Once, in Aleppo

This is a Story of the old Days, the days between Prohibition and Alcoholics Anonymous, the days when it still took weeks to get anyplace, the days before jets reached everywhere in time for dinner, the days when you were rather surprised to hear that a friend had been in Arles or Siberia or Djibouti, the days when Colonialism was the White Man's Burden and not a dirty word, when we thought it was our duty to bring the Word to the Heathen and before the Heathen started pushing the Word back down our throats.

• • •

The main avenue of Aleppo was shining in the sun. The afternoon siesta was just over and in the cafés men in fezzes were sipping tiny cups of syrupy coffee. A fat Turk with a mustache, half awake, sat and sleepily pulled at a hookah from time to time. When three or more flies congregated around his mouth, he would raise a sleepy hand and whisk them away unmaliciously with a fly whisk.

Stanford Lovejoy, in his pressed white suit and sun helmet, strolled slowly down the shady side of the street, smiling gently at the flickering life of the desert city. He was a small, quiet man, and every time he walked through the town, among the swift, dirty children, the tiny dancer-hoofed donkeys under their burdens of alfalfa and watermelons, the tall, slender Arabs with their shining white burnooses, striped with black braid, a pleasant little tingle of adventure rang through his blood. How far, the song sounded subconsciously in the back of his brain, how far I have come from Vermont.

He had just finished a year of teaching English to Arab children at the Mission School and he couldn't help feeling a decent thrill of accomplishment each time he opened a class and looked at the polite and eager faces, heard the low Eastern voices say "How do you do, Mr. Lovejoy?" with the ineradicable granite twang of his own Vermont caught forever in them. He never had any trouble in class, such as you might expect in young boys' classes back home. He was small, but he had a deep, impressive voice, and a high-domed and impressive forehead, full of authority. He looked as Samuel Johnson might have looked as a young man, but secretly hoped that one day he would look like Sir Walter Raleigh.

How different from Vermont, the chant went at the back of Lovejoy's head. When he had finished taking his M.A., a relative in California had offered Lovejoy a job in his cement plant, with a good salary to begin with, and large chances of swift advancement. Lovejoy had nearly accepted, but the opportunity to come to Aleppo had presented itself, and he had written his cousin a graceful note, declining the kind offer.

"Any man who prefers Syria to California and Bedouins to Californians," his cousin had written, "has forfeited all claims on my sympathies. I will not repeat the offer. Yours truly ..."

The letter had shaken Lovejoy a little, but since coming to Aleppo, he had never regretted his decision. He was learning Arabic, and the mysterious and complex ways of the Middle East. Around him stretched the old fields of history, cultivated by men dead thousands of years; in timeless circles spread the desert, the Persian mountains, the miraculous valley of the Nile. To the east lay India ... Great events were brewing and there would be a great place for a man who knew the language, the silent and inscrutable people of the Arabic-speaking world. Lawrence had started with no more.

Lovejoy turned into a little bookshop. On sale were old copies of Life, Look and The Saturday Evening Post, two raveled sets of Dickens, a great many books by H. G. Wells. Victor Hugo, Colette and Michelet were available in large quantities in French, beside piles of secondhand novels in 12 languages.

On the wall hung seven rugs which could be bought for a reasonable price.

Irina was there, too.

She was in a corner, her pale blonde head bent over an account book. Each time he looked at her, Irina's frailty, her demure and troubled beauty, struck at Lovejoy's heart all over again. He walked softly up behind her, engrossed in her accounts, took her hand and pressed it to his lips.

Irina jumped back hurriedly. "Stanford," she said, her voice small and musical and Russian among the dusty literature of six languages. "It is not to be done!"

"There's nobody here," Lovejoy said, smiling softly at her.

"Somebody might make an entrance." Irina looked fearfully at the door.

"What if they did?"

"I knew it would happen," she wailed musically, turning away, hiding her face. "You do not respect me anymore."

"Irina, I re--"

"I don't blame you," Irina said. "A man is not to be blamed."

"But I--" Lovejoy said.

"Words," Irina said. "Words. I knew it would happen. I blame only myself. But we must part."

"Irina," Lovejoy said, patting her hand. She drew away. She suffered from these attacks of delicacy and regret several times a week and went to church to confess regularly. Her doubts and maidenly accesses of sensitivity made her all the more desirable in Lovejoy's eyes, as he was not the man to approve of wanton conduct. He had known Irina for more than eight months before he had as much as kissed her good night, and she had wept for three solid hours after he had made love to her the first time. "Irina," he said, "I respect you as though you were my mother."

Irina turned and gave him a tremulous, clouded smile. "It is so difficult," she said, "to be a woman."

Lovejoy smiled back at her and she permitted him to touch her hand lightly. He took out his wallet and gave her the money he had brought with him.

"It tears my heart to shreds," Irina said, tucking the money into her small, exquisite bosom, "to take your money, Stanford. But my poor father ..."

"Delighted," Lovejoy mumbled. Irina's father was a White Russian who had remained in Russia when Irina and her mother had fled the Revolution. He was too upright and determined a man to work for the Reds and it was necessary for Irina to send him money every month to keep him from proudly starving. "Delighted," Lovejoy repeated, although he was scraping the bottom of his savings account by now. "Will you call on me at nine o'clock, darling?"

"It tears my heart to shreds," Irina whispered. "If anyone sees, suspects ..."

"No one will see."

"Nine-thirty, dear Stanford," Irina said, giving him a sad, Slavic, surrendering smile, delicate, but with the promise of unbearable voluptuousness. "It is darker then."

Lovejoy looked hurriedly around him and ducked his head and brushed her cheek with his lips.

"God forgive me," Irina said mournfully, "you are a wild boy ..."

"Nine-thirty." Lovejoy waved and went out of the den of literature to the brilliant street beyond. He thought of 9:30 that night and whistled merrily to himself as he walked more quickly among the beggars and mangosellers, the drovers and date merchants. At the end of the street, where it bloomed into a little square lined with cafés, Lovejoy noticed a crowd gathered in a wide semicircle opposite the most impressive café. Curiously, he quickened his step. Perhaps an accident, an American, or one of his students ...

He stopped when he reached die crowd and smiled. It was a street entertainment. But it was like no street entertainment he had ever seen. Two immense, burly men with bare knees, dressed in shorts and football jerseys, were doing intricate tricks on shining bicycles. A third man, rather small, but also in a football jersey, with a small, mangy monkey perched on his shoulder, stood to one side holding a third glittering bicycle. On the backs of all the jerseys, which were deep green, was written, in gold letters, "Café Anatole France, 9 Place Pigalle." On the front of the jerseys of one of the giants was a large number 95, such as football players wear. On the other large man's jersey was the number 96. The man with the monkey wore a simple zero on his chest. And the heads of all three men were shaved absolutely clean, their heads shining like light globes in the brilliant sun.

The two performers circled tightly around in front of the café, their front wheels revolving double-jointedly in their sockets, the spectators sighing politely and admiringly. The sweat poured down the cyclists' faces and stood out like Seckel pears on their bald white heads as they pumped away widely and good-humoredly.

Number 95 leaped off his bicycle, whipping it debonairly at the third little man with the monkey. It crashed with a light scraping sound against the little man's shin and he winced in pain, but held on and smiled mechanically at the audience. The monkey gripped his ear for better purchase.

Number 96 kept circling easily over the flagstones, his bare knees and the chromium of the bicycle flashing dizzily in the sun.

"Allez!" called Number 95, in a strong, booming voice. He stood with arms outstretched, wide, rippling and powerful in his green jersey against the background of slender Arabs.

Lovejoy took it all in with puzzlement and delight. The East, he felt, full of rich surprise.

"Ready, Roland?" shouted Number 95, as though his partner was hard of hearing and a quarter of a mile off.

"Ready, Saint Clair!" hoarsely bellowed Number 96, putting on a burst of speed.

"Allez!" called 95.

