Brother Kemal

by Jakob Arjouni

  ‘Nice place,’ he said, after we had greeted one another.

  ‘I knew you’d like it.’

  By comparison with the photographs of him that I’d seen on the Internet, Sheikh Hakim looked older, thinner, more haggard, greyer – an inconspicuous little man, almost bald, in a black suit. They probably prepared him for photos and public appearances with makeup. I even thought I remembered seeing him with a full, thick head of hair in some younger photographs. Did he wear a toupee in public?

  ‘Thank you for the little holy book.’ I took my jacket off and sat down opposite him. He looked at me with a chilly smile. ‘I’ve nearly finished it. Can’t wait to find out how the story ends.’

  He gave that coughing laugh that I knew from the telephone, and his smile became a little broader but no warmer at all. ‘The way it ends is entirely in your hands.’

  ‘The little book?’

  He did not reply. At the same moment a waiter came out of the kitchen, saw me and came over to our table.

  ‘A glass of water for me too, please.’

  When the waiter left I asked, ‘Or did you mean Methat’s attempts to follow me?’

  Without taking his eyes off me, he reached carefully for his glass and took a small sip before putting it down again equally carefully. He licked his upper lip.

  ‘At any rate, if I get my hands on him he can expect something from me.’

  This time his smile was natural. Methat was probably some two metres tall and spent a lot of time in the gym. He must be very strong to have knocked my office door down just like that.

  ‘Herr Kayankaya,’ said Hakim finally, ‘never mind the talking. I want you to withdraw your statement incriminating my nephew. And I want you to do it tomorrow morning. As I understand from my nephew’s lawyers, that will be in your own interest. Your claims concerning what you say took place in my nephew’s apartment on that morning are so flimsy that, and I quote the lawyers, you would very probably end up in prison yourself for making a false statement. There is still time to put the whole thing down to momentary confusion, or alternatively, for instance’—he paused briefly – ‘to jealousy.’

  ‘Jealousy?’

  ‘Well, the lawyers strongly suspect that you were working for Frau de Chavannes on the morning in question.’

  ‘De Chavannes? Never heard the name.’

  He looked at me expressionlessly, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Never mind, you’ll think up some pretext. As we all know, you don’t lack for imagination.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The waiter brought my water, and I drank a sip. Hakim was watching me. Maybe he was just putting on a show, but he seemed very sure of himself. Did he have a surprise in store for me? Was there a group of holy warriors waiting round the corner of Herbert’s Ham Hock to beat my unbelieving soul out of my body if I refused to withdraw my statement? Or had Methat and his henchmen been sitting in the wine bar like normal guests while we talked here, waiting for Deborah to go outside and smoke a cigarette? Bonk, a blow on the head and off to Praunheim. I suddenly thought of the little delivery van. Suppose the girl was part of this? I’d put her age at fourteen at the most, but admittedly at a distance of ten metres and in the faint light of the streetlamps.

  ‘Do you know what I’d really like to understand? Why are you going to so much trouble for a little bastard like Abakay? I’ve heard that you improve your cash flow as a preacher by dealing in heroin, and I can well imagine that Abakay is being useful as a smuggler or dealer, but a really important man? You’re not so naïve as to trust someone like Abakay.’

  His face didn’t move a muscle, only his eyes became a little thoughtful.

  ‘And as a cleric … I mean, Abakay sends underage girls out on the street. Is that pleasing in the eyes of the Lord?’

  Just then his mobile rang. ‘Excuse me.’ He took the phone out of his trouser pocket, opened it and said, ‘Yes?’ Then he said no more for a while, and finally just, ‘Very well,’ before he closed the mobile and put it down on the table. I was sure that Turkish had been spoken at the other end, and Hakim had replied in German purely for my benefit. I was meant to hear how he conducted short phone conversations in which he was being informed about something or other – a precisely planned operation now in progress?

  I realised that my mouth had gone dry, and drank some water. Should I call Deborah? Slibulsky? Ought I to let Hakim see that he was succeeding in frightening me?

