Carl tried to motion to the bartender and once again the bartender moved only when Risa confirmed it with a nod of his head.
“All right,” said Risa. “You want to know something. And I’ll tell you something. Since it is common knowledge on the street. You want the Rolls-Royce of mines. Yugoslavian-made?”
“Yes.”
“Or British?”
“Sure. It doesn’t matter.”
“Or American?”
“Yes, American.”
“So you want American ones? The Yugoslavian aren’t good enough?”
“It’s just about the price. The most expensive.”
“The most expensive?” Risa stared angrily at Carl. He jumped up and then sat down again. The scars on his face glowed light pink. Carl, who was unable to hold his gaze, made the mistake of looking away. In the next second he was lying on his back on the floor next to the bar. The scar-faced man was kneeling on his chest, glass broke, and the bartender stood over him holding a broken bottle.
“The! Most! Expensive!” screamed Risa. “Do you really think you can fool me? Do you think I don’t know who you are? I knew as soon as you came in the door! I recognize a cop! And you’re no cop! What is going through your head, you fucking faggot?” He tightened the shirt collar around Carl’s neck. Carl gasped and tried to resist as little as possible. “Do you think you can trick somebody when you don’t even know the difference between a British and Yugoslavian mine? Don’t treat me like a fool. Because I’m not stupid! Your face stinks. I know you. I know people like you. Should I tell you what you are? You’re an intellectual. A fucking intellectual, one of those idiotic communists who’s read too much of that French turtleneck shit and now wants to blow something up. Fucking nutjob. I know nutjobs. And you’re a nutjob. A hobby terrorist.” He loosened his grip and continued somewhat more calmly: “But at least you’ve got balls. And now you want a mine with a big bang, and I’ll tell you something. If you want to start your own little, private campaign of revenge against imperialism in this shitty little town, if you want to blow something up, I mean, if you have nothing more in mind than to start some sick shit here and blow hundreds of Arabs into the sky and drown this place in a sea of flames, you—have—my—support.”
Risa’s expression slowly relaxed. He took his weight off Carl, brushed the dust off his knees and sat back down at the table. “But don’t lie to me. For god’s sake don’t lie to me. And sit down. Sit down. You’re lucky that ‘boy’ sent you to me and not to some lunatic. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s when somebody lies to me. Got it? Sit down.”
Carl buttoned his shirt again, repositioned the bandages on his head and sat down. He was silent.
“It’s just that I don’t deal in weapons. So unfortunately I can’t be of help in this particular area. But what I’m wondering is—purely hypothetically, because you don’t want anything and I’m not selling anything—but if someone really needed a mine, why wouldn’t you do what everyone else does and go to where they are and just take one? You know where the south is? Where the sun is. You go down there and you’ll find as many Claymores as you want.”
He pointed with a nod of the head at a man sitting a few tables away who was leaning over and slurping soup out of a bowl with his mouth. The man had no arms.
“Maybe that’s why,” said Carl. “That’s the best kind available?”
“Claymore? No.”
“Okay, fine. Let’s suppose somebody gets lucky and gets hold of the best kind there is. And he wants to sell it. How much would he want?”
“Two hundred.”
“Dollars?”
“For you, a hundred and fifty.”
“And what kind is that?”
“Anti-tank mine. Hollow charge, magnetic.”
“And that’s the most expensive there is?”
Risa was beginning to get agitated again. He looked around the bar. “What the hell are you planning? Isn’t a hundred and fifty enough?”
“I thought there were more valuable ones.”
“Valuable? A valuable mine?”
Risa put his face right up to Carl’s and stared at him. Up to now he hadn’t given it all too much thought. This guy was an idiot. A commie. Or an auxiliary policeman. In any event too stupid to be dangerous. But there was something off about him. What in god’s name did he want to blow up?
“Are you sure you need a mine and not an atom bomb?”
“I can’t say what I need. I really just need information… about cost.”
“So now you are satisfied.”
“I guess the manufacturers don’t exactly get rich, eh?”
“What manufacturers?”
“Of mines.”
“There’s not a single manufacturer of mines on the entire fucking continent. What does it matter to you?”
