by Barry Eisler
“You know what I think?” the shorter one said. “I think you’re two whores looking for cock.”
“Whores don’t look for cock,” Fatima said. “They look for money. Although I doubt the two of you could help with either.”
The taller one grabbed Fatima roughly by the elbow. “I’ll show you what we can help with.”
“Let go,” Fatima said, and Delilah, hearing the sudden fear in her voice, knew the woman was at the end of her bluff. Turning slightly to conceal the move, she slid the second and third fingers of her right hand into the ring at the end of the Hideaway. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t use a knife to threaten—she would use it to cut. But to the extent possible, she had to stay in character. A civilian might carry a knife for self-protection. But a civilian wouldn’t use it readily, or well.
“Let her go,” Delilah said, her tone deliberately calm and commanding.
“Or what?” the shorter one said with a sneer.
Hating to do it, Delilah held up her right fist, the razor-sharp talon clearly visible now. “Or I’ll slice you open and watch your guts spill onto the sidewalk.” She kept her left side forward and dropped her knife hand close to her ribcage. If he tried to grab for it, she could tie up his arms with her free hand and attack his balls and his belly with the blade.
The taller one looked to his friend for reassurance. But his grip on Fatima’s arm didn’t slacken.
There was a blur of movement to their right. Two more dark-skinned men, heading toward them from around the side of Momtaz. Delilah felt another adrenaline surge, but then immediately realized from the stealth and speed of the approach that she and Fatima weren’t the targets. And indeed, as she oriented on the two approaching men, she saw their focus was entirely on the two assailants, not the intended victims.
The shorter guy must have read something in Delilah’s expression, in the momentary direction of her gaze. He started to turn, but the first of the approaching men had already closed the distance. As the man moved in, he flicked his right arm out and a collapsible steel baton snapped into position. Delilah watched in adrenalized slow motion as the shorter guy kept turning, turning, and now the lead man had planted his left foot and the baton was rocketing in like a tennis forehand, and the shorter guy must have picked up the problem in his peripheral vision because he started to flinch, his shoulders reflexively rising, his arms coming up, his head turtling in, but it was too late, and before he could reverse his turn, the baton whipped into his face. His head blew back and his legs went flying out from under him, shattered teeth tumbling through the air as he fell. Delilah could tell from the instant loss of rigidity in his limbs that he was out before he even hit the pavement.
The taller guy hadn’t even begun to come to grips with his shock before the trailing man had reached him. He grabbed the taller guy by the back of his collar and suddenly there was a knife in his hand, pressed against the taller guy’s throat.
“Is there a problem?” the trailing man said in English. Delilah wasn’t sure of the accent—Punjabi, she thought, though maybe Urdu. Not Arabic.
Other than a pair of extremely bulging and frightened eyes, the taller guy seemed too stunned even to respond.
The trailing guy pressed the knife harder. “I said, is there a fucking problem?”
The taller guy vibrated his head no, as though he wanted to shake it violently but was too mindful of the knife. “No. No problem.”
“Good. Then get the fuck out of here. Now.” He shoved the taller guy so hard that the guy stumbled back and had to pinwheel his arms to keep from falling. The moment he had recovered his balance, he turned and sprinted away.
The lead man knelt and took a closer look at the guy he’d decked, who was, as Delilah already knew, unconscious, or, from the force of the blow, possibly even dead. He reversed his grip on the baton so he was holding it like an ice pick and smashed the tip against the sidewalk, collapsing it. Then he stood and looked at Fatima.
“Are you all right?” he said, in an accent like his partner’s.
Fatima looked at the guy on the ground, then at the lead man. For a moment, she was speechless. Then she stammered out, “Yes. Yes, we’re fine.”
The lead guy glanced at his partner, then at Delilah. “I’m… sorry,” he said. “This place, sometimes, bad men at night. I’m sorry.”
Delilah shook her head. “No need to apologize.”