  Before I could make up my mind, Hakim said, ‘First, Erden Abakay is my nephew. Do you have a family, Herr Kayankaya?’

  I drank some more water. ‘I discovered that I had a half brother yesterday. Probably the result of some little adventure of my father’s.’

  He didn’t even respond with that cross between a cough and a laugh, just twisted his mouth briefly as if at a presumptuous child.

  ‘Second: Erden didn’t kill the man, certainly not with a small, sharp instrument neatly driven between the ribs and into the heart. Maybe with a pistol, or he would have knocked his skull in. You know that as well as I do. And it is certainly not pleasing in the eyes of the Lord to pin a murder on an innocent man.’

  ‘Innocent is not the word I’d think of in connection with Abakay. Between ourselves, one of the girls he was offering was twelve at most – that shocks me more than the death of a punter who wanted to abuse a girl like that.’

  ‘How interesting. So you consider your own rules superior to those of the community at large. You know better what is right and what is wrong?’ This time there was genuine and slightly malicious satisfaction in his smile. ‘Someone like that is known as a fanatic, am I right? I’m sorry, Herr Kayankaya, but we are not talking about morality here. We are talking about established laws and a prison sentence lasting many years.’

  ‘I thought my claims would never stand up in court? Abakay will probably get off with a couple of years.’

  ‘Weak, very weak – that’s no way to argue a case. You don’t like my nephew, so you want to pin a murder on him, full stop.’

  I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say. The sheikh was right.

  ‘Furthermore, one can always have the bad luck to encounter a judge whose prejudices weigh more heavily than the facts. I know you would like to forget it, but to many of them we are just Turks.’

  ‘I don’t forget it, Sheikh, but I don’t base my actions on that principle. Do you know why you have to keep Abakay out of prison?’

  ‘As I said, because he is innocent and he is also my sister’s son.’

  ‘No, it’s because he’s blackmailing you. If you don’t get him out of there, he’ll send you and your drug deals sky-high.’

  His mobile rang again. Hakim held it to his ear, listened for a while, then murmured something in Turkish, closed it and put it in his trouser pocket. Then he leaned towards me over the table, and said quietly, ‘Listen to me carefully: the situation has changed. We have a hostage. If you do not withdraw your statement against Erden by tomorrow evening, we shall begin cutting off parts of our hostage’s body: toes, fingers, ears and so on. If you tell the police, the hostage will disappear forever. Do you still have my number on your phone from my call yesterday?’

  I heard myself replying, in a toneless voice, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. I shall wait for your call tomorrow. The police are sometimes rather slow. It could be a couple of days before Erden’s lawyers hear the news. But I trust you. If you assure me that you have done as I require, we will not injure the hostage, and as soon as Erden is released from custody our hostage will also go free. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, I understand. Who …?’

  Ignoring my question, he turned away and got to his feet. After taking a thin, black raincoat off a hook, he came close to the table again, bent forward, looked gravely into my eyes and said, in a quiet but penetrating voice, ‘Read the Koran. Learn to forgive a brother like Erden. Learn to forgive yourself. There is nothing bad about being a Muslim, on the contrary. Be proud of
yourself. Allah loves those who are happy.’ He smiled encouragingly at me. ‘I’ll expect to hear from you in the morning.’

  I watched him go to the door and out into the street. As soon as he was out of sight I snatched my mobile from my bag and tapped in Slibulsky’s number with trembling fingers. The first thing I heard was the noise of the bar, then Slibulsky’s cheerful voice. ‘Hey, when are you joining us?’

  ‘Where’s Deborah?’

  ‘Hmm, wait a minute … Behind the bar, opening bottles. Want to speak to her?’

  I slumped in my chair with relief. ‘No, no, that’s all right. Is anyone else at the table missing?’

  ‘No … the superstar author just went out with a girl, probably to feel her up, the horny prick.’

  ‘Oh, shit.’

  ‘Why? I’m glad. He’s been hitting on Lara, Deborah, Tugba, and then some girls at the next table, one after the other. Very uncomfortable. He wants to have it off with someone this evening and now he’s found that someone. Good for him.’

