It was a zoophile’s paradise. Perhaps it said most about my lack of social graces that I had been to the Riyadh Zoo half a dozen times, but this would be my first visit to the U.S. Embassy.
Again I told the taxi driver to wait, and walked down the shaded avenue that separated zoo and embassy. A chorus of roars, barks and grunts came from the enclosures to my left; feeding time. I had the sudden heart-stopping desire to turn that way, go on through the zoo gate instead of into the embassy, back to the familiar world that I had inhabited before the accident. This wasn’t me at all, running from beautiful sadists in a frantic search for who-knows-what. I was cut out for the quiet life.
**But I’m so close, I can’t stop now. Keep going.**
Whose thought was that?
I went on towards the embassy, past the lines of beggars that not even Riyadh ’s gigantic wealth had been able to eliminate. An honorable calling. Sightless, armless, legless, they sat head down against the walls, shaded by shrubs that grew along the tops. Two little metal bowls stood in front of each man.
I hardly glanced at them, even when one rose suddenly from almost beneath my feet and scuffled away along the street with his empty bowls tucked away under a withered left arm. That was my mistake, and I would pay for it later, but my attention was all on the moving digits of my watch.
Three o’clock . Despite my instructions to the driver to hurry, two and a half hours had now passed since I left the Intercontinental.
Time runs, the clock will strike, the devil will come… If I couldn’t track down the Belur Package by six, I had to get back to the hotel and follow Zan and Scouse in their next move.
The embassy entrance lay a little off Beggars’ Row in a narrow cul-de-sac. A blind brick wall closed off the end, with a coffee shop on the right-hand side and the big double doors of the embassy on the left. Marine guards stood just within the gates, by a huge sign in English and Arabic announcing that beyond this point lay the sovereign soil of the United States . A much smaller sign warned visitors that the embassy closed at four-thirty, and all non-U.S. nationals had to be outside by then. My time was squeezing down, tighter and tighter. And I was feeling ghastly, wondering how long I could last before I just toppled over into the dirt. I needed to get some food and drink into me.
**Coffee. Go in there, into the shop on the right.**
I actually took a couple of steps in that direction, then halted and stared at the bottle-green shop window. Coffee? I rubbed at my aching eyes. Nice to have some, but this was the worst time in the world to look for it. Afterwards, when I was done in the embassy — the place should still be open at four-thirty. I turned back to the embassy gates.
Some bright ideas just don’t work out the way they ought to. In the next two hours I talked to fourteen embassy staff, not counting the two young Marines who started me on my rounds. Science Attaché, Commercial Attaché, Counsellor, First and Second Secretary, Military Attaché — they were all very polite and totally uncommunicative.
Leo Foss? No, we didn’t know about the accident — very sorry to hear it, he came by the embassy now and again. Very sharp man, knew exactly how the natives operate.
The last time? Well, let’s check the file here. Over a year ago. No, we haven’t seen anything of him since then.
Easy to see you’re his brother — older brother, I suppose? Leave a package here six months ago? What kind of package? No, we didn’t see it — who would he have left it with? Never heard of anything like that in this department.
It was clear that Leo had not been a person greatly popular at the embassy. For one thing, he was much too fluent in Arabic to let the staff there feel at ease. What did you do with an odd fellow who knew more about the country and its people than you did? Two of the men I saw recognized me as Lionel Salkind, pianist, and tried to steer the conversation towards music and away from the dull matter of my brother. Was I planning any concerts here soon? Riyadh needed more western influence. There were some ICA funds available if I was interested…
I squirmed free, went to the next Attaché, asked the same questions.
Nothing. Not a nibble. Four-thirty came, and I was quietly shown to the main exit. Come again when you are in Riyadh . Let us know in advance, and we’ll make sure that we have a recital in the embassy. Sorry to hear about your brother…
I was standing by the double gates again, going through the rituals of a polite farewell. My head was an inferno. As the doors swung to behind me I leaned against one of the pillars and damned the American Embassy and all its staff to perdition. Over a year ago. So Leo had not come here on his last trip. He had been — where?
I walked to the end of the cul-de-sac and looked around me. Beggars’ Row was empty now, the crippled line of human wreckage melted away in the late afternoon sun. Beyond the chest-high wall across the main avenue, feeding time at the Zoo was over and the whole street was quiet now. I turned and looked back toward the embassy. In the two hours that I had been inside the sun had swung through thirty degrees in the sky, to throw a harsh light onto the front of the coffee shop. A faded beige awning had been moved out to shield the exposed window. Across the top ran a line of Arabic lettering, and lower down there was a crude oil painting of a tall glass with two bright green fruit being squeezed into it…
I was hurrying back to the embassy, hammering frantically on the big double doors. Was it already too late?
One of the doors cracked open a few inches.
“We’re closed until eight o’clock tomorrow.” It was one of the young Marines.
“I know. The coffee shop there — what’s it called?”
He stared at me. “Called? I don’t know the Arabic, but in English all the people here call it ‘The Limes.’ See the sign?”
The Limes. Not zeroes, eggs, lemons, balloons or walnuts — Leo had drawn limes. Two of them, staring back at me in vivid green from the sun-bleached awning.
As I walked across to the open door I glanced again at my watch. Four forty-five . I was too excited to notice that the taxi left waiting for me in the avenue was no longer there.
Close up, the wrinkles showed. The door of the coffee shop was beginning to shed its blistered green paint and the letters of the menu just inside were faded by sunlight. Within, the bench-lined room was cool and dim. The awning and thick green window glass cut off most of the sun, so my eyes took a few seconds to adjust.
“You wanta ha-lunch, sir-ha?” A waiter, thin and ancient, stood at the door and addressed me in his idea of English — he must have seen me coming over from the American embassy.
I nodded. “Coffee. Lots of it. And do you have pastry or sweet cakes?” My blood sugar badly needed a boost.
“Ha-past-ery. Sa-weatcakes? Yes.” The forehead wrinkled in perplexity and he scurried away through a door in the back. What would come back was anybody’s guess.
I would have guessed wrong. What came back was a small, barrel-shaped woman with a cheerful, wrinkled face and a generous Jewish nose. She took two steps into the room, put her hands on her hips and glared at me.
“Sweet cakes, eh? I ought to ’ave known it. Leo, you are very bad man. When you die you go to ’ell for sure. Why you playin’ games with me an’ poor old Fazil?”
**Narjes** The name came as another random impulse in my mind, accompanied by a feeling of warmth and affection.
She came close, wrapped her arms about me, and hugged hard enough to make my tender ribs creak. Over her shoulder she shouted a brusque order to the waiter, who hurried in and placed sweetened coffee in front of me, together with a big plate of powdered sugar biscuits. Then she scowled at me as I took a life-restoring gulp of hot coffee and crammed two of the biscuits into my mouth.