I was waiting in the patio, all steamed up to go. I looked at my watch. It was eight thirty-one and ten seconds.
The car had left on time, sliding smoothly out onto the road, running very quietly in the night.
Eight thirty-two. No signal to come.
I began to pace. I was very eager to get going, in no mind whatever to suffer through delay.
Eight thirty-six. No signal to come.
I paced faster.
This was cruel. I was beginning to ache.
Eight forty-six. No signal to come.
What could be keeping them? Had the girl said no? Oh, if she knew what Prahd had given me she would certainly never say no! Maybe I should have given Ahmed a portrait of it.
But never mind. After this once, word would get around!
Eight fifty-one. Still no signal to come!
I was beginning to perspire. My hands were shaking.
Eight fifty-nine. No call as yet!
Nine o’clock.
THE HORN!
It blasted hard as an earthquake!
I went out of there like a racehorse from the starting gate.
Racehorses, however, usually don’t run into camel drivers, nor camels, or donkeys, either. I did. For some reason, the farmers along that road must have decided it was a superhighway. Caravan after caravan, lanterns bobbing in the moonlight, was choking the thoroughfare with slow-moving, evil-smelling traffic. Drivers fended me off with sticks and even a camel took a nip at me.
I dived into a ditch to avoid the lashing heels of a donkey and looked wildly about for the Daimler-Benz.
Anxiously, thrusting caravans out of my road with threatening yells, I rushed on.
Just short of the cedar tree, I ran into Ahmed. He stopped me. It was moonlight. The car was very visible from the road. You could even see the eagle on the door. The dome light showed there was somebody inside.
“What was this delay!?” I said, trying to get away from him and to the car.
“She is a new girl. An untried maiden. She was shy. I had to convince her all over again when she got here. It took both old Ters and myself to keep her from bolting. But we convinced her. Let me introduce you.”
He took me to the car.
I pushed an inquiring camel out of the way and got the door open.
Reclining on the ledge under her cloak, still veiled, dimly seen by the dome light, a woman lay.
“Blank Hanim,” said Ahmed. “This is Sultan Bey.” He pointed his finger at her. “Remember what I told you and be good. You please him, you hear me?”
Her eyes were big as saucers above the veil. I heard her swallow convulsively. A good sign.
I started to get in but a camel thought my coattail was edible and pulled me back.
I whirled to free myself. I cocked a fist, but a donkey was standing there. I thought better of it.
“Get in, get in!” said Ahmed. “Don’t be shy. She’s all yours!”
“Get these beasts out of here!” I yelled at him. “I don’t want any (bleepety-bleep) audience! And you get out of here, too! I’m shy!”
“Oh, well, if you say so,” Ahmed said. He helped me in and banged the door.
Unfortunately, when he slammed it, the side curtain rolled up. I turned to yell at him to be careful of the car and found I was staring at a camel’s face. I tried to get the curtain down: the bottom snap had parted. After two tries, I gave up. To Hells with the camel. I had more interesting things to do!
The woman’s great black eyes were pools of passion—or terror. I did not bother to decide which.
With a ripping yank, I got the veil off her face.
“O Allah,” she said.
She was beautiful.
I started to get out of my clothes.
“O Allah,” she said.
There was a tap at the window. I faced it in a rage. A donkey was standing there, staring.
I rolled down the window.
I still held the veil. I hit him in the face with it.
He deafened me with a bray.
He didn’t go away.
To Hells with him.
I grabbed the woman.
“O ALLAH!” she screamed.
The car springs began to rock.
“OOOO ALLLLLLLAAAAAAAH!” screamed the woman.
The moonlit world went into a spin for me.
There was a hissing sound. I listened to it a while.
I looked up.
The donkey and two camels were looking in the window.
I yelled at them.
They raced away.
The hissing sound continued.
I realized a car tire was going flat.
To Hells with it.
Once more the car springs began to rock.
The sound of the woman’s voice racketed clear to the road. “I’m drowning! I’m drowning!” The caravans dodged.
A camel driver came up to the car. He saw the springs rocking.
He stuck his head in the window.
“O Allah!” he said.
I was able to sit up again. I saw what the trouble was. The dome light was still on. I reached over and hit it savagely. It went off.
The camel driver raised his lantern up, flooding the interior again with light.
I grabbed the woman’s cloak and threw it in his face.
I got busy again.
Above the squeak of car springs, I could hear him outside talking.
To Hells with them.
“O ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!” screamed the woman.
It was dark and it was quiet.
There seemed to be a chinking sound.
I looked out of the window.
A donkey and three camels were standing there. The chinking was from their bridles as they chewed the woman’s cloak. An entirely different camel driver was trying to get it away from them. He succeeded, put it under his arm and walked off.
The donkey and three camels all tried to get their noses through the window.
I was too tired to argue with them. I climbed over the front seat back and got out of the other side of the car. I hadn’t fastened my belt buckle and I tripped.
I stumbled around the car and tried to shoo the onlookers away. They ignored me. Then I shrugged. Let the animals gratify their voyeur tendencies: it had been great.
