Read Online The Devil Is a Black Dog by Sandor Jaszberenyi - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sandor Jaszberenyi
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traveled down the leather-chair-lined corridor that led to the pool. The light wind blowing over the Nile brought with it the smell of mud.
Blue-and-white-striped patio umbrellas fluttered in the breeze. Just a few people sat at the bamboo tables beneath them, mostly Saudis. I cut across the pool area and headed for the bar. There stood a waiter named Omar, his shirt unbuttoned to his chest. He smiled broadly when he saw me. Omar and I were tight. I had been paying my respects at the bar for almost half a year now.
Omar was once an activist with the April 6th Movement. During the revolution he would talk about true democracy and the democratic transition.
After the army outlawed the April 6th Movement, he stopped talking about politics and took to drink. I knew this because his skin had begun to yellow, like that of all Arab drinkers. Their systems simply can’t process alcohol properly.
“Whisky or daiquiri?”
“Daiquiri.”
Omar nodded and took a bottle of Havana rum from the shelf. He poured a jigger into the blender, added ice cubes, and ground three limes onto a metal juicer that skillfully extracted the seeds. He shook the drink, poured it into a goblet, and then added sugarcane syrup.
“How was Sinai?” he asked, setting the glass in front of me.
“Good.”
“It wasn’t too hot?”
“It was. In Rafah it was up around 115 degrees.”
“Did you see any tanks?”
“Yes. A few. There was fighting in El Arish.”
“What kind?”
“The Bedouins kept the police building under fire for around eight hours.”
“Damned Bedouins. I can’t stand them.”
“So the army came to restore order.”
“Indeed, if the army showed up, order will follow.”
My smartphone buzzed.
“Sorry,” I said. Omar nodded and went to do some washing up.
The bank had sent a text. Two thousand dollars had arrived in my account; a pay transfer from the newspaper I worked for. I disconnected from both the mobile network and the Internet. I didn’t want to hear from anybody. I looked at the cocktail in front of me, the condensation clinging to its side, and reflected that this had been my twelfth mission. I’d gotten it done, just like always. Not everybody could say the same. The fleeting image of Harvey Dabbs came to mind. In the Tibesti Hotel, in Benghazi, he was holding forth on the importance of prayer. We were drinking Johnny Walker, which they sold under the bar. The whole place was sloshed on it.
“You know, this is my fifteenth war,” said Dabbs. “I’m in with God. I even have my own prayer. In this profession, youhave to pray. ‘Our father who art in heaven / hallowed be thy name / thy kingdom come/ thy will be done/ In war we earn our daily bread/ just don’t shoot us with your “50s” / vests or not those buggers leave us dead.’”
“Amen,” said everybody and applauded loudly.
A few days later, the Gadhafi loyalists began to shell Misrata, and Harvey Dabbs was killed. It was a stupid death, like every death in war. A car bomb had exploded next to him while he was photographing the rebels’ advance. Three of us went to identify his corpse in the garage they were using as a morgue. Only his upper torso remained; the rest was lost to the explosion or stray dogs.
I pondered whether I should raise my glass to God’s sense of humor or another stupid death. “To a stupid death,” I said, and drank. I’d drink to a pointless idiotic death because, unlike God, it’s something I have seen with my own eyes. The daiquiri went down well. I like to drink. It’s good to drink after a war, during a war, before a war. It is good to drink with friends, to the death of friends, to childbirth, children’s deaths, engagements and broken engagements, betrayal, quitting smoking, love. It’s always good to drink. I signaled Omar to make me another. I looked up, gazed at the patio umbrellas rippling in the wind, the sand-colored Cairo rooftops, and laundry hung from the windows.
The second cocktail
Blue-and-white-striped patio umbrellas fluttered in the breeze. Just a few people sat at the bamboo tables beneath them, mostly Saudis. I cut across the pool area and headed for the bar. There stood a waiter named Omar, his shirt unbuttoned to his chest. He smiled broadly when he saw me. Omar and I were tight. I had been paying my respects at the bar for almost half a year now.
Omar was once an activist with the April 6th Movement. During the revolution he would talk about true democracy and the democratic transition.
After the army outlawed the April 6th Movement, he stopped talking about politics and took to drink. I knew this because his skin had begun to yellow, like that of all Arab drinkers. Their systems simply can’t process alcohol properly.
“Whisky or daiquiri?”
“Daiquiri.”
Omar nodded and took a bottle of Havana rum from the shelf. He poured a jigger into the blender, added ice cubes, and ground three limes onto a metal juicer that skillfully extracted the seeds. He shook the drink, poured it into a goblet, and then added sugarcane syrup.
“How was Sinai?” he asked, setting the glass in front of me.
“Good.”
“It wasn’t too hot?”
“It was. In Rafah it was up around 115 degrees.”
“Did you see any tanks?”
“Yes. A few. There was fighting in El Arish.”
“What kind?”
“The Bedouins kept the police building under fire for around eight hours.”
“Damned Bedouins. I can’t stand them.”
“So the army came to restore order.”
“Indeed, if the army showed up, order will follow.”
My smartphone buzzed.
“Sorry,” I said. Omar nodded and went to do some washing up.
The bank had sent a text. Two thousand dollars had arrived in my account; a pay transfer from the newspaper I worked for. I disconnected from both the mobile network and the Internet. I didn’t want to hear from anybody. I looked at the cocktail in front of me, the condensation clinging to its side, and reflected that this had been my twelfth mission. I’d gotten it done, just like always. Not everybody could say the same. The fleeting image of Harvey Dabbs came to mind. In the Tibesti Hotel, in Benghazi, he was holding forth on the importance of prayer. We were drinking Johnny Walker, which they sold under the bar. The whole place was sloshed on it.
“You know, this is my fifteenth war,” said Dabbs. “I’m in with God. I even have my own prayer. In this profession, youhave to pray. ‘Our father who art in heaven / hallowed be thy name / thy kingdom come/ thy will be done/ In war we earn our daily bread/ just don’t shoot us with your “50s” / vests or not those buggers leave us dead.’”
“Amen,” said everybody and applauded loudly.
A few days later, the Gadhafi loyalists began to shell Misrata, and Harvey Dabbs was killed. It was a stupid death, like every death in war. A car bomb had exploded next to him while he was photographing the rebels’ advance. Three of us went to identify his corpse in the garage they were using as a morgue. Only his upper torso remained; the rest was lost to the explosion or stray dogs.
I pondered whether I should raise my glass to God’s sense of humor or another stupid death. “To a stupid death,” I said, and drank. I’d drink to a pointless idiotic death because, unlike God, it’s something I have seen with my own eyes. The daiquiri went down well. I like to drink. It’s good to drink after a war, during a war, before a war. It is good to drink with friends, to the death of friends, to childbirth, children’s deaths, engagements and broken engagements, betrayal, quitting smoking, love. It’s always good to drink. I signaled Omar to make me another. I looked up, gazed at the patio umbrellas rippling in the wind, the sand-colored Cairo rooftops, and laundry hung from the windows.
The second cocktail
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