of a circle of artists in Khartoum that his wife Muna had mixed with when she was a student. He recalled long, carefree evenings sitting in one house or another, discussing politics and art. They even had a painting of Damazeen’s on the wall of their home. A swirl of blues and greys. A mythical bird accompanied by lines of calligraphy. Makana couldn’t pretend to have an understanding of art but Muna liked it. It all seemed so long ago. Damazeen had been the young upcoming artist. Nasra hadn’t even been born then. Another time. An age of innocence it seemed now, when everything was what it claimed to be, and there was something called hope.
When he had first landed in Cairo, Makana discovered Damazeen was already part of the exile community. Their paths crossed a couple of times. By then Makana had lost his job, his wife and child, and his home, and he was discovering that no one makes it on their own. It was the nature of exile. With flight you lost your surroundings, the context in which your previous life existed. No matter what you did you could never get that back, but you could meet people in the same situation and that was a help, of sorts.
Eager to put the awkward start behind them, Talal was keen to make amends. ‘Mo has been telling us all about the new centre he is planning to build. It’s going to be a retreat for international artists from all over the place.’
‘Sounds wonderful,’ Makana said.
Mo, as he was known in London and Paris, had put on weight. His hair was threaded with whorls of white now and his shirt was tight across an expanded midriff. All of this only added to his sense of his own presence. He carried himself like a celebrity. In the early days he had been something of a firebrand who talked of fighting the regime through art and politics. A charismatic character. The media loved him. In Cairo’s cultural circles he had played the ingenuous country bumpkin, the exotic cousin to their Arab reserve. As far as most Cairenes were concerned, Africa was a distant and very dark continent inhabited by savages. The art world was no more enlightened than most. In those days Damazeen could have marched on stage with a leopard-skin over his shoulder and they would have adored him. As the years went by and the regime showed no sign of stepping down, Damazeen began to tone down the act. Murmurs of compromise circled. He talked of longing for home, returning to his roots. From there to fully fledged apologist was but a short skip and a jump. The old regime had abandoned its hard-line beginnings, he claimed. Some believed him. Others had their doubts. Rumours circulated that he was an informer. When the Americans rained cruise missiles down on Khartoum in retaliation for the attacks on US Embassies in East Africa, Damazeen appeared on state television to voice his outrage. It was a public declaration of his ties to the regime.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Come on, lighten up!’ Damazeen carried himself like a mediocre actor who believed his hour had come. ‘We have a duty to encourage talent, which is why Talal has got to attend the Viennese Conservatory.’ He patted Talal on the shoulder.
‘You’re going to fund him?’
‘Why not? What better cause is there than nurturing young artists?’
It worried Makana to see them together. Talal was impressionable, and a few stories about how close Damazeen was to his father would go a long way, and this made him uncomfortable. He also wondered what the connection was between Damazeen and the Zafrani brothers? They enjoyed a reputation as one of the most ruthless organised-crime families. The stories of beheadings, of victims being left buried up to their necks in the desert, or pulled apart by horses, sounded like theatrical replays of medieval practices, but Makana knew enough to take them seriously.
A waiter appeared and Bunny nodded. She and Talal got up to go and inspect the grill on the far side of the room, perhaps also to leave the two men alone to work out their differences.
‘So, you’re here on art business?’
‘You never give up, do you?’ Damazeen laughed in slow guffaws. ‘A man of virtue, convinced that all around him is darkness and corruption. You should take a look at yourself sometime.’
There were rumours of fat commissions on contracts supplying the military with trucks. Damazeen had always denied