The Arabesk Trilogy Omnibus (125 page)

Removing oneself from pain wasn’t a trick everybody could master. For a start, it required a certain working knowledge of the subject, preferably one built up over many years. Unless, of course, it was possible to go for a single cataclysmic thunderburst that shocked the flesh into learning something it never forgot.

Raf didn’t know, that wasn’t the route he’d taken.

The secret was to be somewhere else. Answering questions other than those asked. While hunting for the fracture behind reality.

Breathe through nose or mouth…

Saturday or Sunday…

Live or die…

“Just one collection of questions after the next, isn’t it?”
said the fox.
“Life I mean. Or what passes for it…”

How long he’d been in the azib Raf wasn’t sure. Being knocked unconscious did that to you. At least it always did to him. And his back history was punctuated, at significant points, by such bouts of darkness, although often differently induced.

Actually, it was probably more accurate to say his life, back history, call it what one would, was a string of cold darkness punctuated by sharp, occasionally contradictory memories of being awake. What Raf had taken to calling the
sickroom conundrum
and what the fox insisted on calling Schrödinger’s paint pot.

If he went to sleep in a ward that was green and woke in the same room but it was grey, what had changed? Reality, the room or Raf? There was something very primitive about that question. Almost classic. A puzzle replete with a dozen resonances Raf undoubtedly failed to appreciate.

There was, of course, an even more primitive conundrum slumped against the wall opposite, quietly decomposing in note after note of sweet decay. At what point did Hassan cease to be human? And what exactly did death remove from that original mix of 65 percent oxygen, 18 percent carbon, 9.5 percent hydrogen and all those other elements neither Raf nor the fox could be bothered to remember?

Dying seemed simple, decomposing less so, if Hassan was representative. A veritable matrix of influences constraining or facilitating the metamorphosis: beginning with attack by insects, originally flies, then beetles, finally millipedes; amount of clothing intact, in this case none; level of physical trauma, considerable; ambient heat, sweltering…

The fox and Raf also agreed on the probability that soil type made some impact.

Felix would have known. Having wiped his finger on the floor of the azib he’d have announced a high saline content was hindering decomposition or saltpetre was causing mummification. Of course, the fat man was quite capable of wiping his finger straight on the body.

When Raf first woke, Hassan had been coming out of rigor, locked muscles slowly relaxing, starting with his eyelids, lower jaw and the soft jowls of his neck. And Raf didn’t need voices in his head to tell him this was decomposition of muscle fibre.

By evening the boy’s face had turned a weird greenish red, with a veritable tie-dye of corruption brightening his flabby chest and blotching his naked thighs. It was around this time that Hassan began to smell. At least that was what Raf thought then. Now, reassessing, he understood that corruption had barely started.

After the face began to melt, millipedes arrived to eat mites busy feeding on flesh, the blowflies having already gone. And gas-filled blisters began to appear under the skin as liquid leached from anus, nostrils, mouth and ears. In all probability, Raf realized, he was taking more interest than was wise in the intricacies of what was happening. But it was hard to avoid when shackled in a stone azib, five paces from one’s very own
memento mori
.

“Enough with the thinking,”
said the fox, its voice completely present for the first time in weeks.
“You can dislocate your way out of this or stay here and die. Make a choice.”

It looked out through Raf’s eyes. The bit of him that had never been entirely human.

“You want this to end,”
it said,
“then end it. But ask yourself this… How many more times can you afford to die?”

CHAPTER 46

Saturday 12th March

Sometime after the lights went down in the main part of
the coach, and those who had couchettes let back their seats, and the loos and showers occupied by tourists preparing for sleep finally emptied, Micki took Hani to the loo, using the width of her hips to shield the child from anyone who might glance round.

Micki was pretty sure everyone was safely dozing. She’d already made three visits, earning herself pitying glances from a middle-aged, pudding-faced Soviet woman in the back row who’d finally fallen asleep with a crumpled copy of the previous day’s
Pravda
on her lap.

“I’ll keep guard,” Micki told the child, ushering Hani through a door. “Don’t worry,” she added, when Hani looked anxious, “I’ll be here when you come out.”

