When Gravity Fails (8 page)

“The superior man arouses the people and renews their spirit.”

I looked at Yasmin. “I hope you’re getting something out of all of this,” I said, “because it doesn’t mean a camel’s glass eye to me.”

“Oh, sure,” said Yasmin in a hushed voice. “Now, go on. Press L for the Lines.”

I did as I was told. The spooky machine continued: “A six in the fifth place means:

Repairing what the father has ruined.

One’s actions are praiseworthy.

“A nine at the top means:

He does not serve kings and princes,

Sets himself higher goals.”

“Who’s it talking about, Yasmin?” I asked.

“You, darling, who else?”

“Now what do I do?”

“You find out what the changing lines turn the hexagram into. Another hexagram. Push CH for Change.”

“Hexagram Forty-seven. K’un. Oppression.”

I pressed J.

“Judgment:

Oppression. Success. Perseverance.

The great man causes good fortune.

There is no blame.

When one has something to say,

It is not believed.

“A great man remains confident through adversity, and this confidence leads to later success. It is a strength greater than fate. It must be accepted that for a time he is not granted power, and his counsel is ignored. In times of adversity, it is important to maintain confidence and speak but little.

“If one is weak in adversity, he remains beneath a bare tree and falls more deeply into sorrow. This is an inner delusion that must be overcome at all costs.”

That was it: the oracle had spoken. “Can we go now?” I asked plaintively.

Yasmin was looking dreamily into some other Chinese dimension. “You’re destined for great things, Marîd,” she murmured.

“Right,” I said, “but the important thing is, can that talking box guess my weight? What good is it?” I didn’t even have the motherless good sense to know when I’d been told off by a book.

“You’ve got to find something to believe in,” she said seriously.

“Look, Yasmin, I keep trying. Really, I do. Was that some kind of prediction? Was it reading my future?”

Her brow furrowed. “It’s not really a prediction, Marîd. It’s kind of an echo of the Moment we’re all part of. Because of who you are and what you think and feel, and what you’ve done and plan to do, you could have drawn no other hexagram than Number Eighteen, with the changes in just those two lines. If you did it again, right this very second, you’d get a different reading, a different hexagram, because the first one changed the Moment and the pattern is different. See?”

“Synchronicity, right?” I said.

She looked puzzled. “Something like that.”

I sent Ahmad off with the check and a stack of kiam notes. It was a warm, lush, dry evening, and it would be a beautiful night. I stood up and stretched. “Let’s go find Abdoulaye,” I said. “Business is business, damn it.”

“And afterward?” She smiled.

“Action is action.” I took her hand, and we started up the Street toward Hassan’s shop.

The good-looking American boy was still sitting on his stool, still gazing off toward nowhere. I wondered if he was actually having thoughts, or if he was some kind of electronically animated figure that only came to life when someone approached or he caught the crackle of a few kiam. He looked at us and smiled, and asked some question in English again. Maybe a lot of the customers who came into Hassan’s place spoke English, but I doubted it. It wasn’t a place for tourists; it wasn’t that kind of souvenir shop. The boy must have been all but helpless, unable to speak Arabic and without a language daddy. He must have been helpless; that is, dependent. On Hassan. For so
many
things.

I know a little simple English; if it’s spoken slowly enough, I can understand a few words. I can say, “Where is the toilet?” and “Big Mac and fries” and “Fuck you,” but that’s about the extent of my vocabulary. I stared at the boy; he stared back. He smiled slowly. I think he liked me.

“Where is the Abdoulaye?” I asked in English. The kid blinked and rattled off some indecipherable reply. I shook my head, letting him know that I hadn’t understood a word. His shoulders slumped. He tried another language; Spanish, I think. I shook my head again.

“Where is the Sahîb Hassan?” I asked.

The boy grinned and rattled off another string of harsh-sounding words, but he pointed at the curtain. Great: we were communicating.

“Shukran,”
I said, leading Yasmin to the back of the shop.

“You’re welcome,” said the boy. That stumped me. He knew that I’d said “thanks” in Arabic, but he didn’t know how to say “you’re welcome.” Dumb kid. Lieutenant Okking would find him in an alleyway some night. Or
I
would, with my kind of luck.

Hassan was in the storeroom, checking some crates against an invoice. The crates were addressed to him in Arabic script, but other words were stenciled in some European language. The crates could have contained anything from static pistols to shrunken heads. Hassan didn’t care what he bought and sold, as long as he turned a profit. He was the Platonic ideal of the crafty merchant.

