“How can I thank you?” he asked Salamoni in the car. Salamoni laughed. “Don’t bother. I like to help a decent man like you. Did you know that your father once helped mine out of a fix? But that’s a long time ago. In our family George Mushtak always stood for ideas of salvation and selfless Christian loving kindness, and now I can be proud to say that I have helped a Mushtak. I consider prisons terrible places. No cultivated human being should languish in them.”
“But you’ll have had costs. Shaftan will want more of that expensive Scotch whisky,” said Elias, much moved.
“Ah, who cares?” laughed Salamoni. “That’s nothing. Once we used to pay taxes to the excise office, now that peasants rule us I pay in kind. Peasants like that. And I get what I want considerably cheaper.” His voice dripped contempt.
“So what about this address?” asked Elias, without opening the envelope.
“Oh, that’s his eldest son Lahfan’s office. Your name is down there now, and it won’t be crossed off until you’ve paid the money. They keep everything very correct,” said Salamoni, laughing at the absurdity of it.
Elias looked at the address. It was an export-import agency. “It must be near the Central Bank,” he surmised. Salamoni nodded. “And more payments go into it than into the Bank. You may have to stand in line.”
When Elias got out of the car at Saitun Alley, he clasped his rescuer’s hand firmly. “But I need your address too, because you must try my new chocolate creations. Such delicacies come only from Elias Mushtak.”
Salamoni laughed. He gave Elias a visiting card out of a little silver box hanging from the dashboard. “My wife will be delighted. She thinks very highly of your confectionery,” he said, and the car raced away.
277. Cold Sharper Than a Razorblade
Mahdi ranted and raged over the telephone, feeling deeply humiliated. But Badran was not to be moved. The prisoner Farid Mushtak was no longer Mahdi Said’s business. Dangerous or not, he was under the protection of Badran’s brother. “And his mother is coming to see him every week until the President decides. If Shaftan hears from her that her son is being badly treated, I can’t keep you on any more, understand?”
“Yes.” Mahdi’s voice was barely audible, as if he were down in a deep pit. He hadn’t felt so small since those days in the monastery. That bastard of a prisoner from the bloody Mushtak clan was more important to Badran now than he was! As if they hadn’t been friends for a decade, as if they hadn’t faced many moments of mortal danger together. Shaftan, Shaftan! The hell with Badran and his brother. Mahdi was sure that Shaftan had been cashing in again.
He did a lot of thinking that day, and now he understood why several high-ranking officers were beginning to murmur discontentedly. One general had hinted to him that the army wasn’t happy about President Amran’s clan. Amran had handed the country over to the Russians, he said, and any common cowherd from his tribe mattered more to the President than an experienced, patriotic general. Mahdi had cautiously contradicted this, but when the general said there were some patriots who would like to get to know him, because they admired his loyalty, his Syrian pride, and his determination, he had agreed to think about it. After his humiliating conversation with Badran he reached for the telephone three times, but kept hanging up again. Badran had all his employees’ phones tapped. Mahdi knew the general’s private address. He’d just drop in and see him some time in the next few weeks, in a casual kind of way.
He got into his jeep and drove to the ruins of Palmyra. His adjutant, First Lieutenant Saadi, was astonished when Mahdi told him, as he left, to have Farid Mushtak transferred to the hospital. From today he was to be nursed and well looked after. “Orders from the very top,” added Mahdi gloomily, and he raced away in his jeep. He didn’t return until late, when he was told by his adjutant that Badran had called him three times and left a message for him to call back.
“Where were you?” Badran’s voice sounded as carefree on the line as if nothing had happened.
“I drove out to the ruins. I’ve always wanted to see them at my leisure,” replied Mahdi,
“Did I annoy you?”
“No, but I can’t understand why a terrorist with a past a mile long should be put up in …” and here Mahdi laughed derisively, “… in a luxury hotel just to please his mama.”
“Yes, I thought my good friend Mahdi hadn’t understood the whole story. I’m not interested in that whore, but Shaftan is as clever as they come — he’ll know why he’s making this move. Perhaps he wants something from the Catholic Patriarch. They say the Patriarch intervened on behalf of that bastard Farid Mushtak. No one’s really supposed to know, but I’d rather tell you as my best friend than anger you. My friend is a deep well — his name is Mahdi and still he isn’t happy.”
Mahdi laughed. A wily character, Badran, he thought, that’s what makes him capable of heading a hydra like the secret service.
“Do you know what news I’m reading just now?” But before Mahdi could reply, Badran was continuing. “It seems the Pope has come to a secret agreement with the Italian communists. He won’t oppose them in Italy any more, and in return they’ll go along with him in his drive to save Church treasures in the communist countries, from China to Russia. Wasn’t it Jesus who said, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s?”
“That’s right.”
“Then do me a favour and treat that son of a whore well until he’s free. That will satisfy God, and he’ll have kept his word to the Patriarch. But we haven’t been forbidden to arrest our fine gentleman again in, say, three months’ time, have we?”
It took Mahdi’s breath away. The chill in Badran’s voice was as sharp as a razorblade. When would he himself learn to master such coldness?
“Are you still there, Caesar?”
“Yes, sure. You’re right. That’s what we’ll do. I don’t want that criminal Mushtak to misinterpret your brother’s kindness of heart and his amnesty and go underground again.”
“No, you’re there to prevent that very thing,” said Badran, laughing.
When Mahdi hung up, he was glad to think that Badran cared whether or not he was happy. So he wasn’t quite so unimportant after all. None the less, he decided to go and see the general. Having finally come to this decision, he smiled. He felt that he too was capable of icy, cutting cold.
278. The Visit
Claire shed tears of joy. Farid took her in his arms and kissed her eyes again and again. “I can always rely on you,” he whispered. A soldier was sitting in the corner, observing them both closely.
“How did you get here?” he asked in some surprise.
“My driver dropped everything to bring me. Now he’s waiting patiently outside the door for a couple of hours,” she said, wiping away her tears with a handkerchief.
“What — my father’s outside?” asked Farid in surprise.
“Yes, but the camp commandant wouldn’t let him see you. The permission was only for me,” she said.
When Claire had to leave the camp at about one in the afternoon, Elias was standing in the narrow area of shade provided by a wall. The sun was blazing mercilessly down, and there wasn’t a tree in sight. Claire kissed him and walked quickly to the car. She didn’t say a word until they had reached the main road.
“The camp commandant is Musa Shahin’s son. Musa who was shot by your brother Hasib in 1941. Do you remember the little boy?”
In sombre mood, Elias shook his head.
“His mother came from the north, and as a widow she went back to her parents. He’s been calling himself Mahdi Said since he converted to Islam.”