“Micki,” Hani’s voice was little more than a whisper.

“What now?”

“Um…”

The child had the face of an angel. A foreign angel obviously but an angel all the same. Men were going to fall into those dark eyes and never find their way back. Not for years though, Micki told herself hastily. When the girl was properly grown-up.

“What is it?” asked Micki and when Hani still didn’t answer, she dropped to her knees the way she used to do when something was worrying Carl Junior. Carl Senior never got the importance of this, although she’d tried to explain it more than once. He always towered over the boy, then wondered why he got frightened.

“You can tell me, honey…”

Something fleeting and sad passed over the face of the child as she bent close and whispered in Micki’s ear.

“You know,” Micki hissed to her husband, when Hani and Murad were safely dozing on the floor, wrapped in separate blankets that they both managed to kick off in their sleep. “She hadn’t even heard about Kotex. It was a miracle the child even knew what was happening to her… Can you imagine it?”

Carl had less than no interest in imagining any such thing but had long since learnt not to say as much, so he muttered something he hoped sounded suitably shocked and had another go at drifting off to sleep.

“That must be how their parents decide they’re ready to marry,” Micki announced. “The first time they… You know.”

That was one
you know
and a couple more
theys
than Carl could follow but he didn’t mention this either. “Could be,” he said and drifted off to sleep, leaving his wife to the comfort of outrage.

“We’ve got problems,” Carl Senior said.

“Nothing we can’t fix,” Micki insisted hastily, when she saw the anguish in Hani’s face. The roadblock was waiting at Dehiba, thirty klicks after the blacktop shrank from two lanes to one. Right before Ifriqiya’s border with Tripolitana.

Jebel Dahar’s stark red spine with its low fringe of thorn and scrub was mostly behind them and ahead was a sixteen-hour trip to take in the hilltop town of Yafran. A double-page spread in Micki’s
Insight Guide
revealed an area of olive groves and good red soil; while a box-out of traditional Yafrani architecture revealed squat buildings with heavy doors, intricate wrought iron and what looked like plaster helicopters, jets and butterflies fixed to the side of Berber houses.

“Stay in here,” Micki told the children. “They’ll probably just count us.”

Carl Senior stayed silent.

“We could hide under the bed,” Hani suggested.

“Good idea,” said Carl. “No one would ever think of looking for you there.” He grabbed his passport and camera. “I might as well get a shot of the frontier. If they’ll allow me,” he added crossly, sliding back the door.

“Ignore him,” Micki said. “He’s nervous.”

“About what?”

Micki smiled. “Some people don’t like breaking the law. Carl Senior’s one of them.”

“But you don’t mind?” While watching the large woman from the corner of her eye, Hani thought about that. The American was very pink and very big, with wavy blond hair made fat by too much brushing.

“Honey,” said Micki, “how do you think Carl Senior and I first met? It was in a lineup. I was standing there and he was the one walking an elderly man down the line.”

“What happened?”

Micki shrugged. “Old Amos had bad eyesight. So after the civilians had gone I told Carl Senior he owed me a coffee for my inconvenience. We went on from there.”

“You’re not Carl Junior’s mother, are you?” Hani was surprised she hadn’t realized that before. “Not really…”

“Honey,” Micki looked at her. “You can be one weird kid.”

“But I’m telling the truth?”

“Yeah, you are that. He needed looking after and Carl Senior was useless. So he got me.” Micki shrugged. “Whatever good that was. Now, you stay here and we’ll soon be safely across that border.”

“If only,” said Hani. She could feel a decision coming on. The kind Uncle Ashraf might make.
When in doubt, change the rules
… She was pretty sure he’d said that to her sometime or other and if he hadn’t then he’d probably meant to… Unless it was Hamzah Effendi.

“We’re going to hide, all right,” said Hani, “right in front of the cameras.”

“You’re…” For the first time since Hani had met her, Micki was lost.

“In front of the cameras.” Pulling back the cabin’s curtain, Hani nodded to sand-filled barrels blocking off one-half of the narrow road. “That isn’t a border post,” she told the large woman. “That’s a roadblock and those men with guns belong to Kashif Pasha. His half brother,” Hani added, taking Murad’s hand.

