“I paid for a week in advance,” I said, “but business matters force me to check out earlier than I planned.”
The desk man murmured. “We’re sorry to hear that, sir. We’ve enjoyed having you.” I nodded and tossed my room’s tag onto the counter. “Just let me look at … ” He keyed the room number into his terminal, saw that the hotel did indeed owe me a little money, and began getting the voucher printed out.
“You’ve all been very kind,” I said.
He smiled. “It is our pleasure,” he said. He handed me the voucher and pointed to the cashier. I thanked him again. A few moments later I crammed the partial refund in my zipper bag with the rest of my money.
Carrying my cash, my moddies and daddies, and my clothing in the zipper bag, I walked south and west, away from the Budayeen and away from the expensive shopping district beside the Boulevard il-Jameel. I came to a fellahin neighborhood of twisting streets and alleys, where the houses were small, flat-topped, needing whitewash, with windows covered by shutters or thin wooden lattices. Some were in better repair, with attempts at gardening in the dry earth at the base of the walls. Others looked derelict, their gap-toothed shutters hanging in the sun like tongues of panting dogs. I went up to a well-kept house and rapped on the door. I waited a few minutes until it opened. A large, heavily muscled man with a full black beard glared down at me. His eyes were narrowed suspiciously, and in the corner of his mouth his teeth were chewing away at a splinter of wood. He waited for me to speak.
With no confidence at all, I launched into my story. “I have been stranded in this city by my companions. They stole all our merchandise and my money, too. I must beg in the name of Allah and the Apostle of God, may the blessings of Allah be upon him and peace, your hospitality for today and for this evening.”
“I see,” said the man in a surly voice. “The house is closed.”
“I will give you no cause for offense. I will—”
“Why don’t you try begging where the hospitality is more generous? People tell me there are families here and about with enough to eat for themselves and also for dogs and strangers, as well. Me, I’m lucky to earn a little money for beans and bread for my wife and my four children.”
I understood. “I know you don’t need trouble. When I was robbed, my companions didn’t know that I always keep a little extra cash in my bag. They greedily took everything in plain sight, leaving me with enough to live on for one or two days, until I can make my way back and demand a lawful accounting of them.”
The man just stared at me, waiting for something magical to appear.
I unslung my zipper bag and opened it. I let him watch me shove the clothing aside — my shirts, my trousers, socks — until I reached down and pulled out a paper bank note. “Twenty kiam,” I said sadly, “that’s all they left me with.”
My new friend’s face went through a rapid selection of emotions. In this neighborhood, twenty-kiam notes made their presence felt with noise and shouting. The man may not have been sure of me, but I knew what he was thinking.
“If you would give me the benefit of your hospitality and protection for the next two days,” I said, “I will let you have all the money you see here.” I thrust the twenty closer to his widening eyes.
The man wavered visibly; if he’d had big, flat leaves, he would have rustled. He didn’t like strangers — hell, no one likes strangers. He didn’t like the idea of inviting one into his house for a couple of days. Twenty kiam, though, was equal to several days’ pay for him. When I looked closely at him again, I knew that he wasn’t sizing me up anymore — he was spending the twenty kiam a hundred different ways. All I had to do was wait.
“We are not wealthy people, O sir.”
“Then the twenty kiam will ease your life.”
“It would, indeed, O sir, and I desire to have it; however, I am shamed to permit such an excellent one as you to witness the squalor of my house.”
“I have seen squalor greater than any you can imagine, my friend, and I have risen above it even as you may. I was not always as I appear to you. It was only the will of Allah that I be flung down to the deepest pits of misery, in order that I might return to take back what has been torn from me. Will you help me? Allah will bring good fortune to all who are generous to me on my way.”
The fellah looked at me in confusion for a long while. At first, I knew he thought I was just crazy, and the best thing was to run as far away from me as possible. My babbling sounded like some kidnapped prince’s speech from the old tales. The stories were fine for late at night, for murmuring around the fire after a simple supper and before sleep and troubled dreams. In the light of day, however, a confrontation like this had nothing to make it seem plausible. Nothing except the money, waving like the frond of a date palm in my hand. My friend’s eyes were fixed on the twenty kiam, and I doubt that he could have described my face to anyone.
In the end, I was admitted into the house of my host, Ishak Jarir. He maintained a strict discipline, and I saw no women. There was a second floor above, where the family members slept, and where there were a few small closets for storage. Jarir opened a plain wooden door to one of these and roughly shoved me inside. “You will be safe here,” he said in a whisper. “If your treacherous friends come and inquire about you, no one in this house has seen you. But you may stay only until after morning prayers tomorrow.”
“I thank Allah that in His wisdom He has guided me to so generous a man as you. I have yet an errand to run, and if everything occurs as I foresee, I will return with a bank note the twin of that you hold in your hand. The twin shall be yours, as well.”
Jarir didn’t want to hear any of the details. “May your undertaking be prosperous,” he said. “Be warned, though: if you come back after last prayers, you will not be admitted.”
“It is as you say, honorable one.” I looked over my shoulder at the pile of rags that would be my home that night, smiled innocently at Ishak Jarir, and got out of his house suppressing a shudder.
I turned down the narrow, stone-paved street that I thought would take me back to the Boulevard il-Jameel. As the street began a slow curve to the left, I knew that I’d made a mistake, but it was going in the right direction anyway, so I followed it. When I got around the turn, however, there was nothing but the blank brick rear walls of buildings hedging in a reeking, dead-end alley. I muttered a curse and turned around to retrace my steps.
There was a man blocking my way. He was thin, with a patchy, slovenly kept beard and a sheepish smile on his face. He was wearing an open-necked yellow knit shirt, a rumpled and creased brown business suit, a white keffiya with red checks, and scuffed brown oxford shoes. His foolish expression reminded me of Fuad, the idiot from the Budayeen. Evidently he had followed me up the dead-end street; I hadn’t heard him come up behind me.
I don’t like people catfooting up behind me; I unzipped my bag while I stared at him. He just stood there, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and grinning. I took out a couple of daddies and zipped the bag closed again. I started to walk by him, but he stopped me with a hand on my chest. I looked down at the hand and back up at his face. “I don’t like being touched,” I said.
He shrank back as if he had defiled the holy of holies. “A thousand pardons,” he said weakly.
“You following me for some reason?”
“I thought you might be interested in what I have here.” He indicated an imitation-leather briefcase he carried in one hand.
“You a salesman?”
“I sell moddies, sir, and a wide selection of the most useful and interesting add-ons in the business. I’d like to show them to you.”
“No, thanks.”
He raised his eyebrows, not so sheepish now, as if I’d asked him to go right ahead. “It won’t take a moment, and very possibly I have just the thing you’re looking for.”