Budayeen Nights: Stories

son.”

“My mother stands over there,” said Kebap. “She has not clothed her breasts, as she should in the evening, only because she hopes to beguile you. She is a very energetic person, yaa Sidi, and even though the hour grows late, she still reserves a place in her heart for you.”

Ernst shook his head. The liquor had made him sick. “No, I am sorry. I have ceased hunting after hearts. Indeed, I thought no one followed that fruitless sport any longer.”

“Then there is my older sister. That is her, on the far side of the square, pretending that she is an armless beggar.”

“No, you tactless procurer. You still have much to learn.”

“I am sorry again,” said Kebap with a cruel grin. “My own body will not be available for perhaps another three years. These are the days of my carefree childhood.”

Ernst stood up and screamed at the boy. Kebap laughed and ran toward his mother.

There were few customers in the Fee Blanche after dark. Ernst did not mind. His nights were entrusted to solitude; he actually looked forward to night, when he ceased performing for the benefit of the passersby. Now his only audience was himself. His thoughts grew confused, and he mistook that quality for complexity. By this time, he was taking his whiskey straight.

There had been a woman, Ernst thought, later in his life than either of his juvenescent calamities. This woman had brought a great settling of his rampant doubts, a satisfaction of his many needs. There had been a time of happiness, he thought. The idea seemed to fit, though the entire memory was clouded in the haze of years and of deliberate forgetfulness. There was a large open space, an asphalt field with painted lines running in all directions. Ernst was dressed differently, was speaking another language, was frantically trying to hide somewhere. He couldn’t see the picture any more clearly. He couldn’t decide whether or not he was alone.

Somehow it now seemed as if it hadn’t even been his own experience, as though he were recalling the past of another person. He had forgotten very well indeed.

“Your passport, sir?” he whispered, remembering more.

“Yes, here it is,” he answered himself. “I’m sure you’ll find it all in order.” He spoke aloud in German, and the words sounded odd in the hot desert night.

“You are Ernst Weinraub?”

“With a t. My name is Weintraub. A rather commonplace German name.”

“Yes. So. Herr Weintraub. Please step over here. Have a seat.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, this is purely formality. It won’t take but a moment to clear it up.”

Ernst recalled how he had taken a chair against the gray and green wall. The official had disappeared for a short time. When he returned, he was accompanied by another man. The two spoke quietly in their own language, and quickly enough so that Ernst understood little. He heard his name mentioned several times, each time mispronounced as “Weinraub.”

Ernst shook his head sadly. He had never gone through such a scene with any border officials, and he had never spelled his name with a “t.” He stared at the hotel across the avenue and took a long swallow of whiskey. Now the Fee Blanche was empty again except for himself and M. Gargotier, who sat listening to a large radio inside the dark cave of the bar.

“Monsieur Weinraub?” It was Czerny, his gray uniform soiled, his tunic hanging unbuttoned on his thin frame. “You’re certainly dependable. Always here, eh? What an outpost you’d make.” Czerny staggered drunkenly. He supported a drunken woman with the aid of another uniformed man. Ernst’s own eyes were not clear, but he recognized Ieneth. He did not answer.

“Don’t be so moody,” said the woman. “You don’t have any more secrets, do you, Sidi Weinraub?” Czerny and the other man laughed.

Ernst looked at her as she swayed on the sidewalk. “No,” he said. He took some more of his liquor and waved her away. She paid no attention.

“Here,” said Czerny, “try some of this. From the amusement quarter. A little stand by the Pantheon. The man makes the best stuffed crab I’ve ever had. Do you know Lisbon? The Tavares has a name for stuffed crab. Our local man should steal that honor.”

“Alfama,” said Ernst.

“What is that?” asked Ieneth.

“Alfama,” said Ernst. “Lisbon. The old quarter.”

“Yes,” said Czerny. They were all silent for a few seconds. “Oh, forgive me, M. Weinraub. You are acquainted with my companion, are you not?”

Ernst shook his head and raised his hand for M. Gargotier, forgetting that the proprietor had retired inside his bar and could not see.

“We have met before,” said the stranger in the uniform of the Jaish. “Perhaps M. Weinraub does not recall the occasion. It was at a party at the home of Safety Director Chanzir.” Ernst smiled politely but said nothing.

“Then may I present my friend?” said Czerny. “M. Weinraub, I am honored to introduce Colonel Sandor Courane.”

Czerny grinned, waiting to see how Ernst would react. Courane reached over the railing to shake hands, but Ernst pretended not to see. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Forgive me for not recognizing you. You write verses, do you not?”

Czerny’s grin vanished. “Do not be more of a fool, M. Weinraub. You see very little from your seat here, you know. You cannot understand what we have done. Tonight the city is ours!”

Ernst drained the last drop of whiskey from his glass. “To whom did it belong previously?” he said softly.

“M. Weinraub,” said Ieneth, “we’ve had some pleasant talks. I like you, you know. I don’t want you to be hurt.”

“How can I be hurt?” asked Ernst. “I’m carefully not taking sides. I’m not going to offend anyone.”

“You offend me,” said Czerny, beckoning to Ieneth and Courane. The woman and the two uniformed men tottered away down the sidewalk. Ernst got up and took his glass into the bar for more whiskey.

The lonely night passed. It was very late. Ernst drank, and his thoughts became more incoherent and his voice more strident; but there was only M. Gargotier to observe him now. He sang to himself, and thought sadly about the past, and, though he gestured energetically to the proprietor, even that patient audience remained silent. Finally, driven further into his own solitude, he drew out his most dangerous thoughts. He reviewed his life honestly, as he did every night. He took each incident in order, or at least in the special order that this particular night demanded. “The events of the day,” he thought, “considered with my customary objectivity. A trivial today, a handful of smoke.”

Only the bright, unwinking lights of the amusement quarter still pierced the darkness. The last celebrants had all straggled back up the street, past the Cafe de la Fee Blanche. Now there was only Ernst and the nervous, sleepy barkeep.

When was the last time Ernst had seen Gretchen? He recalled the characteristic thrill he got whenever he saw his wife’s comfortable shape, recognized her familiar pace. What crime had he committed, that he was left to decay alone? Had he grown old? He examined the backs of his hands, the rough, yellowed skin where the brown spots merged into a fog. He tried to focus on the knife ridges of tendon and vein. No, he decided, he wasn’t old. It wasn’t that.

Ernst listened. There were no sounds now. It had been a while since Kebap had last sauntered past with his vicious words and his degenerate notions. It was so like the city, that one as young as the boy could already possess the bankrupt moral character of a Vandal warlord. The festivals in the other quarters of the city had long ago come to an end. The pigeons in the square did not stir; there wasn’t even the amazed flutter of their sluggish wings, lifting the birds away from some imagined danger, settling them back asleep before their mottled feet touched the ground again. They wouldn’t move even if he threw his table into their sculpted flock.

There was no Kebap, no Czerny, no Ieneth. There was only Ernst, and the darkness. “This is the time for art,” he said. “There can’t be such silence anywhere else in the world, except perhaps at the frozen ends. And even there, why, you have whales and bears splashing into the black water. The sun never sinks, does it? There’s always some daylight. Or else I have it wrong, and it is dark all the time. In any event, there will be creatures of one sort or