Hoda and Jake

by Richard Booth

  She wanted Jake Holman. For a husband. She wanted children, and she wanted to finish a residency in psychiatry. The question was: could she have it all? It seemed impossible.

  “You’ve never met him,” Hoda said at length. The conversation stayed in Arabic.

  “This is true,” Dr. Hassan said. “I’ve never met Obama, but I know his politics.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “American men are not for you. They are not right.”

  Hoda was about to say that’s so unfair, but saved her breath. What was fair and not was her father’s province and always had been. What had been so comforting when she was his little princess had morphed into oppressive unreason.

  “Thank you for tea,” Hoda said. An American would have said “lunch.”

  “Must you rush off?” asked Maryam.

  “There’s a train from Norwood Central in fifteen minutes,” Hoda said. “I have a ticket for the Accela to Washington.”

  “Hoda,” her mother said, placing a hand on Hoda’s wrist. “Don’t do anything foolish. Remember your deen.”

  The meaning was clear: Fear Allah. Don’t sleep with this man. They knew Jake worked at CIA headquarters in Langley, VA, outside Washington, while her job was in the part of the closed Fort Monmouth property in New Jersey. Their inference from the Amtrak high-speed Accela, which ended its route in Washington, was that she was going to see Jake. Which she was. Her leave expired in two days, and she intended to see him before that, insha’Allah. God willing.

  Hoda looked into her mother’s eyes. “Allah is watching,” Hoda said, and smiled warmly.

  Courtly as always, her father stood when Hoda did, and they parted the Arabic way: check-cheek, kiss-kiss. Hoda began walking briskly to the MBTA station in downtown Norwood. She already had her ticket: they were far more expensive on the train.

  As the train left Norwood Central, Hoda booted her iPad. The WiFi was nice. She sent Jake a note, saying she was on her way. He wrote back almost instantly: “How did it go?”

  “Not well.”

  “We’ll talk.”

  “Insha’Allah.” Jake knew what that meant.

  And that was that. Many women—many people—would have been upset in Hoda’s situation. But her Army training, and medical school, rescued her. Plan well, and deal with tactical situations as they arise. It was all in Allah’s hands, anyway. She opened a file detailing Phase One trials for a new interrogation drug, on which she’d soon have to write a report. Thus occupied, she was at South Station before she knew it. The Accela was already boarding.

  ***

  No sooner had Jake Holman put his iPhone away than John Robinson’s personal assistant put down her phone.

  “The assistant director will see you now,” she said. Holman knew for a fact she was all of sixty, but looked about forty. He marveled yet again how some women aged better than others.

  “Something amuse you?” she said to Holman.

  “No, I was miles away,” Jake replied. He couldn’t tell her he’d bet Hoda would look great at her age. Jake strode toward Robinson’s inner door, rapped softly, and entered when he heard the summons.

  Many CIA offices looked GI—government issue. Not Robinson’s. A Princeton grad, he’d hooked on with the agency right out of college, and had a silver spoon all his life. He’d spared no expense from his own pocket on the room where he spent sometimes eighteen hours a day—and sometimes overnight. There was a cot behind a partition in the corner, cleverly concealed to one side, away from the huge windows.

  Holman didn’t like many wealthy people, but he liked Robinson. Probably because Robinson liked him, and showed it. The superior rose and came around his desk, clasping Holman’s hand. “Sit down, Jake.” Jake did.

  “What have you been doing on your convalescence?” Robinson asked. Jake had been shot on his last assignment, with Hoda Abdelal. But his wound was superficial; she’d dressed it in the field. Later, she’d been hit, and could have died.

  “I did an Annapolis-to-Newport race in a one-ton cup,” Jake said. Robinson had sailed for Princeton, Jake for Rhode Island, and they’d often compared notes.

  “Been to the range a lot, I see,” Robinson said, picking up a paper. Jake could see from its backlighting it was a photocopy of the CIA range log, from the building basement.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s good. I think.”

