Borderline

by Allan Stratton

  “Fair enough.”

  Andy grabs our hands. “We gotta think positive, guys. Sammy, we have your back. You’ll be fine.”

  Thirty-one

  Yonge and Bloor. Five to five.

  No wonder this is the place for the meet. It’s city center, rush hour. The cross streets: a snarl of cars, taxis, cyclists, and motorbikes; two lanes in each direction. Shoppers and business types pour through wide glass doors onto crammed sidewalks. They dodge, press, bump each other, or pack in a mass at the traffic lights. Like Andy and Marty, Hasan’s people can blend with the crowd easy.

  I’m at the northeast corner in front of a skyscraper that stretches the block. Marty’s thirty feet away, sitting by a railing up a bank of steps to the building’s office complex. It’s not a great spot. He’s accidentally tripped a few business types working their BlackBerrys while rushing down the stairs, plus taken a briefcase to the head. But it’s the only place where he can keep me in sight.

  As for Andy? He’s circling the block in the Chevy on account of there’s no street parking. No standing or stopping either. At a couple of minutes to five—like, now—he’s supposed to pull over, turn on his flashers, and look under his hood, like his car’s dead. We had to cut it tight: If he pulls over too soon, he’ll have cops and a tow truck on his ass. But if he’s too late, well…too late’ll be too late, which is what I’m worried about.

  I dig my fingernails into my palms. It’s no time to be scared.

  Major honking down the street. Some kind of jam. And it’s five o’clock. Just what I need—Andy, stuck in traffic. Suddenly, relief. Andy’s nudging a right turn through a wall of pedestrians at the crosswalk.

  “Face the street, Sami.”

  Did I hear that? I glance over. There’s a woman, half turned away: a blonde in her twenties, in a windbreaker, jeans, shades. She laughs into a cell phone, cups her hand over her ear, like she’s on a bad connection. “You heard me, Sami,” she says in a low voice. “Face the street.”

  Holy shit. I face the street.

  “I have a subway token in my left hand,” the woman continues, “At the count of three, I’m going to drop it. You’re going to pick it up and follow me. Stay close, but not too close. And never, ever, look at my face. Understood? One, two, three.”

  I turn as the token hits the pavement. I dive for it, feet everywhere around me. I see it bounce, grab it, leap up. Where is she? I spin around. There. Headed toward a bank of doors. I race after her. This is it. I’ve crossed the line. There’s no way back.

  Marty’s running down the stairs. Andy’s pulling over. But the woman’s through the doors. I am too.

  We hurry down a few steps, turn right into a tangle of underground shops bursting with crowds, smells, lights, noise. I squeeze my way through. A quick glance back. Andy and Marty are top of the steps, scanning the mob. The woman’s ahead of me. She can’t see me signal. Let’s hope they can. I stretch my hand high, wave it like crazy.

  We’re at a set of glass doors. The subway entrance. We go through. Last check. I see Andy’s head bobbing above the crowd. He’s catching up.

  The doors close behind us. The woman’s at a row of turnstiles. She drops her token, gets to the other side. I follow. We turn right, to a set of stairs going down to the tracks.

  And now some luck. A wave of arrivals surges up from below. Bottleneck.

  It breaks as Andy and Marty burst through the entrance doors. They see me disappearing, race to leap the turnstiles. Andy sails over. Marty splats out. But Andy’s bogged down by the arrivals. The man in the token booth bangs his glass.

  That’s all I see. A new train’s pulling in. The woman reaches back, grabs my hand, and pulls me down the last few steps onto the platform.

  The train doors open. A heave of bad air; people spill out. We press against the current and force our way in, the last on board.

  A whistle blows to clear the doorways. And out of the blue, there’s Marty flying down the stairs, arms and legs spinning like pinwheels. He sees me and leaps through the door just down from us. I’m safe.

  The doors start to close. A sudden push from the woman. We’re back on the platform. I turn to the train. Marty’s stuck inside, his face pressed against the glass. “Buddy,” he mouths, “I’m sorry.” His train hurtles into the tunnel.

  “Move it,” the woman says.

