Chaos, A Fable

by Rodrigo Rey Rosa

  “Diamonds. Or an elephant tusk,” Xeno suggested.

  “Bad joke,” Eleni replied.

  Xeno reviewed the guest list:

  A Greek princess, her French companion, and their Argentinian friend: confirmed.

  An Italian collector (without his wife): confirmed.

  A plastic surgeon from Los Angeles and his Swiss multimillionaire boyfriend: confirmed.

  A former French minister and his Greek lover: confirmed.

  A Majorcan artist: pending.

  The neighbors (an illustrator of large cats in their natural habitat and her husband, a retired mining geologist): confirmed.

  A Finnish architect and his wife, a gallerist: confirmed.

  A Turkish photographer and his teenage daughter: confirmed.

  An English heiress and her husband, an Austrian collector: confirmed.

  A Venezuelan heiress: confirmed.

  A Greek adventurer and scientist: pending.

  An Italian industrialist (owner of the longest yacht in the world): confirmed.

  VII

  Intelligence agents following the trail of activities connected to ISIS report that certain Turkish elements are engaged in recruiting young minds to radicalize them. “Our biggest threat consists of academics who may be affiliated with ISIS. They’re in touch with cadres in Turkey,” the agent declared. (Interesting.)

  ISIS preaches the theology of rape. Victims once again provide details of abuses against women and children, seen as a form of prayer to Allah—said the front page of the International New York Times. (Unlikely.)

  Hundreds of drowned immigrants on the coasts of Kos, Leros, and Kalymnos. (Unacceptable.)

  Mexican tourists dead in Egypt: bombed in an air raid. This Sunday, police and the Egyptian Army killed Mexican tourists while pursuing Jihadists. (Inevitable, thought Xeno.)

  VIII

  Lowering his voice, Xeno said to Iris, the teenager, “Do they know what’s going on in Leros?”

  “What can they do about it?” she asked.

  Xeno’s mother shot them an inquisitive look.

  Keeping his voice low, Xeno asked the girl, “How could it occur to my mom to invite a Central African and then prohibit any talk of politics?”

  Then, in full voice, so that everyone could hear, “I wonder how much a kilo of ivory is worth today. Two thousand euros? Three?”

  His mother got up from the table, saying she was going to bring the coffee. “And the Majorcan? Not even the courtesy of a reply, thank you very much,” she said. “He’s a monster, I’ve been told. I’d like to have met him.”

  The Central African, a figure out of Goya, raised his arms and exclaimed, “If my friends could see me here tonight”—he looked around the table, grinning—“with all of you! Just me and a few of my men—an easy job.” He looked at the girl. “In your case, well, we’d let you go, of course. But think of it: one single blow and we’d change the course of history. All those refugees! A humanitarian Trojan horse, eh? Why not?”

  Everyone was horrified. Working himself up, the Central African went on raving to the guests around the table—all of them silent.

  Over the monastery wall, directly above the house in Khora, Xeno could see a monk looking out at the horizon toward Asia Minor. Was he waiting for a signal?

  Nikolaos Pontekorvo, the scientist adventurer, questioned the Central African man. “And what exactly do you do in Bangui?”

  “Me? I’ve done everything—even kidnapping.”

  “Between June and December of 2015, some seven hundred thousand refugees crossed the Mediterranean, most of them landing quite near these coasts. Three thousand seven hundred died before they reached the shore,” Xeno’s father said.

  “Money,” Nick was saying. “There’s plenty of it. At this table alone . . .”

  Mrs. Galanis, standing at the kitchen door, protested.

  “We’ll talk later,” said Nick.

  Nada, Xeno’s sister, got up from her chair and approached Xeno. She asked that he not leave her out of the plot they seemed to be hatching. The Venezuelan woman also came up to Xeno—another one who wanted to be included. Xeno closed his eyes and agreed.

  “There are people who don’t believe in giving if they can sell,” said Nick.

