That morning, Danielle had quickly realized that the plan Marant was proposing was much more realistic than what she’d suggested herself. She’d wanted a news item in which Angela and Dennis Faber would have a walk-on role and she would take the lead with her story about child abuse. But the hardnosed Marant immediately saw the likely pitfalls. She didn’t think a camera crew in the ICU was a good idea. Too realistic, too little space, too much of a hassle. She immediately came up with a tear-jerking alternative, a newspaper and TV scoop rolled into one. After all, she not only presented The Headlines Show, but she also had her extremely popular ‘Headlines’ column in De Nederlander.
Marant briefly explained her two-stage plan. Stage one consisted of rehabilitating the Fabers in the newspaper. With a headline like: FORMER SOAP STAR SAVES LIFE OF UNKNOWN CHILD, she could entertain her devoted public with a heartbreaking tale, complete with full-colour photos of Angela and Dennis Faber at the boy’s bedside. The story would be about how Angela saw him lying on the road in the middle of the night and had the presence of mind to avoid hitting him. Via emergency services, she’d immediately involved the doctor who successfully operated on him. This was then followed by a lunatic detective dragging her and poor Dennis into the police station for questioning under suspicion of running down the boy. A shocking, tragic article with a happy ending. Little boy rescued: the Fabers’ exclusive story as a means to exposing the failings of the police. All of this splashed across the pages of De Nederlander.
Then came stage two. The story about the severely injured victim who was found in the middle of the night on a woodland road. Told by the doctor who saved his life, because the boy was still in intensive care and unable to talk. A story about a child trafficking network, the abuse of young Afghan dancing boys, the mystery of where he came from. Who was he? An exclusive broadcast by The Headlines Show. Danielle would have to sign an exclusivity agreement, promise she wouldn’t share this story with any other media.
Danielle agreed immediately. Initially, out of sheer inexperience, she had set her hopes on journalist Farah Hafez. But Hafez had her own reasons for refusing the offer. Fortunately, Cathy Marant saw it in the exact same light as Danielle: a tragic story for a broad audience. In retrospect, Farah’s refusal had been a blessing.
And now here she was at the staff entrance of the WMC and somehow it didn’t feel right, but she attributed this to nerves and her inexperience with this kind of media circus. She hadn’t informed any of her colleagues about her intentions; hadn’t brought a single hospital manager up to speed on this. She knew damn well that the hospital would have never consented beforehand, so she hoped for a teeth-gnashing approval later on – because of the glowing publicity the WMC would receive.
‘Let’s do this quickly and efficiently,’ Marant said, hastily checking the display on her phone. ‘I have another appointment I need to get to. We’ve talked it through, everyone knows exactly what to do.’
I certainly don’t, thought Danielle to herself, but instead said, ‘Follow me.’ She led the four along the corridor to the service lift. With a theatrical gesture, Angela Faber covered her nose and mouth with a hanky. ‘Oh, what an awful smell! The place reeks of disease!’
Her husband responded pointedly, ‘It’s a hospital, dear, what do you expect?’
‘Yes, all right,’ she pouted, ‘but does it have to smell like this?’
They were jammed into the service lift. Angela Faber smelled of Joy perfume; Dennis Faber reeked of liquor.
When the lift doors opened, Danielle quickly invented a story that Management had given her the authority to stop everything when it threatened to get the least bit out of hand.
Cathy Marant didn’t seem impressed. ‘We’ll be out of here in fifteen minutes, Danielle.’
When Angela Faber entered the room and saw the boy lying on the bed, she threw herself at him, moaning and whimpering like an opera diva. Eric started clicking and encouraged Dennis Faber to go to the other side of the bed and take his wife’s hand as he bent over the boy. It was the cheapest display of melodrama Danielle had ever seen, and the realization that she’d initiated it herself filled her with disgust.
3
She’d forgotten about the roadworks that make the A4 from Amsterdam to The Hague so prone to traffic jams. Farah badly wanted to step on the gas, but right now she couldn’t go much faster than fifty kilometres per hour. It meant she’d arrive late at the home of the man she’d known since her childhood in Kabul. Although he wasn’t related, she called him kaka, uncle, often adding jan, which meant ‘dear’ as well as ‘soul’ and ‘life force’.