  She’s walking faster now. I scramble to keep up, zigzagging through streams of commuters. I bump into a pillar with a map of the subway line. I try to see where I am, but I don’t have time; I’ll lose her.

  We zip down another flight of stairs to a different line. Next thing I know, we’re on a train heading west. I pat the cell in my pocket. Good thinking, Andy. No matter what happens, help’s only a call away.

  We go three stops, get off without warning, cross the platform to an incoming train headed back where we came from. One stop and we’re headed upstairs onto a line going north. We exit in a few minutes, this time for good. I see the station name across the tracks: St. Clair West. Remember the name.

  An escalator and we’re out on the street in front of a super-sized grocery store. Beside it, a parking lot the size of a football field. Cars and shopping carts everywhere.

  The woman moves briskly between the rows of vehicles. She circles, like she’s checking to see if the coast is clear. How could anyone have kept up? She slows between two minivans. “Get in the one to the right, side door.” She keeps walking.

  I glance at the van so I can describe it later, but I’m past the plates and I can’t tell models. All I know is, it’s gray, dirty, at least a few years old, with tinted windows. Big help that’ll be.

  I slide the door open. There’s a man in a mask. He hauls me inside. The door slams shut. I’m trapped.

  “Who—?”

  He yanks my hoodie over my shoulders, stuffs my head in a sack, pulls it tight to my neck with a cord.

  The driver’s door opens, shuts. Who’s there? The woman? Someone else?

  The van starts up. We’re moving.

  The man’s voice. “You wired?”

  “No.”

  “Strip.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s see if you’re lying.”

  I kick off my shoes, pull the hoodie off my arms, and unbutton my shirt.

  The van crawls forward. We must be leaving the parking lot. I want to scream for help. But what if they have guns? Knives? They could gut me in a flash.

  The van turns right, speeds up.

  “You can keep the underwear,” the man says, as I fumble with my belt buckle.

  We change lanes, turn left. We’re going down a hill. Turn right. Go for I don’t know how long. Brake. A traffic light? Stop sign? We’re moving again, straight ahead.

  “He’s clean,” the man calls out. “No wires. Burn phone in his pocket, though. Better lose it.” No, please. I hear a window roll down, picture my cell being dropped. The window goes back up. My pants, hoodie, and shirt are thrown in a ball against my chest. I put them back on as we swing to the left, the right, the right, the left.

  Without my eyes, it’s hard to figure out what’s happening. Each time we accelerate, slow, or turn, my body pitches. How do blind people do it? I plant my feet and press my back against the seat.

  The route, Sami. Remember the route. How? What’s the distance between turns? How many streets have we passed?

  One thing I know: We’re out of traffic, into a residential area. We make a bunch more turns, then slow like we’re going up an alley or something. We ease to a stop. The driver gets out. I hear a garage door opening. The driver returns. We pull in. The ignition’s turned off. The garage door closes. The van doors open.

  The man grips me under the armpits. “Careful with your head.” He eases me out. “Keep your eyes on your feet.”

  He takes the sack off my head.

  “There’s a path to the house. Don’t try anything stupid.”

  The driver goes first, me second, the man behind. We
exit the garage through a makeshift door into a small backyard, and cross a patch of weedy grass. I glimpse a rotting cedar fence on either side, lined with dead flowers and dried-up tomato stalks. We pass an upturned wheelbarrow, a cement birdbath, a couple of dead evergreens.

  The back of the house is asphalt shingle siding. There’s a porch to the side. We go down a covered cinderblock stairwell to a basement apartment. Inside, there’s a smell of mildew coming from an overstuffed pullout couch. Brown stains run up the drywall from the painted cement floor.

  The driver—I think it’s the woman, can’t tell for sure—stands back. The man behind me pushes me forward. “Okay,” he says. “You can look up now.”

  I raise my head. At the back of the low-ceilinged room, there’s an open door to a toilet on the left; a counter with a hot plate and sink to the right; in the center, a card table and chairs.

  A guy with a scraggly beard is sitting on the fold-up chair behind the table.

  It’s Tariq Hasan.

  Thirty-two

  Hasan rises. He looks at me with curiosity and suspicion.

  “It’s him,” Hasan says flatly. “Mohammed Sami Sabiri.”

