The three women were led toward a large tent raised over a triangular platform of white canopies. The Building Crow was presiding over the tent, dressed down in his white robes, bare-headed, without even his striped black cloak. Just the simple man himself, his dyed black hair, the farthest thing imaginable from his formidable reputation. Nora and the other two women sat on his left, in a line against the red damask, which had been laid out to hide the tent poles. To the Building Crow’s right, there sat a black man who stood like a plume of smoke reaching up to the top of the tent. His eyes pierced her like spikes of fire and paralyzed her down to her toes, crushed her. She was looking into the face of Satan himself. She turned to look at the Building Crow himself, who for all that he was large and intimidating was less terrifying than his right-hand man, Bundug. Out of all possible names, Bundug — Bullet — summed up the character of a devil who was ready to shoot fire at the people around him at any moment, who acted with an uncanny sense of his master’s confidence, who used his satanic strength, even, to control his own master. The odor of his body filled the entire tent, a mix of devil’s sweat and pungent eastern musk. His body was a coil of steel cables without a single lump of fat; a network of disgusting nerves, which could easily be tracked and deciphered, darting and pulsing vividly. Nora was certain that she’d receive a physical shock if she were ever to touch those nerves, that she’d be turned to ash. She was careful not to look that devil in the face again while he commanded the party and the Building Crow himself. Bundug, Bundug. No name has ever been repeated so doggedly, so madly, like his name was that night. Everyone savored the tune of it, accentuating its dissolution, they repeated it, begging for its consent and good favor, flattering the absolute ruler who held them in his thrall.
Servants appeared, spread around the room, and in the blink of an eye gracefully removed the palm mats and the large platters of rice topped with whole lambs freshly slaughtered that evening that had been laid before them. Dinner was over, but Nora hadn’t been able to bring herself to force down a single bite. A cloud of the devil’s sweat hung over the assembled guests. It turned her stomach and spoke of his desires and intentions. The trays of lambs staring back at the diners was just the first sacrificial offering of many. Bundug began moving among the diners like a storm of contradictory passions. He ate voraciously, swallowing unfathomable amounts of red meat, but he didn’t touch the milk- and butter-steeped rice or the vegetables or fruit. Only meat, as blood-red as the tongue he wiped across his lips after every bite, and the inside of his mouth, which was revealed with every lunatic laugh. The meat was burned up to produce energy in the furnace of that bundle of nerves, without even a single globule of fat.
“Where does it all go? It’s like the devil himself is eating alongside you.” The Building Crow chuckled as he teased Bundug, his creation. His fondness was apparent. Every time he looked at him, he was even more astonished, but Bundug just fed on that satanic riddle, which confused everyone and was him at the core.
Bundug’s furnaces blazed and the party kicked off. The music grew to a roar and the guests could suddenly hear the throbbing drumming of his coiled nerves in their own. Moving, writhing to the beat, Bundug came nearer and motioned to the girls shamelessly, pointing at their shoulders, and their breasts, and their thighs, which clamped together in defense. That was when the Building Crow made his move and all hell broke loose. He came out wearing nothing but a sarong around his waist, his flabby, hideous, burn-scarred torso completely bare. He pulled the three women to their feet to dance, and Nora found herself buffeted by the dancing bodies, blinded by the mass of burn-striped flesh. It was as if Satan’s teeth were still stuck in his body. The rhythm of the drums became more insistent and frenetic and Nora was terrified that he might lay his hands on her body. But Bundug was flitting around like a blood-sucking fly, buzzing and swooping. The fleshy mass came nearer and nearer, grazing her, the burn-scars enveloping her, giving off a thick sulfurous fug, and the women dancing realized that underneath his thin sarong he was completely naked. Bundug made that plain when he danced over and pulled his boss’ sarong right off. The Building Crow was naked before them. Nora shut her eyes, but she could still feel the idol’s eyes enveloping her. Flesh began crashing against flesh. Nausea ripped through her insides. Her eyes looked away, to Bundug’s coil of nerves, sculpted as if from steel.
Her refusal only attracted the demon. He channeled his perversity toward her and approached, pointing with his index finger at her throat. She choked on her saliva and stumbled, twisting her ankle. Nora felt dirty and stupid for dancing so she tried to make her way back to her seat, but the demon’s blazing eyes followed her. He could see her refusal plainly and it only made him circle more lecherously around the two remaining dancers, his lust goading them.
That scene went on forever. The thunder of a coil of nerves whipping clouds of flab. And the flab spread out to engulf all three women and that was when Nora wrenched herself away. Lightning tore through the demon’s black body. He pounced on her, his eyes shooting fiery daggers.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
She tried to stifle her hysterical wailing. His pupils were coal black and his eyes were like clotted blood, there was no sign of white. An eye of sand, creeping, pitch-black, bottomless, was dripping blood onto her face. Bundug pulled away from the dancing party and wrapped his burning fingers around her wrist. He dragged her outside the tent and shoved her into another tent nearby. He shoved her with all his strength and she fell to the floor.
“You slut! You want to play the virgin? Your fee’s in the envelope already, in dollars. A hundred grand for this cheap sack of flesh. And an extra thirty for your two whore friends. Are you trying to bargain for more by pretending to be chaste?” Nora looked like she’d lost her mind. She was shaking and she’d stopped breathing; her skin was turning blue. The cry of a wounded animal came bawling out of her chest. Even the demon seemed to be moved by it.
“Take me home. God help me. Please, I’m begging you, take me home.”
The demon took offense at that. “You think you’re worth a cent to me? Cheap flesh like yours? The world’s a market and it’s packed full of the best kinds of fresh meat, fresher than you even. Every day hotter, fitter bodies are brought to market. It makes me sick just to think about all the flesh that gets thrown at my feet. Who do you think you are? This is a hypermarket with shelves and shelves of tits and ass, so much for so cheap it turns your stomach. I could import bodies like yours and stock them in my freezer. You’re nothing. Nothing.” His eyes flogged her as he waited for her to say a single word so that he could snap her neck. Nora’s voice had disappeared deep down within her chest and she herself was sinking into the darkness.
“You’re nothing. Shut up. I swear to God if I so much as hear you breathe, I’ll smash your head in and leave your filthy body for the hyenas.” He turned and walked out. She wasn’t breathing. Her eyes had dried and were fixed, bulging, on the tent wall in front of her. There was writing, in golden thread, on the wall of the tent and it began to spread and cover the four walls of her horizon. She couldn’t move or hear, she couldn’t see anything but those verses of the Quran, the word of God in the heart’s heart. She realized that she was entering into, looking inside, the heart of the Quran itself, the Throne Verse, which was said to protect and dispel fear. She didn’t read the verse, she crawled over it and slipped inside, seeking shelter. She sank deeper and deeper as the verse grew lighter and lighter, until Nora became aware of the white idol that was the platform with three faces. The idol bent down — the entire campsite listing as it bent — and picked her up, setting her down on its crest. She could see a woman’s face joined with that of a man and a child, and with her own. She and they became a single mass of life shooting up toward the sky, while in the tent next door, the tender flesh had been laid out and was topped by burned flesh, and both were topped by a network of cables sending its shocks through them, and giving off an acrid smell of sulfur.