The man glanced at the Hideaway protruding from her knuckles. “But maybe you are already okay.”
Delilah eased the knife back into its sheath. “Maybe. Thank you for your help.”
The other man glanced around nervously. “You should go. Police come. Police no good.”
Fatima seemed stunned. Delilah put a hand on her elbow and said, “Yes. We’re going. Thank you again.”
They headed quickly southeast, the general direction of Paddington Station. Delilah was intuiting a lot from the encounter and she wanted to process it more fully, but she needed to stay in character. There would be time later.
“Was that a knife?” Fatima asked, glancing back as they walked. Her tone was incredulous.
“Yes.”
“Show me.”
“Later. I think we should get out of here. Do you go to that shisha shop a lot? Do they know you?” This was a little more tactical acumen than she would have preferred to reveal, but she thought the risk was less than the opportunity to learn more.
“I go there sometimes. And yes, they know who I am.”
“Well, that’s not good.”
“Why? We didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t do anything.”
“No, but do you want to have to persuade the police of that? I mean, did you see that guy’s face? I think he might have been dead.”
“Oh my God, I know, I mean, he went flying!”
She was talking faster than usual, her demeanor giddy. Normal, in the aftermath of violence. “Do you know who those guys were?” Delilah said, being careful to inject some agitation into her own tone, lest Fatima wonder how she could be so cool after what had just happened.
“Just two assholes.”
“Not the two assholes. The other two.”
“No.”
Delilah would have expected something more—“Thank God they came along when they did,” something like that—and the brevity of the answer struck her as a false note. Fatima would know if she had bodyguards, and the deception Delilah sensed in her response suggested she did. And yet, while they were being accosted, she didn’t act like someone who was counting on a bodyguard. She acted like someone bluffing foolishly, reflexively, who was then genuinely frightened when the bluff got called.
They kept walking. Delilah periodically checked behind them as they moved, but this would have been normal behavior for a civilian who had just been spooked the way they had, not something likely to be read as anything else.
When they reached the streetlights and cabs and relative crowds of Paddington Station, they paused. Fatima said, “I can’t believe you pulled a knife on that guy!”
“Well, what was I supposed to do?”
“Did you really say, ‘I’ll slice you open and watch your guts spill onto the sidewalk’?”
“I’m not sure what I said. I was scared.”
“You didn’t sound scared! You sounded completely badass.”
“I didn’t feel badass, I can tell you that.”
Fatima held up a fist and made a face of exaggerated rage. “‘I’ll slice you open,’” she said, her tone faux ominous, and then she dissolved into a fit of laughter. “Oh my God, did you see the look on that asshole’s face?”
And then Delilah was laughing, too—really laughing, not just playing a role. They remained like that for a few moments, doubled over, leaning against each other, wiping tears from their eyes.
“Seriously, girl,” Fatima said, wiping her eyes, “I can’t believe the balls on you. You’re my new hero.”
Delilah was aware of a changed dynamic. It made sense. They had just shared d
anger, and now the catharsis of laughter once the danger had passed. And she was intrigued, and pleased, at the changes she’d detected in Fatima’s speech patterns. This was the first time the woman had permitted herself to use vulgarities, for one thing. And calling Delilah “girl” was new, too. Those two assholes outside Momtaz might have been a blessing in disguise.
“Me?” she said. “What about you? ‘Whores don’t look for cock, they look for money. Although I doubt the two of you could help with either’? That was brilliant!”
And then they were cracking up again. When the second bout had subsided, Fatima said, “Oh man, I’m completely wired. I’m never going to sleep tonight.”
“I know. Me, too.”
“Do you want to get a drink?”
“Want one? Hell, I need one.”
They laughed again. Fatima led the way to a nearby place called The Union Bar & Grill. It was a nice enough spot—a lot of wood, leather couches, windows overlooking the Grand Union Canal, the smell of coffee and pub food—but the main thing for Delilah was the alcohol. She wanted to see how much further Fatima might drop her guard, how much additional rapport she might build on top of what the incident outside of Momtaz had fortuitously initiated.
