Chapter 20

‘Fareeha, Fareeha,’ Muzaffer Hussein almost bellowed, ‘come in; do please come in.’

Fareeha’s appearance proved to be an extraordinary contradiction to her expectations: it seemed to delight the old harbourmaster. The face that had haunted her the past few days was now alive in welcoming gestures: his second chin wobbled, his mole-hairs quivered, his springy eyebrows danced over watery eyes, and his sharp teeth glistened through an ear-to-ear smile.

‘Do please come in,’ he repeated.

She felt a surge of relief and loosened the knot of her headscarf a little. He must have forgotten her wretched little speech of the previous day and the memory of those timely interruptions—first Phipps then Rashid—provoked a warm feeling. She was even grateful for his toothache. She flapped the damp envelope against her thigh. Two dirhams was now all she needed to get herself out of trouble. She was sure that she could avoid Bashar Khan for a week or two until help arrived. ‘Doctor Phipps told me you were here,’ she said, as if to justify her arrival.

‘Yes, yes, he was just here to pick up the last of his things. Such a strange man; but a good heart, I’m sure. Still didn’t find a chance to ask him about my teeth, though.’ He put his tongue into a corner of his mouth and sucked. ‘Strange fellow never seems to stay more than a few seconds and then he simply disappears.’ He turned and seemed to float over the muddles that separated him from his desk. ‘Anyway, would you like some tea, my dear?’

‘Well I don’t want to trouble you; I just came to ask if I could . . .’

‘Trouble me? Fareeha!’ He raised an uncovered, hairy forearm. ‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to share a cup of tea with you.’ He stopped to think for a moment. ‘And I think I still have a little cake.’

‘You are too kind, Muzaffer, but really all I need is . . .’

‘Fareeha, you won’t be able to drink or eat anything if you stay over there. Do come over.’

Fareeha almost fell over a pile of folders before getting a hand to the back of the sturdy chair. When she had steadied herself she retied the knot of her headscarf that had shaken apart. She moved to the front of the chair and let herself fall backwards into it.

‘So where did you meet Doctor Phipps?’ Muzaffer asked.

‘He was riding past the bazaar in a buggy; looked so strange; everyone was watching him.’ She didn’t want to mention how she had run after him, how she had desperately wanted to ask him for a miserable two dirhams. She lowered her voice. ‘Later I saw him outside one of the disused municipal buildings unloading the buggy.’

‘Oh?’ Muzaffer looked around from his alcove. ‘Which one?’

‘Not sure; I think it was the water building.’

‘The Department of Water Resources?’

‘Yes, that’s the one. Such a lot of equipment he had!’

‘That is strange,’ Muzaffer said with a puzzled look. ‘I wonder why . . . Well, I hope it’s safe. They store a lot of our ancient artefacts in there, you know; it all had to be moved when the museum was shelled. Not that anyone cares about our heritage these days—they seem more interested in destroying it than preserving it.’ He huffed and turned back to the table and the sink. ‘But I wonder why they’ve put the Englishman in there.’ After a few moments of silence he asked, ‘Would you like a little ginger this time?’

‘Ginger tea!’ Fareeha turned to look at his broad stern. ‘Don’t tell me—a recipe you picked up in Cairo?’

‘Heavens no, my dear. Cairo is not a place for a connoisseur of tea. I told you, they only drink it there as a narcotic! They do something like this in Bombay. Not exactly masala tea, but the closest thing I can get to it here.’

Fareeha returned her gaze to the harbour, through the window; but she continued to follow Muzaffer’s brew with her ears. She heard him slice off a piece of root ginger and crush it in a pestle. Then she heard water splashing into a pan, the pan going onto the stove, and spoons jangling through the necks of several jars. The can that he then skewered must have contained condensed milk: she heard it a minute or two later splashing in. The gas flame roared and the tea came to a rolling boil, which she heard the old man tend carefully in order to stop an overflow: stirring almost continuously and lifting the pan when necessary. The last thing she heard was the frothy sound of the brew pouring through a sieve. He had finished his job, but all he brought over, sitting in the middle of a big steel tray, were two small cups of milky tea steaming on china saucers. Such a lot of work for so small a result.

‘You know, I’ve been thinking about your idea, Fareeha,’ Muzaffer said placing the tray on his desk.

Two dirhams, Fareeha immediately thought, but I haven’t even asked . . .

‘Perhaps it’s not as crazy as it sounds, my dear.’ He put one of the teas on the edge of the desk nearest Fareeha.

