The Golden Scales

by Parker Bilal

  ‘Who are you looking for this time?’

  ‘Do I have to be looking for someone?’ asked Makana.

  ‘Only you can answer that question,’ said the man, getting slowly to his feet and motioning for Makana to follow.

  The shop was even more cluttered than he had imagined the first time he’d peered in through the doorway. There were objects hanging from the beams and walls, as well as taking up every available surface. It was impossible to move in there without hitting something. Makana wondered why anyone would keep a shop full of useless, outdated objects. They seemed to have no possible value in today’s world, and in such quantity served only to prevent anyone from actually getting into the place. And from what he recalled from his last visit, even if they tried the old man was liable to chase them out.

  ‘Will you drink coffee?’ The man’s voice echoed faintly from far inside the interior of the shop. He had disappeared from sight. Makana followed the sound to the far end of the room where he found a few steps leading down to a low doorway. Ducking through, he found another staircase with a workshop at the foot of it. The dust appeared to stop at the threshold. Inside it was dark and cool and spotlessly clean. Long and with a low vaulted ceiling, the room stretched ahead of him to wide doors at the far end, which opened on to a small, sunlit yard with a palm tree in the middle of it. The yard appeared to be dotted with wooden bird cages and the air was filled with song.

  The wall on one side was lined with bookshelves. Opposite this a workbench ran the entire length of the room. There were strip lights suspended from the ceiling and an array of tools displayed on a rack on the wall. Makana saw pots of ink and stacks of various types of paper. He realised he was looking at a forger’s workshop. There was a work light fixed above a huge magnifying glass on a stand. Over this, on the wall, was a papyrus painting – a copy of an illustration from the Book of the Dead. At the centre of the picture a large set of scales was depicted. Beside them a strange beast stood in attendance. It had the jaws of a crocodile and the body of a lion. Makana reached the yard as the old man placed a brass pot on a simple gas burner.

  ‘This is from the Yemen, it’s the best coffee there is. Bilquis, the Queen of Sheba, used to drink this.’

  Marvelling at the way a tiny enclave of tranquillity had been created in the centre of the city, Makana moved around the yard, leaning closer to examine the birds in the cages. They were some kind of exotic species he had never seen before.

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘In this place? Oh, longer than I can remember. I’ve seen people born, grow up to become fathers and die. Then I’ve seen their sons become fathers.’

  ‘Then you must have heard most of what goes on around here.’

  ‘There are things that I hear.’ The old man’s eyes glinted behind his dark glasses. ‘And things that I don’t.’ He helped himself to one of Makana’s cigarettes without asking. ‘Why are you so concerned about this English girl who went missing?’

  ‘Don’t you think it strange? A woman loses her child and then seventeen years later is murdered in the same area?’

  ‘I’m not sure strange is how I would describe it.’ The old man stared into the brass pot as he gently stirred the bubbling black liquid. A rich, burned aroma filled the air.

  ‘Then how would you describe it?’

  The old man gestured for him to sit down at a small table set beneath the bird cages.

  ‘I think things happen for a reason. We may not see it at the time. Indeed, it may be many years before the reasons become clear, but there is always a pattern into which these things fit.’

  In another time and place, that might have sounded to Makana like the kind of spiritual nonsense in which people applaud themselves for finding comfort, but he found himself listening keenly to what the old man had to say.

  ‘Something about this story has disturbed you,’ the man observed. ‘Is she related to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then perhaps you lost a child yourself . . . a girl?’

  Makana reached over to take back his cigarettes. Silently, the old man watched him for a moment and then lifted his chin ever so slightly, as if he felt his opinion had been borne out. Turning back to the little paraffin burner, he lifted the pot off the flame and poured the rich tar-like coffee into two small white porcelain cups.

  ‘The path to oneness is full of suffering and pain,’ he said as he placed a cup on the table in front of Makana.

  ‘I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,’ he replied, mildly irritated.

