The Golden Scales

by Parker Bilal

  The sun was setting in the maidan in front of the mosque. Strings of light bulbs draped across the sky bobbed like glowing buoys, tying up the stars in nets. The sound of the muezzin floated through the quickening darkness as he sang out his melodic summons to the Maghrib prayer. The faithful arrived from every direction, slipping off their shoes as they passed through the arched entrance, while others carried on with their business, leaving prayer for some other time. Makana strolled across the square. He spotted the two men as he came in through the doorway. It was busy tonight, so much so that Aswani only had time for a brief greeting over his shoulder as he moved with remarkable speed, issuing orders left and right while threading cubes of meat on to long skewers, so fast that any lesser mortal would have done himself an injury.

  ‘Ah, here he is.’ Okasha looked up from the salad he was devouring. ‘We were just talking about you.’

  ‘Kindly, I hope.’

  Sami intervened. ‘The inspector was telling me how you managed to let a one-armed man get the better of you.’

  ‘Not exactly the better of me,’ said Makana. ‘Seeing as he let me go alive, I think I acquitted myself rather well.’

  Okasha held out his hand. ‘I owe you an apology.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ said Makana. ‘You were just doing your job.’

  ‘So were you.’ The hand remained awkwardly hovering in the air between them until Makana finally took it. Then he pulled out a chair and sat down.

  ‘Has there been any sign of Bulatt?’

  ‘Nothing. The general theory is that he has crossed the border to the south. Maybe we should send you home to find him.’ It was delivered as a joke, but the only one smiling was Okasha.

  ‘He came here to kill me.’

  ‘But he had a change of heart. One day I’d like to hear how exactly you managed that.’

  ‘And Soraya,’ Makana asked. ‘What happens to her?’

  ‘She’s helping us with our enquiries,’ said Okasha.

  ‘You have nothing to hold her on?’

  ‘What am I going to charge her with?’

  Perhaps it was for the best, Makana thought. Now she would take over Hanafi Enterprises and run it the way she wanted to do. He had no doubt that she would do fine.

  Then Aswani appeared with the food and everyone’s attention was diverted by their hunger. For the next couple of hours the three of them talked and ate, and ate and talked some more. They drank countless cups of tea and coffee. Shisha pipes were brought over and the sweet aroma of apple-flavoured tobacco filtered into the air. They compared notes, going back and forth, tying up loose ends, commenting on one aspect or another of the case. As the boy clicked his tongs and set fresh coals on the pipes, they turned the details over to view them from every conceivable angle. Sami wanted to clarify one or two points. Makana suspected that he was composing his book as they went along.

  ‘The way I see it now,’ explained Sami, ‘I shall begin with the broad facts of the case, of course, setting everything out clearly right from the start so there is no confusion.’

  ‘That, I’d like to see,’ said Makana.

  ‘But then,’ Sami raised a finger in the air, ‘I shall explore every aspect with a rational and scientific eye. Not too cold. There has to be room for poetry, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What would the human soul be without poetry?’

  ‘How can you listen to him talk such nonsense?’ Okasha demanded.

  Sami was frowning fiercely. ‘I see this as an epic battle between rivals. An ancient feud which has lasted decades. Both of them ruthless predators . . . born gangsters. One is made respectable by a society obsessed with wealth and success. The other turns to religion in order to save the country from the very things which have made his rival a national figure. What do you think?’

  Okasha took the long waterpipe from his mouth. ‘You will turn both of them into heroes.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ said Makana. ‘You’ll sell thousands. In fact, it will probably change your life for ever and you’ll no longer have time for us. You’ll be too busy hanging out with glamorous models and beautiful film stars.’

  Sami frowned. ‘You don’t approve?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You don’t have to say it. You condemn the whole enterprise with a single sentence.’

  ‘My apologies. Please go on.’

  ‘Apologies accepted.’ Sami swept his hands in a wide arc before him. ‘I can see it now . . . A series of character portraits. The princess in the tower. The evil father. The innocent young football player, the nation’s idol.’ He paused, lost for words momentarily as a serious thought occurred to him. ‘It’s really about the fate of this country and what is happening right now. It’s about everything.’

  Okasha rocked his head from side to side, letting a cloud of aromatic smoke out of the side of his mouth. ‘He certainly has a way with words, you can’t deny that. It sounds like something you might see in the cinema. Where does Makana come into it?’

  Sami smiled. ‘Oh, I think he remains the mysterious figure in the background.’

  ‘Well, that’s him, all right,’ agreed Okasha.

  ‘I don’t think he can hear us.’

  His eye on the open doorway, Makana’s thoughts led him back to the day he’d first met Elizabeth Markham here. He would always be grateful to her, he realised, for bringing back the memory of his own daughter so vividly, if only for a brief time. He wished he could hold on to that feeling, just a little while longer.

  ‘He doesn’t even know we are here.’

  ‘No, he’s gone, carried off in the arms of jinns.’

  A Note on the Author

  Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub. Mahjoub has published seven critically acclaimed literary novels, which have been widely translated. Born in London, he has lived at various times in the UK, Sudan, Cairo and Denmark. He currently lives in Barcelona.

  By the Same Author

  (writing as Jamal Mahjoub)

  Navigation of a Rainmaker

  Wings of Dust

  In the Hour of Signs

  The Carrier

  Nubian Indigo

  The Drift Latitudes

  Travelling with Djinns

  First published in Great Britain 2012

  This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Copyright © 2012 by Jamal Mahjoub

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

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  may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

  Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin, New York and Sydney

  50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781408824900

  www.bloomsbury.com/parkerbilal

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