“You did, yes,” replied Farid, smiling faintly, and then he sank to the floor by the door and listened to the young soldier’s confidences as he talked of his wish for a swift end to his military service.
Finally Farid asked the soldier to repeat everything he was to tell Claire, and Nabil did not disappoint him.
275. Metamorphosis
Two days later Farid was running a high temperature. He heard a knock at the door, but he couldn’t get up. One of the soldiers on guard came in and gave him water. Farid was so weak that he couldn’t even talk. “Poor devil,” said the soldier, trickling something liquid into his mouth. “My God, what are they doing to you? And you think you can destroy the state with those shaking hands, you idiot? You’re only a poor lost child.” He leaned Farid up against the wall, went out and called to his colleague. “Do you have a painkiller tablet? If not, go and find one.” The other man whispered something. “Yes, you’ll get your bloody cigarette! Hurry up, will you, the man’s dying,” shouted the soldier by way of reply.
Mahdi didn’t show up for three days. When he came back, Farid had to some extent recovered his strength.
He was surprised by Mahdi’s detailed knowledge. The commandant seemed to have found out about everything he did in his entire life. He could repeat, word for word, many of Farid’s letters and many conversations with his Party comrades. But he obviously didn’t know about Rana.
Mahdi seemed to enjoy telling Farid about his own career, and how cleverly he had jumped all the dangerous hurdles and cleared his enemies out of his way. After that final examination for his high school diploma he had gone home. By then his mother and sister had moved to Safita, a pretty little town where his stepfather was unsuccessfully trying to start an arrack distillery. Mahdi was to study chemistry and help to make arrack later. But his heart was set on studying law. He had dreamed of being a just and good judge, and he went to Damascus to get a place at the university there. Just before his examinations he fell passionately in love, but his stepfather was on his heels and turned his inamorata’s parents against his own stepson. A little later the young woman broke off her relationship with Mahdi.
He put the woman out of his mind, and registered to train at the police academy. From there he was detailed for duty with the secret service, and as his logical and ruthless mind was outstanding his boss sent him to Moscow for further training with the KGB. In fact Mahdi’s crafty superior officer, who hated communism, wanted to discover just what the KGB was up to among the young Syrian officers. Mahdi was duly recruited by the KGB, and told everything to his boss in Damascus, a cousin of his present superior officer Badran.
“But why did you convert to Islam? Badran and the rest of the government aren’t notably Muslim,” said Farid, still hoping these conversations might bring his torments to an end.
“Because religion has never mattered to me at all, or at least not since the monastery — but no, it never really did. I happened to be born into the Orthodox community and then I was forced to turn Catholic. I had all the qualifications to take a hand in the running of the country, a little Islamic phrase and my foreskin were the only obstacles, but not for me. Snip, snip, I was circumcized within five minutes, I recited the phrase, so Bulos became Mahdi, and I can only say that in point of fact all reasonable people from Badran to Shaftan and even President Amran, devoutly as they pray for the cameras, couldn’t care less about any kind of religion. They get tanked up, they fuck any orifice they can find. Religion is a good way of controlling fools,” he said forcefully, and then he grinned and stood up. He knocked at the door, and the gates of hell opened for Farid. He begged Mahdi to spare him that day because he felt so wretched. He kissed his hands and boots, as ordered by one of the guards, but Mahdi only laughed. Another guard struck Farid in the face and ordered him to bark. Farid barked and wept until the guard hauled him along by the ear and said, “Not like a dog, like a donkey.” The man stank of alcohol.
Farid imitated a donkey, and had to keep it up for half an hour until he was lying on the floor exhausted. Then came absolute darkness, in which he once again saw the camel with fear in its eyes as it stood tethered in the courtyard of the caravanserai. When he came back to his senses he was alone. It was an eerie feeling. For the first time he doubted his own perception, for he had not seen or heard Mahdi and the two guards leave the cell. Farid looked at his arm. He saw the mark of a second needle, red and itching, on his right wrist, but when had they given him the injection?
276. The Ransom
When Claire had heard what the soldier had to say she thanked him with a gift of fifty lira, twice his monthly wages, and urged him to tell Farid she wouldn’t rest until he was free. The soldier went straight to Bab Tuma and spent ten lira on nightingale nests from Elias’s confectionery shop.
Claire went to her husband immediately and told him everything. Elias froze. “Those bastards the Shahins,” he said. The message was clear to him. A member of that family who was either a high-ranking officer or a depraved criminal must have found his way to Tad and was trying to kill Farid.
Claire had never seen her husband so angry before. “I’m going to the Patriarch, and even if it costs me all I have those Shahins won’t murder my son,” he cried in his distress. At that moment Claire admired her husband, who was small of stature but could become a lion within seconds.
Elias immediately phoned the Catholic Patriarch. There was desperation and fury in his voice. The experienced old churchman knew that he must help his friend, and asked him to come and see him at once. He listened to what Elias told him, and spoke reassuringly. Then he telephoned George Salamoni, one of the richest and most audacious Christians in Damascus. Half an hour later that smooth-spoken whisky importer arrived in person. The Patriarch explained, and asked for his assistance, since Elias gave so much support to the Catholic Church.
Salamoni thought for a moment. “There’s only one person who can help, but he’ll be very expensive,” he said calmly.
“There’s no price I wouldn’t pay to save my son,” replied Elias.
“Come with me, then,” said the whisky merchant, and took his leave of the Patriarch. His black Mercedes was parked outside in the yard.
“The President’s brother Shaftan is the most corrupt man in the world, but he does what he says he’ll do,” said Salamoni, driving off. “We’ll go straight to him. Fundamentally, he’s the secret ruler of this country.”
Elias knew that Shaftan was the head of the special unit that had built the ring of defences around Damascus, but he would never have expected to meet the President’s brother where Salamoni was taking him.
Salamoni wanted to know all about Farid. If what Elias said wasn’t true, he added, he couldn’t guarantee anything. Elias briefly told him what Claire had said. Salamoni nodded thoughtfully.
“I thought Shaftan was outside Damascus with the troops,” said Elias, as Salamoni reached the Abu Rumanna quarter. There were no barracks here, only the villas of the richest Damascenes and the foreign consulates. Salamoni laughed. “He’s been here for a month in a palace that he bought for ten lira from Bardana, a rich textiles dealer.”
“Ten lira? You must be joking,” said Elias.
“I seldom joke,” replied Salamoni, “but you’d sell your house for a single lira if a cold-blooded man put his pistol to your temple, and you knew he was brutal enough to sit his ten-year-old son on his lap to watch the executions of his enemies, just to toughen the boy up.”
“And he lives here?” asked Elias.