A Hologram for the King

by Dave Eggers

  —We can put you in a thobe. You’d pass.

  —It’s not worth it, Salem said. He wasn’t happy. The detour around is only twenty minutes longer. Please.

  Yousef turned back to Alan. —You want to get smuggled?

  Alan did not. He did not want to break any such rule. But they were still in the leftmost lane, and the exit for non-Muslims, three lanes to the right, was fast approaching.

  A stream of Arabic from Salem. Yousef didn’t respond. Suddenly all was chaos. Salem’s torso was in the front seat, and he was lunging for the wheel. Alan was pushed against the door. Yousef batted Salem’s hands away and slapped him in the face. Hearing the sound, a loud whap, he laughed with delight. Salem retreated to his seat, deflated.

  Then, in one fluid motion, Yousef slid laterally across the expressway and was soon on the highway for non-Muslims.

  Through the rearview mirror, Yousef leveled a disappointed look at Salem. —Dude. I was kidding. Kidding. Relax.

  Salem was still seething. —You relax.

  Yousef grinned. —No, you relax.

  The night dropped quickly as they rose through the mountains.

  —The Sarawat range, Salem explained. Wait till we get to the top. You’ll see the baboons. You like baboons?

  And then there they were. At the top of the range, Yousef pulled over along a lookout, about five thousand feet up, the desert visible below for a hundred miles. And everywhere in that lookout parking lot, baboons sat, ate, walked around, tame as house cats.

  They flew through Taif, a mountaintop city of bright colors and cool winds, and then dropped into the rough terrain beyond. The road grew more desolate as they got closer to the village of Yousef’s birth, and by the time they arrived, Salem was sound asleep and Alan was nodding off.

  Yousef stopped the car suddenly. —Wake up, useless people!

  Salem moaned and punched the back of Yousef’s seat.

  Ahead, a sawtoothed ridge ringed a small cluster of lights tucked into a small valley. The settlement couldn’t have been more than a few dozen buildings, a few hundred people.

  —That’s the whole town, Yousef said. We’ll see it tomorrow.

  They turned into a driveway and climbed up the mountainside a few hundred feet, doubling back twice, until they arrived at an enormous structure. It looked nothing like a house.

  —This is it? Alan asked.

  —Yes, Yousef said. The house that sandals built.

  It looked more like a hotel, some kind of municipal building. It was a three-story structure of adobe and glass. They had parked in a vast lot, big enough to accommodate twenty vehicles. There was even a small mosque on the property, just down the slope.

  —I didn’t realize… Salem said. He hadn’t been there, either.

  As he and Alan were marveling at it all, a man came out of the house and rushed toward them. He was short, smaller than Yousef and more portly. His face was round, his smile wide and toothless. He took Yousef’s hand and pumped it. He was introduced to Salem and shook his hand, too. When Alan extended his hand, though, it was as if the man had to relearn the gesture. He took it and shook it, and then retrieved his hand, slowly, as if from the mouth of an animal he did not want to provoke.

  —This is Hamza. The caretaker, Yousef explained. He’s been working for my father for twenty years. But I didn’t tell my dad you were coming.

  —Why not? Alan asked.

  —No offense, but this is my father’s pride. He wouldn’t want it sullied by, you know, you. Just kidding.

  But he was not kidding.

  Hamza turned, led them to the door and opened it.

  Yousef stepped in and turned around in the doorway.

  —Ready? This is it, Yousef said, his posture quickly changing from that of scorned teenager to proud son.

  Inside, the house looked very much like a series of empty, carpeted ballrooms, each big enough to fit a hundred people or more. In each room, a few enormous chandeliers illuminated vast spaces without any furniture but the benches along the walls. The whole house, it seemed, was meant for entertaining only.

  —The entire village fits in here. He made sure of it. Every wedding in the village happens here. I have to bring you to one of them, he said to Alan. You’d love it. You could wear one of the outfits, get a special knife, everything.

