I signaled to Ahmad, our waiter, and he took Yasmin’s drink order and left menus. I looked at her as she studied her menu. She was wearing a light cotton European-style summer dress, yellow with white butterflies. Her black hair was brushed down sleek and lustrous. She wore a silver crescent on a silver chain around her darkly tanned neck. She looked lovely. I hated to bother her now with my news. I decided to put it off as long as I could.
“So,” she said, looking up at me and grinning, “how was your day?”
“Tamiko’s dead,” I said. I felt like a fool. There must have been a way to begin the story with less of an awful thud.
She sort of goggled at me. She murmured an Arabic superstitious phrase to ward off evil.
I took a deep breath and let it out. Then I started with dawn, yesterday morning, and my enthusiastic wake-up call from the Sisters. I went through the whole day, ending with my dismissal by Okking and my weary and lonely walk home.
I saw a tear slide slowly down one of her carefully blushed cheeks. She wasn’t able to speak for several seconds. I didn’t know she’d be so upset; I berated myself for my clumsiness.
“I wish I’d been with you last night,” she said at last. She didn’t realize how hard she was squeezing my hand. “I had a date, Marîd, some guy from the club. He’s been coming in to see me for weeks, and finally last night he offered me two hundred kiam to go out with him. He’s a nice guy, I suppose, but—”
I raised a hand. I didn’t need to hear this. I didn’t care how she paid her rent. I would have liked to have had her with me last night, too. I would have liked to have held her between the nightmares. “It’s all over now, I guess,” I said. “Let me blow the rest of my fifty kiam on this dinner, and then let’s go for a long wait.”
“Do you really think it’s all over?”
I chewed my lip. “Except for Nikki. I wish I knew what that phone call meant. I just can’t understand her running out on me like that, sticking me for Abdoulaye’s three thousand. I mean, in the Budayeen, you can never be sure how loyal your friends are; but I’d gotten Nikki out of one or two scrapes before. I thought that might have counted for something with her.”
Yasmin’s eyes opened wider, then she laughed. I couldn’t see what she thought was so humorous. My face still looked swollen and bruised, and by ribs still hurt like the devil. The day before had been anything but clownish. “I saw Nikki yesterday morning,” said Yasmin.
“You did?” Then I remembered that Chiriga had seen Nikki about ten o’clock, and that Nikki had left Chiri’s to find Yasmin. I hadn’t connected that visit to Chiri with Nikki’s later skip-out.
“Nikki looked very nervous,” said Yasmin, “and she told me she’d quit her job and had to move out of Tami’s apartment. She wouldn’t tell me why. She said she’d tried to call you again and again, but there wasn’t any answer.” Of course not; when Nikki was trying to call me, I was lying unconscious on my floor. “She gave me this envelope and told me to be sure you got it.”
“Why didn’t she just leave it with Chiri?” That would have saved a lot of mental and physical anguish.
“Don’t you remember? Nikki worked in Chiri’s club, oh, a year ago, maybe longer. Chiri caught Nikki shortchanging customers and stealing from the other girls’ tip jars.”
I nodded; now I recalled that Nikki and Chiri left each other pretty much alone. “So Nikki went to Chiri just to get your address?”
“I asked her a lot of questions, but she wouldn’t answer a thing. She just kept saying, ‘Make sure Marîd gets this,’ over and over.”
I hoped it was a letter, an apology maybe, with an address where I could reach her. I wanted my money back. I took the envelope from Yasmin and tore it open. Inside was my three thousand kiam, and a note written in French. Nikki wrote:
My dearest Marîd:
I so much wanted to give you the money in person. I called many times. but you did not answer. I am leaving this with Yasmin, but if you never get it, how will you know? You will hate me forever, then. When we meet again, I will not understand. My feelings are so confused.
I am going to live with an old friend of my family. He is a wealthy businessman from Germany who always brought me presents whenever he visited. That was when I was a shy, introverted little boy. Now that I am, well, what I am, the German businessman has discovered that he is even more inclined to give me presents. I was always fond of him, Marîd, although I can’t love him. But being with him will be so much more pleasant than staying with Tamiko.