  ‘It means that I see what you yourself cannot.’

  ‘And what might that be?’

  The gaunt cheeks hollowed as the old man sucked smoke from the thin, poorly packed cigarette. ‘To understand suffering and pain we must live in the present.’ He exhaled. ‘Between past and future. A Sufi lives in his words, which are secret paths through the world. His knowledge derives not from religious scripture but from the uniqueness of his experience . . . from the present.’

  ‘I’m not really a very religious person.’

  ‘Which of us truly is? People go through the motions.’ The smile vanished from the man’s bony face. He removed the dark glasses to reveal eyes like broken seashells, a strange blue-grey colour. ‘Only the power of the spirit can make the past disappear, and your spirit is wounded. Displace the presence of the body and clarity will follow.’

  ‘And how is that supposed to happen?’ Makana couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

  ‘Don’t be so sceptical. The door to clarity can be opened by chance . . . A wanderer or invisible caller, whose spirit takes the place of the other and allows the “I” to disappear, so there is nothing to separate the Sufi from God.’

  ‘So, a chance encounter with a stranger can be the key to unlocking our own spirits?’

  ‘In your case, perhaps it is this English girl who is speaking to you, leading you away from yourself, to help you see.’

  ‘To see what?’ Makana found himself growing impatient.

  ‘Only you can know that. The first step towards achieving harmony, the state of shath, is letting go of your memory.’

  ‘You’re saying I have to forget the past?’

  The old man bared his few remaining front teeth in a grimace that Makana realised was a smile. ‘You say you know nothing of these things, but I suspect you know more than you admit.’

  Makana set down the little cup.

  ‘You remember the time when she went missing?’

  ‘I remember.’ The old man nodded, replacing his glasses.

  ‘The police investigation failed to find anything of use.’

  ‘They had to tread carefully. The big sharks around here had them all in their pockets.’ The old man chuckled to himself. ‘Those were the bad old days, remember, when this whole area was ruled by gangsters. Those people had style. The kind of style you don’t see any more.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

  ‘I was here. I saw what happened. Most people struggle to make a living, and there aren’t many ways of making a few pounds to feed your children without breaking the law.’

  ‘Sounds like you miss it.’

  ‘At least in those days you knew where you stood. Men had honour.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘Not like today. Now the thieves all wear big smiles and fancy suits. They sit in Parliament and tell us they have our best interests at heart.’

  ‘So who was running this area in those days?’

  ‘Who? Why, Saad Hanafi, of course.’ The old man chuckled at the expression on Makana’s face. ‘Don’t look so surprised. People nowadays only see the man who smiles down upon us from the sky, offering us bamiya and who knows what other nonsense. They have no idea what he was like in the old days. People were terrified of him then.’

  ‘He was here when the girl disappeared? You’re sure?’

  ‘No, my mind is so ancient it plays tricks on me.’ The old man screwed up his face so that a
ll the lines drew together, like a net being drawn in. ‘Of course I’m sure! Hanafi was a big man in those days. There was a war on, right about the time the girl went missing.’

  ‘You mean the October War?’ Makana, suddenly confused, doubted the accuracy of anything this man was telling him.

  ‘No, that was 1973. I mean war in these streets. Between them, the dogs!’

  ‘You mean a gang war?’

  The wizened features grew motionless. ‘I mean a war between Hanafi and his thugs. They wanted to get rid of him so they shot at him, right around the corner from here, in broad daylight.’

  ‘One of his rivals tried to kill him?’

  ‘The worst one of all.’

  ‘Who was this rival?’

  ‘Did you ever hear of a man named Daud Bulatt?’

  Makana felt his pulse quicken. He leaned forward.

  ‘This was when Hanafi’s wife and son were killed?’

  The old man gave a brief nod. ‘Bulatt’s men came after Hanafi and they made a mistake. He was supposed to be alone in the car that day, but for some reason, I don’t know what, he wasn’t.’

  ‘Tell me about him.’

