John Goldfarb, Please Come Home

  “No luck with the pigskin crisis?” asked the President.

  “We’ve dummied up scientific analyses proving the luggage was really alligator. But Cronkite can’t even get into the palace compound. Any luck with Goldfarb?”

  The President shook his head. “Not a trace. Vanished—vanished.”

  There came an impatient rapping from the floor above. “When are you coming to bed?” shrilled the voice of a young woman.

  The President looked up at Sarajevo. “Good night, Deems.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  “Close the door quietly.” The President thumbed to his left, where Overreach lay dozing, sprawled on a leather couch; even in sleep he clutched his wrist watch protectively.

  Sarajevo nodded gravely at the President, then tiptoed to the door. As he opened it, the President spoke softly to his back. “Deems, I doubt that we’ll ever find Goldfarb alive. Have a citation prepared for the Medal of Honor.”

  “Posthumous?”

  “What did I just say?”

  “Posthumous.”

  “Thank you, Deems.” Sarajevo closed the door behind him.

  Overreach sat up with a start, rubbing his eyes. Then he stared at the President. “Boy—I just had the wildest dream, but it gives me a hell of an idea. Want to hear it?”

  “Go back to sleep.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  GOLDFARB CLUTCHED the football in outstretched hands. “This—is—a—football,” he enunciated painfully.

  “Dididafooball,” chorused the huddled dervishes of Fawz U., grinning toothlessly from beneath oversized helmets. Goldfarb stared at them without actually seeing them; on purpose. Their floppy, ill-fitting uniforms ran the spectrum of striped colors, and their beards were hopelessly entangled in chin straps.

  The U-2 pilot arched back his arm in a passing motion. “This—is—how—we—throw—it.” He tossed a bullet pass to a dervish near the center of the group.

  The dervishes, looking like Bantu spearmen, arched back their arms. “Dididhowatrowa,” they gurgled, and twenty-one hard-thrown footballs struck the coach on the head, neck, and shoulders. The twenty-first flew into the bleachers, where Fawz was conversing with Ammud. The volume was low on the King’s transistor, but the “Maine Stein Song” was nonetheless identifiable.

  “But Papa,” expostulated Ammud. “Goldfarb best player in whole world entire!”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” rattled Fawz. His mind was on Jenny Ericson and the evening’s frivolities. Position 67? he mused. Or 32? It was not an idle consideration, for he would enjoy her only once. He felt very strongly that familiarity bred contempt, and regarded his moderation in this regard as a striking demonstration of his deep sense of responsibility to his subjects. They wanted a king they could respect and he intended to give it to them, even if it meant nervous breakdown for Mahmoud, who was now prowling the Riviera.

  “So can coach better,” pressed Ammud.

  “Better, better, better; good, better, best.”

  “Papa!”

  “Hokay, hokay!” Fawz turned out the radio and eyed Ammud irritably. “So whatsamatta Agajanian?”

  “Who?”

  “Agajanian!”

  “Oh. Don’t know. But heart not in work.”

  “Eh?”

  “Mu mubsuut.”

  “Spik English! I am be, you is be, he is be!”

  “Coach not happy.”

  “Ahhhh!” glimmered Fawz, discovering Truth naked in his bed. “Man not happy, need only one t’ing!”

  “What?” asked Ammud.

  Fawz eyed him with disgust. “What il hell you loin in collitch? Need woman!”

  “Oh.”

  “You cuc-koo,” grumbled Fawz, mentally composing a letter to the London Times on the subject of misplaced emphasis in higher education. Then he beamed. “No worry,” he chuckled at Ammud; “Papa fix!”

  It was night and it was angry. The throne room reeked of spite.

  “There are limits!” warned Guz, shaking a finger up at the throne. “Why, to the average man on a jackass, the use of harem girls as—as cheerleaders will in itself seem scandalous beyond utterance! But that they should parade in public unveiled——!”

  Fawz fussed on his throne. “Ah, you fuddy-duddy t’ing,” he growled softly. He was beginning to regret ever permitting either his sons or his subjects to study in the West. It twisted their values. If he were not so tired he would come down off the throne and give his aide a sound kick in the posterior. Didn’t the fool know that genius was not to be constrained by normal standards and conventions? He pondered threatening Guz with cancellation of his Confidential subscription. Nag, nag, nag!