"Allez!" replied 96, racing wildly past the shrinking Arabs, dazed by the speed and sound of the Occident.

95 tensed himself and suddenly was hurtling through the air. He landed on 96's shoulders, his arms spread, swanlike and triumphant.

"For Christ's sake, Saint Clair," said 96 loudly, pedaling fiercely to keep the curvetting bicycle from tilting over. "My ear!"

The audience broke into applause and three little seminaked children danced dangerously close to the rushing bicycle before they were pulled back by their elders.

"Allez!" called 95 in the fog-piercing, prairie-covering voice.

"Allez!" replied 96, and almost quicker than the eye could follow, 95 had made a desperate and amazing reversal and was standing on his head on 96's head, his huge, meaty legs arched and rigid, pointing beautifully toward the brazen blue desert sky.

"Bravo!" called Number Zero coolly. "Bravo!"

The crowd rustled with approval and Lovejoy applauded. 95, still rigid and head down, with his feet describing a dashing arc against the Syrian sky, looked at Lovejoy, grinned, winked, and on the next trip around the square, called to him. "Hi, Bud. See you right after the show at the Franco-Syrian Bar."

Lovejoy smiled shyly, pleased and embarrassed to be noticed by one of the artists. A moment later, with an amazing leap, 95 hurtled to the ground, arriving there upright, resilient, smiling. 96 vaulted off his bicycle and they both stood there, bowing. Then, with wide, friendly grins, they went through the crowd passing out postcard-size photographs of themselves.

95 gave one to Lovejoy, patting him heavily on the shoulder as he did so. Lovejoy looked at the photograph. It was one which had caught the two daredevils at the very apex of their performance, 95 standing on his head on 96's head, with a background of large cumulus clouds. "Roland and Saint Clair Calonius," the legend read. "Around The World On Two Wheels. Ambassadors of Good Will. Daring!!! Extraordinary!!!"

While he was looking at the photograph, the Calonius brothers mounted their bicycles, took the third bicycle between them, with the monkey riding on the empty saddle, and sped dashingly down the street.

"Four piasters, pleassse," Lovejoy heard a voice say. He looked around. Number Zero was standing there, a worried look on his face, hand outstretched. "Four piasters, pleassse," Number Zero repeated.

"For what?" Lovejoy asked.

"For the photograph of the daring Calonius brothers, pleassse." Number Zero had a liquid Balkan accent and a harrowed Balkan face, full of the sorrows of a land that had known only wars, famines and disloyal kings for 1500 years.

"I don't want a photograph of the Calonius brothers," Lovejoy said, trying to hand the postcard back.

"Impossible, pleassse." A further shade of sorrow flitted across Number Zero's face, like the flicker of a bat's wing, and he put his hands behind his back so that by no accident could Lovejoy place the photograph in his hand. "Once accepted--finished. Four piasters, pleassse ..." His face was stubborn, despairing, dark, under the shining bald scalp.

Lovejoy took out four piasters and paid him and put the photograph neatly in his wallet, as Number Zero went on to the next customer. There was a slight argument, Lovejoy noticed, but Number Zero got his four piasters there, too. But across the square, at the café tables, a sulky and violent look was coming over certain powerfully built possessors of photographs of the Calonius brothers and Lovejoy moved on down the street, not wishing to become embroiled in what he recognized as an inevitable clash between East and West, with the West heavily outgunned.

The three bicycles were leaning against a table and the two Calonius brothers were seated, still sweating, drinking beer.

"Saint Clair," Roland was booming, "you step on my ear once more, I break your ankle."

"Hazards of the trade," Saint Clair shouted angrily.

"Don't give me hazards of the trade!" Roland leaned across and stared bitterly into his brother's eyes. "Watch where you put your goddamn feet!" The monkey pulled at his leg and Roland tilted his glass over and drenched it with beer. The monkey scrambled miserably back to the bicycle saddle, and both brothers roared good-humoredly and ordered more beer.

"Pardon me, gentlemen ..." Lovejoy began.

"If you're an American," 95 said, "sit down."

"I'm an American."

"Sit down!" 95 waved for more beer. "That's what I thought when I saw you. Though it's a little hard to tell, upside down." He laughed heartily and nudged Lovejoy as though he had told a dirty joke.

"What do you think of our act?" demanded 96.

"Extremely ..."

"Never was a wheel act like it," 96 said. "We absolutely defy the laws of ... Where's that beer?" he bawled in French at the small, dark waiter, who ran off hurriedly.

"Nice little town you got here," 95 said. "What's the name of it again?"

"Aleppo," Lovejoy said.

"Aleppo," 96 said. "Is that much out of our way?"

"Where're you going?" Lovejoy asked.

"China," both Calonius brothers answered. "Where's that beer?" Their voices clanged along the tables and through the café and all the waiters moved faster than they had moved in 15 years.

"Well ..." Lovejoy began.

"My name's Saint Clair," 95 said. "Saint Clair Calonius. This is Roland."

(continued on page 174) Aleppo (continued from page 116)

The handshakes were numbing. "My name is Stanford Lovejoy."

"What the hell're you doing here?" Saint Clair asked.

"I'm at the Mission."

"A lot of bint in this town?" Roland looked hungrily around.

"Uh?"

"Bint. Bint."

"Oh," Lovejoy said. "There are some young ladies. But the mothers're rather strict. French style."

"We never should've left Cairo," Roland said.

"That Greek dame's husband was coming back, anyway," Saint Clair said. "I like this town. What'd you say the name was?"

"Lovejoy."

"The town, Stanford."

"Oh, excuse me." Lovejoy felt himself getting a little rattled in the high fire of roaring conversation. "Aleppo."

"Anything ever happen here?"

"Well, during the Crusades, there was ..."

"I mean at night."

"Well," said Lovejoy, "I lead a rather quiet ..."

"Put the beer here," Roland said to the waiter, in approximate French, "and get three more."

They raised their glasses. "To good will," Saint Clair said, as though it was a ritual, and both brothers laughed loudly and drank half their glasses off.

"Syrian beer," Saint Clair said. "Drinkable. But everyone connected with Egyptian beer should be executed."

"Where is that sonofabitch Ladszlo?" Roland peered down the street. "I told you the first time I looked at him I didn't trust him."

"He's slow," Saint Clair said. "He's honest, but he's slow."

Lovejoy thought of the dark frail man trying to get four piasters by force from the descendants of unconquered tribesmen at the café tables and nearly said something, but thought better of it and drank some more beer.

"Listen, Stanford," Roland said, "you don't know how good it is to see an honest American face again."

"Thanks," Lovejoy said, "glad to be of ..."

"The hotels in this part of the world," Saint Clair said, bewilderingly, " 're full of bugs. You wouldn't believe it."

"You probably have a villa, haven't you, Stanford?" Roland said. "Land is cheap in these parts. The rate of exchange is wonderful, too."

"Yes," Lovejoy said, not knowing quite what he was saying yes to.

"It'll be wonderful staying in an American house again," Saint Clair said. "Even for one night."

"You're perfectly ..." Lovejoy said.

"Ah, there you are, you sonofabitch," Roland said.

Lovejoy looked up. Ladszlo was standing there, bleeding. One eye was already swelling, the green jersey was torn; on the spindly calf of the right leg there were two ragged blunt wounds. The dark face was a little darker, a little more sorrowful. There was a sour little zoolike smell, Lovejoy noticed, hanging over the small, torn figure. Without a word Ladszlo extended his hand. Roland and Saint Clair leaped up and seized the money in it, counted it hurriedly.

"Forty-four piasters!" Roland roared.

Saint Clair reached over and cuffed Ladszlo lightly across the face. Ladszlo fell back into a chair, stunned.

"Goodness," Lovejoy said.

"We could get five hundred dollars a week for the Calonius brothers in Radio City," Saint Clair yelled.

"Thiss iss not Radio City, gentlemen," Ladszlo mumbled humbly. "Thiss iss Aleppo, a small Oriental city, full of savage, poverty-stricken Arabs."

