Butterfly on the Storm

by Walter Lucius

  After the final joint prayer, some of the men carried the coffin to the cemetery. The women followed at an appropriate distance, so they wouldn’t come in direct contact with the deceased. In this way, the Koran taught, they ran the least risk of emotional damage. From her childhood in Afghanistan, Farah remembered that this is why women there weren’t allowed to attend funerals and could only visit the grave a few days after an interment.

  The procession came to a halt at the open grave. The final prayer was said. Unlike in the mosque, everybody prayed standing up. This was allowed so the Dutch soil wouldn’t stain their mourning clothes. They all raised their hands to just below the chin, their fingertips pressed together to form a small bowl, and said ‘Amin’, after which they brushed their hands over their faces. Then the coffin was slowly lowered into the ground.

  That’s when the mullah nodded to Farah, as agreed. She stepped forward nervously, took a deep breath and to the surprise of those present began to sing a song. It was the song that had popped into her head last night.

  ‘Namidanam ba ro ki bekhandam. Namidanam ba ro ki begiryaam …’ Don’t know in whose face I smile. Don’t know for whom I cry …

  As she broke into the first chorus, she could hear several women singing along softly in the background. She was touched when she heard male voices joining in too.

  Some of those standing around the grave squeezed their eyes shut during the song, but most kept them wide open while singing, allowing the tears to flow freely. They were crying not so much for the man lying in his coffin in the ground, but for their memories, which were slowly curling up and fading like old photographs.

  ‘Za shahram rafta noor arzo ha. Za bamam morgh dil chonin parida.’ All my dreams have gone. There’s no more happiness in my heart.

  In her mind Farah walked through the marble halls of the National Museum one last time, hand in hand with Parwaiz. When she opened her eyes again, they fell on a man aiming a zoom lens at her from a couple of graves away. She immediately recognized him as the photographer on the bridge opposite Joshua’s canal boat. The ‘American tourist’ turned out not to be a tourist after all.

  Refusing to let it distract her, she closed her eyes and carried on singing. When she looked up again, the man had gone, and for a brief moment she wondered whether she’d imagined him.

  On the mullah’s instruction, she threw a small shovelful of dark-brown earth on the coffin. The earth hit the wooden lid with short, dry thuds. It struck her as the most dismal sound and she hoped from the bottom of her heart that her nihilist vision of paradise in the hereafter was wrong. She hoped that Parwaiz was now reunited with his wife and their two sons, and that the Eternal had asked him to manage the Heavenly Museum of Angel Art.

  ‘Did you see him?’ Edward asked with muted indignation when she rejoined him. Behind them they could still hear the women sobbing.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Eric Sanders. I don’t know what that paparazzo is doing here. Why isn’t he in Saint-Tropez snapping half-naked celebrities on their yachts?’

  The sobbing of the women gradually turned into a plaintive lament.

  ‘I think he was here for me,’ Farah said.

  ‘For you?’

  ‘He had me in his sights yesterday as well,’ Farah sighed. ‘When I was with Joshua Calvino.’

  ‘What were you doing with Detective Calvino yesterday?’

  Farah couldn’t help but smile at the thought of the way Edward had tried to impress Joshua during the meeting at AND the day before yesterday.

  ‘We were standing on the deck of his canal boat.’

  ‘Work-related?’ Edward asked suspiciously.

  ‘Depends on your perspective.’

  ‘Christ Almighty. What’s next? Hafez the Heartbreaker strikes again. Does David know about this?’

  ‘He knows,’ she said, crestfallen.

  ‘Broken heart, hurt ego, the works?’ Edward inquired.

  ‘And a clenched fist,’ Farah replied. ‘I left.’

  ‘I bet Marant is behind this.’

  ‘But why, Ed?’

  ‘I’m afraid she’s embarked on a counter-offensive. I can’t think of any other explanation right now.’

  They joined the other mourners. Something sweet was passed around. Halvah, a jelly-like substance made of toasted semolina and wrapped in bread. ‘In the hope that the deceased’s spirit is sweet rather than bitter when it enters heaven,’ Farah explained to Edward, who looked perturbed as he tried to get it down.

