The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro Read Online Free

other, but I did not want to seem tame.
    â€œIt must be morning. Afternoons here are for the siesta,” he said.
    â€œI’d love to go with you.”
    â€œWe leave at eight.”
    â€œI want the fish,” Gräfin said. “Grilled. Tell them no sauce. Small salad. No dressing.”
    She snapped her menu shut. So, in that way, I was informed that I was not a dinner guest. But once again I saw how, in the manner of trying to appear offhand, Haroun was manipulating the situation. Gräfin was indifferent, though, or at least made a show of indifference. She did not look up as I excused myself and left. My audience was over. I had been summoned, I had been dismissed.
    I walked through the upper town, from the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele down the Corso Umberto Primo, where most of the shops and bars were, the ones that catered to foreigners.
    Down an alleyway I found a bar where some older Sicilians sat and smoked, listening to a soccer match being loudly broadcast on a radio. It reminded me of a religious ritual, the way they were seated around the radio with its glowing dial. I sat near them, ordered a bottle of beer and a panino, and I stewed, resenting the fact that my little discussion had taken place at Haroun and Gräfin’s table, and that I had been sent away. My frugal meal was proof that I had very little money and because of that was at the beck and call of these people. So what, I told myself; I could leave at any time: just board the train at the foot of the hill and head east, where life was cheap and cheerful. And somewhere in Palermo, Fabiola was yearning for my love.
    Â 
    Haroun was in the lobby the next day before eight. Gräfin was already in the car. These people were prompt. I imagined that their wealth would have made them more casual. Haroun greeted me and directed me to the front seat, where I would sit next to the driver. This made me feel like an employee, one of Gräfin's staff. But Haroun, too, seemed like an employee.
    We drove through Taormina and down the hill, took a right on the main road, and then another right after a short time, heading upward on a narrow road into the island.
    â€œBustano,” Haroun said. Then he conversed with the driver in a language that was not Italian—and not any language I recognized.
    Haroun laughed in an explosive way, obviously delighted by something the driver had said.
    â€œHe said it will take more than one hour,” Haroun said. “Because, he says, this is a
macchina
and not a flying carpet.”
    â€œWhat is that language?”
    â€œArabic. He is originally from Tunisia.”
    â€œThe
Moro
of the Palazzo d'Oro.”
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œHow do you know Arabic?”
    Gräfin said, “Harry knows everything. I am lost without this man.”
    â€œI can speak English. I can write English,” Haroun said. “I can write on a 'piss' of paper. I can write on a 'shit' of paper.” He made a child's impish face, tightening his cheeks to give himself dimples. He tapped his head.
“Ho imparato Italiano in una settimana. Tutto qui in mio culo. ”
    â€œNow he is being silly.”
    â€œWhere did you learn Arabic?”
    â€œBaghdad,” he said. “But we didn't speak it at home. We spoke English, of course.”
    â€œYou're Iraqi?”
    He winced at my abrupt way of nailing him down, and rather defensively he said, “Chaldean. Very old faith. Nestorian. Even my name, you see. And my people...”
    â€œHe is German,” Gräfin said, and patted his knee as though soothing a child. “He is now one of us. A wicked German.”
    Iraq then was an exotic country which had recently overthrown its king and massacred his whole family, but Baghdad a rich cosmopolitan city, colorful and busy, full of banks and socialites, not the bomb crater it is now.
    â€œAsk him anything.” Gräfm's hand still rested on Haroun's knee. She was looking out the window at