Devil’s Harvest by Andrew Brown

Symington, resurrecting the dull narrative that had been interrupted. Jane turned around and made her way towards the toilets. There was a clear opening of the floor around Gabriel, as if he had suddenly developed a nasty lesion on his forehead. Even Hargreaves seemed uncertain whether to publicly confess his acquaintance, staring down at the floor over the abyss of his shirt.
    ‘Bloody hell,’ his colleague whimpered before downing his wine as well, the corners of his mouth stained with acidic claret.
    * * *
    The meal was not a success. By the time everyone had finished their limp Caesar salad starter, the lasagne was unbearably stodgy, as if reheated in a deli under lights. The steamed vegetables – factory-cut carrots and beans – added colour but did little to salvage the culinary failure that was the preprepared English meal.
    Gabriel had tried to steer clear of the diminutive visitor, but ended up diagonally across the table, catching the twinkle in his tormentor’s eyes as he pulled his chair in. Jane, disloyally he felt, had wangled her way next to the exotic guest, launching into an animated debate about Sharia law and the restrictions on women. Under normal circumstances, her face would have flushed as she pounded the moral high ground, the picture of the modern suffragette aggrieved by the obstinacy of male domination. But the slight professor had her wide-eyed and enthralled. Even when she disagreed she kept bobbing her head up and down in a most unJane-like fashion. Gabriel was particularly annoyed to see that she’d left her wine glass at the bar and was now drinking water.
    Gabriel took a gulp of his own claret before striking up a jolly conversation with his neighbour, an awkward senior lecturer named Coxley, who punctuated his speech with bursts of laughter like gunfire from a trench. The discussion was strained, and Coxley was clearly distracted by the proximity of the acerbic Sudanese guest. His eyes kept leaving Gabriel and flitting to the other side of the table. Gabriel was himself unsettled, no longer the aspirant head of department, the leader conducting the university’s most significant international research, but a bumptious and snivelling competitor, reduced to the sidelines. It was outrageous. He had to reclaim his domain; he was, after all, on home ground. He drained his glass and did not refuse Coxley’s offer to refill it. Coxley laughed as if he had said something amusing, spraying unidentifiable bits of food in a defensive perimeter.
    Gabriel turned his attention back to his wife and the evening’s guest. Ismail was explaining aspects of the apparently complicated Sudanese north–south politics to an attentive Jane.
    ‘Washington is desperate to buy President al-Bashir’s assistance to get the South onto its feet, promising an end to sanctions, the renewal of foreign aid, even taking my country off that scandalous terrorist list. But it’s hopeless. The South is … how do you say, our mirror side? The sun shines on us and casts the South as our shadow: we are wealthy, sophisticated, devout believers, while they’re poor, primitive and heathen.
Ajam
. And the problem with the paganists is getting them to follow any social rules; there’s so little incentive.’ Ismail gave a little laugh, as if to himself alone. ‘The South will never survive on its own. We call them
awlad al-gharb
– the lost children of the West.’
    ‘That’s not what we hear over here,’ Jane responded, her tone not the least bit confrontational. ‘The division is seen as a brave break from old colonial boundaries.’
    ‘That’s what I would expect. The truth is we only let them secede as a payment … a little bribe perhaps, yes? To the West. And yet the SPLM-N rebels are allowed to operate from this new country against us. This
separation
is nothing but America’s opportunity to destabilise a Muslim country, as they did in Syria and Iran.’ Ismail turned to Gabriel. ‘What do you say,