The Man Who Limped

"You wonder why I limp, effendi?" Outside a coffee-shop in the Holy City, Hamed bin Ayyub, seventy-two years old, calls for pipes and coffee and begins the one story he has never told a traveller. Fifty years ago he was a handsome, prosperous perfumer with a shop in Jerusalem, cautious with money and sure he understood every trick of the heart. Then Salamah began to sing on the neighbouring rooftop.

Her story promises forbidden love and flight to Damascus. On the desert road romance turns into an ingenious and merciless reckoning, and by the time Hamed learns who has been deceiving whom, every coin, every camel and even his own limbs have acquired a price. Otis Adelbert Kline's darkly comic tale first appeared in Oriental Stories in 1930.