  And then, when Mrs. Galanis returned to the table, he said, “This is the best fish I’ve eaten in Patmos, I swear. By the way,” he said to Xeno, “that plan, One Laptop per Child, was meant for India. And yes, they torpedoed it. The thing is still possible, as it always was, at least technically. Weapons are still the best business, of course.”

  He proposed a toast to Xeno’s mother, and everyone except the teenager raised their cups and glasses.

  Xeno looked at Iris.

  “I’m superstitious,” she said without smiling. “One shouldn’t toast without alcohol.”

  “The situation is much more complicated,” Xeno began to explain to Alex, the geologist seated to his right. “The low and high orbits around Earth have become focal points of activity. They’re full of hundreds of satellites from some seventy different countries. Their purposes might be peaceful, scientific, or commercial, but all of them are at risk. Not all the members of the growing club of space powers are inclined to play by the same rules—and they don’t really have to, since the rules don’t exist.”

  The Central African turned to Xeno and said, “They say they want to prevent ‘any possible attack on the satellite systems of the United States and its allies’”—he opened and closed the quotes with his fingers—“while they feel free to go on bombing our cities and killing our people en masse.”

  Nick changed the subject again. He turned to the gallerist, Ana, who seemed bored sitting between the surgeon and the princess.

  “How is the art business?”

  “I can’t complain. Yesterday I sold a Frans Hals over the phone.”

  “The Fisher Boy?”

  “Yes!”

  Mrs. Galanis raised her eyebrows. At her table, talk of politics and religion was strictly forbidden. If she had her way, she would exclude sales talk as well, she said.

  “For six million,” Iris whispered at almost the same time.

  Evidently a rebellion was afoot.

  The Venezuelan said to Iris, “Six million! How do you know?”

  “It was on Instagram,” Xeno explained.

  “Last fall in New York, a nude by Modigliani sold for a hundred and seventy million—over the phone—to a Chinese taxi magnate,” Ana reminded them.

  IX

  “It’s just a matter of finding witnesses now,” read the coded message Xeno sent to Abdelkrim from the house in Khora some months later.

  “Tomorrow I’ll fly from Guatemala to Tangier, via Panama and Madrid,” Abdelkrim answered, using the same code.

  On the kitchen table, beside the figs cut up and arranged by Assia on a platter from the isle of Sifnos, someone had left a copy of the International New York Times. Another Syrian refugee drowned. Another attack of indignation. He reached for a fig. The sweet taste and mealy texture filled his mouth.

  On Patmos one could be too content, he thought with a slightly guilty conscience, unusual for him. A faint sense of shame—he remembered the phrase from Adorno—at the fact of still having a little air to breathe in hell.

  PART THREE

  Infection

  “You should know,” said the philosopher, “that at this moment, as I speak to you, there are a hundred thousand madmen with hats or helmets on their heads, who are killing another hundred thousand brutes with turbans on their heads—or letting themselves be killed by them—and that, all over the planet, this is how we pass our time.”

  With a shudder, the Syrian inquired as to the reason for such horrible fighting.

  —Voltaire, Micromégas

  I

  They used to say in Tangier that one of the traditions of the US Secret Service was to place an agent at the head of the Old American Legation, located in the lower eastern side of the me
dina. The new director, David Singer—six foot two, well built, bald, macrocephalic—was no exception. He could have stepped out of a Graham Greene novel, the Mexican thought when they were introduced after a colloquium on Tangerine Darija at the book fair. A native of New Jersey, habitually smiling but harsh voiced, Singer had managed to erase almost any trace of an American accent from his markedly peninsular Spanish. He spoke classic Arabic as fluently as Darija, and he was interested in Moroccan music and cooking. He seemed pleased by the fact that everyone assumed he worked for the CIA, though whenever someone asked him about it, he didn’t know how to respond.

  “What can somebody in my shoes say, apart from the fact that if it were true, I’d have to deny it?” he had said to the Mexican.

