by Ahmed Mourad
Ahmed had gone to the casino, dropping in on the floor manager and receiving a dressing down with heavy eyelids and forbearance. Out of concern for Gouda’s position he did his best not to reply, listening without hearing to the manager’s advice on how to manage the situation.
‘We don’t get involved in anything. All we do is make things possible, rather than someone else doing it. If we didn’t the place would grind to a halt. We try to stimulate the infrastructure to produce better returns; to raise the rate of development and increase job opportunities.’
He did not forget to mention his generosity and selflessness in saving Ahmed from the clutches of the mighty, and in severe tones warned him of the consequences were he to defy the customers a second time. Ahmed’s only concern was to keep hold of the rented room until he had sorted things out with Omar.
As he was accustomed to do, he washed himself in the developing room and napped for an hour, then he got up off the bed and sat waiting for Gouda to return with the keys to Jerusalem.
He felt charged with emotions: guilt and a desire to mend his rift with Gouda and his offended dignity. Air entered his lungs but would not leave.
The time turned eight thirty. Gouda had never been this late. Nine o’clock. Nine thirty. The sound of a knock at the door.
‘If Gouda hasn’t come you better get out there, Ahmed. People have started arriving. Get going.’
Never in a quarter of a century had Gouda done this and he chose to do it today, a day when Ahmed’s feet could scarcely bear his weight, as though he intended to punish him for what he had done. Having readied himself to leave, he felt like a stranger in the casino. He had no desire to carry the camera and felt ill-prepared to bear the looks of others, those looks that violate without any means to resist.
‘Where’s Gouda? I’m sorry, but it was you who made me say what I did.’
His home phone did not pick up, and on his mobile phone Umm Kulthoum sang into his ear over the ringing tone, reaching her final note unanswered. The only occasions he had been absent from the place were the day his wife died and the time he broke his leg, when he came to work the next day with his leg in plaster.
‘Come on, Ahmed!’
‘Coming.’
He was forced to enter the main room once more.
The hours passed heavily as he worked alone, snapping and developing, drifting away and dreaming. He wasn’t sure what made him flee the casino and slip away to the nearest phone booth.
‘Hello?’
He had dialled his sister, Aya.
‘Peace be upon you. Who’s this?’
‘Hi, Aya. It’s Ahmed.’
‘So you finally remembered the sibling bond?’
‘Frankly, I’ve got a telephone myself and you could have called me at any time. How come I’m the thoughtless one?’
‘But I’m you’re sister, Ahmed. Your little sister. I realise you’re upset about last time, but you came at a bad time and had a go at Mahmoud. I know you’re upset about the money and the pictures as well.’
Ahmed cut in. ‘That kind of talk isn’t for the telephone, Aya. I’m only calling to check that you’re OK. Do you need anything? Apart from money, obviously; I know it’s haram.’
‘May God guide you.’
He had not been expecting this arid response, uttered like an invocation.
‘Fine, Aya. Call me.’
‘You call me, Ahmed.’
He couldn’t control himself. ‘Who should be getting upset here, exactly? The last time I walked off in a temper and didn’t want to cause trouble with the sheikh for your sake. He threw my money in my face and I had to pick my parents’ pictures out of the dust. Then he tells me you don’t keep anything from me. Am I handing you nuclear weapons behind his back? You’ve turned your father’s flat into a specialist hospital for jinn and demons. All this and now you’re angry? “You call me, Ahmed!”’
‘If you keep making fun of me and Mahmoud I won’t talk to you,’ said Aya, exploding in turn. ‘Read up on your religion first, then we’ll talk. The virtuous wife hides nothing from her husband. Your money is haram, Ahmed, and so long as you chase after dancers it will remain so. And this business with the pictures is making me feel as if I’ve dealt some mortal blow to your honour. It’s no sin to say our father was wrong: he was wrong when he chose his work, and may God forgive him because he was misguided. I didn’t throw his pictures away; I just put them to one side. And I’m supposed not to mind when you belittle my husband and mock him? What’s more, you had better stop poking fun at jinn. I mean it. You know nothing about it, and may God forgive you. You’re no match for the supernatural, Ahmed.’
