A Deadly Divide

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  They crossed the bridge over the meandering creek, listening to the soft rush of water over the stones as the warm summer air stroked over the empty park.

  The units of uniformed officers that had lined up inside the station were spread out at the perimeters. The streetlamps were few and far between. Rachel couldn’t make them out, which seemed like a dangerous omission.

  “They have head lamps,” Lemaire reassured her. “They’ll put them on once the vigil begins.”

  “Will you be making a statement?”

  “No. This is an event organized by the public. It would be an intrusion.”

  “You don’t consider the presence of the Wolf Allegiance an intrusion?”

  “I don’t know what it is you think we have to fear. We’ve run checks on each one of their members. They’re not registered firearm owners. They would be crazy to make an attempt upon the vigil. It’s only a minor protest. Neither they nor we should turn it into something bigger.”

  Frustrated by his refusal to recognize the problem, Rachel called him on it.

  “You know what they’re protesting, right? It’s not the prayer in the park. It’s the people themselves. That seems like something pretty big to me.”

  When he looked down at her, speechless, she thought he might be starting to understand.

  35

  When Khattak returned to the hotel to change, the concierge told him a woman was waiting for him in the lobby. He only had a few minutes. He was supposed to meet Alizah and Amadou at their campus office. He hoped they hadn’t walked to the vigil on their own, though the campus office wasn’t necessarily any safer. He’d had a moment to check the list of incidents that had been reported to the dean of the school. Beneath his calm demeanor, a quiet anger was simmering.

  He strode into the lobby, ready to make his excuses, when a woman rose from her seat. She was wearing a long-sleeved dress that flared out at her waist. A hand went up to shift her hair over her shoulder, she turned and smiled at him, and he recognized Sehr. Sehr, home at last.

  His heart thudding in his chest, he moved to embrace her.

  She took a step back, giving him only her hand.

  He held on to it, feeling his pulse race, a question in his eyes.

  “When did you get back?”

  She made a wry grimace, not shying away from the hunger in his gaze. “Last night. I have terrible timing, apparently. I was hoping to surprise you.”

  His voice husky, he said, “You have. How did you know—”

  “It was on the news. I should have waited for you to come home—” She shrugged her slim shoulders. “But I couldn’t.”

  He felt a pang of fear. It was what he’d wanted, longed for, missed—but he didn’t think he was misinterpreting the distance in Sehr’s eyes. He told himself she was here, she had come to him, and that was more than he’d hoped for.

  “I’m glad you’ve come,” he said. “Does this mean—?”

  “Esa, no.” She bit her soft lower lip. He wanted to draw her into his arms and tell her he would meet any demands she had if she would end their separation. But he also knew he was asking for an answer that Sehr wasn’t ready to give. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression. Rachel called me. She was worried about you.”

  “Worried about me?” His tone grew cool. “Is that why you came? Because you thought I needed minding?”

  He’d made her angry, he could see. She dropped her hand, drew back, a quick frown sketched on her brow.

  The apology he should have made formed a cold little knot that he couldn’t get past. He felt an unreasoning anger. Why had she come if she couldn’t admit what they both believed to be true? Too much time had been wasted. He loved her. He wanted to move forward. He’d made both of those subjects clear to her before he’d left the islands. She’d told him she needed time to think—to reconsider. Especially as she had work that she didn’t intend to abandon. She’d resented the way he’d pressured her, and hadn’t spoken to him in weeks. It was two months since he’d last seen her, and in the empty space between, self-doubt and disgust had crept in.

  Why would she want him after what he’d done? After everything he’d said to hurt her?

  “Will you give me a moment?” he asked politely. “I need to change before I head back.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He was having to concentrate to keep himself in check. He had to be at the vigil in less than twenty minutes. Then after a full day on the case tomorrow, he was meeting with the families of the victims.

  If he couldn’t govern himself, what comfort could he hope to give?

