Submission

by Harrison Young

  “Why are they loyal to you?”

  “They’re ambitious. And it doesn’t matter, because whoever wins, if I have to go that route, can be replaced with Zaathi later. But in the first few days I will need certified Alidi to put down the demonstrations my Buhara supporters will launch, and surround the palace to protect Mubarek until the battle in the desert is over, the police declare their allegiance to me, and the pretend king, as you so nicely put it, can be discovered to have hanged himself to avoid the humiliation of surrender. Dealing with Ibrahim’s toy army will be an easy matter.”

  “It might be a mistake to underestimate the toy army. Cooper has not told me what he is teaching them, but he is a determined individual, as I know from running with him.”

  “Oh, I do not underestimate Mr. Cooper,” said Maloof. “I know a little about what he did in their army. He is not someone to ignore. But I also know more than a little about Ibrahim. I made Fawzi introduce me to him in Paris – as ‘Dr. Maloof’ of course. All of Mubarek’s intelligence went to the sister. She, fortunately, is not in charge of their toy army. If she were, they would probably invade Zaathah and try to find me. No, I do not underestimate Mr. Cooper, and in fact I am curious why such a man as he would have told you as much as he did.”

  “I think he’s in love with me,” said Allison. “It’s rather creepy, actually. When can I have a pistol?”

  “I don’t have one with me.”

  When he didn’t continue right away, Allison lowered her eyes. She was pretty good at figuring out what he wanted, and right now, for some reason, he wanted her to be soft.

  “Allison, you are no longer a girl. You have been fearless and obedient beyond my comprehension. That has meant a lot. I do not want you to take any more risks. I do not want you to kill any more – even Cooper, who has violated you. I will have him taken care of separately. I want you to go to Paris until what is going to happen is over. I will have to marry an Alidi, of course, but –”

  “You will have to let me deal with Cooper,” said Allison, interrupting. “No one else would be able to get to him. And do not say any more to make me soft while I still have work to do. Let me know when I can have a pistol. You may send me to Paris when I am done.”

  Allison turned and walked back into the scrub toward her car. That would have to hold him. She needed a few things in her universe to stay in place while she looked for a way out. Maloof had probably liked her last speech, but she had never disagreed with him before, so she could not know how he would behave.

  Allison found herself turning left, off the path she was following, into denser brush. She moved quickly, putting her hands up to protect her face. Within a few minutes she was near the place where she and Maloof had met, but approaching it from a different direction. She slowed and listened. Nothing. She edged forward, and saw that he was still where she had left him, leaning against a rock. Then, as she watched, he leaned down, picked up a pinch of sand and held it in the palm of his hand, as he had done before. He brought it to his mouth and appeared to swallow it. Allison watched patiently. After a few minutes, having given no sign of spitting out the sand, he stood up again and walked into the brush on the opposite side of the clearing.

  Allison walked back toward her car. She was having unwelcome thoughts. Paris was feasible. Maloof had been an addiction, not a relationship, and his thinking he was a king had simply added to the exoticism. Now in all likelihood he was going to be a king, and he had regard for her.

  She could shoot Philip. She could have servants in Paris, who had reasons they couldn’t quit, and could be made to do things.

  Oh, God, where were these ideas coming from?

  Allison stopped dead. She was in the wilderness. There was no sight or sound of civilisation. Her car was still a few hundred yards away, and the highway some distance further. Only by an effort of will did she prevent herself from undressing and rubbing thorns into her body. Pain was not the answer.

  Gingerly, as if she had been turned into porcelain and might break, she sat down on the hard ground. There was a patch of loose sand beside her. She wet her finger, picked some up and studied the grains. They were translucent, probably quartz. She licked a few of the grains from her finger. What an idiot she was.

  If you went into the real desert, there were oceans of sand, in which the wind carved beautiful ripples. When the wind was from the south, the sand consumed the landscape. Philip had told her about one time running under such conditions. When he turned back, the road had disappeared. He said he had been foolish to go out that day.