  ‘Can you please go out and see if he’s still around?’

  A door opened and closed, the noise of the bar fell silent, then I heard Slibulsky again. ‘No, they must be looking for a corner somewhere.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  I put my mobile in my bag and signed to the waiter. ‘A double shot, schnapps, please!’

  Chapter 13

  ‘I don’t know either, she was just suddenly standing at our table. Eighteen or nineteen, I’d say. Done up to the nines – moist lipstick, sexy hippie mini-dress, brightly coloured platform shoes and a book in her hand. By your Monsieur Don’t-I-Just-Love-Women.’

  ‘Did he say that?’

  ‘He said a lot of other shit like it.’ Slibulsky sighed. ‘Particularly when he’d had a drink.’

  ‘An alcoholic drink?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Deborah. She was standing behind the bar drying glasses. ‘Although he kept on telling us how he never really touches a drop of the stuff. But he could certainly put it back. Almost a whole bottle in half an hour. I bet he binge drinks every few months.’

  Tugba cleared her throat. ‘And he seems to have loved no end of women. Turkish women, like me. Jewish women, like Deborah. Women who make jewellery, like Lara …’

  ‘But do women who make jewellery love him back?’ growled Benjamin, with his eyes half closed. ‘When he was asked to shut up for a bit he first looked insulted, then turned to the boutique dolls at the next table. “I just love clothes!” Okay, so I’m pretty toasted myself at the moment, but he was much, much worse.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Slibulsky, returning to the real subject. ‘And then Titty-Mouse was suddenly standing in front of him, making out she was a fan of his and asking him to sign her book. Of course he went off like a rocket. To be honest …’ Slibulsky cast a quick glance at the bench where Lara had fallen asleep. ‘If I’d written a book, and I suddenly had a fan like that standing in front of me – well, I can understand it’s a great moment in an author’s life.’

  ‘And her shoes alone,’ murmured Benjamin, his eyes now tightly closed. ‘With those flower stickers all over them – wow!’

  ‘Can we have our bill, please?’ called a man in the corner. He and the woman with him were the last guests in the bar.

  An hour later Deborah and I were lying in bed. While I told her about the day’s events in rough outline, her eyes were closing, and by the time I finished I was sure she was asleep. But suddenly she said, with her eyes closed and her voice husky with wine, ‘What possessed you to pin the murder on him?’

  And all of a sudden I had Sheikh Hakim in bed beside me.

  I thought again about the moment when I’d got to work on Abakay’s chest with the knife. And of how I hadn’t just left it at assumptions when I was talking to Octavian, I’d claimed there was no alternative to Abakay as the murderer.

  Finally I explained, ‘There was a sixteen-year-old girl in that barred and soundproofed room. She was shaking all over. She’d put her finger down her throat and smeared herself with her own vomit to keep a fat drunk from raping her. I’d rather not know how many girls’ lives Abakay has ruined like that, and I thought he never ought to get the chance to do it again.’

  For a while Deborah didn’t react. Then she opened her eyes, turned to me and put a pillow under her head.

  ‘I hope you remember who you’re sharing your bed with? That’s the kind of thing that happens to tarts. Not all of them, but a great many. I was lucky, but I knew some girls who weren’t. And you yourself, you’ve only forgotten it. Today what happened to your client’s daughter seems to you like the worst of nightmares, but back then – don’t you remember how we would sit in some bar at five in the morning, finished, broke, drunk – just hoping for another customer, or not to get AIDS, or to find some fool ready to pay for a round of drinks? You, me, Tugba, Slibulsky, all the others. Some dead and buried long ago, others living in the West End. You’ve grown old, darling, old and soft, and that’s just fine – but you’ll call Octavian tomorrow and withdraw that stupid statement.’

  I said nothing. I imagined Abakay’s sense of triumph.

  ‘Do you have any idea who the real murderer might be?’

  Would he dare to turn up at the de Chavannes villa again?

  ‘I asked you a question.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied absentmindedly.