  The museum of the Old Legation was a two-hundred-year-old building that took up both sides of the rue d’Amérique, above which an elevated walkway connected the two. The doorkeeper didn’t recognize the Mexican from years before, when he used to frequent the library. After asking for identification, he pointed the way—by means of corridors, a stairway, and a small courtyard—to Singer’s office.

  The Mexican explained to Singer that he needed help reading some documents in classical Arabic.

  “They’re from a Moroccan boy, from Tangier—studying in Boston, it seems,” he added.

  Singer said he knew who the boy was. He asked if the Mexican had the text with him.

  “But how is it you know who he is?” he asked.

  “His father has managed to make it public,” Singer said without concealing his disapproval. “He tells everyone that his son will be the first Moroccan astronaut. But this is not at all certain, no, sir.”

  The visitor took the memory card out of his pants pocket and handed it to the American spy, who promptly inserted it into his computer.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he said after pressing keys and making clicking sounds on the French keyboard. He took out the card and returned it to the Mexican. “The card is formatted for a Mac. This is a PC.”

  The Mexican told him he had a Mac laptop in his backpack.

  “Perfect! I’ve got the afternoon free,” said Singer, in a better mood. “And the night too! I like this. Let’s get started.”

  The Mexican followed him through the old, labyrinthine building. They went up a narrow staircase, across the elevated walkway, and then down another spiral staircase; they crossed a patio with a tiled fountain and entered a small library.

  “Did you know Field?” Singer asked.

  “A little.”

  “Well, it’s an honor to meet someone who knew that great man. Please, make yourself at home. Can we use tú?”

  They sat down in front of a black wooden desk that took up half the room; the high walls were lined with shelves stacked with dictionaries and old books bound in various colors of Moroccan leather.

  The desktop that appeared on the Mac looked as if a bewildering memory game had opened up: it was an image of the disordered mental world of his friend, the small and tenacious Carrie.

  “It’s not mine,” he said. “It’s a friend’s.”

  David Singer looked at the apparatus with an ambiguous expression.

  “I don’t much like Macs,” he said.

  “Neither do I,” the other replied as he slipped in the card. “I’m PC too.”

  II

  “It’s a letter,” said Singer, “addressed to the imams of Emsallah and Souani.” He began to take notes. Then he got up from the desk and stood on a stool to take down an old multilingual dictionary from a shelf. He opened it on the desk and began to leaf through it.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “Just a moment. But this boy knows how to write. That is, if he really wrote this.”

  Brothers and Sisters!

  Let us learn, as Allah wishes, to work well, to think well, to live well. Let us raise our eyes to heaven before lowering them again to the Book to read, so that the divine light and no other will help us interpret what is written there. It is not easy to understand! When you speak to parents who have children to educate, do you think they understand the complexity of the world?

  Out of love and fear of Allah the all-powerful, the merciful, he who knows all and sees all, who is the witness of our deeds and the judge of our sins, let us not deceive ourselves. Nothing displeases the Lord more than the tyranny of man over man, and for tyrants—so says the Book—there is a special place.

  Al-lah hu a’lam. He can count the sands of the desert!

  Underneath a cartoon of three Arab leaders looking at each other with hostility, the caption, which Singer translated, read: The enemies of my enemies are my enemies.

  How much importance shall we allot to some infantile and malicious drawings? Is it just and fair to be offended by something like this? Is it right to think that a cartoon should be taken seriously, that it could somehow stain the glory of the Most High?

  In Harran, my brothers, there is no fresh water. Do you know where Harran is? Well then. The earth in Harran is an oven that heats everything. There is no shade in which to rest, the air burns your nostrils and your lungs. Have you been there? Harran is a forgotten land. Nothing lives well there, and yet for its sake, men fight today, our enemies and our brothers . . .

  “He’s quoting Maalouf,” said Singer, “who’s quoting Ibn Jaldún in turn . . . or maybe Ibn Yubair. But he’s speaking of today’s Harran,” he added in an appreciative tone. “It’s obvious.”

