Росс Томас - The Mordida Man

Dunjee kicked at it once after they got out of the helicopter and started for the black tent. The blow of his foot made a small plume of gray dust that settled slowly. There was no wind. The dry heat was not quite unbearable. Dunjee guessed that it was just over ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit.

Uniformed soldiers and civilian technicians stared at Dunjee curiously as he followed Abedsaid toward the black tent. Near the generators they passed two inclined banks of round shiny discs.

“Solar?” Dunjee said.

Abedsaid nodded. “Solar.”

There were two young uniformed guards armed with rather fancy-looking machine pistols at the entrance to the tent. They stood in the shade cast by a liplike square of the heavy black material made out of goat hair that protruded from the entrance.

Dunjee had to duck only slightly to enter the tent behind Abedsaid. Once inside, the tent soared up. The ground, he noticed, was covered with the same thick green plastic. The plastic was overlaid with rugs. The rugs looked expensive.

The man Dunjee had come to see sat cross-legged on a rug near the center of the tent. Next to him was a Carrier air conditioning unit. On a nearby small low table rested a white telephone. Next to the telephone was a silent teletype. Just behind the man who sat cross-legged was an office-size refrigerator. And next to that was another small low table that held two thermos carafes and some tiny porcelain cups. The man watched Dunjee approach. He wore a loose white slipover shirt and white duck pants. He was barefoot. He looked younger than Dunjee had expected.

Abedsaid and the seated man spoke in Arabic for nearly a minute while Dunjee stood and waited. It was surprisingly cool in the tent, at least ten or fifteen degrees cooler than out in the sun and it wasn’t because of the small air conditioning unit, which seemed mostly for show. Dunjee, who was still sweating from his walk from the helicopter, took off his jacket.

Abedsaid turned to him, and made a small gesture. “Colonel Mourabet, Mr. Dunjee,” he said.

The seated man stared up at Dunjee. He had a strikingly handsome face, big-nosed and strong-chinned with deepset biuer-brown eyes that managed to look both sad and lively. His hair was black and thick and slightly disarrayed, as if he unconsciously combed it with his fingers. The only evident touch of vanity was the mustache, carefully clipped and tended, that spread across his wide upper lip. It was, Dunjee decided, a smart man’s face. Very smart.

“Sit, Mr. Dunjee,” Mourabet said with a curiously polite gesture. “Sit and we will talk American. You observe I didn’t say English.”

“I noticed,” Dunjee said as he dropped his jacket to the rug and lowered himself down, imitating Mourabet’s cross-legged position.

Mourabet glanced up at Abedsaid. “You may leave us,” he said. Abedsaid nodded, turned, and left. Mourabet shifted his gaze to Dunjee and smiled. It was a warm smile, very wide, very friendly. Dunjee automatically discounted its sincerity and smiled back.

“Would you like some tea or coffee?” Mourabet said, gesturing toward the two carafes. “Did you know that we Libyans drink more tea per capita than any other country in the world?”

“I read that somewhere,” Dunjee said. “Quite an accomplishment.”

“But then for guests, foreign guests, I also have beer. American beer. Schlitz, I think.”

“A beer would be nice.”

Without getting up, Mourabet turned and opened the small refrigerator. He took out a can of Schlitz, leaned forward, and offered it to Dunjee. “They say it is better drunk from the can. It stays cold longer.”

“The can will be fine.” Dunjee flipped the top open and then waited for Mourabet to pour himself a cup of tea. Mourabet took a sip of the tea; Dunjee took two long swallows of the beer.

“If you were asked, how would you identify yourself?” Mourabet said.

“Chubb Dunjee.”

“And your race?”

“American.”

“That’s not a race.”

“No, but it’s handy.”

Mourabet nodded. “If I were asked the same question, I would say I am Mourabet, a Moslem, one of the Arabs who happens to be a Libyan.”

“A somewhat broader concept,” Dunjee said politely, and waited to see what would come next.

“What were you doing in 1969, Mr. Dunjee?”

Dunjee paused, as though to give it some thought. “I was in Congress.”

“And your age then?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“You are forty-one now?”

“Yes. Almost forty-two.”

“I am a year younger. Qaddafi was the youngest of us all. He was only twenty-seven in ’sixty-nine. I suppose you never met him?”

“No.”

“He and I went through the academy together. And later, they sent us to England for ten months in 1966. To Beaconsfield. We studied communications. He began planning for the revolution when he was twenty-one — back in 1963. Some of us at first were skeptical. But he overcame our doubts. There are some men who God chooses as leaders. He was one of them.”

“He died — rather unexpectedly, I understand.”

“A stroke. The entire country was... desolated. I comfort myself sometimes with remembering his courage and bravery on the first of September.”

“In ’sixty-nine.”

“Yes. Idris was in Turkey. We had postponed it twice already. Some of us wanted to postpone again. Qaddafi would not hear of it. He convinced us through his — will, his personality. At two o’clock in the morning we struck. Not one single person died.”

“I remember,” Dunjee said and drank some more of his beer.

Mourabet waited politely until Dunjee lowered the can. “When I asked you how you would identify yourself, I did so for a reason.”

“So I suspected.”

“You see, Qaddafi was convinced — and I shared his conviction — that we have a broader responsibility, one that extends beyond the borders of our country. What we have accomplished here in Libya, we feel we must help others to accomplish.”

“Revolution,” Dunjee said.

“Or justice.”

“Through revolution.”

“As an American, you must believe in revolution.”

“It depends on what comes afterwards.”

“Democracy, you mean.”

Dunjee shook his head. “Not necessarily. Democracy’s never perfect. You can try it, find it doesn’t work, discard it, and then go back to it when the time’s ripe. Nigeria’s an example of that. This time I think it’ll work there.”

Mourabet smiled. “You mean they can afford it now?”

Dunjee smiled back. “Something like that.”

“I think we understand each other. Do you know who my first American was?”

“Who?”

“Captain Eugene Stallings of Memphis, Tennessee, and the United States Air Force. Or rather Madame Stallings. They were my first Americans and I was their first servant. At Wheelus. I was the houseboy. Madame Stallings taught me English — or American, I suppose. I have that accent, I am told.”

“Sort of southern,” Dunjee said.

“Really?”

“But charming.”

“And the grammar?”

“Perfect,” Dunjee said.

“She was a former schoolteacher. She really wasn’t quite sure whether to order me around or adopt me. Later, an American, a black American, told me I was probably what he called the house nigger. I was only thirteen then. But through the Stallings’ efforts, I was later able to enter the academy. Years later, I decided that I quite despised them — especially her.”

“Indebtedness is not always a comfortable feeling,” Dunjee said and finished his beer.

“Another?” Mourabet said.

Dunjee shook his head. “No thank you.”

“These broader responsibilities I spoke of. Several years ago we decided that some of our revenues should be used to finance the efforts of those who were trying to overcome oppression, regardless of its form.”