  Eating sand was like fighting God. You could only lose. Allison had been losing since she was a little girl. She stood up with care, and brushed herself off. What, in her whole life, had reality? Philip. She had to hold onto that thought, and to him.

  And she had to get rid of Fawzi. He might know what she was, what she’d become. What she’d become had to go away. And it didn’t sound like Maloof would miss the prime minister.

  29

  The girl on the counter was breathing steadily, except for occasional half-snores. Philip and Ian sat at a work table in the middle of the restaurant kitchen, eating scrambled eggs and buttered toast. A knock at the door.

  “I saw the light on,” said Fawzi.

  “A pleasure to see you, Excellency,” said Ian. “What will you have?”

  “The same – and orange juice.”

  Ian had a can of beer in front of him. Philip was drinking milk, which was a good idea at that stage of the evening.

  “Prime Minister never touches alcohol,” said Ian, as if this would be news to Philip.

  “There is no holiness in my abstinence,” said Fawzi. “Alcohol does not agree with me.”

  “God forbid you should be discovered in virtue,” said Philip. Fawzi gave him a look. Ian was busy with a frying pan.

  “What has the sea washed up?” said Fawzi, noticing the girl for the first time.

  “She fell asleep in Philip’s lap,” said Ian. “He leads them on, you know. There are broken hearts all over Alidar.”

  “So I have observed,” said Fawzi.

  “I’m saving myself for Ian,” said Philip. This did not seem to be a success as a joke, so he went on quickly. “A nurse at the Royal Hospital. Been out here about a month – or so she said when she was still able to talk.”

  “Another servant of the Crown,” said Fawzi.

  “It may all be a front,” said Ian. “Many people in Alidar have false identities.”

  “Well, I’ve checked on Cooper,” said the prime minister. “He is who he purports to be. And you, brother Elliot, are an acknowledged scoundrel, about whom I know entirely too much. But who, actually, is this girl? Do we know where she lives? Does she have a name?”

  “Daisy,” said Philip. “British. No roommates. No driver’s licence. No underwear. She told me all that.”

  “A promising beginning,” said Fawzi.

  “Not my type, but we couldn’t leave her at the party,” said Philip. “The hosts have small children.”

  “He prefers them fit,” said Ian. Having served the prime minister his eggs and toast, Ian was examining the girl. He began unbuttoning her blouse. “Someone this careless should also lose her clothes, don’t you think? Then we leave her in the bushes outside the Hilton?” Philip watched him as he set about the task. Ian pinched one of the girl’s nipples hard. She didn’t respond at all. “Totally pissed,” he said. “Anaesthetises the central nervous system, alcohol does.” He walked across the room and threw the girl’s skirt and blouse in a large garbage can. “Perhaps we should paint her tits.”

  Philip was not entirely comfortable with the trend of this conversation.

  “For all we know,” said Ian, changing his tone, “she could be the ‘Lady Assassin.’”

  “You continue to believe she is a European,” said Fawzi, “even after Mrs. Valentine’s sighting?”

  “Disguises are easy,” said Ian.

  “This is worth listening to
, Cooper. Elliot is a man of wide experience.”

  “I do not think an assassin would drink so much,” said Philip.

  “You drink,” said Ian.

  “Is Cooper an assassin?” said Fawzi brightly. “He never told us.”

  “I left the army a long time ago,” said Philip.

  “You can take the boy out of the jungle,” said Ian, “but you can’t take the jungle out of the boy.”

  For the first time, it occurred to Philip that Ian might be gay.

  “Well, I suppose he’ll be the one to shoot me then,” said Fawzi. “I am a very unsatisfactory employer, you know. He disapproves of everything I do.”

  A memory of his mother arguing with his father flashed into Philip’s head: “Just get along with him! I don’t care if he is a stupid man. He owns the factory and he gives you employment and we depend upon your pay cheque.”

