Chafik J. Chafik, an inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department, stood on the steps of the Imperial Bank and idly watched the child who flitted through a patchwork of evening sunlight and shadow with the basket balanced on his head. The boy sang in a thin treble, sometimes skipped and clapped his hands, and the Inspector, troubled by end-of-the-month bills, had a moment of envy. He was turning away when he saw a man lurch from the crowd.
The man wore the tribal dress of a minor chieftain of the Muntafiq. His magnificent build was typical of the marsh Arab, and so was the hair-trigger temper that made him turn on the boy, with whom he had collided, and strike him in the face.
It was a brutal blow and the youngster dropped the basket and clasped his arms over his head, but they made a frail barrier. When the man raised a heavy brassbound stick with intent to continue the senseless beating, Inspector Chafik ran down the steps, wrenched it away, and threw it behind him.
He said mildly, “Temper is as intoxicating as alcohol.”
The man turned. He had pale lips, flattened to his teeth, dilated eves staring with madness. Normally authority was Chafik’s protection, and he was suddenly and painfully aware of muscular inadequacy; but he drove his elbow against the man’s nose, bringing a bright gush of blood. Then, rising on his toes in an effort to increase his stature, he used his forearms as clubs.
A constable intervened opportunely with a swinging gun. Inspector Chafik said, “Two blows are enough. This head is not a nut, there is no sweetness in it. But I advise handcuffs. We have madness here.”
There was blood on his sleeve and he looked at it with disgust, for he was a meticulously neat man. Irritably he took out a pocket mirror, examined his thin face, gently touched a bruise on his swarthy cheek, and straightened his polka-dot tie. Then, recovering his sidarah which had fallen in the dirt, he brushed it and adjusted it to the correct angle on his long head. He sighed with annoyance.
“As an angry cockbird ruffles its feathers, so I have ruffled my clothes,” he said to the boy.
The face that turned up to him was white and frightened. Tears welled in the big eyes, but the boy held them back with courage, even with dignity, a quality engaging in a waif who begged his daily subsistence. There were too many fatherless children in Baghdad; lack of organized welfare made boys like this grow up with minds sharpened by animal cunning, and in time most of their names were added to police records. Chafik sighed and took money from his pocket.
“Go fill your belly,” he said as he thrust the coins at the boy.
A grubby little hand touched his own, clung to it. “Sahib,” the boy said. “You are my father, sahib—”
It was a pleading, not a wheedling, voice. Chafik smiled, but was startled when he saw how worshipfully the boy looked at him. “How are you named?” he asked.
“They call me Faisal.”
“That is the name of our young king. Who named you so royally?”
Faisal shook his head. “There was once a woman who called me Faisal. Very long ago when I was small. She died,” he added vaguely.
“And now you are a man?”
“A man, sahib. I work. Truly I do not steal much.” The big eyes glowed with gratitude and adoration. “That one would have killed me. I saw it in his face. You are my father, sahib. I will go with you.”
The Inspector was embarrassed. He had been married many years and was childless, a circumstance which could be adjusted by polygamy under Moslem law. But he was devoted to his wife; although he knew she was distressed by lack of children, he had convinced himself they would have disorganized his well-regulated home.
“Take the money and eat,” he said, and turned his back.
The constable had secured the man, and Chafik bent and rolled back an eyelid, then announced, “One sees the reason for madness.”
“He has eaten the forbidden fruit, sir,” said the officer.
“Yes — hashish—”
The Inspector clasped his slender hands with unexpected emotion. For several months he had been trying to stop a flow of narcotics responsible for a crime wave in Baghdad. In spite of his efforts hashish continued to enter the city and in its wake came violence and death. The attack on the boy was typical.
Chafik said harshly, “Let God pardon me, for I wish death, and not an easy one, for those who peddle this evil.”
He shrugged, lighted a cigarette, and looked with loathing at the hashish cater, who struggled against the handcuffs. When, a police ambulance arrived the Inspector walked away.
The cigarette had a bitter taste and he dropped it, but could not discard the bitter thoughts. He threaded a path between the benches that overflowed from the cafés, turned right at the intersection of Samawal and Al-Rashid Streets, and walked under the shabby arcade to his headquarters. He had the sensation of being followed as he entered the narrow doorway, and turned swiftly.
He saw an elfin face and appealing eyes. “Sahib!” Faisal pleaded. “You are my father, sahib—”
“Away with you!” Chafik said, and losing dignity he ran up the worn steps to his office.
Inspector Chafik was received by his assistant, tall, gaunt, unemotional Sergeant Abdullah, who was sufficiently stirred by sight of his superior’s bruised cheek and ruffled clothes to say in a solemn voice, “Sir, I trust the individual who assaulted you is detained.”
“In the hospital, my dear Abdullah. But I did not put him there. He is the victim of hashish.”
“Sir, we have many hashish victims today. I bring you the reports. Two killings. Five assaults with intent to kill—”
“The menu is unappetizing and unvaried,” said Chafik. “There is always a list of crimes over the weekend.” The Inspector took a manicure set from a drawer and began to clean his nails. After a moment he said, “My conclusion is no hashish is stored in Baghdad; if it were, it would be distributed more evenly throughout the week. It is smuggled in. But when? And how? I am a policeman, not a seer. What is the source of the drug? Does it come from Syria? From Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or Persia? Or is it brought by sea from India?”
The sergeant said gloomily, “So many places, sir.”
“And so many routes. There are highways, a railroad, the transdesert autobus, aircraft, and innumerable camel caravans.”
“We watch them all. The frontier checks are severe—”
Inspector Chafik interrupted, “Can we guard every mountain path? One man with the legs of a goat can carry enough hashish to poison half Baghdad.” He put away the manicure set, breathed on his nails and gave them a final rub with a silk handkerchief. “Our records show crime increases with the waning of the week and in this is a clue. But like a photographic negative the image does not appear until developer is applied. If we had the formula—”
He went to the window and looked over the vast dun-colored city. Here and there the cubist pattern of flat roofs was relieved by the blue dome of a mosque, and in the distance the Tigris made a tawny highway through groves of date palms. It was a noisy city. Harsh sounds always jarred the Inspector, and when a car pulled up with a screech of brakes in the street below, he winced and looked down.
A boy had darted across the street and now squatted on the other side with his feet in the gutter.
“Am I to be haunted?” Chafik asked indignantly.
“Sir?”
“You have three daughters, Abdullah. Do they follow you about and regard you with admiration?”