  Alan tried to square the builder of this home with the brusque and bitter man he’d met. It seemed impossible that that man had built this. This was an act of great vision and generosity, and Yousef’s father had seemed to possess neither. They walked to the third floor. The stairs, of poured concrete, were uneven, as if the mason hadn’t been quite paying attention this far up.

  —They finished this floor a bit quicker, Yousef said, smiling. But the view is worth it.

  They stepped onto a wide balcony. The air was clear and cool, the view magnificent. Alan and Yousef and Salem and Hamza stood, looking out over the valley.

  —Oh, I have to show you. Yousef said, bounding down the stairs.

  He led Alan and Salem into a smaller room, empty but for a giant safe on one wall, and a stack of thin mattresses on the other.

  —Somewhere in here, he said, grabbing at the mattresses, dropping them to the floor. Alan had the feeling he’d had when his friends’ kids brought him to their rooms, to show him every toy they owned, growing more passionate with every word of awe he uttered. Yousef toppled seven or eight before he found what he was looking for: a cache of rifles. There were at least a dozen, some new, some old and handmade, with wooden handles and carefully carved details.

  —This one was my grandfather’s, he said, holding an ancient-looking rifle in two hands. He handed it to Alan as if he were handing over a newborn. It was heavy, made of solid hardwood.

  —This one’s newer. Yousef took the first rifle away, handing it to Salem. He replaced it with the new model, which looked like a standard Winchester .44. Alan checked and it was just that. Salem politely admired the rifles, but his disinterest was hard to mask. Alan, though, was fascinated. He’d been a decent marksman in his youth, and maintained an affection for old rifles like this. He wanted badly to aim one, to shoot one, but wasn’t sure of the protocol. He settled for praising them all, and when Yousef began packing them back into the mattresses, he assumed he wouldn’t see them again.

  He half hoped Yousef was serious about needing them to repel those aligned with his ex-wife’s husband. The idea of them coming here, and staging a raid on this fortress, was preposterous, but at the same time it gave Alan a surge of hope, of possibility. He pictured himself perched on the balcony, sighting invaders. He wanted to do something dramatic to protect his friend.

  —What are the chances those guys will actually come here? Alan asked.

  —What guys?

  —The husband, his men?

  —You’re serious? They have no idea this place exists. You think they’d drive four hours through the desert to follow me here?

  Alan shook his head, tossing the notion away, but something passed between them. Yousef got his meaning: that Alan, far from being scared of their attack, was open to it, was welcoming of it. He put his hand on Alan’s shoulder, turned him, gently pushed him out of the rifle room and turned out the light.

  They settled on the second-floor deck. Hamza brought rugs and cushions out and arranged them in clean lines. He hurried inside and returned with a full tea set, which he served with great solemnity.

  Alan drank his tea, sweet and minty, as Salem did some perfunctory tuning of his guitar. Alan didn’t know what to expect, but when Salem started strumming, slapping the wood for percussion, it sounded like a Western pop song, something you’d hear while shopping.

  The night cooled, and a gentle wind came up the valley and swept through the fortress. As if carried by the breeze, a light appeared below. Then two more. It was a motorcycle, followed by a small truck, both making their way up the driveway.

  Yousef nodded at the guitar and Salem took the cue. He packed it up, q
uickly retreated inside, and came back without it.

  Soon three young men appeared on the deck. All were wearing white They were somewhere between thirteen and sixteen and all built like Yousef, short and full in the middle. All were wearing white thobes, red gutras — miniature businessmen with wide bright smiles. They rushed up to Yousef and hugged him.

  —These are my cousins, Yousef said to Alan. Two of them, anyway. This third one is their friend.

  Alan shook their hands, and Yousef and the cousins spoke for a time in Arabic. Salem stayed on the balcony, as if knowing that these village men were a different species. Yousef was the bridge between the urbanity of Salem, of Alan, and these young men, who Alan guessed were being raised more conservatively, far from things like pop music and American guests. The night wore on, and more tea was served, and there seemed to be a lot of catching up to do, stories being told, and Alan felt in the way. When Salem went inside, citing exhaustion, Alan took it as his cue, too. Yousef bid good night to them both, and instructed Hamza to see them to their accommodations.

