by P. B. Kerr
“I see.”
“But we have to learn how to do it,” continued Philippa. “To develop the part of the brain where our powers are focused. The part that we djinn call the Neshamah. You just don’t have a part of your brain like that. Sorry.” She shrugged apologetically. “Everyone’s different.”
“If you want to know the way, ask a policeman,” said Nimrod, when they were moving again.
“You speak pretty good American, Uncle Nimrod,” observed John.
“What is English as spoken by an American?” remarked Nimrod. “Simply a rhotic consonant dropped like a plastic rattle from a baby’s pram. The lazy merger of vowels, such as a and o, which like a middle C and D are played at the same time by the clumsy forefinger of some ham-fisted pianist. And a whole load of compound badland, flatland words, and incompetent nouns that properly are verbs. All in all, American is to English what the hamburger is to beef: ground-up meat in an outsized and unnecessary bun.”
“Gee,” said John. “And I thought you liked us.”
“Oh, I do like you,” said Nimrod. “Some of my best friends are American. I just wish you could all say the word water without sounding like you were asking a rather tentative question.”
Nimrod stopped the Humvee in front of a gangplank that led off the dockside onto the USS John Thornycroft. The gangplank was guarded by two more military policemen.
“They’re not going to like my mask,” said the professor.
“And they’re going to wonder why you are accompanied by two kids,” said Philippa.
“Ye of little faith,” said Nimrod.
“They’re right, though,” said John. “We’re hardly a conventional bunch of visitors, are we?”
“The military mind,” said Nimrod, “is especially susceptible to one thing in particular: orders. It’s simply a question of making the orders appear to be from the highest authority and therefore quite incontrovertible.”
Nimrod thought for a moment, imagined that he had a smart U.S. Navy briefcase handcuffed to his wrist, which was full of impressive, laminated passes for the professor, Axel, and the twins, and some top secret orders, and it was so — at least it was as soon as he had uttered his focus word.
He handed around the passes and waited for a moment while everyone got their curiosity out of the way and examined them.
“A good likeness.” The professor stared at a photograph of himself in the black mask and chuckled.
“Forgive me for asking, Professor,” said John as he and the others followed his uncle out of the Humvee. “But couldn’t you have had a face transplant, or something? A better mask, perhaps.”
Philippa threw up her eyebrows to hear this. Her brother was always keen to walk where good manners seemed to forbid that anyone should tread.
“I thought about it,” said the professor. “But that kind of surgery is very time consuming, John, and really, I’m much too busy with my work to spend months and months in a hospital having someone mess around with something so inconsequential as my appearance.” He tapped his head and then his heart. “It’s in here where things matter. It’s in here that being human counts most of all. Don’t you think?”
“Er, yes,” said John, who thought that not having a face would have mattered a great deal to him. Until he remembered what had happened to his mother and how she now had a completely different face to the one he’d known just a few years ago.
“Besides,” added the professor, “not having a face to speak of hardly seems to matter since there are so very few people where I live, in Iceland. And hardly any mirrors. Icelanders aren’t much given to looking at themselves. They’re rather more introspective, like I was saying. And it’s only when I visit other countries that it starts to assume greater importance. The people at customs can be rather vexing, to say the least.”
“I’ll bet,” observed John.
“I remember one time at customs in New York, a rather belligerent immigration officer made me take off my mask and fainted after I’d done so. And she sued me for nervous shock.”
The professor laughed again.
“Serves her right,” said John.
“Which is why I have a microchip under the skin of my neck, so that I can satisfy even the most demanding of U.S. Immigration officials.”
“You mean like a dog,” said John.
“Woof, woof,” said the professor. “Exactly like a dog.”
John shrugged. “They treat everyone like a dog these days,” he said. “No matter what you look like.”
Nimrod was already presenting his credentials to the marine guard, and minutes later he and the four others were standing in front of the hydrofoil’s commanding officer, Captain Rock Delaware, and watching him read the top secret orders.