  He showered quickly and changed his clothes. He hadn’t eaten in hours; he hadn’t slept the previous night. Perhaps he could persuade Sehr to share a late dinner with him. But instead of returning to the lobby and putting the request to her, he rolled out his red and gold prayer rug and oriented it toward Mecca.

  He knelt down on the rug and put his forehead to the floor between his palms. A great desolation rolled over him, a tangle of emotions tightening his throat.

  In the posture of sajdah, he wasn’t conscious of his plea.

  He was seeing the bloodstained floors of the mosque … the hallway, the mihrab, the bodies … he couldn’t shut it out. He couldn’t shut out who he was. Or how much the murders mattered to him beyond the parameters of his work.

  How long he stayed in sajdah, his forehead pressed hard against the floor, he didn’t know. He didn’t find any relief. The tension in his body didn’t ease. In that long, dark void that passed between him and the faith he reached for, time had ceased to have meaning. Then at last, he heard a knock on the door.

  When he summoned his nerve and opened it, Sehr was waiting outside.

  Her eyes roved over his face, seeing the weariness there. They stopped on the red splotch at the center of his forehead.

  “Oh, Esa,” she said softly. She stretched up on her toes and kissed him on the lips. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t any help at all. You have to know I love you. Whatever you’re facing, I’m here. I want to be here at your side.”

  A violent streak of hope shuddered through him.

  “Sehr—”

  “No.” She hushed him with a finger to his mouth. “You don’t have to make me any promises. The only thing I need is you.”

  36

  Alizah saw Esa long before he reached the campus gates. He was walking hand in hand with a woman she didn’t recognize. Though they weren’t speaking, he kept her close by his side, sheltered under his arm—the kind of chivalrous gesture Alizah had come to expect from him. As they drew closer and she was able to read the expression on his face, a little flame of jealousy licked at her thoughts. She had no right to feel it. Their only bond was through Miraj, and though she’d tried to convince him that she’d never hoped otherwise, he was, after all, a detective. Her denials hadn’t persuaded him—he’d imposed the necessary distance, and ashamed, she had let him go.

  She thought maybe it wasn’t Esa she wanted, it was what he represented—safety, solace, the promise that things would come right, though she knew they never would now that her sister was gone. Even Esa’s kindness couldn’t assuage the loneliness of life without Miraj. Which didn’t explain Alizah’s possessiveness or her sense of resentment of the woman close by his side. Amadou put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, in a gesture of commiseration.

  It required too much effort to tell Amadou what was wrong when she couldn’t explain it to herself. She thought of Esa as hers. She’d flourished and matured under his attention; she didn’t want anything to change. Even if he saw her as just another wounded bird.

  “Alizah.” He smiled at her, an unfamiliar light in his eyes. At the note of tenderness in his voice, the attractive woman at his side flashed him a startled glance—a little concerned, a little disturbed. Alizah hated herself for the joy she took in seeing it.

  Whoever you are, she thought, you’ll never be bound to him as I am.

  He made the in
troductions and asked if they were ready to walk over to the vigil. Amadou asked for a moment to speak to him first, leaving the two women alone.

  Sehr spoke first, her question friendly and direct. “How do you know Esa?”

  Driven by a perverse impulse, Alizah said, “Miraj Siddiqui was my sister.”

  A pause. And then an expression of such warmth and sympathy flooded Sehr Ghilzai’s face that Alizah had to look away, pretending to be occupied by the sight of students gathering at the gates. Her eyes stinging, she cursed herself for making use of the sister she had loved so fiercely that it still felt like her heart was cracked down to its core.

  Sehr seemed to know that she couldn’t have borne her sympathy, so she asked, “How is your friend Amadou coping?”

  Determined to misread her, Alizah said, “With what? Being black in Saint-Isidore?” She shrugged. “As well as can be expected.”

  Sehr’s eyebrows arched. “That’s not what I meant.” The warmth in her face fading, she said, “I’m no threat to your relationship with Esa.”

  Coolly, Alizah answered, “I didn’t think you were.”