That was when she realised what he was talking about. Her drooling mind at once forgot the promised piece of cake and the steaming cup of creamy tea. She bolted upright in her chair, her back snapping straight, like a loose leather belt suddenly pulled tight from both ends as. And her heart, with an unexpected jolt, began to pump gallons of blood around her body with extra vigour —she felt it flow over her temples and flood her sweaty hands. She looked up at the old man but said nothing.

Muzaffer, holding the second cup of tea, manoeuvred around the desk to his chair. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘it won’t hurt to make a few enquiries, will it?’ With that comment, he nodded towards the door behind Fareeha then he lowered his voice. ‘And God knows I could use a little extra money.’

Fareeha hadn’t followed his gesture; in fact, she had barely moved anything besides her hands as their sticky palms repeatedly pushed the dark cotton of her dress towards her knees.

Provoking a noisy protest from the chair, Muzaffer sat. ‘You say you can get help with the . . . eh . . . logistics?’

Fareeha nodded.

‘Well,’ Muzaffer said, ‘before I stick my neck out, I’d like to know who might be there to cut my head off—if you know what I mean.’

Fareeha had started to think at last. Until a few moments ago, she had convinced herself that the best thing to do was to abandon her stupid idea, write to her husband for help, and try to get on with her life. But now . . .

‘Eh . . . Khalil, a fisherman from along the coast,’ she said. ‘He has a motorboat.’

Muzaffer frowned. ‘A fisherman with a motorboat?’

Fareeha nodded.

‘And how is Khalil—or you for that matter—going to distribute the goods?’

Fareeha stomach jumped into a lift and dropped five floors. Distribute? The word stuck and her mind desperately raced around it for a moment. ‘Connections,’ she blurted out at last. ‘He has connections.’

‘Connections,’ Muzaffer sighed. ‘Mmm, connections.’ He lifted his cup and slurped out a mouthful of ginger tea then smacked his moist lips on its aftertaste. ‘Now, my dear, what is to stop me from getting in touch with my own connections—of which I have plenty, I might add—and starting something for myself?’

Fareeha thought for a moment. ‘Well,’ she began, looking for the anchorage of the mole hair. ‘I assumed that if you’d wanted to do anything, you would already be doing it.’

‘Perhaps. Or perhaps I am not a reckless as you, my dear.’

‘Muzaffer, the first time I came here you said . . .’ She stopped and averted he eyes. A polite cough helped her with the next sentence. ‘You said that you were too old to do anything about the mess we’re living in.

‘Did I?’ Muzaffer cried, slapping the woodwork. ‘Well perhaps; but I think we were talking about different things, were we not? Never mind’ He waved a hairy forearm over the desk. ‘It’s right, I am indeed far too old for anything of this nature.’ His face went blank for a moment. ‘However, what you asked me to do seems simple enough; I can’t see much danger in it—for myself that is. And if there’s a dirham to be made . . . ’

You’d strike a deal with the devil himself, Fareeha silently finished his thought for him.

Muzaffer swivelled around and looked out of the window, onto the harbour.

Fareeha gazed at his broad back. She studied the soft grey hair that ringed the old man’s head, starting beneath the tanned skin of his bald crown and lapping up against the collar of his silk shirt, where she was sure she could see a tide-mark.

‘In fact,’ Muzaffer said, relaxing his muscles and allowing himself to swivel back, like an unwinding windlass, ‘I have already taken the liberty of contacting one of my old friends.’ He looked up with a mischievous grin.

‘Brierly?’

‘Brierly? No. He’d never touch anything like this; runs a clean ship does Brierly. No. I had McBride on the line.’ He nodded again towards the door of the adjacent room. ‘Not an easy thing to do given the mess in there. Anyway, I’m damned if he wasn’t steaming through the Bosporous itself with a consignment of Turkish in his hull!’

Fareeha held her eyes steady. ‘Really?’ she said, as an image of the red-faced captain took shape in her mind.

‘He’s sailing up from Cochin with a consignment of tea, on his way up to Odessa. En route he’ll drop off in Izmir to pick up a bit of tobacco; and before arriving in The Ukraine, he’ll take a detour to Bat’umi—I suppose without his ship’s owners knowing anything about it; or the insurance company, for that matter!’ Muzaffer stopped and looked thoughtfully at Fareeha. ‘You remember him?’

‘Of course.’

‘Thought you might. Seems that McBride has been finding excuses for getting into the Black Sea for quite some time. Bat’umi is in Georgia, and Georgia is at war. Not as bad as here, mind you, but bad enough to keep ships away and send prices spiralling up and up.’

Fareeha blinked. She didn’t follow all of the geography but she was beginning to see what was going on. She shifted towards the edge of her seat and with a grave voice said, ‘You mean McBride is already . . . running his own business?’

It was too much for Muzaffer. He fell forwards and slapped the edge of the desk. ‘My dear,’ he said with a wide grin and a strangled chuckle, ‘What are you thinking? He’s been at it for years. They all have.’ He waved a hand behind him, towards the window. ‘Half the ships out there have crates and crates of unregistered goods lying in their hulls, waiting for those unscheduled stops, night-time offloading, suitcases full of cash . . .’

Fareeha’s fingers slithered like restless eels; she reached forward and at last picked up her cup and saucer. In a tentative voice she said, ‘So . . . he’s interested?’

The sides of Muzaffer’s mouth dropped; and as the air came out, his jowls flapped. ‘Interested? Well . . .’ He too picked up his cup and saucer. He took a noisy slurp and then seemed to loose his concentration to the muddy surface of the tea. After a moment’s contemplation he smacked his lips. ‘Bit too much sugar,’ he said.

Fareeha raised her cup off the saucer, sipped, and nodded in agreement, despite the fact that she loved sugar and the ginger tea was the best thing she’d tasted for a long time.

‘Problem is,’ Muzaffer began, ‘Bat’umi still has a functioning harbour; you know, with security, customs—McBride can sail right in there without a care. He might have to pay off the officials, but he can offload his goods safely and get his cash without worrying about his back.’ He took another slurp from his cup, which he was still holding inches above its saucer. Can’t do that here, I’m afraid, and I’m not sure that he’ll be too excited about a rendezvous on the high seas with . . .’ he stopped and found Fareeha’s eyes. ‘Well, with Khalil the fisherman!’

Fareeha looked away for a second. ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘then we’ll just have to . . .’

‘. . . persuade him?’ Muzaffer finished for her.

Fareeha shook her head, but it was neither up and down nor side to side.

‘Mmm,’ Muzaffer took his eyes away from her. ‘Well you were right about one thing: your old acquaintances do seem to trust you—or might be persuaded too do so if there’s a dollar in it for them.’

‘So you haven’t exactly . . . put it to him yet?’

‘Not exactly, my dear. This is not the kind of thing you jump into. Many things to think about. And you’re right about trying to persuade him: I’m going to suggest to him that the two of you meet.’

‘What?’ Fareeha moved to the edge of her seat, the half-empty cup rattling on the saucer. ‘What do you mean? I thought . . .’

Muzaffer raised his hand. ‘Nothing to worry about, my dear; just a simple meeting; he’ll insist, anyway, sooner or later; so we might as well take the initiative. Of course McBride knows me and he remembers you and your husband very well, but this is different, Fareeha. And if you want him to help you, you are going to have to make a trip across the Gulf to one of the free ports on the other side and meet him. No way around that, I am afraid. He can’t possibly come here.’ Muzaffer again waved his hand at Fareeha’s opening mouth. ‘So the question is: how can we get you across the Gulf?’

Fareeha suddenly didn’t know what to do with the cup and saucer in her hand. She rattled it into her left hand, then her right, and finally, with both hands, she moved it back to the edge of the desk from where it had come. ‘Across the Gulf?’ she stammered.

‘Of course, my dear; and there is no other means,’ he began, answering his own question ‘than our charity boat.’ He paused, pulled his weight out of the complaining chair, and turned his body to allow his eyes to float out of the window and sail away over the harbour’s filmy water. ‘I think McBride will be passing through the Gulf quite often these days, now that he’s found himself a lucrative market up in the Black Sea, and I suspect that he’ll be stopping over in one of the free ports for refuelling every time he does so. We just have to arrange a time and I’m sure he’d love to meet you. But you would have to stay away a week, probably longer . . . ’ He was lost for a moment out on the choppy sea, ‘Never mind, it’ll be worth it. Yes, that’s what we’ll do: send you over there in one of the charity boats. How about it?’ He swivelled back around and dropped his black, watery eyes on Fareeha, ready for an immediate answer.

Fareeha opened her mouth but not for a reply. Her stomach had knotted itself into a mooring hitch and her heart was spluttering like a swamped outboard motor. She gulped in air and only after several attempts did she finally manage to utter a word or two.

‘Good, good,’ Muzaffer said. ‘I’ll wind up the radios as soon as I can.’