The Golden Scales (42 page)

Days passed like decades. Centuries, it felt like, his life withering into bile and then dust. Fever made his eyeballs ache, his head throb. He vomited when there was nothing left inside him, a thin green trickle running down his chin. He floated in a state of suspended animation, no longer sure of who or what he was. A cockroach? A beetle?

Some days, just to remind him of what the open air was like, they let him out. He hated that. It disoriented him. It was a taste of freedom, a reminder of the power they had to take it away again, any time they pleased. When they pushed him back into the cell, he would kick and scream. The walls yawned open to draw him in, sucking him back down into the waiting darkness and filth.

One night they flung him in and he stumbled. Something unfamiliar was occupying the floor. He fell silent, his heart telling him what he could not bear, that it was his daughter. Frantically, he fumbled for another explanation. Panic fought the logic which told him that the body was too big. A man’s arm. A man’s body. Not a child’s.
Alhamdoulilah
. He wept with relief as he continued his investigation. The man’s face had softened where his teeth had caved in. Cheekbone and nose broken. Makana’s fingers found the halo of white hair around the crown of his head. Professor Manute. The man he had tried to save. Would he have lived if Makana had not intervened?

The rusty bolt squeaked itself open to reveal light. His eyes tried to adjust. Eventually, he saw dusty walls, the leaves of a tree in the distance. A world whose existence he had forgotten. Still, he did not move. He knew this game. A familiar outline appeared in the doorway.

‘Bring him out.’

The cell shrank suddenly as two men squeezed in, grabbed hold of him and hauled him up, stumbling over the dead professor, and out, to dump him like an old mattress in the sun.

‘Clean him off.’

A hiss of water stuttering in warning from a hosepipe before it hit him, making him gasp in shock. So cold. So clean. He scrabbled about, tumbling this way and that in his effort to get away. Then silence. Drops fell from his shivering head to the muddy pool that had formed beneath him. In that brown mirror he saw something resembling a monster which could only be himself. Another shadow clouded the sky.

‘What are we to do with you?’

Makana recognised the voice without raising his head. Mek Nimr squatted beside him.

‘You’re a dangerous man, Makana. You know why? Because you put yourself before the common good. You think you are above the rest of us, but no one is more important than the salvation of the nation, not even you.’

‘Salvation?’ gasped Makana. ‘Is that what you call this?’

Mek Nimr smiled. ‘We’re the same, you and me. The difference is that you married a woman from the educated classes. That doesn’t make you any better than me. But you’ve always behaved as if you were superior.’

Makana managed to lift his head. ‘We’re not the same.’

‘You lack humility. You will thank me for this one day, for saving you from yourself. You would have wound up an atheist like that poor old professor, thinking that his learning put him above the rest of us. Is that what you want to do, corrupt good Muslims with your atheism?’

‘I want to see my wife, my daughter.’

‘In good time. Patience.’

With that Mek Nimr turned and walked away. The men who had brought him out of the little cell helped Makana to stand. His feet were swollen and he collapsed, seeking the ground again. It was too painful to stand. A large sergeant he remembered from a lifetime ago took pity on him.

‘Carry him over there and put him in the shade. Give him something to drink.’

They put a hand under him on either side and dragged him across the yard to a bench set against the wall of an office. No sooner had they set him on it than he keeled over, collapsing to the floor like a sack of dates.

‘Get him up again,’ ordered the sergeant.

How long did he spend sitting there, the stench still on him? In his skin, his hair, his pores, inside his very being?

‘We’re going to take you home now,’ said the sergeant, leaning over him, close to the wall, as he spat a long brown stream of tobacco against it. ‘But bear in mind that he won’t be satisfied until he is finished with you.’

Makana tried to turn his head, to look up, but the sun blinded him. The big shadow passed over him like wings and was gone.