The place was crowded, but they prevailed upon a few women to move to the end of one of the couches, and were then able to squeeze in alongside each other easily enough. Delilah was glad they were sharing the couch with women. If it had been men, they never would have been left alone.
“You feel like some wine?” Delilah asked. She had nothing against cocktails, but with a cocktail it was too easy to stop after one glass. A bottle was different—it was there, it was paid for, it was a shame to waste it. And given Fatima’s current giddiness, Delilah was curious indeed to see what elements of her personality might reveal themselves after several glasses.
“Perfect. Do you want to recommend something?”
“Ah, you’re putting me on the spot because I’m French?”
Fatima laughed. “Do you get that a lot?”
“Sometimes. But I don’t mind. I love wine.”
She was thinking about a Beaujolais Cru, but was surprised to see on the menu a 2007 Emilio’s Terrace from Schlein Vineyard in Napa Valley, California. That was a rare find. She ordered them a bottle.
“Why do you carry a knife?” Fatima asked, when the waitress had departed.
“I was attacked once, in Paris.”
“I’m so sorry. Were you… hurt?”
A politely oblique way of asking and Delilah appreciated it. As usual in such matters, she wasn’t lying. She was simply rearranging the truth.
“No. I was lucky. But I decided I didn’t want to have to be lucky again. So when I go out, especially at night, I make sure to carry my little friend.”
“Can I see it?”
Delilah looked around. A few men were watching them, and Delilah made sure to avoid eye contact, lest someone mistake it as an invitation.
She eased the Hideaway out and concealed it in her palm. She wasn’t worried that Fatima would notice the unusual material. Composite knives could be had commercially, though not of this quality.
“Behind the menu,” she said. “Too many of these men are looking at you and I don’t think it’s okay to carry a knife in London.”
“At me? I think they’re looking at both of us.”
“Well, that’s probably true.”
She gripped the blade and extended it grip-side forward to Fatima. “Here, let’s see if it fits. Over your index and middle fingers. Careful, it’s very sharp. Oh yes, I think it fits quite nicely.”
Fatima made a fist, turned it toward her face, and observed it for a moment. “Wow.”
“You see? Small, but concealable, accessible, and very hard to take away. Those assholes got lucky tonight, no? That those other two men came to save them.”
Fatima laughed and gave her back the knife. She extended it edge-first, something someone experienced with blades wouldn’t do.
The waitress brought the wine. Delilah eschewed her offer to pour. She wanted just a little at first. The rest should have a chance to breathe.
“Who do you think they were, though?” she asked as she filled each glass with a small measure. “One guy with a knife, one guy with a baton… undercover cops? But then why would they have said, ‘Police no good’?”
She was deliberately playing it clueless. There was no way those men were cops. A cop might carry a baton, but he wouldn’t attack without warning like that. And she’d yet to see a cop pull a knife and hold it to someone’s throat to gain compliance. Or chase an assailant away after without bothering to arrest him.
“I don’t know who they were,” Fatima said, picking up her glass. “But I’m glad they showed up.”
For the second time, Delilah had the sense that Fatima was being untruthful about those men. She needed to think more, to process things. But that would have to wait.
They touched glasses and drank. “Wow,” Fatima said. “You’ve upheld your national honor. Even if you didn’t order something French.”
Delilah laughed. “You like it?”
“It’s delicious.”
“Yes, the 2007 harvest was a winemaker’s dream. A warm, dry spring; no heat waves during the summer months; the fruit maturing slowly and evenly. Any honest French vintner must salute this wine.”
Fatima, still obviously giddy from the aftermath of danger, finished her glass quickly. Delilah followed suit, then poured them each another. The wine was wonderfully warm in her belly, and she felt a slight, welcome fuzziness at the edges of her perception.
