by Parker Bilal
‘You went to the police, of course.’
‘No,’ Father Girgis turned to Makana, his voice grave. ‘We discussed it amongst ourselves and took a vote. We knew that the scandal would destroy us.’
Silently, Makana held out the pack of cigarettes and Father Girgis took another.
‘None of us was thinking clearly. We were in a state of shock. We thought it would simply go away.’
‘But it didn’t?’
‘No, it did not.’ The light was fading fast. Shadows spread like dark wings over the valley. ‘When the second victim was found we realised that we had a maniac in our midst.’
‘What made you so certain?’
‘He was crucified, nailed to a rough cross and left out there in the desert to die. He burned up in the sun before he bled to death. He too had been . . . tortured in the most obscene way.’
They had come to a fork in the path. To the left was a small vegetable patch containing rows of neatly tilled soil divided by rich leafy plants of all kinds. To the right an opening in a low wall marked the entrance to a small cemetery. Here, instead of vegetables, were rows of headstones. These were all fairly simple. With basic inscriptions, some dating back a couple of centuries while others were more regular, clean and bright, the gilt paint on the inscriptions faded. The breeze trickled through the silvery leaves of the olive trees that grew in the cemetery. Sand grains blown on a dry desert wind sounded like a gigantic insect grinding its mandibles. Father Girgis came to a halt at a shady spot where a small stone was set into the earth.
‘We buried them here. Macarius and I thought we should try to solve the matter without involving the authorities. We thought we could contain it.’
‘You never found the killer?’
‘We had thirty-seven boys. Two victims and that left us with thirty-five suspects. Along with the staff of course. There were five priests: Father Macarius and myself, along with Father Basil and Father Elias and three helpers, all of whom we eliminated from our list of suspects.’
‘You said there were five monks altogether.’
Father Girgis nodded gravely. ‘Father Barsoom was the third victim. He too was crucified. We were sure the murderer had to be an adult. Our suspicions fell on one of the kitchen helpers, a young and violent man. When we confronted him he grew very angry and left. It turned out that he had an alibi that he was keeping to himself. He was stealing our dates to take to a little distillery he had in the mountains. One of his best clients was a local chief of police. So this was how the news leaked to the outside world. There was an outcry. We had tried so hard to keep it secret and now all manner of rumours circulated. It wasn’t long before the place was closed down. I stayed, but I could not maintain the place on my own.’
The sky was the colour of a tangerine dipped in ink. Adam was restless when they reached him, clearly eager not to spend more time than necessary in this accursed place.
‘None of the boys was suspected?’
‘Only one,’ Father Girgis said gently. ‘But that split us even more. There was one boy who had always been strange. He was disturbed and as a result he was not particularly well liked.’
‘Who was that?’
‘His name was Antun. He was small and weak but he was seized at times by terrible fits of fury when he could exert great force.’
‘Antun is the one you suspected?’
‘Yes . . .’ Father Girgis gave a deep sigh before going on. ‘We were all agreed that we should confront him, all except one, who defended him to the death.’
‘Father Macarius?’
Father Girgis nodded. ‘It tore us apart. The rest of us were sure Antun was responsible but Macarius refused to see reason. We had to do something, yet we were paralysed by this internal conflict.’
‘Father, I take it you haven’t heard about the murders in Cairo?’
‘Is that why you are here? You think it’s the same person?’
‘It seems possible.’
‘That saddens me,’ Father Girgis fretted. ‘It means that our failure all those years ago has caused even more suffering.’
‘Is it possible that Father Macarius was correct, that maybe one of the other boys was responsible?’
‘Which boy?’
‘Do you remember Ahmed Rakuba? They used to call him Rocky.’
Father Girgis was studying the cigarettes in Makana’s shirt pocket. Makana took them out and offered one, then handed the packet over. Girgis licked his lips, tucking them away in his cassock as if they were made of gold.
‘Rocky, you say?’
