by Atticus Lish
We play the buzkashi. Riding a horse—beautiful animal. When it’s loud, it’s like thunder. He mimed riding. Pointing out in the distance, he said, In the east, it’s mountains like nothing you never seen.
What do you think you’re talking about? That’s my home! Zou Lei told him. Yes! When I was little girl, my mother told me stories and I am looking at those mountain. Maybe 150 miles away. I think I can go to them, always. The sky in there is the most blue, most blue I ever seen.
And the people is good too, he said. Believe it. The people has a heart. The butcher spoke of their hospitality and the treatment of guests.
Even he has nothing, he is generous.
Yeah, because if you are my guest, I will protect you. You are in my house. You are safe.
You give your word.
Because I am a man, I care for my honor.
How long had he been in America? she asked. How had he gotten to this point, where he had a store that belonged to him?
Fifteen years, Tesha said. Look at that, he said, holding up a cut of meat. Beautiful, fresh one hundred percent.
Together they admired it.
Did he ever think of going back to Afghanistan? she asked.
I cannot go.
Because the war?
Because war. Nobody can go. I have my wife. I cannot go. Even if I go alone, I cannot go. It’s very bad. You can’t believe what’s going on. If I tell you, you can’t believe. I don’t want to tell you what I know, what I see myself. Make you want to never see, to take out your own eyes. I can’t talk about it.
It’s a beautiful mountains.
It’s a beautiful country, my friend, but you cannot go. Maybe you know. Where you from? China? So maybe you don’t know. You know George Bush? He want to kill everyone. The Americans kill everyone. He kills more than the other one, bin Laden. That’s what he do to us. All my life, I love America, why you think I come here. Now Bush take it and he—the butcher flung his arms out—he do like that, throw in garbage, make it garbage. He don’t have to do it. Bin Laden is shit in my country, but now America is going down.
Let me tell you what happen, he continued. You see this one, the gas station when you come in? The one has all the flags. He was good people, nice guy. Muslim guy, right? Been here like me long time. After 9/11, one day, he disappear. Vanish. Gone. I used to see them all the time. Now I see his kid, nice kid. Why I don’t see your dad? My dad’s gone. What you mean gone? Gone, he says. I think they take him. Some people say he get in a car. For two years, disappeared.
Don’t tell me that.
It’s Homeland Security. Happen right here. The family put up pictures and everything. It kill them. All their face are falling down. You know where he is? The whole time he is right here in Queens. Nobody can see him and he is right there, right there in Queensboro Plaza. They got a building it looks like the post office. By the time, they know about it, they put him in another jail in Texas. Five years. When the family say, okay, let’s go to court—you think he’s done something—No. We going to keep him. No, we will send him to the Middle East.
Five years, she said. I don’t know if I can survive. When I was in jail, it was very hard for me.
They catch you for what?
For immigration.
By the greatness of God they let you out.
Yes, thank God. Now I am trying to fix my identity.
You don’t have the…
No. I have to fix this problem, she said. And she began to let her worries out for him to hear, since he was willing to listen. I cannot make money. I have to pay the lawyer. The lawyer is more money. It’s bad for me.
What’s your work?
Restaurant.
Chinese restaurant?
Yes. She cried a little talking about it, and wiped her eyes. My boss take the money.
Tesha sighed as he listened to her and felt helpless. I wish my wife was here. Sarah! The problem was that his wife would not understand her, because his wife spoke Tarjeek. His wife was at the Friday prayers.
Who’s your boss, what is he? Muslim? Chinese? No offense, but Chinese people—a lot of my customer Chinese, so I got to be careful—but Chinese people are cold.
I know, she said. Everything is business to them.
He gave her bread, insisting that she take it even after she refused, and he repeated his wish that his wife were here. Also, he had yogurt, if she wanted it, and he directed her attention to where he kept it in the small dark refrigerated case. For bread, he had the huge one like Afghanistan, and the little one too, like this, like Turkish pita. Whatever you need.
