The Phoenix Affair by Dave Moyer (e book reader pc TXT) 📖

Patrick, you don’t use tea bags, but rather loose tea, and you put that in the pot English style and pour boiling water over it to steep. The sugar has to be in that pot, too, so it gets immediately dissolved by the scalding water, and the mint leaves go in on top. The pot is built so all the solids are kept in by a strainer at the bottom. What you get out is this nectar of paradise,” this while holding up his half-empty cup. “I remember once Ali and I were having such a good talk that we went from his office straight to his apartment, where he promptly plied me with the two cups of gawa, except they were rather large cups, and then I drank three or four cups of tea and ate about a half a pound of dates. When I left after about two hours, I was shaking all the way home as I drove, I was so strung out on the caffeine and the sugar!” He dissolved into laughter as Fahd translated, and all the men laughed too.

“I guess that explains why I already have the shakes,” Ripley added. “I don’t guess we plan on going to bed early tonight!”

“Not much before one or two I should think,” said Fahd. “It’s going to be a beautiful night. More tea? Try this kind of dates, Mr. Allen, they have a unique, creamy texture and an unusual nutty flavor.”

The three Americans dug into the dates and Fahd continued, “Did you notice the coffee, Mr. Patrick? What did you think of our gawa?”

Ripley said, “Interesting,” without a moment’s hesitation. “Was that cloves, and cinnamon in there? What’s it brewed from, and is there another spice? It doesn’t taste like much, but the aroma is like what I would expect an ancient Middle Eastern marketplace or souq to smell like: exotic, spicey, mysterious. Really amazing, General.”

Fahd smiled broadly and translated for the other Saudis, who looked in Ripley’s direction with increased interest and obvious approval, some smiling.

“Excellent, Patrick, excellent. We see you have an appreciation for the sublime! We use regular coffee beans, what Starbuck’s might call ‘arabica beans’, perhaps you know it was we who first brewed it, and it was brought to Europe by your returning Crusaders? Anyway, we toast the beans lightly in a heavy iron pan, but they are still green when we put them, crushed not ground, into the pot of boiling water. That is why the coffee is greenish and not dark colored like you’re used to. And into that we do put cloves, a little cinnamon, but the real exotic is the cardamom—that is what gives the strong aroma that you so rightly say evokes the image of the souq. I have not been there, but I have read that the spice, which of course also came with the Crusaders back to Europe, is very often used in Scandinavian baking! We Arabs globalized your Viking ancestors long before you golablized us! Ha ha!”

Ripley burst into a deep belly laugh, Cameron giggled, Allen slurped his tea and munched dates, Fahd translated, the tea pot went around again, the Saudis laughed and drank and talked. Then Fahd said, “Abdulkareem wishes to tell a story, gentlemen, but he does not speak English, so I will translate while he tells it in Arabic. Please, help yourselves to the bread and vegetables, the meal will be here soon.”

“I have this story from my grandfather, and he from his grandfather and so on, it is a very old story. In truth, it is a riddle,” Abdulkareem’s broad smile flashed brilliant white, and all the Saudis smiled with him and nodded. “There was a wise man, very rich, who had three sons. Despite his wisdom, he was puzzled. He was very old, and he knew that soon he would die and he would have to leave his money to one of the sons. The trouble was, he could not choose. All the sons were good men, all were great warriors, captains of squadrons of cavalry. This was at the time when Salah ad-Din was Sultan of Egypt, Damascus, and al-Quds . . .” Fahd held up his hand, and questioned Abdulkareem in Arabic. “Gentlemen, he says his ancestor knows this story from the time of the Second Crusade, when the English King Richard tried and failed to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims, when the man you know as “Saladin” was ruler of Jerusalem, which in Arabic is al-Quds. I am amazed, this story is over 900 years old!”

He nodded and Abdulkareem continued. “Well, anyway, the wise man was puzzled, but his time was short. One night he was entertaining one of his friends, a Frankish nobleman, and when their dinner was finished he discussed his dilemma with him. They talked long into the night, casting aside every suggestion, the Frank was certain it should be done in the European way, to the eldest son, in one way or another. But the wise man did not want luck of birth to hold his legacy, he wanted resourcefulness, intelligence, courage, and honor to prevail. The Frank grew frustrated as the night grew long, and finally he suggested that the man simply put his three sons against each other in a horse race. This was an interesting idea. But, said the father, if it is a simple race they will be tempted to cheat, or their rivalry will increase, there may be ill will, perhaps they will fight. And so, on they talked, until finally the wise man decided on the solution. He said to the Frank, “now I have it. It will be a horse race, but the inheritance will go to the son whose horse finishes last. But they will not know this until the starting time.” The riddle, gentlemen, is how can this be?”

