Submission

by Harrison Young

  Next day she called him. “Will you come see me?” she said.

  When he was seated in her room, she said, “Will you sit in that chair and not make any move to touch me?”

  “Yes.”

  She undressed. He honoured his promise. She showed him her tattoo.

  “As you may imagine, it is something I am reluctant to expose.”

  “What does it mean?” he said.

  “I do not want to tell you the story.”

  “All right.”

  “Now that you have seen it, will you make love to me?”

  “You don’t have to do that...”

  “I know.”

  “...especially if it is an apology for yesterday.”

  She said nothing, but simply stood in front of him like a present.

  “Sweetheart, I have wanted to make love to you since the first moment I saw you, but do you want it?”

  She closed her eyes and then replied softly, “Yes, please.”

  Not surprisingly, he soon asked her to marry him.

  “I have to ask my aunt,” she said.

  “Your aunt?”

  “The one who sends me money. She thinks she owns me.”

  “Sweetheart, we don’t need anyone’s money. We will make our own life.”

  “There is a lot of money there,” she said.

  “Do you care that much about it?”

  Allison thought for a moment. “It is best that I tell you honestly that I do care about it. Things have happened to me that make me that way. You see how I dress. You know I own a car. I spend only a fraction of what she sends me. I put the rest in a bank account that no one but me knows about – I will never tell you where – and it is unlikely, until she dies, that it will ever be enough to make me feel secure. When she does, if she leaves me a significant portion of what I believe she has, I may become less...concerned about money. But I think it is unlikely that I will ever tell you how much I have. So you see I am a damaged person.”

  “Do I get to meet this aunt?”

  “Probably not. It would be better if you didn’t.”

  “No one to dispute her ownership?”

  “You understand,” she said.

  Tom looked at the floor for a long moment before speaking again.

  “What does she make you do?”

  “Worship her.”

  Allison flew to Paris to see Maloof. He was not surprised.

  “I hadn’t told you how serious he was about me,” she said, expecting reproof.

  “No,” he said. “It makes sense. It is probably helpful.”

  “I do not want to give up my work,” she said.

  “Based on what you have told me, I do not think you will need to.”

  “And I do not want you to lose confidence in me.”

  “I have not.”

  “As you think about it,” she said, “I expect it will trouble you, actually, that I did not tell you about Tommy, that I held something back. The last time I did that, you punished me. I would like to be punished now, so that you know I continue to accept your authority.”

  It seemed to take Maloof a minute to remember what she was talking about. “You want to be caned? That is not necessary. You are fully trained.”

  “It is necessary to me. I will not marry Tommy without your blessing. That is how I wish to receive it.” She felt a little like Joan of Arc, offering herself this way. She hoped Maloof wouldn’t think she was ridiculous.

  “Very well,” he said. “Two strokes.”

  “That is not enough,” she said. They settled on eight.

  Allison could not have said, in the next few years, what game she was playing – whether she was “married to her career,” as the saying goes, and Tommy was her cover story, or whether she was creating a means and a basis for escape from Maloof.

  For a while it didn’t matter. They got married in Tommy’s church. No one gave her away. She came down the aisle alone, white satin covering her doubts and hiding her tattoo, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the congregation. Tommy went to work for a very good bank in New York. Allison was diligent and compliant in the bedroom, on the unarticulated theory that it would help him be successful. She helped out at a nursery school, but stayed on the pill, exercised regularly, and found some other wives she could swear with, from time to time, to let off steam. All of which seemed to work.

  And when the lady called, she visited her aunt.

  17

  The king comes more often now, sometimes bringing Fawzi or Abdulrahman or another of his ministers. When Abdulrahman is there, Fatima is quite prepared to interrupt. They are good for each other. She wishes to be thought intelligent. He wishes to be thought polite. They knit their brows and I want to hug them both. Then the king makes us all laugh.

  Fatima is amused, but also envious, that Philip Cooper is teaching Sheik Fawzi to drive his jeep. She would like to learn herself. This is impossible. Some Arab women drive here, but it is unthinkable for the princess to do so. But she pretends it will be “her turn next,” as if Philip’s availability were the only obstacle, and eagerly asks what it’s like.

  His Excellency gets enormous enjoyment out of driving, which slightly embarrasses him. Since he wishes to pretend not to be embarrassed, he tells her what it is like in detail, and sounds like a small boy who has had a large adventure. Fawzi is a wonderful talker, so Fatima has her adventure too, vicariously.

  While this is going on, with many gestures and many questions, the king winks at me. He does not know how to drive either, but nothing embarrasses him. He is a virtuoso of repose.

  I think Mubarek has decided about his daughter. He thinks she should marry Abdulrahman. But he wishes the idea to arise in her, the suggestion to come from her. Or from her brother. So he waits.

  The king has a problem with his son. His son is dumb. Dumb and eager. A soldier who kept me once used to say that there were four kinds of people in the world. I think the story was attributed to Napoleon. “Those who are stupid and lazy, we make privates. Those who are intelligent and energetic, we make staff officers. Those who are intelligent and lazy, we make generals. But those who are stupid and energetic, we get rid of, because they are dangerous.”