  “Think?”

  “Says here you didn’t go alone.”

  “No. I didn’t know I was supposed to.”

  “Is Major Abdelal a good shot?”

  “Good enough to kill two baddies before I got my piece out. Then she covered me from base of fire. You read the report.”

  “Yes. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on Major Abdelal. Or is it doctor?”

  “Actually,” Jake said, risking a joke, “it’s doctor doctor. PhD in pharmacy, and M.D.”

  “Busy girl. Overachiever.”

  Achiever, Jake thought, but said nothing. And busy woman.

  “Jake, I read your report. You sure you’re thinking with your head, not heart?”

  Holman was grateful Robinson put that as delicately as he did; some men would have been more crude. His heart was in the equation, he admitted, but all the more reason to resent having Hoda slurred. She didn’t deserve that. The thought occurred to Jake that Robinson might assume things going on between Hoda and him that decidedly were not. He needed to keep his temper in check: Hoda was the chink in his sangfroid.

  Robinson picked up Jake’s report. “You want us to take Abdelal on?”

  “She’d be an asset, sir.”

  “What kind?”

  “Many kinds. You see her training. She wants to do a residency in psychiatry. She speaks fluent Arabic. She’s done work in subject interrogation, including the drugs involved. She’s an excellent researcher, writes a fine white paper, is a horse for work. You said so yourself, sir, she’s an over-achiever. We can’t have too many of those. There aren’t enough to go around.”

  “What are we going to tell the Pentagon? Medical and Intelligence are fighting over her, and they each have damned good claims. How can M.I. say they need her when Medical paid for her med school?”

  “Respectfully, sir, that’s not our problem. If we push it, couldn’t we get her?”

  “Perhaps. Yes, likely. But she’s only a lowly M.D. She needs more training. Where’s that coming from?”

  “She’s been accepted for residency at Johns Hopkins, sir. In psychiatry.”

  “And who’s going to pay for that? Not the Army, surely.”

  There was a pause. Now or never. “We could,” Jake suggested, leaving off the “sir.” He was playing on his relationship with Robinson, and they both knew it. “We spend a lot of money on black ops. Why not something white, for a change? It wouldn’t be the first time we picked up the tab for someone who would be useful.”

  “Have you thought this through carefully?” Robinson asked. He was gazing at Jake intently.

  “You read the report.”

  “Yes. But I’m also reading between the lines, Jake. And I’m not entirely comfortable.”

  “There’s no such animal as a sure thing,” Jake said. He returned the director’s gaze pound for pound. “Especially in our business.”

  “Touché,” admitted Robinson. “Well, let me think about it.” He abruptly looked at Jake hard. “You haven’t discussed this with her, have you?”

  “Not agency business, sir. You know me better than that. Surely.”

  “You think she’d come over?”

  “I do.” Hoda was in the crossfire between two Army branches, and not happy with Army life. She’d said so, though she was grateful for everything the Army had given her. The washout rate among women in Ranger School was almost 90 percent; Hoda Abdelal had graduated fifth in her class, as the only woman. She wore the coveted CIB, Combat Infantry Badge. Served a tour in Afghanistan, and not as a medical officer, either. In division intelligence�
�which required field work gathering it. And in Afghanistan, a woman Intel op was prized because she could talk with the local women as no man ever could.

  “I’ll make a few phone calls,” Robinson said with finality. That was one of his pat answers; it signified a matter was closed. But he did make them, and his went a long way: important people answered them.

  He cleared his throat “Now,” he said. “Ready to go back to work?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Good. Stay local. One never knows.”

  “Will do.” Dismissed. Jake stood, Robinson did not. Neither did he look up. Holman walked out, nodding to the admin as he passed. Once in the corridor, he checked his watch: the Accela arrived in an hour.

  ***

  Jake picked the hijab out instantly as Hoda emerged from the train. She was traveling light. She turned when she heard her name, bathing Jake in the smile she used to withhold. She couldn’t anymore.