“Just a question. I thought there would have to be something else. But a hundred and fifty—”
“Oh, man,” said Risa, putting a hand on Carl’s shoulder. He spoke very quietly, nearly whispering. “I want to tell you something, my friend. Because you are my friend. We’re drinking superb liquor together here. And your brain is apparently no bigger than a pea. And I’m telling you: I, Risa, known as Khach-Khach, do not deal in weapons. There is nothing to buy. But if you want to buy a mine, do not pay more than ten dollars. Understand? You can get them for five. Or even less. Anti-tank, personnel, doesn’t matter. Only the new Claymores with remote ignition—ten for those. Twenty max. If you’re stupid. It’s not a Claymore anyway, it just says Claymore on it, but they work just as well, and you can blow an entire bus sky-high with one, everything else is a rip-off. Got it? Can you get all this through your amputated brain up there?”
Carl slumped a bit.
Risa emptied his glass.
“And if you have other crazy questions you want answered, my friend: each answer costs a glass. Or five dollars. That’s how much this stuff costs.”
He looked at Carl, Carl looked at the bartender.
“Fine,” said Carl, “I have one more question. Do you happen to know if there are any mining sites anywhere in the area?”
Risa was silent. He crossed his arms on his chest and pointed with his pinkie at the table in front of him.
Carl pulled his money out of his pocket and laid the notes out in a row. He set aside what he already owed; three five-dollar notes were left. He pushed one forward.
“Do you know if there are any mines around here?” he repeated.
“What kind of mine?”
“Any kind of mine.”
“Any kind of mine?” Risa’s voice began to rise. “You want to know if there are any mines around here? And why do you want to know that? Are you planning to blow up any kind of mine, the existence of which you know nothing about, with the mine of any kind that you do not wish to buy?”
“There’s no connection. The one has nothing to do with the other.”
“Other than the fact that they are both called mine.”
“Yes, but that’s a coincidence.”
“That’s a coincidence? What’s a coincidence?”
“That they are both called the same thing. I only asked—”
“Since when is it coincidence what something is called? Mine and mine. You think that’s coincidence? Maybe you’re not a fucking intellectual after all, eh?”
“I never said anything about being an intellectual. You said that.”
Risa grinned as if he had a knife between his teeth. He leaned back, put both of his hands on the edge of the table and said: “Why do you think a mine is called a mine?”
It was a question Carl had never thought about.
“Think about it,” said Risa. “If you come up with the answer on your own you’ll save five dollars. Why is the one called a mine and the other as well?”
“Because you use explosives to dig out a mine, I would guess. You blow up the stone with mines. Which is why a mine is also called a mine.”
“That’s your
guess. But you’re wrong. How long have mines been around? Since the Bronze Age. And how long have explosives been around?”
“So the other way around,” said Carl. “Mines were already called mines, and when explosives were invented they were used in mines. And the name got transferred over somehow.”
“Ah, transferred over. Somehow! It’s not that easy. When something can explode, where is it used first? Not in a mine. On a battlefield. Do you want to keep guessing, or is the next note planning to make a trip my way?” Risa visibly enjoyed playing the teacher.
Carl thought for a while. Several minutes went by. With his index finger he slid the middle five-dollar note forward.
“So you don’t know.” Looking satisfied, Risa motioned for the bartender to fill the glasses again. “Battlefield is correct. War. In this case: siege. It has to do with siege warfare. When they used to lay siege to forts, and I’m talking here about the Middle Ages… when they tried to break through fortifications, how did they do it? First they built a trench. And then they zigzagged their way up to the walls so they couldn’t get shot at. And when they were close enough, down they went, under the ground. And who dug underground? Experts, of course, people who worked in mines. Miners. They dug tunnels, braced everything with wood, and when they were underneath the fortifications they set fire to the wood and ran out, and the tunnels collapsed and the walls above them fell over. That’s why a mine is called a mine. Explosives only entered the process much later. Because of the extra bang. But it worked without it.”
“Aha.”
“And to answer your question—no, I don’t know anything about any mines around here. The mountains are worthless. Do you want to blow your last five dollars, too, or is that it for today?”
