The Egyptian reached out and grabbed the arm of the man facing him. The gray suit of the man with the beard, 100 percent wool, that’s what he grabbed. “No,” the Egyptian mumbled, “no, please.”
Red drool was running from his mouth, making him look pitiable.
XAVIER, AWROMELE, AND MARC were already close to Karlsruhe. Awromele was sleeping with his head on Xavier’s shoulder; he was exhausted. Marc glanced at them occasionally in the mirror. They were pretty, both of them, yes, very pretty. Extraordinarily attractive.
THE MAN WHO was chewing gum shook his head slowly, without taking the pistol out of the Egyptian’s mouth. He was struck once more by how stupid people looked when you pushed a pistol into their mouth. Stupid and hideous. Like dolls. Life-sized dolls with batteries that were slowly running down.
“This isn’t my decision,” he said; the chewing gum was gradually losing its flavor and becoming an unpleasant ball of rubber. “Other people made this decision, but I can’t contact them. And even if I could contact them, they wouldn’t change their minds. That’s how things go, little brother — you made a decision, too. And you didn’t go back on it, either. Betrayal is a decision like all the rest.”
He looked around.
“I didn’t tell them anything,” the Egyptian mumbled. The barrel of the pistol made it almost impossible for him to talk. “I don’t know anything. I donated money because I support you people. Your struggle is my struggle.” His hand was still on the sleeve of the man with the pistol, but now the man brushed his hand away, the way you brush off an animal, a spider that has fallen out of a tree onto your suit. You don’t want to kill the spider, just get rid of it.
The man took the chewing gum out of his mouth and stuck it under his chair. His other hand tensed. The Egyptian felt the pistol being pushed farther into his mouth. His throat hurt; the skin on his lips felt like it was peeling off; his whole mouth hurt. Again he forced himself to think, They’re only trying to scare me. But it didn’t work. No matter what he thought, something was more powerful than his thoughts.
He pooped in his pants. It was diarrhea, and he thought about his dogs, where they were now, how they jumped up to greet him when he came home. He thought he was crying, but that was his imagination. Why could others die with their heads held high, proud and dignified, but not him, why couldn’t he do that? Because he didn’t believe in anything, that was why. That was why he did it in his pants, why he had to die like an animal. Everyone hated him. Money was the only thing that didn’t discriminate against him, but it wasn’t here to help him now, now it was nowhere in sight.
The man pulled the pistol out of the Egyptian’s mouth. He took a few steps back, stopped in front of the tape player for a moment, then looked into the kitchen and acted as if he was listening to the music. Maybe he actually was listening.
The Egyptian followed him with his eyes, without moving; his eyes were the only thing that dared to move. The man lifted the basket from the deep-fryer. The eight falafel balls had turned black.
The man brought the basket to the Egyptian, who was still sitting in his chair. The other two men were holding his arms behind the back of the chair. They were silent; they didn’t make a sound.
“Look,” said the man, “look, is this all you have to offer us?”
The Egyptian looked into the basket and saw the black balls.
“Is this how you welcome your guests? Is this what you call hospitality? Is this how your mother raised you?”
The Egyptian didn’t speak; he didn’t know what to say; he didn’t know the right answers anymore. A punch landed on his face.
With a careless gesture, the man tossed the burned falafel balls into a corner. As though he did it all the time, as though he were the chef in a big restaurant and this was how he rejected the mistakes of his apprentices.
“We’re hungry,” the man said. He sat down in his chair again, rubbed the barrel of his pistol over the Egyptian’s lips, his nose, his cheeks. “We’re hungry, because we haven’t eaten anything for a long time. And it’s been a very long time since we’ve had anything nice to eat. Why don’t you make us something nice?”
The Egyptian felt the feces in his pants; he could smell his own excrement. “Please,” he whispered. “Please.” And he reached out his hand again to the man with the pistol. But the man had no patience with him anymore. He batted the hand away.
“Hungry,” the man said. “Do you understand? We are hungry.” He paused for a second between the words, so the Egyptian would understand that now he would really have to put something on the table.
The two other men picked up the Egyptian. He couldn’t stand on his feet anymore: he was shaking too badly, he was too weak, or too scared; maybe it was his heart, too. They had to hold him upright. That’s how he stood before the judge, or at least before the proxy his judge had sent, because he couldn’t be here himself.
Once he was upright, the excrement ran down his legs to the floor.
He seized the sleeve of the man with the pistol again. Like a drowning man, like a madman. He looked like a madman, too, with that red drool coming out of his mouth. “I didn’t say anything,” he whispered. “Please, I want to live. I didn’t say anything.”
The man took another piece of chewing gum out of his pocket, hesitated, and put it in his mouth. Then he pushed away his prisoner’s hand.
“I believe you,” he said. “You’re too stupid to lie. Isn’t that right, aren’t you too stupid to lie?”
The Egyptian nodded like he’d never nodded before. He was too stupid to lie, sure, much too stupid.
“That’s right,” the man said, “too stupid to lie. Too stupid for anything. What did the Zionists promise you? Money, of course. You believe in money, little brother, and look how you’ve ended up. Look at you now. What can money do for you now? Nothing. Even if you had all the money in the world, it still wouldn’t help you. You bet on the wrong horse, little brother, you and millions of others, on the wrong horse.”
The man with the pistol couldn’t help laughing a little at the strange situation in which they found themselves. Laughing seemed to mellow him a bit.
“You’ve won your life, little brother,” he said, once he was finished laughing. “You’ve won it back.” He patted the cheek of the trembling Egyptian; there was still a little blood on it.
“Yes, I’m giving you back your life, brother,” he said. “I don’t want it. I don’t want to have it. Because you’re too stupid to lie, I’m giving back your life. So now fix something for us to eat. It makes a man hungry, giving life back. And thirsty. Do you have some water?”
The Egyptian tried to grab the hand of the man with the pistol, but he pulled it away. “Don’t touch me,” he shouted. “Stop touching me!”
“Thank you,” the Egyptian whispered, “thank you.” He felt like kneeling down, to thank him, to show how grateful he was for this gift, his life. But he couldn’t kneel, because the two men were holding him up between them. So he asked: “What can I do for you? Tell me what I can do for you. I’ll do anything.”
“We’re hungry,” the man said. “We just told you that. We are terribly hungry.”
The two men dragged the Egyptian to the back of the restaurant, to the kitchen, where the oil was still boiling. They had to drag him; he couldn’t walk by himself, because of the emotions and the shock.
The man with the pistol picked up the plate of falafel balls the Egyptian had kneaded the night before, and sniffed at them.