  ‘Bulatt?’ The old man raised a hand to run one warped fingernail down the thin black scar slicing into the side of his neck, just below his left ear. ‘He was the one who gave me this. Bulatt was a thug, a bultagi. He was young. He ran a protection racket, scaring people into giving him money. He dealt in contraband, too. He was well known in these parts.’

  ‘What else can you remember about him?’

  ‘He was a brute, not scared of anything. You were lucky to get away alive if you crossed him.’ He gestured to his own face. ‘I was one of the lucky ones. Hanafi used him to carry out his dirty work. Sent him round when the rent was slow in coming, or if he thought there was some kind of profitable business going on and he wasn’t getting his share.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘Nobody really knows for certain. There was a fight between them. Some say that Bulatt became impatient and decided to take over Hanafi’s businesses for himself. Some say it was over a woman.’

  ‘What happened to Bulatt?’

  ‘They carried on fighting and, in the end, Bulatt went to prison for something or other, and that was the end of it.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘While he was inside Tora he had a change of heart. They say his life changed. Like many others before him, he found peace of mind in prison. He turned to Allah. From then on, he dedicated himself to living a pure life.’

  ‘You mean he became religious?’

  ‘He renounced everything. It was all over.’

  ‘Was this before or after the girl went missing?’

  The old man tilted his head to one side, trying to remember. ‘I think it was around the same time. I’m not sure. It was all a long time ago.’ He got to his feet stiffly and led the way back inside the workshop, signifying that the conversation was over. He paused in front of the papyrus.

  Makana followed, his mind trying to digest this information. If Bulatt had been in prison when Liz Markham came here it would have been impossible for her to find him, or for him to have taken her child . . . but could Bulatt have been Alice’s father?

  ‘You know what this is?’

  Turning his attention to the illustration, Makana nodded.

  ‘The Hall of Two Truths. Maat the goddess of justice weighs the heart of the dead man against an ostrich feather.’

  ‘Very good. I sometimes think our pharaonic ancestors were more civilised than we are.’

  Makana examined the burnished scales and the bizarre creature; Ammut the Devourer, its powerful jaws waiting to gobble up the heart and soul of the man if he was found to have anything weighing down his conscience. A man’s soul against a feather. Makana cast an eye over the workbench and what appeared to be official documents of various sizes and qualities. Certificates of some kind . . . bank bonds.

  ‘People have no imagination any more,’ the old man said, coming up to stand beside him. ‘They come to me for school leaving certificates, degrees in law, or to prove they are descendants of the Prophet.’ He sighed. ‘I dream of the day someone asks me for a copy of one of the great works of poetry or philosophy – Ibn Arabi, or Al Biruni’s treatment of the heavenly bodies. Now that would be worthwhile.’ For the first time his wizened face split into a gap-toothed grin.

  Chapter Twenty

  Mimi Maliki had the kind of looks that made grown men walk into walls, the kind that caused minor traffic accidents, that made them wonder if they had missed some wonderful opportunity in life which had now passed them by for ever. That kind of beauty.

  Her apartment was in a row of empty plots and unfinished buildings in Masr al-Gedida. A graveyard of holes gouged into the earth and foundations rising like giant, half-built tombstones. Makana stood in the dust where the pavement ought to have been and peered up at the cement skeleton rising above him. Tenants impatient to get into their property had already moved in on a couple of floors. The walls had been filled in with breeze blocks, pasted roughly together with lumps of mortar oozing out of the cracks like hardened wax. Other floors remained empty platforms. A bird could fly straight through the building without hitting anything except possibly a pillar or two. Here and there occupants had brightened the raw, unsurfaced walls with coloured drapes. From the outside, in their present state, they looked no different from the makeshift housing in some of the poorer quarters of the city, only suspended high in the air.

