The Milk Moon Assassin by L A Couriel

Author:L A Couriel [Couriel, L A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CACD
Published: 2020-01-04T16:00:00+00:00

Another time, it was more than a matter of ants.

“Where’ve you been?” Moshe insisted on knowing. “Where did you disappear to without a trace?”

Hamdan spun a thick column of smoke that failed to camouflage his prideful smile. With his left arm stretched crosswise across his belly and supporting his right elbow, he radiated mastery and confidence.

“Where were you?” Moshe asked again, his eyes narrowed.

“I was in Baghdad,” Hamdan answered mildly.

“Baghdad? What’s in Baghdad for you to do?”

“For us,” Hamdan emphasized, pleased with the effect of his words, “there are things to do all over the world. We Arabs can travel—by car, Moshe, by car—from country to country. We can travel from here to the Atlantic Ocean by car. I can come back from Morocco and Algeria by way of Egypt and then onward from Israel to Jordan and Iran or even Pakistan. I can take a taxi to anywhere I like. The whole world lies open to me. I’m not stuck like you, up on a hill and hardly budging.” Dark channels lengthened the line of his eyelashes.

Moshe whistled softly and asked, “What were you doing in Baghdad? It’s a war zone, isn’t it?”

Hamdan waved his hand dismissively. “I have a son there. One you don’t know. Another son. It’s a long story. He’s there learning to be an engineer.” Hamdan was gratified that the surprise information raised the eyebrows of his Jewish friend.

“And what did you learn there yourself?” Moshe taunted. Hamdan’s formal education was no broader than the space between his eyelids.

“I wasn’t learning, I was teaching. I taught those Baghdadis a lesson,” Hamdan chuckled. “Listen. I went there for my son’s graduation from the University of Technology. He’s the smartest. Number one in his class. A Palestinian, right? So I set out straight from Amman by taxi. Six hundred miles as the crow flies, from Amman all the way to Baghdad. Six hundred miles of road without a single Jewish soldier, what a pleasure… So I’m riding and riding, and the desert feels good to me. Quiet. Unspoiled. I wouldn’t mind stopping to get me a camel and roam around for fifty years. So I’m riding and all the time I’m turning the question over, what will I make for my son, right? A graduation gives you an appetite, and not for just walking into some restaurant. That’s too ordinary. Now, it’s true that Baghdad is full of good fat fish from the river, but I know that my poor kid, who hasn’t eaten a man’s meal for some years now, has got to be hungry for mutton. Real mutton from a wood-fired oven or roasted outdoors. As soon as I arrived, I got out where I saw that a butcher shop had a yard full of fat sheep. The butcher walked me around the yard, and I picked out a ram. A good fat one.”

“It had to be a ram?”

“A ram has no bad smell. Nothing but taste. Full of taste. Bear that in mind: real

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