Joshua Cohen - Book of Numbers

His protection placed before him a heavy cutcrystal decanter, poured him a tumbler he gulped clear down — either a louchey anisette or a malarial water. I prayed for water.

Emirati royalty, what could I know: his father was the sheikh, or one of the sheikh’s brothers, whether the crown prince or another. He himself might’ve been the son crowned with a PhD, administering the free trade zones in Fujairah and Sharjah, or the son with a MEcon, or MEng, developing a transhub in Ajman. Or he’d been the prodigal abroad, who’d tried to stick it to every busted ugly daughter of the 20th Earl of Diddlesex, before being recalled and betrothed to a Qatari sheikha who’d never had a wax. Or the son accused of a homicide that became a suicide only when the bank transfer went through. Or the cerebrally defective son still favored over his sisters, who were mere baubles like their mothers. Like all their mothers, who, if not sisters to one another, were otherwise related.

He might’ve been any of them, or none. He had some of that sheikhy jumbotron to him — some of that lizard snout, but then lizards are all snout — darting, sensing.

He said, “I trust my Burj you find sufficient in terms of modcons, nothing dodgy.”

I almost expected a tongueflick, a forked tongue flick, when his protection served his dinner.

Goblet refilled and drained again.

I said, “To be honest, Prince, I’ve been having trouble accessing certain sites.”

“Which?”

“American sites, mostly. Politics, mostly.”

“Only such?”

“Only.”

“Cheeky,” the prince said and then Arabized and the fauxgrammers chuckled.

Kor tried to join them but just showed teeth.

The prince asked, “So what politics have you been craving? I will do everything I can to accommodate requests.”

“Nothing in particular — just the sense that I’m not blocked, is all.”

“You are saying you are blocked — at the Burj? Or in all the Emirates?”

“Forget it.”

“I will not. This is unacceptable. What is it you lack? Certainly not cunt?”

“What?”

“Cunt — or do you prefer to pleasure yourself alone?”

“I don’t follow, Prince.”

“Bollocks. You have the real right here — right now — but all you crave is fake?”

“I don’t, Prince.”

“You Americans always think you have such progress — you think that you are libertized and the Emirates are not? That the Emirates censor and you do not? Wankers. What you have to search for online in your country, in my country is already found.”

Kor said, “He’s sorry,” and then he said to me, “Apologize.”

“For what?”

The prince Arabized to Olya, who genuflected and leched away from me, to lift his dinner’s cloche.

What was exposed: two rawly moist strips of bacon as skimpy as the two elastic strips that gripped her, and as she reached French tips out to grab one, the prince smacked her hand, and Olya shivered, flushed baconcolored, and the fauxgrammers gasped.

Kor said, “What?”

The prince said, “This is not for her — she must keep her figure.”

Kor said, “Forgive us, Prince.”

Then the prince pointed at me, “Here, you have the honor of tasting. Tell me it is good, tell me it is salty.”

“If you please, Prince, I’d rather not.”

“Do not worry, you cannot botch this. Tell me how scrummy it is — I can smell it.”

“Taste it yourself,” just a suggestion.

“But this honor is yours — it might be poisoned.”

“So feed it to your thugs.”

“They eat what I tell them to. Animals must not eat other animals.”

“Go ahead, enjoy.”

“You.”

“Why me?”

“Because you are a Jewish — you must be.”

“And you’re Muslim — pork isn’t for you.”

“So I am accurate — you are a Jewish — but not religious? Is it for religion that you refuse?”

“No, not that, I just don’t like being coerced. I don’t like having my face rubbed in another man’s dinner.”

“But this is soy, this is curd, imitation.”

“So we shouldn’t have a problem.”

“We should not,” and he unsheathed a dagger — hilt all bedizened with precious twinklings — cut the fake meats in half, stabbed each slice into his mouth, then set the glistering blade pseudogristled on the table.

“A bad habit from abroad,” he said. “All my education it was bacon, hams, and sausages, but here it is back to the soy. Do you not think, Jewish, that religions are quite like soy, like tofu? You let the good natural essence curdle, until what is left is without taste, a substitute?”

“Prince, how can I argue?”

“You are a Jewish, yes, but also of Israel?”

Kor said, “He’s not, Prince.”

I interrupted, “Fuck — you’re Kori fucking Dienerowitz. And his boss just below us is also a Jew.”

The prince thumbed at his neck.

Kor said, “But only my father’s a Jew — so technically I’m not.”

The prince turned and groped Olya, who’d been leaning on his chairback.

“Israel,” he said. “Jewish, indulge me.”

“I won’t,” I crossed my arms, my personal cutlery.

“Indulge me and say this woman is Israel — can we agree? Foot to head, this woman, Israel, yes?”

“Isn’t that demeaning?”

“According to who demeaning? Later you will fuck her and that will be demeaning but now she serves a purpose.”

“Demeaning to fucking Israel too, I meant.”

“Negev to Golan — how would you distribute?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“You want me to cut?” again he brandished the dagger.

“Enough.”

“Do you want me to cut her? Be serious.”

“I don’t know — I’d probably give her away, all of her, you can always find a new one.”

“No, you cannot, this is the rub. This is the only one we both want, we both want her whole. What do we do? What say the Israelis?”

“We share?”

Olya, who understood I’d say about half — cut, divided in her comprehensions — trembled.

“I am the host and you are the guest, it is my hospitality so it is you tonight and me tomorrow? Or we try to coexist, bugger her at the same time the two of us?”

“We could. But I think we should let her off. A woman isn’t land. Affections aren’t an issue of territory.”

“They are the only territory. The Israelis think this. They say here, the Jewishes take the knocker tits and holes, the cunt and bum, the oases. And here, the elbow, the shoulder, the knee — my arse — the Arabs take the desert, quite.”

“You said Jews — and it’s not Arabs, it’s Palestinians.”

“The same — or not even the knees, but the more rubbish parts, the pinkie or thumb, the mingy hair, the cropless arid cellulite portion — that is what you do.”

“Not what I do.”

“But what say the Arabs?”

“The Palestinians.”

“We accept, we compromise — we say have the holes, the reproductives, have it all foot to head, even the face, just leave us with the navel.”

“The face you hide under veils because you’re too weak to resist?”

“The face we conceal out of respect.”

“And you fuck instead the Russians?”

“And we fuck instead the Russians — and we take our electronics from Asia, our online from America. We agree, assent, assure bloody right we will be your ally against terror, bloody right we will cooperate with your trade agreements, your military drones — bloody right all your energy needs will be met, even though bloody right all your foreign debt obligations will never be met — bloody right a stable industry because bloody right a stable government.”

“Stable because oppressive, Prince — stable because allowed to be.”