Dynamite Fishermen (41 page)

“Sorry about that,” the husky marine replied through a microphone as he reached for the button. “Say, Mr. Prosser, that wouldn’t be your girl, would it?”

“Actually, it would.”

The guard gave a low whistle. “Foxy. Now I see why you haven’t been coming around to the Marine House bar after work these days. Why don’t you bring her along some night?”

“I tried, Sergeant, but she won’t come. She says you guys are too wild.”

The marine laughed. “She calls us wild, and she’s going out with you?”

Prosser shrugged and grinned back as he reached for the door. This time it opened.

Upon seeing Prosser enter the room, Rima stuffed the magazine into her handbag and rose to kiss him on both cheeks.

“Sorry for being late,” he said. “I got so carried away with what I was doing that I lost track of the time. Where would you like to go for lunch?”

“Anywhere you would like,
batta
.”

“How about one of the fish restaurants along the beach south of the city? I have a craving for those tiny fish they serve whole, the crispy fried ones—what do you call them?”

“
Sultan brahim?
”

“Yes, a platter of
sultan brahim
and plenty of cold beer to wash it down. And a small mezzé to start.”

“Then we should go to Alcazar,” Rima suggested. “The fish there is excellent, and you might find the owner an interesting personality. His son Jihad did his military training with Husayn, and both father and son are still active in Husayn’s old organization.”

“I’d love to meet them. You can tell me all about them on the way over.”

Rima slung her handbag over her shoulder, put her hand gently through Prosser’s arm, and followed him out the door.

Despite his tardiness, he felt the afternoon was off to a promising start. As she had shown him so many times before, Rima knew and understood more about a whole array of things than he had ever expected. He had underestimated her, to be sure. But he was not yet certain whether that was good or bad or, in either case, what to do about it.

* * *

Theirs was the last car across the Corniche el Mazraa before the traffic policeman signaled the opposing traffic to proceed. The Renault followed the high brick wall of the Soviet embassy compound for a block and then veered left toward the Bir Hasan refugee camp.

“Isn’t there a better way to go than through Pepsi Cola Circle?” Prosser asked upon spotting the congested road ahead.

“Perhaps, but it is safer to remain on the main road while we pass through this area. Patience,
batta
—the crowds will soon be behind us.”

As they advanced, movement on the four-lane road slowly ground to a halt, hemming in the Renault on all sides.

“Well, it’s too late to turn back now,” he said, resigning himself to an extended wait.

They inched forward at the rate of one or two car lengths per minute. To their right a trio of small boys lined up along the curb hawking feather dusters, boxes of tissues, and lottery tickets. As one of them approached Rima’s window, she closed it. Within moments the ten-year-old had circled around to the driver’s window and held up a straw basket of prickly pears for Prosser’s inspection. Contrary to his usual practice, Prosser lowered the window and looked them over.

“How many kilos do you have?” he asked the boy.

“Three, maybe four,” the child replied.

“How much for a kilo?”

“Eight lira,” the boy blurted out, as if it demanded extra force of will to demand such an exorbitant price.

“I think somebody must have told him to triple his prices for foreigners,” Rima said in English.

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Prosser told the boy. “You must mean eighty piastres, not eight lira. Listen, I’ll give you five lira for the whole lot of them.”

The boy lowered his basket to waist level and shook his head. “Not enough,” he insisted. “My
tiin showki
are very sweet, worth ten lira the kilo. But for you I give special price: everything for twenty-five lira.” The boy held them up once again.

“
Batta
, I have never once seen you eat
tiin showki
,” Rima chided. “Why would you wish to buy four kilos of them?”

“I’ll make juice out of them if I can get them cheap enough. Hang on, let’s see how low he’s willing to go.”

He put the Renault into gear and inched forward with the line of cars, keeping the boy in his peripheral vision as he went. The child kept pace and stopped when the car stopped.

“Listen,
habibi
, I’d really like to help you, but even the best tiin showki aren’t worth more than two lira a kilo. I’ll give you ten lira for all you’ve got, and not a piastre more.”

The cars moved forward another five meters, and Prosser followed suit without looking to see whether the boy followed. He did. “Twenty,” the boy insisted.

Prosser pulled his money clip out of his jacket pocket and peeled off a ten-lira note. “Here, take it,” he said. “It’s my last word.”

The line of vehicles advanced, but he kept the sedan in neutral while he watched the boy’s dust-smeared face.

With downcast eyes, the child took the money and surrendered the basket of dusty green fruit. He stuffed the bill deep in the pocket of his
jalabiyya
while Rima looked on with surprise.

“Done like a Lebanese,” she observed sarcastically.

But as Prosser pulled the basket through the driver’s window and set it down on the back seat, he called out to the boy. “
Yaa, walad,
come back. You forgot something.”

The child looked back sheepishly and remained at a prudent distance. Prosser pulled out a five-lira banknote from his trouser pocket and held it out. “Take it.
Baksheesh
.” The dust-covered little hand hesitated for only the briefest moment before seizing the banknote.

“Why did you give him extra?” Rima asked in bewilderment after the boy disappeared behind a row of waiting taxis. “He accepted your last word—
khalas,
it was finished.”

“The bargaining was for the sport of it. Surely you don’t think I would take unfair advantage of a child, do you?”

“
Batta
, sometimes I feel I do not know you at all.” She bit her lip as if she were holding something back.

“Come on, Rima. I know you well enough now to see when you’ve got something on your mind. Out with it.”