He barely registered what was going on as they drove him across town, pushed him from an unmarked car into the road. Stumbling along the uneven street, his bare, broken feet shuffled over stones and shards of glass, sheep’s jawbones filled with teeth, rusty cans. Neighbours stood in their doorways watching him go by. Everyone knew him. They drew back. Doors closed quietly. He didn’t blame them. If a police inspector was not immune then who was safe? Still, the news reached his house before he did. Muna rushed out into the street. She threw herself at him, disregarding whoever might be watching, and led him inside.

‘We thought you were dead.’ Her eyes were red and puffy, her face drawn. He barely recognised his own wife.

‘Our daughter . . . where is she?’

‘She’s fine,’ sobbed Muna. ‘She’s asleep.’

‘I must see her . . . now,’ he said.

Taking his hand, she led him like a stranger through his own house, shuffling along, his feet leaving a bloody trail behind him on the veranda tiles. He didn’t believe Nasra was going to be there. Convinced that somehow Mek Nimr had taken her, spirited her through the walls, back to the cell Makana had just vacated. But there she was, stretched out on the bed in their room, as if she was flying.

‘She’s fine,’ murmured Muna soothingly. ‘She’s fine.’

That was when he broke down, sobbing helplessly in her arms.

‘We have to get out of here,’ he said finally.

‘Why? What are you talking about?’

There was nothing here that he wanted to keep. It was all coming down around him now. Nothing that couldn’t be better the next time.

‘It’s not safe for us.’

‘What do you mean?’ she whispered, stroking his forehead.

‘Get as far away as possible, before they come for me again.’

‘Go where? Why should they come again?’

‘They’ll come.’

As if in response to their fears, the telephone began to ring on the bedside table. Makana saw the terror in her eyes. He wished he could protect her, but he couldn’t see how. Extricating himself from her arms, he rolled upright and placed his feet on the floor. The pain brought fresh tears. He stared at the telephone but couldn’t bring himself to reach for it. Muna stepped past him and lifted the receiver, putting it to her ear.

‘Hello? Hello?’ She held it out. ‘There’s no one there.’

Makana stared into her eyes. They wouldn’t leave his family alone. Not now, not ever.

‘We have to go, now,’ he said, getting to his feet and throwing open a cupboard. ‘Get Nasra ready, whatever she needs.’

‘But where? Where will we go?’

Makana stopped to think. ‘North. We can get across the border to Egypt and head for Cairo.’

He took his spare pistol from the locked drawer beside the bed, a Tokarev
7
.
62
mm automatic. He checked it was loaded. Then he remained still for a long time, just sitting there staring at the blunt-nosed weapon. If the time came, would he be able to do it? he wondered. Surely ending it all would be better than subjecting Muna and Nasra to whatever horrors were imagined for them?

‘We’re ready.’

He looked up and saw Muna standing in the doorway, the child cradled in her arms. She saw the gun and he looked away before she could see what was written in his eyes. Standing, he tucked it into his holdall before leading the way out. The car was parked on the other side of the narrow alleyway. An old Volkswagen Passat, its bodywork bruised and scarred by countless previous owners. He placed the suitcases in the back, the canvas holdall under his feet in the front.

‘You drive,’ he said. What made him choose not to drive? Was it the pain in his feet, or the fear that he might pass out, still weak after his ordeal? Or because that way he could keep an eye on what was going on around them, and then if he had to use the gun, both his hands would be free?

The streets were quiet. With curfew hour fast approaching the few vehicles left on the road were making their way home as swiftly as possible. They would have to hurry if they were to make it, but if they were stopped just after curfew they would probably be let through as last-minute stragglers. The guards on the bridge were regular army and despised the new militias. He still had his identity card if there was any doubt. The bridge was the noose through which the thread of their freedom passed. Beyond that the borders of the city were porous. They could slip out into the open emptiness and nothing could stop them after that.

The approach to the bridge was deserted. As the Volkswagen curled along the long open road Makana spotted the soldiers casually moving towards the centre of the tarmac, guns slung over their shoulders. One of them raised a hand. Makana stuck his out of the window and waved back.