  In Alan’s room, as big as a formal dining room, one of the thin, pliable mattresses that had been hiding the rifles was now set up on the floor, covered neatly with a sheet and wool blanket. His duffel bag had been brought from the car and set upon a wooden chair near the bed. Hamza showed them the bathroom, gave them towels, washcloths, even sandals of soft leather.

  Alan arranged himself on the mattress and pulled the heavy wool blanket over himself. The house was cooling quickly.

  Salem passed by the doorway.

  —Night, he said.

  —Night, Alan said.

  It must have been close to midnight. Out the window, he could see the near face of the mountain, no more than ten yards away, and above it, a gunmetal sky and pinprick stars. Now that he was lying down, and warm, what he wanted to do was wander among the mountains that night, with Yousef or Salem or alone. He was not tired. He stared up through the window above him, the mountainside so blue in the clean moonlight. He was growing more awake every minute.

  He thought of a letter but he had no paper. He found a large envelope by the door and began: ‘Dear Kit, I’m writing to you from a castle. I am not kidding. I’m in some kind of modern fortress, on a hill in the mountains of Saudi Arabia. The man who built this place sells shoes. He is not some kind of major manufacturer of shoes. He is a man who owns a 400-square-foot shop in Jeddah and sells simple shoes, mostly sandals, to regular people. And with the money he’s made and saved selling shoes, he went back to his village, leveled a mountaintop and built a castle.’

  He put down his pen. He moved slowly to the door, sure not to wake Salem. The house was silent, but most of the lights in the house were still on. He stepped lightly to the stairway, and made his way up the uneven steps and to the roof. There he walked from corner to corner, taking in the view from all sides. He decided he could live here. He decided he could be content this way, if he’d built a home like this. All he needed was some space, somewhere removed from anywhere, where the land was cheap and building was easy. He shared the dreams of Yousef’s father, the need to return to one’s origins, build something lasting, something open and strange like this fortress, something that could be shared by family and friends, everyone who had helped nurture him. But what were Alan’s origins? He had no ancestral village. He had Dedham. Was Dedham an ancestral village? No one there had any idea who he was. Was he from Duxbury? Was he attached at all to that town, or anyone to him?

  In Duxbury, Alan couldn’t even build a wall.

  Alan did not want to think about the planning-board guy, but there he was, his smarmy face. All Alan had wanted was to build a garden, cordoned off with a small stone wall. The soil was rocky in the part of the backyard he’d chosen, so he figured he’d build the garden above the yard, elevated a foot or so. He’d seen one in a book and it seemed to make sense, and looked good, too. The one in the book had been enclosed in wood, like a sandbox, but Alan wanted to match the old stone walls that bordered some of the properties around town — walls built, some of them at least, hundreds of years ago. Some of those old walls had no mortar at all, were just rocks stacked carefully, but Alan figured he’d use cement to keep it all together. So after flipping through a library book about masonry, he went to the hardware store and bought two sacks of ready-mix cement.

  Then he went to a place off the highway that sold rocks. This was the best part, something he hadn’t known anything about. He walked around the lot, where they had great mounds of rocks in small enclosures, a zoo of rocks. Finally he found a grey and pink kind, tending toward the rounded, that seemed to match those in front of his house.

  —How’s it work? he asked one of the men working there. The man was tall, thin, too slight to be working at a place filled with rocks. It didn’t look like he could have lifted his pants around his waist, let alone the stones he was selling.

  —You hauling your own stones?

  Alan didn’t know. —Should I?

  —Might as well, the man said, unless you’re building a castle.

  Alan snorted. The joke seemed very funny at the moment.

  —Nah, just a wall.

  —That your wagon? he asked, nodding toward the station wagon.

  —It is. Will it work?

  —Sure, but we gotta weigh it first, the man said. Scale’s over there.