And another thing—this was important: A lot of people came to his store, he said. Here in the doorway, he had a bulletin board where they put up messages if they needed help. You could find exchange, he said. You can leave a note to ask for help.
He had a cardboard shelf, the kind that folds up like a box and sits on the floor, that held business cards and free newspapers. He told her to take an immigration attorney’s card. Rahmat, she said, taking a card and holding it with her bread. And he had these—and he pointed out a pile of small folded newspapers in Urdu and Chinese.
My wife makes samsa. She cut it up the ingredients very fine like this—and he sawed his hand across his palm. Beautiful. Almost like home. You gotta try it. If you have time, come back.
His wife came in through the back door and Tesha spoke to her in Tarjeek. The woman came around the counter in her black polyester robe, bringing Zou Lei a cup of water. At the same time, another customer was coming in and the butcher had to speak with him, so that was how Zou Lei finished talking with him. He put his hand on his heart and told her to come back.
Rahmat, she said.
His wife Sarah had an idea and took her by the hand out onto the hot street and led her to a house next door to a boarded-up building with weeds coming through the boards. She pulled Zou Lei towards the door through which you could see a rectangular carpeted room, empty shoes and sandals just inside the door. The entrance was propped open with a trash can. Men in robes and slacks were converging on this place from all over the street. Zou Lei saw their beards and realized it was a mosque. A man stepped inside and took his sandals off and went in to join the others kneeling in front of the black flag and the dais.
The butcher’s wife gave her to a man and wished her well. The man guided her down to the women’s entrance, a separate doorway in what appeared to be a residential house, and told her to go downstairs. Zou Lei went inside, seeing a staircase and another pile of shoes and smelling a heavy smell of air freshener. Through a doorway she could see the men entering the mosque on the first floor. She removed her sneakers and went down the stairs and into the basement.
The basement was a closed rectangular room draped with strings of plastic flowers and enormous black flags emblazoned in golden script. One end of the room was rigged with a shower curtain rod and wires. There were spotlights bolted to the ceiling, as if the room was used to make videos, but they were off. Women sat on the carpeted floor, their legs folded like deer, and faced a television resting on a sequined dais. The television was broadcasting a live video image of what was happening in the men’s prayer room upstairs.
They told her to go into the bathroom and purify herself. She was observed from the doorway as she washed her hands with gooey liquid soap. A woman muffled in black indicated, Your feet too. Zou Lei, who was thirsty from running, drank from the tap. Your feet, the woman insisted, her veil edged in silver thread. Zou Lei put her foot in the sink and washed it.
When she was done, she was told she could take her place with the others, so she went out and sat on the carpet at the back of the room behind them all. She sat one knee bent, her tanned face and bare calves burnished and dark, the sweat on her forehead gleaming and the crotch of her tight denim leggings wet, and waited.
The carpet was divided into rectangles and you sat within your rectangle. Overhead, the first floor was filling up with men, who could be heard through the ce
iling as they came in and lined up in rows. They handed out plastic prayer beads and round flat stones and you placed the stone in front of you in the rectangle in which you sat. The women watched what was happening on the television, which was trained on the figure of a man in a black turban beneath a spotlight. He stood up and the TV showed the men standing up. The women stood up and Zou Lei stood up with them. Someone began to sing upstairs and she watched the back of his head on the monitor as he sang towards the black banners.
Allahu akbar! everyone cried out on both floors of the building. Allahu akbar, Zou Lei said.
The singing stopped and the mullah turned around. He was a man of medium height in his sixties with a gremlin-like face surrounded by a white beard that made it look as if you were seeing the head of a brown figurine in white wrapping paper. A microphone scratched and thumped. He spoke for several minutes, moving his hands, flexing his fingers, sometimes raising an index finger as he lectured. On each hand, he wore a ring with a large oval stone in it.