  “Your Majesty!” insisted Guz.

  “Agajanian!” bellowed Fawz.

  The U-2 pilot sat on the bottom step, his back to the King, posturing like Rodin’s “Thinker” in serious trouble. “Yes, Your Majesty.” He stared at his pointed shoes.

  “In America cheerleader wear veil?”

  “No, Your Majesty.”

  “Den finish!” snapped the King at his indignant aide.

  “But——”

  “Shurrup!” Fawz inclined his head to Ammud, who stood beside him, holding a clipboard. “What more?”

  Ammud consulted his list. “Got to pick color for pompon.”

  “Agajanian!” rattled the King. “You fix!”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “What more?” demanded Fawz.

  Ammud looked hesitant. “Got to pick president for Parents’ Guild.”

  “Pick, pick, pick! Who, who, who?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Den Samir!” barked Fawz, anxious to get on to another category. Guz choked and the King eyed him. “What wrong, smarty guy?”

  “A eunuch?” intoned Guz. “President of the Parents’ Guild?”

  “Who, den?” roared the King.

  “I don’t know!”

  “You!” commanded Fawz.

  Guz purpled but kept silent. He knew that look. But inwardly he seethed. Parents’ Guild. Football. Cheerleaders. Nasser for commencement speaker. The boy was turning the college of Koranic studies into an extracurricular madhouse. Already talk of schism was rending the veil of the mosque.

  “What more?” grunted Fawz impatiently at Ammud.

  “Got to have ‘Yell King.’”

  “What kink! Got kink!”

  “‘Yell King’ name of number-one cheerleader,” explained the prince.

  “Agajanian!” rumbled Fawz. “Is true rumor?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “We got?”

  “Got what?”

  “Hell kink, you cuckoo!”

  “‘Yell King,’” corrected Goldfarb.

  “Whatever!” sibbed Fawz. “We got?”

  The evening call to prayer floated up through the courtyard and into the throne room. Everyone froze. Then, “Got!” cackled Fawz triumphantly. “Agajanian! You fix!”

  Goldfarb’s expression was ultimately unreadable, but the droop of his left shoulder was alarming. Guz made an abortive effort to cough blood.

  The King winked hugely at Ammud and rubbed his hands together briskly like Alfred Dreyfus after being told by a leprechaun that he could have three wishes. “Now,” he gleed, “we make party-party for coach!” He waved an arm above his head and instantly the room throbbed with wild rhythms. Harem girls slithered in, wiggling past the throne, their bare feet slapping tile to the beat of oud and drum. Goldfarb kept his eyes on his shoes, mentally reconstructing the run into his own end zone and wondering why day is day, night, night. Jenny Ericson undulated past him, but saw only a turquoise robe that appeared to be weeping.

  “Agajanian!” called Fawz. “Take one girl! One—dat’s all!” One could never depend on Mahmoud, he reflected.

  Goldfarb raised his head; Jenny stumbled, recovered, and shimmied on with wild eyes. Goldfarb in turquoise robes—step!—Goldfarb is Agajanian—step!—Goldfarb, Jesus, help me—step!
r />   “Agajanian! Pick! Whatever!”

  “Your Majesty, let me put it this way,” began Goldfarb, but Guz was at his ear in a blur: “Oh, pick one, for goodness’ sake! Take her to your room and let her give you a back rub, if that’s all you want! But pick one! Cross the old boy and we’ll all feel his wrath!”

  “Okay, okay, okay!” Goldfarb turned to eye the dancers. Jenny writhed by him.

  “Pick me!” she croaked.

  Goldfarb watched her snaking away. Now there’s an eager beaver, he thought, finding himself bemused that there should be frustration in a harem. Claret coursed richly over the slick stones of memory and he remembered loneliness and desire. That tossing, honeyed hair. What was it about her that——?

  “Pick me!”

  Maybe too eager, thought Goldfarb. For sheer, unbridled fanaticism the gleam in her eye could be matched only by the matronly coordinators of authors’ luncheons.

  “Wrong-Way!” Goldfarb jumped as suddenly the dance ended and the girls prostrated themselves low before the steps, arms extended, faces down. ‘Wrong-Way’? Had she called him ‘Wrong-Way’?