Carl thought for a long time, tapped the leftover note and said: “Please don’t smack me. But do you happen to know if there are any old fortresses around here?”
BOOK FOUR
The Oasis
36
At the General’s
On the country of the Nasamonians borders that of the Psylli, who were swept away under the following circumstances. The south wind had blown for a long time and dried up all the tanks in which their water was stored. Now the whole region within the Syrtis is utterly devoid of springs. Accordingly, the Psylli took counsel among themselves, and by common consent made war upon the south wind—so at least the Libyans say, I do but repeat their words—they went forth and reached the desert; but there the south wind rose and buried them under heaps of sand: whereupon, the Psylli being destroyed, their lands passed to the Nasamonians.
HERODOTUS
CANISADES OPENED THE DOOR to the presidium adequately humbly but also quickly. Beneath lavishly framed verses of the Koran painted in red and gold sat a 200-kilo man, the police superintendent. His pear-shaped face recurred in stunning fashion in the shape of his body: the architect’s model and the finished product. Narrow little eyeholes beneath meager eyebrows, small nose and a mouth with a fleshy bottom lip that drooped from the gravitational pull on it, permanently revealing a row of tiny mouse teeth. Two prodigious sagging breasts arched beneath his shirt, his stomach kept him from sitting upright, and a police officer who had seen the superintendent in the shower at the casino knew to report that he’d seen nothing at all. That notwithstanding, a color photo stood on his desk showing the superintendent with his rail-thin wife and eight pear children.
Wheezing, he directed Canisades to a chair and then allowed his famous superintendent’s minute of silence to follow. Canisades counted to himself. Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight. At fifty-nine the superintendent pulled three folded pieces of paper out of a file and threw them onto the desk in front of him with a facial expression that made clear he was not a member of the world-spanning sect of friendly, jovial fat men. He belonged to the other category.
“And don’t deny it! Asiz found them in your desk.”
Canisades didn’t deny it. He recognized the papers at first glance, even if he had no idea what the allegation was that was tied to them. A couple of silly forms from the colonial era—that was the reason the superintendent had called him in? Still, after fifty-nine seconds of silence it seemed advisable to him to go immediately on the defensive. “I can explain, I apologize. Polidorio and I, the night of the forms, the long night of the files…”
“Special Prosecutor for the Virtue Committee! Have you lost your mind? Who thought up this idiocy?”
“Both of us,” said Canisades. “Polidorio.”
“And who else was there?”
“Just Polidorio.”
“Don’t tell me lies! There are three credentials.”
Legitimate question. Although the correct answer would have been: there had originally been four.
“It was a joke,” Canisades took a run at the difficult truth, “and we didn’t do anything with them. We showed them to the prostitutes, nothing more.”
“The… prostitutes. Aha.” The superintendent wrote down some notes. He had a poor short-term memory and couldn’t stand it when conversations digressed. When questions and follow-up questions came to him during a conversation he wrote them down so he could work through them point by point.
“You are the lowest-grade officers here,” he said threateningly, and Canisades continued on rashly: “Really just a joke. We were overworked and tired, the mountains of paper… and they fell out of a hanging file. Along with a bunch of other things. We did a lot of other things, too. Had to. Just to stay awake. There had been another electrical outage—”
“What other things?” The superintendent’s body sloshed forward.
“Other things… various kinds of nonsense. We had to hang in there until dawn and—”
“What other things!”
“Drank, told jokes… had a snowball fight with paper.” Canisades left out the race they’d had with the rolling file cabinets as a precaution. “And then, by chance, this stuff from the Virtue Committee. We also took an IQ test. And we were sitting in the dark the whole time because the key for the fuse box—”
“What kind of IQ test? Since when do we give IQ tests here?”
“They were floating around, too. A test that measures intelligence like with a ruler.”
“Result?”
“Me, 130, Polidorio, 102.”
“Result! Are you intelligent or not?”
“Well, um,” said Canisades, “kind of average. Nothing special.”
“Kind of average! Do you know what I can do with you and your average?”