  “You are gloomy tonight, Prime Minister,” said Ian.

  “We all must die,” said Fawzi, affecting a melancholy tone. “So where is the difference? I used to fear the Lady Assassin. It turns out she drinks. So now I fear Cooper.”

  “Red or blue?” said Ian, holding up two felt-tipped pens.

  “Red or blue what?” said Philip.

  “Which colour shall I paint her tits?” said Ian.

  “You lack finesse tonight, brother Elliot,” said Fawzi, rising from the table. “Give me the blue one.”

  Philip got up as well, to see what Fawzi would do.

  “Lovely skin,” said Fawzi, standing at the counter. “Seeing a girl like this naked reminds me that God exists.”

  And then, very carefully, he drew a design high up on the inside of her thigh. It was roughly circular, about an inch and a half in diametre, and composed of Arabic script.

  “What is it?” said Philip when Fawzi was finished.

  “A warning.” His Excellency paused. “Now, let me give you a ride home, Cooper. Unlike this young woman, I have a driver’s licence. And unlike you, I am sober.”

  “What about Daisy?” said Philip.

  “We will let Elliot dispose of her.”

  Philip felt a quiver of concern.

  “Don’t worry, my American friend,” said Fawzi. “Elliot is more responsible than he pretends.”

  30

  After the explosion that killed my father, I was angry at the universe. I considered talking to someone – a policeman’s daughter knows what psychiatry is – but the anger was all I had to hang on to, and I decided I didn’t want it tampered with.

  I bought a car with the insurance money, and drove it too fast. One night I walked out of a party wearing another woman’s coat. Her husband saw me do it. I let him see me. And let him have me the next day. He turned out a treat. A mink for a pleasant afternoon. But it was a gamble at the time.

  I went out with a man I thought might beat me up, to see what that would be like. When he didn’t, I tried teasing him. Sexually, that is. Eventually he did some things I didn’t enjoy. What was interesting was how clear it was to me that he didn’t enjoy them either. Or mostly didn’t. So I tried figuring out what parts of the parts he had us playing did excite him, and why they needed to involve arguments in expensive restaurants – tried to tease out, so to speak, the thread of pleasure in the ropes that bound him. What I discovered changed my life. Not the kink in this particular man – all he wanted was attention – but the fact that I could figure it out so easily.

  I moved to France, where, I mistakenly assumed, people talked more easily about sex and went to work for an escort service. Part of me was looking for abuse, but mostly I wanted to talk to the other girls. To see what they knew. To see if my abilities were anything special.

  They were.

  For almost a year I took on the hardest cases: men who did actually want to beat one, which was tiresome; an Irishman who came to town once a month, and had to get drunk and vomit, and be cleaned up, before he was ready; a Swede who turned out to be a woman and wanted to let her dwarf watch. I am not making this up. What I did, actually, in that case, was make the little creature stay in the bathroom, so his mistress could listen to him cursing and whimpering all night. It did the trick.

  Some of the things I did, Fellini would not have allowed in one of his movies. For a while I more or less was a Fellini movie. The escort service maintained a suite with a two-way mirror, so that the girls who were bored could watch, or improve their technique, or settle bets. I didn’t know this, and when I found out I didn’t like it. But there were men who did like it – sometimes I told them, sometimes I let them wonder about the mirror – and there were men who liked it that I didn’t like it. The permutations were endless.

  My situation was ridiculous. I suppose it still is. You understand, I was just nineteen, and had a place waiting for me at university. I would look at the reflection in the mirror, and see a strange man and woman preparing to behave obscenely with the utmost seriousness, and I would say to myself: that is not Cassandra. Cassandra works for an escort service, and does sometimes sleep with a client if she fancies him, but tonight she is somewhere else. I would distance myself from it all. I would be an astronaut or an angel, standing in outer space, bemused by tiny earth. I would be the orphan of a chief constable, who was getting over the shock, somewhere abroad. And then, as the familiar process advanced, I would be wholly there. Not in another city or another life. Not untouched. I would feel a quiver of longing or inhibition in the horizontal being beside me, and my sympathetic imagination would take over. I would do something completely unexpected – and the night would be transformed. I acquired finesse later, but nothing matched the raw inspiration of those first months.

