Too early the next morning hungover from dawn, shikkerthirsty Abulafias II and III in matching tatarplaid golf outfits ring at the door of Die’s penthouse, luxury you should be so lucky (second only to the Presidential Suite at the Q’asino Q’apitolina, it’s hushingly said, presently occupied by the Shush of Iran, here in Palestein to make a bid on a Transjordanian masstransit contract), excusing the absence of their father, Abulafia I, Prophet and lately King of Palestein, in their most wretchedly obsequious idiom. A thousand apologies they say with their hands, a million of these tendering the most sincere of regrets, the other ups the ante, they’re not invited in. Die stands at the threshold sick. Keep your kopf together, he’s thinking, there’s a war on. Could I get a glass of water and an aspirin? Abulafia III asks, then spits like the Bactrian he’s importing for tandem competition; it’s waiting for him grazing on the tarmac at the aeroport in Ramallah. We’re not mercenaries he means, or not totally, II interrupts his brother’s dribbly reverie to say, scratching him to attention under his three days’ worth of stubble. Is it Shade? Die asks as if he didn’t know, him you’re afraid of, there are ways of dealing with him. It’s everybody, III says, alerted, who are we against them? Nobody, his brother answers for him, and so what should we do? Make as much profit as we can, III stares at Hamm passedout a soil on the carpet, reminds himself to have a talk with which numbered sister of his down in housekeeping, while we can, he means, his brother saves again, and then be gone, III finishes the thought to think no more, it hurts too much, cradles his chin as if to lull to sleep the vomit. What’s happening, what’s going on? Die’s asking on the return flight that afternoon, routed through Washington for a report back to Shade not just polite but required; he surges down the aisle, storms turbulence at the stewardess who’s headached Hamm in drag, half at least with the mini hat but without the miniskirt now that who can afford to keep a staff anymore. If I’m not for myself, who’ll be for me? But if I’m only for myself — futz me, I forget…forget it. Have the Hymies taken over? What’s wrong with a world that rejects its own Messiah — especially when He’s been positioned so well? Frontrow, seated on the aisle — asking, what kind of End Times are we living in, anyway?
