Read Online Dogstar Rising by Parker Bilal - Free Book Online Page A

lived, and although she couldn’t see him she called out a greeting as he went by.
    ‘Good evening, ya bash muhandis .’
    ‘Good evening, Umm Ali.’
    Filling a bucket, Makana bathed in the timeless manner of pouring water over himself with a large plastic beaker. He watched the soap suds swirling through a hole in the bathroom floor to vanish downstream to the sea. Having washed and changed his clothes, he walked back up the incline to the road and joined the glowing red stream that slid like molten metal back into the city.
    Since getting married, Sami Barakat had settled down in a small flat with his wife Rania who was also a journalist. The story went that they had known one another for years before love had struck its fateful chords. They now lived in an old red brick building on Adly Street, not far from the synagogue. From the outside it was an impressive, stylish affair from the turn of the last century. Inside it had high ceilings and an old elevator that Makana avoided, preferring to walk the five flights of stairs instead. There was a large living room/dining room that gave onto a narrow kitchen. Like most young couples, they never had time to cook and an invitation to supper implied they would be ordering in from one of the many takeaway places nearby. The low table was, as usual, laden with reading material: newspapers, magazines, journals of every description, which Sami proceeded to clear away in preparation for their meal. Rania came into the room carrying a tray of glasses, plates and cutlery. Her face broke into a beaming smile when she saw Makana.
    ‘We were wondering if you had forgotten us.’
    Rania was easy-going and lively. When Sami had first found this place it had been dark and dingy as a monk’s cell. The brown walls were scarred with cracks and the air fetid. If it had been left to Sami nothing would have changed, not even the furniture, which looked as if someone had died in it. Now the room was bright with colour, with white walls on which a few prints, mostly done by Rania’s artist friends, had been hung. The two sofas and table, and the rug underneath it, were all new.
    ‘Why don’t we see you more often?’ she asked. ‘You’re working all the time.’
    ‘I had the impression it was you two who never have a spare moment,’ said Makana.
    ‘It’s true,’ she laughed, pushing her long black curls behind her shoulder. ‘If we were left to our own devices neither of us would probably come home at all. We would entirely forget about the existence of this marriage.’
    ‘What nonsense are you telling him now, ya habibti ?’ Sami appeared bearing an armful of Stella bottles. ‘Would it be that easy to forget me?’
    ‘If you weren’t reminded from time to time that you had a wife to come home to you would completely forget my existence.’
    ‘Imagine, if this is married life after only one year, what will we be like after fifty years?’
    Domestication seemed to agree with Sami. He had put on a little weight which made him cut an older and somewhat more dignified presence, although the hair was still a wild nest. He had become something of a celebrity. Publishing a couple of successful books had turned him into not only a well-respected investigative journalist, but a spokesman for political integrity. His weekly column in a satirical magazine, Abul-Houl (The Sphinx), had brought him a younger generation of readers. Nevertheless, he remained just as disorganised as ever, opening beer bottles with his teeth, having been unable to locate an opener. Handing Makana a foaming glass he settled down on the sofa opposite and prodded his spectacles back up his nose with a stubby finger.
    ‘ Saha ,’ he said, raising his glass in health before launching back into a speech on the state of the world which had begun on the way up the stairs. ‘We’re going backwards in time. This country used to be the vanguard of the Arab world. Books, movies, we made the best. Dissidents from less