"We gave out fifty pictures of the Calonius brothers," Roland leaned over and grabbed Ladszlo's chin and held his head up stiffly. "That means two hundred piasters."

"Pardon me, gentlemen," Ladszlo said. "It doesss not mean two hundred piasters."

"How many times," Saint Clair roared, "have I told you not to take back any pictures?"

"I do not take back any pictures, gentlemen."

"Insist!" Roland shouted. "How many times do I have to tell you? Insist!"

A small sour smile played for a fraction of a second over the corner of the bruised lips. "Gentlemen," the humble dark voice murmured, "I inssisst. Two dogs bit me and a large young Arab hit me wiss a large copper vessel. Gentlemen, let uss face it, it iss impractical sysstem, inssissting."

"Are you trying to tell us our business?" Saint Clair lifted his hand threateningly.

"Gentlemen," said Ladszlo, wiping a little blood off his chin, "I am merely saying I will be dead by Baghdad if the sysstem iss not improved somewhat."

Saint Clair started to hit him again, but the waiter arrived with fresh beers. Saint Clair put one into Lovejoy's hand, and the brothers raised their glasses. They smiled good-humoredly at each other. "To good will," they said. They drained their glasses and laughed heartily.

"Stan," Roland said, "can you ride a bicycle?"

"Yes, but ..."

"Get on Ladszlo's wheel and lead the way." He left some money for the beer. "Ladszlo, you carry Mrs. Buchanan and follow us."

"Yess, gentlemen," Ladszlo said, picking up the monkey.

"This is damned hospitable of you, Stan," Saint Clair roared, as they pedaled, three abreast.

"Think nothing of ..."

"That's the great thing about traveling," Roland roared. "Americans stick together."

"Well," Lovejoy said, "we're all far from home and the least ..."

"One thing I miss," Saint Clair said, "is good American steak."

"We should've stayed in Cairo," Roland said.

"Will you for the love of God stop saying we should've stayed in Cairo?" Saint Clair bellowed.

"This is where I live," Lovejoy said, hurriedly, as they wheeled into the Mission grounds.

"Like a king!" Saint Clair said enthusiastically, looking around him at the draggled little Mission buildings. "Roland, maybe we ought to stay a couple of days in Aleppo."

"Maybe," Roland said. He flung himself gracefully off his bicycle as Lovejoy stopped in front of his house. "Maybe."

Ladszlo came trotting up, his face slightly green from the exercise in the blazing sun.

"Ladszlo," Roland said, "bring the wheels in."

"Yess, gentlemen," Ladszlo panted, shifting the monkey away from the bare sweating skin of his neck.

Lovejoy led the way up the steps.

"This is really like home," Roland said happily, sinking into the one easy chair and looking at the photograph of Herbert Hoover on the wall.

"The one thing that would make life complete," Saint Clair murmured from the floor, where he was lying comfortably, "is a drink."

"Stanford, you old dog," Roland waved his hand jovially, "I'll bet you've got some stashed away."

"Well," said Lovejoy worriedly, "this is a Mission School, and they rather frown on ..."

"You old dog," Saint Clair boomed, as Ladszlo, sweating more than ever, brought the first bicycle through the door, "bring it out."

"We'll have to drink it in coffee cups, in case the president happens to ..."

"Bring it out, you old dog." Roland got up and clapped Lovejoy good-naturedly on the back. "Ladszlo, you are the worst-smelling Hungarian I've ever met."

"It's Mrs. Buchanan," Ladszlo said humbly. "She pisses all over me." He went out to get the second bicycle.

Lovejoy went over to the huge Italian wardrobe in which he kept all his meager belongings. Saint Clair stood behind (continued on page 271) Aleppo (continued from page 174) him and watched with interest as Lovejoy threw the doors open, and dug down under the heavy winter woolen underwear.

"Johnnie Walker!" Saint Clair said merrily.

"Three bottles! You old dog!"

"In case of sickness," Lovejoy said. "Or special occasions. I am not much of a drinking ..."

"I'll open it." Roland took the bottle and ripped away the paper. Lovejoy carefully placed the winter underwear over the other two bottles and closed the wardrobe. By this time Roland had poured three tremendous drinks into coffee cups.

"To good will," chanted the Calonius brothers, holding the cups high. Lovejoy looked at them, strange, exciting visitors from another world. Only in the East would your life hold such surprises. "To good will," he said strongly, and drank a long draught of Johnnie Walker.

"Ladszlo," called Saint Clair to the puffing Hungarian, "be careful for the paint on that bicycle! That's a very expensive bicycle."

"Yess, gentlemen," Ladszlo said, finally putting the third bicycle away and leaning palely against a wall to recover his strength.

"Perhaps," Lovejoy whispered, "Mr. Ladszlo would like a ..."

"Ladszlo never drinks," Saint Clair said, pouring himself another large cupful of Johnnie Walker. "He's a Greek Catholic."

"If you'll excuse me," Lovejoy said, "I'll go into the kitchen and tell the servant to prepare dinner for tonight."

"Go right ahead, Stan," Roland waved a large, gracious hand. "We're fine here. You've really made us feel as though this was our home."

"Thank you very much," Lovejoy said, feeling a slight warm flush of gratitude. He ordinarily lived a quiet, secluded life, and he had few friends.

"There should be more like you," Roland said.

"Thank you again."

"For dessert," Saint Clair said, "I like raisins and walnuts. They contain valuable minerals."

"I'll see what I can do," Lovejoy said. When he got back after a bitter half hour in the kitchen, in which Ahmed, the cook, a eunuch who had been castrated by the Turks in 1903, had burst into tears twice in a frenzy of misunderstanding, the living room was roaring with argument.

"I did not rape any waitress in Tel Aviv!" Saint Clair was screaming. A second bottle of Johnnie Walker, Lovejoy noticed, was standing on the table.

"Gentlemen," said Lovejoy, his head rather vague with the beer and Scotch and sudden company, "it is impossible to get walnuts."

"That's all right," Saint Clair smiled at him cheerfully. "Tomorrow's soon enough. Have a drink."

"Thank you," Lovejoy said.

While waiting for dinner, they worked on the second bottle and the Calonius brothers talked about themselves.

"Bakersfield, California," Saint Clair said, "is all right for cowboys."

"That's where we were born," Roland said.

"It lacks romance. Same thing, day in, day out. Beef and grapefruit. Have a drink." Saint Clair poured all around. "A man's got to see the world ..."

"That's exactly what I ..." said Lovejoy.

"George Buchanan would've killed you if you'd stayed in Bakersfield another twenty-four hours," Roland said. "The only trouble was it was Sunday and he had to wait till the stores opened on Monday to buy a shotgun." Roland laughed merrily, remembering. "We named the monkey after Madame Buchanan. Amazing resemblance."

"George Buchanan," Saint Clair shouted, "was absolutely mistaken about that oil lease. Any court of law ..."

"Anyway," Roland said comfortably, "the money got us to Paris."

"What a city, Paris!" Saint Clair said dreamily.

"Paris ..." murmured Lovejoy. "How did you happen to leave?"

"You can only stay so long in any one place," Saint Clair said. "Then it's the call of the open ..."

" 'Messieurs,' the Captain of the SÛreté said," Roland chuckled in retrospect, " 'you have exactly thirty-six hours.' He spoke excellent English."

"The trouble with Americans," Saint Clair said, "is that the rest of the world mistrusts them. The wrong type of people represent America throughout the world. Diplomats, schoolteachers on vacation, retired merchants."

"Now, if ever," Roland said sonorously, "America has to be represented by its best types. Young, virile, friendly, plain people. Good will. Understand?"

"Yes," said Lovejoy, vaguely and happily, sipping on his third triple Scotch.

"And on a bicycle," Saint Clair said, "you really get to see a country. The plain people. You entertain them. You amuse them. You impress them with the fact that Americans are not decadent."

