The Templar Inheritance (15 page)

THIRTY-THREE

Hart and Nalan stood in the entranceway to a shuttered and barred shop. Hart glanced down the passageway between the shops to check if they were being watched or marked out in any way. It was fast becoming a habit. ‘If you go to Iran he will kill you.’

Nalan gave a vehement shake of the head. ‘No. He is not as powerful in Iran as he was in Iraq. There, he is only a servant. Here, he was the master. He says he must tell me something. About my parents. Something I need to know.’

‘You don’t believe him, do you?’

‘Of course not. He is Hassif. Totally evil. But now I know he is in Bukan I have to go. I need to do this.’

Hart put out a hand as if to stay her from leaving for the border at that precise moment. ‘But that’s just what he wants you to do. Can’t you see? You are one of the few remaining eyewitnesses to the crimes he committed. If the
International Criminal Court ever gets hold of him, your testimony alone could see him imprisoned for life.’

‘They will never get hold of him. Iran will protect him. He works for them now. I told you this.’

‘Yet another reason why you should not go over there.’

Nalan shook her head. ‘He sent me photographs, John. Of men doing things to my mother. He even knew my phone number to call me. Hearing his voice again on the phone made me go weak with fear. It was as if I was a little child again, back in the prison. I cannot understand this man. His given name, Rahim, means merciful and kind. How could God allow such a man to have a name like his?’

‘God made a mistake in Hassif’s case. A bad one.’

‘No. God is not responsible for filth like Hassif. They create themselves. A man like Hassif manufactures his own destiny. He will answer to God, yes. But that will come later. On this earth I want him to answer only to me.’

Hart watched her for a moment, his eyes travelling over the familiar and yet unfamiliar features. ‘How can you possibly get into Iran?’

‘I am a Kurd. It is easy. I have cousins. Iraqi Kurds travel across the border all the time.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Why should I not be serious?’

Hart burst out laughing. It was neither the time nor the place for levity, but he couldn’t help it. The expression on Nalan’s face when he’d asked her the question had been one of such outraged astonishment that for a moment she
had looked like a surprised cat. ‘And me? Can I get into Iran just as easily?’

‘You? No. It would be impossible.’

‘And why, pray?’

‘Now you are not being serious, John. You cannot be seriously asking me this question.’

‘I am. Seriously.’

She touched his arm and they began walking again. Soon they passed into a courtyard in which carpets were draped over frames and laid out flat on the ground, the better to be admired. They both stood looking at one of the carpets. When the shopkeeper came over to see if they wanted to buy it, both smiled and shook their heads simultaneously. The shopkeeper returned to his game of chess.

Nalan turned towards Hart. ‘Any foreigner from the United Kingdom or the United States travelling from Iraq to Iran will be instantly under suspicion of being a spy. The border is very fluid, and many people cross – many, many lorries, and much oil and cement. But few foreigners. And all of these will be in tourist parties, or under special licence, with papers that have already been checked. Visas that have already been issued and certified. It is not a matter here of just turning up at the border and asking to be let through. When they find out you are a journalist—’

‘A photojournalist.’

‘A photojournalist then. To them this will be even worse. Cameras talk. And cameras can record. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards are not stupid. They will soon discover that you were involved in the recent bomb attack—’

‘Innocently involved.’

‘This is irrelevant. You killed a man, John. A man who was possibly Iranian. Or at least trained by the Iranians. Although no one will ever be able to prove this, of course. So they will have you on file already. You will be setting your head in the. . .’ She hesitated. ‘What is it? The French thing they executed people with during the revolution?’

‘The guillotine.’

‘You will be setting your head in the guillotine.’

This time it was Hart who moved Nalan on. They were already being watched by both chess players, and various other of the shopkeepers. Was he becoming unnecessarily paranoid with all this talk of files and spies and police? ‘And illegally? Can one cross the border so that no one knows?’

‘Are we talking about you or me?’ She raised an eyebrow at him until he was forced to nod in affirmation.