  How does he know my full name? Or what I look like? And why did he say it? Did my kidnappers tell him about me? Did they think I might be a plant?

  “Yeah, it’s me.” I jut my jaw, like I’m tough or something. “And you’re…” My mouth goes dry.

  “Tariq.”

  Weird. I’m on a first-name basis with a terrorist. That’s gotta be Number One on my Ten Things Most Likely Never to Happen list.

  Tariq motions me to the chair across from him. “Keep your eyes on me. Don’t look back at the others.” I picture them with garrotes and machetes. My insides go loose. My knees wobble. I sit.

  Then—I don’t know how it happens, but it’s like I force myself out of my body—I’m not this scared, useless kid anymore. I’m on a mission to find the truth.

  “My father told you my name?” The words clear and firm.

  Tariq nods. “Your family nickname was Hammed. But you chose Sami after your grandfather.”

  “What else did he tell you about me?”

  “You go to Roosevelt Academy. You’re smart, you take chances, you don’t listen, you get yourself in trouble.” He pauses. “We have a lot in common.”

  Not on your life.

  “Oh, and he’s very proud of you,” Tariq adds.

  “My father? No way.”

  “Very proud. He says your name and his eyes light up. He calls you a fighter with a good heart and a great future. I admit, he worries about your friends.” The smile disappears. “He worried about mine too.” A pause. He brightens. “Tea? Biscuits?”

  “Sure.”

  There’s a tray on the counter behind him, with biscuits, sugar, milk, spoons, mugs, and a brewed pot of tea. He retrieves it, glancing back at the man and woman. Apparently they don’t want any. I stare at the teapot as he pours our mugs. It’s shaped like an elephant’s head, with the tea coming out of the trunk. He catches me staring.

  “Yard sale,” he grins.

  What, a terrorist with a sense of humor?

  “Milk? Sugar?” he asks. “No lemon, I’m afraid.”

  I want sugar, but I shake my head.

  Tariq hands me my mug, takes two spoonfuls of sugar for his own, and stirs slowly. “So you’re here.” Pause. “How much did your father tell you? How much do you know?”

  What do I say? Because it’s going to end up with him wanting the package. The package I don’t have, because I don’t know what it is or where Dad hid it. So do I tell the truth and risk he’ll freak out on me? Or do I bluff and hope he’ll let something slip?

  I play for time. Sip my tea. And have another thought:

  What if Tariq really hasn’t escaped? What if the feds have tracked him here and bugged the place. They could be waiting for secret Martyrs to crawl out of the woodwork—like that unidentified terrorist in Meadowvale. If that’s the game, and I act like a player, I’ll be screwed.

  Tariq holds his mug in both hands. “Sami.” His eyes go right through me. “I asked you two questions: How much did your father tell you? How much do you know?”

  “Depends about what,” I shrug.

  “Don’t play games. The package. Do you have it?” He sips, waits for my answer.

  “I…I…” My tea’s going to spill. I put the mug back on the table, and my hands on my lap where he won’t see them shake.

  “No, I didn’t think so,” Tariq says. “You didn’t come here because of the package.”

  “Who says?” I whisper. “You have a plan, right? You need it.”

  Tariq gets up, walks slowly around the table, and rests his hands on the back of my shoulders. “You don’t know anything about the package, do you Sami?” he says calmly. “You don’t know what’s in it. Or why your father packed it.”

  I shake my head.

  “In fact, you don’t know anything about anything, do you? You lied to find me. That’s a dangerous thing to do. A dangerous, stupid thing, wouldn’t you say?” He squeezes my shoulders gently.

  The words crawl from my throat. “I guess. Yes.”

  “Yes,” he says, “yes.” And he squeezes my shoulders firmly. “So I ask myself, why did you do it? Why are you here?”

  This is it. I’m going to die. He’s going to strangle me with his bare hands. I’ll never see Mom and Dad again. Or Marty and Andy.

  “I did it for Dad!” I blurt out. “You made him get that package. I don’t know how. But you did, and now he’s in trouble, and I wanted the truth so I could save him. He’s a good man, a good father, and I’ve been nothing but trouble. For once I wanted to help. I wanted to make him proud. I love him. So do what you’re going to do. Just let him know it’s not his fault. Or my buddies’ fault. Or anyone’s fault but mine.”

