Eight Months on Ghazzah Street: A Novel

by Hilary Mantel

  “What was he saying?” she asked: out loud for the third time. The conversation had a dazed, hypnotized quality, as if they were compelled to repeat the same formula again and again until it lost all meaning. “What was he trying to say?” She looked up. “Andrew, is there anything you are keeping from me?”

  He shook his head slowly. He did not ask her the same question. He had not told her about the telephone message.

  “Because you mustn’t have any idea that you can spare me.”

  “I can’t spare you, Fran, or I would have spared you this.”

  “Tell me everything again. Tell me where it happened.”

  “It was on the ring road. It was between the Petrola plant and the airport. You must know it, you must remember, where you see the petrol storage tanks … the road crosses the wadi. There’s an embankment, and it falls away ten or fifteen feet. The body was down there on the sand. The car had plowed through the fence. It’s only chicken wire. People have made holes in it, anyway, cutting through to get on to the freeway, trying to save a bit of time. It’s a shocking stretch of road. Everybody says so. There’s no center divide. There aren’t any lights …”

  “But he didn’t go at night, did he? Last night he was here, with us. What time was the body found?”

  “I don’t know, Fran. Nobody can get the story straight. I’m only telling you what the police told Eric Parsons, and God knows that was little enough. They reckon the car came off the road at speed, he was thrown out, his skull was fractured … I don’t know. If there was another car involved they aren’t prepared to say. It was just after one o’clock that Eric got a call.”

  “So they’re saying it happened sometime during the morning, in broad daylight? He lay there on the sand ten feet down from the road and died of a fractured skull and nobody helped him and nobody stopped?”

  “They won’t. They won’t stop. You know that.”

  “He must have been making for the airport. Mustn’t he?”

  “Eric wants to know why. He was supposed to be here for another three days.”

  “So what did you tell Eric? Did you tell him about last night?”

  Andrew shook his head. “How could I? I can’t make sense of what happened last night.”

  “I don’t know if it makes any better sense to you now. I mean I don’t know whether … I’m not sure how to say this … whether you think that there is any chance at all that it wasn’t an accident?”

  For a while neither of them spoke. Then Frances said, “No one saw him. We don’t know what time he left here. I said that he was here with us last night, but he could have gone before dawn, for all we know. We don’t know if he made it back to his hotel, do we? Someone could have stopped him as he left here, before he got around the corner.”

  “Someone …” Andrew said. “The elusive someone. Who are these people?”

  People who lurk on the street corner with a rifle. People who walk overhead, who go up and down, veiled, armed. People who lay claim to packing cases. Who knows what people? Who presumes to inquire? It’s their country, isn’t it?

  “They could have killed him,” she said, “and dumped him from one car and run his own car off the road. It could have happened at any time. Think about it. No one saw him or heard from him after we went back to bed at four o’clock this morning.”

  Andrew looked up at her, cornered, in pain. “Actually they did. I mean, it can’t be what you say, because he rang in to the office.”

  “When? What time?”

  “Sometime during the morning. Early, I think.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Oh, nothing really. It’s not what he said. It’s just the fact that he rang.”

  “Who took the message? Can’t you find out what he said?”

  “Not really. It was very garbled.”

  “Who did he speak to?”

  “Just the tea boy.”

  Frances telephoned the Sarabia Hotel. It was the same desk clerk: or another with the same voice. “What time did Mr. Fairfax check out?” she asked.

  The receiver was laid aside; she heard muttering in the background. The voice came back, wearily polite: “One moment, madam.” A minute passed; he was back. “Mr. Fairfax did not check out, madam.”

  “But what time did he leave?”

  A pause. A muttered consultation. “Madam, you are still there? We did not see him go. If you would like to give me the name of your company, we will send you on the bill.”

  They sat opposite each other, in curiously formal poses, heads bowed, hands on their knees, observing another silence. Then Frances said, “The car, you know … there’s been a problem with the steering. I suppose that might have been it.”

  “But you don’t think so.”

  “I don’t think I shall ever believe that this was just pure chance.”

  “He was frightened. We know that. I mean he was frightened before last night, maybe last night had nothing to do with it. He said himself, it wasn’t rational. He’d decided to get out, he was making for the airport, he was driving at a fair speed—”

  “Yes, I know. But what was he driving away from?”

  The telephone startled them. Andrew had been about to speak; he broke off. “Who will that be?” He reached for it. Her fists clenched in her lap. She tried to uncurl them. I have to be calm, she said to herself. I have to ask the right questions, very rigorous and unavoidable questions, before the answers slip away and vanish forever. Oh, hello Eric,” Andrew said. He sounded calm. “Yes, I have. Well, naturally she is.”

  Eric spoke. Andrew listened. Andrew said, “We feel that we are responsible for Fairfax. As much as anyone is.”

  She got up, crossed the room and huddled at his side, listening in to the call. Eric said, “ … some kind of certificate from the police, without which nothing. Unfortunately his passport seems to be missing—”

  She took the phone from Andrew. “Eric, listen to me. Where are Fairfax’s things?”