"Americans," Roland said proudly, "are a race who can stand on their heads on a moving bicycle."

"Berlin, Munich, Vienna," Saint Clair said. "We were sensational. Don't believe what you hear about the Germans. They have absolutely no desire to fight anyone. You can have my guarantee."

"That's very reassuring," Lovejoy said.

"That's the thing about traveling by bicycle," Roland said. "You feel the pulse."

"Hungary was at our feet," Saint Clair said. "We picked up Ladszlo in Budapest."

Lovejoy glanced dreamily at Ladszlo, who was sitting in a corner on the floor, combing Mrs. Buchanan's back for fleas.

"He seems like a very nice ..." Lovejoy said.

"For a Hungarian," Roland said, "he's not bad."

"You've got to watch Hungarians," said Saint Clair. "That's another thing about traveling the way we do. You become a student of national character."

"I can readily understand ..."

"Istanbul, Alexandria, Cairo," chanted Roland.

"They did everything but throw roses at us in Cairo. Although their taste in entertainment is low."

"Belly dancers," Roland complained darkly. "If it isn't a belly dancer throw it out. A man on a bicycle might just as well lay down and die."

"Jerusalem is an improvement," Saint Clair said. "Jews like bicycles."

"How can you bear just to sit in one little place all your life?" Roland asked suddenly.

"It never occurred to me before," said Lovejoy reflectively. "Though I can see now that perhaps I ..."

"Where do we sleep?" Saint Clair interrupted. He stood up and yawned, stretching widely.

Lovejoy stood up, too, and led the way into the other room. "I'm sorry," he said, "there are only two beds. Mr. Ladszlo ..."

"Perfectly all right, old man," Roland said. "He'll sleep on the floor in your room. Hungarians love floors."

"This'll do." Saint Clair stretched enormously on one of the beds.

"Dinner, thank you." The eunuch slipped into the room and out.

Lovejoy led the way into the dining room. Somehow, the third bottle of Johnnie Walker was on the table. As they sat down, Ladszlo slid in and sat down at the foot of the table.

"Good American cooking," Roland said happily, pouring some whisky. "Can't be beat."

Ladszlo sat in front of the steak with his knife and fork poised. For the first time there was life and excitement in his eyes. His mouth worked a little, expectantly, as he cut into the rare red meat.

"Ladszlo," Saint Clair sniffed strongly, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

"Yess, gentlemen?" The fork was poised delicately over the first slice.

"My God, Ladszlo, you stink!"

Ladszlo put his fork down quietly. "Yess, gentlemen," he said. "Mrs. Buchanan pisses all ..."

"Go take a bath," Saint Clair said.

"Yess, gentlemen. Ass soon ass I have taken a little nourish ..."

"Now!"

Ladszlo swallowed dryly, sighed a small Balkan sigh, stood up. "Yess, gentlemen." He left the room.

"Hungarians," Roland said. "They're living in the Seventeenth Century." He took an immense bite of steak.

By now the unaccustomed liquor had taken full effect and Lovejoy remembered nothing more of the meal except that the Calonius brothers talked rather disjointedly of various cities throughout the world they had visited, in all of which certain misunderstanding had arisen, usually with husbands or the police, although of no very grave dimensions. Ladszlo, Lovejoy also noticed, did not return.

Just as they were finishing their coffee, there was a light knock on the door.

"Permit me," Saint Clair said, as Lovejoy struggled slowly to his feet. Saint Clair sprang across the room and threw the door open.

"Oh!" Irina stood there, her head wrapped in a black silk shawl.

Lovejoy shook his head a trifle dazedly and stood up. In the excitement he had forgotten all about her.

"Excellent!" Saint Clair was saying loudly, looking at Irina. "Excellent!"

"Stanford ..." Irina lifted a shy, slightly accusing small hand toward Lovejoy.

"Forgive me," Lovejoy said, walking carefully toward her. "Unexpected ..."

"Excellent," Saint Clair said. "Excellent."

"I'm afraid I'd better leave." Irina turned, doelike, to go.

"I'll walk you to the gate," Lovejoy said hurriedly, taking her arm.

"A vision," Roland boomed from the table. He stood up and bowed in Irina's direction. "A beautiful Russian vision."

"Perhaps," Lovejoy said, "I'd better take you to your ..."

"How did you know I was Russian?" Irina turned back and her voice was sidelong and musical, although still shy and ladylike, as she spoke to Roland.

"Only in the cold snows," Roland boomed, advancing. "Only in the immense pine forests ..."

"Wouldn't you like to come in and have a drink?" Saint Clair asked.

"A certain pure, cold, blonde beauty ..." Roland smiled widely down at the small, demure figure in the black scarf.

"We're drinking Scotch tonight," Saint Clair said.

"Irina doesn't drink," Lovejoy said, worriedly, fearing that Irina would be angry with him because of his blunt American friends.

"Perhaps," said Irina, taking a small, hesitant, White Russian step into the room, "perhaps just a little at the bottom of the glass."

Lovejoy closed the door behind her.

At the third drink, Saint Clair was making pertinent comments on the Russians. "No other race," he said oratorically, "would have the vision, the courage ... The Revolution. My God, the greatest step forward since ..."

"They liquidated fourteen members of my family," Irina said, "and burnt down three country houses." She began to cry.

"No one will deny, of course," said Saint Clair, tenderly giving her a handkerchief, "that the old regime was better. The Church. Icons. Candles burning. The ballet ..." He waved his arms magniloquently.

"It's getting late," Lovejoy said vaguely, his ears roaring with Johnnie Walker and conversation. "Perhaps I'd better see you home ..."

"Just to the gate, Stanford, you wild boy." Irina stood up, swept the scarf around her, gave her hands to the Calonius brothers who kissed them, each muttering something that Lovejoy couldn't hear. Irina hesitated a moment, pulled her hands away, slipped out, graceful, doelike.

"Don't come home late, Wild Boy," Roland said.

Lovejoy followed Irina into the darkness. He walked beside her in the still, clear desert night.

"Irina, darling," he said troubledly to the silent shade at his side. "It was unavoidable. Certain Americans have a tendency to be boisterous. They mean no harm. They'll be gone tomorrow. Do you forgive me, darling?"

There was a silence. Irina reached the gate and turned toward him, her face undecipherable in the starlit night. "I forgive you, Stanford," she said softly, and allowed him to kiss her good night, although they were only a hundred yards from the president's home, and there was a dreadful chance of being observed.

Lovejoy watched her disappear light-footedly into the darkness, and turned and went back to his house.

From the bedroom came loud snores. The Calonius brothers were sleeping off the strains and stresses of a normal day.

There was the strange small jungle sound of the monkey scratching herself sleepily.

• • •

Lovejoy did not sleep well. Through the wall of slumber, sometime in the late, dark hours, half-awake, half-dreaming, he seemed to hear a woman's soft giggle nearby, sensual and abandoned, and he twisted uneasily on his hard bed, almost opened his eyes, was claimed once more by oblivion.

The moon came up and shone through the open window into his eyes, and he woke sharply, certain that someone was in his room, something was happening ...

The moon shone on a narrow figure crouched in the corner, bent over, its arms moving fiercely and jerkily, as though it were tying up a bundle. The figure stood up and Lovejoy saw that it was Ladszlo.

"Mr. Ladszlo," he said, in relief. "Where have you been?" Ladszlo wheeled around. His eyes flashed wildly in the glint of the moon. He strode over to the bed.

"You!" he said harshly. "Keep quiet, pleassse!"

"Mr. Lad ..." Lovejoy stopped. A long cold blade shone in Ladszlo's fist.

"Do you think, gentlemen," Ladszlo's voice scraped against his eardrums, "I will hessitate to usse it?"

Lovejoy sat up, quiet.

Ladszlo turned back to his work in the corner, and for the first time, Lovejoy saw what the Hungarian had been doing. Mrs. Buchanan was lying there, a maniac look on her cranky, brute face, her mouth gagged with strips of towel, her hands and ankles securely bound with twine. Ladszlo stood over her, menacing, triumphant.