  I wait for the fingers to dig into my neck. For my windpipe to squash, my eyes to bulge out of their sockets. The last thing I’m going to see is that ridiculous elephant’s-trunk teapot. Great. Fantastic. Way to screw up a life.

  But Tariq pats my shoulders and lets me go. He circles the table twice, then sits down opposite me. “I’m going to tell you a story,” he says simply. Then he stares into my eyes, and takes my hands, like I’m a little kid.

  “Once,” Tariq begins, “there was a boy from Iran. And there was a revolution. The boy’s parents supported the revolution, but not what came after. They were thrown in jail. The boy went to live with his grandmother. She slipped him out of Iran, onto a boat to Canada. To Montreal. He was raised by friends of friends of family friends.”

  “I’ve heard this story,” I say slowly.

  “Some of it, some of it,” Tariq nods. “The boy grew into a smart, handsome young man. He worked hard and did well. The friends of family friends helped him to go to university, a university named McGill. He married their eldest daughter, Neda. He told himself it was love. But it was duty.”

  “No.” My neck tingles. “It was love.”

  Tariq hushes me with a quiet shake of his head. “It was love, later, yes. But back then, it was duty and obligation in a noisy rooming house, and each of them working two jobs, and going to school and more school and more school and no way out. And the young man felt trapped.”

  My heart’s bursting: “What did he do?”

  “In his final year at the university, he met a research assistant who worked for one of his professors in the Biology department. Her name was Yasmin. She was from Egypt. And some nights when the young man’s wife was away at work, he and Yasmin would get together. They shared dreams. They shared everything.”

  “But he stayed with Neda,” I say firmly.

  Tariq nods. “He won a postgraduate scholarship in microbiology to NYU. What was he to do? Break with the woman who’d helped him achieve success? No. He left his heart, and went with Neda to the United States. Yasmin broke all contact. She never replied to his letters, refused all phone calls. And a month lat
er, when she discovered she was pregnant, she kept the news to herself.”

  “Pregnant?”

  “For the sake of her family’s honor, she moved to Toronto. She wore a ring, spoke of a husband who’d passed away, and never dated again.”

  Silence. I’m afraid to know what I already guess. “You said this woman, Yasmin, was pregnant,” I whisper. “Was there a baby?”

  Tariq rests his hands on the table, palms up.

  My head whirrs. “You’re…I’m…I’m your…”

  “Yes,” he says.

  I stare across the table at my half brother. My half brother. Tariq Hasan is my half brother. My half brother. I think the words over and over. Nothing connects. I’m floating. Numb.

  “A year ago, my mother died of breast cancer,” Tariq says gently. “Before she died, she told me the truth. She said it was important I have the chance to know about my father. ‘Father? What father?’ I thought. ‘I never had a father. Why would I want to see some stranger who ruined Mom’s life?’ Going through her things, I found articles she’d printed off the Internet. Stories of his success. End of the summer, my curiosity got the better of me. I wrote him a letter telling him all about me. That I existed, for a start.” He chuckles, but not like it’s funny. “First letter I’ve ever written. Like, with an actual stamp and everything. Then again, it’s not the sort of thing you e-mail.”

  “That’s when Dad told you he was coming to Toronto?”

  Tariq nods. “We met at the library opposite my place. I think you’ve been there? We had supper. Then went to the Leafs on Friday, the Jays on Saturday.”

  I swallow hard. Those were my games.

  “We talked forever,” Tariq says. “He went on and on about you, showed me pictures of you that he keeps in his wallet.”

  “Dad keeps pictures of me in his wallet?”

  “There’s you as a baby. Cute kid, what happened?” he teases. “There’s you graduating from elementary school, and a photo of you at an Eid celebration in front of your mosque.”

  “I never knew.” It’s like I’m seeing another Dad.

  “He asked about my life,” Tariq continues. “I showed him shots of me with my buddies camping and playing paintball; of me and my girlfriend at Wonderland. I told him my plans for art school. He said he thought my buddies looked rough—which is true—and that art school was crazy, but I should follow my dreams.”