with other things—gunpowder factory, street-lighting, Paris-style café, accommodation for laundresses, a balloon demonstration.
“Done that?”
“Yes, general. General, that case of Arabic type isn’t complete. No toks, not enough nuns.”
“Improvise. Surely you can make a tok out of a combined saad and alif. I leave the details to you.”
“If we could send to Paris—”
“There will be no sending to Paris.” Legrand wondered why. “We must learn to make everything ourselves. Even lead pencils. Monsieur Conté himself is with us. That is something to go in a later proclamation perhaps. Bullets melted down to make lead pencils.”
“There are not many here who use lead pencils.”
“They will learn, we shall teach. Have we kept those dignitaries waiting long enough?”
“The eyes of the eternal are blind to time.”
“Is that in the Koran?”
“It’s the sort of thing they say.” They left the office with its sweating clerks and clomped down a long corridor to a sort of council chamber. Imams and muftis and kathis sat here on cushions, turbaned elders who had risen above the squalor of the flesh. The heat was tamed by wide-eyed boys with feathery fans. One of the muftis much admired one of these boys, and he stroked his buttocks with a gentle hand. The smell of the holy was wafted toward entering Bonaparte, who said with care:
“ Salaam aleikum .”
They nodded at that and waited. Bonaparte sat on a kind of throne. Young Legrand did his best, but it was a long slow business.
“We believe in Allah, we take the Koran as a sacred book. In our land we broke the power of infidel Rum, in his own land we struck down her Sultan whom men call the Pope, in Malta we slew the Knights, sworn enemies of Islam. Inform your people that we are sent by Allah to geld the evil Turk and raise high the people of the Nile.”
“How can slaves be sent by Allah? You all have hairless faces, the mark of the bondsman.”
“That can be put right, with time and God’s holy help. My men shall grow mustaches. The point I would now make is that we French are children of Islam like yourselves. Where lies the difference, save in things of the surface? We believe in brotherhood under one God, the reward of heaven and the punishment of hell, the power of prayer—”
“You drink wine, you have foreskins. These things have been observed.”
“It was not seemly to raise your flags on the minarets.”
“That was a mistake. We were too eager to show that our cause and the cause of Islam are one. They have all been taken down.”
“As for your circumcisions, the chief modin can arrange all. Your wine must return to the earth whence the grape came. Haram .”
“Yes yes yes, later. For now I would ask you to proclaim next Friday from the mimbar in the masjid that the French are protectors of the faith and friends of the Prophet.”
“What the people have so far seen is godless slaves who tear at the veils of our women and have stolen gold dangling from their belts.”
“What you will see is justice. Justice. You will see printed books, from which the people will learn—”
“There are afrits and shaitans in books.”
“Houses where the sick shall be healed. With us are learned physicians.”
“Allah disposes sickness and health. All is in the hands of Allah.”
“Look,” he said. “I’ve heard about these afrits and shaitans before. Some of your holier citizens said that my soldiers were shaitans and afrits. You know what they did. Holy slaughter. I was strongly advised to wreak vengeance. One of my staff went on his knees to me, imploring that I burn your mosques and hang some of you. As an example. Some of you here, that is. I did not. I was merciful.”
“Only Allah is merciful.”
“But I am quite capable of not being merciful.”
Legrand translated that, making them mumble among themselves. But he perceived, a little too late perhaps, that the C-in-C was thinking of other, more privy, areas of
“Done that?”
“Yes, general. General, that case of Arabic type isn’t complete. No toks, not enough nuns.”
“Improvise. Surely you can make a tok out of a combined saad and alif. I leave the details to you.”
“If we could send to Paris—”
“There will be no sending to Paris.” Legrand wondered why. “We must learn to make everything ourselves. Even lead pencils. Monsieur Conté himself is with us. That is something to go in a later proclamation perhaps. Bullets melted down to make lead pencils.”
“There are not many here who use lead pencils.”
“They will learn, we shall teach. Have we kept those dignitaries waiting long enough?”
“The eyes of the eternal are blind to time.”
“Is that in the Koran?”
“It’s the sort of thing they say.” They left the office with its sweating clerks and clomped down a long corridor to a sort of council chamber. Imams and muftis and kathis sat here on cushions, turbaned elders who had risen above the squalor of the flesh. The heat was tamed by wide-eyed boys with feathery fans. One of the muftis much admired one of these boys, and he stroked his buttocks with a gentle hand. The smell of the holy was wafted toward entering Bonaparte, who said with care:
“ Salaam aleikum .”
They nodded at that and waited. Bonaparte sat on a kind of throne. Young Legrand did his best, but it was a long slow business.
“We believe in Allah, we take the Koran as a sacred book. In our land we broke the power of infidel Rum, in his own land we struck down her Sultan whom men call the Pope, in Malta we slew the Knights, sworn enemies of Islam. Inform your people that we are sent by Allah to geld the evil Turk and raise high the people of the Nile.”
“How can slaves be sent by Allah? You all have hairless faces, the mark of the bondsman.”
“That can be put right, with time and God’s holy help. My men shall grow mustaches. The point I would now make is that we French are children of Islam like yourselves. Where lies the difference, save in things of the surface? We believe in brotherhood under one God, the reward of heaven and the punishment of hell, the power of prayer—”
“You drink wine, you have foreskins. These things have been observed.”
“It was not seemly to raise your flags on the minarets.”
“That was a mistake. We were too eager to show that our cause and the cause of Islam are one. They have all been taken down.”
“As for your circumcisions, the chief modin can arrange all. Your wine must return to the earth whence the grape came. Haram .”
“Yes yes yes, later. For now I would ask you to proclaim next Friday from the mimbar in the masjid that the French are protectors of the faith and friends of the Prophet.”
“What the people have so far seen is godless slaves who tear at the veils of our women and have stolen gold dangling from their belts.”
“What you will see is justice. Justice. You will see printed books, from which the people will learn—”
“There are afrits and shaitans in books.”
“Houses where the sick shall be healed. With us are learned physicians.”
“Allah disposes sickness and health. All is in the hands of Allah.”
“Look,” he said. “I’ve heard about these afrits and shaitans before. Some of your holier citizens said that my soldiers were shaitans and afrits. You know what they did. Holy slaughter. I was strongly advised to wreak vengeance. One of my staff went on his knees to me, imploring that I burn your mosques and hang some of you. As an example. Some of you here, that is. I did not. I was merciful.”
“Only Allah is merciful.”
“But I am quite capable of not being merciful.”
Legrand translated that, making them mumble among themselves. But he perceived, a little too late perhaps, that the C-in-C was thinking of other, more privy, areas of
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