In His Name, the Name of the Prophet, and the clan of the Prophet, that which is open, that which is hidden, praise be to God. For surely, there is Good versus Evil. Therefore, command what is Right and forbid Evil (praise be to God). Science in the mouth of the Unfaithful One (created by fire, the Uncreated One) is deceiving. He who uses false names, by their numbers will he be exposed. True numerology is proof unto me, as I am proof unto Him (the Supreme). Ibn Al-Nawawi, third ayat. Therefore, the Science of Righteousness is used to learn real Truth (all praise). But when the sawat is subtracted from daily life, zero minus one computes to negative infinity and all existence is banished. A believer who is faithful (blessings be upon you) and who keeps the day will live three hundred seventy-five years on earth and ten thousand eight hundred years in Heaven. (Praise God, in the words of the Faithful One) his reward will I make for him out of gold. With the birth of Knowledge, Life is born. With the birth of Ignorance, Death is born, affecting every living thing, even things that are inanimate (cannot live hereafter). Fifth verse, ayat 37. Thus Life is given or taken according to Number Theory (Number Science, all blessings be unto the Imam of Time) discovered over seven hundred years in the past before modern computers. The Ninety-nine Names of Him Who is the Most Highest were computed before modern methods. Relief will be granted at a future time, whose number has been computed as three million.
When he finished speaking, the mullah turned around and the singing began again, the singer rapidly enunciating verses that went on and on for many minutes, his voice quavering at difficult notes, pronouncing hundreds upon hundreds of words deftly and rapidly without tripping up. Then the mullah took control again and called the cadence as they prayed. God is great! a woman wailed, as if she had been hypnotized. They raised their hands up to their faces, seemed to read them like a book, flung them down and bowed. The entire building dropped to its knees and the women put their foreheads on the carpet in front of the television. They pressed their foreheads on their prayer stones. Zou Lei did this to.
When she raised her head between bows, she noticed a giant silver statue of a hand high up on the wall. It was garlanded with plastic flowers and it had an eye in the center of the palm.
When the praying was over, the women turned to each other and touched each other’s hands. A woman took Zou Lei’s hand and trapped it like a fish between her hands and slid her hands off. Then they touched their hearts. They gestured at their mouths with their dark fingers, inviting her to eat with them.
They unrolled a strip of green wood-patterned vinyl on the floor and someone passed out plastic plates and Dixie cups of water, no cutlery. The vinyl strip represented their table. Sit, they told Zou Lei. She sat cross-legged, her jeans still damp from sweating. There was an aluminum baking pan full of dal curry. They tore their flatbread into pieces and used it to pinch up the lentils.
While they were eating, a man in a shalwar kameez entered the basement carrying another aluminum baking pan and the women started putting money into it, filling it with dollars.
I don’t have money, Zou Lei lied.
It’s okay, the women told her. More food?
One of them tore up a piece of bread for her and put the pieces on her plate. They watched her guzzling water. Zou Lei wiped the curry off her plate and ate it off her fingers. Good, she said. They refilled her water cup.
Thank you.
No, she was told. Bimsallah.
Bimsallah, she repeated.
Good, they said.
They wanted to know what she was. What are you, Nepal woman?
After she had eaten, she went upstairs with the others to find her shoes again. The mullah had been told about her. She saw him through the doorway, regarding her and nodding as a man pointed her out. The man wore spectacles and a dress shirt through which the white shadow of his undershirt was visible. When she was outside the man approached her, carrying a Koran.
May I ask you something? Why did you come here with your arms and legs uncovered?
Someone tell me to come here.
I see. You want to learn about our faith. Do you know Islam? It is the true faith. The true one. We teach one God, that’s Allah. Maybe you feel much better now after the prayers. Maybe you feel you have refreshment. Don’t you feel that way? And he let out a laugh like a hotelier greeting wealthy guests.