"What ...?" Lovejoy began.

"Quiet!" Ladszlo snarled. He got out some more twine and, by the bright light of the moon at the window, he made an intricate and perfect hangman's knot. Lovejoy felt the sweat start out all over his body and his throat go wooden and salty. He blinked disbelievingly when Ladszlo put the noose around the monkey's thin neck and threw the other end of the rope over a tall bridge lamp.

"You're not really ..." he said under his breath.

Ladszlo ignored him and pulled on the rope. Lovejoy closed his eyes. This was the first time he had ever seen a monkey hanged and he didn't feel he was up to the strain of watching. He kept his eyes closed until he heard Ladszlo's voice, thin and trumpetlike. "Well," Ladszlo was saying, "that's the last time you'll piss on me."

Lovejoy felt it was safe to look. Mrs. Buchanan hung limp, like a dead monkey. Ladszlo stood before her, revenge incarnate.

"Mr. Ladszlo," Lovejoy whispered. "How could you do it?"

Ladszlo whirled on him, strode over to his bed.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I warn you. Leave while there iss still time."

"What're you talking about?"

"Inside there ..." Ladszlo's finger shot out, stiff with warning. "Inside there you have two devilss."

"Why, Mr. Ladszlo," Lovejoy even managed to laugh a little. "They're just two simple high-spirited American boys."

"In that case," Ladszlo said, "spare me America. Devilss! I hate them, all three of them, the Calonius brothers most of all, and then Mrs. Buchanan. Unfortunately, it is not possible to hang the Calonius brothers." With somber gratification he looked at the monkey's corpse, swinging gently in the night wind. "I tell you. If you know what's good for you, you will get away from them, if you have to walk."

"It's true," Lovejoy said, "they don't treat you very well."

Ladszlo laughed a horrible laugh, like broken glass, at the understatement. "I had a good job," he said, "in Budapest. I sold lace. I was preparing to marry. Then I met the Calonius brothers. In two days they had sold me the bicycle ... forty pounds. Later I found out, a man they had picked up in Strasbourg had deserted them. He could not stand it anymore. They told me we were going to America. They painted a bright picture. Five hundred dollars a week in Radio City. I would be an American citizen. I could forget Hungary. I could forget the lace business. I brought wiss me one hundred pounds, in cash. Farewell. And every town we visited. Riots, husbands with guns, police. Customs officials. Pregnant women. It is like going through Europe with a shipload of pirates. Now I have no more money, I have no job, I am in the middle of the desert, but when they told me to leave my dinner and go take a bath, I knew it wass the end ..."

There was a rustling in the next room and Ladszlo jumped back into the shadows fearfully. "I warn you," he whispered bleakly, and vanished.

Lovejoy looked at Mrs. Buchanan, stiffening noticeably at the bridge lamp. He put his face to the wall, but he did not sleep.

When Lovejoy rose in the morning and had his coffee and started off to school, the snores, regular and peaceful, were still coming out of the bedroom in which the Calonius brothers slept undisturbed.

Lovejoy was not feeling very well. His head occasionally expanded and contracted spasmodically; two or three times during the morning he saw double, and the shrill voices of the young Arab children for the first time made a nerve-racking clangor in his ears.

And when President Swenker came into his classroom in the middle of a lesson in advanced English composition and asked Lovejoy to have lunch with him, an uneasy tremor of anticipation ran down Lovejoy's spine.

But over the bean salad and canned pineapple of President Swenker's severe lunch (the president was a vegetarian), with Mrs. Swenker and young Carlton Swenker sitting in decorous, lettuce-crunching silence, the president merely outlined a plan for a new Bible class. This was to be an evening class for adults and in his relief that the interview was not about liquor, Lovejoy was effusively enthusiastic.

"Well," the president said, patting Lovejoy bonily on the wrist, "this may make educational history in Aleppo. Have some more bean salad."

It was nearly six o'clock when Lovejoy got back to his house. All was quiet, except for a strange thudding noise that occasionally came through the windows, and a slight shaking of the thick mud walls. Lovejoy swallowed and climbed the steps slowly and opened the door.

Roland and Saint Clair Calonius were on the floor, half-naked, locked in gigantic combat. Saint Clair was on top and was beating his brother's head against the floor, which accounted for the dull thuds.

The entire place smelled like a steam-heated gymnasium after a closely contested basketball game. The eunuch Ahmed stood at the door, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

"Gentlemen ..." Lovejoy said.

Suddenly, with a violent, twisting motion, Roland heaved himself up and a second later Saint Clair was hurling through the air, only to crash, with a house-shaking noise, against the wall. Ahmed fled, Saint Clair dropped dazedly to his knees for a moment, then stood up and smiled.

"That was very clever, Roland," he said.

"Gentlemen," Lovejoy said.

Both Calonius brothers looked at him strangely for a moment, as though they couldn't quite place him. Then a smile lit Saint Clair's face. "He lives here," he explained to Roland.

Roland smiled then, too. "You old dog," he said.

"Just keeping in condition," Saint Clair said. "Roland and me. Wrestling exercises every muscle of the body. Also good for the appetite. Have a drink. We're going to take a shower." They disappeared, sweating, their muscles rippling under steaming skin.

Lovejoy sat down and looked around him. The appearance of the room had changed noticeably. The two beds from the other room had been dragged in. His own couch, he could see through the doorway, was in the other room. Also the bicycles. Mrs. Buchanan, fortunately, had disappeared. Four bottles of rum stood on the table and three dozen lemons. A handsome Persian jug, ancient and valuable, which he suddenly realized he had seen before in the home of the Danish professor of mathematics, stood next to the lemons. He went over and smelled it. It had been recently used for mixing cocktails.

He heard a step behind him and wheeled nervously. It was the eunuch, with a bowl full of ice cubes. With sinking heart, Lovejoy remembered that the only electric refrigerator in town capable of making ice cubes was in the home of President Swenker.

"Ahmed ..." he began, but the eunuch merely put the bowl down and shuffled out.

Lovejoy sank into a chair. His eyes roamed the disordered room. Something else had changed, something was missing, a small nagging voice told him ... He couldn't remember. He closed his eyes, ran his hands over them, opened them again. Then he saw. The Encyclopaedia Britannica. All the volumes from AA to PRU.

There must be, he told himself, some perfectly natural explanation.

Roland entered, huge and naked, drying himself with a towel. "Ah," he said. "More ice."

"Pardon me, Mr. Calonius," Lovejoy said. "I wonder if you could tell me how the ice ..."

"You may have noticed, old man," Roland slapped himself vigorously on his bare pink chest, "that we've made certain small rearrangements."

"Yes," Lovejoy said. "Later we can ..."

"Saint Clair has weak kidneys," Roland said. "And he didn't want to disturb you going through your room to the bathroom all night. Daiquiri?"

Saint Clair came in, also naked, slapping himself with one of Lovejoy's Turkish towels. "I suppose you know," he said, "Mrs. Buchanan was hanged here last night."

"Yes, I ..."

"We're having her stuffed," Roland said, measuring the rum. "As a memento for you."

"Thank you very much. You're very kind, but ..."

"Only a Hungarian," Saint Clair said, "would think of hanging a monkey."

"I wonder if you gentlemen know anything about several copies of the Encyclo ..."

"Not too much sugar, Roland," Saint Clair warned.

"Mind your own goddamn business," Roland said calmly. He put his hand over the top of the ancient and valuable Persian jug, the property of the Danish professor of mathematics, and began to shake vigorously, the ice clanking brightly against the precious glazed sides.

"The copies from AA to PRU," Lovejoy said stubbornly. "They seem to be missing. Perhaps you know something about ..."

"Not a thing, old man," Saint Clair said carelessly. "They'll probably turn up. You know how people are about books."

The door was flung lightly open and Irina danced in.