The gentleman’s name is Herr Lutz Seipolt. He lives in a magnificent house on the far side of the city, and you must ask the driver to take you to (I have to copy this down for you) Bayt il-Simsaar il-Almaani Seipolt. That ought to get you to the villa.
Give my love to Yasmin and to everyone. I will visit the Budayeen when I can, but I think I will enjoy playing the mistress of such an estate for a while. I am sure you, of all people, Marîd, will understand: Business is business, mush kayk? (And I’ll bet you thought I never learned a single word of Arabic!)
With much love,
When I finished reading the letter, I sighed and handed it to Yasmin. I’d forgotten that she couldn’t read a word of French, and so I translated it for her.
“I hope she’ll be happy,” she said when I folded the letter up.
“Being kept by some old German bratwurst? Nikki? You know Nikki. She needs the action as much as I do, as much as you do. She’ll be back. Right now, I guess, it’s sugar-daddy time on the Princess Nikki Show.”
Yasmin smiled. “She’ll be back, I agree; but in her own time. And she’ll make that old bratwurst pay for every minute of it.” We both laughed, and then the waiter brought Yasmin’s drink, and we ordered dinner.
As we finished the meal, we lingered over a last glass of champagne. “What a day yesterday was,” I said bemusedly, “and now everything is back to normal. I have my money, except I’ll be out a thousand kiam in interest. When we leave here, I want to find Abdoulaye and pay him.”
“Sure,” said Yasmin, “but even then, everything won’t be back to normal. Tami’s still dead.”
I frowned. “That’s Okking’s problem. If he wants my expert advice, he knows where to find me.”
“Are you really going to talk to Devi and Selima about why they beat you?”
“You bet your pretty plastic tits. And the Sisters better have a damn good reason.”
“It must have something to do with Nikki.”
I agreed, although I couldn’t imagine what. “Oh,” I said, “and let’s stop by Chiriga’s. I owe her for the stuff she let me have last night.”
Yasmin gazed at me over the rim of her champagne glass. “It sounds like we might not get home until late,” she said softly.
“And when we do get home, we’ll be lucky to find the bed.”
Yasmin made a sweeping, mildly drunken gesture. “Fuck the bed,” she said.
“No,” I said, “I have more worthy goals.”
Yasmin giggled a little shyly, as if our relationship were beginning all over again from the very first night together. “Which moddy do you want me to use tonight?” she asked.
I let out my breath, taken by her loveliness and her quiet, unaffected charm. It was as if I were seeing her again for the first time. “I don’t want you to use any moddy,” I said quietly. “I want to make love with you.”
“Oh, Marîd,” she said. She squeezed my hand, and we stayed like that, staring into each other’s eyes, inhaling the perfume of the sweet olive, hearing the songs of thrushes and nightingales. The moment lasted almost forever … and then … I remembered that Abdoulaye was waiting. I had better not forget Abdoulaye; there is an Arabic saying that a clever man’s mistake is equal to the mistakes of a thousand fools.
Before we left the café, however, Yasmin wanted to consult the book. I told her that the Qur’ân didn’t contain much solace for me. “Not the Book,” she said, “the wise mention of God. The book.” She took out a little device about the size of a pack of cigarettes. It was her electronic I Ching. “Here,” she said, giving it to me, “switch it on and press H.”
I didn’t have a lot of faith in the I Ching, either; but Yasmin had this fascination with fate and the unseen world and the Moment and all of that. I did as she told me, and when I pressed the square white spot marked H, the little computer played a reedy, tinkling tune, and a woman’s tinny voice spoke up. “Hexagram Eighteen. Ku. Work on that which has been spoiled. Changes in the fifth and sixth lines.”
“Now hit J, for Judgment,” said Yasmin.
I did, and the calculator peeped out its goddamn little song again and said, “Judgment: Putting effort into what has been ruined brings great success. It profits one to cross the great water. Heed three days before beginning. Heed three days before completing.
“What has been ruined can be made good again through effort. Do not fear danger — crossing the great water. Success depends on forethought; be cautious before beginning. A return of ruin must be avoided; be cautious before completing.
“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.”