The Devil Is a Black Dog

by Sandor Jaszberenyi

  The elevator arrived quietly. Its door opened and we got in. My jacket felt tight around my arms; my muscles were sore after a two-hour workout at Gold’s Gym. I looked in the elevator mirror and was pleased with what I saw. I was muscular but not overly buff. I was pressing two hundred pounds these days.

  The doorman pushed the button for the fourteenth floor and the doors closed. As the piano version of “My Heart Will Go On” trickled quietly from the speakers, I reflected on whose decision it was to choose the music that plays in five-star hotel elevators. Why Vivaldi in the Four Seasons, Clayderman in the Hilton, but Celine Dion in the Marriot? Whose job was it to select the music that distracts a person’s attention from the fact that they are racing up and down in a metal coffin at high speeds?

  The doors opened at my floor. The terrace was bathed in afternoon light and the sound of gurgling water traveled down the leather-chair-lined corridor that led to the pool. The light wind blowing over the Nile brought with it the smell of mud.

  Blue-and-white-striped patio umbrellas fluttered in the breeze. Just a few people sat at the bamboo tables beneath them, mostly Saudis. I cut across the pool area and headed for the bar. There stood a waiter named Omar, his shirt unbuttoned to his chest. He smiled broadly when he saw me. Omar and I were tight. I had been paying my respects at the bar for almost half a year now.

  Omar was once an activist with the April 6th Movement. During the revolution he would talk about true democracy and the democratic transition.

  After the army outlawed the April 6th Movement, he stopped talking about politics and took to drink. I knew this because his skin had begun to yellow, like that of all Arab drinkers. Their systems simply can’t process alcohol properly.

  “Whisky or daiquiri?”

  “Daiquiri.”

  Omar nodded and took a bottle of Havana rum from the shelf. He poured a jigger into the blender, added ice cubes, and ground three limes onto a metal juicer that skillfully extracted the seeds. He shook the drink, poured it into a goblet, and then added sugarcane syrup.

  “How was Sinai?” he asked, setting the glass in front of me.

  “Good.”

  “It wasn’t too hot?”

  “It was. In Rafah it was up around 115 degrees.”

  “Did you see any tanks?”

  “Yes. A few. There was fighting in El Arish.”

  “What kind?”

  “The Bedouins kept the police building under fire for around eight hours.”

  “Damned Bedouins. I can’t stand them.”

  “So the army came to restore order.”

  “Indeed, if the army showed up, order will follow.”

  My smartphone buzzed.

  “Sorry,” I said. Omar nodded and went to do some washing up.

  The bank had sent a text. Two thousand dollars had arrived in my account; a pay transfer from the newspaper I worked for. I disconnected from both the mobile network and the Internet. I didn’t want to hear from anybody. I looked at the cocktail in front of me, the condensation clinging to its side, and reflected that this had been my twelfth mission. I’d gotten it done, just like always. Not everybody could say the same. The fleeting image of Harvey Dabbs came to mind. In the Tibesti Hotel, in Benghazi, he was holding forth on the importance of prayer. We were drinking Johnny Walker, which they sold under the bar. The whole place was sloshed on it.

  “You know, this is my fifteenth war,” said Dabbs. “I’m in with God. I even have my own prayer. In this profession, you have to pray. ‘Our father who art in heaven / hallowed be thy name / thy kingdom come/ thy will be done/ In war we earn our daily bread/ just don’t shoot us with your “50s” / vests or not those buggers leave us dead.’”

  “Amen,” said everybody and applauded loudly.

  A few days later, the Gadhafi loyalists began to shell Misrata, and Harvey Dabbs was killed. It was a stupid death, like every death in war. A car bomb had exploded next to him while he was photographing the rebels’ advance. Three of us went to identify his corpse in the garage they were using as a morgue. Only his upper torso remained; the rest was lost to the explosion or stray dogs.