So! It’s new for you, but it’s very important for you. But, something you should know, in our faith, you must cover your arms, legs, and the head. Then you can learn with us. I make some book for you and you will study. Then I will convert you. Do you have a cell phone? You can give me your number.
I don’t understand nothing the imam said, Zou Lei told him.
It’s different language for you, it’s very hard, I know, but it’s not a problem. I will make book for you in English. I will personally help you to guide you to God.
Okay, okay, she said, but she didn’t give him her number. Her dried sweat had left licks of salt on her temples, down her bare thighs. Her hair was stiff and she pushed it back with her hand, and took another bite of the flatbread Tesha the butcher had given her.
My mother was Muslim people, she said, chewing. I know about God, but it’s too many rules.
No, no, no. You are wrong, he said. No, no, no. You make a big mistake to say that. Let me tell you something about God. He is like the shade of a tree on a hot day. How can I say? It is like you are burning in the sun and you feel very uncomfortable. You are thirsty and you would like some good things to drink. All you have to do is open this door and go in where it is cool and refreshing. That is God.
But, he said, you cannot have these beautiful things if you lead a bad life, if you are sinning, doing what you want. Of course you must live properly and obey the law. He pointed at the bilingual Arabic and English sign over the mosque’s doorway, which he read aloud for her. It said Preparation For The Next Life.
He studied her reaction. She squinted at him, creasing the fine white lines by her eyes that came from working in the sun starting when she was perhaps six years old.
I have a long way home, she said and started leaving.
Of course, you must go, he said and patted his Koran. Don’t be late for your husband.
As she left, he told her to come that Sunday, if she could, at two o’clock, because there would be another meal, and he would be here.
The kids on the block were still playing in wet t-shirts, running through a fire hydrant gushing in the street. A car went by and the sun spot in the windshield left a direct impression on her eye, a shape when she blinked. She had finished her bread and her stomach felt heavy and her legs had stiffened up. She did not want to run anymore, but it was a long way back and there was no bus she knew of.
A kid with a big voice tried to get her in a game with his friends.
I have to go home long way.
How far you go? the boy asked, attempting to run along with her.
Twenty mile.
He fell back behind her, gave up r
unning.
You go that far every day? he called.
Goodbye, she waved.
He was about eleven, she had made a great impression on him, and he couldn’t stop following her with his big eyes.
Fight the power! he raised his high voice and yelled down the block after her.
44
IT WAS TWO-SOMETHING IN the morning and Skinner was on the 7 train. When the train braked, his legs slid sideways on the seat. His jeans were hanging off his hips and the cuffs were under the heels of his boots. His empty drink can rolled out of his hands and across the floor of the car. It came to rest beneath the sneaker of a Mexican who trapped it like a soccer ball and kicked it away again. People were sleeping and reading the bible. The train rocked on, the doors banged open, and the heat came in from the outdoor platforms, the station names slashed with graffiti. Skinner woke up having to vomit. He got off the train, fell through the turnstile, and threw up on the landing of the tall staircase. Then he used the handrail to climb down to the street.
At the bottom, he stuck his finger in his throat and vomited again. He stepped over his throw-up and staggered on, past a trash can tipped over in the street. The awnings were all in Spanish. He must have thought he recognized the cinder block building beneath the tracks, must have thought it was the lounge where he and Zou Lei had gone to drink together their first night. It was a locked warehouse. He put his hand on the building as if to keep it where it was, or to keep himself from leaving it.
Apparently, however, he wandered away from the tracks, down into the backstreets that cut the blocks into triangles. The fire escapes hung against the dirty buildings like lightning bolts. He passed vegetable markets with the shutters down and the produce put away, the wooden trestles chained to the wall with nothing on them. Behind them, men were sleeping, comatose from drinking, wrapped in blankets, lying on cardboard. Someone groaned. In the Park of the Americas, Skinner may have seen a man drifting like a zombie in the dark.
