Louis by Derek Haines (reading comprehension books TXT) 📕

s


By Derek Haines


PUBLISHED BY:
Derek Haines on Createspace

Louis
Copyright © 2010 by Derek Haines


Chapters

Foreword
Chapter 1 Dying Time
Chapter 2 Teremun
Chapter 3 Charles
Chapter 4 Hidayah
Chapter 5 Dulwich
Chapter 6 Secrets
Chapter 7 War’s End
Chapter 8 Oxford
Chapter 9 Hamal
Chapter 10 The Book
Chapter 11 Service
Chapter 12 Weston-Super-Mare
Chapter 13 Roland
Chapter 14 Paris
Chapter 15 Robert’s War
Chapter 16 Over The Border
Chapter 17 The Prey
Chapter 18 The London Years
Chapter 19 Palestine
Chapter 20 The Green Line
Chapter 21 Fariq’s Fall
Chapter 22 The Cold Desk
Chapter 23 Sifal
Chapter 24 Over And Out
Chapter 25 Decisions
Chapter 26 Slowly, Slowly.
Chapter 27 To The Grave
About the Author
Foreword

This book is a work of fiction. A fictional story about a man who was my friend. As a child and a young teenager he would tell me stories. Mysterious tales of far off lands and people. Singing mysterious songs in mysterious languages. At the time, I had not heard of the word enigma, but now I know my friend Louis was exactly that. 

Louis never lied to me. Only telling me what he wanted to tell me, but somehow always managing to slide around a part of a story that would have possibly necessitated at least a white lie. At around eleven years old, I clearly remember asking him with a child’s innocence if he had ever killed anyone. He replied that the subject of death should never be discussed by people who did not drink brandy.

At thirteen, I tried my first brandy. Louis laughed and laughed as I choked and spluttered on my first ever small mouthful. It tasted vile, and burnt my lips, tongue mouth and throat. Not one to give in easily, I tried again some weeks later, finding that very small sips rolled around my mouth until enough saliva developed to be able to swallow helped. I still choked from time to time. And Louis laughed roundly every time.

He never did answer my question directly, but did show me his 1929 Smith & Wesson .38 though. 

With his horse tail flapping from side to side to keep the flies at bay, Louis and I passed many, many afternoons together. For a young innocent country boy, he was my only route to the wonders of the world outside my little country town.

He taught me how to imagine. 

It is now nearly forty years since my dear friend died. The right time to tell his story from the corridors of my imagination. So Louis is not forgotten.


There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.
Traditional


Dying Time

Hospitals smell. 

Antiseptic, bleach, fresh paint, bandages, chemicals and death. In an intensive care ward it is worse. Cleaner. More antiseptic. More death. Catheters pushed painfully into collapsed veins in the back of dying hands. Tubes, machines, oscilloscopes, beeps, monitors, syringes, nurses with false smiles, giving false hope. 

For an old man, there was little hope of leaving. Being catheterised, wired, tubed, needled, monitored, tired and unable to move from his uncomfortable death bed, he knew his time had come. He just had to wait patiently.

His face did not look like the face of a dying man. His portly physique puffed his face just enough to avoid wrinkles. His bald head shining as it always had. His hair, in a ring from ear to ear at the back of his head was still dark, even if touched with a little grey now. His thick black moustache was still black and thick though. He wondered how long it had been since he had trimmed it. Every three days was his routine. He didn’t have a mirror to check if it needed trimming. An olive complexion hides age well. Although covered by a sheet and light blanket, his pot belly stomach was very noticeable. He had never tried to lose his belly. It was a sign of wealth and well being for him.

Unlike other patients in this intensive care ward, he looked very alive. No outward signs of imminent death. No sign of a wrinkling, grey skin or loss of consciousness. His dark brown eyes still held their ability to stare, interrogate, scare and befriend. His smile did not work, but then again, it never really had since his childhood. It was his heart that was letting him down. Until two days ago, it had worked as it always had. Overtime. Keeping his portly frame alive and well as he pushed it to its limit. As he had always done. One sharp pain in his chest, and a rapid loss of consciousness signalled his impending demise. 

His wife and neighbour had acted quickly and called an ambulance that also reacted quickly. Thinking now that it probably would have been better if no one had acted so quickly. What was the point in prolonging the inevitable? He knew he would not survive, and the time he had been given was only useful to think, remember and file his life in his mind before it was wiped clean by death.

