by Tal Bauer
“I married the love of my life for all time,” Kris said. “Nothing will ever break that.”
Dawood pulled him close, until they were kissing again. “Ya rouhi,” he whispered. “You are the moon in my darkness, habibi. Always.”
“You are my love, my light, my guiding star.”
They kissed, and kissed, and kissed, until the nurses bustled in and gently separated them, moving Kris to the side of the room as they got to work checking Dawood over.
Their gazes stayed locked together, fixed on one another, the entire time.
Nothing would ever break them apart.
Not ever again.
When the nurses finally left, Kris crawled into bed beside Dawood, careful to keep away from his stitches, the still-healing bullet wound in his side, and not jostle his broken arm. Dawood folded into him, their heads resting together, lips trading kisses as they held hands.
“Weird question,” Dawood asked, after an hour. “Do you have a phone I can borrow?”
“Of course.” Kris dug his phone out of his pants and held it out.
“Can you go to Gmail? I need to check something.”
Kris pulled up the internet browser and typed in the email address and login information Dawood recited.
A single email waited in the inbox.
Re: Confessions, sent by Behroze Haddad.
“Is that your son? The boy you adopted?”
Dawood nodded. He swallowed hard. “I told him everything the night before I met Dan. Who I really was. How I came to the mountain. He was just a child when I arrived. I was the stranger who showed up and became the healer, and then the imam. I stitched his arm closed twice, cleaned and bandaged so many of his cuts and bruises. He was the only one of his family to survive.”
“Where is he now?”
“I sent him to Islamabad to study to be an imam. I made him swear he would never pick up a weapon, never follow the path of violence.” Dawood exhaled shakily. “I told him about you, too. About my husband.”
Kris blinked. “I wonder what he’s said.”
“Read it to me?”
Kris clicked on the email. He started to read, but his voice choked and he stopped, unable to continue. Tears blurred his vision. He held the phone for Dawood to read.
Baba,
I am filled with a thousand questions.
I knew you always had secrets. When we were kids, sometimes we would make up stories about where you came from. Since you always stared at the moon, I told everyone you were from there and had fallen to earth, and you were trying to climb the mountains to get back home.
I think, in the end, I was the closest in our guesses.
You have always told me my jihad is of the heart. That my challenge, my entire life, will be to love unconditionally. To love like the Prophet, peace be upon him, when all I want to do is rage. Be angry, or hate.
I thought I was angry and struggling when you left me in Islamabad. I kept to my studies, and I’ve tried to follow your teachings: my jihad is of the heart. I should always love.
You did not tell me that, in time, answers would arrive. That I would understand one day why I have loved as hard as I have, even through the pain, the anger. Why still, to this day, you remain a fixed point in my heart, a man and a memory I constantly turn to for guidance. Your absence has been a wound that I have not been able to close, Baba.
I want to know more about who you are.
And I want to know Kris, too.
Teach me, Baba. I have so much more to learn.
You said you may never respond to my email if the worst were to happen. If you are reading this, know that I have prayed for you every day since you sent your email, and I will continue to pray for you every day going forward. Your name will always be on my lips for Allah.
You have my love, Baba. Always.
Behroze Haddad
Dawood turned into Kris’s neck and wept.
Chapter 37
McLean, Virginia
September 23
They walked hand in hand down the soft trails of Pimmit Run Stream Park. The leaves were turning, gold and ocher and tawny umber, rust and cardinal floating above them, beneath them on the damp earth of the park. A stream trickled through the center, babbling over stone and fallen logs.
“What will happen to your brothers in Yemen?”
Dawood sighed. “I’m sure they’ve seen the news reports. I’m now officially known as an undercover CIA officer who’d penetrated terrorist cells for years. I sent Ihsan an email. Tried to tell him I had to stop Dan. That he was ruining Islam, was just as terrible as ISIS. That we weren’t like that. I wasn’t like that. That my jihad was to preserve the best of our faith.”
“Did he reply?”