  “Who da one?” glugged Fawz.

  “Well—I think I’d like—ouch!”

  Honeyed hair had squeezed his big toe. Who? What? Whence? Goldfarb put a hand on her head. “This one.”

  Fawz looked frimmled. “Dat one?”

  “This one.”

  “No!” pouted Fawz. “Take nudder!”

  Jenny jerked her head up. “Iceberg!” she hissed in terror.

  Goldfarb gaped. Look, look, Sally! Another mirage!

  “Take nudder one!” rumbled the King. “Dat one for me!”

  Aha! Oho! And, “I see,” intoned Goldfarb. He felt more than ever now that he was still stunned and dreaming by the wreckage of his U-2 plane and that momentarily he would be picked up by the nice men from the MVD. “Dat one for me!” None of this was real. And what was he to Hecuba or this nutty broad to him! Another of her cruel impersonations, was that it? Serve her right if she got plugged by old one-eye. Serve her right. But what if when she got out…? He looked into her terrified eyes. Then he turned to the King. “Your Majesty is going back on his word? You told me——”

  “Shurrup!”

  The King’s black look was Cyrano after being accused of having had his nose bobbed, and, permitting himself a sulk royal, he grumbled and sibbed in several colors of gas. Then he pulled a lever, banged angrily on a button, and with a whir of machinery the throne became a launching pad, rocketing him down the steps in his new golf cart. It had been designed for him by German scientists who had worked on the V-2 rocket at Peenemünde.

  Fawz clattered down to Goldfarb. “Hokay!” he thrust ungraciously. “But not for just make ta-ta-ta! Use goot! Not make upset for nuttink!” Then he gazed lewdly upon Jenny. “Tomorrow night, dollink!” And with a leer of anticipation, he speared across the room, droning. The golf cart emitted a shrill, steaming whistle, and two Nubians at the door lifted train tracks head-high, permitting him passage. He hurtled on through.

  Guz sighed with relief and clapped his hands. The dancers vanished. Goldfarb stood mesmerized, and it was a moment before he realized that Guz was speaking to him. “He means it—really means it about the ‘ta-ta-ta.’ He has an—inspection system. Look alive tonight, lad!”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  THE PRESIDENT frowned across stacks of newspapers at the head of the United States Information Agency. “Just prepare for the worst. If he was shot down—which is impossible—they might just have a case of the ‘cutes,’ waiting to spring him on us at a strategic moment.”

  “Of course, sir,” nodded Blaise Hus. “The radio and press arms are geared for any eventuality. Plan ‘A’ calls for a review of the history of spying, with emphasis on Soviet activities in this area. By the way, did you know that Christopher Marlowe was a spy in the service of the Queen?”

  “No,” said the President.

  “Well, I think so. Or I thought so. I’ll have Research check it again.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Oh, we’ve got all sorts of plans!”

  “Let’s hope we don’t have to use them,” said the President obscurely.

  “Deny everything and demand proof—that’s Plan ‘C.’”

  “What happened to Plan ‘B,’ Blaise?”

  “Oh—that’s the one where we blame everything on Pentagon warmongers.”

  “I told you,” exploded the President, “I’m taking the rap!”

  “Golly, that’s right. I must have——”

  “What else did you want to see me about, Blaise?”

  “I wish you’d call me ‘Uncle’ Blaise.”

  “What else, Blaise?”

  “Well—the ship.”

  “What ship?”

  “You know.”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “I sent through a staff study on it. Didn’t you see it?”

  “What did I just say?”

  “You didn’t see it.”

  “Splendid. Now tell me about the ship again, Blaise.”

  “Well—I mean, this is really a stroke, propagandawise! We’d like an old carrier or cruiser or something taken out of mothballs and converted into a floating Cinerama theater!” His eyes shone with inspiration. “See where I’m heading?”

  “Tell me about the ship, Blaise.”

  “This will knock your eyes out, sir! You see, we take aboard a raft of Cinerama movies and go from port to port all over the world—free admission! But all the time the audience thinks it’s watching Blue Hawaii or El Cid, we’re flashing subliminal messages like ‘AMERICA LOVES YOU—YOU LOVE AMERICA’ across the——”

  “That’s brainwashing!” screeched the President, leaping to his feet. “That’s what we’re fighting, you idiot!”