‘Could he have been the killer?’
‘I really can’t say. There were many boys and my memory is not what it was. I just remember the horror and the sadness. I pray every day for forgiveness, but we cannot bring back the dead. We cannot undo what has happened.’
As he walked away down the hill into the deepening dusk, Makana paused to look back at the spindly figure climbing the hill to his lonely vigil in the cave. The priest’s last words echoed in his ears on the long drive home: ‘God forgive us.’
iv
Fallen Angels
Chapter Thirty-Two
The train back to Cairo was uneventful. As the old beast lumbered along, dragging its iron belly slowly north along the Nile valley, Makana felt as if he was returning from some forgotten well of ancient history, sliding up the evolutionary scale from the prehistoric era to the present. By the looks of things there wasn’t much to be said for progress, except that it was noisy and dirty and tended to block out the sky with high walls and twisted iron. He used the time to think about things and so stared out of the window with a blank gaze as trees and desert and houses passed before him, faces upturned to look at the passing juggernaut as it rolled by.
In Qena, he stepped down onto the platform and stood in the shade of a neem tree to sip a glass of sweet tea. A twelve-year-old with the weary gaze of a man five times his age wandered along the tracks weighed down by a thick armful of headlines. Out of pity for the boy more than anything else, Makana bought the state newspaper, Al Ahram. As always, it was a reminder that to read the news in this country was to enter into a fantasy world of fairy tales and deceit, where the rising and setting of the sun each day could not happen without the benevolent presence of the president, al-Raïs, whose glorious exploits were plastered across the front pages. In this parallel universe the country was booming and firmly on the road to progress. To understand what was really going on you had to read between the lines: when it said a new hospital had been opened, specialising in kidney transplants, you understood that someone in the president’s circle had made a small fortune selling expensive medical equipment to an institution that would function at 20 per cent of its capacity for about six months. After that the machines would mysteriously disappear one by one, to be sold on to an unnamed private facility in the Gulf somewhere. When you read in an editorial that the Americans had personally thanked the president for his role in maintaining stability in the region, it really meant that the annual donations of millions of dollars of free wheat and weapons would arrive unhindered, in exchange for maintaining the status quo and doing nothing to really bring Israel and the Palestinians any closer to lasting peace.
Evening was falling as he came out of the station in Giza to find the battered black-and-white Datsun which looked, as always, as though an elephant had sat on it. Perhaps there was some way of finding a replacement, Makana wondered, before it gave up the ghost. Sindbad was leaning against the side, arms crossed, looking pleased with himself. When he saw Makana emerge from the station building he rushed towards him to relieve him of his bag.
‘Marhaba, marhaba, welcome back to the city of lights. I trust your journey bore fruits.’
The car lurched violently as they left the kerb and sailed recklessly out into the stream of flowing traffic, oblivious to the horns of protest. Makana felt like a country bumpkin, no longer in tune with the city’s ways. He had forgotten the chaos, the urgent sense
of encroaching madness. At an intersection a policeman waved his hands frantically in an effort to tame the traffic. You had to admire his tenacity. A supreme act of faith in the face of ridiculous odds. As if trying to hold back the tide, it was like witnessing a small miracle whenever the vehicles actually rolled to a halt obediently and then waited impatiently. Sindbad was eager to explain what he had been up to while Makana was away.
‘I did as you asked, ya basha,’ he said, leaning on the horn to produce a truncated sound from under the bonnet rather like a duck being strangled. ‘First, I stayed outside the hotel and waited. For the first two days he did nothing of interest. He went for a walk in the morning. He visited the bank in Kasr al-Nil Street and a number of clothes shops where he made extensive purchases, mostly of shoes and shirts. I have a list.’
Sindbad reached into his shirt pocket and produced a rough sheet of brown paper of the kind that might be used for wrapping fish or ball bearings. It contained a series of hieroglyphics in smudged pencil that Makana could make neither head nor tail of.