Dawood shook his head. “I gave their names to the State Department. The ambassador in Yemen is quietly asking to track them down. They’ll be arrested. Ihsan will be deported to Saudi, go to one of the deradicalization camps the Kingdom has established. After that, he will have his life back. And hopefully he can find his peace in this life. Abu Dujana…” He sighed again. “I hope he finds peace, but I doubt it will be in this life.”
Kris squeezed his hand, wrapped his arm around Dawood’s waist. “You were right to keep their names hidden. Dan would have had them executed.”
They walked in silence, letting the stream babble, the leaves crunch beneath their feet as Dawood whispered a prayer to the men he once knew, men who had been a part of his life, not quite friends, not quite enemies. Human beings he’d walked his path with. Brothers.
“I officially resigned from the CIA this morning.” Kris leaned his head against Dawood’s shoulder. “I was offered an early retirement by Director Edwards. I accepted.”
“I didn’t expect what they did for me.” The back pay, the letter of commendation, the public glory as an undercover officer. Though the public face was to blur over Dan’s heinous betrayal, the CIA had worked overtime to turn Dawood Haddad into the nation’s hero. It was nice, for once, to be the good guy.
Even Dawood’s star on the Memorial Wall had been filled in with gold, commemorating a returned hero once thought lost.
There wasn’t going to be a star for Dan. His body had been buried without fanfare in a municipal cemetery in Maryland. Only George and Ryan had watched the casket go into the ground.
“We’re free.” Kris squeezed Dawood’s hand. “Free to do whatever we want. Wherever we want. Do you want to move overseas?” Would Dawood like it better in the Middle East? Would he want to go back to Libya, if the civil war ever settled down? Would he want to live in Dubai, or Kuwait? Or go to Behroze in Islamabad? “I’ll come with you.”
“You have a life here, Kris. You’ve lived in DC since you were eighteen. More than half your life.”
“More than half my life has been lived in war zones.”
“What about your friends? Mike and Tom?”
They’d had dinner at Tom’s house two nights after Dawood was released from the hospital. Tom was a gracious and wonderful host, and he’d fed them a banquet of Middle Eastern and American foods. Dawood had eaten half his body weight in burgers and hummus, in kebabs and shawarma. Mike had acted like he’d met a superhero, like he’d met Captain America himself. Wide-eyed and starstruck, he’d hung on Dawood’s every word, all night long.
“They are wonderful people,” Dawood said softly. “I like them. I would like to spend more time with them.”
The park petered out, returning to the suburban bustle of McLean, to a shady street that boasted homes and churches and a café on the corner. Dawood turned right, heading up the street.
Kris frowned. “Will living here be enough for you?”
Dawood stopped outside a white building with a squat minaret, a short tower that blended in with the trees and the other buildings on the block. A sign on the fence read “The Al-Fatiha Masjid. An MPV mosque.”
Dawood lifted Kris’s fingers to his lips. “I wanted to bring you here. Show you this mosqu
e.” He kissed Kris’s fingers, slowly. “I want this to be my home. Where I worship for the rest of my life.”
“So you do want to stay? Here, with me?”
“I do. Especially with you.” Dawood nuzzled Kris’s fingers against his cheek. “And I want you to be a part of this. A part of my life here. I’m not asking you to convert. But I want you to feel welcome here, with me. In every part of my life.”
Kris shifted. He swallowed. “Are we welcome? Won’t we have to hide?”
Dawood smiled. “Come. Let me introduce you to the imam.”
Hand in hand, they walked into the mosque, passing beneath a canopy of magnolias and a cypress tree, the leaves whispering on the DC wind. The mosque’s foyer glittered with inlaid mosaics, and along one wall, the shahada, done in a rainbow of colors.
“Habibi!” A voice from the masjid cried out. Footsteps, rushing toward them, the imam coming to them both. Dawood squeezed Kris’s hand, refused to let go.
The imam wrapped both arms around Dawood gently, avoiding his right arm in its sling, and kissed both his cheeks. “I have seen you in the news! You saved everyone, habibi. Undercover CIA hero saves the nation from terrorist cell! Bismillah, you are a hero, and truly, Allah has worked through you.”
