Layover in Dubai

by Dan Fesperman

  Dear Mr. Keller …

  The handwriting was neat and proper, although not the least bit girlish. The salutation was certainly more formal than he would have preferred, but it struck a tone she maintained throughout, as if she wasn’t at all accustomed to engaging in this sort of correspondence. But a certain warmth also came through.

  Thank you for entrusting yourself into Ali’s care. Even though I know you must have reservations, I can assure you that he will only do what he deems to be in your best interests. Nonetheless, I hope that you will also consider me to be an important part of your support network. Ali obviously has valuable connections, but I do as well, and among them are people who neither he nor my father are aware of (or, in my father’s case, would even want to be aware of, as you probably well understand!).

  In other words, please do not think of me as helpless or overly dependent in these matters, as so many men here would be inclined to do. Should an urgent situation arise, do not hesitate to contact me for assistance. I remain at your service, both as my father’s representative, and, I hope, as your friend.

  With best regards,

  Laleh Sharaf

  He smiled to contemplate how her father would have regarded such a note. It made him hope anew that Sharaf was okay, although the news had sounded grim. With any luck maybe they would both survive long enough for him to see the policeman’s reaction to Laleh’s newfound autonomy. Whatever happened, the old fellow was going to find a changed daughter on his return. The nature of fatherhood, he supposed, thinking fondly of his own dad.

  He folded the note and put it back in the pocket of his trousers. Seconds later, without warning, the lights went out. Conversation halted, and he heard the rattle of paper as men put aside their things. Bed frames creaked as everyone settled in. Soon the cramped little room was silent.

  A few minutes later the evening call to prayer sounded from a small mosque Sam had seen near the market. No one stirred among the Hindus. It was such a lonely sound, like a voice calling out from across the ocean.

  By now, Sam figured, Nanette was probably enjoying a lavish dinner on Pfluger Klaxon’s tab, or watching a pay-per-view movie on her hotel room’s HD screen, bare legs curled beneath her on the large, comfy bed. Or maybe she was huddled at the consulate with Hal Liffey, planning what to do once Sam was finally flushed from cover.

  Well, he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. He would wait them out, and then dodge whoever they left in their wake. He would stay in this work camp for days—even weeks if necessary.

  But what if even then no one came to retrieve him? He supposed that at some point he might simply have to walk away from this building, back toward the highway, where he would hitchhike to Media City. If all else failed, Laleh would take him in. Odd to think of her as his closest ally now, but that was certainly what her note was encouraging him to do, and he liked the idea. Was it mostly because her father was a cop? Or was it more because he was attracted to her, and sensed that the feeling was mutual?

  Above him, the mattress creaked. In another bunk a man began to snore. The sounds of deep, heavy breathing seemed to come from all directions. They must have been exhausted, and he supposed that by this time tomorrow he would be, too. He wondered if he would be able to meet the demands of the workday.

  Sam reached toward the foot of the bed, groping in the dark for his jacket. He folded it to use as a pillow, then closed his eyes and tried to relax.

  Just as he was drifting off he heard bare feet hit the floor, like the sound of a small animal dropping from a tree. Something gripped his bed frame, making it quiver, and he heard quickened breathing. He smelled onions. Ramesh. He tensed, ready to defend himself. There was a low mutter, like an incantation, and sudden movement to his left. The smell of onions was stronger, and when Ramesh spoke next his mouth was only a few inches from his face.

  The words were rushed, emphatic, and incomprehensible, some Bengali curse or imprecation. Then the man was gone, the bed trembling as he released his grip. Sam let out a deep breath and unclenched his fists. Now what had that been? A warning? A threat? Some sort of superstitious spell, to ward off Sam’s influence? Whatever it was, it certainly hadn’t sounded like an apology.

  There was a creak of springs from across the room as Ramesh climbed back into his bunk, and the room was again at peace. But for the next half hour Sam didn’t close his eyes. He kept wondering whether Ramesh would pay him another visit, this time with more violent intent. The air conditioner droned on, changing in tone from time to time like a truck shifting gears on an uphill grade. Gradually, without realizing it, Sam slipped from wakefulness. And just as quickly, it seemed, he was being jostled awake.