‘Me.’

‘You do not speak Farsi, John. You do not even speak Kurdish. You are tall. And blond. And pale. A few days ago your face was on all the news programmes. In the papers. On the Internet. For you it would be suicide.’

‘But is it possible?’

‘Is it possible? Yes. Of course it is possible. People I know do it all the time. But you are not people. You are John Hart the photojournalist. John Hart the British spy. John Hart the Dish of the Day on the Revolutionary Guard menu.’

THIRTY-FOUR

‘And have you met your future husband yet?’

Hart was sitting with Nalan in the back of the taxi which was taking them the ninety-five kilometres from Erbil to the Pank Tourist Village in Rawanduz. Outside the taxi windows the mountains rose up on either side of them in layers, as if some great hand had crafted them out of clay and interleaved them with vegetation and stunted trees, seemingly at random.

‘Yes. But I do not wish to talk about him.’

‘Oh. Okay.’ Hart knew when not to pursue a tricky subject. He looked out at the gorge. An untidy mass of water was cascading down the mountainside, circumventing a projecting rock onto which some madman had constructed a viewing platform. The platform looked in danger of being imminently submerged. ‘So why are we going to a tourist village?’

‘Because it is the only such place in Iraq. And because these are the Korek mountains, and where we stay in the village it is already 1,000 metres high. And because the
Iranian border post at Piranshahr is only forty minutes further up the road.’

‘Shit.’

‘It is fine, John. You will be safe here. There is a rollercoaster. And a Ferris wheel. And a dry bobsled run. Bumper cars. A toboggan.’

‘Well that’s okay then. At least we can have a bit of fun while we wait for the police sweep.’

He lingered in the reception area while Nalan confirmed both their rooms. He was surprised when a golf cart appeared outside and their luggage was piled in the back. They were driven to a pair of bungalows bordering a children’s playground.

‘I can’t get my head around this,’ Hart said, when their driver had left them. ‘We’re up in the mountains, just a few miles from the Iranian border, where some of the worst of the fighting took place during the Iran/Iraq War and beyond, and we’re staying in a holiday camp. Which, to my eye at least, seems pretty much empty. What the heck is going on here?’

‘Hazem Kurda built this place. He was a refugee from Saddam Hussein. He built this to show his confidence in a free Kurdistan.’

Hart bowed his head in acknowledgement. What else could he do? ‘And why are we here?’

‘To meet some people. They will come here tomorrow. I owe you my life, John. So I am going to arrange for you to get into Iran illegally. In Iraq, we believe what a man says when he speaks directly to our eyes. You tell me you wish to get inside
and find your ancestor’s scroll. I believe you. But you must believe me also. I have told you of my reasons for entering Iran. Now we will both do so, but in different ways. When we are the other side of the border we will meet again. Then I will help you go where you want to go. I owe you this. It is not far. Maybe a three-hour drive. There will be checkpoints. But fewer than in Iraq. Still. You will not be able to make such a trip without help.’

‘Are you really going to do this for me?’

‘Why do you always doubt me?’

‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to doubt you. I’m just bewildered, that’s all. If we were in the West it would take weeks to organize such a trip.’

‘Here, everything is much quicker. There are no rules. No regulations. You see all the cars we passed on the road coming up here? None of them have insurance. Why? Because it does not exist here. If we are ill, there are no Iraqi doctors. We rely on Iranians, who are much better at this than we are anyway. This border area is a fluid place. Sometimes they close it. Sometimes not. Sometimes the lorries are backed up down the road for many kilometres and their drivers take days to pass through. At other times it is all done very quickly. Much is random here. We need to be lucky. If we are, with God’s help, it will all pass easily. If we are not, it will be very bad indeed.’

Hart hesitated on the doorstep of his bungalow. ‘How are we going to play tonight then? Will you join me for dinner? Are we allowed to sit together here at least?’

Nalan laughed. ‘Of course we are allowed to sit together. This is a holiday resort. People can do what they want.’

