figures charged back and forth across the Embassy tennis court, the rhythmic thud of the ball echoing dully around the compound. He watched them, wondering, in a detached sort of way, what it felt like to move so freely, before returning to his desk. He sat down and reached for the file he’d been working on before his insulin shot. On the front, stamped diagonally in red, was the word ‘Classified’. Below that was a name: Alexandra Hannen. He flipped it open and started reading.
D AKHLA
There was paperwork to be gone through, forms to be signed releasing the body for burial, a landslide of bureaucracy.It was getting on for late afternoon before it was all done and Freya was able to leave the hospital. The sharp, piercing sunlight of earlier in the day had softened to a rich, honey-coloured haze, although the heat was just as intense.
‘I take you Doctor Alex house,’ said Zahir as they climbed into the Land Cruiser.
‘Thank you,’ she replied.
After which they were silent.
They followed what appeared to be the main axis road north-west through the oasis. Fields of maize and sugar cane stretched out to either side, irrigation canals, groves of olive, palm and what Freya thought might be mulberry trees. She wasn’t really paying much attention, her mind still struggling to cope with what she had seen back in the morgue.
After twenty minutes they turned left onto a smaller road which took them into a village; Qalamoun, according to a dual Arabic-English sign planted on its outskirts. There was a mosque, a cemetery, a couple of dusty fruit and vegetable stalls and, rather incongruously, a glass-fronted shop with a neon Kodak sign outside and a board proclaiming ‘Fast Foto devilp here’.
Just beyond the village they turned again, this time onto a rutted, rubbish-strewn dirt track. Freya clutched the door handle as the Land Cruiser lurched back and forth, watching distractedly as the farmlands gave way to desert, verdant green dissolving into scorching hues of orange and red. Up and down they bumped as the track wound through a messy, disordered landscape of sand hummocks and gravel flats before climbing up onto a low ridge beyond which the desert opened out dramatically. Freya leant forward,the trauma of the hospital receding fractionally as she took in the panorama ahead – a vast undulating ocean of sand stretching away as far as the eye could see, the dunes seeming to rise and sharpen the further out they went so that what began as gentle swells had, by the time they reached the horizon, surged into towering knife-edged waves. Beneath, in the broad plain between the ridge and the first of the dunes, lay a small subsidiary oasis of fields and palm groves shimmering lushly amidst the surrounding emptiness.
‘This Doctor Alex house,’ said Zahir, slowing and pointing to a white dot near the far side of the greenery.
Despite herself Freya smiled, thinking how perfectly suited it was to her sister, how happy she would have been there.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.
Zahir just grunted and, gunning the engine, took them down and across the plain.
They crossed some outlying fields, newly ploughed, what looked like white egrets pecking at the chocolatey soil, and entered the oasis. Now that they were nearing her sister’s home Freya took more notice of her surroundings, her head turning this way and that as they jolted and slewed along the sandy track. Trees pressed in all around, tangled spiderwebs of light and shade dappled the ground. They passed a brushwood animal enclosure, a stack of cut sugar cane and a rectangular threshing floor before a donkey cart piled high with olive branches appeared round a corner ahead and Zahir was forced to pull over to allow it to pass. An elderly, sunburnt man in a straw sunhat leered at them as he went by, a cigarette dangling from his toothless mouth.
‘This Mahmoud Garoub,’ said Zahir once the cart was gone. ‘He no good man. You no talk to him.’
He flicked
D AKHLA
There was paperwork to be gone through, forms to be signed releasing the body for burial, a landslide of bureaucracy.It was getting on for late afternoon before it was all done and Freya was able to leave the hospital. The sharp, piercing sunlight of earlier in the day had softened to a rich, honey-coloured haze, although the heat was just as intense.
‘I take you Doctor Alex house,’ said Zahir as they climbed into the Land Cruiser.
‘Thank you,’ she replied.
After which they were silent.
They followed what appeared to be the main axis road north-west through the oasis. Fields of maize and sugar cane stretched out to either side, irrigation canals, groves of olive, palm and what Freya thought might be mulberry trees. She wasn’t really paying much attention, her mind still struggling to cope with what she had seen back in the morgue.
After twenty minutes they turned left onto a smaller road which took them into a village; Qalamoun, according to a dual Arabic-English sign planted on its outskirts. There was a mosque, a cemetery, a couple of dusty fruit and vegetable stalls and, rather incongruously, a glass-fronted shop with a neon Kodak sign outside and a board proclaiming ‘Fast Foto devilp here’.
Just beyond the village they turned again, this time onto a rutted, rubbish-strewn dirt track. Freya clutched the door handle as the Land Cruiser lurched back and forth, watching distractedly as the farmlands gave way to desert, verdant green dissolving into scorching hues of orange and red. Up and down they bumped as the track wound through a messy, disordered landscape of sand hummocks and gravel flats before climbing up onto a low ridge beyond which the desert opened out dramatically. Freya leant forward,the trauma of the hospital receding fractionally as she took in the panorama ahead – a vast undulating ocean of sand stretching away as far as the eye could see, the dunes seeming to rise and sharpen the further out they went so that what began as gentle swells had, by the time they reached the horizon, surged into towering knife-edged waves. Beneath, in the broad plain between the ridge and the first of the dunes, lay a small subsidiary oasis of fields and palm groves shimmering lushly amidst the surrounding emptiness.
‘This Doctor Alex house,’ said Zahir, slowing and pointing to a white dot near the far side of the greenery.
Despite herself Freya smiled, thinking how perfectly suited it was to her sister, how happy she would have been there.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.
Zahir just grunted and, gunning the engine, took them down and across the plain.
They crossed some outlying fields, newly ploughed, what looked like white egrets pecking at the chocolatey soil, and entered the oasis. Now that they were nearing her sister’s home Freya took more notice of her surroundings, her head turning this way and that as they jolted and slewed along the sandy track. Trees pressed in all around, tangled spiderwebs of light and shade dappled the ground. They passed a brushwood animal enclosure, a stack of cut sugar cane and a rectangular threshing floor before a donkey cart piled high with olive branches appeared round a corner ahead and Zahir was forced to pull over to allow it to pass. An elderly, sunburnt man in a straw sunhat leered at them as he went by, a cigarette dangling from his toothless mouth.
‘This Mahmoud Garoub,’ said Zahir once the cart was gone. ‘He no good man. You no talk to him.’
He flicked
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