  He opened his eyes and felt the bed shake as the man in the overhead bunk jumped to the floor. All around him in the dimness men were rising, pulling on jumpsuits and boots, the scene lit by a lantern in the courtyard that shone through the room’s open door. The air conditioner was off.

  “Hurry, or you will not have time to eat,” Vikram said, bending to his side, then quickly rising back out of sight. Sam wrenched himself upright and swung his feet onto the floor. He was groggy, ravenous, and thirsty all at once, and he was already worrying about how high he would have to climb on whatever site the bus took them to.

  The workday had begun.

  15

  Waking up in the Dubai Central Jail wasn’t how Anwar Sharaf had hoped to begin his day, especially when he opened his eyes to see a cockroach eating crumbs from the beard of the inmate in the opposite bunk.

  Sharaf reached across the narrow aisle to flick at the big brown bug. It scurried away. With four other cellmates to choose from, the roach had plenty of options for breakfast.

  Already Sharaf missed the comforts of nuzzling Amina’s back, his usual harbor on a drowsy morning. He had grown accustomed to her welcoming shift and sigh as he glided against her, hand on her shoulder while his waist bumped her soft curves below. Except, of course, on mornings like the previous one, when she had still been angry from the night before.

  Even with only one wife, Sharaf reflected, marriage was complicated. As he slumbered on the jailhouse bunk he recalled their early years, when she hadn’t yet trusted his stated intention to never take a second wife. She’d been convinced that his monogamy was merely a phase, fueled by a desire for rebellion that would fade over time, and she had always said so at the end of every argument.

  “When you are done pissing off your father, you will want another wife, and then another after that,” she said. “I am sure of it.”

  But when three years passed after his father’s death and Sharaf still made no move in that direction, Amina had at last believed him. She had even accepted the basis of his explanation—that she was more than enough woman for him, not only in bed, but also in the artful ways she ran their home.

  Sharaf was wise enough to keep the real reason to himself: He simply never could have endured the extra aggravation, complication, and political finesse that would have been required to maintain peace and sanity in a household of multiple spouses. From early in boyhood he had known that when he sailed into middle age and beyond, he wanted to do so on a tidy ship with clean lines, an uncluttered deck, and all hands pulling together. And that would be possible only with one captain and one mate. The crew of children could mutiny all it wanted as long as the hands at the wheel remained steady.

  Yet, here in jail, awakening among hundreds in shared misery, he realized in a moment of morning clarity that thirty-four years of marriage had produced something quite unexpected. The words of his long-uttered rationale had actually come to pass. Amina really was all the woman he needed, and he missed her terribly.

  A loud fart from across the room jolted him further awake. Then the call to prayer sounded over the intercom. Even the muezzin sounded institutional, as blandly uninspired as the food. On the bunk just behind him, an inmate that Sharaf already despised sat up quickly and announced to the cell, “It is time for everyone to rise a
nd wash so that we may pray, inshallah. Prayer is better than sleep, inshallah.”

  The man was apparently incapable of speaking without tacking the word “inshallah”—God willing—onto every phrase, a verbal tic of piety as maddening as a dripping faucet. Sharaf had noticed this tendency in other devout locals of late, as if invoking God’s name at every turn might help ward off the growing erosion of morals by the incoming tide from the West. But he had never heard anyone as persistent as this fellow.

  Sharaf wasn’t the only person irritated by the repetition. The fellow with crumbs in his beard sat up and said loudly, “Can you please shut up, inshallah? Or will we be forced to pin you to the floor, inshallah, so that we can all drop our drawers and pee into your Godly little mouth, inshallah.”

  There were snickers from every bunk but one. Sharaf turned his face toward the wall to hide his smile. No sense making an enemy in a place where someone could attack you while you slept. Especially when the man in question wore a red stripe across his white tunic and down the legs of his drawstring pants. The color signified that he was a lifer, meaning he had probably committed a crime of unspeakable violence.

