The Golden Scales

by Parker Bilal

  ‘You must be overjoyed.’

  Sami ignored the comment, reaching over into the basket in front of Makana for a piece of bread, still holding his cigarette and spilling ash on the counter. Tearing off a strip, he soaked it in the bowl of tahini dip. Looking thoughtful, he chewed for a while in silence.

  ‘And there’s another thing. I talked to a couple of people about the Hanafi finances. The company is hanging by a thread. They are overstretched financially. Too much expansion, too quickly. They can’t cover their costs and there is little coming in.’

  ‘That must leave them very vulnerable?’

  ‘One source told me that if Hanafi weren’t a personal friend of the President he would have been out of business months ago.’

  ‘What about rumours of a takeover? Any mention of our Russian friend?’

  ‘Whenever I brought up his name people got nervous. Nobody wants to talk about him, but the feeling is that he is big,’ said Sami, dabbing his mouth with a napkin and reaching for more bread. ‘One of my contacts at Bank Misr told me that everything is riding on this luxury residential project they have planned.’

  ‘Hanafi Heavens.’ Makana remembered Soraya Hanafi talking about it. ‘I thought you weren’t hungry,’ he said, observing that Sami looked as if he hadn’t seen food in days.

  The reporter’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘I’m not, not really. But these taamiya are good.’

  Makana slid the plate along the marble counter towards him. ‘Maybe it’s worth going out to take a look at this star project of theirs.’

  ‘Fine by me. Oh, and I may have located an accountant who was fired three months ago.’

  ‘So? What did he have to say?’

  ‘Nothing as yet.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘He’s scared,’ said Sami, trying to swallow and talk at the same time.

  ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

  Sami frowned. ‘No, no, I can handle it. I think he’s just after more money. You have some sort of inducement to offer, I take it?’

  ‘I didn’t realise I was going to be sponsoring your efforts too.’

  ‘This is just to loosen him up a bit.’ Sami rolled his shoulders. ‘Surely Hanafi can spare a bit of cash?’

  ‘Sure he can, I’m the one who can’t,’ said Makana, thinking about the fact that this case was taking much longer than he had anticipated. He noticed that Sami was looking at him in a strange way.

  ‘Forget it. I’ll give you some cash, but I want a full account of who you are giving it to.’

  ‘You’re the boss,’ said Sami, reaching for another taamiya. ‘You should really try these, they’re great.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said Makana, watching his lunch disappear into the other man’s mouth. ‘Remind me not to eat with you when you’re hungry.’

  ‘What about you? Any thoughts on what this is all about?’

  ‘Somehow it is all linked to Hanafi’s past. I just don’t see how,’ said Makana as he waved Ali over and handed him some money, trying to remember something. ‘There’s one other thing you can do for me. I need to know everything I can about Vronsky.’

  ‘Everything? Meaning . . . ?’

  ‘Well, mostly his military record. Where he was stationed. I think he was in Afghanistan and later in Chechnya. It shouldn’t be too hard for you. These things must be on record.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Sami said. He nodded at the bundle of notes Makana pressed into Aswani’s hand. ‘Don’t you even count how much you pay?’

  ‘If you knew how much I owed this man, you wouldn’t ask,’ said Makana.

  ‘There’s a phone call for you,’ said Aswani, jerking his thumb at the big old black telephone that rested on the counter by the wall. It was a museum piece that dated back to the days when the British were here, or almost. As he crossed the room, Makana recalled what it was that had been nagging at him. Okasha had said that Vronsky was helping them with their fight against terrorism. Vronsky knew Bulatt from Chechnya. But how did Vronsky know that Bulatt was alive and that he was back in this country preparing to create havoc?

  Chapter Thirty-one

  ‘Is that your office? It sounds awfully noisy.’

  The caller was Mimi Maliki. Makana glanced around him. ‘It’s a busy day,’ he said. He had included Aswani’s number on his business card because he was generally by at some time on most days and there was as good a chance of catching him here as anywhere. ‘What seems to be the trouble?’ He suspected this was going to be another request for money.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said.’