  ‘Oh, come on, darling.’ She dug a finger into my stomach. ‘You’re only a little bit old and a little bit soft, and what’s more, you only live in the West End because of your ambitious girlfriend. Could you please put the light out now?’

  Next morning I rang Octavian. It was Sunday, and he was having breakfast with some Romanian relatives.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said I’m withdrawing parts of my testimony. When I got into Abakay’s apartment I supposed, wrongly, that Abakay had killed Rönnthaler. Unfortunately I didn’t leave Abakay time to explain himself, but believing that I was in acute, life-threatening danger I overpowered him at once. Well, you know the rest – I tied him up and gagged him.’

  ‘You did … And how about the cuts on Abakay’s chest?’

  ‘No idea.’

  There was a pause. I could hear Deborah squeezing oranges in the kitchen. Octavian’s agitated breathing came over the phone.

  ‘You realise this means we’ll have to let Abakay go free?’

  ‘He’s still a pimp and a drug dealer. It’s just that you don’t have me as a witness anymore.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense! Kayankaya, you really are such an idiot! How do I look now?’

  ‘Good luck, Octavian. That’s all I can say.’

  ‘Wait a minute! This will have consequences. People will make life hard for you, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you lose your licence.’

  ‘People? Or you?’

  ‘You can at least be sure I won’t lift a finger for you again!’

  ‘That’s a pity, when I was hoping for your support, my friend.’

  ‘Asshole!’

  We hung up, and I called Sheikh Hakim.

  ‘I’ve withdrawn my statement.’

  ‘Excellent, Herr Kayankaya. The rest will be as we agreed.’

  ‘How’s the hostage?’

  ‘The hostage wants for nothing, don’t worry. You’ll be hearing from me. God be with you.’

  For a change, I hoped so too.

  At eleven I was supposed to be at the Book Fair with Rashid. According to his schedule, he was reading at eleven thirty with Ilona Lohs on the subject of losing your native land, under the heading ‘Sweet Homeland, Sore Hearts.’ According to the flyer for the reading, Ilona Lohs was born in the GDR, and her novel Moon Child, about eighteen-year-old Jenny Türmerin who wants to flee former East Germany, was based on autobiographical experiences. Malik Rashid – also according to the flyer – missed ‘the old, multi-cultural Morocco where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived side by side,’ and in his new novel Journey to th
e End of Days he described, ‘among other things, the consequences of increasing ethnic uniformity: the dumbing down and brutalisation of Moroccan society as a whole and the loss of imagination and dreams.’

  I was nervous when I called Katja Lipschitz.

  ‘Good morning, Herr Kayankaya. Everything all right?’

  In the background I heard what was now, even for me, the familiar roar of the Book Fair. All the sounds in the huge hall mingling into a single, metre-high, continuously rolling ocean wave.

  ‘I can’t call it that. Rashid has been abducted.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘There obviously was something to those threatening letters and phone calls.’

  ‘Phone calls?’ She raised her voice. ‘There weren’t any phone calls! I was only saying so! And as for the letters … Oh, nonsense! For God’s sake! Are you sure he hasn’t simply gone off somewhere, met a woman, oh, I don’t know what …?!’

  ‘I’m sorry. The kidnappers called me.’

  ‘What are they asking?’

  ‘Nothing so far. But they told me the name of their group: The Ten Plagues.’

  ‘But … but that’s the exact title of Dr. Breitel’s speech!’

  ‘Well, maybe they read the Berliner Nachrichten, or Breitel found the name on the Internet in the course of his research.’

  ‘I can’t understand it, Herr Kayankaya! Not in my wildest dreams did I think that Malik would really … oh, poor man! I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You must keep calm now, Frau Lipschitz. Say that Rashid is sick, a bad sore throat or something like that. And whatever you do don’t call the police! I’ll do all I can to get him out of there as soon as possible.’

  ‘But I must tell our publisher. What will happen if they demand money? Or if they want us to pulp Rashid’s novel? Like the Rushdie case, do you remember?’