The afternoon passed, and once again night began to fall. All through the fair, men jammed blazing torches into iron sconces on tall poles. Still Maryam led the woman from tent to tent, but the woman no longer enjoyed the spectacles. She was filled with a sense of impending catastrophe. She felt an urgent need to escape, but she knew she couldn’t even find her way out of the infinite fairgrounds.
And then a shrill, buzzing alarm sounded. “What’s that?” she asked, startled. All around her, people had begun to flee. “Yallah!” cried Maryam, her face stricken with horror. “Run! Run and save your life!”
“What is it?” the woman shouted. “Tell me what it is!”
Maryam had collapsed to the ground, weeping and moaning. “In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful, “she muttered over and over again. The woman could get nothing more sensible from her.
The woman left her there, and she followed the stream of terrified people as they ran among the tents.
And then the woman saw them: two immense giants, impossibly huge, hundreds of feet tall, crushing the landscape as they came nearer. They waded among the distant mountains, and then the shocks from their jolting footsteps began to churn the water in the lake. The ground heaved as they came nearer. The woman raised a hand to her breast, then staggered backward a few steps.
One of the giants turned his head slowly and looked straight at her. He was horribly ugly, with a great scar across one empty eye socket and a mouthful of rotten, snaggled fangs. He lifted an arm and pointed to her.
“No,” she said, her voice hoarse with fear, “not me!” She wanted to run but she couldn’t move. The giant stooped toward her, fierce and glowering. He bent to capture her in his enormous hand.
“Marid!” the woman screamed. “Please!” Nothing happened. The giant’s fist began to close around her.
The woman tried to reach up and unplug the moddy link, but her arms were frozen. She wouldn’t escape that easily. The woman shrieked as she realized she couldn’t even jack out.
The disfigured giant lifted her off the ground and drew her close to his single eye. His horrid grin spread and he laughed at her terror. His stinking breath sickened the woman. She struggled again to lift her hands, to pull the moddy link free. Her arms were held fast. She screamed and screamed, and then at last she fainted.
My eyes were bleary for a moment, and I could hear Chiri panting for breath beside me. I didn’t think she’d be so upset. After all, it was only a Transpex game, and it wasn’t the first time she’d ever played. She knew what to expect.
“You’re a sick motherfucker, Marid,” she said at last.
“Listen, Chiri, I was just—”
She waved a hand at me. “I know, I know. You won the game and the bet. I’m still just a little shook, that’s all. I’ll have your money for you tonight.”
“Forget the money, Chiri, I—”
I shouldn’t have said that. “Hey, you son of a bitch, when I lose a bet I pay up. You’re gonna take the money or I’m gonna cram it down your throat. But, God, you’ve got some kind of twisted imagination.” “That last part,” said Courane, “where she couldn’t raise her hands to pop the moddy link, that was real cold.” He said it approvingly.
“Hell of a sadistic thing to do,” said Chiri, shivering. “Last time I ever touch a Transpex with you.”
“A few extra points, that’s all, Chiri. I didn’t know what my score was. I might have needed a couple more points.”
“You finished with 941,” said Shaknahyi. He was looking at me oddly, as if he were impressed by my score and repelled at the same time. “We got to go.” He stood up and tossed down the last slug of his soft drink.
I stood up too. “You all right now, Chiri?” I put my hand on her shoulder.
“I’m fine. I’m still shaking off the game. It was like a nightmare.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “I got to get back to the club so Indihar can go home.”
“Give you a ride?” asked Shaknahyi.
“Thanks,” said Chiri, “but I got my own transportation.”
“See you later then,” I said.
“Kwa heri, you bastard.” At least she was smiling when she called me that. I thought maybe things were okay between us again. I was real glad about that.
Outside, Shaknahyi shook his head and grinned. “She was right, you know. That was a hell of a sadistic thing. Like unnecessary torture. You are a sick son of a bitch.”
“Maybe.”
“And I got to ride around the city with you.”
I was tired of talking about it. “Time to check out yet?” I asked.
“Just about. Let’s pass by the station house, and then why don’t you come home with me for dinner? You got plans already? You think Friedlander Bey can get along without you for one night?”
I’m not a very sociable person, and I always feel uncomfortable in other people’s homes. Still, the idea of spending an evening away from Papa and his Circus of Thrills was immensely attractive. “Sure,” I said.
“Let me call my wife and find out if tonight’s okay.”
“I didn’t even know you were married, Jirji.”
He just raised his eyebrows at me and spoke his commcode into the phone. He had a brief conversation with his wife and then clipped the phone back on his belt. “She says it’s okay,” he said. “Now she’s got to run around cleaning and cooking. She always goes crazy when I bring somebody home.”
“She don’t have to do that just for me,” I said.
Shaknahyi shook his head. “It’s not for you, believe me. She comes from this old-fashioned family, and she’s all the time got to prove she’s the perfect Muslim wife.”
We stopped at the station house, turned the patrol car over to the guys on the night shift, and checked in briefly with Hajjar. Finally we logged out and headed back downstairs to the street. “I usually walk home unless it’s pouring rain,” said Shaknahyi.
“How far is it?” I asked. It was a pleasant evening, but I wasn’t looking forward to a long walk.
“Maybe three, three-and-a-half miles.” “Forget it,” I said. “I’ll spring for a cab.” There are always seven or eight taxis waiting for fares on the Boulevard il-Jameel, near the Budayeen’s eastern gate. I looked for my friend Bill, but I didn’t see him. We got into another cab, and Shaknahyi gave the driver his address.
It was an apartment house in the part of town called Haffe al-Khala, the Edge of the Wilderness. Shaknahyi and his family lived about as far south as you could go in the city, so near the desert that mounds of sand like infant dunes had crept up against the walls of the buildings. There were no trees or flowers on these streets. It was bare and quiet and dead, as cheerless as any place I’ve ever seen.
Shaknahyi must have guessed what I was thinking. “This is all I can afford,” he said sourly. “Come on, though. It’s better inside.”
I followed him into the foyer of the apartment house, and then upstairs to his flat on the third floor. He unlocked the front door and was immediately tackled by two small children. They clung to his legs as he came into the parlor. Shaknahyi bent down laughing, and rested his hands on the boys’ heads. “My sons,” he said to me proudly. “This is Little Jirji, he’s eight, and Hakim, he’s four. Zahra’s six. She’s probably getting in her mother’s way in the kitchen.”
Well, I don’t have much patience with kids. I suppose they’re fine for other people, but I’ve never really understood what they’re for. I can be polite about them when I have to, though. “Your sons are very handsome,” I said. “They do you honor.”
“It is as Allah pleases,” said Shaknahyi. He was beaming like a goddamn searchlight.