  From time to time – for example, after the dwarf episode – I did wonder about myself. Was I ill? Was I possessed? How could someone do the things I did? How could someone even think of them? Because, you see, the dwarf loved it…

  So here I am in the middle of my life, the mistress of a king, or planning to be. And living alone, surrounded by pictures of myself. It has been an interesting fifteen years. Unhelpful emotions seep in from time to time – anger, sadness, whatever. I am professional enough to admit that. But I am also very good at what I do. His Majesty has much to look forward to.

  I have been reading about pregnancy and motherhood. I do not delude myself that Mubarek will allow me these luxuries, but it is a way of thinking about change. And permanence. There is a school of thought that husbands need to participate in childbirth. They go to classes where they learn to breathe, or learn to help their wives do so. I cannot imagine these sessions being anything but comic. But then, viewed objectively, intercourse is completely absurd.

  One day I have a notion to make Philip practise with me.

  Come to my house, I say. He has never been before. The soldiers will see me, he says. So I lend him my chador, and he pretends to be a cleaning lady. When I get him inside I make him undress completely. I know he likes this. He looks at the pictures but says nothing. I stuff a pillow under my dress.

  We do breathing for a while, sitting on my velvet couch. I hold the book in one hand, and with the other I pinch the flesh high up on the inside of his thigh.

  “This is supposed to add realism,” I say.

  He says nothing. We do more breathing and I pinch harder.

  “Does it hurt?” I ask.

  “I can take it,” he says.

  “You don’t have to, you know.” I increase the pressure.

  They say women giving birth often swear at their husbands, using words their husbands did not know they knew. I am getting testy with Philip because he doesn’t swear.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he says, and begins the counting and breathing again.

  I shift the flesh I am squeezing, so as to find the best nerves.

  “Why don’t you make me stop?” I say.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he repeats.

  I shift my grip again.

  “Be careful with the fingernails,” he says. “You do
n’t want blood on the sofa.”

  “There’s no point, you know,” I say wearily. “I’ve learned how to breathe. You’ve learned how to suffer. Enough.”

  No response.

  “Damn you, take control. Do not let me do this to you. Accepting pain is not an achievement.”

  “Survival is an achievement,” he says quietly.

  “Survival is not enough.” I put down the book and slap him hard on the cheek. “You are a stupid man,” I say. Slap. “Survival means more of this tomorrow.”

  “Please stop,” he says.

  I look straight at him. Slap. He is about to cry.

  “Make me stop,” I say.

  Finally, he pulls away and stands up. “Fuck you, Cassandra. I do not like this game.”

  “Don’t play it then,” I say. “And by the way, neither do I.”

  He puts on his clothes in silence, and leaves. After a while I pull the pillow out from under my dress. My hands are shaking. “Damn you,” I say to the empty room. There is blood on my sofa. And I have sent away my only friend.

  31

  Philip woke up the next morning feeling embarrassed. Why did he always let Cassandra undress him? What if someone came back to the office after it closed? What if there had been a maid in her house? That was part of the buzz – the sounds of life on the street below, the possibility of being discovered. Cassandra would know that. She had X-ray vision. How she must laugh. And now she had made a demonstration of his equally juvenile thirst for punishment.

  It was a relief to find the letter and have work to do. Someone had put it through the mail slot while he slept. Or maybe it actually was a piece of mail. It had French stamps and a Paris postmark. He’d never received actual mail at his stupid house before, but there had to be a postal service in Alidar, just as there was an army and an airport and an impending war.