Authors: Parker Bilal
‘You really think it is as bad as that?’
‘One thing is for sure. This is not happening by itself.’
‘You’re talking about what, a conspiracy?’
‘I’m talking about . . . everything. You saw the crowd in Imbaba. There were agents there.’
‘The
Merkezi
?’
‘Exactly, Central Security Forces and their thugs. They are stirring it all up. They know it could explode at any moment. Muslim against Christian, and that would suit them fine.’
‘Riots in the street. Churches burning down.’
‘The whole thing.’ Sami leaned in. ‘The economy is in serious trouble. The rich are getting richer. The rest of us need two jobs just to get by.’
‘You think they might be involved in the murder of these homeless children?’
‘Why not?’ Sami said. ‘We both know how they operate. Who is going to mourn a child in torn clothes that has been sleeping rough, not eating well, probably sniffing glue and smoking
bango
? All of that adds up to criminal activity. The police are not going to raise a finger.’
‘And by killing them, they gain . . . what?’
‘Have you seen the newspapers? The television? The country is going mad over this. The whole country is outraged that Christians are murdering little boys in some kind of ancient ritual.’
‘Which is nonsense.’
‘Sheikh Waheed talks about it, so there must be some truth to it.’ Sami wagged a finger in the air. ‘Anyway, my editor has quietly asked me to drop the story.’
‘Did he say why?’
‘He didn’t have to. Someone made a phone call. It’s like everything else. Besides, I understand perfectly. No editor in his right mind would publish a story claiming that State Security are trying to stir up anti-Christian feeling in order to take people’s minds off the economy, right?’
Makana caught the eye of a man at the next table. Was he listening? Informers were notoriously rife. Sami appeared oblivious, and continued unabated.
‘Tourists are too scared to come here. We would starve to death without American aid. We can’t even grow enough to feed ourselves. Last year’s presidential elections were a joke. Now they want to ban opposition parties. Parliament just extended the emergency laws for another three years. We’ve been living in a state of emergency since
1967
. God, I could use a drink right now. A real drink, not these sugary sodas we are forced to consume. They are turning us into helpless children.’
Food was forgotten as cigarettes were lit.
‘They talk about democratic reform. Clinton drops by to say a few words about Palestine and everyone shakes hands and smiles for the pictures.’ Sami thumped the table with his hand, forgetting his surroundings. A few heads turned in their direction. Aswani waddled over to stand beside the table and set down a pile of kofta.
‘Keep your voices down. I don’t want to be closed down for running a hotbed of dissent.’
Aswani walked away, sharing a laugh with the man in grey at the next table, who gave Makana a cold, unresponsive stare.
‘Did you hear what they did to that poor novelist?’
Makana had lost his appetite. Sami drew quick nervous puffs, the smoke reeling around his head. ‘He got a six month suspended sentence for a book that was published eighteen years ago in Lebanon. Blasphemy?’ He put his hands to his head. ‘This country used to be the cultural centre of the region. We used to read everything. Now university students are banning Mohammed Choukri and all anyone wants is to draw a veil over their wives. I was thinking, maybe you could lend me some money, just for a time.’
‘I thought your paper was paying you?’
‘You know how it is, marriage is an expensive business. Rania is accustomed to a certain standard of living.’
Makana reached into his pocket for the money Faragalla had given him. ‘How about I pay you for the information about this bank.’
‘Sounds fair to me. Actually, a friend of mine, Nasser Hikmet, was supposed to be looking into the Eastern Star Investment Bank.’
‘That should make it easy.’ Makana handed over the banknotes and Sami counted them carefully.
‘I take it you’re paying for this,’ Sami gestured at the food on the table. Makana reached into his pocket again.
The following morning found Makana sitting in the dreary café inside the arcade, contemplating his second cigarette of the day. The coffee cup in front of him was drained but he was actually considering ordering another. Eissa, the boy behind the counter, was eagerly showing him a carton of cigarettes that he was willing to sell for a third of their price.
‘You won’t get them cheaper anywhere.’
‘The question is, where did you get them?’
The boy grumbled something and slouched back behind the counter. When he looked up, Makana spotted Meera stepping in from the street, her figure silhouetted against the light behind her. She was strolling along, deep in thought. Once again, Makana was filled with an inexplicable sense of loss and regret that he couldn’t explain to himself. He was, he realised, still thinking about the meeting with Damazeen the previous evening. Somehow it had brought back all the memories of Muna and the life they once had. What he had lost. This was what hurt. Meera was undoubtedly an attractive woman. The kind who could go a long way towards helping you forget your troubles. But all she did was remind him of the love he had once had and lost.
Still, he seemed unable to take his eyes off her and instead followed her progress. Halfway down the arcade she paused to study the window display in the clothes shop with the hijabbed mannequins. There was some irony to that. Her face lifted as someone stopped next to her. Yousef. On his way out, it seemed, pausing to light one of his foul-smelling menthol cigarettes. He lingered, glancing at his watch before walking on. Meera followed him with her eyes as he walked away, a puzzled look on her face, as if he had said something she hadn’t quite caught. Later, Makana would play the sequence over and over in his head, trying to reconstruct the order in which it happened.