"Irina!" Lovejoy said, shocked. It was the first time she had visited his house before dark. "They're not quite dressed."

"Hello, boys," Irina said gaily.

"Just in time," Saint Clair said, negligently wrapping the towel about the ridged muscles of his abdomen. "Have a drink."

Roland poured the frothy, freezing daiquiris into coffee cups.

Irina lifted her drink. "To good will," she said charmingly and the Calonius brothers laughed loudly and Roland slapped her playfully on the behind.

Lovejoy watched incredulously, the demure figure now in a blazing yellow dress, tight and shiny, and the two immense, almost naked men, drinking swiftly.

He lifted his cup and drained it. "I think I'd like another," he said firmly.

"That's it, Wild Boy," Roland said, and poured him a big one.

The rest of the night was something of a blur for Lovejoy. There was a heavy dinner, steak again, and burgundy, and Irina's hair coming undone and hanging loose and wild over one shoulder and Irina's teeth flashing in mirth and all of them singing Russian songs and Irina dancing, with flashing eyes and twitching hips, while the Calonius brothers sang and kept tremendous time with their hands. Vaguely, Lovejoy remembered, there was some talk about money, and he was sure he saw Irina take many bills out of her exquisite bosom and give them with both hands, in a bold, generous, Mother-of-Earth kind of gesture to Roland and Saint Clair Calonius. There was talk, too, of a real party the next night, and Roland saying, "Wild Boy, you're a good fellow. Wild Boy, we're glad we came to Aleppo. Wild Boy, you're an American ..."

Lovejoy had never had a better time in his whole life, although at the back of his mind throughout the entire evening, a voice kept calling, "All this is costing you a great deal of money." But he was sorry when the ninth daiquiri brought long periods of whirling blackness, and Saint Clair had to pick him up in his arms and carry him to his bed.

"Saint Clair," he kept mumbling, "friends for life ... Nothing like this would ever happen in Vermont. Friends for life ..."

During the night he awoke to a stabbing sharp clarity, at about three A.M. In the next room, he heard a woman's sighs, then a moment later, low laughter, sensual and intimate in the quiet house. His mind puzzled over the sounds for a moment. Then he fell asleep again.

The next morning he stumbled dazedly out of the house, all shadowy and hushed, with the blinds pulled against the glare of the morning sun. The classes had a tendency to whiten and disappear from time to time, and when President Swenker came in about 11 o'clock his face seemed to rise and fall in a white froth, like waves against rocks.

"Lovejoy," he said coldly, "I would like to see you at the noon hour."

"Yes, sir," said Lovejoy.

• • •

"I'm a broad-minded man," President Swenker said at noon, "and I know the debilitating effects of this climate on white men, but I have heard certain rumors about some guests of yours ..."

"Yes, sir," said Lovejoy faintly.

"I think it would be wise," said President Swenker, "if they left immediately."

"Yes, sir," Lovejoy said more faintly.

President Swenker patted Lovejoy more tolerantly on the shoulder. "Of course," he said, "I do not believe the rumors about the monkey and the Russian lady."

"Yes, sir," Lovejoy whispered, and hurried back to his house.

He walked decisively up the steps and threw the door open.

Irina was lying relaxedly on the couch, with Saint Clair calmly and rather impersonally stroking her thigh. And in the center of the room stood President Swenker's son, Carlton, in earnest conversation with Roland.

"He's liable to kill me," Carlton was saying. Even as his blood froze at the boy's words, something in Lovejoy noticed that the rest of the Encyclopaedia was gone, from PRU to ZZ. Also the bridge lamp from which at another time Mrs. Buchanan had hung, and a large silver samovar and eight silver cups that had come with the house.

"Nobody will kill you," Roland said impatiently. "Just follow instructions. God almighty, Carlton, how old are you?"

"Eleven."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"Carlton," Lovejoy said in a loud, clear voice, "I think you'd better go home."

Carlton stopped at the door. "I'll be seeing you," he said, waving at the Calonius brothers. On the couch, Saint Clair raised his hand lazily from Irina's slender, exquisite thigh and waved to Carlton. "Give my regards to your old man," he said. Then he went back to stroking the thigh, this time under the skirt. Irina comfortably lighted a cigarette and leaned over and picked up a daiquiri that was resting on the table beside her.

Lovejoy closed the door firmly. "Gentlemen," he said loudly, "I have some bad news for you."

"Have a drink, Wild Boy," Saint Clair said.

"Gentlemen," Lovejoy said, "I'm afraid I must tell you to leave."

There was a long silence. Saint Clair took his hand out from under Irina's skirt.

"I am under orders, gentlemen," Lovejoy said, because he could no longer tolerate the hush.

"It's an awful thing," Roland said quietly, "when Americans twelve thousand miles from home can't ..." He didn't finish.

"Do you want us to go now?" Saint Clair asked. Lovejoy considered. They were being surprisingly reasonable. He remembered the vague glorious evening the night before. "I can't see that it'll do any harm if you stay till morning," he said.

"Have a drink, Stanford," Roland boomed, turning toward him and clapping him heavily on the base of the neck.

"Sorry, old man," Saint Clair said, disentangling himself entirely from Irina and standing up to help with the liquor, "if we've caused you any inconvenience ..."

"I think," Irina sat up and pushed her hair back angrily, "I think you are behaving like mud, Stanford."

"Now, now," Roland said. "Let's forget it and have our last evening together as though nothing had happened." And he poured the drinks, frothy and tropic-fragrant, and beaded with the cold of President Swenker's ice cubes.

There were four drinks before dinner, and somehow, during dinner, Saint Clair was saying, "Wild Boy, I like you. Wild Boy, you're a great American. Wild Boy, you're just the sort of man we need on a trip like this. The Plain American With Brains."

"The Chinese," Roland said, "will be crazy about him."

"Also," said Saint Clair, "you're a master of tongues. College graduate. You can introduce us to consuls, speak the language. You will be a sensation in Jodhpur."

"He's wiry," Roland said. "He's as wiry as they come. He'll make a great trick rider."

"He's not so wiry," Irina said.

"For fifty pounds you can have Ladszlo's bicycle," Saint Clair said. "The Calonius brothers and Wild Boy. Daring!!! Extra ..."

"Don't call me Wild Boy," said Lovejoy looking his eighth drink straight in the eye.

"How can a young man like you, with your talents, stand this town?" Roland marveled. "Year in, year out ..."

"He's damned wiry," Roland said, feeling Lovejoy's arm.

Lovejoy sat and stared silently into the depths of an empty burgundy bottle.

"All right," he said suddenly.

They clapped him on the back and offered him a drink and Irina threw off her blouse and skirt and danced charmingly on the table in black-lace panties and brassiere. From the brassiere, Lovejoy noticed vaguely, the corners of five-pound notes peeped out.

Lovejoy opened his shirt and from a money belt he wore next to his skin he took out his last 50 pounds. Saint Clair put the money away gravely. Roland left the room, and reappeared a moment later with a towel, a bowl of hot water, some soap, and a straightedge razor. While Lovejoy was pouring himself an other drink, Roland came up behind him and tied the towel around his neck.

"Say," asked Lovejoy mildly, "what are you doing?"

Roland started to lather the top of Lovejoy's head. "In our act, everyone but Irina gets their head shaved." He got up a good thick lather. "It gives a better impression."

"You'll look more wiry, Stan," said Saint Clair.

For one moment, Lovejoy hesitated. "Allez!" he said.

Swiftly and expertly, as Lovejoy worked slowly on his tenth daiquiri, Roland began to shave his head. One half the job was done, the left side of the scalp lying clean and pink as a baby's bottom, when the door was thrown open. Lovejoy looked up.

President Swenker stood there, his face slowly clouding over, like a Dakota winter. His eyes left the shining semiegg of Lovejoy's scalp and took in the slender and exquisite, black-laced figure of Irina studiously practicing entrechats on the dining table, among the bottles.

