Vertigo

by Ahmed Mourad

  He zoomed in on another picture, which showed the man’s silhouette pressed against the outer wall, and began to examine it. He brightened the picture a little, but it was hopeless. The face was all one colour: black. He looked through a few more photographs, when he felt a warmth on the back of his neck.

  ‘Bring up the picture before that one, will you?’

  Ahmed swivelled in fright to see two rheumy eyes and a mouth rimmed with foamy spittle. The warm breath on his neck had belonged to Omar.

  ‘Go back two. What are these pictures?’

  Ahmed did not answer him.

  ‘Don’t tell me! Is it the Hossam incident?’

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘Damn! How come?’

  Ahmed spent a full two and a half hours apprising Omar of the many details he didn’t know about the incident at the hotel, Hossam’s death and Gouda’s bequest of negatives. He told him about Gouda’s pictures of the hotel and of Galal, Sally, Habib and Fathi el-Assal. By the time Ahmed had finished his story, which sounded like a budget thriller from the 1970s, Omar sat there wide-eyed with shock, like someone ambushed by ten men who rob him and run off before he has realised what is happening.

  ‘OK. One question. No, two. Why did Gouda keep quiet all this time? Why not speak out? These pictures could have turned the world on its head; the investigation would have taken a different course. And why photograph all those people? Did he want to blackmail them? But he didn’t. I don’t understand. The most likely explanation is that the guy was very stupid. The next best guess is also that he was very stupid. So we’re left with the third possibility: something happened to him that made him too scared to talk. Fine, but if he was scared, then why keep the pictures in the first place? My brain’s had it.’

  Ahmed was silent for a few seconds that weighed heavily on Omar, then he replied. ‘I understand. Listen, Omar. Gouda was one of these people in a way: witnessing their scandals and keeping silent; taking his living from their hands. They were all eating from the same plate. For instance, a guy like Galal Mursi gave up having his picture taken when he became well known and influential. He’s a fan of girls under twenty and he liked to collect photos of them; he had his photograph taken with every one of them, the same as that dentist who was caught filming himself having sex with ladies suffering from toothache. It wouldn’t do to have people see him like that now he’s someone, but every time he comes he has to keep Gouda sweet. Gouda saw everything back in the day and he printed his pictures into the bargain. There’s something else: Gouda photographed a lot of girls for Karim Abbas, Sally’s cuckold. Everyone knows why Karim gets pictures taken of these girls, and Gouda knew too. The pictures are like a catalogue, handed out to clients so they can choose the girl who’ll spend the night with them. It’s business and marketing. Forget all that for a moment. Fathi el-Assal would turn up with a lady friend. There’d be a party, presents and money chucked about left and right and then back to his second flat. The following week he’d come with his wife and Gouda wouldn’t hand him the pictures from the previous week: he’d wait another week and bill him then. There was an understanding. You’ve got the photos of Sally with all those people and the ones of Hisham Fathi and Habib; all of them had something in common.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They all paid extra.’

  ‘Sounds like Gouda could have got money from a toilet.’

  Ahmed shot him a look of disgust at this malodorous saying.

  ‘No, they paid extra on purpose. They knew that this man had to be kept happy so that he would watch them and keep quiet; so that he would remain a silent witness, a severed tongue. And when he took their money it was hard for him to sell them out. Regardless of how much he saw them getting up to there was a bond between them: eish wa malh.’

  ‘Then how do you explain him keeping all these pictures?’

  ‘Maybe because he liked to keep a card up his sleeve, just in case. Perhaps a customer might ask for his old pictures.’

  He fell silent for a while then added, ‘Maybe he sensed the corruption inside these people and photographed them because he meant to do something but never got the chance. It’s possible; no one will ever know now.’

  ‘And what about this business at the hotel?’

  ‘Gouda told me about it before. I didn’t believe him. It was in the middle of all those fibs he used to tell so I was bound to think it was a lie as well. By chance he was at a wedding by the Nile and had his camera with him. He noticed a movement, took some pictures and went on with the wedding. To think that I was pressed up against the window and didn’t get a thing and he managed to take pictures from another hotel!’

