by Ayad Akhtar
Dawood was staring off with a troubled look, as if trying to square what Sonny was suggesting with his own understanding of what he, obviously, hadn’t read with nearly as much attention or comprehension. Dawood was about to speak when Chatha interrupted:
“Your Mr. Vebb is wrong.”
“Not Vebb. Weber,” Sonny corrected, then repeated for emphasis: “Vay-bar.”
“Whatever. I don’t care how many books he writes. He can’t change the truth: Capitalism has nothing to do with Christianity. Pools of accumulating money, you say? Where do you think those came from first?”
“I told you what Weber thinks,” Sonny said. “I’m not saying I agree or disagree. I was just clarifying his point.”
“I don’t care about him, Doctor-sahib. I care about you: Where do you think the first pools of accumulating money came from?”
“I don’t know what you’re driving at, Ghaleb. You obviously know what you want to say. So just say it.”
Chatha nodded, granting Sonny’s point. “From interest. That’s where.”
Sonny shrugged. “Okay. And?”
“Who started the idea of interest?”
“I don’t know.”
“Everyone knows—except you and your dear Mr. Vebb, apparently—that interest is a Jewish invention. They are the ones who started that sin.” Chatha’s tone was imperious, as if he expected his pronouncement to render further discussion unnecessary. Dawood was studying Chatha, considering the thought. Father shifted in place, clearly irritated.
“So Ghaleb… ,” Father started. “When you just bought that pharmacy in Birch Grove, did you pay cash?”
“Of course not,” Chatha answered.
“You took out a loan?”
“What do you think, Naveed?”
“And it’s an interest loan…?”
“The only kind you can get in this country, brother.”
“So let me get this right,” Father continued. “You’re benefiting from the sin of interest. Doesn’t that make you as much of a sinner as your so-called Jews?”
“You ask me the question like you think I never asked this myself.”
“So what’s your answer?”
“Those of us living here, among the jahils, we have to live with their rules…”
“Jahils?” Sonny muttered to himself. Even with as little as I knew about Islam at the time, I knew the word referred to those who didn’t believe.
“Sounds a bit easy…” Father went on: “Doesn’t it make you a hypocrite?” His relish in saying that word was clear.
“No need to get nasty, Naveed-bhai.”
“I’m just asking you a question, maulvi-sahib.”
Chatha snickered. “For us, here, we have to live with the rules…When there’s no other way to make your living, you do what you have to do. Family is first in our faith. You have to care for your family. That is what the Quran says. There is room for flexibility in our tradition.”
“Family is first for any sane human being, Ghaleb,” Father responded sharply. “Faith or not…And anyway, we’re not talking about that. Your family is taken care of. We’re talking about prosperity. That’s what you’re after. You don’t need to take the interest loan to take care of your family. You would do fine without the loan. Without the new pharmacies. You could save your money and wait until you have enough in the bank to buy a new location without the loan.” Father paused. “But that would mean being less aggressive than you want to be.”
“Or the tax advantages,” Chatha added. “The competition is fierce here. We will never succeed in changing the system if we don’t participate. But when we are established, and that day will come, inshallah, then we can talk about banks that offer no-interest loans.”
“Dance with the devil until then? Is that the plan?” Father asked.
Before Chatha had a chance to reply, Sonny started in: “So maybe we should be more grateful to the Jews,” he said. “After all, Chatha-sahib, your master plan seems to require their invention of interest.”
There was a long, tense pause.
Majid, who hadn’t said much yet, offered this apparent non sequitur with visible agitation: “I pray to Allah that damn Carter loses the election!” After another short pause, he continued: “Those Jews chewed him up and spit him out. And we’ve done nothing but pay the price! Can you believe that idiot? Promising us a few hundred million when those Jews are twisting his arm to pour billions into their defense? General Zia was right to call the offer peanuts. That’s what it is! Peanuts! And Carter and his fat brother can keep those peanuts for themselves as far as I’m concerned.”
“I don’t know why it would be any different with Reagan,” Dawood replied.
“It has to be different,” said Majid. “He’s a Republican. Nixon was a friend to Pakistan.”
“Maybe he’ll be a friend. Maybe he won’t,” Dawood said, looking over at Chatha again.
“Pakistan is one thing. Israel is another,” Chatha stated with finality.
“But they need Pakistan!” Majid added in an oddly pleading tone: “Without Pakistan, they lose Afghanistan to Russia. And then they lose Pakistan! And then Iran!” He was pointing now, emphatically. “And the Americans won’t like how the map looks after that!”
“Frankly,” Sonny began, “they would probably prefer Iran to be Russian than run by the Ayatollah.”
“I don’t care about Iran! I care about our people!” Majid exclaimed. “We have to take care of our own business first! Then we take care of the other business. Pakistan is going to fall to pieces if the Americans don’t help us. But those goddamn Jews don’t want them to help us!”
Sonny looked at him, confused. “Why are you attributing the lack of support for Pakistan to Jews?”