‘I know your husband’s got a lot of connections in the demon world. There’s even a colonel in the jinn traffic department that calls him a friend. Listen to me, Aya: I’ve checked that you’re OK and there’s no call for angry words. You’ve got my number if you want to ask after me. Goodbye.’
‘Bye.’
It was no kind of farewell; not even a failed attempt at one. Aya had changed. She had become someone else, no longer the person with whom he had shared meals, played and wept. What made me call her? his soul cried out. Guilt? A sense of duty? Weakness? He tried Gouda’s number again. No answer.
He stood in front of the phone booth for five minutes, until a black Mercedes with curtained windows pulled up outside the entrance to the casino, shattering the silence. Galal Mursi stepped out. It wasn’t his vehicle: someone was giving him a lift. Galal’s hand reached out to shake that of the man dropping him off. It was someone well known: Ahmed occasionally saw him in the papers. His face was familiar but he couldn’t recall his name.
The man remained in the vehicle as Galal and he exchanged words. Their conversation, which looked as cordial as could be, ended with goodbyes, and Galal retreated towards the casino. Ahmed followed him inside, sure he knew the face of the man in the Mercedes. Standing by the door to the casino, he had got a close look at it before the electric window slid shut and the car vanished.
Galal sat down, gathering bottles together in front of him as though he were going bowling while talking on the phone. He greeted Sally, Saad Siddiq and Hiyam, the new singer, and wrote in his notebook until a young girl entered the main room.
Something about her suggested she wasn’t yet eighteen, but she looked in her late twenties thanks to the make-up, long lashes and dark eyeshadow surrounding her eyes as though a stove had exploded in her face. Her blood-red lipstick made her look as though she had devoured a baby. She wore a miniskirt approximately fifteen centimetres in length and a black translucent blouse.
Her eyes swept the room, coming to rest on Galal, who was sitting at the last row of tables but one. He saw her and signalled to her. When she came over he gave her hand a kiss laden with messages delivered through the skin to the blood beneath. Shutting his notebook, he made space for her beside him at the table, which was shrouded in darkness, and turned off his phone to give her his full attention. Ahmed watched him, looking away to take a picture then returning to him once more.
All his senses had expanded dramatically. It was as though he were seeing the world more clearly. Boundaries of time and place ceased to exist. With each passing second his hatred for this character increased, as though what had transpired a year before had taken place just yesterday and his phone call with Aya was reflected in Galal’s face. Ahmed felt that he had been let down by this man. Why had he copied the government papers and described the incident as an exchange of fire resulting from personal disagreements? Where was Muhi Zanoun’s testimony? Why had sex been roped in to explain things like the hand of divine providence? Even the conspiracy theories seemed weak and forced. People could have known the truth about the massacre. Was there something he had failed to do? Had he fallen short?
These thoughts fought and bickered like hungry jackals as Ahmed started hovering around Galal’s table, hidden from view at the back of the room. He walked up to the bar and, leaning against it,
fell into meaningless banter with Sami the barman. He placed his camera on the bar and started taking shots, his previous attempts having provided him with the know-how.
This time he was more accurate. He shot without mercy: thirty pictorial records of the mating rituals of a male tabloid journalist with an unknown female. Her lips were parted and his hands strayed over each and every cell in her body. She was too young for him; too young for all this generosity. They were disturbing pictures and needed no explanation.
Then he noticed the wraith, sitting behind Galal’s table on the highest bank of tables. A hand beckoned. On the hand was a silver ring, which, he quickly realised, bore the letter G.
A dollop of lava fell onto Ahmed’s head and was extinguished by his copious sweat. The most instantaneous headache of his life overwhelmed him. The devil! He peered harder. Yes, that was him, signalling in his direction, smiling and winking and raising his glass aloft to invite Ahmed to join him at the table.