Dawood flushed. He turned to Kris, lifted their joined hands. “Imam Youssef, this is my husband, Kris.”
Imam Youssef beamed, and he pulled Kris into a hug, kissing him on both cheeks three times. “Your husband spoke about you. He did not do you justice, habibi. You are more beautiful in person.”
Dazed, Kris blinked, his jaw hanging open. He looked from Imam Youssef to Dawood and back.
Imam Youssef grinned. “This is an MPV mosque. Muslims for Progressive Values. There are only a dozen in the United States, but we are growing. We accept everyone. All Muslims, no matter what. We embrace women, and gays, and lesbians, and anyone else as leaders in our faith. One of the leaders of my prayer groups is a woman. Another is a gay man, married, like yourselves. We welcome absolutely everyone here.”
“I came to Imam Youssef during the incident.” They’d taken to calling the week of Dan’s scheming, his plan to destroy DC and ignite a war to engulf the world, the incident. “I had questions. I didn’t know what my jihad was anymore. I didn’t know if I should keep on the path Allah was showing me and then die, exposing the mole. Or, if I should abandon the path, go to you, be with you. Forget about everything else.”
“You didn’t choose me?” Kris’s eyebrow arched high.
Dawood flushed. “Imam Youssef helped me see that following the path would lead me to you. In this life or the next. That the battle I was fighting against Dan wasn’t just of this world. But it was a battle for the next, as well. And for millions of souls. Millions of lives hung in the balance. Especially yours. If I died, I would wait for you in the next life. But no matter what… We would be together again.”
“He did choose you, habibi,” Imam Youssef said, smiling. “He always chooses you. For this life, and for eternity. And he chose to save so many lives.”
Kris tried to swallow. His vision blurred. “He is a hero.” Kris smiled, and kissed Dawood’s cheek. “He’s my hero.”
“Imam, I want to show Kris the beauty of our faith. Everything good. Everything that is love. We’ve both been in the darkness for too long. We’ve been around too much hatred. We’ve walked our paths, and now we want to rest. I want him to see what I see, feel what I feel, from Allah.”
Imam Youssef turned to Kris. “Is this what you want?”
“I want to understand. I want to walk with my husband. Be a part of his life in every way.”
Imam Youssef beamed. “Then I will expect to see you both make a home in this mosque. Kris, you may join in prayers, or you may watch. Whatever you are comfortable with. But you both will always be welcome here.”
They stayed for tea, and Imam Youssef gave them a blessing for their new life. After, Kris stood on the masjid’s steps and turned his face up to Dawood, kissing his husband as the setting sun beamed down on them.
“We’ll have to buy a new house. Somewhere around here.” Dawood wrapped his arm around Kris’s waist.
“I’ll sell the studio.” They’d been staying at Kris’s place for now, but it felt wrong. Dawood didn’t belong there, high in the sky in the ultra-modern studio with the white leather lounge sofas. They needed something new, something that was theirs, again. “And I have savings, too.”
“And we have my back pay.”
Kris laced his fingers through Dawood’s, behind his back. “Do you want Behroze to move here? Come join us?”
Dawood’s eyes glittered, joy bursting outward. “I would love for him to study at our mosque. Learn to be an imam from Youssef. I want to work there, too. I want to help people, Kris. For the rest of my life, just help people.”
Kris smiled. That was his husband. The hippie. The lover. The soul of the universe and all that was good in the world inside his bones, inside his heart. Like his father before him. And like Behroze would be, after him. “Let’s ask Behroze to come to the US. Move in with us. Let’s be a family.” He hesitated. “A Muslim family. I’m… not ready to convert, but I want to support your faith. And Behroze.”
“Laa yumkinu lilkalimati an tasifa hubbi laki,” Dawood breathed. Words cannot describe my love for you. “Ya rouhi.”
“I love you, Dawood. Always.”
Dawood kissed the top of Kris’s head as they started walking, arms laced around each other’s waists. Kris closed his eyes, letting the sun, the warmth of Dawood, the peace of the late afternoon, fill his soul.