“You’ll note the signature on all those orders, Captain,” said Nimrod who, in his uniform, looked every inch a senior admiral.
“Your credentials are impeccable, sir,” said Captain Delaware.
“I’m glad you agree,” said Nimrod. “And you’re satisfied that you understand what you’re required to do?”
“Yes, sir. I’m to take you and these VIPs to wherever you want to go.”
Captain Delaware tried to restrain his curiosity, but it wasn’t every day his ship was commandeered by presidential order, not to mention a senior rear admiral who was accompanied by two children and two men, one of whom was wearing a black mask. Captain Delaware eyed the professor uncertainly.
“Which is — where, exactly? The orders don’t say.”
“All will be explained in due course,” said Nimrod. “For now you should make all speed to Cagliari, on the island of Sardinia. When we have refueled there, I’ll tell you the name of our final destination.”
“Yes, sir. Well then. I’ll convey you to some suitable quarters.”
“Thank you, Captain. You’ve been most understanding.”
“Is there anything else I could do for you and your party?”
“Yes, there is, Captain.” Nimrod looked at the others and shook his head. “I don’t know about them, but I’d love a cup of English breakfast tea.” And because he was still speaking “American,” he added: “With cream.”
CHAPTER 10
A NEW POSITION
Guidonia is a smallish dump of a town east of the city of Rome.
It’s a depressing, ugly place, with a lot of unemployment and crime, and everywhere and on everything there is graffiti, which was an ancient Greek invention, but much copied by the Romans.
As Vito’s ice-cream van entered Guidonia, Groanin saw graffiti on the public buildings, on the hospital, on cars, on the bridges and overpasses, on the billboards, even on the coats of the local stray dogs. And he thought it was not unlikely that if he stayed still there for long enough he, too, would find himself adorned with a slogan or obscenity.
Some people like graffiti. Groanin wasn’t one of them. He thought that the so-called “artists” who spray painted their unsightly slogans and tags on walls — and more especially dogs — should be hurled into the River Tiber inside sacks filled with wildcats, which was a punishment beloved of the Romans, who, in Groanin’s opinion, knew a thing or two about real punishments — unlike the kind of soft, smack-on-the-wrist sort of punishments that are handed out today. If you are going to have an empire that lasts for the better part of a millennium, then, in Groanin’s opinion, you need to ensure that folk behave themselves.
“Not much of a place is it?” he said. “I said, it’s not much of a place. And I thought Manchester was depressing.”
“I heard you the first time,” said Vito.
Vito had been to Guidonia before and knew his way around. They found Decebal and some of his gang grouped around an abandoned lime-green sofa at the opposite end of town.
Decebal, a handsome, dark-haired boy of fourteen, was easily distinguished by the electric-blue tracksuit he was wearing — the same electric-blue tracksuit he had been wearing on the Italian TV program about the boy and his mostly
Romanian gang — and by the white SUV that was parked a short way away with a personalized license plate that read 8 DECIBLES. The plate was well named because all of the SUV’s doors were open, and loud, repetitive music of the kind that reminds most people of a distant antiaircraft bombardment was bruising the humid, early evening air.
Vito drew up alongside the SUV. “Keep an eye on the Englishman,” he told Toni. “I will go and speak to the kid.”
Decebal watched Vito suspiciously as he walked toward him and then spat onto the ground.
“Nobody ordered ice cream,” he said.
“I brought you something better,” said Vito. “An Englishman.”
“What do I want with an Englishman?” said Decebal.
“He’s rich,” said Vito. “And the person he works for is even richer.”
“Doing what, exactly?”
“He’s a butler.”
“So?”
“I was thinking that maybe you could hold him for ransom,” said Vito.
“Why not hold him for ransom yourself?” Decebal asked.
“Because kidnapping people isn’t my business. You, on the other hand, are good at it.”