‘Slow down,’ he said.

Muna began to panic. ‘They’re not going to let us go,’ she whimpered. ‘They will kill us!’

Makana glanced over at her. Muna’s eyes were wide with fear.

‘It’ll be all right. We’re just a family getting home late.’

They slowed and came to a halt. A couple of soldiers ambled slowly forwards. They were still setting up the barrier for the night, rolling oil drums into place in slow, lazy arcs, turning them on their rims, letting them fall into place. Then Makana saw something else. In the shadows beyond the arc of lights tracing the bridge were other shapes. Objects that his eyes slowly made out. The end of a vehicle. Two pick-ups, men moving around them like smoke in the fluid darkness. A trap, he realised, too late. He was reaching under his seat for the automatic when Muna gave a cry of panic and stamped her foot down on the accelerator. The old Volkswagen puttered and struggled, whining up the incline, trying to gain speed. She ground it up another gear. One soldier rushed forward, stepping into their path, only to go spinning off as the front wing brushed him aside, the wing mirror splintering.

They had almost reached the top of the bridge’s arch. On the other side the road would be clear with nothing to stop them sliding down into the deserted, unlit streets, to vanish into the soft darkness beyond. The army lorry appeared out of nowhere. A huge Magirus Deutz lumbering up the incline towards them. The highbeams came on, blinding them both. Muna wrenched the wheel to the left. Makana heard a pop as one of the old, worn tyres gave out, then they bounced up the kerb and struck the railings. He was flung sideways, against the passenger door. It gave and he flew out, hitting the road hard. There were shouts and a siren, the thunder of boots approaching. His head was ringing, his sight blurry. He blinked furiously to clear his vision, scrabbling about for his gun. Then his sight cleared and he stopped.

The Volkswagen had climbed up over the thin metal railings which had bowed outwards, bending down towards the river like long, trembling stalks. The car was perched with its bonnet in the air, the front wheels still spinning. Through the open door Makana could see his wife, stretched out across the passenger seat. Blood traced a line across her face. Extending one hand towards her, he struggled to get up. Muna lifted her head. She was reaching for him, trying to speak. What? What was she saying? He dragged himself over the road towards the car. Ten little fingers appeared in the rear window, reaching up, then his daughter’s face as she raised herself to look out, dazed and bewildered by what was happening.

‘Nasra!’ he called, urgency increasing his efforts, trying to get to his feet.

It happened very slowly, or so it appeared in his mind, the countless times it had played itself out in his head over the years. The car gave a lurch that seemed to begin somewhere in the region of his heart. The metal bars groaned as the railings gave the final few millimetres which spelled the difference between life and death. Then the battered old Volkswagen began to tip, like an enormous set of scales. Makana flung himself forwards, but he was too late. He let out a cry that was lost in the rushing sound of the air as the car somersaulted through it, slowly turning over before plunging down towards the dark water. It struck the surface with a sound like a giant door crashing shut.

Then he was at the railings. Below he could make out the frothing water erupting in glassy bubbles from underneath the upturned chassis. Hands seized him from behind and pulled him back. He struggled, finding the strength to hold his assailants off for a brief moment as the car sank out of sight in the river. Kicking and punching, he tried to rip himself free and throw himself into the water after his family. But there were too many of them. They pinned him down. No matter how hard he struggled, he was unable to do anything but open his mouth and roar.

‘Let him up,’ said Mek Nimr eventually.

They hauled Makana to his feet, dragged him back to the railings. There was nothing to be seen. The dark water had closed over the car, over Muna and little Nasra. Like a veil falling over his life, all that remained was the smooth swirling black surface. Nothing more.

‘I’m going to let you go,’ said Mek Nimr quietly. ‘Do you understand?’ He turned and pointed off into the distance, beyond the bridge, the low houses, the streetlights like glowing matchsticks and the endless darkness.