He heard us come through the curtain, and greeted me like a long-lost son. He embraced me and asked, “You are feeling better today?”

“Praise be to Allah,” I replied.

His eyes flicked from me to Yasmin and back. I think he may have recognized her from the Street, but I don’t think he knew her personally. I saw no need to introduce her. It was a breach of etiquette, but tolerated in certain situations. I made the determination that this was one of those times. Hassan extended a hand. “Come, join me in some coffee!”

“May your table last forever, Hassan, but we’ve just dined; and I am in a hurry to find Abdoulaye. I owe him a debt, you recall.”

“Yes, yes, quite so.” Hassan’s brow creased. “Marîd, my darling, clever one, I haven’t seen Abdoulaye for hours. I think he’s entertaining himself elsewhere.” Hassan’s tone implied Abdoulaye’s entertainment was any of several possible vices.

“Yet I have the money now, and I wish to end my obligation.”

Hassan pretended to mull this problem over for a moment. “You know, or course, that a portion of that money is indirectly to be paid to me.”

“Yes, O Wise One.”

“Then leave the whole sum with me, and I will give Abdoulaye his portion when next I see him.”

“An excellent suggestion, my uncle, but I would like to have Abdoulaye’s written receipt. Your integrity is beyond reproach, but Abdoulaye and I do not share the same bond of love as you and I.”

That didn’t sit well with Hassan, but he could make no objection. “I think you will find Abdoulaye behind the iron door.” Then he rudely turned his back on us and continued his labor. Without turning to face us, he spoke again. “Your companion must remain here.”

I looked at Yasmin, and she shrugged. I went through the storeroom quickly, across the alley, and knocked on the iron door. I waited a few seconds while someone identified me from somewhere. Then the door opened. There was a tall, cadaverous, bearded old man named Karîm. “What do you wish here?” he asked me gruffly.

“Peace, O Shaykh, I have come to pay my debt to Abdoulaye Abu-Zayd.”

The door closed. A moment later, Abdoulaye opened it. “Let me have it. I need it now.” Over his shoulder, I could see several men engaged in some high-spirited gambling.

“I have the whole sum, Abdoulaye,” I said, “but you’re going to write me out a receipt. I don’t want you claiming that I never paid you.”

He looked angry. “You dare imagine I’d do such a thing?”

I glared back at him. “The receipt. Then you get your money.”

He called me a couple of foul names, then ducked back into the room. He scrawled out the receipt and showed it to me. “Give me the fifteen hundred kiam,” he said, growling.

“Give me the receipt first,”

“Give me the accursed money, you pimp!”

For a second I thought about hitting him hard with the edge of my hand across the flat of his nose, breaking his face for him. It was a delicious image. “Christ, Abdoulaye! Get Karîm back here. Karîm!” I called. When the gray-bearded old man returned, I said to him, “I’m going to give you some money, Karîm, and Abdoulaye is going to give you that piece of paper in his hand. You give him the money, and give me the paper.”

Karîm hesitated, as if the transaction were too complicated for him to follow. Then he nodded. The trade was made in silence. I turned and went back across the alley. “Son of a whore!” cried Abdoulaye. I smiled. That is one hell of an insult in the Muslim world; but, as it happened to be true, it’s never offended me very much. Still, because of Yasmin and our plans for the evening, I had let Abdoulaye abuse me beyond my usual limit. I promised myself that soon there would be a settling of that account, as well. In the Budayeen, it is not well to be thought of as one who meekly submits to insolence and intimidation.

As I passed through the storeroom and went to Yasmin, I said, “You can collect your cut from Abdoulaye, Hassan. You’d better do it fast: I think he’s losing big.” Hassan nodded but said nothing.

“I’m glad that’s taken care of,” said Yasmin.

“Not any more than I am.” I folded the receipt and pushed it down into a hip pocket.

We went to Chili’s, and I waited until she’d finished serving three young men in Calabrian naval uniforms. “Chiri,” I said, “we can’t stay long, but I wanted to give you this.” I counted out seventy-five kiam and put the money on the bar. Chiri didn’t make a move toward it.

“Yasmin, you look beautiful, honey. Marîd, what’s this for? The stuff last night?” I nodded. “I know you make a thing about keeping your word and paying your debts and all that honorable choo. I wouldn’t charge you Street prices, though. Take some of this back.”

I grinned at her. “Chiri, you risk causing offense to a Muslim.”