Decebal nodded but negotiations continued for several minutes before a deal was finally struck and Vito came back to the ice-cream van and Groanin.
“Get your stuff,” Vito told Groanin. “These guys are going to look after the next stage of your journey.”
Groanin did as he was told but he wasn’t happy about it. In fact, he regarded young Decebal and his gang with deep suspicion. The butler might have had a superstrong right arm, but these young men were all carrying guns, and quite openly, too, as if they cared nothing for the law and the police. He’d tried very hard not to face up to the reality of his situation — that he was being kidnapped — but now he could hardly ignore it.
As Vito and Toni drove away in their ice-cream van with his bag of money, Groanin suddenly felt very scared and very alone.
“Just my luck,” he muttered to himself through gritted teeth. “Just my flipping luck. I leave Nimrod’s employment to avoid putting myself in danger and I end up getting myself kidnapped. And kidnapped by a bunch of horrible kids, to boot.”
Decebal flicked away a cigarette, walked around Groanin like he was a baffling piece of sculpture, and shook his head. As he circled the Englishman, he made remarks in Romanian that seemed to greatly amuse his jeering gang of thugs.
“What’s that you’re saying?” demanded Groanin.
“You’re bald,” said Decebal. “And you’re fat.”
“And what of it?” said Groanin. “You cheeky young pup.”
“I thought people like you only existed in books and movies,” said Decebal, whose English was good. “English butlers.”
“It’s true that employment opportunities in domestic service are rather limited these days,” said Groanin. “However, there are still a few discerning gentlemen for whom a gentleman’s gentleman is considered the last word in gracious living.”
All of this made perfect sense to the young gangster for whom the idea of gracious living had become something of a holy grail. As well as owning an SUV, Decebal owned a large apartment in the only nice part of Guidonia, and it was full of elegant, antique furniture and many stolen works of Renaissance art. He also liked fine food, expensive clothes, and reading books. But the thing he most craved was to have a servant and a proper servant at that, with pin-striped trousers and a clean white shirt and a black tie. Someone to press his shirts and his suits without a crease, and run his bath at the correct temperature, and make him a perfect cup of tea — the way that butlers did in movies.
That would really be the icing on his cake and everyone would know that he was the boss. All the really important people, like the multibillionaire hedge-fund dealer Rashleigh Khan, seemed to have a butler; and of those people only the most important of all employed an English butler.
“It might be fun to have an English butler,” said Decebal.
Groanin was horrified.
“And what would you want with an English butler, sunshine? Butlers are for people who appreciate the finer things in life. People who are prepared to pay to have someone iron their shirts without a crease, and run their baths at the correct temperature, and make a perfect cup of tea.” He shook his head. “A butler’s not for the likes of you, sonny.”
Decebal was shaking his head. “No, no, no. That’s exactly what I want.”
Groanin’s horror kept on increasing. “What do you want with a perfectly pressed shirt? Look at you, wearing a T-shirt and a tracksuit. I doubt you could tell the difference between a good cup of tea and a glass of ginger beer. And as for a bath, well, you don’t look like someone for whom a bath is that important. In short, you’re an ill-bred pleb. I, on the other hand, I am a gentleman’s gentleman. That means I only work for gentlemen, not scruffy-looking Herberts like you.”
It was perhaps fortunate that Decebal — who had a gun under the waistband of his tracksuit bottoms — had no idea of what a “pleb” or a “scruffy-looking Herbert” was; but he guessed the thrust of Groanin’s comments and might easily have proved the truth of Groanin’s intemperate words — that Decebal was no gentleman — by behaving in a most ungentlemanly manner: waving a gun in the butler’s face, punching him on the nose, or even shooting him. But Decebal was intelligent and realized all of this himself, which was how he came to nod calmly and to agree. Besides, he liked Groanin’s spirit. No one ever spoke to him the way Groanin had spoken to him. Not even his father.