‘You’ll notice that he doesn’t settle for the cheap stuff. Some of these places sell shirts for hundreds of pounds.’ Sindbad’s face betrayed his horror.
‘Is that so?’
‘Oh yes, and the shoes . . .’ A whistle and a shake of the head was all he could summon to convey his shock. ‘How can anyone bring themselves to walk along our dirty streets in such shoes?’
Sindbad paused to lean on the horn again, this time startling a skinny waif riding a bicycle, sending him wobbling dangerously across the road, narrowly avoiding being crushed by a large lorry. On his head a long board laden with fresh bread was balanced. It remained steady, bobbing up and down like a diving board as the cyclist fought to regain his balance. It could have been a trick in a circus. They swept on along Sharia Sudan.
‘On the fourth day I almost missed him, I have to admit, as Allah is my witness.’
‘No more shopping?’
‘He stayed in most of the day. I was about to give up and go home.’ Sindbad sighed. ‘My wife really does not understand the importance of my new responsibilities.’
Makana nodded but said nothing as he suspected this was a ruse to ask for more money.
‘Well, anyway. I was about to give in, like I say, and then, around six o’clock, just as the sun was setting, he stepped outside and signals for me. He gets into the back and asks me to take him to the Ramses Hilton. I drive him up the ramp and he tries to short change me. I don’t argue because I don’t want to draw attention to myself. Between you and me, ya basha, for a man who spends on shirts what a family can live on for a month, he should be ashamed to stand before Allah.’
‘So, Damazeen went into the hotel. Any idea who he met?’
Sindbad clenched the wheel tensely, caught in the grip of his own tale. ‘Well, I had to be careful now because he knew my face. I followed Mr Damazeen into the hotel lobby and observed him from a distance. Naturally, the staff in such palaces regard an ordinary working man such as myself as an undesirable.’ Sindbad was smiling broadly, clearly pleased with himself. ‘I told them that I was waiting for a client, an eccentric but very wealthy English couple who were terrified of the traffic in the city. I was the only one they trusted, I had no idea why they had settled on me but so it was and I had been given strict instructions to wait for them when they went out to eat. I laid it on a bit thick, but you never know with these slick types. So then they asked me the name of the person I was waiting for and I knew I was a dead man. I saw my life flash before my eyes. Then it came to me, I swear by Allah, just like that.’
‘What came to you?’
‘Mr Siwan Vista.’
Makana stared at Sindbad. ‘And who is this Mr Vista?’
‘You don’t remember? English matches. Very good. Always light first time.’ Sindbad beamed at his own ingenuity.
‘And they believed you?’
‘I don’t mean to insult anyone but many of those people who work in fancy hotels, ya basha, they wear nice clothes but they can’t tell one end of a stick from another. Of course, I have certain skills in the acting department myself. Did I tell you about my cousin who works in the national theatre? Actually, he’s just a bawab, but it’s in our blood.’
Makana recalled something Adam had said about the stars, about the illusion of them moving, about seeing things from different angles. Was this the reason for the confusion he felt, that he was seeing things from another perspective?
Sindbad was still talking.
‘A black man. I mean, excuse me, an African. Perhaps forty years of age. Wearing a striped suit like an English businessman, and with a face like a butcher. I was happy to keep my distance. And your friend didn’t seem too happy to be sitting close by him.’
It was an intriguing thought, Damazeen and an African in a striped suit. Was this his middleman?
‘He was alone?’
‘No. There was a third man. A white man with red hair.’ Sindbad stamped on the brakes, skipping around a stalled minibus with only a whisker to spare, a finger still held aloft to emphasise a point. ‘This one looked like a military man. Casual clothes, heavy boots.’ The wheel was a flimsy ring in Sindbad’s paw as he steered. ‘Mr Henry Bruin of Cape Town, South Africa.’
