Dogstar Rising by Parker Bilal Page B

Talal.
    ‘Oh, we have known each other for years,’ smiled Damazeen, before turning to the waiter and demanding wine be brought.
    ‘I’m sorry, sir.’ A cold sneer creased the waiter’s face. ‘We only serve alcohol to non-Muslims.’
    ‘It’s all right,’ protested Bunny. ‘It really doesn’t matter.’ The idea of wine clearly scandalised her. She gave Talal a hard stare, but he had an absent look on his face that Makana had seen before and also appeared to have lost the ability to speak.
    ‘Look,’ Damazeen summoned the waiter closer. ‘I’m a friend of the owner. Call Ayad Zafrani and ask his permission. Yallah , go! Tell him, Mo Damazeen asked for wine.’ He turned his back on him in a gesture of contempt. The waiter, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of disturbing his boss with such a trivial matter, tugged nervously at the cuffs of his jacket. He addressed the back of Damazeen’s head.
    ‘I’m sure there is no problem, ya basha . If you wish for wine, I shall bring it personally.’ He spun on his heels and clapped his hands, causing four other waiters to start fighting over a bottle of Omar Khayyam, which was passed along from hand to hand with all the care of nitroglycerine. It took a while for them to find a corkscrew. They poured two glasses in the end. One for Damazeen and then, at his insistence, one for Makana, who had no intention of touching it.
    ‘Still stirring up scandal, I see.’
    Damazeen let out a laugh, throwing back his head.
    ‘You see how well he knows me?’
    Talal grinned, clearly relieved. Across the other side of the room Makana caught a glimpse of a bulky man in a grey suit. He had a shaven head and steel-rimmed glasses that glinted in the light. He glanced in their direction as the head waiter leaned in to whisper in his ear.
    ‘How is it that you are in business with the Zafrani brothers?’
    ‘Oh, you know how it is in my line of work. We meet so many people.’ Damazeen’s smile fanned out again as he raised his glass. ‘Let us drink to the old days. It’s been a long time.’
    Makana lit a cigarette, ignoring the glare he got from Talal. Bunny was too flustered about the wine to make an issue of it.
    Damazeen had never really been Makana’s friend. A long time ago he had been part of a circle of artists in Khartoum that his wife Muna had mixed with when she was a student. He recalled long, carefree evenings sitting in one house or another, discussing politics and art. They even had a painting of Damazeen’s on the wall of their home. A swirl of blues and greys. A mythical bird accompanied by lines of calligraphy. Makana couldn’t pretend to have an understanding of art but Muna liked it. It all seemed so long ago. Damazeen had been the young upcoming artist. Nasra hadn’t even been born then. Another time. An age of innocence it seemed now, when everything was what it claimed to be, and there was something called hope.
    When he had first landed in Cairo, Makana discovered Damazeen was already part of the exile community. Their paths crossed a couple of times. By then Makana had lost his job, his wife and child, and his home, and he was discovering that no one makes it on their own. It was the nature of exile. With flight you lost your surroundings, the context in which your previous life existed. No matter what you did you could never get that back, but you could meet people in the same situation and that was a help, of sorts.
    Eager to put the awkward start behind them, Talal was keen to make amends. ‘Mo has been telling us all about the new centre he is planning to build. It’s going to be a retreat for international artists from all over the place.’
    ‘Sounds wonderful,’ Makana said.
    Mo, as he was known in London and Paris, had put on weight. His hair was threaded with whorls of white now and his shirt was tight across an expanded midriff. All of this only added to his sense of his own presence. He carried himself like a celebrity. In the early