"Can too," Chiun called out. "It was a pear."
"How long have you two been together?" Reva said, pressing her breast against Remo again.
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"A hundred years," Remo whispered back.
"Two hundred," called out Chiun. "It seems like only a hundred to him because he has enjoyed it so. And he repays those two centuries of pleasure with treachery and denial of a poor man's only wish."
"See?" Remo said. "On the snot. Because I won't go to work for some guy who's probably promised him Barbra Streisand, a new Betamax, and forty dollars worth of junk jewelry."
"Who would you rather work for?" Reva asked.
She was pumping. Remo knew, but before he could answer, Chiun called out again. "He would rather work for other ingrates like himself and for emperors who do not know what emperors are supposed to do or even how to be emperors. He wants to defend his Constitution. I ask you, can the poor people of my village eat a defended Constitution?"
"Those lowlifes could eat rocks, as long as they didn't have to work for them," Remo said. He turned back to Reva and said, "His poor village has a higher standard of living than Westport, Connecticut. Ingrates."
"Your responsibility," Chiun said.
"No, your responsibility," Remo said. "Never mine."
"How like a white man," Chiun said. "All the character of a peeled boiled potato."
Remo snorted and turned back to the window.
"I guess you don't feel much like talking," Reva said.
Remo snorted again.
"Go ahead and talk," Chiun called out. "I've got this good seat and I'll watch the wing. Heh, heh, heh."
The plane landed on a narrow sliver of concrete that Remo supposed had been designed for an Arab air force because it stretched for ten miles in either direction, making safe allowances for pilot error of up to 6,000 percent.
When he got off the plane, Remo saw nothing in all 129
directions but sand, and a narrow new road heading out over a hill. A Rolls Royce waited on the road.
Remo waited until Chiun joined him at the head of the plane's steps. "So this is it, Chiun, huh? Your great Hamidi Fareemi Areebi tradition, or whatever the hell you call it? Another name for freaking sand."
"There can be tradition in a desert of sand as well as in a city of buildings and people. There can be no tradition only in the heads of mongrels who remember no past and therefore have no future," Chiun said.
"You mean me by that, I guess," Remo said.
"Do not talk to me, Remo. I am ignoring you from now on," Chiun said.
"Come on," said Reva Bleem. "That's our car."
Walking toward the big sedan, Remo had a chance to look over Oscar, Reva's driver, for the first time. He was a tall, husky man with a smooth bald head that disappeared into ripples of neck muscles. His face was acne erupted and scar pitted. He held open the rear seat door for Reva. Remo started to get in after her, but Chiun brushed by him onto the wide seat.
"Move over," Remo said.
Chiun asked Reva, "This person with the lumpy face is your servant?"
"He's my chauffeur."
"Remo, ride in the front with the other servant," Chiun said. He turned back to Reva. "We had a servant once—a British butler. But Remo killed him for no reason at all."
"You know, Chiun, I love you when you're like this," Remo said.
"Sit in front," Chiun said.
Remo waited in front while Oscar went back onto the plane to carry back Reva Bleem's four liquor boxes, which he put into the trunk of the Rolls.
"And my trunks?" Chiun asked the driver.
"They will follow us by truck when it arrives," Oscar said.
Chiun nodded. "It will be on your head if they do not," he said.
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The heavy car moved off slowly and inexorably, like a rubber ball starting down a gently sloped hill. Before long, it was humming along the absolutely level road at 90 miles an hour.
"Where are we going?" Remo asked, turning toward the back seat.
'To see the sheik."
"Which one?"
"Sheik Abdul Hamid Fareem," Reva said, which didn't really tell Remo mucL All their names sounded alike, and they all looked alike, and in a band they attacked America as bloodthirsty imperialists while cutting the hands off anybody who stole a loaf of bread because he didn't have the good fortune to own an oil well.
"I can't wait," Remo said.
"That is the first intelligent thing you have said since we left that island of white wax," Chiun said.
"Why?"
"Because the Hamidi family have been royalty in this part of the world for centuries. Noble, enlightened, loved-by-all royalty."
"That means they hired one of your ancestors and paid their bill," Remo said.
"That means they are truly noble, Remo. You would not understand it." He pointed out the right window into the distance, and Remo turned to see what he was pointing out.
"There is their capital city of Nehmad," Chiun said. "Right where the scrolls of history said it would be." He closed his eyes and recited from memory. "A marvelous clean city of towered parapets and minarets, with streets of tile and wall paintings encrusted with precious stones."
"There's no minarets or parapets" said Remo, who assumed they meant some kind of pointed things on buildings. "Look at that city. It's a bunch of big, ugly, flat apartment buildings."
"You can turn everything into dross," Chiun sniffed. 131
"We'll see when we get there just how wonderful these Hareemis are," Remo said.
"Hamidi," Chiun said.
"We're not going to the city," Reva said.
"Why not?"
"The sheik Abdul Hamid Fareem lives in the desert."
"Why?" Remo asked.
"I read about him," she said. "He thinks Arabs were not meant to live in cities, that cities weaken the blood."
"See, Remo," said Chiun. "That is respect for tradition."
"That is stupid," said Remo. "Why live in a tent when you can live in a building?"
"Because these are kings and princes and royalty," Chiun said heatedly.
"And that means they should live in a tent? If an Arab prince should live in a tent as a mark of honor, then you should live in a cave. A hole in the ground in Sinanju. But you live in a house. How do you explain that?"
And because it was a compliment that Remo had paid Chiun, as an expression of his respect, Chiun mumbled only, "I do not choose to speak of it anymore. Please, Remo, you're giving me a headache."
The Rolls Royce buzzed past the wall surrounding the city of Nehmad, as the road widened and then as it shrunk again into two narrow lanes out into the trackless, endless sand.
Reva kept asking Chiun questions. How long had he known Remo? Where had they met? What did they do together? Who did they work for? Chiun kept looking out the car window and finally said, "Please, dear lady, do not ask me to talk about things that pain me. Just know that it was the worst day of my life when first I set eyes on that white thing."
The city was out of sight, far behind them, when the road began a slight rise. When the limousine crested, Remo saw a city of tents a few thousand yards away
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from the road, in a declivity between two long, sloping sand dunes. Behind the cluster of tents was a large oasis, perhaps two acres in size. Women and men moved through the trees toward a central clearing in the green spot. Against the vast expanse of sand, the oasis looked like an emerald laid on a wrinkle-free sheet of brown butcher's paper.
Oscar pulled slowly off the roadway, and the Rolls sank softly into the sand. From the right, coming from the oasis and the tents, Remo saw a man leading a camel. The camel was bedecked with a stone-studded leather saddle.
As they all got out of the car, Reva said, "Oh dear. They sent only one camel." She turned toward Remo and Chiun. "When I get there, I'll have them send back more camels for you too. It's such a long walk in this heat."