Read Online The Devil Is a Black Dog by Sandor Jaszberenyi - Free Book Online
Authors: Sandor Jaszberenyi
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the smell of fresh blood.
Mustafa kickstarted the motorcycle and we took off. We left the presidential palace behind, riding past tin huts and shops. It was already the dry season; the sky was an otherworldly blue. The wind caught our shirts as we rode, and I felt a little faint.
“We’ll have fish, that’s what I feel like eating,” Mustafa said and turned from the main road toward Lake Chad. The air smelled of mud.
We came to a stop in front of a white adobe house, got off the bike, and went into the courtyard. White plastic seats and tables were set out on the beaten ground. There were no other customers. A Muslim woman in a flower-print scarf came to take our order. Mustafa chose for us fish with rice and a spicy tomato-pepper stew. He took out a cigarette, lit up, and offered me one. We smoked one each in silence.
“Are you still thinking about them?” asked Mustafa. “You look pale.”
“Yeah. Who were they?”
“I don’t know. They had the forehead scars of the Sara tribe.”
“And that’s why they killed them?”
“Perhaps.”
“Why did they let the woman go?”
“I don’t know.”
“For fun?”
“Perhaps.”
“They must have had a reason to kill them.”
“We’ll never know. It’s useless to think about. Look at it this way: though they’re dead, we are about to eat very well.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Especially because you are off to the frontier soon.”
We went quiet. The woman came out and set plastic plates of food in front of us. Mustafa rolled up his sleeves, tore off a piece of bread, and used it to pinch up a piece of fish, which he dipped in the spicy stew.
“Aren’t you eating?”
“I lost my appetite.”
“Because of the execution?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll get used to this. And you will forget this. Now eat.”
I ate. Then I left for Darfur, and from there went back to Europe, then to the Gaza Strip, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, and beyond. It took six years. He was right, I got used to it, though I never forgot that execution. You never forget your first.
Taking Trinidad
T he roof terrace, sir?” asked the hotel doorman. He was in the regulation red uniform with gold-colored buttons and a little black hat.
“Yes,” I said. My smartphone buzzed in my pocket. I involuntarily checked to see what it was. Some girl commenting on Facebook; nothing interesting. But the device was useful in that it allowed me to cut short any further small talk with the receptionist. I didn’t want him to ask how I was, what I did for a living, or why I was in the country. I didn’t want to see him smile insincerely as he asked what I needed, then linger until I forked up a few coins as
baksheesh.
A couple was also waiting for the elevator. I knew they were tourists, because they were in shorts, and only tourists wear shorts in Cairo. That’s because everything gets coated by the dust and dirt kicked up from the street. And due to the unfathomable standards of Arab formality, nobody takes a person in shorts seriously, even in the city center. I’ve never liked tourists.
The elevator arrived quietly. Its door opened and we got in. My jacket felt tight around my arms; my muscles were sore after a two-hour workout at Gold’s Gym. I looked in the elevator mirror and was pleased with what I saw. I was muscular but not overly buff. I was pressing two hundred pounds these days.
The doorman pushed the button for the fourteenth floor and the doors closed. As the piano version of “My Heart Will Go On” trickled quietly from the speakers, I reflected on whose decision it was to choose the music that plays in five-star hotel elevators. Why Vivaldi in the Four Seasons, Clayderman in the Hilton, but Celine Dion in the Marriot? Whose job was it to select the music that distracts a person’s attention from the fact that they are racing up and down in a metal coffin at high speeds?
The doors opened at my floor. The terrace was bathed in afternoon light and the sound of gurgling water
Mustafa kickstarted the motorcycle and we took off. We left the presidential palace behind, riding past tin huts and shops. It was already the dry season; the sky was an otherworldly blue. The wind caught our shirts as we rode, and I felt a little faint.
“We’ll have fish, that’s what I feel like eating,” Mustafa said and turned from the main road toward Lake Chad. The air smelled of mud.
We came to a stop in front of a white adobe house, got off the bike, and went into the courtyard. White plastic seats and tables were set out on the beaten ground. There were no other customers. A Muslim woman in a flower-print scarf came to take our order. Mustafa chose for us fish with rice and a spicy tomato-pepper stew. He took out a cigarette, lit up, and offered me one. We smoked one each in silence.
“Are you still thinking about them?” asked Mustafa. “You look pale.”
“Yeah. Who were they?”
“I don’t know. They had the forehead scars of the Sara tribe.”
“And that’s why they killed them?”
“Perhaps.”
“Why did they let the woman go?”
“I don’t know.”
“For fun?”
“Perhaps.”
“They must have had a reason to kill them.”
“We’ll never know. It’s useless to think about. Look at it this way: though they’re dead, we are about to eat very well.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Especially because you are off to the frontier soon.”
We went quiet. The woman came out and set plastic plates of food in front of us. Mustafa rolled up his sleeves, tore off a piece of bread, and used it to pinch up a piece of fish, which he dipped in the spicy stew.
“Aren’t you eating?”
“I lost my appetite.”
“Because of the execution?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll get used to this. And you will forget this. Now eat.”
I ate. Then I left for Darfur, and from there went back to Europe, then to the Gaza Strip, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, and beyond. It took six years. He was right, I got used to it, though I never forgot that execution. You never forget your first.
Taking Trinidad
T he roof terrace, sir?” asked the hotel doorman. He was in the regulation red uniform with gold-colored buttons and a little black hat.
“Yes,” I said. My smartphone buzzed in my pocket. I involuntarily checked to see what it was. Some girl commenting on Facebook; nothing interesting. But the device was useful in that it allowed me to cut short any further small talk with the receptionist. I didn’t want him to ask how I was, what I did for a living, or why I was in the country. I didn’t want to see him smile insincerely as he asked what I needed, then linger until I forked up a few coins as
baksheesh.
A couple was also waiting for the elevator. I knew they were tourists, because they were in shorts, and only tourists wear shorts in Cairo. That’s because everything gets coated by the dust and dirt kicked up from the street. And due to the unfathomable standards of Arab formality, nobody takes a person in shorts seriously, even in the city center. I’ve never liked tourists.
The elevator arrived quietly. Its door opened and we got in. My jacket felt tight around my arms; my muscles were sore after a two-hour workout at Gold’s Gym. I looked in the elevator mirror and was pleased with what I saw. I was muscular but not overly buff. I was pressing two hundred pounds these days.
The doorman pushed the button for the fourteenth floor and the doors closed. As the piano version of “My Heart Will Go On” trickled quietly from the speakers, I reflected on whose decision it was to choose the music that plays in five-star hotel elevators. Why Vivaldi in the Four Seasons, Clayderman in the Hilton, but Celine Dion in the Marriot? Whose job was it to select the music that distracts a person’s attention from the fact that they are racing up and down in a metal coffin at high speeds?
The doors opened at my floor. The terrace was bathed in afternoon light and the sound of gurgling water
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