Free Harsh Oases by Paul di Filippo

should be down shortly. I’m sure he will wish to repay you for taking such good care of his wife.”
    I did what he directed, saying nothing. I wanted to wait till all the players were present.
    The crisis must have interrupted al-Qasiri during his daily qat chewing. He still had a plug of it in one cheek, and his eyes were distant. Now and then he would spit on my rug. But his gun never wavered.
    It wasn’t long until the Major arrived. He was alone. He stalked in pompously, came right up to Nadya—and slapped her across the face. She winced, but quickly recovered.
    “Bitch!” said the Major. Then he yanked her to her feet, began to shake her and harangue her in Yemeni. Nadya didn’t deign to reply.
    When he was done, Zaid turned to his subordinate, now standing also.
    “Kill him,” said the Major.
    Al-Qasiri leveled his pistol at my gut. Apparently I was to hurt before I died.
    “Don’t do it, Hamud.”
    Rangley stepped into the room, his own gun drawn.
    Now all the players were there.
    “A tap on the Major’s phone?” I asked.
    Rangley nodded. “And yours. But those goddamn hydrofoils only move so fast Jesus, Leon, you played this close. I don’t know why you got involved in this in the first place, and I don’t much care. All I want to know is, what now?”
    “You take the Major to Washington, and Nadya stays here, or goes wherever she wants to.”
    The Major spluttered into life. “Ridiculous! This woman is my legal wife. Mister Rangley, clearly this is a domestic matter in which no one has a right to interfere—”
    Rangley seemed about to agree with Major Zaid, so I voiced the real issue.
    “If I don’t reclaim a certain letter, gentlemen, then tomorrow the whole world will know about Yemen’s new wealth. Including the Soviets.”
    “Jesus Christ,” said Rangley. “Now you’ve really done it, Leon. Do you know what you’re threatening?”
    “Yup.”
    Everyone was dumbfounded. By bringing the dirty unspoken secret out in the open, I had cast our standoff in a whole new light.
    “Listen, Major,” I finally said. “Nadya’s not going to say anything unless you make her, and neither am I. Do you really want to lose your chance to rule a reunified Yemen just to keep a woman who hates you?”
    Nadya stood in the center of the triangle formed by Zaid, al-Qasiri and Rangley. Zaid looked to her, then to Rangley, then to his servant. The Major opened his mouth once, twice, then a third time before any words emerged.
    “Put your gun away, Hamud. We leave our trash here and go.”
    I put my hand out to Nadya. She grabbed it tight and came to stand by me.
    Zaid and al-Qasiri left the house in a cloud of self-importance. (They left the island itself that same day.)
    I had never seen Rangley sweat before. He came over to Nadya and me, a look of mixed distress and relief on his face.
    “If Zaid backs out of the negotiations because of this, Leon, your ass is grass. You know that, don’t you?”
    “Yeah, I know it.”
    “In that case then—shake.”
    I did. Nadya too.
    “Jesus,” said Rangley, “but you were cool. How did you know you’d pull it off?”
    “It was easy, Dick. Zaid had one too few stones on the board.”
    Rangley didn’t get it.
    But Nadya smiled.
     
     

 
    I’ve mentioned elsewhere that “concretizing or reifying a metaphor” is a prime sfnal technique. Or maybe we should say, a surreal or satirical technique, since I’m not sure there’s much scientific rigidity or genuine extrapolation involved in this mode. Stilly the technique can often engender a vivid tale, even as a kind of “five-finger exercise which I suspect this following story might be.
    Stilly in a day and age where mind control is a threat and the expression of certain taboo thoughts is verboten, perhaps the story of a man who comes to an accommodation with his “bad beliefs” is not without merit.
    And one final quirk: for some reason, whenever I re-read this story, I think of a comic strip from the