The City & the City - China Mieville [69]
“If we did, Aikam, we can’t tell you,” said Dhatt.
“Not now,” I said. Dhatt glanced at me. “Have to work things out first. You understand. But maybe we can ask you a few questions?” He looked alarmed for a moment.
“I don’t know anything. But sure, I guess. I was worried if they could get out of the city, past the militsya. If there was a way you could do that. Is there?”
I made him write his phone number in my notebook before he went back to his station. Dhatt and I watched his back.
“Did you question the guards?” I said, watching Tsueh go.
“Of course. Nothing very interesting. They’re security guards, but this site’s under ministry aegis, so the checks are a bit more stringent than usual. Most of them had alibis for the night of Mahalia’s death.”
“Did he?”
“I’ll check, but I don’t remember his name being red-flagged, so he probably did.”
Aikam Tsueh turned at the gate and saw us watching. Raised his hand hesitantly in a good-bye.
Chapter Fourteen
SIT HIM IN A COFFEE SHOP—a teahouse, really, we were in Ul Qoma—and Dhatt’s aggressive energy dissipated somewhat. He still drummed his fingers on the edge of the table in a complicated rhythm I could not have mimicked, but he met my eyes, did not shift in his seat. He listened and made serious suggestions for how we might proceed. He twisted his head to read the notes I made. He took messages from his centre. While we sat there he did a gracious job, in truth, of obscuring the fact that he did not like me.
“I think we need to get some protocol in place about questioning,” was all he said, when first we sat, “too many cooks,” to which I murmured some half apology.
The tea shop staff would not take Dhatt’s money: he did not offer it very hard. “Militsya discount,” the serving woman said. The café was full. Dhatt eyed a raised table by the front window until the man who sat there noticed the scrutiny, rose, and we sat. We overlooked a Metro station. Among the many posters on a nearby wall was one I saw then unsaw: I was not sure it was not the poster I had had printed, to identify Mahalia. I did not know if I was right, if the wall was alter to me now, total in Besźel, or crosshatched and a close patchwork of information from different cities.
Ul Qomans emerged from below the street and gasped at the temperature, shrank into their fleeces. In Besźel, I knew—though I tried to unsee the Besź citizens doubtless descending from Yan-jelus Station of the overland transit, which was by chance a few scores of metres from the submerged Ul Qoman stop—people would be wearing furs. Among the Ul Qoman faces were people I took to be Asian or Arab, even a few Africans. Many more than in Besźel.
“Open doors?”
“Hardly,” Dhatt said. “Ul Qoma needs people, but everyone you see’s been carefully vetted, passed the tests, knows the score. Some of them are having kids. Ul Qoman pickaninnies!” His laugh was delighted. “We’ve got more than you lot, but not because we’re lax.” He was right. Who wanted to move to Besźel?
“What about the ones that don’t make it through?”
“Oh, we have our camps, same as you, here and there, round the outskirts. The UN’s not happy. Neither’s Amnesty. Giving you shit about conditions too? Want smokes?” A cigarette kiosk was a few metres from the entrance to our café. I had not realised I was staring at it.
“Not really. Yes, I guess. Curiosity. I haven’t smoked Ul Qoman I don’t think ever.”
“Hold on.”
“No, don’t get up. I don’t anymore; I gave up.”
“Oh come on, consider it ethnography, you’re not at home … Sorry, I’ll stop. I hate people who do that.”
“That?”
“Pimping stuff on people who’ve given up. And I’m not even a smoker.” He laughed and sipped. “Then at least it would be some fucked-up resentment at your success in quitting. I must just generally resent you. Malicious little bastard I am.” He laughed.
“Look, I’m sorry about, you know, jumping in like that…”
“I just think we need protocols. I don’t want you to think—”
“I appreciate that.”
“Alright,