  ‘What lens is that?’

  ‘A 500mm zoom. I saw it in his room once. The point is that it’s useless at a wedding. He just loved showing off. He was a huge fan of Nour el-Sherif’s depiction of a photographer in that film Sunstroke. Remember that RPG he carried around with him?’

  ‘It can get all that detail?’

  ‘It can. Listen, you’re better than me at Photoshop. Come and take my place.’

  Omar took over. He opened the pictures and they studied them for more than an hour. Omar tried touching them up. He used filters to remove flaws caused by scratches on the rubbed and jostled negatives and adjusted the pictures’ brightness and contrast levels until their details began to become clearer.

  ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘here’s something.’

  He was enlarging a section of the photograph that showed the back of the bar. He created a separate image file for the section, opened it, then blew it up to fill the screen.

  What emerged was a surprise by any standards. The killer had not been lucky enough: his image had been reflected on the wall at the back of the room, which was covered in dark glass and showed his face from the direction the light was coming, the side from which only his victim could see him.

  Ahmed’s heart danced and Omar nearly ululated with pride at his discovery.

  Once he had seated himself on Omar’s lap, Ahmed said, ‘Do you know how to make this image sharper?’

  ‘And worse than this, as well …’

  Omar devoted half an hour to the task, raining ceaseless blows on the head of the unfortunate mouse, applying cleaning filters to remove blemishes and opening and adjusting contrast levels until the features grew a little crisper. It was a nearly perfect mirror image of the killer.

  Filling the screen with the man’s face, Omar pushed his chair back, while Ahmed sat on the mattress examining it from a distance.

  ‘I wonder if he ever imagined someone like Gouda would take his picture?’ he said. ‘It’s an unbelievable coincidence.’

  Omar answered him with a fatuous question. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘You mean: what will we do?’ said Ahmed, provoked.

  Omar turned towards him. ‘Eh?’

  ‘From now on you’re my partner. I don’t need you to do anything; just help me with Photoshop and leave the rest to me. Wasn’t it you who woke up and stuck your nose into what I’m doing?’

  Omar had been waiting for this answer and the commission it contained. ‘It’s like that, is it?’

  ‘Like it or not, loser. Is there a problem?’

  ‘No, boss.’

  ‘And something else: if anything that’s happened today gets out, you can say goodbye to you, me and the old woman you’ve left at home eating yoghurt. Especially the old woman; they’ll put her to work in the casino. Got it?’

  ‘I’m hurt.’

  ‘You always say that and then you go and tell everyone. This time there’s no messing around. It’ll be my neck, Omar.’

  ‘I’ll sell you out at the first slap, Ahmed.’

  ‘They don’t make ’em like you any more,’ said Ahmed, getting to his feet and leaping on Omar, tickling and pinching his lavish belly. They laughed and quipped and swore until their energy was exhausted and they could do no more. Omar lay down on the mattress and Ahmed lit a cigarette, sitting in the space th
at Omar had left for him, his legs hunched up, staring through the smoke at the face that filled the screen – the face betrayed by fortune.

  12

  The hours went by as if in a dream. Ahmed spent the time like a drunk, his vacant eyes staring into space. He photographed children, young women and weddings and could scarcely recall a single face. He felt a mixture of emotions: astonishment, sadness and joy combined. A great deal had happened the night before, however you measured it. A single, insistent thought held sway over his mind like a nadaha’s cry.

  ‘So, what will you do?’ asked Omar, absorbed in tapping the coals clean and stacking them on top of the shisha’s tobacco plug as they sat in Layalina Café, where they stopped most days after finishing work at the studio.

  ‘I have to do something. God sent me those pictures for a purpose. I don’t know what it is, but I can sense it. I won’t be another Gouda and keep quiet. If I did that I wouldn’t deserve to have the pictures.’

  ‘Great. So what will we do, then?’

  Ahmed had no answer to this. He stared at the street for a while until a short cross-eyed man came to a halt in front of him. He looked like he’d come from Mars.