Sixteen years of war.
A thousand decisions made, creating a path that carved through time. Connections upon connections, the waters of reality spinning onward, ripples from the past and the future finally syncing. More patterns would emerge, more destinies. More paths to walk.
But for today, they had this.
The sunlight.
Each other in their arms.
A new life.
The future, their path together, belonged to them.
THE END
Author’s Notes
“INDEED, ISLAM BEGAN AS SOMETHING STRANGE, AND IT WILL RETURN TO BEING STRANGE JUST AS IT BEGAN. SO GLAD TIDINGS OF PARADISE BE FOR THE STRANGERS, THE ONES WHO ARE RIGHTEOUS AND ARE GUIDED BY ALLAH.” ~ Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam
Palestinian human rights activist, political scientist, and philosopher Iyad el-Baghdadi (not that Baghdadi, as he is fond of saying!) remarked on Twitter, “The focus on Jihadism studies without a wider interest in Muslim and Arab culture, history, art, and native agency makes me very uncomfortable. Someone is really interested in us, but only in our warts and boils.”
When I started writing this novel, I set in my heart that I wanted to write an honest, heartfelt depiction of Dawood’s Islamic experience. His journey into and out of the faith, explored against September 11, 2001, the greater War on Terror, and the existential shock that has pulsated through the Middle East since. I wanted to delve deep into what it means to be a Muslim, to love Allah with one’s whole being, to live to the rhythms of Islam. To embrace an Islamic and Arab identity.
I hope my attempt has succeeded, at least in part.
One of the most frequent questions I am asked by editors and proofers, following Whisper, is, “Are you Muslim?”
At the time of this writing, no, I am not. However, to dive deep into the soul of Islam and attempt to portray the faith with any shred of justice, I felt it was only appropriate to go to the very center of Islamic studies. To that end, I enrolled in an Islamic seminary as a visiting student. The imams and scholars have welcomed me as a seeker, opening their arms, their hearts, and their minds to my journey of understanding. I like to think, in some ways, we have helped open each other’s minds in certain areas.
Am I a Muslim today? No. Am I an Islamic seminarian? Yes. Could I, one day, see myself as a Muslim? Yes, to the extent that I now nurture a burnin
g desire to take up Dawood’s personal quest as my own, and to be a voice for peace, love, and acceptance within the Islamic world.
To me, to be a Muslim is to be at peace with the universe. To have internally surrendered to Allah, to be in a constant state of surrender to Allah, to His love and compassion, and to the universe. To be in harmony with what Is. To be in a state of Islam is to hold the faith of Allah in the center of your soul.
Islam today is experiencing a revolution, one as existential as the Reformation was to Christianity. Muslims and non-Muslims are struggling to answer questions about Islamic identity, the intersection of Muslim faith, politics, and society, and how to reconcile Islam’s past, present, and future. One of the best books I have read on this topic is Shadi Hamid’s Islamic Exceptionalism – How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World. For the reader who wants to understand more of the political history of Islam and how the faith is examining itself as it moves into the future, I strongly recommend this book. It was my favorite of my research materials, and one I’ve read multiple times, each re-read finding something new to explore.
The second most asked question I have received is, “How much of this story true?”
A lot of it. Possibly, more than could be believed. I have retained as much historical fact as possible, up through Chapter 22, and have consciously placed my fictional characters within a true historical world and setting.
Kris’s interrogation of Abu Tadmir in Chapter 2 is based on FBI Agent Ali Soufan’s interrogation of Abu Jandal in Yemen on September 13, 2001. FBI Agent Soufan was the first individual who provided evidence corroborating al-Qaeda’s link to September 11. Agent Soufan successfully used Islamic arguments to convince Abu Jandal to cooperate and to identify the hijackers as being al-Qaeda operatives. The lines from Chapter 2, where Kris tells Abu Tadmir that it was Tadmir who told him al-Qaeda was responsible for the attacks, are accurate representations of what occurred in the real-life interrogation. That is exactly how Abu Jandal relayed to Agent Soufan who was responsible for the September 11 attacks.