  Unfortunately, a crown prince is not disposable.

  His Highness was quite put out, initially, about “the American.” The American had seen combat. Why was so valuable and interesting a person assigned to the prime minister instead of the Ministry of Defence?

  Mubarek has explained, more than once, that the prime minister asked his American friend for a lawyer, and that it is only a coincidence that Philip Cooper had once served in the American Army. This never really satisfies Ibrahim, but now that he and Philip have found each other he lets it drop.

  The prime minister’s position, in the office, is that he never asked for an adviser, that Philip was forced upon him by Mubarek. But perhaps that is a joke. He never disputes His Majesty in person.

  If he were more intelligent, if he had his sister’s eyes, Ibrahim would be a very handsome fellow. No doubt there are lots of girls in Alidar who think him so anyway. I wonder who he is permitted to marry.

  For now, the boy seems to be having a good enough time with his army. I hope he never has to use it, though he’d love to. Glory is a concept he can embrace.

  When the time comes, he’ll do whatever his father tells him.

  Sometimes the king and I leave his guests arguing at the table and walk through the palace. We sit in his study, a room his children may not enter, and he reads the many reports he receives. Or a book. Or we go to his “map room.” Despite having never been anywhere, he has a vast collection – primarily sheet maps, ordered from geographical societies and ordnance surveys all over the world. They reside in large, shallow drawers built into the wall, all neatly labelled in Arabic and English: “Venezuela,” “the Arctic,” “the Western Isles of Scotland.” In the centre of the room there is a large island counter, of the sort you see in some modern kitchens, hig
her than a normal table, with a thick cork surface. This enables His Majesty to tack two or three maps in place, and, for example, lay out the entire Nile. We sit on high stools and survey bits of the world. On two sides of the room there are tall windows, looking out to the sea. The king has never been to sea.

  “I imagine it would be like the desert,” he says, “except for the motion.”

  I watch him looking out of the window, and imagine him imagining foreign places. The sun is brilliant, and the heat outside is punishing, but it is a perfect temperature where we sit. Everything in the palace is perfect, in fact: the china cups in which our coffee has been served, the coffee itself, the pressed linen napkins, the little slides that come out of the side of the counter so that you can set your cup in a place where, should it spill, it will not spoil the maps. This kind of detail can only be a product of the king’s imagination. The foreign places he envisages must be wonderful.

  We do England. Where do I come from? He hands me his pointer. I explain that I am the daughter of a policeman, that they are moved regularly, so as to prevent corruption, and that in consequence I come from nowhere.

  “Does it work?” he asks.

  “No. There is still corruption.”

  “There is always corruption. Some of my brother monarchs – they come visit me, you know – some of them understand this, and some do not. Abdulrahman, for all his education, does not understand. Corruption is the natural element in which we humans swim – greed and jealousy and ambition. I can tell from the way Abdulrahman speaks that he believes such things can be administered away, weeded out of our garden. As if decay were not what feeds new plants. But he is intelligent. In time he will understand.

  “I am not permitted to leave, you know.”

  I do know this, but I sense that he wants to tell me about it.

  “We have a tradition, unique to Alidar, I think, that a monarch is deemed to have abdicated if he ever steps over the border, or boards a ship. I think it was a way of reassuring our neighbours, because of course if there was to be a war, the king had to command the army. No leaving the country, no war.

  “By giving up war, we were able to prosper. Having the port we do, prosperity was our destiny. And now there is the oil.

  “It makes us eunuchs, prosperity does. I could have been a warrior, I think, but the opportunity never arose. I certainly would have liked to be a traveller. My father died suddenly, before I had a chance to see the world. This is why I sent Abdulrahman to be educated abroad, I suppose. That is why I had Fawzi take Ibrahim to Paris. Or part of the why.

  “We cannot make war now, of course. Not anymore. But the tradition continues, and we sit here hoping war will not come to us, and wondering who would be on our side if it did. We make the friends we can…and hope old friends are loyal.”

  I wait for him to continue, but he changes the subject.

  “About the American, Philip Cooper, legendary infantryman, child of God, do you think he understands?”

  “Corruption?”

  “Everything.”

  “No.”

  “I continue to regard him as suitable.”

  There is another silence, during which the king permits me to look at him.

  “And if you come from nowhere,” he says, “where is home?”

  “Somewhere with flowers.”

  That evening, to my less than total surprise, I am the recipient of roses – large, old-fashioned white ones, flecked with red.

  18

  The asteroid that Allison had become felt the first tug of destiny when the bank Tommy worked for asked them to move to Alidar. Up to then, she had been able to tell herself she had chosen the course she was on. But of course she agreed to go.

  Maloof’s strategy had become fairly clear: gradual destabilisation and selective terror. Most important Alidi and Zaathis loved to travel. When they did, he could reach them. Through Allison. Things, he said, were falling into place. There weren’t any more useless cousins left. A couple of favours done for unconnected parties had taken care of “logistics,” which was Maloof’s word for money.

  The couple of favours had been in South America, and Allison had got good reviews, the best element of which was that the clients thought she was a man. Never saw her, but assumed she was a man. Maloof let them think so. He was pleased and she was just as glad to let them think it.

