The Bad Muslim Discount

by Syed M. Masood

  Ignoring my instructions and any concern she felt for her own safety, Zuha had turned her car around the moment I called about Abu Fahd and driven back to my place. She had helped Azza escape the apartment, probably moments before Abu Fahd arrived.

  “That was very brave,” the agent told her.

  “Thank you.”

  “Though it was also very reckless, sweetheart. You should have listened to your man.”

  I was familiar enough with the narrowing of Zuha’s eyes to know that an irritated response was coming, so I squeezed her hand as a reminder of where we were. She gave me the annoyed glare the agent had earned but contented herself by thanking him again, though more sarcastically.

  “Your actions did save the life of Azza bint Saqr. As I am sure you already know, Ms. Saqr was an important witness—though now she is a person of interest—so I suppose you did the right thing by preserving her life.”

  “That’s why I did it. To help you guys.”

  It was the agent’s turn to look annoyed. “Are you trying to be funny, Ms. Shah?”

  “She isn’t,” I assured him. “I’m in charge of doing all the jokes. We decided that earlier.”

  “I can see Agent Moray was right about you, Mr. Faris. I can tell you that I don’t have the patience he does with nonsense. So if you would be so kind as to instruct the little lady to give us the location of Ms. Saqr, we’ll bring her in for questioning and you two can be on your way.”

  I smiled at Zuha. “Well, ‘little lady,’ do you know where exactly Azza is right now?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Are you, then, unable to answer the agent’s question without speculating as to her whereabouts?”

  “Yes.”

  “As you can see, my client doesn’t have the information you require.”

  “Very droll, Mr. Faris. Ms. Shah, could you please tell me where you last saw Azza bint Saqr?”

  “In Sacramento,” Zuha said. “At the train station on I Street.”

  “Did you buy her a train ticket?”

  “No.”

  “Where was she going?”

  “I didn’t ask. It didn’t seem like any of my business.”

  “Where do you think she was going, Ms. Shah?”

  “She’s not going to make blind guesses for you,” I said.

  “Yes,” Zuha agreed, her tone all sugar and honey. “I don’t want to guess. That’d be reckless.”

  * * *

  —

  Zuha and I stood in the darkness together, waiting for her parents to come pick her up. There was no moon and no stars that I could see. My freshly charged phone kept buzzing in my pocket, but I ignored it.

  “Is that your mom?” Zuha asked, when the fourth call came through.

  I hadn’t checked, but the persistence was a bit of a giveaway.

  “Probably.”

  “You should answer.”

  “I will.”

  She nodded, and then we fell silent again.

  “Are we okay?” I asked eventually. “You and me?”

  She turned to face me. “You should’ve told me about Azza from the start.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “She said I couldn’t steal you away from her, because you can’t steal what already belongs to you. She reminded me that the last time you two were intimate was before you saw me again. Is that true?”

  I frowned and thought back, unsure.

  Zuha shook her head. “You didn’t even realize what you were doing? Or not doing?”

  I shrugged. I’d never lied to Zuha, not about anything important, and this seemed like a poor time to start. “No. I really didn’t.”

  “I think that may almost be sweet.”

  “You’re welcome?”

  “Don’t push it.”

  I grinned and waited for her to go on. But she didn’t. She just looked at me, obviously expecting me to speak.

  I didn’t know what to say. The simple truth was that I had never loved anyone the way I loved Zuha Shah. I fell short when I tried to find the right words, pretty words, smart words, to express that. It was like Aamir’s favorite author, Shakespeare, wrote, you can’t force a heart into a throat.

  “Well?” Zuha prompted after a while.

  “I can’t think of anything to say that isn’t melodramatic.”

  “Who cares?”

  “I do. It’s too complicated to explain and way too sentimental to say out loud. I feel ridiculous even trying.”

  “Yesterday you did a whole riff on life and time.”

  “Yeah, but I just said it. I didn’t think about it or, you know, compose it. It makes me feel like…I don’t know, John Donne.”

  “Seriously? John Donne?”

  “Sorry. Were we ever the gushy, word-salad, sweet-nothings people?”

  “I guess not.”

  “So, back to my original question, are we good?”

  “It’s a little hard to be upset with you after you went and got yourself shot at. A world without you in it…Anvar, I can’t imagine it.”

  “Me neither,” I said. When she didn’t laugh, I reached out and took her hands. “Look, I will say this. Azza said something that’s been bothering me. She told me that there is no beauty left in this world.”

  “Poor girl.”

  “She’s not wrong, you know. Sometimes that is how life feels. It’s like there is nothing good, nothing noble, nothing precious left. Everywhere I look there is only pain and struggle and just a shadow over everything. You should know that I never feel that way when I am with you. You’re the light of my world. You make the universe beautiful.”

  Zuha’s eyes were as bright then as they had been the first time I kissed her. She stepped up to me and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Why can’t you be this sweet all the time?”

  “Because it’s just not a Donne thing.”

  She was still smiling when her lips captured mine.

  * * *

  —

  I made my way out into the darkness alone. Zuha’s parents had offered to drive me home, but I’d demurred. That option presented more potential awkwardness than I was prepared to deal with just then. I assured them that I was fine, and they left me to my own devices.

  I began to walk, not knowing where I wanted to go.

  It is strange, wandering in a city you are intimately familiar with, because even when you don’t know exactly where you are, you never feel lost. You always know, more or less, how to get back home.

  I wondered if Azza had ever felt this sense of security anywhere she’d walked. I doubt she ever belonged to a place in that way. It was a small thing, especially given everything that had happened, but I found myself inexplicably crying over it. I leaned against a dirty wall that smelled faintly like old piss and let myself weep.

  Footsteps approached. I tried to stop the tears, but couldn’t, which made no sense, because I’d been fine moments before, and with Zuha I’d been glad, even articulate, but now my hands were trembling, and I felt like I needed to sit down.

  I heard the scrape and rattle of old shopping cart wheels on concrete. A man pushing a cart loaded with a green coat, a few books and what were probably all his belongings in the world limped up to me. He was almost past me when he looked back. “Spare change?”

  I gave him all the money I had on me.

  “God bless you.”

  I smiled and he nodded before pushing his cart away from me. As he faded into the distance, I heard him singing. I couldn’t be sure exactly what song he had chosen, but echoing through the empty streets and deserted, shuttered buildings, it sounded like “Ave Maria.”

  It made me want to go to the mosque. I wasn’t sure where else to go. My apartment was a crime scene. I could, obviously, have gone to my parents’ house, but I did
not feel up to answering their questions.

  How would I explain Azza or Abu Fahd or Qais? Though, if I knew Aamir, he would already have gotten them up to speed, having taken care to put himself in the best possible light, of course.

  There wasn’t a lot of good light to go around. Agent Hale had been right. I’d made mistakes and a man was dead because of them. A man who had broken, under pressures I could not comprehend, much less grasp, in the wrong way, in the wrong place. I suppose I should’ve been glad that he was dead, because if he were still around, I might not be. However, no part of my heart felt like celebrating.

  In the Bollywood movies my father watched when I was a child, when the injustice of the world became overwhelming, I remembered heroes railing at Hindu gods in their temples. Demanding and receiving justice. That was exactly what I intended to do.

  Yes, I was alive and Azza was alive and Zuha was alive, and all that was good, but it felt all wrong, like there should have been a different ending, a happier ending, to all the suffering Abu Fahd had caused and endured. God alone could tell me why a man who could’ve been good had been tortured by the world, until his better nature had finally crumbled like a rock crushed beneath forces it could not withstand. I wanted to demand answers from Him.

  It was only when I reached the mosque that I remembered Muslims don’t get to do that.

  Standing in the prayer hall, in the middle of the night, I was seized by an impulse to scream, to vent my confusion, to make it a real and tangible thing by burning out my voice and turning my throat raw and parched.

  However, there was nothing to scream at there. There were no icons or idols and God…well, God does not show himself to the likes of me.

  So I stood before Him.

  I was silent. I did not complain.

  I know He saw me. He knew that I was there, in that place, at that moment.

  I know He heard the beating of my heart. I know He saw how it was carved.

  It was almost enough.

  * * *

  —

  “Wake up, my brother. Wake up.”

  I opened my eyes. For a moment, I couldn’t remember where I was, and then I realized that I had fallen asleep in the mosque. Then my eyes focused on the man who was kneeling before me, a small, grim smile on his face.

  “Imam Sama?”

  “It is not a good thing to sleep in a place of worship, Anvar. Did no one ever tell you this?”

  “Is it time for morning prayers?”

  “Not yet. We have to wait awhile for the sun to rise.”

  “Why are you awake?”

  “I came to pray. I could not sleep after Qais Badami left.”

  I sat up, all thoughts of sleep gone. “Sheikh, do you know where he is?”

  The Imam shrugged. “He said that the police were trying to find him because he was illegal. He wanted to see if there was any charity money I could give him because he needed cash.”

  “Was there?”

  The Imam gave me a long stare.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Not my concern.”

  “Yes. Well, it is a very sad thing about Qais. He is a good man.”

  “That isn’t what I’ve heard.”

  “I know nothing ill of him. Qais was good for the community. Always willing to lend a hand around the mosque. Some of the elderly brothers in homes, you know, with no children to care for them? Qais was helping many of them with their shopping and other chores. A kind soul is gone from among us.”

  I almost asked him if Qais had been charging those people, or if they’d trusted him with any valuables, but I didn’t. Instead, I took a deep breath, trying to find some measure of calm. Incense lingered in the air. It smelled like Arabic tastes. Familiar yet holy, a kiss from a great love.

  I reminded myself that the Imam didn’t know what Qais had done to Azza. He was just speaking what little truth he knew. I was about to tell him, but just the thought of doing so reminded me how tired I was of telling stories. There would be time enough for that later.

  “I don’t know, Sheikh. I don’t think you really knew him. Maybe we can’t ever really know anybody at all.”

  “That is a cancerous thought, my brother.”

  “I suppose it is.”

  “We are responsible only for our souls, not for his.” The Imam got to his feet and held out a hand, offering to help me up. “So come. Have you not heard? Prayer is better than sleep.”

  * * *

  —

  Imam Sama called my family to let them know where I was. After the dawn prayer, a familiar old silver Camry pulled up in front of the mosque. I was expecting my father. Instead, my mother had come to retrieve me. She was not wearing any makeup and, instead of her usually meticulous hijab, she had a dupatta loosely wrapped around her head. She looked older than I’d ever seen her look.

  I took the passenger seat and grimaced.

  “How does it still smell like goat in here?”

  My mother did not answer as we began to move; instead she chose to ask a question of her own.

  “Did they hurt you?”

  “No, Mom. They just wanted to ask me some questions.”

  “I know how that feels.”

  I chuckled lightly at that and braced myself for a barrage of hostile inquiries.

  Instead I got silence.

  We drove through the still-sleeping city, my mother focused on the convoluted, hilly streets, where she never felt comfortable driving. Her brow was furrowed, either in concentration or in anger or both. Occasionally, she muttered something about how confusing one-way streets were, or she swerved unnecessarily to dodge a distant red trolley.

  “Why didn’t Dad come pick me up?”

  She pressed her lips together. “I am not a bad mother.”

  “I don’t think you’re a bad mother. I do think you’re a bad driver.”

  “Your father said it. He dared say it to me. To me. He dared.”

  I held my peace.

  “Well?” Bariah Faris demanded. “What do you think?”

  “I think you did fine, Ma.”

  “Exactly what I said. You’re alive, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “You’re welcome. Anyway, your father said I should pick you up, so we could talk.”

  “What on earth are we going to talk about?”

  She let out a long-suffering sigh. “This. This thing. This being funny thing you do. It is very annoying.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You’ve always been your father’s son, you know that?”

  “You never liked him much either, did you?”

  A smile tickled the corners of her mouth.

  “Don’t talk nonsense.”

  “You can take the 80 from here, Ma.”

  She nodded and turned on her indicator, preparing to make the turn I’d pointed out.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about Zuha?”

  “You want to talk about Zuha?”

  “What else?”

  “There is a dead man in my apartment.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “No.”

  My mother shrugged. “Then I don’t see how that is my problem. My problem is that you’ve been screwing around—”

  “Literally,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Anvar Faris!”

  I held up my hands. “I’m sorry. Of course, I didn’t tell you about Zuha, Ma. You would’ve killed me.”

  “What? I would have taken a cleaver and made minced meat out of you?”

  “It seemed possible.”

  “Okay. I might have done that, but then Aamir wouldn’t have had to go through all this nonsense. Our noses would not have been cut off in front of all our relatives. And the Shahs? Did you consider at all how it would affect their reputa
tion?”

  “I don’t care, Mom.”

  “How can you not care?”

  “Because a man I knew is dead. His daughter, my friend, is missing. I don’t know where she is or how she’s going to fend for herself. Mom, you’re being—”

  Ma took her eyes off the road to give me a warning look. “Don’t you—”

  “I know. Don’t dare. Not this time, Ma. I’m going to dare for once. You want to know why I didn’t tell you about Zuha? You want to know why you’re not a bigger part of my life? Because you suffocate me. I can’t breathe when I am around you. All you care about is God and society and Aamir and what people will say. You don’t care about me. You don’t care about what I care about. So I don’t know how to talk to you. I don’t love the things you love, Ma. I’ve never wanted the life that you wanted for me, but you keep foisting it on me. All I want, all I’ve ever wanted…”

  “What? Why will you never tell me what you want then? I did the best I could with you, Anvar. You may not believe me, but I did not want to be disappointed in one of my children. It isn’t my fault you turned out to be whatever it is that you are. I didn’t want you to be a failure.”

  “I’m not a failure.”

  “How? What do you have to show for your life? You don’t have a good job. You don’t have money. You’re not religious. You don’t have a good reputation in the community. People won’t even talk to me about marrying their daughters to you. So, tell me, Anvar, what is it that you have?”

  I looked out the window at the towers of concrete we were going by and shook my head. I’d never before spoken to my mother the way I just had, but she had caught me at a bad time. My soul felt like it had diminished, like the inside of my being had eroded from loss and horror and guilt. I had lost, albeit momentarily, the will to hold back words that had been festering for years.

  All things considered, she’d taken it rather well. I had expected her to raise her voice, to yell, to scream. She had not done much of that. She was not, I realized, surprised. She knew this was how I felt. She’d probably known for some time.

  I let out a deep breath, trying to calm myself. It was the sound that a fire makes when you pour water on it.