  Makana picked his way through an obstacle course of wheelbarrows and shovels, towers of bricks, heaps of cracked tiles, metal rods scattered like enormous burned matchsticks, ducking finally under a loop of electrical cable that strung together a couple of naked light bulbs which dangled from the flex like strange fruits on a vine. The lift was bright, shiny and absurdly pristine in the midst of this chaos. He edged around a fin of red marble jutting dangerously out of one wall, clearly put there in error. A cement mixer was grinding away noisily and labourers wandered back and forth, their arms and faces sprinkled with orange sand. Makana stepped inside the lift and pressed the button marked eight. To his surprise the doors slid smoothly shut and he began to rise. How long would that last? he wondered.

  On the eighth floor a bouquet of coloured wires poked out of a hole in the wall at just the right height to take out an eye. Next to this was a heavy wooden door. The exposed wires were presumably where the bell ought to have been. He rapped on the door with his knuckles until eventually he could make out the sound of someone moving about inside. The door started to open then faltered as it jammed, grinding itself with a bump over the newly laid tiles on the uneven floor. Finally it opened, screeching in protest, to reveal a woman in her twenties.

  ‘You’d think they’d be able to get the door straight, wouldn’t you?’

  This didn’t seem to require an answer and Makana waited as she pushed her silky hair back from her face and frowned up at him.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Makana. We spoke on the phone? About Adil Romario?’

  Mimi Maliki put a hand to her forehead as if about to swoon and then spun on her bare heels without another word, one hand trailing gracefully behind her as she walked away.

  ‘Itfaddal.’

  To make a nation fall in love with you, you need more than just physical beauty. You also need presence, and Mimi Maliki had plenty of that. But still, some essential quality seemed to be lacking in her. Maybe along with all the other attributes required to become a star you also had to have luck, and somehow Mimi Maliki seemed to have missed out on that score. Makana recognised her from the movie clip he had seen in Farag’s office where she had appeared quite beautiful, despite Farag’s obvious lack of cinematic skills. In the flesh, she exuded an air of soft vulnerability that caused Makana to forget all the questions he had come to ask. He trailed behind her into an expansive living room with packing cases stacked along one wall. The sofas and armchairs
, all white, were still covered in transparent plastic sheeting.

  ‘You just moved in?’

  ‘It’s my uncle’s place,’ she said, by way of explanation as she dropped on to the sofa. ‘He had to go abroad on business. I’m taking care of it till he gets back.’

  ‘Nice for you.’

  Something in his tone made her look up. ‘You don’t sound like a journalist,’ she said as she lit a cigarette. There were grey lines under her eyes and her gaze was slightly unfocused. ‘You sound like a cop.’

  He smiled pleasantly. ‘You’d be surprised how many people make that mistake.’

  The room was spacious, with wide windows along two sides. Not that you could see much of the outside world, as the curtains were drawn, leaving just enough light for him to get around without thumping into the furniture.

  ‘Did you bring the money?’

  ‘I brought some.’ Makana reached into his pocket and produced an envelope which he dropped on the long glass dining table. The girl bit her nails.

  ‘That’s not dollars. I asked for dollars.’

  ‘The exchange rate is awful today.’ Makana pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and tilted his head. ‘I can take it back.’

  Mimi considered this and decided to accept it anyway. As she leaned forward to pick it up Makana beat her to it, scooping the envelope back into his hand.

  ‘Hey! If you don’t give me that, I’ll start screaming.’

  He weighed the envelope in his hand as he walked over to the windows.

  ‘You really want the police to come here and search the place?’

  She slumped back. ‘Who cares?’

  It was an impasse of a kind. Makana dragged the curtains open, revealing the balcony which ran around two sides of the apartment.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, putting up a hand to shield her eyes from the light. ‘Do you mind closing that again?’

  The view was pretty good. Makana found he was looking down over the old part of Heliopolis. This quarter was rebuilt at the start of the twentieth century by Baron Empain, a wealthy Belgian, as a luxury enclave on the outskirts of the city, complete with a racecourse and Moorish villas, connected to Cairo by tram.