The next day was Yasmin’s day off, and about two in the afternoon I gave her a call. She hadn’t been home all night; it was none of my business where she’d been. I was amused and startled to find out that I was, however, just the least bit jealous. We made a date for dinner at five at our favorite café. You can sit at a table on the terrace and watch the traffic on the Street. Only two blocks from the gate, the Street isn’t so tawdry. The restaurant was a good place to relax. I didn’t tell Yasmin about any of the previous day’s trouble over the phone. She would have kept me talking all afternoon, and she needed the three hours to make the dinner date on time.
As it was, I had two drinks while I waited for her at the table. She arrived about quarter to six. Three quarters of an hour late is about average for Yasmin; in fact, I hadn’t really expected her until after six o’clock. I wanted to get a couple of drinks ahead. I’d had only about four hours of sleep, and I struggled with terrible nightmares the whole time. I wanted to get some liquor into me, and a good meal, and have Yasmin hold my hand while I told her of my ordeal.
“Marhaba!” she called gaily as she wove her way between the iron tables and chairs.
I signaled to Ahmad, our waiter, and he took Yasmin’s drink order and left menus. I looked at her as she studied her menu. She was wearing a light cotton European-style summer dress, yellow with white butterflies. Her black hair was brushed down sleek and lustrous. She wore a silver crescent on a silver chain around her darkly tanned neck. She looked lovely. I hated to bother her now with my news. I decided to put it off as long as I could.
“So,” she said, looking up at me and grinning, “how was your day?”
“Tamiko’s dead,” I said. I felt like a fool. There must have been a way to begin the story with less of an awful thud.
She sort of goggled at me. She murmured an Arabic superstitious phrase to ward off evil.
I took a deep breath and let it out. Then I started with dawn, yesterday morning, and my enthusiastic wake-up call from the Sisters. I went through the whole day, ending with my dismissal by Okking and my weary and lonely walk home.
I saw a tear slide slowly down one of her carefully blushed cheeks. She wasn’t able to speak for several seconds. I didn’t know she’d be so upset; I berated myself for my clumsiness.
“I wish I’d been with you last night,” she said at last. She didn’t realize how hard she was squeezing my hand. “I had a date, Marîd, some guy from the club. He’s been coming in to see me for weeks, and finally last night he offered me two hundred kiam to go out with him. He’s a nice guy, I suppose, but—”
I raised a hand. I didn’t need to hear this. I didn’t care how she paid her rent. I would have liked to have had her with me last night, too. I would have liked to have held her between the nightmares. “It’s all over now, I guess,” I said. “Let me blow the rest of my fifty kiam on this dinner, and then let’s go for a long wait.”
“Do you really think it’s all over?”
I chewed my lip. “Except for Nikki. I wish I knew what that phone call meant. I just can’t understand her running out on me like that, sticking me for Abdoulaye’s three thousand. I mean, in the Budayeen, you can never be sure how loyal your friends are; but I’d gotten Nikki out of one or two scrapes before. I thought that might have counted for something with her.”
Yasmin’s eyes opened wider, then she laughed. I couldn’t see what she thought was so humorous. My face still looked swollen and bruised, and by ribs still hurt like the devil. The day before had been anything but clownish. “I saw Nikki yesterday morning,” said Yasmin.
“You did?” Then I remembered that Chiriga had seen Nikki about ten o’clock, and that Nikki had left Chiri’s to find Yasmin. I hadn’t connected that visit to Chiri with Nikki’s later skip-out.
“Nikki looked very nervous,” said Yasmin, “and she told me she’d quit her job and had to move out of Tami’s apartment. She wouldn’t tell me why. She said she’d tried to call you again and again, but there wasn’t any answer.” Of course not; when Nikki was trying to call me, I was lying unconscious on my floor. “She gave me this envelope and told me to be sure you got it.”
“Why didn’t she just leave it with Chiri?” That would have saved a lot of mental and physical anguish.
“Don’t you remember? Nikki worked in Chiri’s club, oh, a year ago, maybe longer. Chiri caught Nikki shortchanging customers and stealing from the other girls’ tip jars.”
I nodded; now I recalled that Nikki and Chiri left each other pretty much alone. “So Nikki went to Chiri just to get your address?”
“I asked her a lot of questions, but she wouldn’t answer a thing. She just kept saying, ‘Make sure Marîd gets this,’ over and over.”
I hoped it was a letter, an apology maybe, with an address where I could reach her. I wanted my money back. I took the envelope from Yasmin and tore it open. Inside was my three thousand kiam, and a note written in French. Nikki wrote:
My dearest Marîd:
I so much wanted to give you the money in person. I called many times. but you did not answer. I am leaving this with Yasmin, but if you never get it, how will you know? You will hate me forever, then. When we meet again, I will not understand. My feelings are so confused.
I am going to live with an old friend of my family. He is a wealthy businessman from Germany who always brought me presents whenever he visited. That was when I was a shy, introverted little boy. Now that I am, well, what I am, the German businessman has discovered that he is even more inclined to give me presents. I was always fond of him, Marîd, although I can’t love him. But being with him will be so much more pleasant than staying with Tamiko.
The gentleman’s name is Herr Lutz Seipolt. He lives in a magnificent house on the far side of the city, and you must ask the driver to take you to (I have to copy this down for you) Bayt il-Simsaar il-Almaani Seipolt. That ought to get you to the villa.
Give my love to Yasmin and to everyone. I will visit the Budayeen when I can, but I think I will enjoy playing the mistress of such an estate for a while. I am sure you, of all people, Marîd, will understand: Business is business, mush kayk? (And I’ll bet you thought I never learned a single word of Arabic!)
With much love,
When I finished reading the letter, I sighed and handed it to Yasmin. I’d forgotten that she couldn’t read a word of French, and so I translated it for her.
“I hope she’ll be happy,” she said when I folded the letter up.
“Being kept by some old German bratwurst? Nikki? You know Nikki. She needs the action as much as I do, as much as you do. She’ll be back. Right now, I guess, it’s sugar-daddy time on the Princess Nikki Show.”
Yasmin smiled. “She’ll be back, I agree; but in her own time. And she’ll make that old bratwurst pay for every minute of it.” We both laughed, and then the waiter brought Yasmin’s drink, and we ordered dinner.
As we finished the meal, we lingered over a last glass of champagne. “What a day yesterday was,” I said bemusedly, “and now everything is back to normal. I have my money, except I’ll be out a thousand kiam in interest. When we leave here, I want to find Abdoulaye and pay him.”