SADIQ:
Special today—(holds up perfume bottle) Obsession. Very nice for send to girlfriend.
MERCER:
No, thanks …
SADIQ:
Yes, you very smart. Not real Obsession, is only from Cairo.
Pause.
You want more picture? Very expensive. More than before.
MERCER:
Right.
SADIQ:
For you, I get real good. Best price.
MERCER:
Yeah? Let’s see.
SADIQ pulls out photographs. MERCER studies them intently as SADIQ shows him each one.
No. No. No. Yes. No. No. Yes. (Beat)
This woman—she looks dead.
SADIQ:
Pretend. Acting.
MERCER:
How do you know?
SADIQ:
Salim, my boss, he say no one gets hurt.
MERCER:
Better than the real thing, eh?
SADIQ:
I do not understand.
MERCER:
Just a joke, kid. How much for the three?
SADIQ:
One hundred US dollars.
MERCER:
Forget it, man.
SADIQ:
What you say, boss. (he begins to put photographs away)
MERCER:
I’ll give you fifty. Canadian.
SADIQ:
Purple fish? For beg and steal from Salim? Then I never go to Kansas.
MERCER:
Seventy-five.
SADIQ:
Ho, for you, OK. Seven five.
MERCER:
Special offer, huh?
SADIQ:
What?
MERCER:
You’re giving me a deal, eh?
SADIQ:
What is your name?
MERCER:
Mercer.
SADIQ:
Mercer. I am Sadiq.
MERCER:
Sadiq?
SADIQ:
Sadiq. Yes, we make deal. Seven five purple fish.
MERCER:
Here, Sadiq.
Hands SADIQ money.
SADIQ:
Look, I have nice envelope for picture. Customer is always right.
MERCER:
Yeah.
Pause.
MERCER:
What are you doing?
SADIQ:
Look at water. Beautiful.
My brother is over there (he points). In West Bank. I not see since I am twelve. You have brother?
MERCER:
How old are you?
SADIQ:
Sixteen.
MERCER:
Sixteen, huh?
SADIQ:
And you?
MERCER:
I’m twenty.
SADIQ:
I am seventeen very soon. One—two month. You skinny to be soldier.
MERCER:
What?
SADIQ:
You very skinny. Americans soldier much more, you know, with beef. Canadian soldier is much less beef, yes?
MERCER:
Well, I don’t know if skinny is the word I’d use but—we’re not all the same, you know.
SADIQ:
You—different. How you different?
MERCER:
I don’t know.
I went to university.
SADIQ:
I do not understand.
MERCER:
Most of these guys, they join up ’cause they got nothing else. Or they want a free education. Not me.
SADIQ:
Why you join?
MERCER:
I wanted to get my shit together. I was at Queen’s University. What a fucking waste of time.
SADIQ:
School. Puh. School is no good.
MERCER:
You’re telling me.
SADIQ:
My brother real good in school. Always top. Now he is in prison.
MERCER:
Oh yeah?
SADIQ:
Here I learn real life. But my father, he know I not go to school, he would break my throat.
MERCER:
Fuck. When I quit school and joined up, my father freaked.
SADIQ:
Freak?
MERCER:
He got really angry.
SADIQ:
For why?
MERCER:
He’s a government big-shot. Makes him look bad, his son’s a stupid soldier.
SADIQ:
Yes. You like me.
MERCER:
What?
SADIQ:
You … like … me.
MERCER:
No I don’t.
SADIQ:
No, I say, “You like me.”
MERCER:
I don’t even know you.
SADIQ:
No, no. Like me. For angry father you join army—come to Qatar. Me also. Work for Salim and go to Kansas.
MERCER:
No. I didn’t join because of him.
SADIQ:
Then why you join?
MERCER:
I told you. I wanted discipline.
A few months