Dogstar Rising

Chapter Ten




Makana was left standing on the pavement in front of the Binbashi feeling annoyed with himself as much as anything else. He shouldn’t have used violence. It was an unnecessary and vulgar display. He regretted having Talal witness it, but he knew why. Damazeen had triggered an old and deeply buried anger in him. Talal’s father, Abdel Aziz, was arrested on returning from a trip to Cairo and charged with conspiring against the government. Makana had always suspected that the person who had tipped off the intelligence services about Abdel Aziz having met with members of the opposition in exile was none other than Damazeen himself.

A taxi was parked up under a large banyan tree and he climbed in without further hesitation and asked the driver to take him downtown. At that hour the traffic was light and in a little more than fifteen minutes he was in Aswani’s. The garish white light from the flyspecked neon tubes that buzzed angrily on the walls was a welcome relief after contemplating dinner in a place where you could barely see your hand in front of your face, let alone what was on your plate.

Aswani was busy tending a grill that threw up gouts of flame as if he had a pocket-sized dragon hidden under the bars. Beads of sweat ran down his face as he dextrously flipped dozens of skewers threaded with kebab and kofta. Water hissed, steam rose in clouds, and orders flew left and right as his staff rushed back and forth to do his bidding. He resembled an ancient pagan sorcerer of some description. Makana found Sami sitting at the back at their usual table.

‘It’s busy tonight.’

‘I wasn’t expecting you for another hour or so,’ Sami tapped his watch.

‘Things didn’t work out too well.’

‘Really?’

‘It’s a long story.’

There was a plate of stuffed green peppers in front of Sami that he seemed not to have noticed, his nose being firmly tucked into a heap of newspapers spread out in front of him.

‘Didn’t you order anything else?’ Makana asked as he sat down, suddenly hungry.

‘I haven’t ordered anything. These came by themselves.’

Makana sniffed the maashi cautiously. Aswani must be trying out a new dish. Still, he was willing to give it a try. He wiped a fork on a paper napkin and dug it in.

‘So, you couldn’t stay away from my food any longer, eh?’

Aswani waddled up to the table. His grubby shirt was generously dotted with pools of sweat and he was wiping his face with a dishcloth.

‘Try my maashi, yet? The best in the city, I can assure you.’

‘I’m sure you’re right, but I was really looking forward to your kofta.’

‘Ask and it shall be served.’ Aswani gave a mock bow and wandered to the next table.

‘So, what did you make of Father Macarius?’ asked Sami.

‘He’s hiding something.’

‘Hiding what? He’s fighting to stay afloat.’

‘Then what is he hiding?’

‘You don’t know that he’s hiding anything. He’s trying to help these kids. Do you have any idea how many there are? They run away, they fall into the hands of unscrupulous men who promise them money and in return abuse them.’ Sami dug a fork into one of the stuffed peppers and chewed cautiously. ‘And there he is, rebuilding a church that everyone had given up on and taking in kids from the streets. In another country they would give him a medal, but not here.’

A medal for what, Makana wondered. Survival, perhaps, in a hostile environment.

‘The church doesn’t want him around. He’s a trouble maker.’ Pushing another forkful of rice and roasted green pepper into his mouth, Sami chewed for a while. ‘What makes you think he’s hiding something?’

‘He’s a priest. Priests spend their lives trying to convince people they are telling the truth, which means they are not very good when it comes to telling lies.’

Makana watched Sami polish off the second stuffed pepper. He wasn’t convinced this kind of sophistication would ever catch on with Aswani’s clientele. People came here for grilled meat. If they wanted something fancy they went elsewhere, dark places with low lighting.

‘There’s something else I want you to help me with. The other night you told me that Hilal had caused a lot of trouble with his criticism of Islamic banking.’

‘What he said was that they were exploiting people’s sentiments to make a profit.’

‘Why else would people invest their money in an Islamic bank? It makes them feel better.’

‘Exactly. So when Hilal went after the Eastern Star Investment Bank a lot of people got very upset. He took them to pieces.’

‘Over what?’

‘Basically, their accounting was unsound. Hilal alleged there were huge loopholes out of which the directors took sizeable profits while paying investors a pittance.’

‘So he upset the directors. Is it possible to get a list of the major shareholders and the management of the bank?’ Makana paused. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I don’t know. This country’s in a mess. I mean, it feels like we’re on the verge of civil war.’

‘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.