‘Might we even be able to get a bottle of wine? I mean, do you even drink wine?’

Nalan clapped her hands together. Then she unpinned her hijab. ‘I am a Chaldean Christian. Of course I drink wine. And beer. Even whisky, although I do not like it. I even go without my hijab in places like this.’

‘How about champagne then?’

Nalan frowned. ‘Now you are being too much of an optimist even for a Britannia.’

‘A Britannia?’

‘That is what they call the English here in the local Sorani dialect.’

Hart gave her a mocking bow. ‘Then this Britannia invites you for dinner tonight. With or without champagne. But with his deepest thanks.’

THIRTY-FIVE

Nalan was wearing a floor-length traditional Kurdish-style dress in black silk, with matching silver-filigree jewellery at her throat, wrist and around her waist. The jewellery incorporated dangling silver coins and lapis lazuli inlays in the shape of diamonds. Her arms were bare, but covered in diaphanous gauze, and she had painted her fingernails and was wearing make-up for the first time since he had met her. Imprinted on her dress was a flower design in pearl beads, which was echoed both above and below her waist.

Hart stood at the door of her bungalow and cursed himself for his own slapdash fashion sense. He was wearing a worn pair of black Levi cords, set off by a favourite rust-red Murray’s Toggery Shop shirt from Nantucket, which was fraying badly at the collar, and which he couldn’t bear to throw away. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.’ He indicated his own clothes, then spread his hands apologetically to encompass hers. ‘You look beautiful. Very beautiful.’

‘Thank you. And what didn’t you realize, John? You look nice. Like a ruffian. But nice.’

‘A ruffian?’

‘Yes. Didn’t I get this word right?’

Hart coughed behind his hand. ‘Exactly right.’ He wasn’t sure if he ought to kiss Nalan on both cheeks or not. ‘How do men and women greet each other here?’

‘We do not kiss, if that is what you mean. Not amongst the different sexes. But if we know each other well we sometimes do this.’ She leaned towards him and drew his forehead down to touch hers. Hart’s had quite a long way to go. ‘But this will only be done in private, like here, and not in a public place.’

‘Right.’ Hart was still breathing in Nalan’s scent. He doubted whether in his life he had seen a more beautiful or desirable woman. He fought back a disastrous desire to reach forwards and take her head between his hands and kiss her. ‘Shall I call for a golf cart? Or shall we walk?’

‘Let us walk through the park. It is a nice evening. The fountains will be playing. And it is too early in the year for mosquitoes.’

She led him along the road and down some stone steps until they came to a parking lot, spanning the main park. ‘I want you to look over here.’ She gestured that he should walk ahead of her to the very edge of the bollarded area.

The views across the gorge were breathtaking. Pinpoints of light were starting up from some of the houses on the opposite side of the span, and far below them they could hear
the snow-swollen river churning past on its way down from the mountains.

‘You’ve been here many times?’

‘No,’ said Nalan. ‘Only once. With a school party I was helping teach English. I had no time to myself. I have always wanted to come back ever since.’

‘Probably with someone you love.’

She glanced up at him. ‘Probably. Yes.’ She turned quickly away. ‘You see those mountains? In the far distance?’

‘Yes.’

‘Iran is over there. And Hassif. But this evening I do not want to think of either. Is this possible?’

‘It’s possible.’ Hart took her arm and they walked through the park towards the restaurant.

As they approached the entrance, and almost without seeming to, Nalan drifted away from him. Hart understood, and did not try to follow her.

They reached the doors to the restaurant with an eight-foot gap between them. They might have been total strangers, with all the unspoken intimacy of the last twenty minutes forgotten. It was another of Kurdistan’s paradoxes, Hart decided, this feeling of extreme sensuality followed by an aloofness prescribed by social custom and religious diktat. And for the benefit and protection of whom? The waiters? The maître d’? The pastry chef?