Ters appeared from somewhere and gave vent to his evil laugh.
Not even that fazed me.
Ters saw that a tire was flat, got out a pressure can with goo and inflated it.
He got in the car, gave another evil laugh and drove off.
In the back window, lit by moonlight, I could see the woman staring back at me. She had a very beseeching look.
Ah, I thought triumphantly, there goes a VERY satisfied female!
Despite all the disturbance, it had been quite a night!
PART THIRTY-NINE
Chapter 8
The very next night was quite similar to the first. The half-hour delay was the same. This girl looked a little plumper and a little older. She seemed, however, strangely tired and wan when I arrived.
The caravan traffic was even more intense and its interest in the car was just as great, but I did not let little things bother me. I am the sort of man who stays right on course, regardless of minor disturbances, and gets the job done.
The only major difference between the first and second nights was that a donkey, since the window had stuck open, reached right in and nipped me. I got rid of him with a punch in the nose.
But Ters had at last driven the second woman away with her staring out the rear window, her eyes and gestures pleading. I felt I was really making a hit!
The third night had some variation. Some camel drivers had built a campfire near the car and were sitting around it. The red eagles and the gold letters of my name were really prominent in the leaping firelight.
Ahmed came to me where I eagerly waited, just outside the gate before he blew his horn.
“I’ve got to get rid
of them first,” he told me. “Give me a few lira and go back inside the villa compound: these rendezvous of yours are secret and mustn’t be seen.”
I did as he told me. An awful lot of time passed: another half-hour. Eventually the horn was sounded. I rushed out again.
The fire that had been flaming there was almost out: just a few sparks remained.
“What was the delay?” I demanded. “Those camel drivers are long gone!”
“It’s the woman,” Ahmed said. “She’s a very virtuous girl, this one. Terrified of her reputation. When we arrived and she spotted the camel drivers and fire, she fainted. It took us until just now to bring her to!”
I was eager to get down to business and leaped into the car. But they hadn’t done a very good job in bringing her around. She still seemed to be unconscious.
I yanked the veil off her face. This third one had a tawny complexion. She seemed to be quite young. Then I saw that tears were running out of her eyes.
I understood at once. She had just worn herself out in the eagerness of waiting.
Well, here was one that wasn’t waiting!
The car springs began to rock.
“O Allah!” sobbed the girl.
After a while, I heard an evil laugh. I saw that Ters was standing, leaning against the tree, watching the road.
A passing caravan suddenly veered when the girl screamed “O ALLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAH!”
A little later, I looked up and Ters was actually herding some camels and donkeys closer to the car!
“Get them away from here!” I screamed at him. “How can I concentrate!”
“The animals hide the car!” said Ters. “Ahmed said it must be secret.” He gave his evil laugh.
But even so, despite the camels, the evening came off all right.
And once more Ters drove away with the girl looking out the back window, the moonlight plainly lighting the pleading look she was giving me.
Contented, I knew I was really a hit amongst hits! Every night, that same beseeching look. These women must be going absolutely insane over me!
What a beautiful idea, the car and the women!
All the third morning, I slept a dreamless sleep. I awoke and had a bounteous breakfast served by a cringing staff. Totally enjoyable.
Torgut, who was standing there with a club in his hand in case the waiter tried to get off his knees, asked, however, an unfortunate question. “Will it be the same schedule tonight, O Master?” he said.
I was about to say yes when a thought suddenly struck me. I must be almost out of money!
I rushed to my safe.
Fatality! I didn’t have two hundred thousand lira left!
However, that was soon handled. I was a very rich Gris and had not drawn my million-lira allowance for the week.
I dressed in a purple silk shirt and a charcoal suit with purple pinstripes. I put on my bearskin coat and my karakul hat. Because I would be carrying money, I picked the FIE shotgun out of the case and checked its load.
Word had been taken to Ters. The Daimler-Benz was already warming up.
The back seat was all cleaned up. I got in. He closed the door. He got under the wheel. He gave his evil laugh. I shuddered at it a little bit but away we went.
We tore along the road remarkably fast. We spilled a camel load of opium and it cheered me greatly when the donkey who had been leading the camel bucked and brayed. It was a beautiful if bitterly cold day. And that little drama made it perfect. Nobody was going to argue with this huge, bulletproof limousine and its red eagles!
We blocked the traffic before the Piastre Bankasi Branch in Afyon and I went in.
The teller recognized me on sight. He called the manager. The manager beckoned me into his office and set a chair for me.
“Mudur Zengin in Istanbul asked for you to call when you came in,” he said. “If you . . .”
“I don’t want to talk to Zengin,” I said. “I just want my million-lira allowance for the week. I can’t send a messenger, you know. Only I can pick it up.”
“Please,” he said.
He got Mudur Zengin on the phone quite quickly for Turkey. I put the shotgun down on a chair and took the proffered instrument.
“Hello, Zengin,” I said. “I trust there’s no hanky-panky about my weekly allowance.”
