I felt a sudden nausea and closed my eyes. It was as if I weren’t really there, as if I were just dreaming this nightmare. When I opened my eyes, though, Indihar was still looking at me. It had all happened, and she and I were going to have to play out this terrible scene. “I—”
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry, you son of a bitch,” she said. Even then she didn’t raise her voice. “I don’t want to hear anybody tell me he’s sorry.”
I just sat there and let her say whatever she needed to say. She couldn’t accuse me of anything that I hadn’t already confessed to in my own mind. Maybe if I hadn’t gotten so drunk last night, maybe if I hadn’t taken all those sunnies this morning -
Finally she just stared at me, a look of despair on her face. She was condemning me with her presence and her silence. She knew and I knew, and that was enough. Then she turned and walked out of the club, her gait steady, her posture perfect.
I felt absolutely destroyed. I found the phone where Chiri’d left it and spoke my home commcode into it. It rang three times and then Kmuzu answered. “You want to come get me?” I said. I was slurring my words.
“Are you at Chiriga’s?” he asked.
“Yeah. Come quick before I kill myself.” I slapped the phone down on the bar and made myself another drink while I waited.
When he arrived, I had a little present for him. “Hold out your hand,” I said.
“What is it, yaa Sidi?”
I emptied my pillcase into his upturned palm, then clicked the pillcase closed and put it back in my pocket. “Get rid of ’em,” I said.
His expression didn’t change as he closed his fist. “This is wise,” he said.
“I’m way overdue.” I got up from my stool and followed him back into the cool night air. I locked the front door of Chiri’s and then let Kmuzu drive me home.
I took a long shower and let the hot needle spray blast my skin until I felt myself begin to relax. I dried off and went into my bedroom. Kmuzu had brought me a mug of strong hot chocolate. I sipped it gratefully.
“Will you be needing anything else tonight, yaa Sidi?” he asked.
“Listen,” I said, “I’m not going into the station house in the morning. Let me sleep, all right? I don’t want to be bothered. I don’t want to answer any phone calls or deal with anybody’s problems.”
“Unless the master of the house requires you,” said Kmuzu.
I sighed. “That goes without saying. Otherwise—”
“I will see that you’re not disturbed.”
I didn’t chip in the wake-up daddy before I went to bed, and I got a restless night’s sleep. Bad dreams woke me again and again until I fell into deep, exhausted sleep at dawn. It was close to noon when I finally got out of bed. I dressed in my old jeans and work shirt, a costume I didn’t wear very often around Friedlander Bey’s mansion.
“Would you like some breakfast, yaa Sidi?” asked Kmuzu.
“No, I’m taking a vacation from all that today.”
He frowned. “There is a business matter for your attention later.”
“Later,” I agreed. I went to the desk where I’d thrown my briefcase the night before, and took Wise Counselor from the rack of moddies. I thought my troubled mind could use some instant therapy. I seated myself in a comfortable black leather chair and chipped the moddy in.
Once upon a time in Mauretania there was or maybe there wasn’t a famous fool, trickster, and rascal named Marid Audran. One day Audran was driving his cream-colored Westphalian sedan on his way to take care of some important business, when another car collided with his. The second car was old and broken down, and although the accident was clearly the fault of the other driver, the man jumped out of the wrecked heap and began screaming at Audran. “Look what you’ve done to my magnificent vehicle!” shouted the driver, who was Police Lieutenant Hajjar. Reda Abu Adil, Hassan the Shiite, and Pauljawarski also got out of the car. All four threatened and abused Audran, although he protested that he had done nothing wrong.
Jawarski kicked the creased fender of Hajjar’s automobile. “It’s useless now,” he said, “and so the only fair thing is for you to give us your car.”
Audran was outnumbered four to one and it was clear that they were not in a mood to be reasonable, so he agreed.
“And will you not reward us for showing you the path of honor?” asked Hajjar.
“If we hadn’t insisted,” said Hassan, “your actions would have put your soul in jeopardy with Allah.”
“Perhaps,” said Audran. “What do you wish me to pay you for this service?”
Reda Abu Adil spread his hands as if it mattered little. “It is but a token, a symbol between Muslim brothers, ” he said. “You may give us each a hundred kiam.” So Audran handed the keys to his cream-colored Westphalian sedan to Lieutenant Hajjar, and paid each of the four a hundred kiam.
All afternoon, Audran pushed Hajjar’s wrecked car back to town in the hot sun. He parked it in the middle of the souk and went to find his friend, Saied the Half-Hajj. “You must help me get even with Hajjar, Abu Adil, Hassan, and Jawarski,” he said, and Saied was agreeable. Audran cut a hole in the floor of the derelict automobile, and Saied lay by the opening covered with a blanket so that none could see him, with a small bag of gold coins. Then Audran started the engine of the car and waited.
Not long after, the four villains happened by. They saw Audran sitting in the shade of the ruined automobile and laughed. “It won’t drive an inch!” mocked Jawarski. “What are you warming the engine for?”
Audran glanced up. “I have my reasons, “he said, and he smiled as if he had a wonderful secret.
“What reasons?” demanded Abu Adil. “Has the summer sun at last broiled your brains?”
Audran stood and stretched. “I guess I can tell you,” he said lightly. “After all, I owe my good fortune to you.”
“Good fortune?” asked Hajjar suspiciously.
“Come,” said Audran. “Look.” He led the four villains to the back of the car where the battery cap had been left open. “Piss in the battery,” he said.
“You’ve surely gone crazy,” said Jawarski.
“Then I will do it myself,” said Audran, and he did, relieving himself into the wreck’s battery. “Now we must wait a moment. There! Did you hear that?”
“I heard nothing,” said Hassan.
“Listen,” said Audran. And there came a gentle chink! chink! sound from beneath the car. “Take a look,” he commanded.
Reda Abu Adil got down on hands and knees, ignoring the dust and the indignity, and peered under the car. “May his faith be cursed!” he cried. “Gold!” He stretched out on the ground and reached under the car; when he straightened up again, he held a handful of gold coins. He showed them to his companions in amazement.
“Listen, “said Audran. And they all heard the chink! chink! of more gold coins falling to the ground.
“He pisses yellow into the car,” murmured Hassan, “and yellow gold falls from it.”
“May Allah let you prosper if you let me have my car back!” cried Lieutenant Hajjar.
“I’m afraid not,” said Audran.
“Take your goddamn cream-colored Westphalian sedan and we’ll call it a fair trade,” said Jawarski.
“I’m afraid not,” said Audran.
“We’ll each give you a hundred kiam as well,” said Abu Adil.
“I’m afraid not,” said Audran.
They begged and begged, and Audran refused. Finally they offered to give him back his sedan plus five hundred kiam from each of them, and he accepted. “But come back in an hour, “he said. “That’s still my piss in the battery. “And they agreed. Then Audran and Saied went off and divided their profit.
I yawned as I popped Wise Counselor out. I’d enjoyed the vision, except for seeing Hassan the Shiite, who was dead and who could stay dead for all I cared. I thought about what the little story might mean. It might mean that my unconscious mind was hard at work coming up with clever ways to outsmart my enemies. I was glad to learn this. I already knew that I wasn’t going to get anywhere by force. I didn’t have any. I felt subtly different after that session with Wise Counselor: more determined, maybe, but also wonderfully clear and free. I had a grim set to my jaw now and the sense that no one at all could impose restrictions on me. I’d been changed by Shaknahyi’s death, kicked up to a higher energy level. I felt as if I were living in pure oxygen, bright and clean and dangerously explosive.