  Some primal feminine instinct told her that Sehr wasn’t as concerned with Alizah’s connection to Esa as she was with her own. Sehr didn’t know about their correspondence, their attachment, the secrets they shared—that much was clear to her at once.

  Alizah’s respect for Esa increased. It wasn’t his own privacy he had chosen to protect; it was hers. She could only be grateful for that.

  Her heart was beating heavily against her chest when Sehr said quietly, almost like a warning, “Esa and I are getting married.”

  Alizah’s fists clenched inside her pockets. She made her face blank under Sehr’s probing gaze, wrenched because she knew it was true. She’d seen the quiet joy in Esa’s face. He’d found himself again because of this woman with her russet-dark hair and wide, compassionate eyes.

  She didn’t want Sehr to hate her. Because then she would lose Esa altogether.

  Her breath catching in her throat, she made herself say, “Good. He deserves to be happy.”

  Sehr relaxed at the words. Alizah forced herself to continue, to answer the question she’d batted back at Sehr like a weapon.

  “Amadou is managing. He’s devastated about Youssef. But I don’t think the greater scope of this has struck him yet.” She waved a hand at the crowd. “He did everything he could to save Youssef, so this doesn’t seem real to him.” Speaking more to herself, she added, “None of it seems real. I don’t know how we came to this.”

  Turning her head away, she saw a procession advancing down the hill to the gate, carrying bamboo torches. They were dressed alike in white polo shirts and dark slacks, the torchlight flickering across their clean-cut faces. Their shirts bore identical logos—a reworking of the Québec flag; instead of a fleur-de-lis quartered over a white field, the field was blue. At its center was a white crescent, but in lieu of a star was a tilted fleur-de-lis—a black slash running through both. The crescent and star were symbols of Islam—it was a visual depiction of the Wolf Allegiance slogan: Stop the Islamization of Québec. The same symbol had appeared on a flyer taped to the door of the MSA office.

  The Wolf Allegiance’s protest had begun, Maxime Thibault at their head. The circle of police officers contracted, and then reshaped itself into a line, creating distance between the torch-bearing group and the community gathered to pray.

  Young Muslim men linked their arms, forming a cordon around the prayer. They barricaded three sides of a square. The fourth side was left open so that no one blocked the direction of prayer. The police advanced to fill this space.

  The atmosphere grew tense and ugly; the tempo of the prayer sped up. Residents of Saint-Isidore had come out in support, carrying bouquets wrapped in cellophane, or tokens they laid at a makeshift memorial on the ground. Groups of university students carried signs that said: TOUS HUMAINS, LE QUÉBEC EST PAS LA FRANCE and CE N’EST PAS LE QUÉBEC. Instead of torches, the residents carried flashlights. They drifted toward the prayer, a little distance apart.

  Someone had arranged a makeshift podium near the gate on the higher ground.

  Scanning the crowd, Alizah saw the Lilies of Anjou at the edges of the Wolves’ procession, at the edges of the prayer. Observing. Not participating. Perhaps, she thought with dawning insight, that was a safer choice for them to make. A short distance south, just climbing the embankment, Rachel was with Christian Lemaire. When Alizah saw him, her relief was edged with a sense of vindication. Now maybe Lemaire would believe her when she spoke about wolves in their midst.

  He’d never taken her complaints seriously, but he couldn’t deny them now. He was seeing the proof for himself. But something else was happening. The prayer had finished. The torchbearers were pushing ahead against the police, just as the group of Muslim men rearranged themselves to meet them. Reporters were also pushing their way to the front.

  Before Lemaire could reach his officers to issue instructions, the police line re-formed as a barricade, facing the congregation down. Puzzled, the congregants fell back. Reporters stepped into the breach.

  A disembodied voice floated over the gathering. Alizah’s head swung in its direction.

  Diana Shehadeh stood there, a microphone in her hand. There was a glittering look of triumph in her eyes.

  In sharp, staccato French, she said, “Doesn’t that tell us everything? Even after we are murdered en masse, we cannot rely on the Sûreté to act to defend our rights.”