She laughed. “Muslim, my black ass. Then you two have a drink on me. There’s a lot of action tonight, a lot of loose money. The girls are in a good mood, and so am I.”

“We’re celebrating, Chiri,” said Yasmin. They exchanged some kind of secret signal—maybe that kind of occult, gender-specific transfer of knowledge goes along with the sex-change operation. Anyway, Chiri understood. We took the free drinks she’d offered, and got up to go.

“You two have a good night,” she said. The seventy-five kiam had long since disappeared. I don’t remember seeing it happen, though.

“Kwa heri,”
I said as we left.

“Kwa herini ya kuonana,”
she said. Then, “All right, which one of you lazy, fat-assed whores is supposed to be up on stage dancing? Kandy? Well, get your fuckin’ clothes off and get to work!” Chiri sounded happy. All was well with the world.

“We could pass by Jo-Mama’s,” said Yasmin. “I haven’t seen her in weeks.” Jo-Mama was a huge woman, nearly six feet tall, somewhere between three and four hundred pounds, with hair that changed according to some esoteric cycle: blonde, redhead, brunette, midnight black; then a dull brown would start to grow out, and when it was long enough, it was transformed by some sorcery into blonde hair again. She was a tough, strong woman, and no one caused trouble in
her
bar, which catered to Greek merchant seamen. Jo-Mama had no scruples against pulling her needle gun or her Solingen perforator and creating general peace in gory heaps all around her. I’m sure Jo-Mama could easily have handled
two
Chirigas at the same time, and simultaneously still have the unruffled calm to mix a Bloody Mary from scratch for a customer. Jo-Mama either liked you a lot or she hated your guts. You
really
wanted her to like you. We stopped in; she greeted both of us in her usual loud, fast-talking, distracted way. “Marîd! Yasmin!” She said something to us in Greek, forgetting that neither of us understood that language; I can say even less in Greek than I can in English. All that I know I’ve picked up from hanging out in Jo-Mama’s: I can order ouzo and retsina; I can say
kalimera
(hello); and I can call somebody
maláka,
which seems to be their favorite insult (as far as I can make out, it means “jerk-off”).

I gave Jo-Mama the best hug I could manage. She’s so plentiful that Yasmin and I together probably couldn’t circumscribe her. She included us in a story she was telling to another customer. “ . . . so Fuad comes running back to me and says, That black bitch clipped me!’ Now, you and I both know that nothing gives Fuad a thrill like being clipped by some black whore.” Jo-Mama looked questioningly at me, so I nodded. Fuad was this incredibly skinny guy who had this fascination with black hookers, the sleazier and the more dangerous, the better. Nobody liked Fuad, but they used him to run and fetch; and he was so desperate to be liked that he’d run and fetch all night, unless he ran into the girl he happened to be in love with that week. “So I asked him how he managed to get clipped this time, because I was figuring he knew all the angles by now, I mean, God, even Fuad isn’t as stupid as Fuad, if you know what I mean. He says, ‘She’s a waitress over by Big Al’s Old Chicago. I bought a drink, and when she brought my change back, she’d wet the tray with a sponge and held the tray up above where I could see it, see? I had to reach up and slide my change off the tray, and the bottom bill stuck on the wet part.’ So I grabbed him by the ears and shook his head back and forth. ‘Fuad, Fuad,’ I said, ‘that’s the oldest scam in the book. You must have seen that one worked a million times. I remember when Zainab pulled that one on you last year.’ And the stupid skeleton nods his head, and his big lump of an Adam’s apple is going up and down and up and down, and he says to me, he says, ‘Yeah, but all those other times they was one-kiam bills. Nobody ever done it with a ten before!’ As if that made it all different!” Jo-Mama started to laugh, the way a volcano starts to rumble before it goes blam, and when she really got into the laugh, the bar shook, and the glasses and bottles on it rattled, and we could feel the vibrations clear across the bar on our stools. Jo-Mama laughing could cause more damage than a smaller person throwing chairs around. “So what you want, Marîd? Ouzo, and retsina for the young lady? Or just a beer? Make up your mind, I don’t have all night, I got a crowd of Greeks just in from Skorpios, their ship’s carrying boxes full of high explosives for the revolution in Holland and they got a long way to sail with it and they’re all nervous as a goldfish at a cat convention and they’re drinking me dry. What the hell do you want to drink, goddamn it! Getting an answer out of you is like prying a tip out of a Chink.”