  “Good trip? Here, let me take that.” He relieved her of the small travel bag.

  “On the train, yes.” They began to follow foot traffic toward the street.

  “Not so swell with the parents, then?”

  “I didn’t expect much better. What have you been up to?”

  “I have reservations.”

  “Not about me, I hope?” It was meant as a joke, but triggered discord.

  “That’s a separate issue.” Jake smiled. Then the smile melted. “But, yes, some.”

  Ice gripped Hoda’s chest. She stopped in her tracks. “Jake, tell me this. Tell me there’s no one else. Tell me that. Be honest with me. I deserve that.”

  “Whoa, calm down. What’s gotten into you?”

  “American men. You’re all alike. Baba is right.” Meaning her father.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You can’t get it one way, so you get it another. I won’t stand for it.” She grabbed her bag from his hand, and Jake was so nonplussed he let her take it. Hoda walked away, toward the door with the rest of the crowd. Jake almost grabbed her elbow, but remembered not to touch her. Ever.

  Holman was astonished. The imperturbable Major Hoda Abdelal, United States Army, was acting like any other woman. Jake needed to say something, needed a nuclear response. There was only one thing he could think of—something he had never said in all the weeks he had known her.

  “Hoda, I love you!” He shouted it, and people stared. Some smiled. Others seemed to take no notice; transit terminals were famous for drama.

  It worked. Hoda stopped dead. Turned around to face him. They were fifteen feet apart. Jake stepped toward her once, twice, three times. “I love you,” he said, more softly.

  She hadn’t expected that. It never occurred to her Jake didn’t, either. But he realized it was true. He hadn’t, until that moment, but the irresistible force had been building like an ember to a flame. Hoda wasn’t some conquest, some streetcar named desire in the night. She was The One. His One. Jake swallowed hard.

  She walked to him stopping close, but not offering her hands, as an American woman would; she invited no contact, but her eyes were moist, lips slightly apart. “I’m Muslim,” she whispered hoarsely.

  “I know.”

  “My Baba…”

  “We’ll deal with him. Together.”

  “The Army.”

  “We’ll deal with them. Together.”

  “Jake…”

  “C’mon, we have a lot to talk about. I made a reservation in Georgetown. We’ll get a cab.”

  “You can’t afford that!”

  “Sure I can. I’m a wealthy agent.”

  ***

  The restaurant was Italian, small and intimate in the Georgetown way. Jake had scouted long and hard; he didn’t want anything Middle Eastern, because there was no way he could tell if she’d like it, and was sure she’d judge it harshly. Hoda had the piccato, small portion angel hair, and picked. Jake ordered veal parmigiana, and it was perfection personified. They ate in silence for some time.

  “When did you decide this?” Hoda said at length. It was one of the few times Jake could remember her initiating conversation.

  “Decide what?” he parried.

  She looked at him, fork frozen before her lips, eyes riveted on his face. That didn’t happen often, either.

  “On the train platform,” Jake admitted.

  “You’re not just saying it?”

  “Hoda, that is not something a man says to a woman.”

  “It’s said every day. Men will say anything.”

  “Some men will. But not to a Muslima, if it’s true. What about trust?”

  “What about it?”

  “Hoda, we’re not teenagers. Have I ever suggested anything? Have I ever been anything but a gentleman to you?”

  “No,” she admitted. “In fact, you’re not like any American man I know. It’s what I like about you.”

  “Just ‘like’?”

  “Jake, it isn’t that easy. You don’t understand—”

  “I think I do. I think I understand a good deal. And by the way, speaking of American, you’re American.”

  “Sometimes I wonder. I think I got away from my roots, and I’m not always comfortable. It isn’t easy with a foot in two cultures.”

  “And two so different.”

  “Yes.” She smiled at him. “But let’s get back to what you said. That you love me.”

  “I believe I do.”