  ‘Which part?’

  ‘You said that if I remembered anything that might be useful, I should call you.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Did I what?’

  ‘Did you remember something?’

  ‘I might have done.’ She broke off and Makana was beginning to wonder if she had passed out on him when she spoke again. ‘Do you think you could come over here?’

  ‘Right now?’

  ‘As soon as possible, yes.’ She sounded worried.

  ‘This isn’t about money, is it?’

  ‘No, unless you’ve got some. I mean, for me?’

  Makana fingered the envelope in his jacket pocket. It was already thinning out from what he had given to Sami, and he was beginning to suspect that this might be all he would ever see from Hanafi by the end of it all. The chances of finding Adil alive now seemed to be diminishing by the hour.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Then you’ll come?’ She sounded relieved, like a gleeful child, though why he couldn’t think.

  ‘I’ll be there shortly.’

  This time a young man in his twenties opened the door when Makana rang the bell on the eighth floor. He was barefoot and wearing a scruffy beard, jeans and a black T-shirt bearing a picture of a long-haired man playing a guitar, which he scratched as he stared sullenly back at Makana.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I came to see Mimi.’

  He looked Makana up and down before turning abruptly and walking away, calling out over his shoulder as he went.

  ‘Mimi, your boyfriend is here . . . or maybe it’s your father.’

  Makana stepped inside and wandered through to the big living room where the boy threw himself down on the sofa. Ignoring the visitor, he carried on watching television. The room was, if anything, more of a mess than it had been on Makana’s first visit. A good deal of what was strewn about the sofas, the wide coffee table and the floor appeared to belong to the man who had opened the door. A brown sports bag lay cast to one side, with clothes spilling out of it like a ruptured intestine.

  ‘You live here?’ Makana asked casually, glancing at the screen where a bare-chested man wearing a bandana and covered in bandoliers was spraying bullets at a group of Orientals in a jungle somewhere. There was a lot of high-pitched screaming.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I asked if you lived here?’

  The young man stared insolently at him but said nothing.

  ‘Who is this?’ he asked as Mimi came into the room. She had her hair tied back today and looked clean, her pale face almost translucent.

  ‘Ya Ramzi,’ she screamed.‘I told you to tidy up your things! I told you!’

  ‘Hey, whose house is it anyway? Eh?’

  Still, he took his feet off the table and moved about the room trying to look like he was doing something. He tossed a few shirts in the direction of the bag, managing to miss with all of them. Then the effort seemed too much for him and he sank back on to the sofa, muttering to himself. Mimi reached for a packet of cigarettes on the table and lit one.

  ‘I can’t stand this,’ she said. ‘I can’t take it any more.’

  ‘Calm down, will you? I’m trying to watch this.’

  Mimi gave a high-pitched scream. She picked up the remote control and threw it at the wall where it came apart with a loud crack, droppi
ng in pieces to the floor. While the boy screamed at her, Makana took the girl’s arm and led her out of the room, through to what turned out to be the kitchen. Here the debris was an accumulative log of what had been consumed in the house over the past week or so; plastic bags and boxes from various takeaway restaurants in the neighbourhood added up to a diet of pizzas, fateer and roast chicken. Empty bottles testified to a high consumption of sweet fizzy drinks and beer. Mimi leaned on the counter and chewed her fingernails.

  ‘Is he the reason you wanted me to come over?’

  ‘Can’t you get rid of him?’ She paced up and down. ‘Make him go away?’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He’s my cousin, so I can’t kick him out, but he’s a real bully.’ She was fighting back tears. Ramzi appeared back in the doorway, holding up the smashed pieces of the TV remote.

  ‘What are you going to do about this, eh?’

  ‘Go away!’ She put her hands over her ears. He moved towards her menacingly and Makana stepped into his way. Ramzi scowled.

