Effendi

CHAPTER 35 22nd October

“Hey you . . .” Hani grabbed Ifritah by the scruff of the neck and pulled so that the cat’s head yanked back and its purr stopped as rapidly as if somebody had flicked a switch. “That’s better,” the girl whispered, hugging the cat to her chest. Immediately the scraggy animal started to purr again.

Hani sighed.

One of her arms ached from cuddling Ifritah, her foot had pins and needles and the narrowness of the window ledge on which she perched had sent her behind to sleep. The long velvet curtain she hid behind was both old and dusty, so half the time Hani had to hold the bridge of her nose just to concentrate on not sneezing because sneezing would ruin everything. Besides, as it was, her own breathing was almost too loud to let her hear what was being said by the cross American woman.

It should have been easy. But something in one of the woman’s pockets was interfering with the tiny microphone Hani had stuck to the bottom of the table. Or maybe the microphone was broken. After all, it came from a Tina Tears whose head she’d cracked open with a paperweight when the plastic proved too tough to cut using a kitchen knife.

Hani knew she shouldn’t be there. Just as she knew she was in trouble if Ashraf found out. And he probably didn’t even want her help. She was a child, as everybody from Zara to Khartoum kept telling her. But she also had an IQ of 160 for real, could do crosswords in French, English and Arabic and had forgotten more about computers than Raf knew, even if she couldn’t see in the dark.

Hani wasn’t meant to know about his night vision or maybe she was meant to have forgotten—but she did know. She knew other things too, dark swirling facts that waited at the edges of her mind, wanting to come to her if only she’d let them.

On the other side of the curtain, the small woman was arguing again. She’d been angry since Raf came back to finish their conversation, only this was worse. She wanted Raf to give up Effendi, that was how she put it . . . Effendi had to be given up, like cigarettes.

Ashraf refused, of course, and Hani hoped he’d go on refusing. She liked Zara, and Effendi was Zara’s father. Hani didn’t like Zara’s mother, but then Zara didn’t like Zara’s mother so the Senator could have her if she wanted.

“I’ll leave the photographs,” the woman said crossly, climbing to her feet. Hani knew that was what she was doing by the creak of a sofa. Footsteps padded across carpet, then stopped. The Senator was turning in the doorway, wanting to say something. Only the threat or retort never came. Instead the woman and her interpreter let themselves out of the governor’s chambers.

That was bad. Khartoum should have been there to let her out. Hani knew this from living with her Aunt Nafisa, notables never opened their own doors. A creak from the other sofa told her that Raf was leaving. After the creak and steps came the slam of a door and then nothing.

“You can go now,” said Hani, yanking open her nearest window to release the struggling cat. With Ifritah gone the room became more silent still. So Hani padded across the silence and picked up one of the famous photographs. The gutted boy was little older than she was, though his skin was darker and his black hair scraped back into a fat ponytail. The two girls in the next photograph were about Hani’s age. One of them was missing her hands.

Looking down, it wasn’t the boy’s face that gripped Hani’s attention but that of the bearded man on the badge pinned to his dirty shirt. Except for a beret and a small cigar clamped between his teeth, the man could have been the nasrani God, the one who got himself killed.

“Abad,” Hani said to herself and picked up the photograph, tucking it down the side of her jeans and smoothing her T-shirt back into place. No one stopped her as she left the chamber or saw her in the corridor outside. All the same, as Raf sometimes said, better safe than sorry when being sorry wasn’t an option.

The girl blanked her screen. “It’s nothing,” she said hurriedly.

Raf glanced from Hani’s face to the photograph she was trying to slide into an open drawer. She had it turned upside down, but he could still see some of the caption.Kordofan, 30th March. Investigators . . .

Inside his head Raf swore.

“You got that from downstairs?”

Hani nodded. “I’m sorry.” There was a haunted look on her face and she’d chewed one corner of her lip until it was raw. What upset Raf most was the way she leant away from him, hunching her shoulders without realizing it, in preparation for the slap that would never come.

“No,” said Raf, stepping back. “My fault. I apologize . . .”

“Why?” the small girl asked suspiciously.

“Because I shouldn’t have left those out for you to find.” He wanted to add, because this is a world from which I can’t protect you, a world that may get worse. Instead, he scooped up the child and carried her over to her bedroom window.

Standing there, they looked out at the darkened city. As ever, her legs were bony against his arms, her wrists round his neck as thin as sticks.

“You need fattening up,” said Raf and the next question asked itself. “Where’s Donna?”

“At home.” There was a smile, fleeting and slightly exasperated. “She won’t sleep here,” said Hani. “Apparently someone has to look after the madersa, but really she’s afraid.” Hani indicated her new bedroom, the gesture taking in oil paintings, Chinese vases and a bronze dryad whose verdigrised shoulders and upturned breasts carried a faint sheen of dust.

Hani was right of course. The mansion would have frightened Donna even if it hadn’t belonged to the General.

“So who feeds you while I’m working?” Raf asked.

“Me,” said Hani crossly. “I can cook.”

“And when did you last eat?”

“I’ve had breakfast.” Hani scrambled out of his arms but stayed close. Away from the desk and her pink plastic laptop.

“Today?”

The child looked at him.

“You had breakfast today?”

The eyes opposite suddenly bruised with tears. “Leave me alone, all right . . . And take your stupid photograph.” She left the room without looking back, slamming the door for good measure.

As always, adults got it wrong. It wasn’t the photograph she’d needed. Hani had wanted the face on the badge.

And besides, all that look-at-me-I’m-hiding-something routine was to stop Uncle Ashraf noticing what she really had in the drawer. The Doré engraving of hell she’d borrowed from his office.