  ‘Newsahramrepublicwafdreportconstitutionfreedomhalfthe worldvoiceofthenationegypttoday!’ he said.

  He wasn’t a Martian; he sold newspapers.

  The Internet had relieved Omar of the need to read the papers.

  ‘No thanks, friend,’ he said, even as Ahmed grabbed the man’s hand when he began to leave.

  ‘Wait,’ Ahmed said. ‘Give me everything you’ve got.’

  ‘What’s that, you worm? You’re going to buy the lot?’

  ‘You be quiet,’ Ahmed said to Omar, taking out his wallet, ‘How much?’

  The man gazed in the opposite direction as he answered. ‘Nine and a half, ya basha.’

  Ahmed paid him and the man departed. Ahmed took the newspapers, put them under his arm and got to his feet.

  ‘Pay the waiter and let’s go. Come on.’

  ‘But the shisha …’ Omar protested.

  ‘That’s your fifth today, you oaf. That’s more than enough. Go and pay.’

  Against his will, Omar got up, puffing and cursing Ahmed for depriving him of his only pleasure in the world: devouring lumps of honeyed tobacco. Ahmed went to the flat and Omar promised to drop by after he had bought some yoghurt for his mother.

  Ahmed went in, took off his shoes and lay down, opening the newspapers in a semi-circle in front of him. He had no idea how long he had been in this position when armies of ants started to creep through the blood vessels in his feet. He stood up to get them moving and shake them into retreat or submission, then lit a cigarette. Like a spider’s web, the threads started to knit together in his mind, slowly criss-crossing and multiplying. He didn’t hear the flat door opening, and suddenly there was Omar, standing in the doorway and terrifying him with a deafening belch.

  ‘That’s disgusting.’

  ‘What are you up to, you horrible creature?’

  ‘Come here.’

  Picking up one of the national newspapers, Ahmed pulled him over and sat him down on the mattress. ‘Look at that headline.’

  Omar read it in silence. He showed no sign of comprehension. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Ibrahim Rashid at the forefront of demands in parliament for an agreement over the new Health Insurance Law,’ ran the headline. ‘Parliament holds intensive sittings to study the bill before it is proposed in the next session.’

  There was a picture of an agitated man gesturing with his hand in a theatrical manner, a tall microphone stand in front him.

  ‘This paper’s two weeks old,’ said Ahmed. ‘I bought it to get some loose change for the guys who carried my stuff up to the flat for me.’

  ‘This is ridiculous. You’re an idiot.’

  ‘Wait. Now look.’

  He held up a copy of Freedom. ‘Read.’

  ‘Health insurance or nationalised health?’ the headline read. ‘The new law brushes aside those on limited incomes. We cannot expect this government to care for the poor man. By Galal Mursi.’

  ‘So what?’ said Omar. ‘He’s a rat and he has a go at everybody.’

  ‘Right. Freedom came out the day before yesterday, because it’s a weekly, right? Now look here. This is yesterday’s paper, first edition.’

  He opened a national daily for Omar. ‘Read it.’

  ‘On the basis of advice from His Excellency the minister, the draft of the new Health Insurance Law has been amended to better suit those on limited incomes, reflecting his belief in the rights of citizenship. His Excellency generously …’

  ‘Do you see?’

  ‘Of course not. Since when did you care about health insurance?’

  ‘My dear walrus, I don’t care about health insurance. See that man?’

  He pointed at the MP speaking heatedly before the microphone in the picture.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He’s that man I told you about, the one who delivered Galal Mursi to the casino that time. His name is Ibrahim Rashid. This guy proposes the health insurance law to parliament and then Galal Mursi gives him a dressing down in his newspaper. Why? I saw something different. He’s clearly a very good friend of Galal. He shared a joke with him and gave him a lift. It means there’s some understanding here. There’s collaboration; friendship. Then he goes and skins him in the paper. Isn’t that odd? Even odder, the government then amends and adjusts the law and it gets passed. This time they get the credit, but it happened just like Freedom said.’