  “It’d be complicated, Jake. There’s my father.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the Army.”

  “Yes.”

  “And shahada.”

  That, Jake knew, was the sentence professing Muslim faith: “The is no God but Allah, and Mohammad is His messenger.” Saying that, with conviction, made one Muslim. Simple as that. Whether one practiced the faith was between the individual and Allah—and the consequences, if you believed in it, were pretty dire. Eternity was a long time to be in hell fire.

  “No way around that,” Jake said. It was a question, but he didn’t say it as such.

  “None whatsoever.”

  Jake didn’t say anything. “Jake?”

  ‘Hmm?”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  Long pause. It had been years since he’d discussed his beliefs with anyone. As it happened, events in his life had opened the door to a spirituality he didn’t know he had in him. Too many coincidences had piled up, brushes with death, opportunities won and lost, but mostly won. The universe was just too organized—and science, rather than refuting spirituality, only seemed to confirm that organization with each new momentous discovery.

  “Yes,” he said at length, eyeing his plate.”I believe I do.”

  “Well, we’ll start there.”

  “I’ve used my leave to do a lot of reading. On Islam.”

  “Really? Drawn any conclusions?”

  “Yes. It gets lost in translation. When you look into it, it’s a pretty simple religion.”

  “Oh?”

  “First, there’s the shahada. ‘There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.’ Then it’s ‘maintain regular prayer and perform regular charity.’ Do the right things.”

  This was a side of Jake Holman she had never dreamed existed. Hoda herself had drifted from Islam, and seeing this religious stranger—this unbeliever—start to believe only served to rekindle her desire to strengthen her own iman. Her religion.

  But she also sensed the conversation was about to derail into territory where they might find differences, not commonality. Discussing religion was like that. She searched for a way to bring them together. It was enough that Jake was turning his head toward Islam, if only a little bit. One couldn’t force it, the resistance would cause heat. So, she didn’t reply, leaving a pause. They used the silence to eat.

  “Thank you for dinner, by the way. This place is nice.”

  “You’re worth it,” Jake said. “I mean that.”

  Hoda blushed. It wasn’t easy to see in the dim li
ghting, but the candle on their table left no margin for error. Jake marveled at her beauty—and at how the hijab only enhanced it. Of course, unlike most Muslim women, he had seen her without it, and she was beautiful without comparison. Big eyes, pouty lips, smooth skin. During their mission together, she’d worn western clothes, and Hoda Abdelal had a pleasing figure.

  His suit was nicely cut, she thought. She’d never seen him in a suit before. It wasn’t too expensive, but tailored well. The jacket was a little full, but he often carried his weapon there. She wondered if he was carrying now. He was so handsome! And with that thought flooded insecurity. What was it they said about sailors? A girl in every port? Well, they definitely shouldn’t talk about that. Not tonight.

  “Hoda?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m about to take a huge risk. One I never take. But you’re worth it. My boss would kill me if he found out. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “Would you ever consider coming to work for the Agency?”

  “Doing what?”

  “You can do a lot. You already have useful skills, between medicine and Intelligence. You could do a lot more if you finished your residency in psychiatry.”

  “My father won’t pay for it, Jake. He doesn’t think psychiatry is real medicine. And I can’t afford any loans.”

  Jake finished his last mouthful, wiping his fingers on the linen napkin. They were talking very softly now. It wouldn’t do for neighbors to hear.

  “The agency might. And fix things with the Army, too.”

  “Whaaat?”

  “Robinson said he’d ‘make some phone calls.’ Remember that line, when we were in the motel room on the job? That’s his way of saying he’d check on it. He’s been looking you over.”

  “Not the way you have, I hope.” Hoda actually made a joke! Jake laughed out loud.

  “I can’t believe you said that.”

  “Well, it’s true. Don’t deny it.”

  “I won’t. I’d never lie to you.”

  “See that you don’t.” But she was twinkling. Then she turned serious.

  “What about your people? If you convert?”