  Men and women approached them to thank her for the song. Farah took the printed photo of Lavrov out of her bag and showed it to a couple of men.

  ‘Do you know this man?’

  They didn’t say anything, just turned away. The mood changed. Here and there small groups with dejected faces were deep in discussion, some people were pointing. Suddenly a man walked up to Farah.

  ‘How dare you?’ he yelled angrily. He snatched the photo from her hands and spat on it before tearing it to pieces. ‘He was the devil!’

  The young mullah tried to calm the situation and took the man aside.

  Farah was bewildered.

  ‘Mullah,’ she said respectfully when he came back to her. ‘I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.’

  The mullah gave her a look of reproof.

  ‘Why do you brandish a photo of a man who practically tortured some of my faithful to death?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Farah said sincerely. ‘I apologize for any misunderstanding. The man in the photo is the young director of a large Russian company. The man who is said to have tortured them died a long time ago.’

  ‘Yet I’d still like you to leave,’ the mullah said harshly.

  ‘Is that your way of thanking someone for a farewell song beside a grave?’ Edward asked tersely. ‘I thought your God was one of forgiveness, but apparently I’m mistaken.’

  ‘I’m sorry if you don’t like my tone,’ the mullah said.

  ‘Never mind,’ Farah said. ‘My mistake. I should have realized. Thank you for the service, mullah.’

  She gave Edward her arm and together they walked back to the car park. If she looked over her shoulder now she’d see men who carried their pasts with them in hearts heavy with hatred.

  11

  During the first hour of the flight to Amsterdam, Paul felt too stressed to have a normal conversation. He couldn’t call up the necessary arsenal of qualities: spontaneity, vitality, sincerity and his sense of humour, just to name a few. Qualities Sandrine seemed to have in abundance.

  She talked passionately about her position on the Amsterdam City Council, about her visit to the first female mayor of Jo’burg, Ashley McLeod. She sang the praises of McLeod’s fight against AIDS, corruption and violence against women and children. Paul knew the harsh reality of Jo’burg only too well. But he listened attentively to Sandrine’s enthusiastic stories about the city, amazed by the sensuality of her face, the rapidly alternating self-confidence and melancholy.

  But he soon felt exhaustion wash over him again. Sandrine was curious about what had happened to his face, but he dodged the subject and grabbed his laptop in an attempt to dispel the fear that had nestled in his body since that thrashing he’d received in Ponte City. Panic surfaced the minute he closed his eyes. Writing had always been quite effective for pushing away neuroses, setbacks and even physical pain for a while.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he suddenly heard Sandrine say.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The screensaver on your computer.’

  It was a colourful painted scene. In the foreground of a busy market street, two traders rolled out a bright-red carpet. On both sides of the street hung huge pieces of colourful fabric in a myriad of pastel colours, and among the passers-by and gesticulating traders strolled a tanned man in jeans with a blonde woman in a blue kaftan. There was a boy in between them.

  ‘Is it a real place?’ Sandrine asked.

  ‘The Char-Chatta bazaar in Kabul.’ He pointed at the boy, ‘Tha
t’s me.’

  ‘Really? How amazing! Who painted it?’

  ‘My mother,’ said Paul, touching his finger to the blonde woman on the screen. ‘In the late sixties she travelled from Amsterdam to Kabul in a bus full of hippies.’

  ‘Then that’s your father. He looks like James Dean, but with longer hair.’

  Paul smiled. He loved it when people talked that way about his father. ‘He was a war correspondent.’

  ‘Unique combination, war correspondent and hippy girl.’

  ‘They say opposites attract. My mother was walking around the bazaar one day and suddenly found herself in the middle of a group of demonstrating students who were being beaten up by riot police. She literally bumped into a man who protected her. That was my dad, Raylan’

  ‘Romantic story.’

  ‘They were really happy together.’

  ‘Were?’

  ‘My father’s been dead for nearly thirty years.’ Paul gestured with his hand and broke off the conversation. He wanted to tell her everything, but somehow felt uncomfortable, dissatisfied with himself. So he just stared straight ahead.