  “Gosh, that’s right. I never thought of that.”

  “Jesus, get out of here!”

  “I——”

  “Out!”

  Hus gulped. “They also serve,” he warbled with dignity, for it was the only quotation he could think of. He beat a hasty retreat.

  The President stared unreadably at the wall. “My university eggheads!” he rasped. “My college brain trust!”

  His brother sprawled in a deep-cushioned chair in the corner, his stockinged feet hanging over the side. “When he was a little boy,” he drawled, “he wanted to be a doctor.”

  “I knew it!” exclaimed the President. “I just knew it!”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  THE GOLF cart rounded a corner in a red cloud of frazzled lust, and from the King’s blazing tangerine kaffiyeh issued the unmistakable aroma of overcooked desire. One powerful arm gripped Jenny Ericson tight to his lap while he steered with the other. She was furious. Her arms were folded and her face was a book in which one might read matters gleep. She suddenly reached up a hand to rip off the fantastical potted plumage on her head and the King slapped her wrist smartly. “Na, na, na! No touch!” They negotiated another corner and rolled up in front of Goldfarb’s room, the pattering feet of the royal plasterers muted in the halls behind them.

  “Agajanian!” barked the King. The door opened and Goldfarb gaped out.

  “Trick or treat!” seethed Jenny.

  Fawz marked the pilot’s expression. “No goot, hah?” He pinched Jenny’s arm. “Too skinny! Skinny, ninny, ninny!”

  Goldfarb blinked.

  “Lookit!” The King thrust a finger at Jenny’s wild headgear, then spun it in tiny circles at his temple. “Cuckoo!” he warned. “Bring nudder one! Better, better, best!”

  As Fawz reached for the cart’s ignition key, Jenny leaped out into Goldfarb’s arms. “Hug me!” she husked. Goldfarb hugged and Jenny enacted an admirable portrayal of unbridled passion. “Don’t just stand there,” she whispered; “do something!” Goldfarb did something and she suppressed a shriek of outrage.

  Fawz eyed them spitefully. “You like?!” he yipped at Goldfarb.

  The pilot
kissed Jenny savagely, making sure to bite her lip a little.

  Medusa blight struck Fawz and he turned into Arabic Mount Rushmore. “Foos,” he sibbed, and accelerated, droning, down the long, cold corridors of his discontent. Had he been a bell he would have cracked.

  Jenny thrust Goldfarb from her violently into the room. “Take your filthy hands off me, you—you sex maniac!”

  “Sex maniac!” yelped the U-2 pilot. He jerked her into the room and slammed the door. “Why you—you nut! What are you doing here? What are you doing in that tea bag? What are you doing in a harem?!”

  “I’m with the Peace Corps, stupid!”

  * * *

  Fawz whirred around a corner and bumped into Ammud. They eyed one another.

  “Okay, Papa? Coach happy?”

  Fawz glowered. “Smart collitch boy!”

  * * *

  “An Arab football team!” hooted Jenny. She rolled on the rug, wrenched by spasms of laughter.

  “Cut it out!” roared Goldfarb, standing over her.

  Her feet stamped the floor with vicious delight. “An Ayrab foot-ball t——”

  Her face went white. The golf cart was approaching! She reached up, pulling Goldfarb down to her, grappling him into a clearly compromising position.

  Slowly, slowly, the door pushed open and Fawz leered in. “How?” he grunted.

  “Say ‘marvelous’!” husked Jenny, twisting the pilot’s ear lobe, and “Marvelous!” yelped Goldfarb.

  The King stared. “Shick,” he uttered softly, groping for new tongues to curse in; then he let slip the door. The receding drone of the golf cart was the sound of bees beaking through cotton candy.

  Jenny clung to Goldfarb. “You’ve got to help me!” she whimpered.

  “Help you!” yipped Goldfarb. “I still don’t know what you’re doing here! I don’t even know if you’re sane!”

  “Please!”

  “Hah!”

  “Look—I was smuggled in here to do a story on harems from the inside.”

  “You?”

  “They told me the King was sexless!”

  “Uh-huh, uh-huh!”

  “But I can’t leave yet! And I’ve got to keep old Kings-blood Kinsey from—from——”