  ‘Who are you anyway, and what do you want? Why are you defending that sharmuta?’

  ‘That’s no way to talk,’ said Makana. ‘Go back in there and calm down.’

  Ramzi did the opposite. He reached for the front of Makana’s shirt and thrust him back against the wall, pushing the broken plastic pieces into his face.

  ‘Who’s going to fix this, eh? Who?’

  Makana hit him as gently as he could. A quick punch to the solar plexus which brought Ramzi to his knees, doubled over and gasping for breath. Makana pushed him out and closed the kitchen door behind him before turning back to Mimi.

  ‘Your uncle is still away on business?’

  ‘He’s not away on business. He fled! The police are after him. He was involved in some kind of scandal. A building that collapsed. He cheated everyone. A whole family died. Anyway, Ramzi thinks he’s going to sort all that out.’

  ‘He seems very spirited.’

  ‘He’s a psychopath.’ She carried on chewing her nails as if she hadn’t seen decent food for a week which, judging by the state of the kitchen, was a distinct possibility. Makana lit a cigarette and then looked for somewhere to tip the ash. The only available space that might not catch fire was the sink, which was already cluttered with glasses and plates.

  ‘After you left it got me thinking, about me and Adil and everything.’ Mimi pushed herself away and crossed the room, clearing some of the discarded packets and bags and lifting herself up to sit on the counter. ‘I remembered how it was when we first met. Adil spent his entire life trying to live up to other people’s expectations . . . trying to prove that he was somehow worthy. But he never did . . . never got used to it, I mean, not really.’ Mimi tapped ash into the sink and straightened her back, suddenly assertive and sure of herself. ‘It’s what we had in common, the sense of playing a role, of constantly having to be something we didn’t feel we were, not really.’

  ‘Who were you trying to be?’ Makana enquired softly.

  ‘A thousand people, all rolled into one.’ She spoke in a dreamy way, as if talking about the world where she really belonged. ‘I thought my looks meant everything would come to me easily. And when it didn’t, I was lost. Acting was the only way forward that I could see. I had some early luck but then it all just seemed to slip away. My heart wasn’t really in it. I was set on becoming one of the golden ones. Those celebrities who shine – dazzle the world just by their presence. But that’s a tough act, all alone up there on the high wire. And I toppled off and came down hard in the wrong place. I would have come down harder if it wasn’t for Adil.’ The way she spoke, Mimi seemed to be looking back on her own life as if from a great distance.

  ‘I have this terrible feeling I shall never see him again,’ she finished.

  She helped herself to one of Makana’s cigarettes. ‘Do you think there’s any chance for us . . . I mean, of us getting back together?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Makana.

  She smoked in silence for a moment, watching him, before going on.

  ‘The film business is full of people trying to convince you that they are important. It’s all about bluffing your way through. Adil spent a long time telling people what a big fish he was going to be. How he was going to invest all these millions in new productions. At first people listened, the way they do. After all, Adil is not just anybody, he’s a national treasure. People like to be around celebrity like that. It makes them feel special.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘What always happens.’ She shrugged. ‘Nothing. People lose interest. When there was no sign that any of what he was saying was going to happen, they moved on.’ Mimi exhaled in an absent fashion. ‘I think Adil was hoping that all his talk of the future would somehow make somebody take an interest in him. You know, give him a part in their movie? But film people don’t work like that.’

  ‘It had nothing to do with Hanafi, then?’

  Mimi drew back. ‘What an odd thought. You mean the old man might not want him to go into the movies? I never thought of that.’

  It made sense. If Hanafi had known about Adil’s plans to go into the film world, he would have known that control of Hanafi Enterprises could never pass to his son. Had he then used his influence to close all those new doors before Adil?

  ‘Tell me how he ended up with Farag.’

  ‘That reptile belongs under a rock somewhere! He was the only one Adil could turn to, and he was already up to his neck in sordid business. Everyone knew that, except,’ she leaned her head to one side and pushed her hair behind her ear, ‘Adil, naturally. He’s always been naive that way.’

