by Maria Padian
Chapter Thirty-One
And like that, they were gone. They slipped back into the nowhere they came from. As if they’d never existed and the past few months had never happened.
The neighbors would tell us nothing, and Myla and I had some long debates over whether they truly didn’t know or there was some conspiracy of silence. They just shrugged and wouldn’t reply when you asked them where the family went. And we asked. We knocked on doors, Myla and me, and even though at most of the apartments the kids, especially the little girls, were excited to see her and threw their arms around her waist, the adults told us nothing.
Same story with the guys on the team: Ismail, Ibrahim, and Double M knew nothing. Guidance had heard nothing; the Bashirs were simply missing in action. And even Coach, who I figured would go postal when he heard his star player had apparated, kind of just … moved on. Standing outside the bus, clipboard in hand, as we loaded in for our first playoff game against Whittier, he was his usual unsmiling pregame self. All business and calm.
“Saeed?” I said to him before I climbed the stairs.
Coach shook his head.
“We’ll be playing this one without him, Tom,” he said simply.
Losing that one without him, more like. Whittier beat us, 3–2. And like that, our season was gone, too.
I felt like I was in some Jason Bourne movie, or a remake of The Manchurian Candidate. I wanted somebody to tell me how I’d gotten here and which one of the seven passports with my picture in it was authentic. Tell me what had really happened and who I really was, because my current life was feeling like a bad dream. With moments that morphed into nightmare.
For example: sitting in a vinyl armchair, watching Don feed himself beef stew. He kept spilling, because his right arm was in a cast and he was trying to manage a spoon lefty. Lines from a Talking Heads song my dad always plays kept running through my head: You may ask yourself: how did I get here? You may say to yourself: this is not my beautiful life!
I managed to not share that with Don.
“I think you’re getting more on your chest than in your mouth,” I commented instead. He grinned at me, which was fairly horrifying because his mouth was full and the side of his face where he got all the stitches was still swollen and bruised.
“That’s why I’ve got this nice bib,” he replied. Uncle Paul had tucked a wad of napkins around Don’s neck, so it did look like he was wearing a papery bib.
Paul had been coming to the hospital as much as, if not more than, Mrs. Plourde. Don told me that when he drifted off at night, Paul was usually in the armchair, and when he woke up, the nurses would tell him Paul had only just left, or promised to be right back.
Paul had always liked Don. I watched as he leaned over him and gently wiped traces of brown sauce from his chin.
“Don’t let pretty boy here get to you,” he said. “You’ve gotta practice using your left hand. The right’s gonna be out of commission for a while.” As if to prove the point, Don raised another shaky spoonful to his mouth. That one delivered the full load, no spills.
“Hey, who you callin’ pretty boy?” I said.
“You,” they both replied.
“Sure as hell isn’t me,” Don added. This was too true to be funny, so no one laughed.
Paul returned to his chair on the opposite side of the bed from me. He crossed one foot over his knee.
“So tell us again what happened yesterday,” he said.
“We lost,” I repeated. “C’est tout.” That was it. All of it. Over. My energy for reliving the Whittier defeat was pretty low.
“But you beat ’em good in the regular season.”
“They showed up ready to play and we didn’t,” I replied. They beat us to the ball nine times out of ten, I didn’t add. They played with desire. We played in a fog.
We were missing our star. And sure, we still had plenty of solid guys on the team who could score, but mentally we were hurting. Winning begins with attitude, and we were defeated before the bus even pulled out of the Chamberlain parking lot.
“Didya ever find out what happened to Saeed?” Don said.
Paul looked at me quizzically.
“Were you missing people?” he asked.
“Only our best player,” I said. Not a topic I wanted to bring up with Paul. I looked at Don. “No word from him. It’s like they vanished.”
“That sucks,” Don said, then took another bite.
“Somali guy?” Paul asked. I nodded.
“Yeah, well, what do you expect?” he said with a laugh. “Here today, gone tomorrow.”
“Don’t.”
The word came out of my mouth like a gunshot. Quick. Percussive. Unexpected. I didn’t know what would follow, but I did know I wasn’t going to listen to this crap from my uncle anymore.
“I’m sorry … what?” Paul wore a stunned expression I didn’t recognize.
“Don’t start running the Somalis down. It’s bullshit, Uncle Paul. And you’re better than that.”
His face reddened.
“I think, Tommy, that I know something about—”
I cut him off.
“You don’t know anything about Saeed,” I told him. “He’s not just a great player. He’s a team leader. And even though he’s had to deal with more shit in his short life than you, me, and Don combined, he still manages to be a good guy. And he happens to be my friend. So drop it, Uncle Paul.”
There was silence as my uncle stared unflinchingly back at me. I’d seen him spar with my aunt enough to realize that he was not silent because he was at a loss for words. He was trying to decide how to respond. Because what came next would be the maiden steps in some new territory we’d just entered.
Don put his plastic spoon down on the tray with a quiet click. He pushed the rolling hospital table away. Paul glanced at him, cleared his throat, and rose.
