Jimmy Peters winced. “Suppose somebody invades us, or something?”
“Repulse them,” Homer said, grinning.
Jimmy threw up his hands in disgust and said, “I’m going to see about the damned stationery. I have a sneaking suspicion that the El Hassan government, without El Hassan, is going to be doing a lot of paperwork.”
He went on out and Isobel and Homer were alone. They had both come to their feet as the others left.
Isobel came up to him and put both of her hands on his shoulders and looked full into his eyes. She raised herself on tiptoes and put her mouth to his.
Afterwards, she said, “Homer. Come back, darling.”
He smiled at her ruefully. There had been no time in their relationship for the potential romance between them, though both were aware of its existence.
He said, “After that, how could I do otherwise?” He kissed her again. “I’ll be back, Isobel.”
VIII
SEAN RYAN
Sean Ryan, Megan McDaid and Bryan O’Casey were killing time sightseeing in Algiers. Sean Ryan had stopped in the Algerian capital for a couple of hours once, on his way to Port Said and a Middle-East job, but had spent the time in a harbor bar. Megan had never been in Africa before at all. But Bryan O’Casey knew the town fairly well.
O’Casey said, “Let’s see what I know about Algiers. Not much. The Arabs used to call it Al-Djezaor, a description of all those little islands that cluster in the harbor. It was the Turks that linked them to the mainland with a long dyke, which they later fortified. When the French took over, they couldn’t pronounce it so they changed it to Algiers. Damned if I know how old the town is. Probably Hannibal, in his day, trudged up the staired streets to Charthaginian boites de nuit. By the looks of some of the dogs still plying their trade in them, they might have been the same ones that took him on.”
“Why, Bryan,” Meg said. “How would you know what the local prostitutes look like?”
He made with an exaggerated leer.
Sean Ryan looked at his watch, as they began to ascend into the Kasbah. “We’ve got about an hour or so.”
They were passing a tourist restaurant, overly done in its efforts to project a native atmosphere, without driving away squeamish foreigners nervous about sanitation.
Meg said, “I do wish that we had the time to have lunch. I’ve already read so much about couscous and meshwe.”
They were all dressed tourist-wise, complete to the two men having cameras slung around their necks. Meg wore a tweed walking skirt and very sensible, thick-soled shoes.
Bryan O’Casey said grimly, “We can get European food back at the hotel, French at that. You’ll have all the couscous you’ll want and more down in the interior. Complete with well-aged mutton, complete with rancid camel butter. And don’t ask me why it has to be rancid. They like it that way. They place it between the camel and the saddle and pack it along until it gets good and rancid.”
He made a sweeping gesture with his hand as they ascended the stepped wide street, the only wide street in the Kasbah area, as they were to find. He said, “This is the famous Kasbah. Every old North African city has a Kasbah, but this is the famous one. The Berbers and the Arabs after them used to build their towns on hills like this for defensive purposes. Now it’s the slums of the city, populated with Moors, Arabs, Turks, bastard Koolooies, blacks, people from all the races of Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean. Just smell it. Once in awhile you’ll get a whiff of the scent of myrtle and jasmine from some rich man’s garden, just enough to keep you from passing out. Talk about pollution.”
Sean Ryan said, “This looks like tourist row, with all these souvenir stands. Let’s get off onto some of these narrow side-streets.”
Narrow was the word for it. Often as narrow as corridors, they were shadowy with houses tottering toward each other, often supported by struts. Periodically, they’d have a quick glimpse, when somebody was passing through a door, of narrow-columned patios and of gardens and even fountains, the homes of the wealthier Moslems who chose to live here with their fellow followers of the Prophet, rather than in the modern European section. Grated windows of these establishments permitted outward vision from the interior but limited seeing into the houses from the street. The pedestrians teemed. Women, veiled in white, usually looking enormous, yet light-footed in their balloonlike trousers, men in jeballahs or bournouses, beggars as filthy as only beggars in a North African town can be, multitudes of playing, screaming children, also instantly convertible into beggars. Small girls with henna-reddened fingernails and in pigtails ran about. The open air meat and other food shops, their goods covered with plenty of flies, threw out unpleasant odors.
Bryan said to Meg McDaid, “Are you sure you’d like to eat in one of the native restaurants?”
“No.”
The two men chuckled.
As they passed what was obviously a bar, Bryan said, “Like a drink? They’ve got a native raki—I think they make it from dates—which tastes worse than Irish poteen.”
Sean laughed glumly and said, “Beggin’ your pardon, but nothing tastes worse than poteen, man dear. Besides, I’m on nothing stronger than beer, until this job is over.”
As they sauntered along, Bryan said, “As I recall, they’ve got a beer here called Stork. They sell it all over North Africa. There must be a half dozen breweries in different countries.”
Sean said, disinterestedly, “What does it taste like?”
The other laughed. “Beggin’ Meg’s pardon, it tastes like piss.”
And Meg said mocking, “Why Bryan, how would you know?”
That was the second time she had pulled that one, so Bryan looked at her and said, “Once when I was operating down in Somalia, the small detachment I was with was overrun by the Ethiopians. We went on the run, with them after us. One doesn’t surrender to the Ethiopians. In fact, off hand, I can’t think of any natives, here in Africa, you surrender to. And damned few white men, unless they’re fellow mercenaries, in which case you’ll probably run into some old chums—and might even switch sides, if your adherence to the mercenary’s code is a bit shaky. At any rate, they were after us. The Sahara is as bad in Somalia as it is to the south of here. In three days we were completely out of water. Most of our camels had died, but we had three left.”
Sean knew what was coming and inwardly he was amused but he said nothing.
Meg was staring in fascination at her lover.
He went on. “Possibly, it’s a fact known not even to the average M.D., Meg, mavourneen, but if you put sugar in urine, either animal or human, it will support life for a time, prevent dehydration.”
Meg closed her eyes in distaste and feminine rejection.
Bryan said with mock cheerfulness, “So I say that Stork beer tastes like piss, and I stand by my statement.”
Sean said, looking at his watch again, “I think we’d better get back for this talk with Saidi, without any alcohol at all, either on our breaths… or minds.”
Bryan shot a quizzical look at him. “You don’t trust this Levantine friend of yours?”
Sean growled, “Have you ever met anybody who was after trustin’ a Levantine?”
The narrow winding streets had become a maze, equal to that of the famed labyrinth of the palace of Minos of antiquity.
Meg said, “Bryan, and how in the name of the Holy Mother are we ever going to find our way out of here?”
Bryan laughed. “You can’t get lost in the Kasbah. All you have to do is head down hill. Every time you come to a turning, or a corner, you take the down route. You wind up at the bottom in the so-called European section of town—now largely taken over by the better-off Algerians who got their fingers in the expropriation pie when the French pulled out.”