Read Online The Arabesk Trilogy Omnibus by Jon Courtenay Grimwood - Free Book Online
Authors: Jon Courtenay Grimwood
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mirror it held up to the world.
Days like now, when all that showed inside on Le Trianon’s bar screen was a rerun of that morning’s executions in Riyadh. A Saudi paedophile and a Sudanese found guilty of sorcery, both losing their heads in the flash of a sword blade, then losing them again in slow motion.
Family.
Ashraf al-Mansur, who was doing his best not to think of himself as ZeeZee, rolled the word round his mouth and spat it out. He’d never had one and wasn’t sure why he’d want to start now. As a child, in Zurich, he’d known boys at the Academy with families. Seen the strange effect it had on them. They cried from homesickness at the start of term and then no longer felt at home when they went back for the holidays. Their parents were worse. The kind of people who talked about roots and forgot those were what kept vegetables in the ground.
Besides, Raf didn’t need roots. He came with a 8000-line guarantee that promised his genetic heritability would always outweigh social calibration. Whatever the fuck that meant.
At first, given the number of zeros after the first number in the price, Raf thought that his mother must really love him… But later, when he looked at her accounts for the year of his birth, he found that ninety-five per cent of the cost of the genetic manipulation had been met by Bayer-Rochelle and the rest she’d written off over five years against tax.
Oh, and the pharmaceutical company had totally funded her next three expeditions and made a sizeable one-off donation to a pressure group for which she was official photographer. It was around that time she’d stopped campaigning against non-transparent genome research.
On the evening he arrived Lady Nafisa had made clear the payment she intended to collect for digging him out of Huntsville. Though what she talked about was the need for family members to help each other, to accept their responsibilities.
“I don’t have a family,” Raf had said. “I had a mother. And when I wanted to talk to her I’d call her agent.”
Lady Nafisa had looked at him. “Your father is my brother-in-law. That makes us family.”
Her brother in law… “My father was a backpacker,” said Raf. “From Goteborg. My mother didn’t even get his name.” The man had apparently been hired for a week to drive his mother across the Sahel when she was filming the Libyan striped weasel, probably because she was too wasted to steer the vehicle herself.
“No.” Lady Nafisa shook her head. “You must listen to me. The Emir of Tunis is your father.”
“Yeah, right,” said Raf. “That well-known Swede.”
“Blue eyes, white hair, high cheekbones. You’re Berber,” Lady Nafisa told him crossly. “Look it up… And while you’re at it, take a good look at this.” Only Raf didn’t need to take a good look because he’d seen the picture before—the palm trees, the minaret, the man with the drop-pearl earring.
“Your father,” said Lady Nafisa.
Raf wanted to say that she was talking to the wrong man: but then suddenly realised he was the one who’d got it wrong. It wasn’t his responsibilities they were discussing—or not just his—it was her responsibilities to him. An odd and uncomfortable thought.
“I knew he had a brat by an American,” Lady Nafisa said. “And that he paid your mother a small allowance, but he does that for all his bastards, he can afford it. But he also told me you were illegitimate. And he lied.”
She handed Raf a letter.
Beneath the words Isaac and Sons. Commissioners of Oaths, a rush of Arabic flowed right to left across expensive paper like tiny waves. Raf could no more read it than fly. “What does it say?” Raf asked, handing it back.
“On 30 April… Pashazade Zari al-Mansur, only son of the Emir of Tunis, married Sally Welham at a private ceremony in an annex of the Great al-Zaytuna Mosque,” Lady Nafisa recited from memory. “She was his third wife. He divorced her five days later.”
“My
Days like now, when all that showed inside on Le Trianon’s bar screen was a rerun of that morning’s executions in Riyadh. A Saudi paedophile and a Sudanese found guilty of sorcery, both losing their heads in the flash of a sword blade, then losing them again in slow motion.
Family.
Ashraf al-Mansur, who was doing his best not to think of himself as ZeeZee, rolled the word round his mouth and spat it out. He’d never had one and wasn’t sure why he’d want to start now. As a child, in Zurich, he’d known boys at the Academy with families. Seen the strange effect it had on them. They cried from homesickness at the start of term and then no longer felt at home when they went back for the holidays. Their parents were worse. The kind of people who talked about roots and forgot those were what kept vegetables in the ground.
Besides, Raf didn’t need roots. He came with a 8000-line guarantee that promised his genetic heritability would always outweigh social calibration. Whatever the fuck that meant.
At first, given the number of zeros after the first number in the price, Raf thought that his mother must really love him… But later, when he looked at her accounts for the year of his birth, he found that ninety-five per cent of the cost of the genetic manipulation had been met by Bayer-Rochelle and the rest she’d written off over five years against tax.
Oh, and the pharmaceutical company had totally funded her next three expeditions and made a sizeable one-off donation to a pressure group for which she was official photographer. It was around that time she’d stopped campaigning against non-transparent genome research.
On the evening he arrived Lady Nafisa had made clear the payment she intended to collect for digging him out of Huntsville. Though what she talked about was the need for family members to help each other, to accept their responsibilities.
“I don’t have a family,” Raf had said. “I had a mother. And when I wanted to talk to her I’d call her agent.”
Lady Nafisa had looked at him. “Your father is my brother-in-law. That makes us family.”
Her brother in law… “My father was a backpacker,” said Raf. “From Goteborg. My mother didn’t even get his name.” The man had apparently been hired for a week to drive his mother across the Sahel when she was filming the Libyan striped weasel, probably because she was too wasted to steer the vehicle herself.
“No.” Lady Nafisa shook her head. “You must listen to me. The Emir of Tunis is your father.”
“Yeah, right,” said Raf. “That well-known Swede.”
“Blue eyes, white hair, high cheekbones. You’re Berber,” Lady Nafisa told him crossly. “Look it up… And while you’re at it, take a good look at this.” Only Raf didn’t need to take a good look because he’d seen the picture before—the palm trees, the minaret, the man with the drop-pearl earring.
“Your father,” said Lady Nafisa.
Raf wanted to say that she was talking to the wrong man: but then suddenly realised he was the one who’d got it wrong. It wasn’t his responsibilities they were discussing—or not just his—it was her responsibilities to him. An odd and uncomfortable thought.
“I knew he had a brat by an American,” Lady Nafisa said. “And that he paid your mother a small allowance, but he does that for all his bastards, he can afford it. But he also told me you were illegitimate. And he lied.”
She handed Raf a letter.
Beneath the words Isaac and Sons. Commissioners of Oaths, a rush of Arabic flowed right to left across expensive paper like tiny waves. Raf could no more read it than fly. “What does it say?” Raf asked, handing it back.
“On 30 April… Pashazade Zari al-Mansur, only son of the Emir of Tunis, married Sally Welham at a private ceremony in an annex of the Great al-Zaytuna Mosque,” Lady Nafisa recited from memory. “She was his third wife. He divorced her five days later.”
“My
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