Lovejoy sighed.

"Goodness," said President Swenker.

"Hi, Buster," Roland said cheerfully.

"Mr. Lovejoy," President Swenker said, "I shall speak to you in the morning, under more ... more formal circumstances."

He closed the door carefully behind him. Lovejoy sighed again and Roland started to work on the right side of his head.

When he awoke the next morning, Lovejoy's head was very large.

He got out of bed, holding onto the wall for support. He had never realized he could learn to like liquor so well. He looked at his watch. Heavens, he thought, I'll be late for class.

He walked as quickly as he was able toward the bathroom. In the main room, the two beds were pulled together and Irina was lying rather athwart the two Calonius brothers. All three were asleep. Irina, Lovejoy noticed, was no longer wearing lace panties.

He made his way painfully into the bathroom and began to brush his teeth. Suddenly, his hand poised in mid-air, he caught sight of a strange gleam in the mirror. He looked hard at the glass. "My God," he said, the toothbrush still halfway up, the mouth still frothing with dental cream. He was as bald as a stone egg. He looked, disbelieving. Then slowly it all came back. He put the toothbrush down and sat down slowly on the edge of the tub.

Then he remembered President Swenker's face as the president had stood at the doorway and looked at Irina dancing in black-lace underwear on the dinner table. "Oh, my," he said weakly and stumbled back toward his room.

In the main room the three sleepers slept calmly on, with Irina favoring Saint Clair slightly, one exquisite leg thrown carelessly over his knee. Lovejoy stopped and looked down dazedly.

At one time he had toyed with the idea of marrying Irina. At least he had been spared that.

He put a sheet over the entwined figures and felt his way into the guest room. He lay down and stared at the ceiling, the white froth of the tooth paste still on his lips. It began to sting and he licked it off. In a moment he had a severe case of heartburn.

There was no doubt about it now. Only one thing remained to be done. For good or ill, his lot was thrown with the Calonius brothers. When they awoke, he would pack quietly, a few things in a small bag, start on a new, nomadic life. As he thought about it, even in the clear light of morning, there still were certain advantages.

Suddenly he fell asleep.

He was awakened by the pad of footsteps in his room. He opened his eyes slowly. His landlady, for some unaccountable reason, was in his room, her back to him, with a pencil and a pad of paper in her hand, on which she frequently made notations. She was a small, fat old lady, with a face designed for lamentation. At the moment, Lovejoy saw as she turned around, her mouth was working with some indescribable emotion.

"Madame," he said, sitting up, having trouble with his French, "what are you doing in my room?"

"Aha!" the landlady said.

Lovejoy shook his head to clear it.

"Madame, I'll thank you to ..."

"The rug!" The landlady jabbed at her notebook. "Aha!" She scuttled out suddenly.

From the next room he heard a high, excited, man's voice in Arab-French, "Come out or we shoot!"

Lovejoy swallowed uncomfortably. He wondered if the Calonius brothers were going to be shot in his house.

"I will give you five," the excited voice called. "Un ... deux ... trois ... Monsieur Lovejoy, I repeat, I will give you cinq ..."

Like lightning, Lovejoy realized ... Whoever it was, was addressing him. By quatre he was out in the main room.

Two policemen were standing there, facing the door. One of them had a gun in his hand and the landlady was standing excitedly behind him. Irina and the two Calonius brothers still slept on.

"What ...?" began Lovejoy.

"Don't ask any questions," said the policeman with the gun. "Come on."

The two policemen had dangerous expressions on their faces, especially for so early in the morning. "If you'll permit me," Lovejoy said, "I'd like to put on a pair of trousers."

They came in and watched him put on trousers and shoes, the policeman still covering him with the pistol.

"I wish," said Lovejoy, "you'd tell me what I've done ..."

"Move!" said the policeman with the gun.

Lovejoy went out between them. His landlady followed at a safe distance. Irina and the Calonius brothers slept on. As he left the building, Carlton Swenker ran past him, up the steps.

The police did not take him far, merely to the office of President Swenker. As they drew near, Lovejoy heard a mumbling and buzzing inside. He hesitated at the door.

"In!" said the policeman with the gun, kicking open the door.

Lovejoy stepped in, only to be met with such a blast of shouts and murmurs and oaths, that if it weren't for the policemen at his back, he would have turned and run. A third of the population of Aleppo seemed to be crammed into the office, with President Swenker in a corner, behind his desk, standing, spreading his hands, trying to maintain order. The Danish professor of mathematics was there, the small Englishman who taught history was there, the owner of the bookshop, Irina's boss, was there, the local taxidermist, a liquor merchant, two rug merchants, a butcher, and two maiden ladies who taught knitting and sewing and cooking were all there. And Lovejoy's landlady crowded in and looked over the room proudly and malevolently.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the president kept saying, "ladies and gentlemen."

The excited tide of Levantine conversation welled higher than ever.

"Mr. Lovejoy," the president said loudly and bitterly, "what in the name of God have you been doing?"

Suddenly the room fell quiet. All eyes stared with equal wrath at Lovejoy, bald, liquor-eyed and seedy, between the policemen at the door.

"I ... I ... I really don't know what you mean," Lovejoy said.

"Don't think for a moment you're going to make good your escape, young man," the president said.

"No, sir," said Lovejoy.

"If it weren't for me, you would even now be at the mercy of Syrian justice."

Lovejoy shuddered a little. "Please," he whispered, "may I sit down?"

"What the hell has happened to your hair?" the president asked irritably.

Involuntarily, Lovejoy's hand went up to his head. Then he remembered.

"I ... I ... uh ... shaved it," he said.

"God almighty, Lovejoy," the president shouted, "I'm going to have a thing or two to say to the University of Vermont!"

Suddenly the door was thrust open and Lovejoy's cook, the eunuch Ahmed, was flung into the room, followed by another policeman. The eunuch took one look around him, then lay down on the floor and wept. Sweat started on Lovejoy's forehead.

"Tell the truth, young man," the landlady barked at him, "weren't you intending to leave Aleppo today?"

Lovejoy took a deep breath. "Yes," he said.

A fierce murmur ran through the room.

"We would have shot you down on the road," the policeman with the gun said. "From behind."

"Please," Lovejoy begged. "Please explain ..."

Then, bit by bit, with many interruptions by various impassioned townspeople, it came out. It all started when the landlady saw her bridge lamp in a furniture shop. Then she saw her silver samovar being melted in the rear of a jewelry shop. Then, in four different shops, she had seen six rugs from various houses which she had rented to members of the school faculty. She wailed, in time with Ahmed, weeping on the floor, as she described seeing various bedcovers, cushions, small tables, silver vases, with which she had furnished her houses, in cotton-goods stores, junk shops, butcher shops. She had run to the police, who had traced everything to Ahmed.

"He said Mr. Lovejoy wanted to borrow some blankets for unexpected guests," one of the sewing-and-cooking ladies said shrilly, "and naturally, it never occurred to me ..."

Ahmed, shattered and damp on the floor, was too broken to say a coherent word. "They are pleasant gentlemen," he kept murmuring incomprehensibly, "very pleasant gentlemen. They like to eat and drink. They sing to me in the kitchen. They give me five piasters extra a day. They sing to me in the kitchen."

Lovejoy looked down horrified at the faithless servant, bribed by a song in the scullery, and 20 cents every 24 hours. He passed his hand wearily over his eyes as the taxidermist demanded payment for stuffing a monkey.

"A particularly horrible case," the taxidermist was saying. "The monkey was hanged, I assure you. Hanged by the neck."

With his eyes closed, Lovejoy felt the shudder of revulsion sweep the room.

"For God's sake, Lovejoy!" He heard President Swenker's high, biblical voice. "This is monstrous!"

Lovejoy opened his eyes just in time to see Mrs. Swenker come streaming in, tears roaring down her cheeks.

"Walter," she sobbed, "Walter!" and heaved herself onto her husband's bosom.