  The markings were for the benefit of the guards. It made it easier for them to know who to keep an eye on. A yellow stripe meant a sentence of up to six years. Blue was for up to two. Green was for the lightest sentences of a few months. Sharaf’s uniform was the only one with no stripes at all. Just plain white, as if everything about him was yet to be determined. Appropriate enough, he supposed, since he hadn’t yet been charged with any crime, much less tried and sentenced. For all anyone knew, he wasn’t even here.

  “You speak blasphemies only to mock me,” the offended fellow said, ironically forgetting to add “inshallah” now that he was angry. “That is even more sinful than uttering a blasphemy in complete sincerity. Did you know that your soul is in peril?”

  “Oh, go fuck yourself. Inshallah.”

  After Sharaf’s arrest the day before, his blindfolded ride in the windowless van had lasted for nearly an hour. His hips and shoulders were still bruised from all the bumping. When the blindfold finally came off, he was facing Lieutenant Assad in a dingy room of whitewashed cinder blocks, lit by a bare bulb that dangled from a frayed wire. The room, like the van, had no windows. He had never seen the place, meaning it wasn’t at police headquarters. And he knew enough about the Interior Ministry’s new offices to know that he wasn’t there, either. They wouldn’t have tolerated such dirty walls, or the gritty floor with its crumbling tiles, stinking of cat urine and spilled motor oil. Maybe they were in some sort of garage. Judging from the length of the ride in the van—assuming they hadn’t driven him around in circles—he was either far to the east of the city, out past Jebel Ali along the road to Abu Dhabi, or well to the south, somewhere in the desert.

  The latter possibility reminded him uncomfortably of the woman in blue sequins, but he quickly dismissed the idea that he might meet a similar fate, if only because it was probably what Assad wanted him to think. Sowing fear and doubt were among the best possible ways to lubricate an interrogation. Establishing trust was even more effective, of course, but Assad must have known that was out of the question.

  Assad, dressed impeccably as always, waited more than a minute before speaking. Sharaf figured it was supposed to make him lose his cool. Instead he used the time to marshal his defenses.

  “We know you’re hiding him,” Assad finally began. It was the first of many small tricks he would attempt. A quick denial would have been an admission of guilt.

  “Hiding who?”

  Sharaf wrinkled his brow in what he hoped was convincing bewilderment.

  “Oh, come on. The American. You were the last officer seen with him.”

  “Ah, so that is why I’m here. You still haven’t found him, and you need a scapegoat to explain his escape. There must be pressure from upstairs. Have they threatened a suspension? I don’t envy you, Assad. Who is it you’re trying to impress? Someone in the cabinet?”

  “We searched your house. The guest bedroom had been slept in.”

  Meaning they hadn’t found Keller. A pleasant surprise. He wondered how the young man had gotten away. Assad’s choice of words also told him they hadn’t found Keller’s clothes, passport, and wallet out in the washtub in the shed. He supposed he might have overlooked those items as well, because who in their right mind would have placed such things in a tub of water, leaving them to soak? Dumb luck on his part, although he certainly had his reasons.

  “My son Salim has been sleeping in the guest room. Would you like me to enumerate his embarrassing marital difficulties for you, or must you trouble the rest of my family with prying questions as well?”

  Even if Assad checked the story with Salim, a contradiction wouldn’t necessarily be damning. There wasn’t an Emirati male alive who would admit to being kicked out of the marital bed—or, in Salim’s case, both of them.

  “Seriously, go and check. You’ll even find some of Salim’s clothes hanging in the guest room closet. Unless he has already moved back home, of course.”

  The search must have found the clothes—the very ones Sharaf had taken from Salim’s house for Keller to borrow—with their non-American look and their local store labels, because now Assad didn’t seem so sure of himself. It convinced Sharaf that the lieutenant had nothing more on that front.

  “Our search also determined that the American had recently been in your daughter’s bedroom. Ah, I see from your face that this is a surprise to you, and no doubt an unpleasant one.”

  Sharaf inwardly cursed himself for betraying his emotions. Had he raised an eyebrow? Drawn a sudden breath? Damn that Laleh. What had she been doing after hours? And God only knows what she would be doing in his absence, especially if Ali had recruited her help in keeping Keller out of harm’s way. Or was Assad bluffing, by probing his best-known weak spot? Sharaf bit his tongue and stared back, trying to look as impassive as possible.