Parwaiz Ahmad, to give her kaka jan his full name, had been in the Netherlands for more than ten years. Today, Parliament was set to vote on whether refugees and asylum seekers who’d been caught up in all kinds of legal procedures for years would be eligible for permanent residency. If so, Parwaiz would finally become a citizen of his adopted country. Not long ago, she’d written a lengthy article about him, and today that article might finally have a happy ending.
Back in the seventies, Parwaiz had been the director of Kabul’s National Museum. As a little girl, Farah had spent hours wandering among the treasures with her art-loving mother. And whenever he could, the distinguished and courteous Parwaiz would keep them company. He always had a good anecdote, she recalled, inspired by a small ivory statuette, an old painting or an antique vase.
When the Russians invaded Afghanistan in the winter of 1979, it was the prominent figure of Parwaiz who organized a protest march to the presidential palace. Unfurled at the head of the procession was a seven-metre-wide banner with a likeness of Malalai, Afghanistan’s mythical resistance heroine. Legend had it that Malalai was a water carrier for the soldiers of the Afghan Liberation Army when it went into battle against the British colonial troops on 27 July 1880. The British artillery looked close to crushing the Afghan troops. When Malalai saw the standard-bearer taking a hit, she grabbed hold of the flag herself, began waving it about and from the top of a hill spurred the demoralized Afghan soldiers on to victory.
Malalai’s likeness sent out a clear message. And to underline it, Parwaiz addressed the protestors with the words, ‘Now and in the future, sovereign Afghanistan will always belong to us Afghans.’ Afterwards Parwaiz was arrested by the Khad secret police and thrown into prison where he was subjected to lengthy interrogation. It was widely known that ‘interrogation’ by the Khad was a euphemism for torture.
Parwaiz was incarcerated for days but never talked about it. Later, Farah learnt from reliable sources that a respected Russian archaeologist had personally intervened to secure Parwaiz’s release. Thanks to his intervention, Parwaiz not only retained his directorship, but was also invited to put together a Soviet-Afghan team tasked with analysing the countless jewels and other art objects in the National Museum of Kabul from the burial tombs of Tillya Tepe.
For ten years, Parwaiz managed Afghanistan’s cultural treasures at the museum, thereby implicitly conveying the message that the Afghans ought to be proud of their national, historical and cultural heritage. But his efforts were not universally appreciated. Those who continued to oppose Russian rule viewed him as a first-rate traitor. In their eyes, Parwaiz was an ostrich who buried his head in stuffy art so he didn’t have to see how the Russians had claimed two million Afghan victims during their ten-year occupation, all but devastated the economy and plundered the museums in other cities including Hadda and Jalalabad.
Everything was to change after the Russians left Afghanistan in 1989. The Mujahideen fighters entered Kabul victoriously, but instead of forming a harmonious new government after collectively driving out the Russians, the power-hungry warlords now began to fight among themselves.
The civil war was fought with grenades, mortars and tanks. Kabul was the central battleground and within months the ancient city was reduced to rubble. Parwaiz secretly had a large number of artworks transferred to a safe in the presidential palace. The museum itself was h
it by a rocket and after it caught fire the roof collapsed, destroying a room full of frescoes. Plundering ensued and the Mujahideen officially accused Parwaiz of colluding with the former Russian enemy. Amidst the chaos of rampant anarchy, he managed to escape. He and his wife fled the country and eventually ended up in the Netherlands.
However, the Dutch government held that every refugee who’d worked for the Afghan government during the Russian occupation was a potential war criminal. And because Parwaiz had been on the government’s payroll as a museum director all that time, he was denied a permanent residence permit in the Netherlands.
Uncle Parwaiz a war criminal. It was tantamount to the idea of Gandhi propagating the atom bomb.
