another way of saying that Makana had no spare cash to lend. He had barely enough to live on himself. Talal nodded solemnly, as if he never expected anything different. After a time he said:

  ‘Do you ever, you know, think about going back?’

  ‘Back?’

  ‘Back home I mean.’

  ‘There’s nothing for me to go back to,’ Makana said. He peered into his glass. The coffee had tasted faintly of detergent, which he found oddly reassuring.

  ‘And if there was a reason, would you do it?’

  ‘You’re full of questions today.’

  ‘Maalish,’ said Talal, bouncing to his feet again. ‘I probably shouldn’t have asked.’

  Makana watched him go, the long, slim figure loping along in a loose-limbed way through the arcades towards the opening and the tangle of hooting, nervous traffic beyond. In a way he envied him. The boy moved in a different world to him. He was doing all right. If it didn’t work out with Bunny, or whatever her name was, that would be all right too. He was still young. He had ambitions and he clearly had talent of some kind.

  With a glance towards the counter Makana got to his feet. The boy, who was barely visible, was busy furiously scrubbing something out of sight. In a gesture of sympathy, Makana dropped an extra note on the table.

  Chapter Three

  In the street Makana raised a hand and instantly retracted it as two taxi cabs veered alarmingly towards him. The first was a stately old Peugeot driven by a grey-haired man who was lost behind the huge wheel. The second was a small, battered, and somewhat lopsided 1970s Datsun that careered wildly across three lanes before skidding to a halt at his feet. The small car shuddered on its springs as the ensuing hooting and shouting match unfolded around it. The driver was the size of a small gorilla. As he hung out of the window the other man realised he had met his match and drove off with a dismissive wave over his shoulder.

  ‘Yallah, ya bey!’ the driver leaned over and called up. ‘Don’t anger me by making me wait.’ Without further prompting Makana dragged open the rear door and climbed inside, only to be thrown backwards as the car took off. The interior was badly beaten up and so torn the upholstery looked like it had been mauled by hungry dogs.

  ‘You were a bit hasty back there.’

  ‘I am truly sorry, sir,’ the driver sought his eyes in the rear-view mirror, though his tone suggested he wasn’t in the least repentant. ‘I meant no offence, believe me, but in this business one has to fight. I swear by Allah that every morning I tell myself I’m a warrior going to battle. I have five children to feed.’

  ‘Take me to Imbaba.’

  ‘Hadir, ya bey.’ The driver wrestled the protesting gearstick and pinned it squealing in place so that Makana actually felt sorry for it. ‘I’ll get you there faster than lightning.’

  ‘Just get me there in one piece.’

  As they drove, Makana wondered about Faragalla. The more he thought back over their meeting the more it seemed to him that the man’s bumbling incompetence was no more than a convenient shield to hide behind. Even if the letter contained a threat, it was of such a veiled nature that it would take a guilty conscience to see anything there at all.

  As the car scraped and coughed its way along, Makana became aware of the giant watching him in the mirror.

  ‘The brother is here on business?’

  Makana was used to being taken for a visitor. If his dark skin didn’t do it, his accent gave him away immediately.

  ‘I live here,’ he said wearily.

  ‘Ya ahlan wa sahlan, you are very welcome, Effendim. If you ever need a
car . . .’ With a speed and dexterity remarkable for his size, the driver flourished a business card from under the strip of artificial black-and-white Dalmatian fur that ran across the dashboard. ‘Twenty-four hours a day,’ he added, raising a thick index finger towards the sky. ‘Allah and mechanics permitting.’ Makana glanced idly at the card as they crossed to the west bank of the river. Above a telephone number ran the words, Sindebad Car & Limoseen Servise – 24hrs anytime. Makana leaned over the front seat to take a better look at the big man’s profile.

  ‘Is that you, Sindbad?’

  ‘Ah, of course it’s me, who else would it be?’ Irritated, the driver glanced back and then stopped. A frown puckered up the fleshy features as his eyes widened. For a moment their journey risked coming to an abrupt and unpleasant end as the car drifted across several lanes and back again, like a duck sailing over a flooded field. He was oblivious to the hooting and swearing that followed him.

  ‘Is it really you, ya basha?’

  ‘How are you doing, Sindbad?’

  ‘I ask you,’ the big man lamented. ‘See how I have come down in the world. You knew me when I was working for Saad Hanafi. Those were the days.’ He indicated the grubby shirt and trousers he wore. ‘I am a sorry figure compared to that proud man.’

  Sindbad had once had a promising career as a boxer. They had met a couple of years ago when he had been working as a chauffeur for one of the wealthiest men in Cairo. In those days he had worn a suit when he drove.

  ‘You never really liked wearing those clothes, did you?’

  ‘To be honest, no, ya basha. It made me feel stiff, like one of those figures in the shop windows in Talat Harb Street. I still have it, though. Some days I think about wearing it to work, just to remember what it was like.’ Sindbad shook his head. ‘But it’s not the same. Nothing ever is.’

  ‘You lost your job, then?’

  ‘When the old man died everything went to pieces. They let us all go.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Well, to tell you the truth, it was a blessing. The money they gave me was enough to buy this car and now I am my own boss. There’s nothing like it in the world. I can tell you, I wouldn’t go back for anything. Not now. No matter how bad things are. Working for yourself, a man can keep his dignity. You understand what I mean?’