  Eric took a moment to understand this. It seemed, when he answered, that he had already taken on the accents of the police file, of the coroner’s court. “You mean his personal effects, Frances?”

  “Yes, that’s what I mean. Not just his passport, but his clothes, his suitcase, his toothbrush—do you see what I’m getting at, Eric?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Were they with him in the car, or back at the hotel? The hotel says he never checked out.”

  “You phoned them?”

  “Yes, why not?”

  “Because I don’t want you to interfere, that’s why not. Please give me Andrew.”

  “No. Do listen please. We have to find out about his clothes.”

  “Oh yes, I see … sorry, my dear, I didn’t mean to snap at you. I suppose you think they ought to be returned to the widow. The Embassy has telephoned her, of course.” Eric sounded sorrowful now; he had convicted himself of insensitivity. Clearly he thought this concentration on the clothes, the suitcase, the personal effects, it was some feminine angle on mourning, some piece of etiquette he had forgotten. “The fact is, Frances, we don’t know. I mean, we presume they were in the car with him. That would seem to make sense. I know that he appears to have departed on impulse, but surely he’d stay to pack?”

  “Then have the police recovered the stuff? From the roadside? Or from the car?”

  “They haven’t said.” Eric was bemused. “They do deny all knowledge of the passport, but then they deny all knowledge of practically anything.”

  “You’d better ask them.”

  “But Frances, you’ve no idea, have you? You’ve no idea what I’m up against? Look, I have been dealing with these people for years. I have been dealing with these people since you were a little lamb in your school blazer. They don’t tell you anything. That is their habit. That is their policy.”

  “Have the police asked questions about the car? The steering?”

  “Oh, look now.” Eric had forgotten his embarrass
ment; he was coldly hostile. “Don’t try to lay this at my door. The car had been fixed. I have the receipt, Frances, the receipt for the repairs. It’s here in my petty-cash drawer. I have my hand on it now. I’ll keep it for you, shall I? Andrew can drive you down. You can come in right now and inspect it.”

  “For the record,” she said wearily, “I don’t think the faulty steering killed Fairfax. If I did, Eric, it would almost be a relief. That’s not what I think. I can’t prove what I think, but what would be the point? I tried to talk to you before, but you wouldn’t listen. You’re too thick to take in what I tell you, aren’t you? You’re too thick and too terrified.”

  Andrew took the receiver out of her hand. She turned away, collapsed into her chair, not listening anymore. Eric’s voice ran on for a while. Then Andrew said, “Okay. Yes, I think she’ll insist on that. Call me when you find out where. Goodbye.”

  He put the phone down. “Well, I’ll never work for Turadup again. After that outburst.”

  “You do understand, don’t you? We can’t trace his movements, or know if he was taken away by force, unless we know whether he packed his things up. If he didn’t—then it was sudden. Or he didn’t even go back to the hotel. We do need to find them.”

  Andrew sounded weary, resigned; much as Eric had, before she antagonized him. “If you can take away a man, sweetie, you can take away his suitcase. If you can abduct a businessman, you can abduct his spare drip-dry suit.”

  Frances didn’t reply. She felt too tired to think about it anymore. Life is not like detective stories. There is a wider scope for interpretation. The answers to all the questions that beset you are not in facts, which are the greatest illusion of all, but in your own heart, in your own habits, in your limitations, in your fear. She sees the vehicle spin out of control; she sees the panic-stricken driver. Then she sees, alternatively, the felon, the corpse, the car door swung open, the body slithering down the embankment: then she sees, in either case, the skid, the slide, the smashed bone, the spilled petrol, the sand, the sun, the sickening flux of human blood … the story is what you make it. In either case, the young man is dead.

  She said to Andrew, “I don’t know, but I feel you are arguing against yourself.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps I am,” he said without emotion. “You have always been better than me at getting hold of the unthinkable.”

  “Can’t we go now? Do we have to stay till July?”

  He considered. “I think it would be better to do everything calmly. Make our agreed exit. Don’t you?”

  Perhaps that was Fairfax’s mistake. His exit had not been agreed. She remembered what Mrs. Parsons had said, months ago, on their first trip to the souk: “It isn’t the roads in town that are dangerous, it’s the roads out.”

  Very soon Daphne Parsons was on the telephone. “Imagine,” she said, “what a peculiar thing to do, to take off like that! He planned to leave the car—my car—at the airport! Just dump it there! Of course, I did think when I met him, what a very strange young man. He did seem to be rather … erratic. Is that the word I want? Frances dear, you must be terribly upset. I know you had him over for supper, and you must feel that you got to know him a little. I hope it doesn’t make your medical condition any worse?”

  Then it was Rickie Zussman who called: with statistics. “Carla said you sounded rattled when she spoke to you. She says you’re trying to make something of it. Believe me, Frannie, this is just the way it goes. You shouldn’t see any malfeasance here. One in six accidents in the Kingdom involve fatalities. Though Christ knows,” he added, “I feel sorry for the guy.”

  Then it was Eric again. “Andrew thought you would want to see the body, Frances, and I don’t suppose it is in my power to keep you away. Someone has to identify it, and we have been trying to find out where it was taken. We have been given various pieces of information, all of them inconsistent, and none of them necessarily accurate.”