  ‘How did they meet?’

  ‘At Vronsky’s place, at one of his fabulous parties.’

  ‘It was Clemenza who introduced Adil to Vronsky, do you know why?’

  But Mimi was already back in her own reverie. ‘The thing no one understands about Adil is how obsessive he is. When he wants something, he doesn’t take no for an answer. That’s what it was like for him with film. He was determined to get into the business, which is what led him to take up with Farag. And it was the same with me.’

  ‘He was obsessed with you?’

  ‘Some people are like that. Men in particular. Obsessed with everything. First it was football. I suppose when he was a kid Adil was mad about that. Then he lost interest and it was movies. He went to every director in town and begged and pleaded and offered them money, anything to get himself into the business.’ She stared at Makana as if she had just made a discovery. ‘It’s a disease, this obsession thing. It’s got a name.’ Her voice tailed off, then resumed. ‘Anyway, after that, he wanted me.’ She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to stifle a sob. ‘I imagined this whole life we would have together. Such a glamorous couple, going to all the parties. That’s how it works in this country. A director or producer sees you and that’s it. The doors open.’ She laughed, a hollow, empty sound that echoed up from some place deep inside her. ‘I guess I was a little obsessed with him too. Now I just want to leave, really. It’s all I dream about. Just get out of this country. This city. I can’t breathe here.’

  ‘What’s stopping you?’

  ‘I told you, I spent all the money. And besides, what would he do without me?’

  A crimson beam from the setting sun caught Makana’s eye and he glanced out of the window. He could see a thin plume of dust whirling across the empty square below. A jinn, they used to call them, whipping itself round and round and away into the distance.

  ‘Tell me more about what went on at Vronsky’s place?’

  ‘Vronsky has contacts with Russians all over the place, girls willing to do anything. And so he organises these parties. Wild, lavish affairs. Legendary. Very exclusive. He invites top people.’

  ‘What kind of people?’

  Mimi aimed the ash from her cigarette into a Styrofoam box and tapped. ‘Politicians. Businessmen. The kind with lots of money. They would come d
own to the coast and lie around for three days, drinking and screwing.’

  ‘Where does he get the girls?’

  ‘He flies them in. Costs him nothing. Contacts, you know. Actresses, he calls them, but they don’t act in any films I’ve ever seen. They walk around like glamorous princesses, but there is nothing innocent about them. I mean, I don’t mind talking to people, having a bit of fun, but these girls, they were dirty.’

  ‘What was Farag’s connection? Was he filming at these parties?’

  ‘If he did so, he did it secretly. I mean, I never saw him with his camera, except for that first time when he persuaded Adil that he was going to turn him into a star.’

  Makana thought it over. If Vronsky were looking for ways of blackmailing politicians and businessmen, then Farag would be just the man to provide the evidence. Vronsky wanted to build an empire and there was nothing he wouldn’t stoop to to get what he wanted.

  ‘Adil used to say that Vronsky was going to get him what he deserved.’

  ‘What did he mean by that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t tell me more than that.’

  ‘When did it all go wrong between them?’

  ‘I told you last time – after he came back from the exhibition match in Sudan.’ Mimi gnawed some more on her fingernails. ‘Everything changed after that.’

  ‘Including his relationship with you?’

  All she could manage in response to this was a brief nod.

  ‘It all got out of hand: the parties, the drinking, the drugs. One of the girls who worked there, at the resort, died. I heard that she killed herself, but maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe she was killed. That’s what I’m thinking now. What if she was killed because she knew something?’

  ‘You think Vronsky might have killed her?’

  ‘Dunya, that was her name. She was really popular. Just this simple baladi girl. The funny thing is . . . she had a thing for Adil. She was really fond of him, like a little puppy following him around. And he . . . well, he didn’t do anything to discourage her. It annoyed me. He said he couldn’t help it.’