“I’ll take that out of here,” he said. “I’m also gonna get myself a cup of coffee. You guys want anything?”
“No, thanks,” I told him.
“Hot stone massage?” Don suggested. “Preferably given by the red-haired nurse who came on duty at five?” Paul shook his head, half smiled at him, and walked out with the tray.
Don looked at me with wide eyes.
“Tell us what you really think, Tom-boy,” he said.
I sighed.
“Was I out of line?” I asked.
Don leaned back into his pillows. Just the effort of eating had exhausted him.
“Nah,” he said. “I mean, Paul’s the man. But he’s definitely got some blind spots when it comes to people.”
Abdullahi Aden was not expecting me. Still, he was way friendlier and more polite than the woman who worked the reception desk at the superintendent’s office. I didn’t have an appointment, and she chewed a piece of gum as I introduced myself. It was green. I watched it dance between her teeth as I spoke to her. Her nails, which clicked as she depressed phone keys and called down to Mr. Aden, were long and shellacked dark purple.
“Can I ask what this is regarding?” she said.
“It’s a social call,” I told her. “Me and Mr. Aden go way back.” She raised one eyebrow but held the receiver to her ear.
“There’s a student out here who wants to see you,” she said. “Tom Bouchard.” Pause. “Should I send him back?” Pause. She hung up.
“He’ll be right out.” She didn’t invite me to sit or tell me how long I’d have to wait. She turned to her computer, and the nails began clicking rapidly over the keys. I wandered over to the windows and stared out at the street and passing traffic.
It was Donnie who suggested that Mr. Aden might know where the Bashirs had gone. After Paul left the hospital the night of the beef stew, I hung out way past visiting hours. More than the pain, Don hated being alone: “I’ve got my little friend here for the pain,” he said, pointing to the morphine drip with the magic button he never let out of his good hand. “I need you for the rest of it, Tom-boy.”
&nb
sp; He lay in his bed, the lights dim, his eyes closed, and listened to me mind-dump about Saeed and Samira and everything that had happened, trying to find clues that would fill the holes in the narrative. I kept thinking he’d fallen asleep, but if I got up to leave, he’d say something that drew me back into my chair. Finally, from the drug-induced fog where my words swirled, Donnie came up with the answer.
“That guy, from the big powwow with Cherisse? He knows.” In my mind I scrolled through the attendees at that meeting.
“Who, Mr. Aden? He had no clue what was up.”
“Yeah, but he stopped asking you, didn’t he? Means he figured it out. Adults only bug you if they’re trying to get information. Once they’ve got what they want, they leave you alone.”
And like that, I was back on the chilly, dark street, watching a man with a lumpy briefcase walk away from Saeed’s staircase.
What had he said to the family to make them close their door to me?
“Tom?” I heard. Mr. Aden entered the waiting room. He smiled pleasantly. He wore a crisp white shirt and a nondescript blue patterned tie. His black shoes were scuffed. I imagined he did a lot of walking around broken sidewalks and up dusty staircases in those shoes. He gestured for me to follow him, and we walked down a long, beige hallway that wound through a rabbit’s warren of small offices.
He worked in a cubicle within a larger office. There was just enough room for both of us to sit, and he motioned me to one of two chairs.
“How can I help you?” he said.
I skipped the formalities. He knew I knew he knew. Meaning the identity of the girl in the blue hijab.
“I was wondering if you would tell me where the Bashirs went. See, they left pretty suddenly and some of us who are friends of theirs would have liked a chance to say goodbye.”
He registered no surprise at the directness of my question. From the moment Ms. Clicky Nails told him I was in his waiting room, he’d known why I’d come.
“That I do not know. But I believe the Bashirs would let their friends know where they had gone, would they not?” He lingered, briefly, on the word friends. As if it were a club that didn’t include me.
“Yeah. You know, I’m having a hard time believing you don’t know where they went,” I said.
His eyes widened.
“It is not good to suggest that someone is a liar, Tom.”
I shrugged.
“It’s not good to be sneaky,” I told him. “I know you went to see the Bashirs. I saw you. Leaving their apartment.”
Mr. Aden didn’t flinch. He held my gaze steady.
“Yes, but that is not a secret. After you refused to tell me the identity of the girl in the picture, I found others who would. So I visited the family. Later, like you, I learned that they had left. They did not tell me where they were going.”
“But you sure as hell know why they left, don’t you?” I said.
He frowned.
“We will not continue this discussion if you are going to speak obscenely and insult me by calling me a liar.”
I took a deep breath. If I blew this chance, I’d never find out what he knew.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. I’m just upset, is all. Saeed and Samira are … were … my friends, and I want to know what happened. I want to know what you said to make them leave.”
He laughed shortly, without smiling.
“I did not say anything to make them leave. I do not have that sort of power.”
“It makes no sense!” I blurted out. “I mean, c’mon! Saeed wouldn’t just walk out on us. He loves soccer. He loves the team.”
Mr. Aden leaned back in his chair. He looked at me curiously.