  The computer said seven o’clock. They’d been working almost three hours. One could hear the voice of the muezzin calling the Maghreb. Almost all the legation staff had left.

  “What time do you close?” the Mexican asked.

  Singer was still reading, without translating, the next paragraph. He took off his glasses and said, “If you want, we can stay here all night—working.”

  He felt that Singer’s interest in Abdelkrim’s letters was excessive. “I’m afraid I’d better go,” he said. “I’ve got a dinner engagement.” (Is Singer really an agent? he kept asking himself.)

  “OK. Perhaps we can copy the card?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Singer closed his eyes; they moved under his eyelids. He opened them and said, “My friend, perhaps you don’t understand me. As a US citizen, I consider it my duty to know what’s on this card. It contains something that could well be related to a radical organization.

  “And I think,” he added in English, “you know exactly what I mean. It is my duty to share this immediately with our consulate.”

  Our? thought the Mexican. He closed the laptop and stood up.

  Singer’s attitude changed.

  “Look. Before doing anything official, anything dramatic, wouldn’t it be best just to finish transcribing what we have here?” He pointed to the Mexican’s pants pocket where he had just put the card. “Don’t you think so? After all, it could be just the diatribe of a bigheaded student who thinks he’s going to explain the Koran to the imams.”

  “Diatribe?” the Mexican said.

  “I propose that we keep on working tomorrow morning. What time shall we say?” asked Singer, typing the Mexican’s number on his cell phone. “I’ll just dial it so you’ll have my number too. There. Perfect.” He smiled. “Do you think you can get that again?” he asked, pointing to the computer.

  The Mexican wiped off a few droplets of the saliva that sprayed his face.

  The word infection crossed his mind. “It’s possible,” he said.

  Singer got up to leave by the hallway door, and the Mexican followed him. He was more than a head taller than the Mexican, and his shoulders seemed packed with muscle. They turned down the very narrow hallway by which they had come, went up a short flight of stairs, turned down another hallway, and crossed the bridge over the little street of the medina. Now they stood in a courtyard, much wider than the others and accessible via another spiral staircase. Singer stopped to look at the Mexican.

  “Is it true that you knew Field well?”


  He had already told him he knew Field only briefly. He said so again.

  “Look,” Singer said, and invited him into a small sitting room. On the walls hung various photographs of the painter. “A little homage to a great traveler and an equally great artist. As I told you, it’s an honor for me to know someone who knew him. Have you already seen these photos?”

  He gestured to them: Field with his wife, Lynn; with Mohammed Mrabet and Ahmed Yacoubi; with the Bowleses; with Claudio Bravo; with Miquel Barceló and Claude Nathalie Thomas; with Cherie Nutting; and with Mohammed Zhrouni.

  While the Mexican was absorbed in the photos, Singer went out to the courtyard to text on his iPhone 6. After viewing the photos, the Mexican closely examined a map drawn in the 1960s by Field himself, which showed the locations of the tchars in the Atlas Mountains, where he had done some of his cloud paintings. Singer was still texting rapidly. Once again, the word infection ran through the Mexican’s head. Singer had drawn him into the room full of photos to distract him. Now other agents would know of the existence of that card, which seemed to Singer so suspicious, and they would know who the bearer was. Are they going to hunt me down? he wondered. He felt a pang at his temples, an unpleasant tingling of the skin behind his knees. He went out to the courtyard; Singer stopped texting.

  “Interesting, aren’t they?” Singer said, referring to a series of photos of the Maghreb sky at certain hours of the morning and afternoon.

  They crossed the courtyard and strolled toward the door to the street. The doorkeeper, who had been dozing, stood up from his stool and opened the old, very heavy door.

  III

  He turned left to go down the little street that led out of the medina. After a few steps he stopped and turned on his heels. He retraced the short path he’d taken and walked past the front door of the legation again. Then he began to walk quickly down the street, which plunged into the noisy and colorful labyrinth of the old medina. He was frightened, certain now that someone, maybe several men, would come after him to get the laptop and memory card.