He looked angrily at the desk in front of him. He had lost his train of thought, but before Canisades was able to throw the next smoke bomb, the superintendent said: “And what kind of crazy names are these? Adolphe Aun!”
“Polidorio thought it up.”
“Is that German?”
“No idea.”
“And this, Didier… and Bertrand, are you serious? Are you gay? Are the two of you a gay couple?”
“Sorry, boss.”
“You’re sorry, you’re sorry!” The superintendent’s expression suddenly changed, and he ripped the credential into shreds with a placid look on his face. “You are going to do me a favor now. Will you do it?”
So that’s what it came down to.
“Of course.”
“What do you know about this Amadou? The murderer who escaped from the transporter.”
“Karimi is handling that.”
“I’m aware. Your assessment.”
“Pfff.” Canisades wracked his brain. It seemed advisable to cautiously distance himself from his colleague. “Karimi is doing what he always does. He’s requisitioned a second bulldozer to squeeze the Salt Quarter.”
“Assessment!”
“It’s more for his personal enjoyment. At least that’s what I would say. This Amadou is too nuts to stay in hiding anywhere for more than five minutes.”
Canisades had apparently scored with that assessment, and the superintendent continued in a somewhat more f
riendly manner: “Amadou is too nuts, indeed. But that is exactly the problem. Because he’s nuts, he doesn’t know how nuts he himself actually is. He’d never have escaped the transporter on his own. And he was also nuts enough not to realize he had a helper. In other words, he didn’t only escape our constables, but also our… his… anyway. For forty-eight hours now we’ve had no idea of his whereabouts. Amadou is untraceable. And what I want and what Karimi doesn’t understand, is… that Amadou remains untraceable, capiche?”
The two slits in the flesh of his face narrowed even more. Canisades nodded, put his index finger to his head and then lifted and pressed down his thumb.
“No, no, no!” yelled the superintendent. “Untraceable in the sense of untraceable. Am I speaking Chinese or something? Karimi doesn’t get it, and you don’t get it, either? The poor young man can’t help… it’s not his fault. He grew up in the most pitiable circumstances, life treated him harshly, he never did anything wrong. It’s really not so difficult to understand! He lived in peace in Tindirma until those hippies moved in and provoked him. For a long time Amadou watched calmly… but at some point he’d had enough. Like any normal person. And he overreacted a little. That’s one way to put it. It’s just that he’s a good guy, actually. Amadou. Capiche?”
“You mean—”
“I mean he hasn’t done anything to us. It’s simple. And we’re not going to do anything to him. And you are responsible for that now.”
“And Karimi?”
“Karimi is going to give up the case. Has already given it up. And I expect… do you at least understand what I expect from you?”
“To do nothing.”
“I guess the intelligence test paid off.”
“Do I need to know anything else?”
“No.” The superintendent clapped his fat hands together. “You don’t. Although I can also tell you that it doesn’t matter. There’s no particularly mysterious rationale. But it did emerge a few days ago that Amadou is the grandson of the Secretary of the Interior’s cleaning woman. Or the Under-Secretary of the Interior, or whatever. It doesn’t matter to us. A top dog… and when someone gives me a directive, I stick to it. Capiche? Not like Karimi, the stupid cur. That’s why we need someone who can also stick to it. Then the whole thing is simple. You take a few men and set out on the search for Amadou. Who in reality isn’t nuts at all, of course, but rather cunning like all of those herdsmen. And how do you look for someone like that? You drive around the area and storm into a few buildings. Capiche? And most importantly you make sure that you drag along a load of press people. The two Americans are still in the Sheraton, the Brit as well—you know him, right? And they should be sure to film the raids. And then you arrest someone at some point, or round up a dozen straight away, and hold onto them until the press whores have had enough. Leave the rest to me. The only thing you have to worry about is to make sure that Amadou isn’t hiding in the Salt Quarter. Because that’s where he grew up. He knows the area like the back of his hand, which is why every half-assed policeman, including Karimi, would assume he’s there. But because Amadou is such a cunning fellow, as we just realized, that’s exactly the place he’s not hiding. Capiche?”
Sand Page 19
