Cathars and such? But she was a busy woman, and I did not keep her from her work. Instead I went and looked out of the window at the aeroplanes. There were three Shenjen 824s in the Havair colours of black and white: almost the whole fleet, I would guess, and each named very Havianly — Avzar Melchik, Rahman ibn Muhammed, Gunboat Carlotta. A solitary fighter jet, heavily camouflaged, stood outside one of the hangars. And the many corporate jets which crowded the tarmac were one and all sleek and very luxurious, with curtained windows, crested doors, names in flowery Arabic, in calligraphic Chinese or discreet American advertising script. Some had bold ‘M’s on their flanks, simple and elegant; but remembering Azzam’s joke I wondered if it stood for Myrmidon or for something else…
The terminal, though equipped with all the airport gimmicks, from executive lounges to shopping centres, was virtually empty, so after wandering around for a time, looking at the series of photographs illustrating the Development of Aviation in Hav, and wondering at the photograph of Ivan Rostrovich garlanded with Hav roses at the conclusion of his pioneering flight from Tabriz, and peering at the plaque, now fading a bit, which told me that the airport had been officially opened by His Excellency Anjak Creen, Myrmidonic Minister of Travel, in 2001 — after wandering for a while in this way, like anyone else in any airport anywhere, I popped into one of the airport cafés, where the young men in Hav dress at the counter were desultorily chatting, and ordered a cup of coffee.
Who should I find sitting there too but Chevallaz of Lazaretto!? He greeted me warily, it seemed to me, but warmly enough, and I told him about my visit to Casino Cove. He did not seem very interested. ‘That’s all over now,’ he said. ‘That’s all behind us. We’ve moved on since then. Signor Biancheri’s ambitions are too large for the old Casino — even Lazaretto is too small for him, I sometimes think.’
‘What about you? He says you’ve got a thousand chefs under you.’
‘Ah, he was joking, Signora Morris. Signor Biancheri is a generous man, he always speaks well of others. The truth is I am well satisfied with my position, which offers me opportunities far wider than before. I must confess to you that in the old Hav, when my responsibilities were more limited, now and then I felt the need to get away from it all — to escape, if you like, from everything. Do you know what I mean?’
Of course I did. Had not just the same thing been said to me, times beyond number, in the old Hav, and had I not felt it myself when the complexities of the place seemed to be hemming me in?
‘But my position is very different now. Today, for instance, I’m off to to Riyadh for a short business stay.’
‘Riyadh! Dear God! How are you going to get there? Surely Havair doesn’t fly to Saudi Arabia?’
‘No, no, not yet,’ he laughed. ‘No, business associates of Signor Biancheri are picking me up — they’re flying in from Zurich in their own plane — should be landing very soon now. But you do realize, Ms Morris, don’t you, that what you see here now’ — and he gestured beyond the terminal windows — ‘is only a foretaste of what is on the way? Havair flies almost nowhere now, almost all the traffic here is private, but why do you think they’ve built these two world-class runways, and this terminal to rival anything in Europe or America? It’s because in a few years’ time this is going to be one of the global transport hubs, and Havair will be one of the world’s most important airlines. No expense spared, as they say. They’ve got the world’s best architects to build this place — your own Lord Rogers was invited to design this terminal. They’ve got the best publicists working on it. They’ve flown in thousands of workers to do the job, and built all those barracks to house them. That big glass block over there is the Havair training depot, and there they’re building a whole new airline from scratch, no expense spared, with advisers from all over.’
This spiel took me aback. I had thought of Chevallaz as a professional restaurateur, a chef by background, bred to the bourgeois world of Swiss catering. Now he sounded more like a public-relations executive.
‘You don’t believe me, do you, Ms Morris? You would if you knew the amount of money that’s going into all this — not just on new aircraft for Havair, and all that kind of thing, but millions being spent on incentives, to make this an unrivalled staging-post for all the intercontinental airlines — and who knows, perhaps for interspace travel one day? Think of our position here. We’re in the middle of everything. In the old days Hav was an almost unknown backwater — you remember that yourself — but the Intervention changed everything. Now Hav is poised to be one of the world’s prime movers. You wait! Your Heathrows and American Airlines and Emirates and Lufthansas and the whole damned aviation industry will have to watch out!’
‘And where’s the money coming from? Who’s paying for it all?’
Chevallaz shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who knows, Ms Morris?’ he said. ‘Who can tell? Hav still keeps its secrets — one reason all this is happening. Do you suppose it’s just coincidence that this airport’s code symbol is HAV? I don’t suppose there is another city anywhere whose airport code is its own name! Think of the publicity advantages! It takes more than imagination to arrange a thing like that; it takes influence, and it takes persuasion. But that’s the way we’re going here — unique and unbeatable! Ah, there comes my plane. I’d better be moving.’
Gathering his briefcase and overcoat, and bowing slightly to me, he walked away. A black-and-silver private jet, with some sort of crest up on its fuselage, was turning off the runway to the terminal apron, and presently I saw him, escorted by uniformed officials, walking across to it. Its engines were not turned off, but its door opened, a step-ladder unfolded and I caught a glimpse of figures in black burkas ushering Signor Chevallaz aboard. In a matter of moments the plane was off down the runway and flinging itself into the sky.
‘Dear me,’ I said to the young men behind the counter, who had been listening to our conversation. ‘Hav is certainly full of surprises. Whatever next?’
Go and take a look around New Balad, they suggested, so I did. Much of it was standard airport stuff, offices and hangars and the usual hotels (looking very empty). But there were also streets and streets of those barrack-like structures that I had seen from a distance, and of these I expected the worst. Had not the man at Rural Enterprises said they had learned a lot from the South Africans about housing immigrant workers? I remembered with a shudder the awful sheds in which the black workers of the gold mines used to be housed, with their outdoor ablutions, their treeless yards, their dormitories like concentration camps and the tin bowls they clutched as they lined up for their rations.
But they had learned a lot, they really had. Those featureless streets which from a distance had looked rather like Auschwitz blocks turned out to be, when I drove through them, more like something in a garden suburb. They were well built, they were brightly painted, and their accommdation, far from being loveless dormitories, was agreeable small apartments. They were generally deserted, but one block was lively with families, on the doorsteps, at the windows, on the sidewalks, gossiping in twos and threes. I recognized them at once as Kretevs, so I stopped to talk. They were mostly women with small children, and they crowded curiously about me. What a difference, I said, from their old homes in the caves of the Escarpment.
Very different they said, very sad. But then they looked at each other and laughed. Very comfortable, too, they said! No, they did not miss the caves, they preferred the central heating. Their menfolk all had construction jobs at the airport. And when the guest workers were in their quarters — they went off by bus each day to their work sites — why, then the whole place was full of life, better than those long lonely days on the Escarpment. They laughed and giggled and nudged one another. Oh yes, they said, the Cathar Government had looked after them well, after the Intervention.