3.1 The Paper Trail

They arrived at the parlour by seven on Idania’s motorbike, pulling up next to the prestigious Symphony Restaurant. Idania wore a violet sheath dress that seemed to dissolve against her brown skin in the evening light. She was an inch shorter than Zanat and equally slim. She was notorious for carrying oversize bags that practically contained an entire shop, sometimes even packed with local short eats. This time, it was a large brown tote bag tucked under her arm. Her face was so thin that her dark eyelashes stood out prominently. Zanat dressed in casual evening wear, wore a mint-green tent dress with noodle straps, her black handbag slung over her shoulder. Moha would have cooked in an oven like a pig if he saw her out in this dress.

By seven-twenty, they were receiving treatment on their hair, colouring and conditioning, both tucked in a private room and Idania talking incessantly.

“I would have taken a full body wax if I wasn’t so short of cash,” Idania lamented over the parlour hum.

“I’ve never done that,” Zanat confessed.

“We don’t have much time anyway,” Idania told her colleague. “Let’s just do the essentials!”

“You mean?”

“I mean the basics.”

They finished by eleven-thirty. After settling the bills, they walked out into the cool night air.

“While we’re here, I want to check La Parfum for a Gabbana,” Idania expressed. “We can dine afterward.”

La Parfum stood by the corner to the main street and they walked the short distance to the shop. Looking through the displays, Zanat decided to by a perfume too. She picked out a bottle of Gucci for seven hundred rufiya. At the counter, Zanat handed over two 500-rufiya notes. To her utter shock, both bills were immediately spat out by the electronic currency counter machine.

As bank employees, both girls stood completely stunned. The cashier politely returned the rejected notes. Zanat hurriedly dug into her bag and produced her debit card to settle the bill instead.

“I think I know where I got those notes,” Zanat whispered as they left the shop.

“Where?” asked Idania, leaning in close.

“A date,” Zanat replied evasively. “I actually have one more 500-rufiya note left from that bundle. We will verify these tomorrow using the high-grade machines at the bank.”

Zanat realised with a jolt that she had used the exact same batch of money to pay the parlour bill earlier. The currency counter machines at these high-end shops were incredibly sophisticated.

They had dinner at Symphony Restaurant.

It was one-thirty in the morning by the time she entered her bedroom. She dropped her black shoulder bag onto the dressing table, carefully placed her mobile phone beside it and retrieved the rejected banknotes. Moving towards her bed, she lay down and reached for the secure landline telephone on the side table, dialling Bacca’s number.

Lately, Moha had been demanding the PIN to her mobile phone to scrutinise her logs, so she purposefully avoided using her mobile phone for these kinds of calls. She simply could not wait until morning to use a secure line from the bank.

Bacca answered on his mobile, “Hey slinky! I’m not even in Malé right now. I bet you can’t sleep!”

“Bacca, it’s about the money you gave me,” Zanat told him, keeping her voice to a low whisper. “They’re all fake…machines won’t read them.”

“It can’t be!” he chuckled dismissively over the line. “You know how much I dream about having a mango squash!”

“Bacca, I’m being serious here!”

“Are you excited?”

“No.”

“Well, what is it then?”

“The money…it’s counterfeit!”

“I don’t care! Slinky, I just want to grab you!”

“I’m going to cut the line if you keep talking like that!”

“Hold on!” he said. “What about the money?”

“I went to a shop and their machine would not accept it.”

“Just bring the money back to me and I will swap them out for fresh ones. Is that okay?” Bacca reasoned. “I will be back in Malé on Saturday. I want to see how much you cash. Are you naked?”

“No.”

“Then why don’t you get comfortable, slinky?”

“I’m not your slinky!”

“There you are!” Bacca laughed. “Now you sound more like yourself.”

“One moment,” she said. Zanat quietly dropped the receiver onto the mattress and ran to lock the door. She placed a clean towel over the bedspread and jumped into it.

“Call me on Viber,” she heard him say.

“I can’t, I told you. I can’t use Viber. I’m sorry.”