  I pondered whether I should raise my glass to God’s sense of humor or another stupid death. “To a stupid death,” I said, and drank. I’d drink to a pointless idiotic death because, unlike God, it’s something I have seen with my own eyes. The daiquiri went down well. I like to drink. It’s good to drink after a war, during a war, before a war. It is good to drink with friends, to the death of friends, to childbirth, children’s deaths, engagements and broken engagements, betrayal, quitting smoking, love. It’s always good to drink. I signaled Omar to make me another. I looked up, gazed at the patio umbrellas rippling in the wind, the sand-colored Cairo rooftops, and laundry hung from the windows.

  The second cocktail finally washed the taste of the desert from my mouth. I took out my smartphone and loaded the game Sid Meier’s Pirates! I thought I should keep busy even if I had no real work. I had downloaded the game for free from the company’s site; I got it as a bonus when I reached five gigabites of downloads the previous month, 200 dollars’ worth.

  I had begun to play the game the night before, to fill the six-hour trip from El Arish to Cairo. In the game you are a pirate captain. The goal is to retire with the most points by battling other pirates and marrying into aristocracy.

  We got caught in a sandstorm on our way back through the desert. When this happens you can’t see anything of the road, because the air is full of dark whirling sand. Nobody was in the mood to talk, so I just played. I began the game as an English buccaneer. It was going well for a few hours, but I kept getting stuck when I tried to take Trinidad. Four frigates from my flotilla with four hundred trained pirates waited in vain to attack, unable to overcome the tricky winds the game threw at us. I tried everything I could with the touchscreen, but my ships could only bob futilely in the sea as the city’s red fortress showered them with fire.

  I had to take Trinidad at all costs if I wanted to end the game with maximum points. In Trinidad there was money, Spanish silver, the governor’s daughter. Everything you need to win. It bothered me that I couldn’t find a solution, because I wanted to make the game’s Hall of Champions.

  I hate when I can’t finish what I start. It saddens me to think I let an opportunity pass me by.

  The menu came up on the screen and I killed the sound. I loaded my saved settings and began to direct the fleet, but again the wind worked against me. My entire fleet was sunk twice. I wondered if the problem was the weight, as there must be some reason the game notes just how much freight the boats carry.

  Instead of frigates I need some lighter boats, I thought. Lighter boats, which maneuver quickly, even in bad wind.

  “I think somebody’s looking for you,” said Omar, taking my empty glass. I turned. By the pool stood Alistair Bleakly, the Independent’s newly hired correspondent. He didn’t look good. He was wearing the same clothing he had on yesterday in the desert. He hadn’t shaved and his leather jacket sparkled with sand. I waved him over.

  “I tried to ring you several times,” he said, and hopped up on a barstool next to me.

  “I was unplugged.”

  “You’re a reporter. You should have your phone on.”

  “It’s my day off. Why, did something happen?”

  “I was just thinking things over. We should do something.”

  “About what?”

  Alistair stared at me in dismay, but kept quiet because Omar arrived with the two whiskeys I had ordered. I looked into the boy’s bloodshot eyes. He couldn’t have slept much last night. We picked up our drinks.

  “We should do something in regards to the woman.”

  “What were you thinking of?” I asked, and took a drink of the whiskey. “What should we do?”

  “Well, we could notify the UN. About the things that are happening in Rafah.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. You’d have to fill out a questionnaire of at lea
st ten pages, and you would have to supply all your information. The whole matter would get to Amn ad-Dawla.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “They deported people for less just last week.”

  “Then we might say something to the police.”

  “There are no police.”

  “Then the military.”

  “The military won’t care.”

  “For the love of god, something should be done,” hissed the guy through clenched teeth.

  “You could put a paragraph about it in your report.”

  “That’s all? They killed a person.”

  “It wasn’t a murder; she was executed.”

  “Murder is murder. We should do something. We’re reporters.”

  “You need to rest. You’re exhausted.”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “I can see that.”

  “How can you stay so fucking calm?”

  “I drink, work out, and I don’t give a shit.”