With the time to contemplate, one’s looming demise gives the opportunity to cleanse yourself. Admit to wrongs and guilt. Make a death bed statement. Solve the secrets for the living. Answer the questions they have been too afraid to ask. Ask for a priest and admit your sins. Tell the people you love that you love them. Forgive the ones who have wronged you.

He wasn’t sure he should or could do any of these things. His secrets were for the grave, and had been paid well to ensure they were. But he wondered about the secrets he wasn’t paid to keep. Should he tell those close to him who he was, and wasn’t? Did he even know all the answers himself? Should he tell his wife who he really was? The name she had married was only one of his names. And did he really know who he was himself anyway?

Too many years had passed to remember in detail. 

And what of the secrets that had been kept from him? Too late now to discover the truth. He resigned himself to dying without answers. It didn’t really matter anyway. Who would care?

He remembered that he had always liked to believe he was born in 1899. There was never any certificate to prove or disprove it. He was never sure of the day and month, but in his own mind he had made his birthday the first of April when he was in his teens but didn’t know at the time that this was a foolish day to choose.

He wondered what his wife had given the hospital. What certificates or passports or ID papers? Who did they think he was? His ability to speak was just starting to desert him, so he thought it would be too difficult to ask a nurse and start a long conversation. He was comforted though after having seen his chart when the nurses took his temperature and blood pressure. The name was correct at least. It was name that was born in England in 1902. Not Cairo in 1904.

When he arrived in 1962, he had tried to ensure all his records matched his immigrant identity and hoped that his employers had done the same. But he knew there was no guarantee. Not that it really mattered now. He was dying. He thought about his grave stone. 1902 - 1973. So he would die at seventy-one years old in a place a long way from his past.

The past. He knew who his father was. But had never met him. He didn’t know who his real mother was. He only knew his adopted mother. He tried to remember the last time he had seen her. It was during the first war, so it must have been around 1916 in Cairo. He tried to picture her face. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t anymore.

He tried to remember his friends. There were many, many people he had known through his life, but few he could call friends. Few of them were alive anyway. It was easier to recall his enemies. Of these there were many and probably still very much alive. He counted his luck that he had made it to his death bed without any finding him. At least his death would be natural.

His mind moved back to when he had first arrived here. That first night. Remembering how terrified he was. How he couldn’t sleep that first night without the assurance of a revolver under his pillow. He had always fallen asleep with the comforting metallic smell of his revolver near his nostrils. There were no weapons now. No enemies to fear, hopefully. It was the first night of his new life in May of 1962. New identity. New country. New lies. New reasons to live out his life. New people to convince. 

Secrets. It now seemed they were so easy to keep. Not long until they were buried with him. He thought of his wife. Coming daily and sitting quietly with him for two hours exactly. She was always one for routines. 

Were there any secrets she should know? That he had killed, stolen, betrayed and lied for most of his life? No. His books? Maybe. Father? No. Mother? Maybe. He felt she deserved something more for her loyalty, respect and discretion.

Maybe tomorrow he decided. For now he felt very tired.

Teremun

Teremun Fuad Pasha was too young to ponder mysteries. His dark hair curled slightly with a little humidity and his face broke into a smile in an instant. He was more round than tall but still managed to be athletic when expending his abundant energy, even though his short legs seemed to have to work double time to create the same pace as his young friends. Above all, his large bright brown eyes gave an impression of knowledge beyond his years. That look some children have of having been here before.

He had his mother, Hidayah, and she looked after him well. There was little if any family resemblance. She was tall and elegant with unusual grey-green eyes that contrasted with her habit of wearing red lipstick. Her hair was long and dark, but more brown than black. Her face was long with higher cheekbones than most Egyptian women. She didn’t walk. She floated, such was her elegance.

His early years passed as they do for any child. Without care. Terenum couldn’t judge at five years old how fortunate he was. It was not for him to question how his mother fed, clothed, educated and sheltered him in Cairo when much of the population lived in poverty or to know how fortunate he was to live in Zamalek, the northern quarter of an island in the Nile, a stone’s throw from Cairo centre. Under Khedive Ismail the Island was called Jardin des Plantes, because of its great collection of exotic plants shipped from all over the world. Their house was not large, but very comfortable with living quarters for two maids. He was also yet to discover that his name, Teremun, carried the meaning of ‘Loved by his Father’. All these discoveries were for the future.

Education had started very early. With