“Maybe you could help turn me into a gentleman,” he said. “Like this other English fellow, Professor Higgins in a film called My Fair Lady.”
“You’re joking,” said Groanin. “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. I could no more turn you into a gentleman than I could pop out of a lamp and grant you three wishes.”
Beginning to lose patience, Decebal pulled his gun on the butler.
“On the other hand, I could just shoot you,” he said.
Groanin smiled politely. “Since you put it like that, sir,” said Groanin. “Well, perhaps I could offer a few top tips, as it were: on how you might make a little more of yourself, sir. Some finesse, so to speak. Yes, sir, now I come to think of it, I might brush on a veneer of good manners and breeding onto that rough surface you call a character. Why not?”
“Good. We start now.”
“Excellent idea, sir. And if I might make an early suggestion, sir? The gun, sir. Please put it away. A gentleman never ever points a gun at his butler. Not even in America where they point guns at almost anything.”
Decebal lowered his weapon and Groanin breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thank you, sir.”
CHAPTER 11
SHOPPING IN FEZ
Following a speedy but uneventful Mediterranean voyage, the U.S. Navy hydrofoil docked at the harbor in Nador, where a stretch Mercedes met Nimrod, the twins, Professor Sturloson, and Axel at the foot of the gangplank and drove them straight to Fez.
“We’re not staying in Nador, then,” observed the professor.
“There’s no time for sightseeing,” said Nimrod. “We need to get to Fez as quickly as possible.”
The fourth-largest city in Morocco, Fez was once the largest city in the world. Founded in A.D. 789, the city is situated just below the most prominently northwest point in Africa — a sort of continental thumb that pokes up at the soft underbelly of Spanish Europe. It was full of narrow, winding streets, minarets, and strange smells, not all of them good. Men in long, striped cloth hoodies stood around on street corners, shouting at one another and gesticulating wildly, while the women seemed all but invisible. Everywhere — spilling out of bars and shops, blasting out of open car windows — there was the infectious sound of Arabic music.
Nimrod told the driver, a sleepy-looking Moroccan named Mohammad, to drive them to the old medina of Fez and, arriving at a dome-shaped gate in a high white wall, they all got out of
the car.
“From here we’ll have to walk,” said Nimrod. “You’ll soon see why.”
“It seems familiar,” said Philippa. “And yet I know this is my first time in Morocco.”
“That’s the curious thing about Fez,” said Nimrod. “It always feels like an old friend.”
“No, it’s stronger than that,” observed Philippa.
“You’re right,” said John. “It feels like I know the way.”
“Perhaps you were here in an another life,” suggested Nimrod.
And, of course, perhaps they had been, but that, as they say, is another story.
He led the way through the gate.
The twins considered themselves well traveled but the medina was like nothing they had encountered before. It was, thought Philippa, like stepping back into one of the seven journeys of Sinbad or, perhaps, the tales of Aladdin and Ali Baba. But Nimrod seemed to know the place like the back of his hand. He led them through a succession of streets — many of them too narrow for a car — and covered, shadowy alleys that were full of shopkeepers, tourists, chickens, and donkeys. Wonderful smells of spices and herbs assailed their nostrils, while their ears were filled with sounds of music and commerce that had changed little in centuries.
After ten or fifteen minutes, they arrived in a dusty, plain little square in the darkest and most ancient part of the medina, where Nimrod approached a small and very old-looking wooden door. And there he addressed his companions. “This is it,” he said. “This is the place.”
“You mean this old wooden door?” asked the professor.
“It doesn’t much look like a rug emporium,” observed John. “It looks more like a prison.”
“Certainly somewhere very secret,” said Axel. “And not like any other carpet shop I’ve ever been to. In Jerusalem, they virtually drag you into the shop to make you buy one.”
“Yes,” said Nimrod. “I know some of those shops. But they’re rather more recent in origin than this place. This shop has been here for two thousand years. Mr. Barkhiya is the direct descendant of the vizier of King Solomon.”