  Alistair fell silent for a moment, then took one of my Marlboros and lit up. He had only just started smoking, and he had to make an effort not to cough. I used the opportunity to order two more whiskeys. I liked how they served whiskey at the Marriot, giving you the ice in a separate glass. Alistair tossed his drink back in one gulp. It took immediate effect; he probably hadn’t eaten anything all day.

  “I can’t leave it like this,” he said, more relaxed now. “You think I should write something?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I don’t even know the woman’s name.”

  “Just write that it was a woman.”

  “Would you write that?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  “OK, I am going now. I need to talk with my editor.”

  “Good.”

  He stood and with quick steps started for the exit. His cigarette continued to smolder in the ashtray. I watched it for a bit, then picked it up and continued to smoke. I ordered another daiquiri.

  He’ll be alright, I thought. He’ll drink a few more and fall asleep. Or find a girl.

  I closed my eyes.

  In Rafah a huge crowd had gathered in front of the Muhammad Ali Mosque. After the imam’s pronouncement of adultery, the men of the mosque had dug a nice little pit. In it a woman was buried up to her waist. Her hands were bound so tightly behind her that she couldn’t move. Her torso and head were covered with a flour sack, on which “UNRWA”—United Nations Relief and Works Agency—was clearly printed. It was surprising that the woman didn’t say anything or shake with sobbing. She kept obediently still in the pit. She only screamed when, from no more than ten yards, her husband threw a stone. It was a big stone. Large enough to break a bone, but not big enough that the fun came to a quick end. A red stain rose on the sack where it hit. After her husband, the judges each took a turn; then the relatives, and, finally, the men from the mosque. She withstood a surprising amount. After the first few blows she was still lucidly proclaiming her innocence, until a stone must have broke her jaw, because after that she just whimpered, then finally went quiet. The pit was tight, so she couldn’t collapse forward. The sack didn’t tear open; it just became drenched with blood. The soldiers standing at a nearby checkpoint watched the whole thing disinterestedly. It wasn’t their business to interfere.

  “Do something,” I snarled at him, and massaged my temples. I had taken a sip of the daiquiri, but found it sour. Omar had put in too much lime juice. Do something.

  I turned to look around, but the bar was already empty, even the Saudis had left. Water was gurgling in the pool; the sun flushed red on the horizon.

  I took my smartphone in my hand and reloaded the saved settings on the game.

  Light boats, I thought. If I trade my frigates, I’ll be able to take Trinidad for sure.

  Something About the Job

  Marosh knew everything about war. In the Balkans he knew when it was safe to leave cover, on the day when some seventeen-year-old sniper was taking two shots at every yellow press vest in the city because his mother happened to have slapped him that morning. He knew how to emphasize the “r” sound, like a Muslim, in the phrase Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah, the “Peace be upon you” greeting, when, for fun, the jihadist in Palestine put a gun to his head. He knew what a preemptive strike was, and knew that in war everyone was considered a woman, created with holes by a god in a bad mood.

  He knew everything about war, or as much as one can know without participating in armed combat. He had no illusions.

  If a young photojournalist found him in a bar and the topic of war photography came up, he shouted in English or in his unrecognizable Eastern European language, “Robert Capa and so-called humanist photojournalism is just a stupid joke, probably as unfunny as the Gospel!”

  “These days every corpse has a price tag,” he told the rookies. “A man shot dead is worth fifty dollars, a kid’s worth a hundred, dead women are somewhere between the two. The world won’t be an iota better if we show its horrors; at best we will give the good people something to waggle their tongues at as they empty their glass of orange juice at breakfast.”

  He never brought anyone with him to the field; he worked alone. He belonged to the bygone era of old-school photographers who were contracted by international news agencies, before the editors realized that the locals are cheaper: you didn’t have to transport them to the region and they would do anything for hard currency. Furthermore, if they were killed, you didn’t have to pay for getting the corpse home.

  He knew everything about war. He was tall, almost 6’2”, with a muscular neck and strong hands. He was salaried at an international news agency, where his pictures were appreciated, or at least published. He felt his life was okay, except for one small problem.