  12

  While Edward accelerated to 120 kilometres in less than ten seconds and sent his Saab 900 hurtling towards Amsterdam-Noord, Farah thought about the man who’d just torn up Lavrov’s photo. He’d mistaken the CEO of AtlasNet for an officer in the Russian army who’d died in a bomb attack in the mid-nineties, a certain Michailov. Only now did Farah grasp the full extent of Parwaiz’s confusion. Mi-ka-lov. He really had seen a ghost.

  A little later Farah sat down in front of her computer and began rereading everything she’d gathered about Michailov, hoping she’d overlooked something, a detail that might provide answers to her question: just how much of a coincidence was the astonishing likeness between him and Valentin Lavrov?

  But no answers were forthcoming.

  A clip dating from 1994 showed an ageing Michailov, then Defence Minister, addressing the assembled media, shortly before the Russian invasion of Chechnya. ‘Give me a parachute battalion and I’ll conquer Grozny in two hours.’ History had shown that what should have been a two-hour surprise attack turned into a war lasting more than two years, claiming the lives of thousands of young Russian soldiers while tens of thousands of Chechen civilians fell victim to mass cruelty and carpet bombings carried out on the direct orders of Michailov. Responsibility for the bomb attack that put an end to the life of the so-called Hero of the Soviet Union in February 1996 was unanimously claimed by Chechen rebels.

  Farah looked up.

  ‘A drum roll would be fitting,’ Edward said, giving her a big smile. ‘I reckon you deserve something today. Are you ready? I’ve got surprise for you.’

  ‘If it’s a weekend road trip with other vintage Saab enthusiasts, then I must decline the honour,’ Farah said with a smile.

  ‘I know there’s nothing quite like it, but this is good too, perhaps even better: a meet and greet with Valentin Lavrov.’

  ‘What? How did you pull that off?’

  ‘Art,’ Edward chuckled. ‘Art and Lavrov. Like the Catholic Church and original sin, fatefully entwined. The AND international art supplement is scheduled for publication in six weeks’ time, and we’re still looking for a guest editor. Lavrov is happy to be considered.’

  She eyed him suspiciously. ‘Ed, are you serious?’

  ‘The most serious excuse I can think of to get close to the man as quickly as possible. That’s what we want, right?’

  ‘And when is this supposed to happen?’

  ‘How about this afternoon?’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Do I look like I’m kidding?’

  ‘I know nothing about art, Ed, I’ll be found out in no time.’

  ‘Then you’d better start reading up on things,’ Edward said, and put a lavishly illustrated art book the size of a paving slab on her desk. ‘I estimate that more than fifty per cent of what’s covered in here is in Lavrov’s collection, spread across museums and his offices around the world.’

  Farah leafed through it. Then she picked up Valentin Lavrov’s portrait. The CEO of one of the world’s biggest energy firms was mistaken for a Russian brute who used to torture people in underground prisons in Kabul decades ago. The thought of meeting him as early as this afternoon sent shivers down her spine.

  13

  The former headquarters of the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij was a monumental ten-storey, brick-and-granite building. The main entrance to the erstwhile trading society was flanked by two imposing female statues representing Europe and Asia. Farah arrived on the fourth floor via a marble entrance hall and Venetian-tiled stairwell.

  Six months earlier, Lavrov had bought this prestigious floor of old boardrooms from property tycoon Armin Lazonder. The classic interior had since been furiously restyled. The antique, tropical hardwood desks had been replaced with large tables made of recycled wood and both the wainscoting and the walls had been painted off-white to accommodate a range of modern paintings and art objects.

  The reception area, where Farah reported, boasted a cannon which once a day fired a red paint bomb against a specially prepared wall. The latter looked like the site of a mass execution. The antique chandeliers that graced the rest of the building had here been replaced – in an apparent ode to the host country – by bundled glass milk bottles filled with clear halogen light.

