One Hundred and One Nights (9780316191913) by Benjamin Buchholz Page B
Authors: Benjamin Buchholz
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father.
“I see you found my little experiment,” he said.
From behind his back he revealed the kitten, my kitten. Holding it by the scruff of its neck, he seemed to offer it to me across Fatima’s big butcher-block chopping table. I reached for it.
“Give it to me,” I said.
He pulled it away. Stepping back but still holding the kitten high in the air, he brought his other hand up to the kitten’s belly. Before I could rush around the table, he untied the cords holding the safety rag around the kitten’s midsection. Then, as the kitten frantically clawed the air, all four paws in furious motion, he dug into the gash. Sawing upward, inserting one, then two, then all four of his fingers, he further tore the wound. He pulled my stitches free. The kitten’s intestines spilled out in a long, coiling mass.
When at last he handed the little animal over to me, its heart had already stopped beating.
7
Sunday
LAYLA DOES NOT VISIT THIS EVENING. Perhaps the dirt and oil could not be scrubbed off in time for her to visit. Perhaps she is afraid of my wrath, as well she might be, if she doesn’t heed my warning from yesterday and show up clean and with a reformed attitude toward Allah. As the sun sets behind the overpass, I watch for her, unwilling to be surprised at her arrival. In addition to the convoys today, I notice a British patrol moving about the desert near the bypass road’s intersection. This is the first time I have noticed a patrol near the convoys, something other than the normal three Humvees the Americans use to guard their vehicles. Maybe they are concerned about the pipeline still. Maybe they hunt for a jihadist.
Today marks the seventh day since Layla’s visitations began. Also the twenty-fifth day of business for me since I moved to Safwan. A good day. I did not sell much of anything but, after the repeated visits from the Shareefi clan yesterday, I do not feel much like talking about satellites or mobile phones. I do not feel much like haggling over prices and plans.
The guard for the overpass brings out his tea set and arranges it on an overturned box beside his three-legged chair. I watch him make tea for himself, the lukewarm water he had left in a tarnished tin pot under the sun all afternoon, the sachet of chai dipped over the edge of the pot, two small tin cups ready to receive the brew.
Seeing no sign of Layla, I begin to walk down the road into Safwan. I try to think of Ulayya and of other Safwan women, but I discover I am thinking of Layla’s story, of Jed Clampett finding oil. I picture myself as a butler. I picture Layla in Beverly Hills, among mansions and swimming pools and robot actors. I picture Layla with a corncob pipe in her mouth like Jed Clampett, riding through town on a flatbed jalopy with a gun laid across her lap. I remember Layla stealing the guard’s gun. I turn around and look up at the guard. He has poured one cup of tea for himself. He drinks from this cup but the other cup sits on the tray unused. He apparently does not have a visitor, no one to drink from the second cup.
I change course, walk back across the market, past Rabeer’s used-car lot, past Maney’a and Ibrahim’s stacks of doors, door frames, sinks, knobs, and fixtures, past Wael’s dusty gray bags of concrete, past my own shop. I stop at Jaber’s stand and purchase two kebabs of chicken. These I take with me as I walk up the gradual curve of the cloverleaf on-ramp to the place where the guard’s tent perches in the last of the day’s long light.
“Masah il-kheir,” I say. “Fine evening!”
The guard snaps to attention. I am happy to have caught him unaware, lazing. I feel like a genie or an alien arriving unannounced. I feel like a nosy butler. I want to put on a fake Austrian accent and say “I’ll be back,” but I don’t think I have the necessary talent for voices. I am, nevertheless, proud of my stealth, and my pride erases most of the self-loathing I had felt for my previous
“I see you found my little experiment,” he said.
From behind his back he revealed the kitten, my kitten. Holding it by the scruff of its neck, he seemed to offer it to me across Fatima’s big butcher-block chopping table. I reached for it.
“Give it to me,” I said.
He pulled it away. Stepping back but still holding the kitten high in the air, he brought his other hand up to the kitten’s belly. Before I could rush around the table, he untied the cords holding the safety rag around the kitten’s midsection. Then, as the kitten frantically clawed the air, all four paws in furious motion, he dug into the gash. Sawing upward, inserting one, then two, then all four of his fingers, he further tore the wound. He pulled my stitches free. The kitten’s intestines spilled out in a long, coiling mass.
When at last he handed the little animal over to me, its heart had already stopped beating.
7
Sunday
LAYLA DOES NOT VISIT THIS EVENING. Perhaps the dirt and oil could not be scrubbed off in time for her to visit. Perhaps she is afraid of my wrath, as well she might be, if she doesn’t heed my warning from yesterday and show up clean and with a reformed attitude toward Allah. As the sun sets behind the overpass, I watch for her, unwilling to be surprised at her arrival. In addition to the convoys today, I notice a British patrol moving about the desert near the bypass road’s intersection. This is the first time I have noticed a patrol near the convoys, something other than the normal three Humvees the Americans use to guard their vehicles. Maybe they are concerned about the pipeline still. Maybe they hunt for a jihadist.
Today marks the seventh day since Layla’s visitations began. Also the twenty-fifth day of business for me since I moved to Safwan. A good day. I did not sell much of anything but, after the repeated visits from the Shareefi clan yesterday, I do not feel much like talking about satellites or mobile phones. I do not feel much like haggling over prices and plans.
The guard for the overpass brings out his tea set and arranges it on an overturned box beside his three-legged chair. I watch him make tea for himself, the lukewarm water he had left in a tarnished tin pot under the sun all afternoon, the sachet of chai dipped over the edge of the pot, two small tin cups ready to receive the brew.
Seeing no sign of Layla, I begin to walk down the road into Safwan. I try to think of Ulayya and of other Safwan women, but I discover I am thinking of Layla’s story, of Jed Clampett finding oil. I picture myself as a butler. I picture Layla in Beverly Hills, among mansions and swimming pools and robot actors. I picture Layla with a corncob pipe in her mouth like Jed Clampett, riding through town on a flatbed jalopy with a gun laid across her lap. I remember Layla stealing the guard’s gun. I turn around and look up at the guard. He has poured one cup of tea for himself. He drinks from this cup but the other cup sits on the tray unused. He apparently does not have a visitor, no one to drink from the second cup.
I change course, walk back across the market, past Rabeer’s used-car lot, past Maney’a and Ibrahim’s stacks of doors, door frames, sinks, knobs, and fixtures, past Wael’s dusty gray bags of concrete, past my own shop. I stop at Jaber’s stand and purchase two kebabs of chicken. These I take with me as I walk up the gradual curve of the cloverleaf on-ramp to the place where the guard’s tent perches in the last of the day’s long light.
“Masah il-kheir,” I say. “Fine evening!”
The guard snaps to attention. I am happy to have caught him unaware, lazing. I feel like a genie or an alien arriving unannounced. I feel like a nosy butler. I want to put on a fake Austrian accent and say “I’ll be back,” but I don’t think I have the necessary talent for voices. I am, nevertheless, proud of my stealth, and my pride erases most of the self-loathing I had felt for my previous
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