Majid glared at Sonny, disbelieving. “Because they hate us! That’s why! We’re like them. The only other religious country in the world. We were created for Muslims, just like they were created for Jews. But they want to be the only ones!”
“Pakistan will be fine,” Chatha responded confidently. “Pakistan is not the issue. The real problem is Israel. We will never have peace in this world as long as they’re living on that land. They bring difficulty for others everywhere they go—it’s their curse. But for that there’s only one solution. And we’ll have to wait another hundred years before anyone has the guts to try that again.”
“Try what again?” Sonny asked suspiciously.
“Killing them all,” Chatha replied, adding—after a pause—with the same matter-of-fact tone: “Like Hitler.”
“Hitler?” Sonny asked. He looked over at Father, appalled.
Father seemed less appalled than exasperated.
Just then—as if on cue—a delightful cataract of female laughter erupted in the kitchen, where the women were gathered.
“If you knew the words of your own holy book, Dr. Buledi,” Chatha began, “then you would know that Hitler was just doing what the Quran predicted and what Allah warned them about.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t act so offended.”
“Don’t act offended? I am offended.”
“Well… ,” Chatha said smugly as he rose from his armchair, “that’s a matter of your politics. It has nothing to do with the truth.” Chatha stepped to the bookshelf along the far wall, where he reached for a copy of the Quran sitting on the highest shelf. “This is what I am talking about,” he said as he kissed the cover and held up the book. “The Truth.” He opened the book, muttering an invocation as he searched its pages. “There it is,” he said, stepping to the couch. He handed Sonny the book, his index finger pointing at a block of text. “Read the underlined verses. Here”—he turned the page—“and here…”
Sonny took the book from him with a skeptical look. There was an uncomfortable silence as he started to read and as Chatha sat back down in his armchair. Another wave of women’s laughter washed in from the kitchen. And suddenly, there was a woman standing in the doorway.
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Chatha looked over. “Yes, Najat?” he asked.
Najat was his wife. The woman I’d only ever met behind a face-covering veil, which she wasn’t wearing now.
“Can we interest you men in a little kawa?” she asked, playfully.
She had a sweet, round face, with a wide and appealing smile. But seeing her gave me an odd feeling, as if the unpermitted face now revealed was somehow unreal, and that the gray-black hanging canvas mask that showed nothing of the woman was, in fact, her true face.
All the men wanted kawa, some with milk, others with sugar as well; only Father requested it the way Kashmiris—inventors of the lightly astringent, green-tea-and-spice brew—served it: with a pinch of salt.
Orders taken, Mrs. Chatha disappeared into the kitchen.
Back at the couch, Sonny turned the page, still reading. He shook his head. “It doesn’t mean what you think it means,” he said confidently as he looked up and gave the book back to Chatha.
Chatha ignored the gesture, turning to Dawood. “Read it to us, brother.”
Dawood hesitated. He looked embarrassed.
“Go ahead,” Chatha encouraged. “Do us the honor. Take it. Read it.”
Dawood leaned forward and took the book from Sonny. “Which lines?” he asked.
“The underlined ones,” Chatha answered.
Dawood straightened in his chair. He cleared his throat and began to read:
Disgrace and humiliation were stamped on the children of Israel.
They earned the burden of God’s wrath.
And all because they denied what God revealed.
They killed His messengers. They rebelled.
They did what was wrong.
Dawood turned the page. Chatha was looking at Sonny. Sonny looked away, unable—or unwilling—to hold Chatha’s gray, unblinking gaze. Dawood continued:
Evil is the pride for which they sold their own souls,
And rejected what God has revealed,
Jealous of others whom God chooses to favor.
They have earned the burden of God’s wrath. Over and over.
Hearing these words, Chatha excitedly raised his hand, stopping Dawood. “‘They have earned the burden of God’s wrath. Over and over.’ That is what is written. That is the truth!” Chatha pointed at Sonny, putting exaggerated emphasis on certain words as he continued: “And that is the curse that has been following them ever since. It is why they were put in ghettos. Why there was a Holocaust. And why they will lose their precious Israel.”
Majid grunted, like a farm animal anticipating feeding. Dawood was nodding.
“They are destined to suffer,” Chatha added with force.
I remembered the only Jewish friend I had ever had, Jason Blum. A wave of worry went through me.
“Why only those verses, Ghaleb?” Sonny challenged, removing his glasses with disdain, wiping at the lenses with a handkerchief he produced from his shirt pocket. “Why not have him read sixty-two as well?”
“Sixty-two?” Chatha asked, confused.
“Maybe it’s you who needs to know your own holy book a little better,” Sonny said, replacing the glasses on his face. “Dawood, please do us the honor of reading verse sixty-two.”
Father looked at Sonny, impressed.
“Dawood. Please. Verse sixty-two. It’s one that Chatha-sahib did not underline.” Sonny gave Chatha an icy look. Dawood glanced over at Chatha. “You don’t need his permission, Dawood,” Sonny said, abruptly. “You’re a grown man. Just read it.”
“Go ahead, Dawood,” Father said. “What’s it say?”