Makana had to admit he was impressed. A South African? What was Damazeen doing with these men? All his experience told him that he ought to turn his back on the whole business. But what if Damazeen was telling the truth? What if he could bring Nasra back from the dead? Makana felt his blood swirl in his head, as if he could no longer trust his own judgement.
‘Come down with me,’ he said when they reached the awama, explaining what he needed Sindbad to do. The breeze rustled the dry leaves on the big eucalyptus tree. Umm Ali was pleased to see him. Her brother Bassam was not so happy, and tried to sidle off.
‘Hamdilay salama,’ he muttered nervously when Makana confronted him. ‘I trust your journey was a safe one.’
‘We need to talk,’ said Makana. When he offered his cigarettes, Bassam relaxed, thinking this was some kind of peace offering. Over his shoulder Makana could see Umm Ali watching with interest. He led the way down to the awama. Sindbad brought up the rear. On the upper deck Makana signalled and Bassam felt himself lifted off his feet, his arms pinned to his side.
‘Now wait a minute,’ he protested as Sindbad lifted him high enough to get his legs over the railings. Bassam put up some resistance, but having the air squeezed out of his lungs pacified him. When he was suspended over the side, legs scrabbling for purchase, Makana said:
‘If you fall from here it will not kill you, assuming you can swim and that you don’t break an arm or a leg, or your neck, Allah forbid, on the way down.’
‘They made me promise not to tell.’
‘What did you do with the money?’
‘I . . . I still have it. Most of it. Let me down. I can show you.’
Sindbad lifted him back over the side and sent him sprawling to the deck. Predictably, he tried to make a break for it. Sindbad put out an arm and Bassam’s feet flew into the air and he landed flat on his back.
‘All right,’ he gasped, when he got his breath back. ‘Here, look.’ He reached into his back pocket and produced a wad of crumpled notes. ‘Take it. Take it.’
Makana took the money and counted it. Less than he had hoped for, but still, not bad.
‘Okay, now tell me what happened, and don’t leave anything out.’
Bassam nodded obediently, his eyes darting from one to the other.
‘Some men came here. I don’t know who they are. All I had to do was make a phone call to tell them you were at home and alone.’
‘Which you did, naturally.’
‘It was a lot of money.’ Bassam’s eyes were wide, as if he couldn’t quite comprehend how such a thing could be held against him.
‘So you heard Sami go down the path. You assumed it was me and you called them.’
‘That’s correct. Tha
t’s exactly how it happened.’ Bassam nodded eagerly. ‘I swear I didn’t know what they were planning to do.’
‘You left your sister and her children to the mercy of strange men?’ Sindbad was disgusted.
‘I didn’t have any choice. I owe some money to some men back home in the rif. This money would allow me to go back.’
‘And not a moment too soon,’ muttered Makana. ‘Could you recognise these men?’
‘No, ya basha. It was dark and my eyesight is not good since the accident.’
‘You understand that I am not planning to call the police.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
‘Not at all. We shall deal with this ourselves. Can you swim?’ Makana waved the question aside. ‘It doesn’t matter. Not many people can swim with a broken neck.’
‘A broken . . . Look,’ Bassam tried to rise from the floor, but Sindbad shoved him back down.
‘The only way you are going to walk off this boat in one piece is if you help me find those men.’
Bassam licked his lips. His eyes darted round until it came to him. ‘I can call them. I still have the number.’ He fumbled in his pockets to produce a scrap torn from a cigarette packet with a number scrawled on it. Trembling, he held it out. Makana made no effort to take it.
‘You’re going to call them right now. Tell them you want more money. The police are asking more questions and you’re scared.’
‘They’re not going to believe that.’
‘You have to make them believe it. Tell them you need to meet them tonight, quickly, in one hour. You’ll come to them. Just ask them where, is that clear?’
Bassam’s eyes darted between the scrap of paper and Makana and Sindbad. He had the mournful look of a puppy. After a time he swore and went over to lift the telephone on the desk. He dialled the number and spoke for a while before replacing the receiver.