“But if you are Saeed’s friend, then you would understand that there are many things more important than soccer.”
“Of course. But for Saeed, soccer is really, really important.”
“Not as important as one’s family. Or one’s faith. Soccer is a sport; that is all.” Something changed in Mr. Aden’s voice when he said that. Like he was reciting words from memory. From lines he’d read a zillion times over and learned by heart. I tried again.
“You say you don’t know where they went. But do you know why they went?”
He got up from his chair and walked over to a water cooler just outside the cubicle. He poured two paper cups’ worth, returned to his seat, and handed one to me without asking if I was thirsty. I drank it down.
“Do you not understand the seriousness of the implications made about the sister?” he said.
“No, I don’t,” I told him. “Anyone who knows Samira … and knows Cherisse … knows it wasn’t true.”
He looked slightly amused.
“Truth is a difficult word. One person’s truth is another person’s falsehood.”
“And people believe what they want to believe,” I fired back.
“People believe what appears to be true and what they feel is true,” Mr. Aden corrected. “Tell me, Tom. What do you believe is true about Samira?”
“She’s smart. She works hard and gets good grades. She seemed pretty religious. She never really liked me. Which is pretty ironic, given how things turned out.”
He nodded.
“Yes, that is what you would see, and that is your truth. But there is another way to see things. You say she works hard, but does she help her mother? After school, she was often at the K Street Center visiting with the American student, not cooking or watching her younger brothers and sisters. You say she is religious, but some days I would see her at school not wearing hijab, only a small scarf. Sometimes she had on big gold earrings. One day I saw her with a jacket I thought was a boy’s.”
I knew the jacket he was talking about. Myla told me it had come into The Center with a big load of donated clothes. It was leather and lined with woolly fleece. It was really warm, and Myla had put it aside for Samira the minute she saw it. She was always worried that the Bashirs didn’t have decent winter clothes.
It was what Samira had worn the first day I saw her.
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “You’re saying that wearing that leather jacket made her somehow not a good Muslim?”
“No,” he said firmly. “I am saying that wearing certain styles of dress that appear immodest might leave a girl open to questions about her morality. People might be more willing to believe bad things about her character. And Tom, she had few defenders besides her brother and her mother. She has no father. The rest of her family lives elsewhere.”
My mind spun. Arguing with Abdullahi Aden was like boxing smoke: I couldn’t land a punch and I couldn’t see clearly.
“So you’re saying she got what was coming and the family left in shame?”
He shook his head.
“There were many problems, Tom. It was not only about the sister. The brother was upset that he was taken off the soccer team. Mrs. Bashir could not find work. They had no family in Enniston. And of course, the neighbors were very upset that police came to their apartment. These are law-abiding people who do not want trouble.”
This sick feeling rose in my throat. Images of faces, partially obscured by half-open doors, peering down the hallway to the Bashirs’ apartment and the detectives. Who looked like cops despite the ordinary clothes they were wearing.
“I simply suggested to the mother that, given their difficulties, her children might be better off living near an uncle or other male relative,” Mr. Aden concluded.
I stood up. I had my answer, and I needed to get out. The air in there suddenly felt stale. Suffocating.
“And you won’t tell me where that might be?” I asked.
He stared into my face politely and steadily.
“Do you have a number? If I hear from the family, I will tell them you wish to contact them, and they can call you.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The library at Mumford turned out to be a prime college-app-writing location.
That’s partly because when I tried to write
essays at home, I was distracted by thoughts of what I’d rather be doing. Thoughts that usually involved Myla. But at the Mumford library, she was usually across the table from me, staring into some book with this frown that wrinkled along the bridge of her nose, and I figured if she could concentrate, then I sure as hell could, too.
Plus we sometimes broke for coffee over at the student center, and wow. Nothing like a little caffeine to keep you going. I’m so destined for addiction.
But the library worked for me in other ways. Jocks and hipsters and white girls with dreadlocks and black women in team jackets and tour groups filled with kids my age and professors trailing eager students moved in a constant stream through the library’s main floor … and I could still concentrate. Go figure. The only times I got pulled away from my work was when I was literally pulled away from my work.
Like, by Myla’s friends.
The first time, we were studying when a few of them came by our table to collect her for a meeting they were going to. And invited me to come with.
“What sort of meeting?” I asked them.
“Stand Up, Enniston,” one of the women replied. “We’re planning the counterdemonstration.”
The United Church of the World had picked a date in January. They were coming to Enniston to rally in support of all of us poor oppressed white people … which everyone knew was just code for “We’re coming to break heads and make trouble.” So another group had formed, calling itself Stand Up, Enniston, to plan another demonstration. This included anybody from Mumford people to Somalis to church groups to Aunt Maddie–type town activists. Their plan was to stage a sort of peace rally for the same day, all very politically correct and touchy-feely.
Myla was really into it.
“It’s empowering, Cap,” she tried to explain to me. “It’s something we can do, you know? Instead of just standing by and watching a bunch of hater freaks jump around in front of the news cameras and make the rest of the world think Enniston buys into their crap.”