A man entered the arcade at almost the same moment Yousef exited. A slight figure, even shorter than Yousef, they almost bumped into one another. The man cannoned away quickly, head down. There was something odd about his posture, the way he walked, the fact that he was wearing an old army fatigue jacket. A woollen cap was pulled down over his head and the collar of his jacket was turned up. By now Makana was on his feet. He wasn’t sure why, but he found his way blocked. A group of men were trying to get in through the narrow doorway. They were making a lot of noise, laughing amongst themselves. Pushing his way roughly past, Makana ignored the insults. Slowly. Everything seemed to be happening so slowly. The light flooding in through the entrance reduced everyone ahead of him to silhouettes. People passed between them, shadows obscuring his view. The man’s face was half covered by a scarf. The distance between them was no more than twenty metres but the arcade seemed like a vast, endless hall. The man was fumbling inside his jacket, tearing at the folds. Meera bumped into the window behind her. The man’s hand came free, holding something so big it looked like a toy in his hand. Makana could hear himself yelling a warning. The shots echoed through the enclosed space. Meera spun off balance, stumbling backwards, the glass exploding around her as she fell through into the interior.
It happened so quickly that it seemed to carry on repeating in front of his eyes. A mannequin burst into dust, parts flew into the air, the legs collapsing with tiny puffs of powder and smoke. There were screams now as people ducked, scattering in all directions. Makana was still moving forward. Brass casings clattered onto the cracked tiles. Clothes jerked spasmodically as if tugged by invisible fingers. Then the gun appeared to jam. It clicked a couple of times. The gunman pulled back the slide and released it, glimpsing movement out of the corner of his eye and turning just as Makana crashed into him. The man’s yell was truncated as the two of them smashed through the window, a cracked pane of glass giving under them. The man seemed to weigh almost nothing. Makana’s momentum knocked him flying as he himself went down. He saw the man roll and land on his side before leaping up lithely. Makana, sprawled on the floor, was looking down the barrel of the gun. The man pulled the trigger twice. Nothing happened. With a cry of fury he threw the gun and Makana put up a hand and felt it bounce off his forearm. He saw the man turn and run, limping away with a long shard of glass protruding from his calf muscle.
Getting to his knees Makana looked towards Meera. Her body twitched. When he turned back towards the entrance he saw onlookers leaping out of the gunman’s way as he threw himself between them. Makana heard the high-pitched engine of a motorcycle being revved. He saw the gunman hop down the steps and go straight over the row of cars parked in the street, the soft metal flexing under him as he slid across and fell to the ground on the other side. Makana reached the entrance in time to see the gunman climb up and settle himself on the back of the motorcycle, as his accomplice twisted the throttle and the machine accelerated away.
Makana became aware of the commotion around him. People were shouting and jostling one another. Someone somewhere was wailing hysterically. Meera lay half inside the shattered display window on her back, one hand thrown up casually across her face, as if she might have been turning in her sleep. Her clothes were torn and bloody. All around her dismembered dummies lay scattered bizarrely. An arm here, a torso there. It resembled a massacre. She didn’t seem to be breathing. He put out a hand to feel for a pulse in her neck and her hand came down and clung on to his. He looked into her eyes.
‘Meera. Help is on the way.’
Her eyes seemed to search his face for something and he felt helpless, not knowing what it was she wanted to say. For a moment she trembled like that, her hand clutching his, and then she went still and her arm fell away.
‘That was a brave thing you did. Foolish, but brave.’
Makana looked up to see a man in a brown shirt standing over him.
‘An ambulance. Call an ambulance.’
‘It’s already on the way.’ The man was holding a walkie-talkie in one hand. A plain-clothes
Merkezi
agent. ‘Did you get a look at him?’
Makana had a vague recollection of a face half covered by a scarf. He wasn’t sure he would recognise him if he was standing in front of him.
‘Who was she?’
Makana realised his hands were bleeding. There was blood and glass everywhere. He looked down at Meera’s broken body.
‘She works here, upstairs.’
The man jabbed a finger at him. ‘Don’t go anywhere, a lot of people are going to want to speak to you.’ He moved off, talking into his radio.
The sirens were converging, orders were being shouted. A loud drumming of boots approached as the police sealed off the arcade in their usual heavy-handed manner.
Meera’s eyes were wide. Makana leaned over and plucked a piece of glass from her cheek. A trail of ruby-red blood traced itself down her face. In death she seemed somehow younger, as if all the worries had been lifted from her shoulders.
‘What are you doing?’
Makana felt himself being hauled to his feet and held suspended between two large uniformed policemen. Blood trickled down from his forehead into his eye. In front of him an officer with brass buttons on his tunic thrust his bulbous nose into his face.
‘Is this him? Are you the killer?’ he demanded. The man in the brown shirt was busy elsewhere. The officer levelled a finger. ‘Hold him well. Don’t let him move until I am ready for him.’
Makana was hauled off, his toes dragging along the ground. His hands were wrenched behind his back and he felt handcuffs tightening around his wrists, cutting off the circulation. The policemen smelt of sweat and fear. They pushed him against the wall, forming a cordon around him. The officer came back over to yell at him some more, for no real reason other than he could not think of anything better to do.
‘You’re making a mistake,’ Makana said.
‘Who do you think you are talking to?’ demanded the officer, prodding Makana in the stomach with his baton. He felt his legs give way and he sank down against the wall behind him.
Abu Salem was in tears. ‘Hey, he risked his life. I saw him.’
‘You want to join him, old man?’
‘I saw the whole thing,’ said the man in the brown shirt.
‘I am the officer in charge and this man stays here until I say so.’
Everything suddenly changed. Three large black SUVs drew to a halt outside. Makana could see them through the legs of the uniformed men who formed a ring about him. American cars. Jeeps with flashing blue lights on the dashboard. State Security Investigations. Out of the cars came nine men in civilian clothes armed with light machine pistols hanging loosely from their shoulders. They spread out and started ordering people around. Nobody protested. The uniformed officers shuffled aside gamely, watching with their mouths hanging open. The hunchbacked
bawab
had produced a sheet from somewhere. None of the uniformed men had the courage to tell him not to cover the body up.
‘It’s not decent to leave her lying there like that,’ Abu Salem fretted.