“No,” said Mudur Zengin. “That is, not at the moment. I wanted to tell you personally and in confidence that your concubine is not following your orders completely. While all purchases have stopped elsewhere, they are still coming in from the Bonbucks Teller Central Purchasing agent on the Squeeza credit card. We’ve just gotten one here for nearly a hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”
“Look at the date,” I said. “I think you will find it predates my orders to her. They simply sent it in late.” (Bleep) that Krak!
“Do you mind if I call Squeeza on the other phone? They did not give me the exact date of invoice at the store.”
Go ahead, I thought. That’s pretty ancient history.
He came back on. “You were right about the date of that one. But what they told me was correct. They have quite a few coming in since. They are small. But they exist. Your concubine has not obeyed your orders and is still purchasing, evidently by phone to New York.” (Bleep), (bleep), (bleep) that Krak!
“I wanted to be sure you knew,” said Zengin. “You see, this pulls down the amount of money I can invest from the sums you left me and if it keeps up, it will reduce the allowance. In fact, it already has. And I can only authorize eight hundred thousand this week to protect your capital here. Unless, of course, you wish to drive up and give me further money, which I don’t advise.”
“(Bleep), (bleep), (bleep), (bleep), (bleep) that Krak!” I inadvertently said aloud.
“I beg your pardon?” said Zengin.
“It’s just that I’m mad at the concubine,” I said.
“Well, I would advise you to really get onto her about it,” said Zengin.
I couldn’t. And if I went to Istanbul I would miss a night of ecstasy. And I could see Zengin pulling down my deposit box to grains of dust.
“Authorize the eight hundred thousand,” I snarled. I handed the phone to the manager and Zengin did.
I went home with my slightly lesser bale of lira. I put it in the safe. It was only four days’ worth.
I tried to reason with the taxi driver when he came at six. “You’ve got to get a cheaper rate!” I said.
He stood there, staring at me. “Boss, I know for a fact that you have no complaints at all. That’s because the merchandise is such top quality.” He shook his head. “No, I cannot let you cheapen your delight.”
“Listen,” I said. “Those first three girls were over the wall about me. They were looking through the back window when they drove away. Why can’t you persuade one of them to come back?”
“Alas,” he said, “that parting glance you see is the look of forlorn, never-never again. They were taken back to their homes. They have their dowries now. And I know very well you don’t want to marry one of them.”
I turned ice-cold at the very thought of marriage. It sends shivers of horror through me anytime I hear the word.
“Did you know that that first girl was married just today? To a fine young fellow. And the second girl is now going to go away to join her sweetheart who is an immigrant worker in Germany. That’s what we’re up against: prior commitments. That’s the only type I can get. We could, however, cut it down to once a week. . . .”
“No!” I shouted. “Never! Here’s a girl’s two hundred thousand for tonight. And get one who is less tired to begin with. They are cheating me with the first go. The following ones are okay, but that first one needs pepping up.”
He rushed off in a blast of Citroen smoke.
And that night, again half an hour late, I was back under the cedar tree with a sloe-eyed creature, dusky in the dim light of the limousine. Tired out at the start but gathering energy as we engaged, she tried to claw my eyes out as we
progressed. She screamed “Allah!” so loud that at the night’s end I hardly heard the old man’s evil laugh.
And so the nights flowed on. Woman after woman. All a half-hour late. All different. All tired at the start. All soon desperate and clawing. All soon screaming “Allah.” And all of them looking pleadingly out the window as they drove away.
My calls at the bank had to become more frequent. The allowance got reduced to six hundred and then to four hundred. And finally, I was calling the bank every day.
“You’re eating into your capital like a buzz saw,” Zengin said. “You’re spending one million four hundred thousand lira a week and the branch manager tells me you also have some local gasoline bills and other things you’ll have to pay. That concubine keeps buying flowers and theater tickets in New York. You should take a whip to her!”
Oh Gods, if I only dared take a whip to Krak!
“Let it eat into the capital and be (bleeped) to it,” I said. “I must have a minimum of two hundred thousand lira a night!”
“Then, as your banker,” he said, “I advise you to come to Istanbul and open your box. If you give me another million dollars, I can get you an income like that and you won’t be slicing capital away, which is the height of folly.”
“I can’t spare the time!” I said.
He hung up.
And so the days passed, with, oh, those lovely nights. A new woman every time! Fat and thin, tall and short, but all of them all woman! At first every one seemed totally limp, but soon enough they were frantic. All they ever said was “O Allah!” and “I’m drowning!” But not even curious animals could distract me from my duty.
And every night, without exception, when they were driven away by the evilly laughing Ters, they had the same beseeching look.
I hadn’t realized how the time was passing until I saw a bud on a shrub one day. Was it actually moving into spring?
But not for me. Suddenly, without any slightest forehint, my dearest dreams turned into horror, my connections disconnected into a tangle of terror and my whole life came unstuck. All in the torture of slow motion like you see a proud building coming down to land at last in a heap of shuddering rubble.
Fate had only been toying with me. And with the planet.
PART FORTY
Chapter 1
It was midafternoon where I was. I had very little to do. I wandered into my secret room and was struck with the whim that, like Roman emperors of old, I might enjoy the suffering of those who were about to die in the arena.