Dawood turned back the page, clearing his throat again:
It is true: The faithful, those who follow the Jewish faith, the Christians, the Sabians—all who believe in God and the Last Day and do right—these shall find reward with the Lord.
They will not fear. They will not grieve.
There was a short silence. Sonny was looking at Chatha. “Explain that,” he said. “Reconcile that, my dear maulvi-sahib.”
“Reconcile?” Chatha asked.
“C’mon, man!” Sonny exploded. “God condemns them in verse sixty-one, which you choose to underline, and then follows it with accepting them in the next?! That’s an outright contradiction and unless you can explain it, it renders both verses utterly meaningless…”
Dawood and Majid traded alarmed looks. Both turned to Chatha, expectant. But Chatha didn’t look worried. “The answer is simple,” he began. “And if you knew the Quran at all, you wouldn’t ask such a question. You wouldn’t pit one verse against the next like a riddle to be resolved! There is no contradiction! The Quran is perfect and complete.”
“What’s the answer, Ghaleb?” Sonny insisted.
“Doctor-sahib,” Chatha said with disdain, “our dear Allah would accept them, every single one of them, if only they would behave. But they don’t behave. They don’t obey. And as long as they don’t, they will pay. If they were to behave righteously, they would be accepted with open arms. But this is the tragedy of the Jew: That he will never learn. Not until he’s roasting in hellfire!”
I thought again of Jason Blum…
Until his parents took him out of school two months into fourth grade, Jason had been my new best friend. With an open, welcoming face—something about his wide-set eyes and broad toothy smile made you feel like you could trust him—he exuded uncommon confidence for a fourth grader. He was the smartest kid in class, and the best dressed: in a Polo or Lacoste shirt, his colored corduroys always matching, the same eternally gleaming Stan Smith tennis shoes on his feet.
Jason’s country club attire was less an indicator of his family’s lifestyle—they were Jewish, and would never have been accepted as members at Indian Hills, the local country club—and more a product of his passion for tennis. He was all the rage in the under-ten category of the local USTA. One evening in his bedroom, our vision blurred by a solid afternoon spent in front of the television playing Atari, he pulled the state ranking booklet from his bookshelf.
“Check it out,” he said, opening to a page.
There he was. In a murky black-and-white shot, unsmiling but unmistakable, the number-one-ranking holder. Under his picture was listed a name I didn’t recognize: Yitzhak Blum.
“Is that your name?” I asked.
“Yeah. It was my grandfather’s name. He died in the Holocaust,” he said blankly. “But everyone calls me Jason. I like Jason better.”
“How do you say your real name?”
He pronounced it, and the gutturals he spoke sounded not unlike sounds my own parents made at home when they talked to each other in Punjabi. I repeated it back to him. “Exactly. That’s really good, Hayat,” he said, impressed. “But I like Jason better.”
He couldn’t have been half as impressed as I was. I’d never met anyone who had his picture in a book before. He shut it and returned it to the shelf, then said matter-of-factly: “I’m Jewish. That’s why my grandfather was killed in the Holocaust. You know what the Holocaust is, right?”
I nodded. “Isn’t that when Hitler killed everybody?”
“It’s when he killed the Jews. He hated us.”
“Oh,” I replied. I felt silly. I realized that Mother had explained this to me when she wouldn’t let me watch the miniseries that had created such a stir the previous year. He’s gonna think you’re an idiot, I thought.
“What are you?” he asked.
“Muslim,” I replied.
He nodded, picking up a racket in the corner. I watched him, my awe only growing, as he swung it. Here before me was my first Jewish friend, tennis champ and classroom math brain, an example, I thought, of exactly why Mother said Jews were so special. If I had ever had any doubt about Mother’s claims, Jason put them to rest. “My mom says you guys are special,” I said with admiration.
“Who?”
“Jews.”
“Oh.” Jason shrugged. “Guess we are,” he added. And then, with a sudden thought, he pointed at
me. “Moslem…so that means you don’t go to church, you go to a mosque, right?”
I nodded. “But we don’t go much. Only like on holidays and stuff.”
Jason nodded. “So we’re the only ones at Mason who don’t go to church?”
“You don’t go to church?” I asked.
“Not on your life. You couldn’t get me in a church if you paid me. The Christians think we killed Jesus. My dad says they’re crazy. He says they’re the ones who killed Jesus themselves, and then they blamed us for it.”
I knew the basics of the story Muslims told about Jesus, a story Mina would tell me in great detail a few years later: that Jesus never actually died, but was saved by God at the last minute. I also knew that we Muslims considered Jesus a prophet, but not the Son of God. I mentioned both details to Jason.
“I don’t know about all that…All I know is, my dad says the guy was loony. He’d be in a hospital for crazy people if he was alive today. My dad says the guy was looking to get killed. He says Jesus had a death wish.”
I nodded. I didn’t really know much about the whole thing. And it sounded to me like Jason did.
A week after he said those things to me about Jesus at his house, he would apparently repeat them at school. I wasn’t there to hear it, but I was present for the aftermath.
