The Map of Love (69 page)

Back at the house Khadra decides to stay with me. It is ten o’clock. I call Tareq
Atiyya and his wife or one of his daughters answers me.

‘Good evening,’ I say, ‘I am Amal al-Ghamrawi. May I speak to Tareq Bey?’

He comes on the line: ‘Amal! Hello! You’ve seen the disaster at Luxor?’

‘Tareq,’ I say and I start to cry.

‘The Governor,’ I say when I’ve finished explaining. ‘He can get them out?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’ll call him in the morning.’

‘But they’ll be in there
all night’

‘Listen. I know what you’re thinking but nothing is going
to happen to them tonight. The police have other jobs in hand and these are small fry. Believe me. We’ll get them out tomorrow.’

I send Khadra to the village. ‘Tell the women I’ve spoken to Cairo and insha
Allah tomorrow good will happen. Stay there and don’t let anyone get rash. Tomorrow, before sunset, if the men are not back I’ll be there to bring you news.’

How can I sleep? How can I work? Anna’s world seems a world away. Or does it? I mess about on the Net getting details and versions of the killings at Luxor. I phone Deena in Cairo and she tells me they have news of several villages suffering like Tawasi. ‘We can take up the case,’ she says, ‘but pulling strings is faster. Let me know what happens.’ I hope the men are asleep. Small fry, wretched and cold, but asleep. I send e-mail to my brother and he phones me.

‘Atiyya will get them out,’ he says, ‘he seems to know what he’s doing —’

‘It’s so wrong,’ I say.

‘Yes, of course it is,’ he says. ‘But you’re doing everything you can.’

‘They wouldn’t listen to me,’ I say. ‘If you’d been here they would have listened to you.’

‘I’ll come over if it’ll make you happy,’ he says.

‘No,’ I say, ‘no.’ What would he do? He probably could not even do what Tareq is doing. He’s lived abroad all his life. He doesn’t have the connections. ‘No,’ I say again, ‘I’m just being — you know how I am.’ I lighten my voice: ‘Tell me what’s happening with Isabel.’

‘I’ve told her,’ he says.

‘What? About her mother?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did she take it?’

‘She was stunned, I guess. She thinks of Jasmine as old, you know. It mainly made her see how old I am.’

‘You’re not old. You were massively younger than Jasmine.’

‘Well, but, it put me in that generation.’

‘Did she ask if I knew?’

‘Yes. I said I’d only told you very recently. Anyway, she’s argued herself around it now. She’s decided that it’s further proof that she and I were meant to happen.’

‘So it’s like you got it wrong the first time around.’

‘Yeah. I was in too much of a hurry. I didn’t realise my real mate hadn’t been born yet.’ The familiar laugh is back in his voice. I decide not to ask if he no longer thinks he might be her father.

‘Will you come over soon?’ I ask.

‘As soon as I can,’ he says, then adds, ‘There’s nothing stopping you getting on a plane, you know.’

I walk through the empty house. I go out on the veranda where I had sat with
Am Abu el-Ma
ati and I look out across the fields towards the village, missing — tonight — seventeen men. I end up in Isabel’s room in front of the portrait of my great-uncle Sharif Basha al-Baroudi. ‘You see? You see, ya Sharif Basha?’ I say, and the tears well up once more into my eyes. And his dark eyes look back at me and behind them lie el-Tel el-Kebir and Umm Durman and Denshwai and it seems to me that he does indeed see and I want — oh, how I want to be in his arms —

18 November 1997

At eleven there is a knock on my door. I open and Tareq
Atiyya is there.

‘What’s this?’ I say. ‘You’ve come yourself?’

‘I thought it would be better. I am going to the markaz. Do you want to come?’

At the markaz we find that the message from the Governor has already filtered through the several necessary layers.

‘We will finish our procedures and the men will be sent home,’ the Ma
mur says. He looks even more haggard and drawn than he had last night. ‘So we do not need to hold you up,’ he says.

‘There’s no holding up,’ Tareq says easily. ‘We shall drink a cup of coffee with you till the procedures are finished.’

The Ma
mur rings for coffee.

From the car we count seventeen men climbing into the police box. There are no ropes round their necks, but their galabiyyas are torn and bloodied and their heads are bowed. My chest is tight with tears and anger as we follow the box all the way to Tawasi.

‘Khalas. Nothing will happen now,’ Tareq says as he veers away from the road and on to the track leading to the house. He follows me in and when I start to say ‘I’ll make you some tea’, the great lump in my chest dissolves and I hold on to a chair and weep. After a moment he comes over and gathers me into his arms, and against his chest I give way to my pain as he holds me and strokes my head and pats my back.

‘It’s over now,’ he says. ‘Khalas. They’re home and no one will come near them again.’

‘But why did it have to happen? How
could
it happen?’

‘The emergency laws. Luxor —’

‘But these are people who have nothing to do with anything —’

‘They’re home now.’

‘And they were beaten. Did you
see
what they looked like?’

‘They’re home now, ya Amal.’

‘And the other people?’

‘What other people?’

‘The people in the other villages. The ones whom no one got out.’

‘Are you going to mend the universe? What you could do, you did.’

‘All I did was call
you
. You did everything.’

‘Khalas, it’s over.’

‘What would I have done without you? What if I didn’t know you? If I hadn’t been able to call you —’

‘Yes but you do and you can.’

‘And you drove all the way. You must have set out at five —’

‘Six.’

‘Ya Tareq, I don’t know what to say to you —’

‘Nothing. Here, let me look at your face. You do this to yourself? Go splash your face with cold water. Do you have any cognac?’ ‘Cognac?’ I start to laugh. Cigarettes with
Am Abu el-Ma
ati and cognac with Tareq
Atiyya. Here in Tawasi.