The software was cheap, though. And that was probably the reason Aunt Nafisa had let her have it.
When Hani woke, at the first call to prayer, she lay there under the covers, which she wasn’t meant to do, and thought about gardens. Then she thought about God. After that she thought about gardens and God. And then she got up, wrapped herself tightly in her dressing gown and went to find Raf.
“Jannah means garden or heaven,” Hani told herself as she opened her door. “And paradiso also means heaven. So paradiso means jannah. SS Jannah. And I’ve got a list of other clues.”
She was talking to herself because Ifritah wasn’t there. Raf had said Hani could come to the mansion with him and Khartoum but the grey cat had to stay with Donna at the madersa. That was because Ifritah was a wild cat and no one had taught her to do her business outside.
Hani had been planning to look up on the Web how to house-train a cat that was already mostly grown-up, but now she couldn’t do that either. So Ifritah had to stay where she was.
The man who stood guard outside Raf’s door was called Ahmed. Hani knew this because she’d asked him earlier. He was big and dark and sometimes he looked at her and shrugged to the others when he thought she wasn’t looking.
Ahmed said nothing, not even when Hani shined a torch in his face. Just raised his eyebrows and turned the handle for her. Hani realized what the raised eyebrows meant when she saw a lump in the bed next to Uncle Ashraf. The lump was sleeping, safely tucked under a sheet, but Hani could see Zara’s hair poking out at the top.
Hani tried very hard not to be shocked.
After a little while, she decided that she was shocked and went back to her room. Ahmed said nothing to Hani on her way out either. Instead of going back to bed Hani got dressed, wrote Zara a note that she left with Ahmed, then went down to the kitchens to find Khartoum.
The rest of the day, while Ashraf worked at the precinct and Zara walked, ghostlike and silent, through the formal gardens at the mansion, looking at statues without seeing them, Hani sat at a kitchen table with an Italian dictionary, three volumes of Dante and a notepad. After a while she decided it might be easier if she just concentrated on the pictures.
The volumes of the Divina Commedia came from the General’s study, as did the notepad and fountain pen. So too did a list of all the working computers in the city that still had functioning modems/lines/firewire. The list was handwritten, distressingly brief and the original was meant for Ashraf’s eyes only. Which was why Hani kept the copy she’d made in her pocket.
Ashraf came back as Tuesday evening began its slide into darkness, trailing his shadows behind him; although Hakim and Ahmed didn’t go with Raf when he walked out into the garden to talk to Zara. Whatever he said to her, they slept in different rooms that night.
CHAPTER 45
27th October
Astolphe, Marquis de St. Cloud was enjoying himself. Unfortunately for Raf it was mostly at his expense, though the real target of the Frenchman’s quiet vitriol was Elizabeth Elsing, as St. Cloud insisted on calling Senator Liz.
Following yesterday’s decision by the Grand Jury that Hamzah should indeed face charges, Senator Liz seemed unusually keen that the defendant be tried immediately, found guilty by lunchtime and executed before tea.
Which was fine, except for the fact that Hamzah Effendi had yet to be formally arraigned. And the reason this had been delayed was that it took until noon for the American woman to agree that St. Cloud should hold the chair. Senator Liz also seemed slightly put out by the number of explosions happening across the city.
“Bring in the prisoner.”
“Bring in the prisoner . . .”
The courtroom was small but it was in the nature of ushers everywhere to shout. Raf heard his demand echo down a corridor outside, then heard an answering tramp of feet. The first argument of the day, long before the scrap for precedence between St. Cloud and Senator Liz, had been about the suitability of the room itself.
Surprisingly, it was the young German Graf who objected most violently to the meagreness of the room on offer. Stating that its size was an affront to the seriousness of the case. His other complaint, that Hamzah Quitrimala’s arraignment should have been thrown open to the press, drew a snort of laughter from St. Cloud. Berlin wasn’t known for the transparency of its legal process.
El Iskandryia’s law courts were in Place Orabi, almost directly opposite the tomb of the unknown warrior and occupying what had once been the Italian Consulate. At ground level, the central Hall of Justice was three times the size of the courtroom Raf had chosen, and came replete with gilded chairs set out like small thrones for five judges, a seal of the Khedival arms hung behind the central chair and, above these, carved from Lebanese cedar and gilded with beaten gold, a tugra, the imperial monogram of the Ottoman Porte himself.
It was, Raf agreed, an altogether more imposing setting. It was also accessible from Place Orabi on one side and Rue el Tigarya on another, making it simple to attack and complex to defend.
“Defend from whom?” the Graf had demanded.
“You tell me,” had been Raf’s answer and he made the Graf, Senator Liz and St. Cloud, plus the ushers, the court stenographer and Zara climb three flights of marble stairs to a smaller courtroom usually used for family disputes.
At the top, just before he went into the room, Raf halted to yank open a steel fire escape. A helmeted Hakim stood on metal steps outside, clutching an old-fashioned Lee-Enfield. Next to Hakim was Ahmed, a Soviet machine gun resting heavy in the crook of his arm. The gun was chopped from sheet steel and finished on a lathe. It had the advantage of having only five moving parts, none of them involving electronics.
“If shit happens,” Raf said, “this is the way we leave. Don’t look back and don’t stop to help anybody else, just move . . .”
As Raf turned to go, an explosion ruptured the city’s nervous silence and flames boiled into the air from the deserted railyard at Kharmous.
“What perfect timing,” said a voice in Raf’s ear. It was St. Cloud, a smile on the old man’s weather-beaten face as he watched smoke stain the sky. “Almost too perfect,” he added.
Since then the Marquis had been watching Raf, his Cheshire cat smile coming and going, but never quite vanishing from the old roué’s face. Now St. Cloud had the defendant standing in the dock in front of him.
“Your name?”
Hamzah Quitrimala gave no answer.
“You will give the court your name.”
Eyes expressionless and mouth slack, the thickset industrialist looked as if St. Cloud’s order carried no weight against whatever was happening inside his head.
“Has this man been tested for mental competence?” the Marquis asked Raf.
“He has been examined by a doctor . . .”
“That wasn’t quite what I asked.” St. Cloud’s voice was silky. “Has he undergone the usual tests?”
“Obviously not,” said Raf. “Since we don’t have access to the usual machines.”
“All the more reason to hold the trial in Washington,” insisted the Senator and St. Cloud sat back with a smile. Winding up Elizabeth Elsing and letting her go was about as subtle as winding up an old clockwork toy and twice as amusing.
“That question has already been debated and decided,” Raf said flatly. “The trial takes place here.”
“Decided by you,” said St. Cloud.
“Yes,” said Raf, “decided by me.”
“In your capacity as governor of the city.”
Raf nodded.
“As is your right?”
Raf nodded once more.
“Remind me,” said the Frenchman politely. “In which of your capacities are you now answering my question about the defendant’s mental capacity?”