The peace-loving Parwaiz decided to tempt fate and to remain in the Netherlands, hoping justice would prevail. In his home country he’d buried both sons. One had been killed by a Russian machine gun, the other by an American-made bazooka. In the Netherlands his wife died of a cardiac arrest, and while still mourning Parwaiz could do nothing but sit back and watch the Taliban on television blowing Afghanistan’s historic masterpieces, the towering Buddhas of Bamiyan, to smithereens.
In spite of everything he remained hopeful that the future would be better, both for himself in the Netherlands and for the people in his home country. He was active in the Afghan community, gave frequent talks at schools about Afghanistan’s cultural history and even helped set up a large exhibition about ancient and modern Afghan art. It was at the opening of this exhibition that Farah bumped into him.
Parwaiz had been just as stunned as Farah. With tears in his eyes, he had embraced her and called her dokhtar jan, a heartfelt compound of ‘girl’ and ‘daughter’. Farah was overjoyed.
All that time, Kaka Parwaiz had been the only one who knew who Farah really was. But her secret was safe with him. He was also the only one who knew that Farah had been forced to let go of her mother’s hand on a snowy mountain pass on the Turkish–Iranian border. Parwaiz was the only living link between herself and her past.
She parked the Carrera right in front of the door. When she looked up, she spotted Parwaiz’s slender frame on the balcony. There he stood, with both arms spread wide, and for a brief moment it looked as if he was about to leap towards her.
4
On the way back from Schiphol, Marouan took the exit to the police station. Thanks to his action yesterday in the television studio, a series of humiliations would undoubtedly be awaiting him there. He would swallow them all.
The morning heat crept into the car. Marouan switched the car ventilation to the coldest setting and thought back to the first time he’d walked into a Dutch police station. As an eager eighteen-year-old, with a lot of Belmondo bravado and with trembling knees, he’d approached the mistrustful duty officer behind the counter.
‘What do you want, kid? Here to turn yourself in?’
‘I’m Moroccan. And you’re looking for Moroccans. I saw this.’ He pulled out a newspaper advertisement and he slid it across the counter. The duty officer put on his reading glasses and peered at the recruitment ad.
Five minutes later, Marouan was back outside holding a stack of forms to fill in, with the duty officer’s words ringing in his ears, ‘Until you all piss off back to your own country, we need a few of you who can communicate in that gibberish of yours. So if you’re willing to put on a uniform, wear a cap on your ridiculous head and do your bloody best, then you too – alas! – could qualify for a job as a cop.’
And the more Marouan’s family and friends tried to convince him that it wasn’t something for him, the more convinced he became that he’d found his calling. During his years at the police academy, he regularly studied in his bedroom late into the night. Hoping that his father would one day tell everybody how proud he was of him. Alas! Still, his uniform looked good on him. He was the handsome, ambitious young cop patrolling neighbourhoods where his Moroccan countrymen, especially, eyed him with great suspicion.
His Dutch colleagues kept a close watch on him too.
Today, as always, Marouan resisted the urge to drive right through the wall of the car park, directly into the service lift. One day he’d simply do it. As an ultimate tribute to Belmondo. Then, with a big cigar and a broad grin, he’d step out of the smoking wreck to receive not only the applause of his colleagues, but his walking papers as well. He was already looking forward to the big day.
There were more cops around the coffee machine in the hallway than on the entire ring road circling Amsterdam. More than ninety per cent of the uniformed folk roaming these halls were caffeine junkies. Marouan, with a big mug in hand, joined the end of the line, where the first clown started in on him. He held an image under Diba’s nose of Dennis Faber, standing against the backdrop of The Game of Love, but with Marouan’s Photoshopped face.
‘Are we going to lose you to showbiz, Diba?’ the clown sneered. ‘There’s a multimillion dollar contract on the horizon for you, man. And nationwide fame. My mother-in-law wants your autograph.’ One of the cops then pinned an enlargement of the same photo-montage on the wall, to the immense amusement of his colleagues. Chuckling all around.
Marouan’s phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. It was Calvino. He was probably still busy salutating the sun on the afterdeck of his houseboat, or he was fishing some algae from the Amstelveense Poel to add to a salad.
‘Cal. Where are you?’