  “Yes, he was in her bedroom,” Assad continued. “Her computer had been used not long before we arrived. The screen saver had not even had time to come back on. Keller was familiar with your daughter, wasn’t he? What is her name? Laleh, that’s it. I’ve heard things about her. Her social carelessness, for lack of a better term.”

  Sharaf hoped the color wasn’t rising in his cheeks. He wasn’t sure who was upsetting him more—Assad, with this line of inquiry, or Laleh, for providing such a handy tool to lever his emotions.

  “I’ll wager you weren’t very pleased by their behavior together. And under your own roof, no less. So save yourself a future ulcer, Sharaf, not to mention lots of embarrassing stories that would be needlessly spread around the city. Just tell me where you’ve stashed this hopelessly uncouth American. Leave him to my team, and this whole affair will be closed cleanly and quickly, with minimal embarrassment and upset to all those parties whom we least want to embarrass and upset. Even his own people wish for this outcome. His embassy is quite up in arms about his disappearance. Or were you not aware of that?”

  Another little trap, which he quickly sidestepped.

  “Can’t a young lady’s older brother visit his sister’s room without some sort of rumor being attached? Especially an older brother who is currently not welcome in his own home? I’m sure Laleh wouldn’t begrudge Salim a few minutes’ use of her desktop computer, even if he didn’t bother to ask her permission.”

  “Very well, Sharaf. Stick with that story for as long as you like.”

  Assad surprised him by not pressing the point. Nor did he follow up with brutality or deprivation. He didn’t even shout. When Sharaf asked to use the bathroom, Assad let him, albeit with a police escort. And when Sharaf returned to the room a bottle of cool water and a clean glass were waiting on the floor by his chair. After a half hour more of desultory questioning, Assad ordered him back into the van, this time not bothering with the blindfold. When the panel doors opened an hour later, Sharaf had found himself here, out in the
desert at the Dubai Central Jail in Al Aweer. The message seemed clear enough: This was where Sharaf would remain until he decided to talk.

  Everything about his arrival at the prison had been unorthodox. Most inmates came on big buses, and were unloaded in an underground garage at the entrance to a holding cell in the intake area. The new arrivals then stood in various lines where their paperwork was processed while guards constantly shouted at them. Each of them got a strip search and a color-coded uniform.

  Sharaf was processed upstairs with no waiting and no paperwork, but he did get a strip search. Some goon probed his buttocks with the cool smooth end of a varnished black baton. A guard then handed him the strange white uniform and a pair of slippers before marching him to his cell. On this day, at least, the guards seemed to be dividing the newcomers by nationality. The Indians and Pakistanis went one way, the Westerners another. All the fellow newbies in Sharaf’s cell seemed to be Emiratis.

  Sharaf had been freezing cold since his arrival, thanks to the prison’s relentless air-conditioning. He had no underwear and no socks, and on his bunk there was only a top sheet and a thin wool blanket. The way they cranked cold air into the place you’d have thought it was a dairy. Cold or not, it was time to rise. He threw off the flimsy blanket, shivering as he swung his slippered feet onto the chilly floor.

  The prison was practically new. As with much of Dubai’s recent construction, no expense had been spared. The rulers had insisted on the best penitentiary money could buy, and at first glance they seemed to have gotten their wish. The bright lights, the stainless steel, the acres of whitewashed concrete, and the glassed-in security hub, with long cellblocks extending from it like the legs of an octopus, made the Central Jail seem like the very model of spotless efficiency.

  Look closer, however, and the underlying shoddiness of quick-buck construction was already in evidence. Cracked linoleum. Crumbling concrete. Balky electrical locks that refused to open on demand. Often the intercom failed. When it did, a fellow patrolled the wings with a bullhorn to announce the next mealtime or prayer. The place seemed clean enough, but there was that cockroach Sharaf had spotted, plus a steady stream of ants. And any way you looked at it, it was still a prison, with the usual pecking order of such places—the bullying and the savvy at the top, the timid and the weak at the bottom. Fortunately none of Sharaf’s cellmates seemed to know he was a cop. And on his one visit to the dining hall he had kept his head down, lest any old adversaries spot him.