Ahmed pretended not to see him and, hitching the camera strap over his shoulder, walked away from his field of view. Had he spotted him photographing Galal a second time? How had he got there? When? He hadn’t noticed his presence until he had waved. Perhaps it had just been a casual greeting and he hadn’t seen a thing.
‘If he was a detective I’d be in prison right now. I’ll go over, whatever happens.’
Ahmed’s paranoia made him clear his throat in agitation. He reached the table but this time he didn’t extend his hand in greeting.
‘Good evening, ya basha.’
‘Take a seat.’
‘Please excuse me, sir, but the floor manager’s present.’
The man drained his glass.
‘Sit down, Ahmed.’
Placing his camera on the ground, Ahmed sat down with his back to the main room and Galal’s table to avoid attracting attention, ready to ward off the anticipated accusation from this bloodsucking creature of the night.
‘Cigarette?’
He had taken out a case in which the cigarettes were stacked with a heart surgeon’s precision. Wanting to extend a hand of mutual understanding and cooperation and keen to give the wheel of peace a shove, Ahmed took the cigarette with a smile.
‘Thank you, ya basha. I see you’ve abandoned the rolled cigarettes and have started smoking ready-made!’
His ingratiating tone made him look foolish and he received no answer, so he pulled out his plastic lighter with its torch and musical jingle and picture of a girl in a bikini.
‘Go ahead, sir.’
He extended his hand to the man who leaned in and made use of the cut-price flame.
‘Fancy lighter!’
‘It’s Chinese. Fifty piastres.’
‘And how are you?’
‘Praise God, I’m OK. But I still don’t know who you are. I didn’t get the chance to find out yesterday, and anyway there was a problem. I got a bit distracted.’
‘It was a very hard slap.’
‘I swear, if it had been man to man it would have been a different story. And he caught me on the chin. It wasn’t really a slap. I was going to mess him up, but you know how it is: they take you by surprise then back off.’
Ahmed felt as though he were trying to patch up the hole in the side of the Titanic with sellotape. It wasn’t convincing.
‘And if he came today?’
Why do they sterilise the needle before injecting the condemned man with poison?
‘If it was one on one I’d teach him his business.’
With a mocking smile the man shook his head and, taking a small piece of paper from his jacket pocket, he wrote down a few words using a fountain pen. Ahmed was unable to make out what he had written.
‘Could you deliver this to Galal Mursi?’
Ahmed’s expression became very grave, the number 111 scoring his brow. He hadn’t realised that he was the new pizza delivery boy.
‘Forgive me, ya basha, but that’s what got me into trouble.’
‘Nothing like the trouble that Galal will make for you if he finds out you’ve been photographing him. Deliver this note to him any way you like.’
The man got up and went out of the room and in an instant he had vanished. He hadn’t paid his bill or said goodbye.
Ahmed examined the piece of paper before opening it, keeping it concealed behind his fingers. Always keep your words short and to the point, he thought. The paper was blank.
Was he joking? Had he forgotten? Or was he mocking him?
Ahmed tried to catch up with him. He ran out of the casino, looking left and right. But he had vanished as though he had never existed. Going back inside Ahmed sat at the bar facing Sami.
‘Sami.’
‘Ahmed! How are you doing? Where’s Gouda today?’
‘You’ve just reminded me. I’ll call him now. He hasn’t been answering his phone all day.’
‘He’ll be at the secret service headquarters or off on some mission impossible in Israel.’
His gold tooth showed as he laughed and he looked like a real barman. The strange thing was that for the first time Ahmed felt irritated at Gouda being mocked in his absence, irritation that turned to worry, which mounted rapidly when he failed yet again to get an answer.
‘God protect him, Sami. I’m really worried.’
‘That old fox? He’ll come in any moment in better shape than both of us.’
