‘Deborah.’
‘Deborah?’ He turned to face me. ‘Is she Jewish?’
‘Her grandmother was.’
‘Didn’t that play any part in your marriage?’
‘We aren’t in fact married. I call her my wife because that’s in effect what she is, with or without papers.’
‘Aha!’ He leaned forward in the passenger seat and grinned at me. He had probably decided that he was damned if Stullberg was going to spoil the evening for him. Rashid suddenly became witty. ‘Like the Germans, eh? Married, not married, just so long as …’ He winked at me. ‘I don’t know any other country where so many people live together without being married.’
‘What do you mean, like the Germans? Want to see my ID?’
‘An ID is only a piece of plastic, Herr Kemal Kayankaya.’ He paused and waited for my reply. I let him wait.
Finally he changed the subject, but he stuck with ethnology. ‘I’m an Arab, yes, but I love the Jews.’
‘All of them?’
‘Oh, you …!’
I was glad when we arrived outside Deborah’s wine bar. He could talk all that nonsense with Lara.
The little bar was full, it smelled of food, it was loud, the waiter was sweating as he carried a pile of plates into the kitchen. Slibulsky, Lara, and Tugba from Mister Happy were there, with Raoul, an old friend and the owner of the Haiti Corner restaurant, Benjamin, another old friend and head of a refugees’ advice centre, and Deborah, who was taking a break and eating a slice of ox tongue with potatoes and mayonnaise. I felt like having the same later.
They all seemed rather tipsy, and already in high good humour. They welcomed Rashid, the waiter brought another chair, I gave Deborah a kiss and whispered quietly in her ear, ‘I’ll be back in half an hour’s time. Mind Slibulsky doesn’t slap your new guest.’
Deborah glanced at Rashid, who was obviously having difficulty keeping his eyes off Lara’s cleavage.
‘Back soon.’
In the street I looked again, and this time more thoroughly, for anyone shadowing us. That’s to say, I was really looking for Sheikh Hakim’s secretary. I was pretty sure it had been Methat following us the evening before. But all I saw was a small delivery van standing in the second row of parked vehicles at the next street corner. An elderly man and a girl sat in the front seat. Father and daughter, I decided.
Finally I got back into the Opel and drove to the station.
Sheikh Hakim was sitting at the table I had reserved. In front of him was a glass of water. He did not have any bodyguards around, or at least I couldn’t see them. Maybe they were stretching their legs outside.
At this time of the evening there were few guests left in Herbert’s Ham Hock, and most of those still here were quietly drinking their beer. All except for two old men in fine tweed suits, talking and laughing at the tops of their voices as they made inroads into the mountains of meat on their plates and a bottle of schnapps. There were no waiters in sight; they were probably out in the yard, smoking. A cleaning lady had begun wiping the floor, and the smell of the cleaning fluid mingled with the aroma of the specialty of the house. Herbert’s Ham Hock had been in existence for more than forty years, and as far as I knew the curtains and cushions had never been changed. Even if the place hadn’t been serving grilled or boiled ham hock all day, the restaurant would still have exuded the smell of animal fat from every pore. It was a Nazi joke for me to have invited Sheikh Hakim here.
‘Nice place,’ he said, after we had greeted one another.
‘I knew you’d like it.’
By comparison with the photographs of him that I’d seen on the Internet, Sheikh Hakim looked older, thinner, more haggard, greyer — an inconspicuous little man, almost bald, in a black suit. They probably prepared him for photos and public appearances with makeup. I even thought I remembered seeing him with a full, thick head of hair in some younger photographs. Did he wear a toupee in public?
‘Thank you for the little holy book.’ I took my jacket off and sat down opposite him. He looked at me with a chilly smile. ‘I’ve nearly finished it. Can’t wait to find out how the story ends.’
He gave that coughing laugh that I knew from the telephone, and his smile became a little broader but no warmer at all. ‘The way it ends is entirely in your hands.’
‘The little book?’
He did not reply. At the same moment a waiter came out of the kitchen, saw me and came over to our table.
‘A glass of water for me too, please.’
When the waiter left I asked, ‘Or did you mean Methat’s attempts to follow me?’
Without taking his eyes off me, he reached carefully for his glass and took a small sip before putting it down again equally carefully. He licked his upper lip.
‘At any rate, if I get my hands on him he can expect something from me.’
This time his smile was natural. Methat was probably some two metres tall and spent a lot of time in the gym. He must be very strong to have knocked my office door down just like that.
‘Herr Kayankaya,’ said Hakim finally, ‘never mind the talking. I want you to withdraw your statement incriminating my nephew. And I want you to do it tomorrow morning. As I understand from my nephew’s lawyers, that will be in your own interest. Your claims concerning what you say took place in my nephew’s apartment on that morning are so flimsy that, and I quote the lawyers, you would very probably end up in prison yourself for making a false statement. There is still time to put the whole thing down to momentary confusion, or alternatively, for instance’-he paused briefly — ‘to jealousy.’
‘Jealousy?’
‘Well, the lawyers strongly suspect that you were working for Frau de Chavannes on the morning in question.’
‘De Chavannes? Never heard the name.’
He looked at me expressionlessly, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Never mind, you’ll think up some pretext. As we all know, you don’t lack for imagination.’
‘Thank you.’
The waiter brought my water, and I drank a sip. Hakim was watching me. Maybe he was just putting on a show, but he seemed very sure of himself. Did he have a surprise in store for me? Was there a group of holy warriors waiting round the corner of Herbert’s Ham Hock to beat my unbelieving soul out of my body if I refused to withdraw my statement? Or had Methat and his henchmen been sitting in the wine bar like normal guests while we talked here, waiting for Deborah to go outside and smoke a cigarette? Bonk, a blow on the head and off to Praunheim. I suddenly thought of the little delivery van. Suppose the girl was part of this? I’d put her age at fourteen at the most, but admittedly at a distance of ten metres and in the faint light of the streetlamps.
‘Do you know what I’d really like to understand? Why are you going to so much trouble for a little bastard like Abakay? I’ve heard that you improve your cash flow as a preacher by dealing in heroin, and I can well imagine that Abakay is being useful as a smuggler or dealer, but a really important man? You’re not so naïve as to trust someone like Abakay.’
His face didn’t move a muscle, only his eyes became a little thoughtful.
‘And as a cleric … I mean, Abakay sends underage girls out on the street. Is that pleasing in the eyes of the Lord?’
Just then his mobile rang. ‘Excuse me.’ He took the phone out of his trouser pocket, opened it and said, ‘Yes?’ Then he said no more for a while, and finally just, ‘Very well,’ before he closed the mobile and put it down on the table. I was sure that Turkish had been spoken at the other end, and Hakim had replied in German purely for my benefit. I was meant to hear how he conducted short phone conversations in which he was being informed about something or other — a precisely planned operation now in progress?
I realised that my mouth had gone dry, and drank some water. Should I call Deborah? Slibulsky? Ought I to let Hakim see that he was succeeding in frightening me?
Before I could make up my mind, Hakim said, ‘First, Erden Abakay is my nephew. Do you have a family, Herr Kayankaya?’