Baba-Shawarma

Part II of V.

We walk out of the park meeting no one.

“You need food,” I tell her. She nods. There is a shawarma stand near-by. An elderly middle-eastern woman sits playing bejeweled on her iphone.

“Hello, do you speak English?” I ask.

“A little,” the woman tells me, in Russian. She looks to me, then the woman beside me. She scowls at the jacket wrapped around the otherwise naked woman.

“My sister?” I say, hopefully, awkwardly. The old woman shakes her head.

“Kebab?” I ask. The woman puts her phone down and walks into her booth. I turn back in time to watch my companion fall to the ground.

“Shit,” I bend down over her. “Help!” I call to the elderly woman. She shuffles out of her stand and comes to crouch down beside me.

“Police?” I say.

The elderly woman shakes her head, seriously. She bends closer over my unconscious companion. She peels open one of her eyes, spits in it, then, presses her hand down on the closed lid. I straighten up and light a cigarette, pacing.

“Is she okay?” I ask. The elderly woman shakes her head slowly.

“No, you must bring her to the house of the sun.”

I stop pacing. “The what?”

“The house of the sun, my nephew. But, you must go when he is out and tell his mother that her elder sister has sent you. She may be able to help you. But remember, you must go while the sun is in the sky. Give me your phone.”

I hand the elderly woman my phone. I finish my cigarette. She hands my phone back.

“I’ve ordered you an UBER,” she tells me. She goes back into her booth and comes out with a jar of shawarma sauce.

“Give this to my sister, so she knows I have sent you.”

I take the jar. I bend down and drag the unconscious girl onto a bench to wait. The old lady is staring at her, thinking.

“I promise, it’s not what it looks like,” I say.

The shawarma lady shrugs, “life rarely is.”

A few minutes later, a man on a horse; a great shaggy bay, three ells in length, his tail three fathoms, and his hair three colors. Atop the horse, a broad shouldered man called out, “I am Ilya of Murom and this is my steed, Cloudfall.”

I look at the old lady, then back at Ilya.

“Brilliant,” I sigh, tossing the unconscious girl up on the horse’s rear and climb on. The old lady tosses me up the jar of shawarma sauce.

“When you say house of the sun, you mean?” I call down to her.

She points up at the sky.

“Right,” I sigh, slipping my arms around the large man’s mid-section.

TO BE CONTINUED…