They took a table at the far end of the restaurant complex. The place could not by any stretch of the imagination be termed intimate. There were possibly fifty tables set out in an
absurdly well-lit room, which boasted the size and dimensions of a gymnasium. They were the only guests.

‘Doesn’t look like school is out,’ said Hart.

‘No. It is not that time of the year.’

Hart glanced towards a central glass-display console. ‘Well, they do at least have wine. That much is for certain.’

‘It will be very expensive.’

‘But would you like some?’

Nalan met his eyes across the table. ‘Yes. Very much.’

Hart went across to the console and pointed out a bottle of Lebanese wine he thought Nalan might like to the waiter. There was a part of him that felt like a naughty schoolboy shirking class and out for a lark.

When he got back to the table, he encouraged Nalan to choose their food, and he was glad that he had done so when a succession of wonderful mixed tabbouleh salads were brought for mezza, followed by different kebabs, koftas and kibbeh. He got Nalan to explain every course to him, and what meat or fish they were eating. Soon, almost without realizing it, they had drunk two bottles of Chateau Musar between them – her half bottle to his one and a half – alongside Hart’s favourite
doogh
drinking yogurt for good health, or so he insisted. They finished their meal with small portions of
kanafeh
, a form of pastry-like milk pudding made from cheese and semolina, and the near ubiquitous baklava, which they washed down with their Turkish-style coffee.

‘You have a good appetite,’ Hart told her.

‘You think I am fat?’ she said.

‘Fat? You? There’s nothing to you. You’d blow away in a strong wind. When I had to lift you up—’ He came to an abrupt stop.

‘When you lifted me up into the loft above the rape rooms. Yes. Is that what you were saying?’

Hart watched her from across the table. ‘Yes. That is what I am saying. That is exactly what I am saying. When I lifted you up into the loft above the rape rooms, you were so light in my arms I felt you might fly away from me. I even imagined something then. An odd thing.’ Hart could feel the wine he had drunk working away inside him. What was he going to say? He didn’t quite know. All he knew was that he couldn’t hold back any longer. He had to declare himself in some form or another or throw himself under one of the nearby tables and bury himself in a pile of tablecloths and crockery. ‘I thought you leaned forwards for an instant and rubbed your cheek against mine. I may have been imagining it. . .’

‘No. You were not imagining it.’

Hart felt the muscles around his heart clench and unclench in his chest. ‘I wasn’t imagining it?’

‘No.’

‘Why did you do it?’

Nalan looked away from him and down towards the floor. ‘I should not tell you this.’

‘Please. Please tell me.’

She sighed and turned her head, if that were possible, even further away from his gaze. ‘You moved something in me. Something I did not feel could be moved by a man. In the
place we were, with the memories it held for me, I found myself wishing to overlay those memories with something better. Something purer. So I touched you. Knowing we would both probably die.’

Hart reached for Nalan’s hand across the table, but she evaded him, placing both her hands in her lap.

‘I’ve been thinking about you every day since then,’ he said, with the passion of hopelessness. ‘You are the real reason I came back here. You must know that. The story is secondary. I came back to see you.’

‘I know.’ Still she did not raise her eyes to meet his.

Hart felt as if he were climbing high into the rigging of a tall-masted ship – high, high up, with all the world’s oceans beneath him. If he fell, all would be taken away from him. If he could simply keep his balance, somehow, by some miracle, and not tip over into the sea, the view would be his for ever. ‘I know I should not be speaking to you in this way. I know you are getting married soon.’

‘Yes. I am getting married soon.’

Hart flailed around for the right words. The tall-masted ship was tipping, slowly, over onto its side. ‘But you are not married yet. And you are here with me. And you are beautiful. When I look at you I cannot believe how beautiful you are. I want to reach across the table and melt into you. . .’

‘As if I was a bowl of ice cream?’