‘In the woods. That journalist took me to the spot where she found the boy’s earring. And I’ve discovered a few other things, Diba.’
In the meantime, Marouan walked over to the enlarged photo, tore it from the wall and left the coffee corner in search of a quieter spot. He was on edge.
‘So you’re romping around in the woods with Miss Afghanistan?’
‘Just stop with the stupid jokes, okay?’
‘I see that she’s wrapped you around her little finger.’
‘Shut your trap, Diba. I’m just doing my job.’
‘Your job? If you wanted to do your job, you’d have taken me with you! Get my drift, partner? I should have been there!’
‘You were busy saying goodbye to your family.’
‘You should have waited, come here and we’d have gone together! So, what did you find?’
‘An old villa. Seems to be boarded up. But it looks like something has been dragged from the house. And out front there are more traces of dragging. And there’s blood. I asked Tomasoa to send the forensics guys. And we need to do a walk-through of the woods.’
Marouan felt himself break out in a sweat. Not from anger, but out of fear. He was caught between two fires and the heat was being turned up on both. The case involving the boy was dodgier than he’d initially thought.
‘Damn it, Cal,’ he snarled. ‘You arranged all of this behind my back. We’re partners, remember? We do things together!’
‘What about those arrests yesterday?’ Calvino retorted. ‘That was some show of cooperation! Think for a moment, Diba. Look at it from where I’m standing, you see there’s a trail from two different directions. Suddenly both stop because a car was parked there. Then you also see the words STATION WAGON written in glaring neon letters. You still with me? We’re no longer dealing with a traffic accident, but with a double murder, if you ask me. And the boy probably witnessed it.’
Marouan steadied himself against a doorframe and saw Tomasoa striding towards him.
‘I gotta go, Cal.’
Tomasoa looked sharply at Marouan, with his Yul Brynner eyes.
‘Good work,’ he said. Not a hint of cynicism, no ironic glance. He sounded serious, like he meant it. ‘Calvino brought me up to speed. I’m going to give a short briefing in the squad room. You get the men you asked for.’
Marouan just stood there, stunned. If he’d done such a good job, he’d also like to be brought up to speed about exactly what he’d done. And for which men had he asked? And why? But Tomasoa was already way down the hallway and, in passing, was informing the chief of Forensi
c Investigation, Dick Park, about the case. Conspiracy theories reared their ugly head. What had Calvino been up to behind his back?
Wherever he looked, his own image was staring back at him. In that same ‘glamour’ photo taken on the set of The Game of Love. Dennis Faber’s suit looked good on Marouan. That had to be said. And he’d slimmed down quite a bit. But his head was too big. Clumsy job and anonymous as always. His spineless colleagues were having a good laugh at his expense. The image was pinned to the noticeboards in the hallway, on the doorposts of all the offices, even taped to the screen of the PC on his desk. It was nauseating.
As he knocked back his coffee, Marouan noticed the Post-it in Cal’s handwriting. All of yesterday’s case reports were already processed in the system. One thing was clear, Calvino was really putting himself out. And Marouan racked his brain, to no avail, about the reasons why.
5
‘Good to see you again, kaka jan,’ Farah said softly as she looked Parwaiz in the eye and held his wizened face with both hands.
He regarded her gravely.
‘Has life confounded you again, bachem?’ There was no escaping it. She couldn’t keep secrets from Parwaiz.
‘More than that, dear uncle. Everything’s been turned upside-down.’
‘Excellent,’ he said with an enigmatic smile. ‘That means there’s still plenty in store for you.’ He escorted her into his two-room apartment, which was littered with art books, half-finished gouaches and charcoal drawings. The living room was sparsely furnished: a chair, a table and a large, hand-woven Bokhara carpet. The table had originally been a workbench. Farah had transported it in a minivan from a dilapidated factory in the Belgian Ardennes. Whether it had been used by a blacksmith or a butcher was unclear, but that didn’t matter. If need be, a war could be fought on the eroded worktop. The thing rested on heavyweight metal legs and had two large drawers in which Parwaiz stored his sketches and the rest of his artistic paperwork.
Butterfly on the Storm Page 17