Micki Vanhoffer looked as bemused as she felt.

“This is His Excellency Murad Pasha,” said Hani. She took off her scarf and tried to comb out her hair with her fingers. Then she straightened her shoulders and raised her chin. “And I’m Lady Hana al-Mansur. Those soldiers out there have orders to find us.”

“To make you marry?”

“No,” said Hani. “So Kashif Pasha can have us killed. Although he’ll try to blame it on terrorists or my uncle Ashraf…” She shrugged away the thought. “You do have a cell phone?” Hani said, pointing to Micki’s handbag.

The American woman nodded.

“Good.” Hani upended the bag and began to sort through tissues, tampons, a shop load of loose makeup and what Hamzah would called a boasting book, a plastic wallet full of family photographs. The cell phone was near the bottom, switched off.

“What’s your code?” asked Hani.

Micki gave her a six-digit number.

“Don’t tell me,” said Hani, “that’s your date of birth…” She sighed at Micki’s embarrassed nod. “Think about changing it,” Hani suggested, fingers flicking through menus. When she reached the option she wanted, Hani punched in a number, remembering to make allowances for international dialling.

Then she took a deep breath.

“This is the truth,” Hani said. “I promise you… I’m not an orphan,” she stopped dead. “Well actually I am,” she said, “but I’m not running away from an orphanage. And we’re not engaged. But someone is trying to kill me. Well,” Hani thought about that one too. “I guess they’re really trying to kill Murad.”

“It was a lie about the marriage too?” Micki seemed to be one twist behind Hani, understandable really… Most of the adults Hani had met hadn’t been too bright.

“No one is forcing us to get married,” Hani said.

“So you’re not going to marry your cousin?”

Hani smiled. “That wasn’t what I said at all.”

“Micki.”
The voice came from Carl Senior and, by the sound of things, he was either yelling from outside or standing in the doorway. “They got guns,” he said. “And they want everyone out because they intend to search the coach.”

“God give me strength,” said Micki loud enough to be heard. “Tell them I’m coming.” She banged her hip against the door and slammed a tiny drawer. “Just as soon as I get this damn skirt on.”

“Take this,” Hani said, shovelling everything back into Micki’s bag. “As soon as you get across the border turn on the cell phone and it’ll remind you that you need to make a call.”

“I do?”

“Yes,” said Hani, “definitely. Call the number that appears and demand to speak to Effendi.”

“What if Mr. Effendi doesn’t want to speak to me?”

“He will,” promised Hani, wondering if the American realized she’d just agreed to make the call. “And if he doesn’t, tell whoever answers that Hani says,
If Effendi doesn’t come to the phone she’ll stop letting him play with her money
… He keeps investing it in his own companies,” Hani added, as if that explained everything.

The words were Hamzah Effendi’s guarantee that the message was real. What he did would have nothing to do with money. It would be done for Raf. A debt repaid.

“What do I tell him?” Micki asked anxiously. “When Effendi does come to the phone?”

“Tell him that Murad and Hani have been murdered by Kashif Pasha… Tell him to tell everyone he knows.” Catching the American woman’s appalled expression, Hani held up one hand as the first tears started to trickle down Micki’s face, cutting tracks in her heavy makeup.

“It might not happen,” Hani said.

CHAPTER 47

Monday 14th March

The call from the minaret came harsh as a crow. Only
there was no minaret and when Raf kicked at a shadow it squawked into life and sliced the night in a spread of serrated black blades.

“Very pretty,” said Felix, nodding at Raf’s shackles. So Raf swung them at him and missed, earning himself a smile. A real fat man grin.

“Ignore him,”
the fox said.
“He’s just like all the others.”

Tiri was talking about the ghosts who walked out of the salt wilderness towards Raf, their carcasses destroyed, their faces twisted in the final moments of death or smoothed free of all memory.

“I know,” said Raf and forced one foot in front of the other, extracting another step from his shaking body. They were dead and so was he. At least that was what it felt like. This razor state between existences, flash-filled with waterfalls of exaltation that appeared one minute to run down his spine, then vanished the next, leaving him spent as an hourglass.