“Not very strong,” said Ahmad, “but really cold to make up for that.”
“I don’t like it strong in the morning either,” I said.
I quaffed the glass. The stuff was good.
“A swallow — a bite,” counseled Ahmad, “Like this: a swallow, a bite.”
The tidbits crunched and melted in the mouth. In my view, they were unnecessary. We were silent for some time, watching the square from under the marquee. gently purring, the buses pulled out one after another into their respective tree-lined avenues. They looked ponderous yet strangely elegant in their clumsiness.
“It would be too noisy there,” said Ahmad. “Fine cottages, lots of women — to suit any taste — and right on the water, but no privacy. I don’t think it’s for you.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “The noise would bother me. Anyway, I don’t like vacationers, Ahmad. Can’t stand it when people work at having fun.”
Ahmad nodded and carefully placed the next tidbit in his mouth. I watched him chew. There was something professional and concentrated in the movement of his lower jaw. Having swallowed, he said, “No, the synthetic will never compare with the natural product. Not the same bouquet.” He flexed his lips, smacked them gently, and continued, “There are two excellent hotels in the center of town, but, in my view…”
“Yes, that won’t do either,” I said. “A hotel places certain obligations on you. I never heard that anything worthwhile has ever been written in a hotel.”
“Well, that’s not quite true,” retorted Ahmad, critically studying the last tidbit. “I read one book and in it they said that it was in fact written in a hotel — the Hotel Florida.”
“Aah,” I said, “you are correct. But then your city is not being shelled by cannons.”
“Cannons? Of course not. Not as a rule, anyway.”
“Just as I thought. But, as a matter of fact, it has been noted that something worthwhile can be written only in a hotel which is under bombardment.”
Ahmad took the last tidbit after all.
‘That would be difficult to arrange,” he said. “In our times it’s hard to obtain a cannon. Besides, it’s very expensive; the hotel could lose its clientele.”
“Hotel Florida also lost its clients in its time. Hemingway lived in it alone.”
“Who?”
“Hemingway.”
“Ah… but that was so long ago, in the fascist times. But times have changed, Ivan.”
“Yes,” said I, “and therefore in our times there is no point in writing in hotels.”
“To blazes with hotels then,” said Ahmad. “I know what you need. You need a boarding house.” He took out a notebook. “State your requirements and we’ll try to match them up.”
“Boarding house,” I said. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, Ahmad. Do understand that I don’t want to meet people whom I don’t want to know. That’s to begin with. And in the second place, who lives in private boarding houses? These same vacationers who don’t have enough money for a cottage. They too work hard at having fun. They concoct picnics, meets, and song fests. At night they play the banjo. On top of which they grab anyone they can get hold of and make them participate in contests for the longest uninterrupted kiss. Most important of all, they are all transients. But I am interested in your country, Ahmad. In your townspeople. I’ll tell you what I need: I need a quiet house with a garden. Not too far from downtown. A relaxed family, with a respectable housewife. An attractive young daughter. You get the picture, Ahmad?”
Ahmad took the empty glasses, went over to the counter, and returned with full ones. Now they contained a colorless transparent liquid and the small plates were stacked with tiny multistoried sandwiches.
“I know of such a cozy house,” declared Ahmad. “The widow is forty-five and the daughter twenty. The son is eleven. Let’s finish the drinks and we’ll be on our way. I think you’ll like it. The rent is standard, but of course it’s more than in a hoarding house. You have come to stay for a long time?”
“For a month.”
“Good Lord! Just a month?”
“I don’t know how my affairs will go. Perhaps I may tarry awhile.”
“By all means, you will,” said Ahmad. “I can see that you have totally failed to grasp just where you have arrived. You simply don’t understand what a good time you can have here and how you don’t have to think about a thing.”
We finished our drinks, got up, and went across the square under the hot sun to the parking area. Ahmad walked with a rapid, slightly rolling gait, with the green visor of his cap set low over his eyes, swinging the suitcase in a debonair manner. The next batch of tourists was being discharged broadcast from the customs house.
“Would you like me to… Frankly?” said Ahmad suddenly.
“Yes, I would like you to,” said I. What else could I say? Forty years I have lived in this world and have yet to learn to deflect this unpleasant question.
“You won’t write a thing here,” said Ahmad. “It’s mighty hard to write in our town.”
“It’s always hard to write anything. However, fortunately I am not a writer.”
“I accept this gladly. But in that case, it is slightly impossible here. At least for a transient.”
“You frighten me.”
“It’s not a case of being frightened. You simply won’t want to work. You won’t be able to stay at the typewriter. You’ll feel annoyed by the typewriter. Do you know what the joy of living is?”
“How shall I say?”
“You don’t know anything, Ivan. So far you still don’t know anything about it. You are bound to traverse the twelve circles of paradise. It’s funny, of course, but I envy you.”
We stopped by a long open car. Ahmad threw the suitcase into the back seat and flung the door open for me.
“Please,” he said.
“Presumably you have already passed through them?” I asked, sliding into the seat.
He got in behind the wheel and started the engine.
“What exactly do you mean?”
“The twelve circles of paradise.”
“As for me, Ivan, a long time ago I selected my favorite circle,” said Ahmad. The car began to roll noiselessly through the square. “The others haven’t existed for me for quite a while. Unfortunately. It’s like old age, with all its privileges and deficiencies.”
The car rushed through a park and sped along a shaded, straight thoroughfare. I kept looking around with great interest but couldn’t recognize a thing. It was stupid to expect to. We had been landed at night, in a torrential rain; seven thousand exhausted tourists stood on the pier looking at the burning liner. We hadn’t seen the city — in its place was a black, wet emptiness dotted with red flashes. It had rattled, boomed, and screeched as though being rent asunder. “We’ll be slaughtered in the dark, like rabbits,” Robert had said, and I immediately had sent him back to the barge to unload the armored car. The gangway had collapsed and the car had fallen into the water, and when Peck had pulled Robert out, all blue from the cold, he had come over to me and said through chattering teeth, “Didn’t I tell you it was dark?”
Ahmad said suddenly, “When I was a boy, we lived near the port and we used to come out here to beat up the factory kids. Many of them had brass knuckles, and that got me a broken nose. Half of my life I put up with a crooked nose until I had it fixed last year. I sure loved to scrap when I was young. I used to have a hunk of lead pipe, and once I had to sit in jail for six months, but that didn’t help.”
He stopped, grinning. I waited awhile, then said, “You can’t find a good lead pipe these days. Now rubber truncheons are in fashion: you buy them used from the police.”
“Exactly,” said Ahmad. “Or else you buy a dumbbell, cut off one ball and there you are, ready to go. But the guys are not what they used to be. Now you get deported for such stuff.”
“Yes. And what else did you occupy yourself with in your youth?”
“And you?”
“I planned on joining the interplanetary force and trained to withstand overstress. We also played at who could dive the deepest.”
“We too,” said Ahmad. “We went down ten meters for automatics and whiskey. Over by the piers they lay on the seabed by the case. I used to get nosebleeds. But when the fire fights started, we began to find corpses with weights around their necks, so we quit that game.”
“It’s a very unpleasant sight, a corpse under water — especially if there is a current,” said I.
Ahmad chuckled “I’ve seen worse. I had occasion to work with the police.”