Free Dogstar Rising by Parker Bilal Page B

are you doing here?’
    ‘Oh, it’s just for a week or two, to help out for a friend.’
    ‘Eissa used to be one of my students, didn’t you? I used to teach him English.’
    ‘At the university?’ asked Makana.
    ‘No,’ laughed Meera. ‘And now you’ve found work here?’
    The boy nodded his head, embarrassed in some way. Meera seemed to have a certain effect on men of any age, it seemed.
    ‘So I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of each other in the next few weeks.’
    ‘I’d like that,’ said the boy. He followed her to the door and watched her walk away. When he returned to the counter his head was bowed.
    ‘Can you get me some cigarettes?’ Makana called.
    ‘Sure,’ the boy nodded without looking up. ‘What kind?’
    ‘Cleopatra.’
    As the boy disappeared through a back door, Makana noticed a pair of battered boxing gloves hanging from a nail hammered into the wall. He opened up the envelope Meera had given him. It was similar to the others. The typeset, the faint splatters of ink around some of the letters. An old-fashioned printing press. The paper was also the same cheap quality, roughly torn off at the ends, as if cut from a roll. Uneven and full of imperfections. The envelope was of the same poor quality, the edges coming unstuck. There was no address other than the words ‘Blue Ibis’. As for the text, Makana was fairly certain that it came from the same source:
     
    Give no heed, then, to those who ignore Our warning and seek only the life of this world. This is the sum of their knowledge. You Lord best knows who have strayed from His path, and who are rightly guided.
     
    ‘Poetry for the lady?’
    Makana looked up to see the boy leaning over his shoulder.
    ‘I couldn’t write poetry even if I wanted to.’ He took the cigarettes and tore open the packet. ‘So, tell me where you know her from. Where did you have these lessons?’
    ‘Oh, she used to come to the church school and teach us.’
    ‘You’re a Christian?’
    ‘Me? No way,’ said the boy quickly. ‘No, they have a gym and everything. They even give you food.’
    ‘Sounds wonderful. How much are the cigarettes?’
    ‘Half price. I can get you a whole carton if you like.’
    ‘Where do you get cigarettes that cheaply?’
    Eissa shrugged. A shout came from the door. The bawab , Abu Salem, the building’s porter, stood there clutching the arm of a scrawny boy of about ten. ‘This one says he’s with you.’
    ‘And what of it?’ retorted Eissa, back to his usual self. ‘He helps in the kitchen.’
    ‘The kitchen? This one still has mother’s milk on his face!’
    Eissa put his arm around the younger boy’s shoulder and led him through behind the counter.
    ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to,’ the old porter muttered to Makana. ‘They come and go as if they own the place and not a man between them.’ He raised his voice. ‘If this goes on I shall have to speak to Yousef.’
    ‘Yousef?’ echoed Makana.
    ‘He’s a friend of the owner, who has another place he runs across town. Yousef takes care of business for him.’
    Yousef appeared to have a hand in everything. He certainly seemed to take an interest in Makana. No sooner had he sat down to work than Yousef turned up. Pushing heaps of folders to one side, he perched himself on the corner of the desk and stretched a rubber band between two fingers.
    ‘Tell me again why you went to prison.’
    Makana glanced round, as if worried about being overheard. ‘I told you. It was a misunderstanding.’
    This amused Yousef. He chuckled and slapped Makana on the shoulder.
    ‘Come on, let’s take a drive and do some real work.’
    ‘I am supposed to be trying to help the company.’
    ‘Believe me, that can wait.’
    Twenty minutes later they were bumping along Sharia al-Muizz, in the area known as Bayn al-Qasrayn, which once lay between two Fatimid palaces. They passed the tomb of Saliq al-Ayubi, the man who created the Mamluks, a cadre of imported slaves.