"Beautiful," Ishmael said, despairingly. "They've made you beautiful. Allah have pity; I'll never be able to buy you for Miss Besma now."
Interlude
Kitzingen, Federal Republic of Germany,
13 February, 2005
They hadn't moved Mahmoud from the hospital at Erfurt to the Kreisskrankenhaus Kitzingen until he'd come out of the coma and shown some fair progress towards recovery. This had taken six days. On the seventh he was moved. By the ninth, he was spending almost as much time awake as unconscious, though a fair amount of that awake time was spent in pain and nausea. Three days after that the hospital pronounced him well enough to go home with Gabrielle. The next day, she'd picked him up.
"I can't stay here anymore, Gabi," he said, on the drive home.
"In Kitzingen, you mean? Why? There's no trouble here."
"No . . . I mean in Germany. I mean in Europe."
"But where would you go? Where would we go?"
"I am thinking . . . America, if we could get in there."
"America," she sneered, not at her lover but at the thought. "Why ever would anyone want to go to America? I couldn't, I mean I just couldn't abide it. I think you're still distraught and not thinking clearly. Just because some thugs attacked you—"
Mahmoud sighed. How to explain?
"It's not because they attacked me personally," he began. "It's that they attacked me as a Moslem, not even caring that I am not much of one. Now you think it's an isolated incident, I am sure. But it's not. How long do you think it will be before they, or people like them, attack another?"
Before she could even begin to form an answer he said, "I would be surprised if it hasn't happened already, a half dozen times. And even that isn't the main problem."
"Then what is 'the main problem'?"
"My people will begin to strike back. You've heard the sermons; you've read the papers I've shown you. Troubles are coming here, troubles are coming to all of Europe. Bad troubles. People like me, reasonable people, are going to run. And who will be left? The lunatics. And don't tell me about self-fulfilling prophecies; some prophecies are self-fulfilling because they're destined to come true."
"I can't go to America," she said definitively. "Canada, maybe."
"Canada's as badly off as Europe," he said. "Lunacy is coming there, too. Australia?"
"Too militaristic," she answered, "too much in the Americans' camp. Too much a willing tool for American imperialism. Why, anyway? Why are you so certain everything's going down the tubes."
"Because my people could fuck up a wet dream," he answered, putting his head down in his hands. "And I'm beginning to think that yours can, too."
Church of St. Vinzenz, Kitzingen, Federal Republic of Georgia, 5 March, 2005
It didn't appear to Mahmoud to be a very old church, certainly nothing like the age of the town. Stuccoed off-white, with three inset crosses framing a niched statue of its namesake, the church's roof was red tiled. A blocky square tower jutted out from the left. Mahmoud entered the church by passing under a small overhang, likewise with tiled roof, the whole being held up by twin columns. His footsteps were still a little unsteady, the legacy of his beating.
It was a decidedly odd feeling, entering a Catholic church. There were some in Mahmoud's native Egypt, of course, and rather more Coptic churches. Yet he'd never been in one.
In the dim shadows toward the front, by the ornate altar, Mahmoud saw a priest going about some inexplicable business. He cleared his throat, nervously, causing the priest to turn.
"Can I help you, my son?" the priest asked.
"Possibly . . . sir," —for Mahmoud didn't yet know to address the priest as "Father"—"just possibly."
Chapter Seven
"We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us."
—Jens Orback, Swedish Minister for Democracy,
Metropolitan Affairs, Integration and Gender Equality, 2004
Kitznen, Province of Affrankon, 8 Rajab, 1533 AH
(7 June, 2109)
"Twenty-three dinar, seven dirhem is the bid. Do I hear twenty-three, eight?"
Petra stood, ashamed, her face down. The auctioneer reached out to lift her chin with his whip, but when he saw the tears he let her face fall again.
She was not naked, precisely, but the auctioneer had disrobed her sufficiently to permit the bidders to see the budding promise of her body. In effect, she was down to what passed for an inadequate bra and with a thin wrap around her hips. This was not exactly in the best spirit of Islam, but, on the other hand, she wasn't Moslem.
"Twenty-four dinar," shouted a bearded, robed factor whom Ishmael didn't recognize.
"Twenty-four, five," answered Ishmael, and that was as much as Besma had been able to scrape up. In other circumstances, Abdul Mohsem would have freed the girl for less. It was beyond his power now.
"Twenty-seven," shouted the factor, obviously tired of the game and sensing that Ishmael was at the end of the resources he had to spare. What does an obvious eunuch care for owning a girl like that? the factor wondered. Perhaps he, too, intends to whore her out. No matter, she'll make a better whore when she's trained by my staff.
Ishmael shuddered. That was the last of the money Besma had given. He had his own, the scrapings of years intended to purchase his own liberty. Where would he ever come up with . . .
"I have twenty-seven. Do I have twenty-eight? Twenty-seven . . . twenty seven . . . going for . . . "
"Thirty!"
Petra looked up from the platform on which her wares were being paraded. She knew how much Besma had had to spare, down to the last thin fil. If Ishmael was bidding more...? Petra looked directly at Ishmael. Through her tears of shame she smiled warmly at him, in thanks.
"Thirty-five," said the factor. His glance at Ishmael showed that he was plainly annoyed that this tiresome game continued.
Ishmael gulped. "Forty."
Without the slightest hesitation, the factor said, "Fifty," sneering at the presumptuous slave as he did so.
"Sixty." Ishmael's face looked stricken. He could not go much higher.
A man, his face covered, stepped up beside Ishmael. The slave felt a nudge. A heavy purse was pressed into his hand. Abdul Mohsem's voice said, "This is what I could come up with on short notice. Two hundred and twenty dinar. If the bloody bank had been open, I'd have gotten more. You can raise your bids up to that amount. All I'll lose by it is the auctioneer's fee."
"I never before realized that my master is also a saint," Ishmael said.
Abdul Mohsem said nothing, but, shaking his head, he turned away and left the auction house. He thought, I'm no saint. I'm weak. If I'd been a saint I'd have disciplined that little bastard, Fudail, myself. Instead I let someone else do it and look what I've done. Allah forgive a stupid man.