A Bit Over The Top

Back from the Big Apple and the hemp wars, along with two nice skirt and blouse ensembles and leaving one relieved son. Some relaxation was in order, and I was happily ensconced in a bubble bath, re-reading Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, when Irving poked his head in.

"There's been a spot of trouble."

"Well, deal with it." I was at an interesting part of the novel.

"It's Miss Hatt," Irving continued, ignoring me completely. "She needs a place to stay for a few days. To recover from Saudi Arabia."

Now my curiosity was piqued. "She told me she was going to the West Indies for a vacation. What the hell was she doing in The Kingdom?"

"That Miss Hatt can tell you herself. She's downstairs in the kitchen. She,... er... needed some patching up. And a shower. But I did get the bullet out."

"Oh bloody hell," I said, rising, I hoped, like some Venus from the foam. Irving handed me a large towel, oblivious to any of my charms, such as they were. We have known each other for a long time. "Right. let's see just what kind of mess Tilly Hatt has gotten herself into this time."

A few minutes later, in jeans and T shirt, (the one that reads "My England Includes Calais") I headed for the kitchen. There I beheld a rather bedraggled Matilda Hatt, pride of the CIA, clutching a formidable Laphroaig in one hand. The other was bandaged up to the arm. Irving had also taken some liberties with my wardrobe, to wit, a pair of shorts and my German T shirt, the one that reads "Der Tage ende; Johhny Walker Kommt."

I seized the bottle, and poured myself a good dollop. Nothing like drinking an peat-ridden anchor to bring perspective on things.

"Well?" I said, seating myself opposite her. "This was your vacation? In Saudi Arabia?"

"It was something I wanted to do," she replied, a tinge of defiance in her voice. "I thought it would be a great idea to do a little information dissemination."

"Information dissemination."

"Yes," she replied, pushing a strand of blond hair away from her eye. "I brought some samples back. Look in that knapsack in the corner.

I did so, and withdrew several texts, all the same. In Arabic.

"Simone, you read and speak Arabic, don't you?"

"Well, I'm not Ibn Khuldun, but let me see -- Good God! You were swanning around The Kingdom distributing these? You're bloody lucky you've still got your head on."

The text I held was entitled Life and Death. By Andrea Dworkin. Andrea Dworkin! The ultimate, no holds barred feminist. Irving once told me that any man reading this would feel he was eating barbed wire. A Saudi male would go ballistic.

"Why on earth --"

"Actually," Tilly said, "there's no place better on earth to do this. And I got a lot of the texts out. It's amazing what you can do in a full body naqib. Bloody invisible, you are."

"But then it all went south."

"Yeah. And so did I. In a hurry. To Yemen. Hooked up with one of the clans that we've done some business with in the past. But then we ran across another clan that we didn't do business with, and there was a wee tussle. That's where I picked up this." She pointed to her bandaged arm. "Couldn't really attend to it there, and things moved very fast after that. Long story short, I need to hang out for a few days.

"And Langley?"

"As far as they're concerned, I'm still in the West Indies."

Well, Tilly, mi casa su casa. But you really have to stop all this Don Quixote stuff, even if you're doing it on your own time. Let's keep things sane. I mean it."

"I know you do, but Simone, since you brought up Quixote, there's something else that's worth remembering."

"What's that?"

"It was, as I recall, Cervantes who wrote, "Too much sanity may be madness, and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be."

And I found myself schooled.