"What's the matter with you?" President Swenker asked.

"Carlton ..."

Lovejoy felt his stomach contract sharply over the name.

"What's wrong with him?" President Swenker shouted.

"Your son Carlton," Mrs. Swenker's voice rang out dramatically, "has stolen fifty pounds from your wall safe."

President Swenker sank into a chair, put his head in his hands. "Oh Lord, how much more," he roared, this time out of the Old Testament, "do I have to endure?"

"I think, sir," Lovejoy said timidly, "I know where I can get your money back."

"God almighty, Lovejoy!" President Swenker looked up. "Are you mixed up in this, too?"

"Perhaps if you'll come with me, we can clear up a lot of things at once," Lovejoy said with dignity.

"One move," said the policeman with the gun, "and I shoot. To kill."

"Where do you want to take us?" President Swenker asked. "Oh, for God's sake, Corinne, stop bawling!"

Mrs. Swenker fled the room, stifling sobs.

"To my house, sir," Lovejoy said. "There are two gentlemen there who might throw some light on several subjects."

"They like to eat and drink," Ahmed sobbed on the floor, "and sing to me in the kitchen."

"All right," President Swenker said shortly. "Come on."

The policeman pressed the muzzle of the gun into Lovejoy's ribs, and the procession wound its way to the house which late had seen so much revelry. On the way across the yard, President Swenker said, snarling, "This is going to cost you a pretty penny, Lovejoy."

Lovejoy swallowed dryly. "I don't have any money, sir."

"You'll work it out," President Swenker said, "if it takes twenty years."

Lovejoy swallowed once more.

"Also," President Swenker said, "you've got to get a wig."

"A what, sir?"

"A wig! A wig!"

"Yes, sir," said Lovejoy.

Just as they got to the foot of the stairs leading to Lovejoy's house, Carlton Swenker came sailing around the corner on a bright, shiny bicycle, much too large for him.

"Carlton!" thundered the president. Carlton stopped. The entire procession stopped.

"Carlton," shouted President Swenker, "where did you get that bicycle?"

"I bought it, Daddy," said Carlton.

President Swenker swung. Carlton dropped senseless to the ground. Then the president started up the steps, followed by the procession, all careful to avoid treading on the slight young figure lying in the dust.

The president threw open the door and strode in. Everyone marched in after him. Lovejoy looked at the two beds. They were empty. The room was torn as though several cavalry charges had been conducted in it, and there were bottles strewn around like a brewers' picnic, and the landlady was whimpering as she jotted down new damage on her pad of paper, but the room was empty.

"Well," President Swenker turned on Lovejoy. "Where are the two gentlemen?"

"Watch him, André!" the landlady cried to the policeman. "It's a trick."

"Perhaps in the next room," Lovejoy said without hope.

Silently the entire party went into the next room. The same dismal and complete desolation, but no Calonius brothers. The party went back into the main room. Lovejoy walked over to the large Italian wardrobe. "They took all the woolen underwear," he said aimlessly.

"All right," President Swenker said, "now we can get down to cases. You have two alternatives. You can stand trial before Syrian justice or you can guarantee to stay in this town and work out all damages, down to the last penny, no matter how long it takes. How long," the president addressed the policeman with the gun, "do you think they'd be likely to give him in jail?"

"Thirty years," the policeman said promptly.

"I'll pay," Lovejoy said.

It took until 3:30 that afternoon before all the claims were in and added up. All in all, it came to 374 pounds, 27. At his present rate of pay, eating only twice a day, Lovejoy figured that he might be able to pay off his debt and be released to go home to America in seven more years.

He signed an agreement all round, for which a lawyer was called in, making it 377,27. The policeman with the gun gave him a cigar and suddenly he was left alone, in the wreckage of his home.

Lovejoy sat down and sighed. He lit the cigar the policeman had given him and stared at the empty bottles.

• • •

Month followed month after that, and the horrible episode of the Calonius brothers began to seem to Lovejoy like an aimless and sudden visitation, a senseless plague, a purge by evil, outside the control of man. His hair grew back and except for a little fright with Irina, who imagined for several days that she was pregnant with twins, Lovejoy went along as before, although every hour was tempered by bitter poverty and the knowledge that his deliverance might take as long as Jacob's.

By the time he could part his hair again, he had almost completely forgotten the Californians on the bicycles.

Then one day ...

He was reading The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, with Lawrence in the hands of the Turks, when, in the distance, he heard his name shouted faintly. He put the book down. "Stanford ..." the voice quavered. "Stan ..."

No, it couldn't be ... He stood up, feeling his upper lip curl back into an atavistic snarl.

"Stanford ..." came the voice.

He hurried down the steps, his legs almost buckling under him. There, in the main road, was a strange caravan. Astride a donkey, wavering from heat, starvation, thirst, exhaustion, supported on both sides by strong men, was Saint Clair Calonius, his eyes sunken, his lips pale and bloodless. And behind him, on another donkey, in exactly the same state, was Roland Calonius.

"Found him in the desert," the driver nearest Lovejoy said. "Just lying there. Nearly dead. Found him ..." with a jerk of the thumb for Roland, "down at the bottom of a well, nearly dead."

Saint Clair smiled horribly at Lovejoy. "Stanford, old boy ..." he whispered hoarsely through cracked lips. "Delighted. See you soon as we get out of the hospital. Old boy ..."

Lovejoy's heart sank and the tears came to his eyes. He walked unsteadily back to Roland.

"Stanford, old boy ..." Roland put out a frail hand, held Lovejoy's shoulder. "Glad to see you. Soon as we get out of the hospital." He leaned over drunkenly, whispered into Lovejoy's ear. "Gotta do me a favor ..."

"Not in a million ..."

"Gotta. That sonofabitch threw me into a well. Can't get away with it. Brother or no brother. Stanford, old man, go into town and buy me the biggest, sharpest spring knife you can find, five-inch blade. Leave it in that wardrobe in your house. Top drawer. When we get out of hospital. First move he makes ... The throat ..." Roland made a horrible, murderous noise. "Show sonofabitch can't throw me into any well. Stanford, old boy, don't shake your head ..."

Suddenly Lovejoy stopped shaking his head. A slow, ecstatic look came into his eye, then died. "I can't buy you anything," he said. "I haven't got a penny."

Roland pushed drunkenly into a pocket, brought out a handful of notes, stuffed them into Lovejoy's hand. "Money no object ..." He swooned and the two strong men held him up. Lovejoy put the money carefully into his wallet and walked up to Saint Clair.

"Anything I can do for you?" he asked in a clear, vibrant voice.

Saint Clair looked around him with lunatic caution. "One thing, old boy," he said. "That sonofabitch Roland thinks I threw him into well. Wants to kill me. Nobody can do that to me." He fished wearily in a pocket, brought out a fistful of bills, peered around him warily. "Go down, old boy, and buy me one .45 revolver with seven bullets. Leave it in that wardrobe where you kept the Johnnie Walker. Top drawer. Then when we get back from hospital ... First move sonofabitch makes. Seven slugs."

Stanford gravely put the money in his wallet.

"Listen, Stanford," Saint Clair leaned anxiously and crazily off the donkey, "you'll do this little thing for me, won't you ...?"

"Gladly," Lovejoy said in an even, firm voice.

"Good old Stan ..." Saint Clair collapsed and the two drovers had to hold him up, as the caravan wound its way toward the hospital.

Lovejoy watched the donkeys disappear down the street, then walked swiftly into town and bought the best spring knife he could find and an excellent, brand-new .45 revolver with seven cartridges.

There was considerable money left over and he bought three bottles of Johnnie Walker.

He went back to his home and emptied the top drawer of the wardrobe and placed the gun and knife neatly side by side. Then he soaped the drawer, so that no one would have any difficulty in opening it, even in a great hurry.

Then he sat down and waited for the Calonius brothers to come out of the hospital. He poured himself a large drink. He took a good swig of the whisky and smiled a little.