Running of the Bulls

When her egg-and-mushroom scramble comes, Jajett digs in as if she has not eaten for days. For all I know, she has not, though she is pretty enough to make you think she would have scared up a little business somewhere.

She finishes fast. The dishwashers will not need to do much with her plate before they push it out again. She sends me a bright, hard smile. “Now what?” she asks.

If things were different, I might take her back to my flat, and you can draw your own pictures of what would go on after that. But things are the way they are. I am almost as good as the docs said I would be before the ether-soaked rag came down over my snout and they starting carving on me. Since things are the way they are, almost as good is not quite good enough.

Besides, those brandies buzz like wasps inside my head. I give back a smile just like hers, only I have better teeth. “How about we go for a ride, doll?” I tell her.

Jajett smiles some more. “How about we do?” she says. She does not even ask where. I pay the bill. I leave a tip over and above the service charge they tack on hoping you will not notice. We walk out into the night together as if we have known each other for years. Flagging a cab is the easiest thing in the world.

Some places, you go to eat. If you want to do some drinking, too, you can. Other places, you go to drink. If you want to do some eating, too, well, again, you can. The food will not be so good as at a proper eatery. But if you have already been drinking for a while, you do not much care.

We go from the first kind of place to the second kind. As we are about to walk in, they throw a drunk out. He already has blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, so he is a disorderly drunk. When he staggers to his feet—they really give him the bum’s rush—he looks ready to tangle with anybody he can get his hands on.

I am the closest anybody handy. I have been known to fight a drunk or three in my time. It settles your supper and aids the digestion. But I do not get to tangle with this one. Jajett yells something at him so filthy that I understand only a quarter of it, and I speak Ecnarfish pretty damn well, let me tell you. The bit I do get is the nice part, too.

If a man said anything like that to me, I would kill him. I would have to, or break every mirror I own. No judge, no court, could blame me. Chances are they would hang a gong around my neck on a red ribbon to show I committed a public service.

You cannot go around killing women, no matter what they say. It gets you talked about. The disorderly drunk shrivels up and lurches away, all his pride and temper blown to hell and gone. We stroll into The Gilded Peasant. Or maybe it is Pheasant—I never can remember.

Already inside are half a dozen friends and acquaintances of mine. I am anything but surprised. I always expect to run into people I know there. The place caters to expatriates, and to their money.

I am still saying hello and how are you and what have you been up to when Jajett gets into a screaming row with the proprietor’s daughter. Unlike the disorderly drunk, the daughter gives as well as she gets. She knows a working girl when she sees one. She is not shy about going into detail on that score, either. Jajett points out that an innkeeper’s daughter is not like to be able to brag about her virtue.

Things quickly roll downhill from there. The daughter and Jajett both seem to be having a rare old time. Since they do, I get the proprietor to pour me a brandy. Then I go back to my friends.

Pointing toward the two gals still slanging away at each other, Ett Brashli says, “You always did know how to liven up an evening, didn’t you, Baek?”

“Never a dull moment when I’m around,” I agree, and knock back half the brandy at a gulp. I did not look for Lady Ett to be here tonight.

She is a noblewoman from across the Sleeve, which is what they call the channel between Dunlin and Ecnarf. She likes it better here than she does in Dunlin. That is what makes an expat, I suppose. I sure like it better here than I do back in Dubyook.

When I first came to Sirap, right after the war ended, I felt lower than if I were still in a trench. I had just found out that the sawbones’ almost was not good enough, and that it did not look as if it ever would be good enough. Not the kind of thing to lift a man’s spirits.

But when I met Ett Brashli, it did not seem to matter. She did not seem to care. She cared about me, not about the almost. The way I was then, that seemed a bigger miracle than any of the ones the preachers go on about in the temples. That she cared about me made me care about myself, which I had quit doing. Ett Brashli is one of those people who are good for other people. There are never enough people like that, dammit. Never.