  Farah was ushered into a waiting room where she sat down in one of the round seats with high bamboo backs. Behind the door to Lavrov’s office, she heard someone blowing his top. The venomous monologue went on for several minutes. When the door swung open shortly afterwards, Farah instantly recognized the man behind the New Golden Age Project as well as the head honcho of IRIS TV, Armin Lazonder. With a face that spelled trouble, he legged it past Farah without so much as a glance. She watched him go. What was he getting so worked up about, especially in front of Lavrov? The receptionist who’d escorted her to the waiting room approached her.

  ‘Mr Lavrov will see you now.’

  Farah got up. Her heart was in her throat. Initially she’d thought it inappropriate to meet the oligarch in the clothes especially selected for Parwaiz’s farewell. But at the same time she appreciated the symbolism. The man who employed more than 300,000 people in his global conglomerates was probably also the one who’d – no doubt inadvertently – been the catalyst for Parwaiz’s death.

  At any rate, the man who now came towards her in his custom-made cashmere suit with his hand outstretched looked eerily like the former commander who’d been the last Russian occupier to leave her country in the late eighties.

  Lavrov had a toned body and a sharp, broad-jawed face, thin lips and grey-green eyes. His self-assured handshake betrayed a restless energy. He was a head taller than her and given his greying hair she put him at just over forty.

  ‘The Netherlands never cease to amaze me, Ms Hafez,’ Lavrov said in perfect English that betrayed an Oxford education.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A journalist with a passion for art who looks like she has just stepped out of the Elysian Fields. Where have you been hiding all this time?’

  ‘We like to keep a low profile in this country,’ she replied while trying to mask her discomfort by peering around the gigantic boardroom. Low profile – not a label she’d ever attach to this interior.

  Most striking were two gigantic panels attached to the walls. One was covered in inch-thick splodges of blue and white oil paint and littered with shards of smashed terracotta vases. The other showed a naked blue man with a sword balancing on top of two pillars, surrounded by the remnants of what must have been Victorian crockery. She quickly checked the label for the artist’s name. Julian Schnabel.

  ‘I see you’re quite taken by my two most recent acquisitions, Ms Hafez.’

  ‘I love Schnabel’s work.’ She turned back to Lavrov, with a beaming smile that she hoped would camouflage her nerves. ‘I’m particularly fond of action pai
nting. And please call me Farah.’

  Lavrov nodded in agreement. ‘Only if you call me Valentin.’

  And then, in an illuminated alcove, she spotted a small statue of an elegant woman in a transparent gown, which did little to conceal her voluptuous breasts, with a slender waist that gave way to broad hips. Farah’s heart skipped a beat.

  ‘Sharada,’ she whispered. Spellbound, she walked over to the statue. ‘The river goddess.’

  ‘I love contrasts. And I couldn’t think of a greater contrast with Schnabel’s masculine swagger,’ she heard Lavrov say.

  ‘From the treasures of Begram, first century AD,’ Farah said as she tried to recover from the shock. The statue which Parwaiz had shown her in Kabul’s National Museum decades ago now stood in the Amsterdam office of a Russian tycoon. She had to carry on talking to take hold of herself.

  ‘Did you know this figurine has its origins in Indian Gandhara art?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know,’ Lavrov said, sounding intrigued.

  ‘Similar statues have been found in Swat in Northern Pakistan,’ she resumed nervously. ‘The same wide-open eyes. If you look carefully, you can even see the iris.’

  Lavrov walked up to her and leaned in close to the statue. She could smell his musky body odour, a combination of mint, lavender and bergamot.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said in awe.

  She didn’t want to leave a silence. She had to keep talking.

  ‘Do you know the story of the soldier and the river goddess, Mr Lavrov?’

  ‘No, but something tells me that you’d like to tell me it. And please stop calling me “Mister”. You’re making me feel very old.’

  ‘That’s the last thing I want to do,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘Excellent. I’m all ears, Farah.’

  ‘The story goes that, centuries ago, Alexander the Great’s youngest soldier was standing on the bank of the Amu Darya, just as the river goddess emerged. It was love at first sight for both of them. The young man jumped into the water to be with her but, delirious with love, he’d forgotten he couldn’t swim.’