“Black people? How interesting. I have only heard stories. They actually exist?”

“Yes, yaa Sidi,” said Ieneth.

“And how did she learn the tongue? And you, also, for that matter?”

Ieneth closed her eyes, fluttering her painted lashes, and smiled.

Ernst turned to Ua. “What is this called?” he said, pointing to her foot. Ieneth translated, and Ua replied.

“Mguu,” she said.

“And this?” said Ernst, pointing now to her ankle.

“Kifundo cha mguu.”

“What is this?”

“Jicho.” Eye.

“How do you say ‘mouth’?”

“Kinywa.”

Ernst sipped his drink nervously, although he labored to seem casual and urbane. “This?” he asked.

“Mkono.” Arm.

“This?” Ernst’s fingers lingered on her breast, feeling the rough material of the brassiere beneath the cotton blouse.

Ua blushed. “Ziwa,” she whispered.

“She is indeed very lovely,” Ernst said.

“And worthy of reward for her, ah, agent?” asked Ieneth.

“Certainly,” said Ernst absently, as he moved his hand down past Ua’s stomach, stopping at the juncture of her thighs. “Now, my love, what could this be?”

Ua said nothing, staring at the table. She blushed fiercely while she played with the base of her wineglass.

“Ask her what the word for this is,” he said. Ieneth did so.

“Mkunga,” Ua said at last, removing Ernst’s hand.

Ieneth laughed shrilly, clapping her hands. Tears ran down her cheeks as she rose from her seat. “Ah, your cosmopolitan tastes!” she said.

“What is so amusing?” asked Ernst.

“Mkunga!” said Ieneth. “Mkunga is the word for ‘eel’ Oh, enjoy your hour together, yaa Sidi. You and she will have much to discuss!” And she went out of the cafe, laughing as she walked away from Ernst’s disconcerted and savage glare.

It was late afternoon, and already the sun was melting behind the hotel across the street. Ernst sipped wine now, for he appreciated the effect of the slanting sun’s rays on the rich, dark liquid. He had discovered this by accident when he had first come to the city, strolling along the walled quarter’s single, huge avenue. He had seen the red shimmers reflecting on the impassive face of a shopworn working girl. How much better, he had thought then, how much better it would be to have that singularly fortunate play of light grace a true poet.

“It may be a bit naive of me, nonetheless,” he thought. “After all, if these loiterers of the city lack the verbal sophistication to appreciate the verses themselves, how can I expect them to have any greater regard for the wielder of the pen? But I must defeat that argument by ignoring it if by no more rigorous means. I cannot allow myself to be pulled down into the intellectual miasma of these Afric prisoners. The sun must burn out all wonder and delight at an early age; it is only we unlucky travelers who can deplore their sand-worn ignorance.” He took some more of the wine and held it in his mouth until he began to feel foolish. He swallowed it and pushed the glass away.

While Ernst sat there, sucking the taste of the wine from his teeth, a young boy walked by on the sidewalk. He was small, nearly hairless, and quite obviously had strayed from the neighborhood of his parents. He stopped when he saw Ernst. “Are you not Weinraub the wanderer, from Europe?”

“I am,” said Ernst. “I have been, for some time. Has my fame then spread as far as your unwashed ears?”

“I have heard much about you, yaa Sidi,” said the boy. “I never believed that I’d really see you.”

“And are your dreams confirmed?”

“Not yet,” said the boy, shaking his head. “Do you really kiss other men?”

Ernst spat at the boy, and the dark boy laughed, dancing into the street, hopping back on the sidewalk. “Come here,” said Ernst, “and I’ll wrap this chair around your skinny neck.”

“It was only a joke, yaa Sidi,” said the boy, not the least afraid.

“A joke. How old are you?”

“I am nine, yaa Sidi.”

“Then you should know the danger of mocking your betters. I have the power to do you great harm: I may draw a picture of you. I may touch you with my left hand. Your mother will beat you dead when she hears.”

“You are wrong,” said the boy, laughing again. “You are a Nazarene, yes, or a Jew. But I am no rug-squatter. Touch me with your left hand, yaa Sidi, and I will gnaw it off. Do you wish me to fetch your supper? I will not charge you this time.”

“I tend to doubt your offer. In any event, I have a regular boy who brings my food. What is your name, you young criminal?”

“I am Kebap,” said the boy. “It means ‘roast beef in the language of Turkey.”

“I can see why,” said Ernst dryly. “You will have to work hard to take the place of my regular boy, if you want this job.”

“I am sorry,” said Kebap. “I have no wish to perform that kind of service.” Then he ran away, shouting insults over his shoulder.

Ernst stared after him, his fists clenching. “Ieneth will pay for her joke,” he thought. “If only I could find a vulnerable spot in these people. Without possessions, inured against discomfort, hoping for nothing, they are difficult indeed to punish. Perhaps that is the reason I have stayed in this capital of lice so long. No other reason comes quickly to mind.”

He sipped his wine and stared at the smudged handwriting on a scrap of paper: an ebauche of his trilogy of novels. He had done the rough outline so long ago that he had forgotten its point. But he was certain that the reflected light from the wineglass shifted to good effect on the yellowed paper, too.

“This was the trilogy that was going to make my reputation,” thought Ernst sadly. “I remember how I had planned to dedicate the first volume to Eugenie, the second to Marie, and the third…? I can’t remember, after all. It has been a long time. I cannot even recall the characters. Ah, yes, here. I had stolen that outstanding, virtuous fool, d’Aubont, put a chevalier’s outfit on him, taken off his mustache, and renamed him Gerhardt Friedlos. How the fluttering feminine hearts of Germany, Carbba, France, and England were to embrace him, if hearts are capable of such a dexterous feat. Friedlos. Now I remember. And there is no further mystery as to why I can’t recall the plot. It was nothing. Mere slashings of rapier, mere wooings of maid, mere tauntings of coward. One thousand pages of adolescent dreams, just to restore my manly figure. Beyond the dedications, did I not also represent Eugenie and Marie with fictional characters? I cannot read this scrawl. Ah, yes. Eugenie is disguised in volume one as the red-haired Marchioness Fajra. She is consumed in a horrible holocaust as her outraged tenants wreak their just revenge. Friedlos observes the distressing scene with mixed emotions. In volume two, he consoles himself with the contrasting charms of Marie, known in my novel as the maid Malvarma, who pitiably froze to death on the great plain of Breulandy rather than acknowledge her secret love. Friedlos comes upon her blue and twisted corpse and grieves. I am happy, I am very, very-happy that I never wrote that trash.”

Ernst took his short, fat pencil and wrote in the narrow spaces left to him on the scrap. My scalp itches, he wrote. When I scratch it, I break open half-healed sores. I have a headache; behind my right eye my brain throbs. My ears are blocked, and the canals are swollen deep inside, as though large pegs had been hammered into them. My nostrils drip constantly, and the front of my face feels as if it has been filled with sand. My gums bleed, and my teeth communicate with stabbing pains. My tongue is still scalded from the morning tea. My throat is dry and sore. This catalogue continued down the margins of the paper, and down his body, to end with, My arches cramp up at regular intervals, whenever I think about them. My toes are cut and painful on the bottom and fungused and itching between. And now I believe that it pains me to piss. But this last symptom bears watching; it is not confirmed.