  The problem with South America was that she’d never been there before, so it felt like an escape. She felt an overwhelming surge of desire and almost allowed herself to be picked up. She had honestly forgotten how much less sex she got than she wanted. There she was in Brazil, there was this music, no Tommy, no Maloof, her contact was a sealed envelope that told her to kill time, she bought a bathing suit and holy shit! One definitely got noticed. She’d kind of forgotten about the tattoo, but presumably it was taken for a birthmark.

  The work steadied her nerves, but it occurred to her after she got back that perhaps Mother Nature was telling her it was time to start a family. She was working up to saying something about it to Tommy when he said would she mind if they moved somewhere extremely boring and she saw even less of him.

  “If it’s what you want, sweetheart,” she said.

  She told Maloof right away. His first reaction was to laugh.

  “Allah favours me,” he said.

  What he meant was that he could use an agent in place – someone who could tell him what was happening inside the expatriate community, someone who could also do the odd bit of work – and now his angel had a plane ticket.

  “O.K.,” said Allison.

  Maloof didn’t want to use the phone in Alidar, so they worked out a signal – an innocuous sign in the window of a shop owned by one of his supporters – and a place to meet off the road behind the Jebel. Allison had to wonder if Maloof was getting overconfident. What if someone saw him? How could you live in Alidar and not know about Suleiman? There’s this guy who thinks he ought to be king, right, and he’s six foot four and who else would be out there in the middle of the night looking handsome? Not to mention her blonde self.

  To be fair, not everyone did know about Suleiman. If they had, there would have been a stampede for the airport.

  So anyway, she was in Alidar and it made her shiver. There was this swarm of “Europeans” whom you met almost immediately, but what they had to do with her or God’s plan was unclear. She knew she would die in Alidar and hoped to die well. Having acknowledged that, she didn’t think about it much. Tommy seemed oddly happy with his work. Something about the hostility of the terrain agreed with her. They had a very acceptable house, with an oversupply of air-conditioning and new furniture. There was a restaurant with good fish, where a single woman could go and not get hassled, thanks to its peculiar proprietor. She hadn’t made any women friends, but then she never had, really. Just people who told her their problems. She was glad she didn’t drink much, as it seemed to be something that could get out of hand here. Maloof hadn’t got her a gun yet, but presumably he would. No hurry.

  Maloof’s first instructions were to go to Ian’s Restaurant and see what’s going on. Darts was what’s going on, and the Lebanese and Cockney foreign exchange dealers could only barely be prevented from killing each other on account of their having different concepts of correct business practice, which everyone else in the place thinks is a great hoot. Bottom line: they are not afraid yet.

  “So what do you suggest?” he said.

  “Give me a gun and two weeks.”

  He’d given her two weeks but not the gun. Very annoying, being treated like a child, but maybe he didn’t have a gun and didn’t want to admit it. His resources were not that extensive. It was something you had to admire about the guy. He was actually improvising all the time. He sure did want to be king.

  Allison bought herself a chador, and when Tommy was away she wore it around the house until she was comfortable in it, could manoeuvre, could see, knew how to pause and adjust to changes in the light that temporarily b
linded her as she peered through the black silk. There was the matter of her hands, which she dealt with by buying tight fitting silk gloves. Finally she found a place in town to put it on: the ladies’ room off the lobby of the Hilton. Because the hotel was at the edge of the souk, a lot of women used it, both Europeans and upper class Arabs. She could go in Allison and come out anonymous.

  Maloof began to feed her information about quarrels: two shopkeepers who both claimed a stall that had become vacant; an unreasonable rent increase; a collision that might have been an insult. She would wander by invisibly and study the situation, the approaches, the evident anger of the parties, the paths they took home. Allison hadn’t learned any Arabic, but one could sense things, and a lot got talked about at Ian’s in English.

  Finally she chose. A young smuggler with bad manners and rich parents was dating an Alidi computer programmer who had many brothers, some of whom were as westernised as she was, and some of whom were not. She liked to go to Ian’s and flirt with the rugby players after their weekly matches – which was perfectly calculated to scandalise her family and drive her Buhara boyfriend crazy.

  Maloof approved and provided the means. Allison shot the girl.

  As expected, when the girl’s body was found beside her car in Ian’s parking lot, her brothers assumed the young smuggler had done it. Who else had a motive? And he was known to be a hothead. Within twenty-four hours, pieces of him were floating in the harbour. While everyone understood – conservative opinion being that both lovers got what they deserved – the Buhara’s dismemberment was an insult his family could not ignore. There was a scuffle in the souk and one of the girl’s brothers was fatally stabbed. That night a lot of cars got vandalised. Ian closed his restaurant for “maintenance” for a week.

  The king let it be known that the matter was closed. And so it was. But Maloof was pleased, explaining that any true Arab who is not permitted to satisfy honour’s demands will be resentful.

  “If this were an earlier age,” he said, “we could use religious conviction, just as the al Saud hitched their ambition to the fundamentalist zeal of the Wahhabi and conquered most of the peninsula.”