  “But someone must know.”

  “I agree.”

  “There is no chance, is there …” She could not continue.

  “That it’s some kind of mistake? I think that would be too much to hope for. But I know you don’t believe what you’re told, Frances. I know you won’t take my word for anything.”

  She checked the time. They arranged to meet; they would bring their own car, and Eric would collect Hasan, to interpret for them. It would be a long evening, Eric said, even if their first efforts were crowned with success.

  She wandered about the flat, dazed, sticky; the air-conditioners did not seem to be working properly. She felt desperately hungry now, weak with hunger, and yet she felt that it would be almost indecent to sit down and eat. At some point she washed, and changed her clothes to go out.

  After sunset prayers the young Saudi men go out to visit restaurants and meet up with their friends; they divert themselves at funfairs, which they call Luna Parks. Tonight the neon-lit spokes of the Great Wheels shone between the walls of the mosques. The city had taken on its nightmare life: a green moon, a vitiating heat.

  They drove: the freeways, the highways, the roads off the map; the unknown quarters, the alien districts, streets and buildings they had never seen before. Eyes on the road, hour after hour, breathing in the dust and the diesel fumes, their clothes sticking to their flesh, their throats clogged with apprehension, and their minds still numb with shock. Between the concrete pillars of the overpasses, darkness blossomed into darkness, each manmade wilderness as empty of association as the surface of the moon. And their every second thought was of mortality; you could die here, your figure fleeing before the screaming cars, running till you dropped and expiring without a sound, like the sacrificial victims who are buried in bridges. Then you would haunt the freeways, your dead compass swinging, searching for home; until the city expanded, by its usual laws, and they built over your ghost.

  Hasan argued with the porters at hospital gates. Eric Parsons stood by their car, in the evening’s stupefying heat, and wrung his hands; she had never seen anyone do it before. “I need papers,” he said. “I need signatures. I need death certificates. I need copies for the airline. I need copies for the Embassy.” He spun slowly on his heel, beseeching. “Tell the man, Hasan. Convey it to him somehow. Tell him I have it from the police that the body is here.”

  “He says,” Hasan reported, “not this hospital, Mr. Eric.”

  “Will nobody help us? Has nobody any sense? I have formalities to complete. Have you told him that?”

  Now it was ten o’clock, and the evening lay behind them, an ordeal by which they would be marked. “When I get out of here in July,” Andrew whispered to her, “I’m not coming back.”

  She looked sideways at him; thought of Mr. Smith, of his confident approach to the security guards, his visas in his hand. “Hush,” she said. She nodded toward Eric, who circled aimlessly in the dust, a few yards from their parked car. “We’ll talk about that tomorrow. Here comes Hasan again. He looks as if he has something to tell us.”

  Andrew got out of the car. Hasan said, “I think we have found the place. But we cannot go in.”

  “Why not?”

  “He says the man who has the key is praying.”

  “What, at this time?”

  “You must come tomorrow.”

  “But we have been driving for hours,” Eric said. He seemed on the verge of weeping; all his experience had not prepared him for tonight. “Tell him we have a lady with us. Tell him we must identify the body.”

  “He says you cannot do it,” Hasan said. “To identify, you need four Muslim men. Christian men will not do.”

  “And Christian women?” Frances spoke from the passenger seat. Eric leaned down, to the open window. “I suppose,” he said vengefully, “that now you think he was murdered? I suppose you think this fiasco is part of some conspiracy?”

  “No. I know a fiasco when I see one. I’ve been around the world enough.”

  Eric wiped his hand across his forehead. “It’s always be
en the same, whenever an expat has died. Whenever there has been even a suggestion of violence, they just close ranks. The one thing they don’t like is people asking questions. The one thing they don’t like is a body on their hands.” He took out his handkerchief, already soaked with sweat, and dabbed at his face. “They always think we will blame them for something.”

  Unwillingly, she felt sorry for him. He had issued all the right warnings, from the beginning, and she had not heeded him. Don’t interfere, don’t speculate; she had done everything he had warned her against. And now an example had been made; but not of her.

  Andrew said, “Just try again, Hasan. Tell them we don’t believe the man is praying. Tell them we want to go into the mortuary. Tell them we don’t want to identify, we just want to see. Okay?”

  Hasan nodded. He trailed again across the hospital forecourt, and talked to the men behind the barrier. He was back within minutes, hitching at his clothing, patting at the little round skullcap he wore: his face impassive. “It is true the man is not praying. They are saying that to make you go away.”

  “Tell them we won’t go,” Andrew said.

  “They say we must go home again and wait until morning. Then they promise the man will come with the key.”

  “Ins’allah?” Frances said.

  “Ins’allah,” Hasan agreed.

  “I don’t believe this,” Andrew said.

  But he got back into the car. You cannot really argue with hospital porters. They carry guns.

  They said goodnight and began the long drive back across the city. The day’s dust coated the rubbish skips, and the municipal greenery, with its raw sewage dressing, that wilted on the center divides. It lay thick on the emerald plastic grass that the restaurants laid out before their doors, the emerald grass that their headlights turned to black.