She took a deep breath and tilted her head back; then she let out a weary sigh. Her lower lip pushed forward into a pout.

“You’ve had it on your mind since Wednesday night, haven’t you?” he said.

She turned to meet his gaze and he could see the hurt in her eyes. “You can be very cruel,
batta
.”

Prosser looked out over the road ahead and said nothing.

“And yet I cannot believe you intend it.”

“I don’t, if that makes any difference,” he said. “I know we don’t spend as much time together as you would like, Rima, but it’s not because I’ve been seeing other women when I’m not with you. My work...”

“Please, I have heard a hundred times how much you must work. When you are not at the embassy, you must attend dinners or receptions, or someone expects you to meet him for coffee or a glass of whiskey. But in all the time I have known you, never have you talked about where you have been or whom you have met at these meetings of yours. I want to believe you,
batta
, but it is difficult when people I know say they have seen you at a restaurant or a nightclub when you said you would be at work. I feel so…humiliated.”

Prosser spoke softly. “Believe me, Rima, when I say I am working, I am working.”

“I want to believe you. But still it hurts that you do not trust me enough to say more about where you are when we are not together.”

“Trusting you has nothing to do with it. You know as well as I do that some of the people I talk to don’t want others to know they are on good terms with someone at the American embassy.”

“I understand,
batta,
but still I cannot bear having so many secrets kept from me. At times I feel you have remained a complete stranger.”

Prosser let out a deep breath and looked at Rima again. She was still holding something back.

“I’m sorry, but I’m doing the best I can,” he said.

It was her turn to remain silent.

“It seems you’ve already made your decision. You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Prosser said.

“Yes. I am going with Husayn to Germany. On Monday.”

“For how long?”

“Until I finish my thesis. I will spend a few weeks with Husayn in Stuttgart, then go on to Lyon to resume my doctoral research.”

“And how long is that likely to take? A couple of months? A year?”

“Perhaps as little as five or six months, perhaps longer.”

“My tour of duty will expire next June. Will you be back before then?”

As they left the congestion of Pepsi Cola Circle, Prosser made a wide sweeping turn onto Avenue Camille Chamoun and headed due south toward the Cité Sportive Stadium and the southern suburbs.
 

Rima peered out the window and noticed a dense cloud of gray smoke and dust drifting to the east just beyond the stadium. She watched it distractedly as Prosser braked behind the slow-moving traffic. “Perhaps I will,” she answered at last. “If you wish me to.”

Prosser found her hand where it rested on her purse and squeezed it gently. “I do wish.”

“
D’accord,
” Rima replied and put her other hand on top of his.

They were less than a mile from the Cité Sportive before Prosser spoke again. “I’m not quite sure how to say this, Rima, but there’s a question I have to ask you. You don’t have to answer, but I do have to ask.”

“There is nothing you may not ask me, batta.”

“There used to be a journalist here by the name of Graham Overton. Did you know him?”

She pondered the question for a long moment and then shook her head. “I do not remember such a name. He was American?”

“British. He was murdered back in June, on rue Abdel-Aziz. You may have read about it.”

She remained expressionless.

“So you don’t remember meeting him?”

“I do not. But nor do I like the manner of your question. Why are you asking me this?”

“Because one of Graham Overton’s friends says he saw the two of you together at the Coral Beach nightclub two nights before Graham was killed.”

“I have been to the Coral Beach many times. Now that you speak of it, I can remember some weeks ago sitting at dinner beside a funny, long-nosed Englishman with curly brown hair. Perhaps he may have been a journalist.” She looked across at Prosser, who kept his eyes on the road. “It was before I met you,” she said softly.

“Do you remember who else was with you?”

“Some people whose names I do not remember. Husayn knew them; some had done business with my father.”

“Husayn was there?” he pressed.

“He could not come that night.”

“And you don’t remember their names?”

She shook her head. “The only reason I went was because I thought it might help Husayn with our father’s business. I thought...”

Suddenly she clutched his forearm and drew in a sharp breath.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Go slowly,” she replied in a frightened voice, staring off to the left of the highway at a group of people gathered near an olive drab Range Rover.

“What’s going on? What are you looking at?”

“The Rover will cross ahead of us in a moment,” she replied in a hushed voice. “Stop and let it pass.”

“Why? What’s going on?” He took his eyes from the road for a moment to cast another quick glance to the left.

Before Rima could reply, the Range Rover pulled away from the crowd and crossed in front of the Renault. Following directly behind was a second car, a low-slung American station wagon filled with five or six young men in uniform. Several small boys in
jalabiyyas
broke away from the crowd to run after the Range Rover, which seemed to be towing something at the end of a three- or four-meter length of cable.

Rima let out a sharp gasp. “
Cannibales
!” she whispered in horror.

As he braked before the intersection, Prosser recognized the object trailing from the Range Rover as a ragged, dust-covered corpse. Already the friction of being dragged across the ground by the wrists had torn the dead man’s dark jacket to shreds and pulled once-white trousers down to the ankles. The remaining clothing was permeated with a powdery reddish dust, and the skin of the corpse was coated with the same stuff, except where patches of a deeper reddish brown mottled its thighs, abdomen, hips, and buttocks.

The limp figure hit a bump in the road and rolled over onto its back for a few moments before another bump sent it once again onto its belly. Then Prosser noticed that one of the corpse’s feet was much larger than the other. In an instant he recognized the neon-green ankle cast beneath a coating of ochre dust.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered.