He held her gaze for a moment; then his eyes slid away, along the fabulously expensive carpet, over the fabulously expensive sofa, to the even more fabulously expensive view out over Central Park.
“One minute everything, then nothing,” he murmured as much to himself as to her.
“Listen, Gael, I found a very special person on Crete, and then he was gone, as fast as blowing out a candle. And on the way back here I realized that I’d had my father’s love back, at least for a time. Bella has nothing. She was never loved, at least not the way a child should be loved, by her parents. Who, then, will speak for her? Who will save her from whatever has happened to her? Who will save her from herself?”
“What if she’s dead, Laurel? Have you thought of that? You’d be putting yourself in danger for nothing.”
“She’s not dead,” Laurel responded with such utter conviction that Gael would not gainsay her.
Laurel closed her eyes, summoned up her dream, saw Bella, backpack strapped on, walking between the shadows, vanishing into them. Where are you? she whispered to herself. I’m coming. Wherever you are, I’ll find you. I’ll find us.
“Gael,” she said aloud, “time is against me.”
He nodded briskly, as if emerging from a semitrance. “I’ve arranged for your transportation to Dearborn. The most secure, okay. You don’t leave for some hours yet. Which gives us time for a makeover.”
She nodded. “I’m ready.”
He hesitated. “Understand that even though Dey is gone, remnants of his will may remain. People he hired may still be looking for you.”
Laurel touched his cheek, rough as untanned leather. “Ándale, brujo,” she said, rising. “Work your magic on me.”
NINETEEN
Maggie’s overdose and hospitalization came as an unexpected blow to Bella. She felt strange, as if she herself had had some doing in her mother’s collapse, as if she had willed it, as if she had asked her jinn to cast a spell to remove her mother from her life once and for all. Now that it had happened, she felt at once elated and remorseful, as if her private jinn had taken her at her word, had gone one step too far. On the other hand, she felt an unconditional freedom that dazzled her. No restraints! No more excuses, lame though they might be, no more voices raised in anger, no more doors slammed in rage.
She had been with Elin, of course, when Maggie had forced herself to go to the lecture recommended by her doctor. And she had been with Elin when her mom hadn’t come home. When Elin had received a call from Umm, Bella had been on her headphones, perhaps listening for the last time to the music of Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, and Demi Lovato and couldn’t hear Elin’s side of the conversation. Elin had a way of arranging her expression—respectful, astute, and loving—that made it clear who she was talking with. This particular night, however, Elin wasn’t doing much talking, which was odd. Elin’s twice-daily phone conversations with her mother were always on a two-way street. Lots of give and take. Not this night, however. Plus Bella could see that her expression went from sober to grim in about a nanosecond. Bella popped out her earbuds. “What’s up?” she mouthed. To which, also odd, Elin turned away, kept listening to whatever her mother was telling her.
As soon as Elin finished the call, she turned back to Bella. “Your mother has collapsed. She’s in the hospital. Put on your jacket. We’ll go there right away.”
There was silence for some time. Bella made no move.
“I don’t want to go,” Bella said at length. “Really, I don’t. Please don’t make me.”
Elin watched her for flickers of reaction. Was she in shock? Should she heed her charge’s wishes? What would be best for her? She knew the dreadful relationship between daughter and mother better than anyone, possibly even Bella herself. “All right,” she said. “We’ll go to my house.”
“Is Umm okay?” Bella’s concern was for Elin’s family. She loved them with all her heart. She felt dispossessed in her own house, far more comfortable at Elin’s, where lately she had been spending a good deal of her time, to Maggie’s relief as she sank further and further from reality into a land of shadows and malevolent phantoms.
“Umm is fine.” Elin put her arm around Bella’s shoulders. “Now, let’s go. She’s made a tray of halawat el jibn.” Phyllo pastry rolled with cheese and a custard like heavy cream, halawat el jibn was a favorite of Elin’s Lebanese father, lately more and more nostalgic for his mother’s cooking. It had become Bella’s favorite dessert as well.
“Oh, good,” Bella said. “Can I have it with rosewater?”
“Of course,” Elin said, laughing. “You can help me chop the pistachios for the topping.” They stepped outside, Elin closing and locking the door behind them. “But first we have to stop at Ali’s All-Night for a bag of them.”
The night was calm and gentle. Little traffic passed by. In the distance, an ambulance siren seemed to put Elin on edge. She herded Bella along at an accelerated pace, sheltering arm across her shoulders. Bella didn’t mind. In fact, she leaned into her “big sister’s” side, feeling safe and content in the arms of one of Allah’s children. Until recently, she had only a rudimentary knowledge of Allah and his teachings, but she was learning more every day. The peacefulness of Elin’s household drew her like a magnet. It was hardly surprising that she wished the same for her own home, sure in the knowledge of its impossibility.
Three blocks to Ali’s All-Night, the corner ablaze with light and hand-painted signs touting the new shipment of black and green cardamom pods, Aleppo pepper, sumac, orange flower water, pomegranate molasses, and urfa biber. Inside, below the rows of dusty, buzzing fluorescents, the shelves, bins, and open barrels were crammed with exotic foodstuffs and spices that created their own dizzying atmosphere appropriate for jinn. Or so Bella imagined.
Ali, a stick of a man of Egyptian descent, stood behind the counter in the rear. His skin, dark and glistening as polished amber, hid his cuts and bruises until they approached him with the big jute sack of Antep Turkish pistachios: SMALL IN SIZE, BIG IN FLAVOR!
“Ali!” Elin cried. “What happened to you?”
“I ran into a flurry of fists.” Ali, a gentle man with the kindest heart who always gave Bella a sweet or two when she came in with Elin or with Elin and her mother, smiled sadly. “It was only a matter of time, love. It’s nothing. I’ll heal.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Yes,” Ali said, straight-faced, “that would have made everything better.” He accepted the money for the pistachios. “I go on with my life.” He smiled again. “What else is there to do?”
But for the first time in Bella’s memory, he forgot to give her a sweet.
The agents of the federal government with whom Richard had occasional contact were not of his world, not of his ken. As smart and as clever as he was in his own sphere, these people from DC inhabited an alien universe, one in which a lie was substituted for the truth in everything they said and did. They saw themselves as a breed apart; there was Them, and there were Civilians, and though they had recruited Richard, he was and always would be a Civilian. In other words, those high above Richard had lied to him; their belief in their mandate was stronger than his conviction. He was important to them, in his way, and so they accommodated him when and if they could—or at least they allowed him to think as much. They let Hashim go, called off the tails. All was normal again until three days after Richard left the country, when he was no longer in a position to stick his nose into their business, and they went about the business they had always had in mind.
Flashing lights—alternating red and blue—drew them like fireflies to Elin’s house. Three police cruisers were parked willy-nilly, blocking the driveway. The front door was wide open, light spilling out onto the front steps. A black SUV rode partway up the lawn. A crowd of neighboring Muslims had gathered, chattering among themselves, shuffling, nervous, tense. Their anger was palpable, ripping through the starless night.
Elin’s four siblings crowded the doorway bu
t parted slowly, grudgingly, for two men in dark suits. Held between them was Elin’s father, Hashim. He looked pale and shaken in the illumination of the revolving lights, the lenses of his glasses made opaque.
“Papa!” Elin, breaking away from Bella, charged through the perimeter the police had set up. But as she rushed toward her father, being led down the front steps toward the waiting SUV, she was caught around the waist by one of the uniforms, swung up into the air, legs pumping futilely.
Hashim began to struggle. “Take your hands off my daughter!” he yelled.
For this outburst, as well as for the crime of being Muslim, one of his escorts struck him on the back of the head so hard his glasses flew off and his knees buckled.
“Papa!” Elin screamed. Restrained, she watched her father being roughly bundled into the back seat of the SUV. When he tried to resist, he was struck again, in the small of his back.
Bella was close enough to hear him groan, to hear one of the cops mutter, “Fuckin’ raghead.”
Elin must have heard, too, because she shouted, “He’s Lebanese, not Pakistani, bala’a il a’air!”
The cop holding her swung her around. “What did you say, raghead?”
“Nothing,” Bella said, running up to them. “It’s her father; she’s upset. Leave her alone.”
“And who are you?”
“Her sister.”
The cop looked skeptical. “Funny, you don’t look—”
“What’s going on?” Bella interrupted. “Why are you taking him?”
“Matter of national security.” He leered at her. “Know what that means, girlie? The raghead’s a terrorist—that’s what.”
“What?” Elin cried. “That’s insane. You have the wrong man.”
“Right.” He jerked his chin at Bella. “Now clear out.”
“Okay, he’s in,” the leading uniform shouted. “Let’s roll.”
The cop holding Elin set her down. Before he let go, he said to Bella, “Keep her under control. I don’t wanna have to come back—hear me?”
Bella grabbed Elin’s hand the instant he let her go, drew her away. Tears were streaming down Elin’s face. “Papa! Papa!” she cried, as, one by one, military-style, the three cruisers backed out, turned, and, in the wake of the SUV, drove away in single file, lights revolving. The stunned crowd seemed to come alive, pouring into the street.
Elin’s eldest brother, Gabriel, threw a bottle after the cruisers. “You hate us, we will hate you,” he shouted. “You wrong us, we will make you pay.” Then others in the crowd joined in, shouting and gesticulating wildly. An aggrieved ululation rose up, sweeping through the neighborhood like a whirlwind in the desert.
Caught up in the shocked anger, Bella, weeping herself now, hurled the sack of pistachios into the hail of bottles. The jute split open, pale shells spilling across the glittering, starry street, joining the helpless protest. Holding on to Elin with the tenderness Elin once held her, she wished she were a jinni. She wished she could do more.
Moments later, Lely arrived, having driven like a maniac from the hospital the moment she had gotten the hysterical call from one of her sons. Opening her arms wide, she consoled her children, Bella included. Once inside, she got on her cell phone, desperately trying to find out what had happened to her husband and why. Bella could hear the stone wall rising with each frustrating call Lely made. At length Lely consulted Google, started dialing the best local lawyers. She left messages with their services, having little faith that any would get back to her.
“Of course they won’t call you back!” Gabriel cried. “We’re Muslim. Papa is right. What are we doing here? We don’t belong here—they don’t want us.”
“Calm down, Gabriel,” Lely said, sitting in the center of their kitchen, her children clustered around. “Being a hothead won’t get us anywhere.”
“It’s the only thing that will get us anywhere!”
In an almost lazy gesture, Lely reached out, slapped him hard across the face. “I don’t ever want to hear you talk like that again. Violence is against the teachings of Allah. Here, in this house, we respect every aspect of Allah’s holy teachings.”
Gabriel dared not touch the hot spot on his cheek. “Violence against infidels is part of Allah’s teachings, Umm.”
Lely stood, and her children took a step back almost in concert, leaving Bella nearest her. She gave her eldest son a hard look. “Who have you been listening to, Gabriel? Those boys hanging around Ali’s All-Night? Haven’t I told you—” She stopped abruptly, suddenly aware of Bella’s presence. Moving closer to her, she put her arm around Bella. “How can you even think of talking this way, Gabriel? Go up to your room.”
“But, Umm—”
“At once!”
Gritting his teeth, Gabriel turned on his heel, stomped away. They could hear him muttering to himself as he went up the stairs. Lely returned to her cell phone, and this time the call seemed to bear fruit. She spoke in Arabic, so Bella could judge only by the tone of Lely’s voice and the subtle changes in her expression. By the time she ended the conversation, she seemed slightly less tense and worried. Bella felt that perhaps she had found a way out of their dilemma and felt a surge of relief. She loved this family. She didn’t know what she would do if anything happened to them.
For the next half hour Lely reassured her progeny that everything would be all right, that their father’s arrest was a simple mistake, a case of mistaken identity. That he could be home in a day or so.
At length, they all trooped upstairs. Bella could feel the edge of terror in each of the siblings. She wanted to put her arms around them and, one by one, reassure them as Lely had, but of course she did nothing. She slept in Elin’s bed, lying curled beside her while Elin read from the Qur’an. The language surrounded her like beautiful rain, warm and deep, filled with graceful filigrees, embroidered arabesques.
Bella was in the borderlands of sleep when something crashed through the window, shattering glass, slammed into the wall over their heads. Bella grabbed Elin, pulled her prone as two more shots thundered through the room, covering them with glittering glass shards, islands of wallboard, lozenges of painted wall.
Screaming. Running feet. Bella, trembling, holding on to Elin for dear life. Tremors running through Elin. A ringing in their ears. No sirens, no flashing lights, no cops. Just a dreadful, hollow silence. Out of which Lely’s voice, rising, calling her children to her. That resonant voice, made wondrous, even divine, by disaster.
TWENTY
“I won’t wear a wig made of human hair,” Laurel said flatly. “I’ll only have nightmares about who the hair was taken from.”
Gael grunted. “Then you won’t wear one at all.” He waved a hand. “Anyway, they all look fake after a while, even the best ones.” He ushered her into another of his residence’s many bathrooms. “Fine for the movies, but in real life, uh-uh.” A window overlooked a vertiginous view of high-rises to the east, pigeons perched on ledges, and startlingly, a peregrine falcon in its nest, head swiveling this way and that.
“My roots are starting to show.”
“I noticed,” Gael said, lining up a number of small dark-brown glass bottles. “Not a problem. None at all.”
For the first time, Laurel recognized a strange lilt to Gael’s accent. She’d never been calm enough in his presence before to even think about it, but now she could hear it clearly. Maybe it had to do with his German mother. When she asked him, just before he put her head in the sink to take the red dye, he said, “My father met her in Berlin. He was there for six months supervising the building of the TV and UHF Tower. My father designed a ton of the new buildings in Mexico City, Berlin, Dubai, Chicago, and here in New York, this one and some downtown along the High Line.” His strong fingers ran through her hair, working the dye in with a professional thoroughness. “My father is an architect of the old-school, you could say. He designs for the vertical. I, having learned everything I could from him, am an architect of the horizontal—a postarc
hitectural graduate, you might say. I dreamt up a network of ace Germans, Russians, Chinese, Israelis, and—don’t tell anyone this—Iranians, young women in Switzerland. Geneva, to be exact—working at CERN.”
“Physicists?” Laurel said through the water pouring down. “What do you need with them?”
“The unique structure of the network, everyone connected by ones and zeros, the ultimate in secure compartmentalization. The Iranians took my idea, built the bones of the network; the Israelis refined it; the Chinese made it impregnable.”
Wrapping her hair in a thick towel, he raised her head out of the sink, sat her down on the closed toilet lid, opposite a large mirror. “I consult with the top six or seven private security firms. I provide them with, well, whatever it is they need.”
“Like fake IDs,” she said. “Or private transportation.”
He nodded. “Like the hair dye I’ve used on you. But whatever it is, you can bet it’s arcane and proprietary. In short, I’ve elevated the shadow world into a high art. I traffic in fearful asymmetry, to update William Blake.”
She laughed. “You’re updating everything.”
“Out of self-defense. If I don’t, I’m going to get run over by an innovator who’s younger, faster, stronger.”
Rubbing the towel for the last time over her hair, he swept it away and, like a prestidigitator in the spotlight, revealed his newest illusion.
“Wow!” Laurel said.
Gael grinned at her reflection. “Wow is right.”
There was a kind of exhaustion that came from imminent death sitting on your shoulder like a vulture waiting to pick at your bones. When the rot set in, Jimmy Self thought as he made his slow way back across town during Manhattan’s long red afternoon, it took all your energy just to put one foot in front of the other. He meant to go back to the office, but he was too tired. Halfway home he gave up walking and hailed a taxi, his splurge of the day.
The Girl at the Border Page 14