Abdulkareem was smiling, and went silent. Fahd looked first at him, then at the Americans, and he fidgeted. This was awkward. What kind of race would it be? He looked at Cameron and raised an eyebrow.

Cameron caught on. “A difficult riddle, abu-Mohammed, my compliments to Abdulkareem. But it seems to me it will be a very slow race to last place.” He sipped his tea. “Indeed, unless the starting time was appointed by the father and could not be avoided, it might never start at all.”

Fahd was translating, the Arabs nodding and talking. Ripley said, “Could it be a long race, or a race over a certain course so that none of them could see who was ahead until each had crossed the finish line?”

Allen chimed in with another proposal, several others were offered in Arabic and translated, but for twenty minutes and another two pots of tea Abdulkareem smiled, shook his head, and polished his teeth with a 6 inch stick that he’d chewed on the end and used like a brush. Finally, out of ideas, the group fell silent, and Fahd said in Arabic, “Abu-Salah,” since AbdulKareem’s eldest son was named Salah, “we cannot guess your riddle! Well done!”

Abdulkareem sat straighter and drank off the last of his tea cup. “Abu-Mohammed, it was simple. The race was run in the usual way, with only one exception. Each son had to ride another’s horse, do you see? Each son would have prepared his own horse for a race to win, and then he would find out at the last moment, and he would ride as hard and as fast as he could on his brother’s horse, hoping in the end that his own horse would fail and lose, and that his skill would triumph, and he would inherit! In this way, each would employ his best effort and skill, none would have cheated, and if he did, he would lose the money! Ha ha ha!”

The Arabs burst into mirth again as Fahd translated, not sure the Americans would appreciate this complicated bit of Arab wisdom. When he was done he added, “Colonel Cameron is used to this kind of thing, gentlemen, but I will tell you this is typical of our kind of lessons. Perhaps you would call them parables or allegory. The more complex, elaborate, complicated, intricate, and ornamented a plan can be, the better. “Wisdom” in the old man in this case has a meaning that is particular in Arab culture, to some extent it means one gifted in creating plans that possess those attributes. This man was very wise indeed!”

Tea gave way to lukewarm Pepsi and bottled water, bread and vegetables were eaten, more stories flowed back and forth in both languages and time flowed on without notice. Eventually Fahd looked beyond the circle of light into the darker void on the north end of the camp and nodded, whereupon the two leathery Arabs came forward with a platter carried between them, about four feet in diameter, and laid it in the middle of the circle of men. On it was a whole animal of some species neither Allen nor Ripley could identify, laying on a deep bed of rice that seemed faintly yellow in the dim light, the whole thing smelling of the same cardamom that spiced the coffee, and what Ripley thought might also be saffron.

Cameron was looking carefully at the roasted creature, and eventually raised an eyebrow at Fahd. “Goat?” he asked.

“Very good, Paul, very good. Yes, it is a goat. I find lamb a little tasteless for this kind of thing and too greasy. Patrick, Mr. Allen, don’t let him trouble you. Here is how we do it.” Fahd inched forward toward the platter and Cameron and the Arabs did the same, and then Fahd reached to the meat and ripped off a morsel with his right hand and ate it. “Then, gentlemen, you’ll find that the rice will stick together if you mold it in your hand, and you can eat it like this from your fist,” and he demonstrated. “Or, if you prefer, I believe the servants have some silverware somewhere.”

Ripley was surprisingly not hungry, especially as he consulted his watch and discovered it was after eleven p.m. They’d been talking and snacking for over three hours. But, he sidled closer to the carcass and thrust in a hand, and began to eat as all the men did, and the flow of talk continued unabated.

At a resting point some time later, Ripley waited for Fahd to finish chewing and asked, “General, were you serious when you said Abdulkareem knew that he had an ancestor that was with Saladin during the Second Crusade? That’s more than eight hundred years ago.”

Fahd looked at him like he was an innocent child. “A little over nine hundred, and yes, Patrick, I’m sure it is true. You know, one of the things that makes you Americans unique in all the world is that you have a much different sense of history than most people on the planet. For most of you, not much matters that is older than about two hundred and fifty years or so, or at most four hundred years, the time the English first came to North America at Jamestown, I believe? But the thing is, even for most of the common people in Europe, the people who have always been tied to the land as farmers or herders from the deepest night of time, most of those people have been on the same land or in the same general neighborhood for at least a thousand years. Even in rural England it’s true, and certainly in Wales and Ireland, and let us not talk of the Scots of course. This is even more true for the Arabs of the Middle East. People forget that these people have all been here since before the time of Abraham, before Moses and all the rest. Religion has changed, governments and cultures have changed, empires and borders have ebbed and flowed. But many of the people have always been there, too small to be noticed by the great men, living