  Soon Alan was back in his car, driving it onto two tracks that rose up onto a platform. The platform was next to the lot’s office, and once on top of the scale, Alan could see inside, where another man was giving him the thumbs-up.

  Alan drove down the tracks, and back to the area where he’d chosen his stones, and started loading them up. He had no idea how many to buy, and there wasn’t any sign to indicate how much they cost. But he was having so much fun with the whole process — the scale, the tossing of stones into his car, each giving the shocks a bounce, the car weighing down a bit more every time. He decided to fill it until the rear bumper sank enough to warn him off more loading. So he did, closed the back hatch, and then drove back to the scale.

  Again, the man through the window gave him a thumbs-up, and Alan drove down, and parked next to the office. He walked in and the man behind the counter gave him a friendly wink.

  —Four hundred and sixteen pounds.

  If the price per pound was anything more than a dollar, Alan thought, he was screwed. He’d budgeted a few hundred dollars for the whole garden project.

  The man was working the numbers on a calculator and looked up.

  —Any cement?

  Alan shook his head.

  —Okay. So that’s a hundred and seventy dollars, sixty-eight cents. Alan almost laughed, and he smiled all the way home. It was so simple, a transaction like that. It was simple and it was good. He saw some rocks. Threw them in the back of his wagon and weighed the car, the guy had calculated the difference, determined the weight of the rocks, and charged him about forty cents a pound. It was beautiful.

  Building the wall gave Alan as much pleasure as he’d known in years, even though he had virtually no idea what he was doing. He’d forgotten to buy any masonry tools, so he used a wheelbarrow to mix the cement and a spade to apply it. He tried to fit the stones in some sensible way, spreading the cement on top and between. He had no sense of how long it would take to dry, or how sturdy it would be when finished. He should have waited, laid down one row of stones before stacking upward, but he was enjoying it far too much to slow down. As with many of his projects around the house and yard, he wanted to finish it in one session, and, four hours later, he did.

  He stepped back and saw that it was more or less square. The walls rose about three feet and were utterly medieval in their homeliness. But when he put his foot on the first section of wall he’d completed, it was already solid. He pushed on it, and it did not budge. He stood on it, and it was as sturdy as any floor in his home. He was deeply moved by this. Cement! It was no wonder architects loved it. In a few hours he’d made
a wall that would take a jackhammer to dismantle. In a few days, he figured, he could probably build a home of some kind this way. He could build anything. He was elated.

  But then came a visit from the zoning department. He woke up the next day to find a red piece of paper stuck to his front door. The notice told him to come to city hall, to submit building plans, to apply for a permit. All for a three-foot wall. And then there were the arguments with that bastard at the planning board, all of which were futile. Alan hadn’t built the wall to the town’s specifications, hadn’t worked with a licensed contractor, and so the wall had to be destroyed. They made him pay a pair of men to jackhammer his wall, his garden, until it was rubble. They trampled his vegetables, everything ground into the soil. The plants were dead. The mess was hard to look at. And then he had to pay another pair of men to haul it away.

  XXVII.

  WHEN ALAN WOKE the sky was a sickly grey. He walked downstairs. He heard no voices and saw no movement, no evidence of sunrise. The banquet rooms were empty, the kitchen vacant. Someone had finally turned out the lights. He thought about going back to bed but was sure that would come to nothing.

  He opened the front door and saw the valley below, blue and brown in the low light. He sat on the railing and noted for the first time that on the property, on another level area fifty feet down, there was a flock of sheep. They were penned in, and the ground beneath them was all dust and rock but for a few stray patches of green. A plume of smoke unzipped the blue sky beyond the mountains. Alan went inside and got his camera.

  He walked over to the driveway and took pictures there, of the drive down the hill, of the hills backing up against the property behind the house. He walked down the drive, met up with the main road, and started toward town.

  The valley was silent. He stopped to take a picture of a spiked tree, a cluster of white flowers, an old Pakistani bus, painted brightly, out of commission and pushed to the side of the road. He took a picture of a stray goat.