  Omar didn’t look convinced and Ahmed forestalled him. ‘OK then, look. Here’s something else.’ He reopened the copy of Freedom. ‘The headline says “Rotten food and a return to the eighties: The companies are feeding us poison in our honey.” It’s an exhaustive report into Nutrimental Food’s involvement in products that have passed their expiry date with the knowledge of Abdel Rahim el-Assal. It’s scary, isn’t it? Look at this.’ He opened another page of the newspaper. A large advertisement for the Assal Group displaying images of all its products ran the length of the page.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Omar.

  ‘Fathi el-Assal’s a titan. He’s got a finger in every pie and he imports everything and anything. He’s backed by Abdel Rahim el-Assal, the minister. You know who he is, of course, but whoever he was, even if he wasn’t Abdel Rahim’s relative, Fathi’s very close to those at the top. That’s not the problem; the problem is that there are only two companies in the market, the Assal Group and Nutrimental, and they control all the food. In other words, this is a campaign to clear the whole market for el-Assal. Nutrimental most likely is a dirty company, but why is Galal Mursi attacking Abdel Rahim el-Assal and accusing him of fraud, and at the same time running a full-page advertisement for his relative Fathi el-Assal in the same issue? How can they be friends if he’s sticking the knife into the man who supports him?’

  ‘It’s strange, for sure.’

  ‘Nothing strange about it; it’s politics. Do you know what fishermen do to make the fish stroll into the net on their own two feet? Sorry, swim in with their fins? They form a circle and beat the water with long poles to make them take fright and flee, but they can’t go anywhere except in the direction of the net, which has been left open. They shoot off, thinking that they’re free, but they’re rushing towards their own deaths. You can take a lot from that. Lots of the papers are swimming down the same path and a very few are harvesting them from the net.’

  ‘So who is Galal with, ultimately?’

  ‘He’s a hypocrite, Omar. He writes the opposite of what he means. He’s with the winner; he rides the wave. A great many people benefit from scandal and become more famous, and attacking the powerful ensures you’ll take his word over anyone else’s. If he lays into a few businessmen and politicians then tells you that your mother works as a money launderer you’d believe him yourself. There are people that profit from being attacked. There has to be a vent.�
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  ‘How do you mean, a vent?’

  ‘I mean someone who strikes on behalf of those that don’t have the time, the people whose need for food consumes them, the ones who spend the day running after a crust. Like you and me, Omar: no dreams and no ambitions, people who drop off the moment their heads touch the pillow only to wake up the next day and work like donkeys at the waterwheel. But that doesn’t prevent them reading the paper in the evening. He gives them a bit of good news to soften their hearts, scatters a pinch of abuse over a few ministers and officials, stirs in some stories about actresses, a picture of a sexy girl and a couple of prostitution scandals with all the tedious details, and the meal is ready, and served with bread and tahini dip into the bargain. It’s someone who shouts for them, someone who celebrates as though he were securing their rights. It’s someone who comforts them, someone who gives them a shot of anaesthetic to numb their cares. And all the while, there’s a drip-feed of democracy, human rights and an independent opposition in a free country with a free people, because a person has to relax as well; he has to feel hope for tomorrow and believe that there’ll be change. Half the people, if not three-quarters, only want change to relieve the boredom. They want to change the faces; see a new mug for a change. If you went and asked one of them what he wants to see changed, he wouldn’t be able to answer. The papers have thought for him and shouted on his behalf. They’ve screamed out what he keeps repressed within. They’ve given him a fat joint to smoke and a heavy meal and left him snoring through the night, if not for a whole year.’

  ‘How long have you been thinking about all that?’ said Omar. ‘You say it like you’d memorised it.’

  ‘Working in a place like the one I worked in would teach the thickest of men. As Gouda used to say, God have mercy on his soul, “We work in a toilet”. Imagine photographing someone when he’s on the lavatory. You see society stark naked, but they’re not embarrassed because there’s a wall to hide them. The people on the other side of that wall have to make a living and as long as there’s money to be made they couldn’t care less: do what you like, and more besides. Now I don’t have any responsibilities: no kids, no home. I’ve got time to think, not like a married man who can’t see what’s in front of him.’