Read Online One Hundred and One Nights (9780316191913) by Benjamin Buchholz - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Benjamin Buchholz
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there, observing everything, turning my head to and fro.
We’ve finished our kebabs. I’ve got nothing left to say. I see him, Mahmoud, secretly looking toward the town, toward the arch, maybe in the hope that the boy from Bashar’s café will return. He cleans up the tea set. He shuffles around me. Like me, he has nothing to say. Yet all the while, he glances uncomfortably toward the arch.
I think of Layla in the market, there beneath the arch, and for just a second a very different image from how I usually see her flashes through my mind. In this vision she is covered with blood. She is shot through with bullet holes. She scurries from place to place, from shop to shop, trying to pick up pieces of herself that have come apart, that have spilled from her body like the intestines of a dying kitten. The vision brings with it a pounding sensation in my head. I blink. I put one hand out to the side as if I am about to stagger. Mahmoud moves toward me, concerned. He is about to touch me but I shake my head, rather vigorously, and the vision of blackness disappears.
“One more thing,” I say to Mahmoud, my voice ringing falsely, almost angrily, in my ears. “Who do you work for?”
Mahmoud has sensed the shift in my disposition. He looks troubled. The muscles of his face tighten.
“No one,” he says.
“No one?”
“The police—”
“The police?”
I spit to show my disapproval of police in general and also my disbelief in his statement. He must work for someone. The police don’t initiate the sort of man-to-man, tribe-to-tribe relationships on which real work depends.
However, Mahmoud insists it is the police, only the police.
I ask him twice more, just to be sure.
“The police,” he insists. He shows me the stamp of the Ministry of the Interior on the butt of his Kalashnikov.
I give up, thinking: perhaps he has no master, no one to whom he is bound. The thought causes me to change course once again, to establish my authority over the man in a way even more complex than I had originally thought possible—with a carrot and with a stick.
“Maybe I should talk to the police,” I say. “I don’t want to see you sleeping on the job anymore.”
With that, the matter is concluded. He had been waiting for it all along. The pleasantries of eating together, sharing tea, small talk, all of them had been building toward some sort of official message. Mahmoud had been expecting it. His posture immediately stiffens. He thinks he has been inspected, checked on, tested.
“You’re Hezbollah?” he says. “You work for Hussein?”
“No,” I say. I slap him. He winces but tries to hide it. “Don’t say that again. I work for no one. But I’m watching you, and I don’t want to see you sleeping anymore.”
I hold Mahmoud’s gaze for a moment. To his credit, he does not flinch. Then, as quickly as I had come, I leave him and head on my way, not toward the center of the city, to Bashar’s café, where I would normally dine, but along the outskirts, the outer road, which leads more directly to my house.
Tonight, the kebab has filled my need for food. I do not wish to talk about Ulayya with Bashar, as he certainly will wish. I wonder whether it is wise for me to have antagonized the guard. It was clumsy. I had no clear plan when I approached, and he knew the visit from an older man like me could not be attributed to anything purely social. Yet it wasn’t all a waste. Mahmoud fears me a little now: an unknown force in town, not Hezbollah. He will watch me and watch my store as well, which is worth a little even with the protection of Sheikh Seyyed Abdullah overarching everything.
What’s more, lazy and inattentive as Mahmoud is, he can see all four ramps of the overpass from where he leans and idles on his camp chair. He can see my store. And I’ve checked with my own eyes just how far in each direction—up the road toward Baghdad and down the road toward Umm Qasr—the view extends, a vantage of many
We’ve finished our kebabs. I’ve got nothing left to say. I see him, Mahmoud, secretly looking toward the town, toward the arch, maybe in the hope that the boy from Bashar’s café will return. He cleans up the tea set. He shuffles around me. Like me, he has nothing to say. Yet all the while, he glances uncomfortably toward the arch.
I think of Layla in the market, there beneath the arch, and for just a second a very different image from how I usually see her flashes through my mind. In this vision she is covered with blood. She is shot through with bullet holes. She scurries from place to place, from shop to shop, trying to pick up pieces of herself that have come apart, that have spilled from her body like the intestines of a dying kitten. The vision brings with it a pounding sensation in my head. I blink. I put one hand out to the side as if I am about to stagger. Mahmoud moves toward me, concerned. He is about to touch me but I shake my head, rather vigorously, and the vision of blackness disappears.
“One more thing,” I say to Mahmoud, my voice ringing falsely, almost angrily, in my ears. “Who do you work for?”
Mahmoud has sensed the shift in my disposition. He looks troubled. The muscles of his face tighten.
“No one,” he says.
“No one?”
“The police—”
“The police?”
I spit to show my disapproval of police in general and also my disbelief in his statement. He must work for someone. The police don’t initiate the sort of man-to-man, tribe-to-tribe relationships on which real work depends.
However, Mahmoud insists it is the police, only the police.
I ask him twice more, just to be sure.
“The police,” he insists. He shows me the stamp of the Ministry of the Interior on the butt of his Kalashnikov.
I give up, thinking: perhaps he has no master, no one to whom he is bound. The thought causes me to change course once again, to establish my authority over the man in a way even more complex than I had originally thought possible—with a carrot and with a stick.
“Maybe I should talk to the police,” I say. “I don’t want to see you sleeping on the job anymore.”
With that, the matter is concluded. He had been waiting for it all along. The pleasantries of eating together, sharing tea, small talk, all of them had been building toward some sort of official message. Mahmoud had been expecting it. His posture immediately stiffens. He thinks he has been inspected, checked on, tested.
“You’re Hezbollah?” he says. “You work for Hussein?”
“No,” I say. I slap him. He winces but tries to hide it. “Don’t say that again. I work for no one. But I’m watching you, and I don’t want to see you sleeping anymore.”
I hold Mahmoud’s gaze for a moment. To his credit, he does not flinch. Then, as quickly as I had come, I leave him and head on my way, not toward the center of the city, to Bashar’s café, where I would normally dine, but along the outskirts, the outer road, which leads more directly to my house.
Tonight, the kebab has filled my need for food. I do not wish to talk about Ulayya with Bashar, as he certainly will wish. I wonder whether it is wise for me to have antagonized the guard. It was clumsy. I had no clear plan when I approached, and he knew the visit from an older man like me could not be attributed to anything purely social. Yet it wasn’t all a waste. Mahmoud fears me a little now: an unknown force in town, not Hezbollah. He will watch me and watch my store as well, which is worth a little even with the protection of Sheikh Seyyed Abdullah overarching everything.
What’s more, lazy and inattentive as Mahmoud is, he can see all four ramps of the overpass from where he leans and idles on his camp chair. He can see my store. And I’ve checked with my own eyes just how far in each direction—up the road toward Baghdad and down the road toward Umm Qasr—the view extends, a vantage of many
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