"They've had little enough choice in their lives," Abdul Rahman answered, "and will get little more in the future. Let us let them select their own temporary wives, but by rank in the corps and the class."
"As you wish, so shall it be," answered Latif. "I have on hand enough mullahs for the required services. And now the little matter of payment?"
Wordlessly, Abdul Rahman passed over a bank draft. "Four hundred gold dinar," he said, "as agreed."
* * *
"Riiighghght . . . FACE!" Rustam ordered. "Column of files from the left . . ."
"Follow me," said one of the section leaders, the leftmost one, while the others, including Hans, shouted, "Stand fast!"
"March!"
As the boys marched forward from the left, Hans kept his head and eyes fixed over his left shoulder. When he saw the third from the last man of the section to his left come up parallel, he gave the order, "Forward . . . March," and stepped off. Rather than giving commands for minor movements, Hans simply followed the last man of the previous section even as his men followed him. In a short time, he had led them through the massive gate and into a courtyard dominated by a huge mosque with an outsized golden onion dome perched above. This was the same dome he had glimpsed from outside.
Ahead was a broad stone staircase, hunched up against one wing of the castle. Up this the janissaries marched, then through a magnificent doorway, before entering a great hall.
None of the janissaries had eyes for the hall or for its decorations. Instead, they only had eyes for the girls lining each side.
Müller spoke for nearly all when he said, aloud, "I have died and gone to Heaven."
Ling nudged Petra discreetly. "Didn't I tell you this would be better than nasty old men?"
Petra didn't answer. Instead, she looked with shock upon one, in particular, of the boys filling the great hall. After a few moments' shock she managed to whisper, "I've got to get out of here."
"I don't understand," Ling said. "After hundreds of filthy perverts I thought—"
"One of them is my brother!"
"Oh . . ." The almond eyes widened. "Oh! Oh, shit!"
Interlude
Kitzingen, Federal Republic of Germany,
1 October, 2005
Gabi wrote in her journaclass="underline"
My life has turned to absolute shit.
Mahmoud was serious about going to America. I thought it was just a passing fad but I was wrong. He didn't tell me until yesterday. I think he was in doubt until then.
It was the bombings in London. He expected the British to crack down on Muslims, to start rounding them up. When it didn't happen he still said, "We'll see. The people who once ruled a quarter of the world are not going to bend over for this. Give them two months to get the machinery in place."
Yesterday he said, "Even they lack the will to defend themselves."
That's when he told me that he'd gone to Frankfurt late last year, to the American consulate, not on orders from his company, but to apply for a work visa. And apparently his company decided better to send him overseas, and let him take a job from an American, than to keep him here and keep a "good German" out of work. I'm sure that's what they were thinking.
Since Mahmoud is a Christian now, it seems the Americans are a little more willing to let him in than they otherwise might be. Racist bastards! I told Mahmoud they were, too, and he said, "No. It has nothing to do with race. They just have a proper sense of caution . . . and the will to defend their homeland."
Why can't I make him see? What's missing in him that he can't see that "homelands" are not worth defending; that only people are?
He says that I'm blind.
Ooo, he makes me so angry sometimes!
I tell him that if he leaves, he's helping bring about a self-fulfilling prophecy; that if all the most reasonable Moslems or ex-Moslems leave then only the lunatics will remain. He tells me that some prophecies are destined to be fulfilled, and that those who don't heed them suffer for it. He tells me to look to the number of Germans who are leaving Germany, the number of French who are leaving France, the number of English that are leaving England, and then to deny that this prophecy will be fulfilled. He says to look to the birthrates and tell him that this prophecy won't be fulfilled.
As if there weren't already too many people in the world for the world to support. Why should we make even more of them?
Not that we haven't done our own little part. I haven't told him yet but the doctor told me last week that I'm going to have a baby. His baby, of course. If I tell him, he'll start nagging me for us to get married. If I tell him, too, he'll think it's to try to hold him here with me. If I tell him, he'll call it blackmail. And then he'll want all three of us to go to America.
As if I'd let my child be raised as an American! Never! Never! Never! Let my child be imbued with atavistic, virulent nationalism? Raised in a place so violent and lawless people keep guns? Never!
It's in everything they do. Six weeks ago Mahmoud made me go to an NFL Europe American football game, the Cologne Centurions playing the Frankfurt Galaxy. Our football allows for ties, it even prefers them. Not American football, though. They insist on fighting it out to the finish, with nothing but winners and losers. It's so wrong. And so typical.
Well, I have to run now. There's a demonstration scheduled by the Falterturm to remind the British that decent minded people will not tolerate them discriminating against their Moslems merely because some of those Moslems, prompted—I have no doubt—by racism, fought back.
I hope Mahmoud begins to see sense soon. My life would be blighted without him. I hope he knows that.
Chapter Nine
The open society is not threatened, it is in a state of dissolution. The date on which the unconditional surrender was announced can be exactly identified: It was the day that the fatwa was issued against Salman Rushdie and the European institutions and governments did NOT react with an immediate break in ALL ties to the Mullah-Regime. Instead those multi-culturally oriented knowers came out and explained to us why Rushdie would have done better not to provoke the mullahs.
Europe—Your Last Name is Appeasement!
—Henryk Broder, Welt am Sonntag, 14 November, 2004
Castle Noisvastei, Province of Baya, 22 Sha'ban,