But this response only made him feel more despondent and he tried changing the subject. ‘Listen. There was a man sitting behind lover boy over there,’ he said, in reference to Galal. ‘Did you notice him? An old guy; looks like a regular. Seems rich and there’s something foreign about him.’
‘I wasn’t paying attention. What did he order from me?’
‘I don’t know, but he’s a regular.’
‘I don’t recall anybody sitting there. Let me know when he comes again and I’ll take a look at him.’
Ahmed left it there so as not to arouse suspicion, content that he had asked the question. He went to the developing studio to print the pictures he had taken in place of Gouda, who normally assumed responsibility for this task. Switching on the lights, he placed the pictures in display sleeves and was about to return to the main room when, without thinking, he put his hand in his pocket and remembered the piece of paper given to him by Mr X.
He examined it for a long time before hastily searching the developing studio for a pen and finding himself writing, ‘He who cooks with poison will end up tasting it himself.’ He could think of nothing more ridiculous or unsettling than this proverb, which he had heard in a film whose name he had forgotten. He was scarcely aware of what he had written: he simply wanted to cast a stone into the calm waters of the well.
Returning to the main room he handed over the pictures, checked that Galal was still at his table and left the casino. He lifted the receiver of the telephone in the supermarket across the street and dialled Galal’s number, which was saved on his phone’s memory. He waited, and sighed with relief when Galal’s voice came through. He had switched it back on.
Something was spurring him on, something bigger than himself; an idea not yet fully formed.
‘Hello? Hello?’
The sound of Hiyam’s set was very loud in the background.
‘Hello. Good evening, Galal.’
‘Good evening. Who’s this?’
Ahmed pretended not to be able to hear his voice.
‘Hello? Galal?’
‘That’s right. Hello? Who’s speaking?’
‘I can’t hear you, Galal. Colonel Hamid wants to talk to you. Could you turn the volume down a bit? I’ll put you through to him. Please wait.’
‘Colonel who? Bear with me a second.’
The sound of music began to die down: he was moving outside. Then he appeared outside the door to the casino.
‘Hello?’
‘Stay with me, I’m transferring you to the colonel.’
Without waiting for him to answer, Ahmed pressed on the su
permarket telephone’s call wait button and left the receiver askew in its cradle. Handing over the cost of the call, he hurried out and crossed the street, passing a waiting Galal. He made for the main room, glancing over his shoulder as he went.
Inside, Galal’s young girl was playing with her mobile phone in lieu of her missing pigtails. He came up behind her and, having checked that she was fully occupied and that no one in the room was watching him, he pushed the paper beneath the bottle by Galal’s chair in one swift movement. He had no idea what made him take the benzene lighter, the one that never left Galal’s hand.
Then he vanished.
A few moments later Galal appeared in the doorway and calmly came over to retake his seat beside her. They fell into conversation, laughing and teasing each other. Five minutes passed before Galal signalled for more refreshments and the waiter brought a new bottle.
The waiter lifted the empty bottle and the folded piece of paper could now be seen. Galal saw it. He opened it and took out his reading glasses. He interrogated his companion, who pleaded ignorance. He hid the paper from her, unwilling for her to learn of its contents, and asked her again. She complained, her expression growing strained. He fell silent, then called the waiter who had served them, whom he questioned and realised had nothing to do with it. He passed his gaze over the neighbouring tables, his eyes roving about like patrol cars might if they did their job properly. No sign of the person who had thrown the brick through the window. His eyes even swept over Ahmed, deep in a hilarious conversation with Sami at the bar, but he seemed unremarkable and he did not pay him much mind.
A sly and private smile crept across his face as if to say to his correspondent, ‘An excellent game’, an attempt to display his equanimity and the futility of trying to disturb it. Before long, however, he surrendered to nerves and started grinding his teeth. He summoned the waiter and paid the bill, then grabbed the girl by the hand and made to leave, having first placed the piece of paper in his pocket and taken a final look in case he saw someone following him, or laughing at him, or even calling him over to explain that it was a joke. Then he disappeared, unaware of the loss of his lighter.