He walked away from the deep-fryer.
As soon as he opened the door, two men in almost identical gray suits knocked him to the floor. A third man locked the door behind him. He was wearing a gray suit, too.
There were three of them, the Egyptian had time to think, feeling his ribs. The men were hurting him.
“My, doesn’t it smell nice in here,” said the man who had locked the door, while the other two remained seated on top of the Egyptian. The man inhaled deeply. He strolled around the restaurant, from back to front, front to back. Then he walked from back to front again, and at last he said: “Yes, that’s wonderful. You don’t smell anything like that very often.”
He took a chair and put it down next to the Egyptian, who was lying on his back with the two men on top of him. He had a beard, the man who thought it smelled so wonderful, the man who radiated calm and confidence.
“He who betrays his brothers,” the man said, “is less than a worm. A worm is sacred compared with the traitor.” He spoke slowly, not without a certain flair, not without humor, either; he seemed to grasp the irony of his own words.
The Egyptian couldn’t speak; he was having trouble breathing; he feared for his heart. He saw his dogs before him, the dogs that ran after him, the dogs that cried with him at the moon. The bald man had been right: his dogs and nothing else. Only his dogs remained. Nothing more to his life than two dogs.
The man with the beard got up from the chair and bent down until his face was close to the Egyptian’s. The Egyptian could smell him: he smelled of soap, soap from a bottle, hotel soap probably. He had washed himself well before going to the kebab place to carry out his assignment. Those accursed assignments. The Egyptian knew about them, had heard about them. He had seen them from close up, the tasks people assigned themselves.
The man pulled out a pistol and stuffed it in the Egyptian’s mouth, while the other two remained seated on his stomach.
At first the Egyptian had tried not to open his mouth, but the man with the pistol had pinched his nose shut, and then he had to. When he opened his mouth to breathe, the man had quickly stuffed the pistol into it. Then the man wiped it on his trousers, the hand that had pinched the nose.
The barrel was cold in the Egyptian’s mouth, and big, bigger than he’d ever imagined. The Egyptian tried to swallow, but couldn’t. His gums hurt, his tongue; he tasted the barrel in his mouth, the bitter tang of metal. So he was still able to taste — at least that was something.
He’d never had the barrel of a pistol in his mouth before. He thought: They’re trying to scare me, that’s it, just scare me, I have to stay cool. Just stay very calm, as though this happens every day. That’s what I need to keep telling myself: all they’re trying to do is scare me.
Still, he had the feeling he couldn’t breathe anymore. No matter what he told himself, the choking remained. He made a noise that sounded like gargling. And again he saw his dogs. Why did he keep seeing his dogs all the time?
Then he thought about his heart. He was afraid his heart would stop beating.
“You know,” said the man who had stuck the pistol in the Egyptian’s mouth, “what we do to collaborators. What we have to do to them. Because they’re collaborators.”
The Egyptian had to pee; he couldn’t hold it in anymore.
The man laid his hand on the Egyptian’s head. It was a big hand, a heavy hand. The Egyptian felt the pressure on his head. “War is a terrible thing, little brother,” the man said. “But for traitors there is only one punishment. A traitor, after all, is not a man. A traitor doesn’t deserve a grave. And you’re a traitor. As long as there is a war going on, there’s no time to hear witnesses, to hear you, to explain our side of it, to wait for a decision. No time, you understand? We have to intervene before you become dangerous, little brother.”
The Egyptian tried to say something, but the only thing that came out was more gargling. The hand was still resting on his head.
The man pulled the pistol out of his mouth.
The Egyptian panted for breath. There was spit everywhere, it ran down his lips; his tongue hurt, his gums, his throat, the corners of his mouth. He tried to swallow. The only thing he tasted was metal. He smelled the odor of burning falafel balls. He drooled.
The man with the beard held his weapon loosely in his hand, like a big key he wanted to stick in the lock again, because the door wouldn’t open.
“Don’t do it,” the Egyptian whispered. “Please, don’t do it. I didn’t tell them anything.” Then he couldn’t help himself, he peed in his pants. The urine seeped through his underpants and then through his trousers. The floor became wet.
Only at that point did the two men on top of him notice the Egyptian’s urine.
They dragged the Egyptian to his feet, sat him down in a chair, and hit him in the face a few times. Not hard, more by way of a warning.
“Enough,” the man with the pistol said. He moved his chair over, right in front of the Egyptian’s.
“Little brother,” the man with the pistol said, “oh, little brother.” He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the Egyptian’s lips. His movements bespoke a kind of tenderness.
“Oh, little brother of mine,” the man said, “was it worth all this? How much did they give you? Was it a lot? Was it enough? Enough for you to be treated like this, enough for what we have to do to you now because you’ve betrayed us, because you didn’t think about us when you should have been thinking about us? I’m afraid not. This place looks shabby. They gave you too little. Much too little. How long has it been going on? You know, I don’t even want to hear about it; the details disgust me. I don’t want to know. Don’t say a thing. Because nothing is worse than betrayal. When you open your mouth, the betrayal starts.”
Then the man took a deep breath and said: “My, doesn’t it smell wonderful in here? Almost enough to make you hungry.”
But the only smell was that of burned falafel balls in the deep fryer. That stench was more powerful than the odor of piss that layered around the Egyptian.
“Please,” the Egyptian whispered, “please. I didn’t say anything. I wouldn’t know what to say, because I don’t know anything, I don’t know anything because no one takes me seriously. I didn’t get anything, and I didn’t say anything. I just want to live a little longer, that’s all. Just live a little longer.”
The man with the pistol put a piece of chewing gum in his mouth. The other two held the Egyptian in his chair, even though that wasn’t necessary. No one had to restrain him. He restrained himself. He always had, and now more than ever.
The man stuffed his pistol in the Egyptian’s mouth again. A tooth broke off. Nino’s teeth weren’t in such good shape anymore; he needed to go to the dentist, but he kept putting it off. He dreaded it, he was afraid of it.
The Egyptian screamed, insofar as he could scream with the barrel of a pistol in his mouth. He spat out his tooth onto the floor. The man with the beard glanced at it, then kicked it away. “Shut up!” he shouted. “Shut up, or I’ll blow your brains out.”
The Egyptian stopped screaming. He saw himself again, lying in the wet grass with his dogs. It hadn’t been mowed for a long time; he had no time for it, and his wife said it was too hard for her, mowing grass. He could almost feel the dogs’ tongues; their tongues were rough and hungry. He should have stayed at home — no, not at home, they would have found him there, too — he should have left Basel, gone into hiding, disappeared, the way others had disappeared. A different name, a different country, a different language.
“He who betrays his brothers once,” said the man with his finger on the trigger, “betrays his brothers again and again; his life is nothing but betrayal. He has betrayed himself. The betrayal makes everything that happened before that time betrayal, too. He starts with it, and he doesn’t stop. It’s greater than all the other things he’s done. That’s why he is nothing more than that: a traitor. Little brother, I’m sorry. That’s what you are, and that’s what I’ve come here to tell you.”