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even with people whom he led to think were his friends.
    “What a camel! What’s his name?”
    “Djemal! Ha-ha!”
    “Used to be Mahmet’s camel!” someone repeated, as if the whole crowd didn’t know that.
    At last Chak burst through. “Djemal! Ho! Stop, Djemal!”
    “Let him have his revenge!” someone yelled.
    “This is terrible!” cried Chak.
    The men surrounded Chak, telling him it wasn’t terrible, telling him they would get rid of the body, somewhere. No, no, no, there was no need to call the police. Absurd! Have some wine, Chak! Even some of the truck drivers had joined them, smiling with sinister amusement at what had happened behind the shed.
    Djemal, head high now, had begun to calm down. He could smell blood along with the stench of Mahmet. Haughtily he stepped over his victim, lifting each foot carefully, and rejoined his master Chak. Chak was still nervous.
    “No, no,” Chak was saying, because the men, all a bit tipsy now, were offering Chak seven hundred and more dinars for Djemal. Chak was shaken by the events, but at the same time he was proud of Djemal, and wouldn’t have parted with him for a thousand dinars at that moment.
    Djemal smiled. He lifted his head and looked coolly through his long-lashed eyes towards the horizon. Men patted his flanks, his shoulders. Mahmet was dead. His anger, like a poison, was out of his blood. Djemal followed Chak, without a lead, as Chak walked away, looking back and calling to him.

There I Was,
Stuck with Bubsy

    Y es, here he was, stuck with Bubsy, a fate no living creature deserved. The Baron, aged sixteen—seventeen?—anyway aged, felt doomed to spend his last days with this plump, abhorrent beast whom the Baron had detested almost since he had appeared on the scene at least ten or twelve years ago. Doomed unless something happened. But what would happen, and what could the Baron make happen? The Baron racked his brain. People had said since he was a pup that his intelligence was extraordinary. The Baron took some comfort in that. It was a matter of strengthening Marion’s hand, difficult for a dog to do, since the Baron didn’t speak, though many a time his master Eddie had told him that he did speak. That was because Eddie had understood every bark and growl and glance that the Baron ever gave.
    The Baron lay on a tufted polka-dot cushion which lined his basket. The basket had an arched top, and even this was lined with tufted polka-dot. From the next room, the Baron could hear laughter, jumbled voices, the clink of a glass or bottle now and then, and Bubsy’s occasional “Haw-ha- haw !” which in the days after Eddie’s death had made the Baron’s ears twitch with hostility. Now the Baron no longer reacted to Bubsy’s guffaws. On the contrary, the Baron affected a languor, an unconcern (better for his nerves), and now he yawned mightily, showing yellowed lower canines, then he settled his chin on his paws. He wanted to pee. He’d gone into the noisy living room ten minutes ago and indicated to Bubsy by approaching the door of the apartment that he wanted to go out. But Bubsy had not troubled himself, though one of the young men (the Baron was almost sure) had offered to take him downstairs. The Baron got up suddenly. He couldn’t wait any longer. He could of course pee straight on the carpet with a damn-it-all attitude, but he still had some decency left.
    The Baron tried the living room again. Tonight there was more than usually a sprinkling of women.
    “O-o-o-oh!”
    “Ah-h-h! There’s the Baron!”
    “Ah, the Baron!” said Bubsy.
    “He wants to go out, Bubsy, for Christ’s sake! Where’s his leash?”
    “I’ve just had him out!” shrieked Bubsy, lying.
    “When? This morning? . . .”
    A young man in thick, fuzzy tweed trousers took the Baron down in the elevator. The Baron made for the first tree at the curb, and lifted a leg slightly. The young man talked to him in a friendly way, and said something about “Eddie.”