Hart’s eyes widened in shock. Then he realized Nalan was laughing with him, and not at him. That she was looking him directly in the eyes and laughing with him. In joy. ‘Yes. Rum
and raisin. Made with real milk and not powdered. And with the raisins well soaked in Bundaberg Rum. And bought on a street in Italy from a travelling gelato salesman who has come directly from his family’s house to sell his wares so that they are as fresh as fresh can be.’

‘John, you are mad. The things you say.’

‘I didn’t start this. It was you who brought up the idea of ice cream.’

‘I’m surprised you can think of anything edible after the meal we have just had.’

Hart had himself under control again. He had been about to say something stupid – even more stupid than what he had already said – and ruin everything. And Nalan had known it, and had diffused it with her comment about the ice cream. It had been done with such elegance and tact that he felt overwhelmed with gratitude towards her. She had saved him from making a total ass of himself, and allowed him to save face at the same time. His admiration and respect for her was increasing by the minute. ‘Would you like to walk back?’ he said. ‘We could go up to the parapets again. See the gorge at night.’

‘How do you see a gorge at night?’

Hart swallowed. His side of this conversation wasn’t going well at all. Serve him right for drinking so much. ‘Well. Feel it then. Look at the lights across the valley. Listen to the river.’

‘I would like that very much.’

It was a lot colder outside, and Hart cursed himself for not having thought to bring a jacket he could have offered to slip
over Nalan’s shoulders. They were 1,000 metres above sea level, for Pete’s sake, and not long out of winter. He was an idiot. ‘It is cold. Would you mind if I put my arm round you?’

‘No. I would not mind.’

Hart felt as if he were walking on eggshells. What was he to do? How should he play this? Here he was with a woman from another culture to his entirely, and about to be married, and all he wished to do was to take her in his arms and kiss her. But something was atrophying his every movement.

They stopped by the concrete bollards near the parking place, close to where they had stood before supper.

Nalan stepped in front of him and then snuggled herself back against him, so that he would be protecting her from the worst of the wind, which was coming from directly behind them. It was such a natural movement that he did not hesitate. He put his arms round her shoulders and they both stood looking out across the vast black emptiness ahead of them, and towards the tiny pinpricks of light on the other side of the valley. From time to time Hart bent forwards and nuzzled the top of her head with his cheek. But for some obscure reason he still did not dare to turn her round and kiss her full on the mouth. Perhaps he did not wish to spoil the magic?

‘I think we must go back now, John. You have no jacket and I have no coat. We have both come ill-prepared for a night up here in the mountains.’

Hart could feel her slipping through his hands.

‘Yes. I hope there’s some heating in the rooms. An open fire would be nice.’

Nalan laughed. She took his hand in hers and they walked back towards their bungalows.

The sudden cold, far from sobering Hart up, appeared to be doing the exact opposite. Why could he never learn? ‘And tomorrow?’

‘Some men will come here to meet us. To see you. We will speak with them. They will want money from you. But they are honest. You will see. Later, you will go with them.’

Hart could hardly believe they were talking like this. As far as he was concerned, at that precise moment, Iran and the Copper Scroll and his bloody ancestor could go hang themselves. And the rest of the world along with them.

They stopped at the entrance to Nalan’s bungalow. Hart saw the night slipping away from him. But he had no idea how to retrieve it.

‘Thank you for this evening. And thank you for being such a gentleman, John. You have made it very easy for me.’

‘I wish I hadn’t.’

‘But you did. And I value that. More than you can know.’

Hart bent forwards and they touched foreheads again. She gave him a quick peck on each cheek as a sort of consolation prize. Then she was gone, and he was left standing outside her door, in his shirtsleeves, in a howling gale, and facing the prospect of an evening spent watching CNN or Al Jazeera or whatever the hell else Iraqis received on their satellite dishes.

Should he go back to the restaurant and drown his sorrows? Probably not. He would need to keep his wits about him for whatever occurred the next day. Well, maybe he would go
back to his room and send Amira a text in the code they had agreed on back in England. If he succeeded in passing over into Iran, there would be no more communication like that open to him. He would be alone out there in deepest hyperspace.

The story of his life.