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.Zara began crying then, sorrow rolling down her cheeks.Somewhere she had a tissue, but couldn t remember which pocket, and it didn tseem to matter.They cried in silence together.She d taken to asking herself a question a few years back.What was the worstit could be, the secret of her father s rise from nothing? She d searched forclues to the answer.Once, aged fifteen, she d riffled through his desk, usinga key taken from his jacket.All she d found was a small leather casecontaining pornographic photographs of a young man and two girls even younger.Apart from a wood-handled knife, a handful of Sudanese coins and a bonecrucifix, that had been the sum total of her find.She hadn t been able to look him in the face for weeks afterwards.The worst she could say, until recently, was that he kept Western erotica in adrawer in his study.Now he was less than that, a man diminished.Zara wasrapidly coming to realize that, just maybe, she d never actually known who hewas, not really.Her father, the industrialist Hamzah Effendi.He broke the law for a living, she accepted that.Only he broke it less thanhe used to do and nothing like as much as when he was young.And anyway the free market was a crime in itself.As a good Marxist she didbelieve that.Of course, he also killed, or had done, at least once.When she was nine she had overheard two servants discussing this and beenproud.The dead man had been bad, obviously.Someone who attacked her father,forcing him to defend himself.It was all so clear in Zara s head.Only whenshe tried asking her ma about it she d been slapped for her pains.By the nextmorning both her nanny and the maid were gone.Now nothing she could say to her father would change what was about to happen.PaxForce wanted him to stand trial and, according to theNew York Times, Iskandryia s new governor had agreed to hand over Hamzah,subject to agreeing upon a timetable.What more was there to say?Plenty.And such was the shallowness of the Western press that how it was said wouldbe as important as what was said.Picking up his revolver, weirdshit etchingand whisky bottle, Zara slammed Hamzah s study door behind her and went to getchanged.Already she was rewriting elements of her plan. Zara. The voice that met her on the landing was angry and bitter, butthen it would be, it belonged to her mother. What? Zara demanded.It had been a joke among Zara s friends that they could hear Madame Rahinalong before they could see her, such was the clatter of gold from her wrists.Noisy bangles and an almost permanent scowl were Zara s memories of hermother.Sometimes the gold had been so loudPage 114ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlZara hadn t been able to hear the slap that followed. How could he.? I thought you knew everything there was to know about him, Zara said, hervoice contemptuous. Wasn t that what you told everyone?Soul mates.Apart from his endless mistresses, your tranquillizers and thewhisky. Zara.Zara covered the outraged face with the spread fingers of one hand and pushed.Which was all it took to throw the woman backward.Zaradidn t bother to check how she landed.Some of the men even had little ladders so they could peer over the heads ofother photographers in front.Many wore pale safari suits of the kind carriedat airports by ignorant nasrani journalists, who expected to land somewhereblisteringly hot.Only now their suits were dark with rain and hung with allthe elegance of rags on a line. Miss Zara.She turned, saw Alex and sighed.The huge Soviet bodyguard stood like ascolded child, head down and fists clenched so hard that veins made freewaysalong his wrists.An hour earlier, while her father was still drinking himselfinto a stupor, Alex had been faced with a highly tenacious member of thepress, who took bolt cutters to the gates and challenged Alex to shoot him.Without orders, Alex had retreated. You took the correct action, Zara said, for about the third time.Alex looked doubtful. Examine the options, she said. You think you should have shot him? He didtoo, Zara could see it in his broad face. Sometimes retreat is necessary,Zara told Alex carefully. But now someone must guard the front door.And thatmust be you.Zara watched the cogs whir as Alex glanced from her to the heavy wooden door,then back again.He was nice in his way, but monolithically slow.Still, eachaccording to his talents. The door, right. He nodded agreement and turned away, shouldersstraightening. Comrade. Yes, Miss Zara.? He paused, shoulders broad, back straight, a Makarov9mm bulging under one arm.She smiled. Nothing.Nothing will come of nothing, that was a line from a play she was in, backwhen she went to college in New York.A city of high-rise boxes where thegirls around her fucked anything with a pulse and a penis and quality controlseemed to be a contradiction in terms.But something always did come fromnothing.The universe, for a start.Time itself [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]