They settled back into the couch side by side. The sounds of laughter and conversation around them were comforting and convivial, a cocoon of warm sound that made their end of the couch feel personal, private, a refuge from the world.
“May I ask a question?” Delilah said as they sipped the wine. “Not for the interview. Just as a friend.”
Fatima looked at her, her eyes slightly unfocused. “Of course.”
“When you said before, ‘This is the choice they impose on us,’ how did you mean it?”
Fatima took a swallow of wine. “I meant… when someone hurts you. Really hurts you, irreparably hurts you. You have to fight back, or you’ll die inside.”
“Fight back… you mean, hurt them back?”
“Sometimes it means that. Like those men tonight. Do you wish you could hurt them now?”
“No. That one guy who got hit with the baton, he might be past hurting, I don’t know.”
“Yes. And why don’t you want to hurt them? They certainly wanted to hurt us.”
“But they didn’t.”
“Again, yes. And that man—I’m assuming it was a man—who attacked you in Paris. Do you wish you could hurt him?”
“No.”
“Because, as you say, you got lucky. He didn’t hurt you. But what if he had? What if he had raped you? What if he had raped your own sister, your own brother? Would you want to hurt him then?”
“I’d want to kill him.”
“And what if he blamed you for the rape? Told you it was your fault, you provoked him, you were asking for it?”
“That would be even worse.”
“Well, now you can imagine what it’s like for families like mine. You’d think there could be nothing worse than America murdering your brothers, your sisters, your children with drones. But there actually is. It’s when afterward, as you gather to mourn your murdered child, America sends another drone to bomb the funeral. It’s when a White House advisor tells you your child was murdered because you weren’t a good parent. It’s when some overprivileged Time Magazine columnist tells you your child had to be murdered so his could live. It’s when America’s Ambassador to the United Nations tells you a half-million dead Iraqi children was ‘worth it.’”
Delilah nodded. “Yes. That would be even worse.”
“You say you’d want to kill him. And if you had the opportunity?”
“I don’t know. But… what about ‘hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that’? The things you were saying in your address to the American defense secretary?”
“I think it’s a beautiful aspiration. But sometimes… I don’t know. Sometimes I think the need for revenge must be there for a reason. It’s so natural, so universal, so deeply ingrained. So maybe at some point, fighting it might be unwise? I mean, going against something that fundamental to our nature is like teaching yourself to walk on your hands instead of your feet. Yes, it’s possible, you can do it for short distances, but does it make sense? It’s not the way we’re built.”
Delilah sensed that whatever pressurized contents kept this woman tossing and turning at night were now swirling alluringly near the surface. The trick now was to elicit, without ever seeming to press.
“I understand what you mean. But isn’t our reason, the quality of mercy, also deeply part of what it means to be human? You know, the better angels of our nature.”
“But the real trick is knowing what aspects of our nature the situation calls for, isn’t it? You quoted Shakespeare—well, here’s another quote, from Henry the Fifth. ‘In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man/As modest stillness and humility/But when the blast of war blows in our ears—’”
Delilah continued the line. “‘Then imitate the action of the tiger/Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood—’”
Fatima nodded, her expression grave. “‘Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage.’” She drained her glass, closed her eyes, and exhaled deeply. Then she looked at Delilah. “I’m glad you like Shakespeare. And I’m sorry I’m being so heavy.”
It was disappointing to have Fatima close off what felt like a promising line of discussion, but Delilah knew to push no further. At least, not directly.
“No, not at all. I asked. And besides, I like you when you’re heavy. Well, not heavy, necessarily, but when you’re honest. Wherever that leads you.”
Fatima offered the sad smile. “You really won’t print any of this?”
“I told you, I support your work. I only want to write an article that helps you. You can trust me. All right?”
Fatima smiled and squeezed Delilah’s hand. “Thank you. I’m glad I met you. You know, I was a little intimidated when you first approached me at the rally.”