  This problem surfaced in London, on a Monday morning, when he’d gone to the agency’s headquarters to get a new assignment. As he waited for his editor in one of the leather chairs in the corridor, he looked over the photography collection exhibited on the wall, the company’s wall of fame. Since the fifties, every picture that had received an award was hung there. He looked at a photo he had taken. Exactly above it was printed the well-circulated motto: “NO PICTURE IS WORTH A LIFE.”

  “Bullshit,” he mumbled to himself. Then, finally, his editor Steve called for him. Steve was in his late fifties and visibly British. He leaned back in his chair and offered Marosh some hard candies before launching into a monologue.

  Marosh knew something was coming, but he hadn’t expected this. He was told that the company wouldn’t send him to war again, because he was too old. “We have to give the young go-getters a chance,” the editor told him in a paternal tone. “You can, however, participate in their training.”

  First, due to the surprise, he couldn’t say a thing. Then came the anger. When Steve said that he was just “burnt out” and hadn’t sent an extraordinary piece to the office in years, he just got up and left, slamming the door behind him.

  Later on, he admitted to himself that what really pissed him off was the fact that Steve was actually right. Marosh was sitting in a pub near the office, thinking about his work over the past few years. He realized that in fact he hadn’t produced any breathtaking images in some time. Not since Iraq—since the beginning of the war—when it seemed like it hadn’t even been him who had captured such images. He had a theory that the man himself has nothing to do with the really important things. Something or someone else executes the creation, gives it—in this case, the pictures—a soul. Someone else made the exposure, someone who at that time and place took control. He couldn’t explain it otherwise. How could it be that even he couldn’t spot mistakes in his best images? He came to the conclusion that perfection has no characteristics. It just happens, if you’re lucky enough. It can’t be learned.

  For a while, he considered himself crazy for having this theory, until he met a huge, gangling novelist at an award ceremony somewhere over a border east of Vienna. The crowd was there to celebrate Eastern
European intelligentsia. The writer—who, at 6’6”, could hardly fit into his chair—appeared increasingly uncomfortable over the course of the ceremony. The two of them were sitting in the last row and happened upon each other by the emergency exit.

  By the time the master of ceremonies, whose calling in life seemed to be the handing over of prizes, reached the point in his speech where he proclaimed, “A few really great artists emerged in spite of the terrors of the former regime,” the writer and Marosh were drinking bourbon in the closest bar.

  After the fourth round the writer was telling Marosh that he didn’t feel like he deserved any of the accolades. Writing a novel took him just three days, he said, when “the madness struck.” Over the course of this time he couldn’t see or hear properly, couldn’t recognize his friends, and even addressed his lover by her last name. And, when the spell ended, he hardly recognized his own handwriting: it was like reading somebody else’s manuscript. But the text was far better than any notes he had consciously produced.

  “This is a goldmine,” commented Marosh. “All you have to do is recreate the proper conditions, and there you go, a masterpiece awaits.” But the writer explained that this is not how it works. Overcome with emotion, he told Marosh that he had been writing professionally for twenty years now, but during this time he managed to “touch God—or whatever you, dear sir, Mr. Photographer, wish to call it”—only once.

  “It’s pretty hard to knock on that door, you know,” the writer said with an expression that made him look like he was lifting a heavy weight. “Obviously you can fool some editors for a while with the act, but not the damnable, faceless reader. But you already know this, I guess.”

  They drank until the event organizer found them and with a confused look told the two drunk men that it was their turn to step to the podium. Before they left, the writer gave his book to Marosh. It’s all just knocking at the door, read the dedication.

  Marosh took a sip of his beer and was contemplating what it was that he knew in the past that he didn’t seem to know now. There were no compositional or technical problems with his pictures; no, he knew the mechanics well. Some intangible, poetic thing was missing, something that could transcend the daily dosage of horror. He knew when he caught the thing, knew the feeling. He just didn’t know how to achieve it.