  A cheer went up from the Wolf Allegiance. They began a chant. The congregation responded with the rousing cry of “Allahu Akbar.”

  Someone grasped Alizah’s elbow.

  “Wait here—all three of you, I mean it. You need to keep Amadou out of this.”

  Esa pushed past her to the podium. Lemaire and Rachel had broken into a run.

  Amadou didn’t listen. He disappeared into the crowd.

  Alizah glanced over at Sehr. Sehr made a helpless gesture, eloquent in its distress. She didn’t stir from her place at the gate, her gaze tracking Esa’s progress.

  Alizah was already moving. “I have to stop this. I’m the only one he’ll listen to. Tell Esa I had no choice.”

  37

  The confrontation had spun out of control. Alizah heard a roar of movement, felt herself swept up in the crowd, pressed between bodies. She caught a fleeting glimpse of Amadou, shoving his way to the front of the group, even as screams and cries sounded from all sides.

  She nearly lost her footing twice. If she fell, she had no doubt she would be trampled. She couldn’t tell what was happening. Were the police pushing the congregation back, or was Maxime’s gang of thugs bearing down against them? Flushed and sweating, she searched the crowd for Maxime.

  She’d expected to find him at the center of the confrontation, shoving against the police to get to the small group of Muslims who’d dared to hold their prayer in the park. She heard Amadou’s voice ring out. Then feedback from the microphone, where Diana Shehadeh had fallen silent. Then a huge whoosh of air, followed by a battle cry. The Wolf Allegiance had broken through the police line and now they were swarming down the hill.

  Some of the crowd stood their ground—including Amadou. Most scattered, pushing past Alizah. Her coat was ripped from her shoulders. A heavy hand landed between her shoulder blades, shoving her down to her knees. Then someone else grabbed her, and she was dragged away by her shoulders. Her heart was thudding too violently for her to summon a scream.

  She began to fight back, twisting her body to make herself more difficult to drag. A growl of frustration left her throat.

  “Shut up.”

  She was dragged a little farther to the shelter of an oak and thrust aside. She was left panting on her hands and knees, her hair falling in tangles around her face. Just a breath, then another, then she’d scramble to her feet and run. The knees of her jeans were torn. She could feel the stickiness of blood where both her knees had been skinned.

/>   Someone reached down to grab her under the arms and set her upon her feet.

  “I told you not to come tonight.”

  Maxime spit the words at her.

  Alizah combed her hair away from her face with her fingers, staring up at him, white-faced and angry.

  He was breathing heavily, his torch discarded, his hair disheveled, his polo shirt covered in grass stains, a thin line of blood trailing from the corner of his mouth. His blue eyes were blazing with emotion; his hands clutched Alizah’s by the wrists.

  Behind them, the police had begun to impose some order on the scene, Lemaire barking out instructions. She couldn’t see Amadou anywhere, her breath catching on a sob.

  “Stop it,” Maxime snapped. “You’re fine. You’re safe. Everyone’s going home.”

  “Why did you come tonight?” she snapped back. “What kind of monster are you? We haven’t even buried our dead, and this is what you thought you’d do?”

  “I don’t owe you an explanation, bitch. This is still a free country.”

  She shook off his grip, twisting around for a better vantage point from which to view the park. The police had arrested several of the stragglers, but in the dark she couldn’t make out who they were. Sehr was no longer at the gate. She’d reached Khattak and Rachel, neither of whom seemed happy to see her, yet Khattak held out his hand and pulled her close.

  “Who the fuck are you in love with?” Maxime’s crude words broke through her reverie. “Amadou or that fucking cop?”

  She turned to face him, squaring her shoulders, a belligerent tilt to her chin. Compared to the emptiness she’d felt before, she welcomed the fury brought on by his words.

  “Neither. But a frat boy like you wouldn’t understand that my world doesn’t revolve around a man.”

  “I saw the way you looked at him over by the gate.”