I wrote Abdul’s letter, but not without a certain somatic recalcitrance. My back ached as I bent over the too-small desk. My head ached in the fumes of the oil lamp. My eyes, even when I closed them for a moment, stung in the feathery penumbra behind my lids. My face felt scarlet in the lamplight, as if I had a fever.

Certainly it was no concern of mine, as Qazwini had correctly observed, if Abdul’s fief or province or whatever it was got an army. Yet I wanted no part in getting him one, or of placing such power in his dirty hands. I saw myself as Harry Truman, drafting the paper that ordained the devastation of Hiroshima, a vision that was palpably absurd, yet persistently approximate. Do not most countries (with the possible exception of Switzerland and the Vatican) sport an army only in order to use it? I pitied the poor Assos on the verge of conscription, the tools and toys of a bullheaded butcher, this student of mayhem who had flunked civilization, who was now in the process of inventing a perilous future for them.

And I still felt I was being watched in the night.

“Somebody’s out there,” I said, glancing up at Val from the letter I had written.

“It’s your imagination,” she said. “Don’t let him gong you.”

“Abdul’s not gonging me,” I said irritably, “and neither is Qazwini. It’s just,” I rubbed my eyes; they were as rough as stucco, “I haven’t been sleeping lately.”

“They’ve been destroying you, even when you sleep, starting with your teeth. You grind them all night long.”

“Bad dreams.”

“Sure,” she said, “well, let me tell you something: it’s getting to me. When you started grinding, a couple of weeks ago, I’d put a finger in your mouth, and you’d relax. Last night…” she held up a red and swollen finger as evidence, “you damned near bit it off.”

“Sorry.”

She shrugged. I lifted the sheet from the platen of the typewriter, reading:

Headquarters, General Staff

Israeli Defense Force

Jerusalem, Israel

Sirs:

Invoking the comity of nations, coupled with a deep regard for your country and a personal admiration for its leaders, we are prepared to seek the expertise of our Israeli friends in the task of establishing an infantry brigade for Assama, Iraq.

Pursuant to that goal, it is our wish to promote the earliest convocation of a conference between your representative(s) and ours, to take place on Assaman soil, with the purpose of exploring ways and means of effectuating a military arm including subsystems and ancillaries, technologies and instruction in all categories that comprise a highly efficient and tactically sound land force. We therefore respectfully request the attendance of an officer, of not less than field rank and of your choosing, under whose guidance our aspirations might become a reality.