A Deadly Divide

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  He was invited to lead the prayer. Instead, he chose to give the call to prayer, cupping a hand to his ear. He did this for a reason. It was an assertion of who he was, both publicly and privately. The families would hear him call out the adhan with the grace of a thousand past recitations and they would know who he was. But in shaping the Arabic words into their centuries-old rhythm, Esa would also be speaking to himself.

  Accepting himself, the mask set aside for now.

  The adhan wasn’t quite a song, nor was it a chant. Its recitation was something measured in between, an offering of grace to the heart. When he’d finished, he turned to take his place among the rows of the faithful, where several of the women were crying. There was a young woman at the back wearing a royal-blue veil. She raised her face to the sky; he recognized Alizah.

  She wasn’t crying. She looked more lost and alone than he’d ever seen her, something in her posture reminding him of that night in Waverley, the extreme pallor of her shock as she’d come face to face with the knowledge of the violence done to Miraj.

  Alizah was too young to have seen the dead, yet he knew she had the fortitude to face it. He found himself standing in a prayer row between Youssef Soufiane’s father and Amadou Duchon. Their shoulders brushed against each other as they prayed. By the time they’d arrived at the supplication, Soufiane was helplessly sobbing.

  Esa was moved to comfort him, but Soufiane’s wife came to take him away to the house. A young man Esa recognized from the prayer at the church invited Khattak to come forward and speak. His eyes ranged over the small group of men and women of all ages and backgrounds, though the majority were of North African descent. The university students were gathered to one side, sprawled upon the grass as they watched him. And he witnessed how deeply entwined Amadou and Alizah were in this community, staying close to the others.

  He reported on the progress of the investigation, trying not to sound officious. When he’d finished, he offered the words he found most difficult to relate. He’d rehearsed them in his head and he’d asked Diana Shehadeh for her advice, but in the end they’d both agreed. Though they wanted to calm the fears of the community, reassurance would have been dishonest.

  “We believe the shooter is still at large, and may be armed. I advise you to stay away from the mosque, and to avoid any other public gatherings for now. Though I appreciate the need for community at the moment, it places your children in danger.”

  As he’d expected, there was an angry murmur from the students. One of the young men challenged him. He identified himself as Rami, Youssef Soufiane’s brother.

  “They have claimed our families and our mosque; now you’re asking us to hide from their hatred? We won’t do it. We’re not afraid.”

  “You should be,” Esa said grimly. “I know I am.” Ignoring Rami for the moment, he turned to the women in attendance, all of whom were veiled for prayer. “Sisters. Those of you who cover outside your homes, I urge you to travel in larger groups, preferably with a male member of your family.”

  “So this new French secularism—this Code of Conduct secularism—is one that imprisons our sisters at home? Is this what they call liberation?”

  Esa stifled a sigh at Rami’s words, but before he could determine what to say Alizah stood up, allowing her veil to flutter to her shoulders. A warm recognition passed over the faces of the students in the group.

  “The shooting was an act of terror, Rami. And the terrorist is still at large.” With a painful twist in her voice, she added, “Your parents can’t afford to lose another son.”

  And she stood there and recited the names of the dead, until a pool of silence blossomed over the night.

  60

  Diana Shehadeh found Esa a little later, sitting at a small, round table in the garden, waiting for Amadou and Alizah to join him. He’d moved through the crowd, speaking to each member of the small community, listening carefully to anything they needed to share about their grief. Consoling the families of the dead was not a new experience for him, yet rarely had he known a community struck so deeply and so hard. They exchanged phrases in Arabic, and even when Esa couldn’t understand what was said, it was the language itself that brought comfort—its lulling, rhythmic cadences, its history as a sacred tongue that could connect him instantly to any Arabic speaker at any time or place across the globe.

  “I think that helped,” Diana said. She’d brought over a plate of appetizers and companionably they shared the meal as she told him what the MCLU had set in motion when she’d gone to Ottawa. They’d issued a constitutional challenge to the Code of Conduct and to Bill 62, citing violations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the supreme law of the land.

  “Beyond constitutional issues, we need this case to be prosecuted as an act of terrorism, with hate crimes added to the indictment.”

  Moodily, Khattak said, “We haven’t caught the killer yet. We can’t say with certainty that hate was the motive here.”

  Instead of getting angry, as he expected, Diana looked at him with pity.

  “Oh, Esa. Haven’t you faced it yourself?”

  He surprised himself by giving her an honest response. “I don’t think I want to. There are times when I need to look away.”

  Her voice was still soft when she said, “You can’t. None of us can anymore.” She waved at someone on the other side of the garden. He looked up and saw Amadou, whose great dark eyes reflected his own sense of melancholy.

  The dusk prayer would always break Esa’s heart.

  The difference was that the weight of it was deeper.

  He took a long sip of his drink.

  “What will you say in the morning? At Isabelle Clément’s press conference?”

  A smile touched Diana’s lips. “Thank you for getting me invited to that, by the way. I think I might take her a little by surprise.”

  Esa’s own smile turned wry. “She promised me that this is one conference that won’t go off the rails.”

  With a touch of asperity, Diana said, “I won’t say anything beyond the things this country needs to hear.” But when she put her hand on his, he recognized it as a gesture of fellowship. They were both on the same side now. They would have to be, until they could fight their way through. “Do you remember when you were offered the job? Director of Community Policing. You called me and we talked into the night.”

  A slight smile curved his lips.

  “You had so many doubts, so many concerns about all the different ways you might be used. I asked you what you wanted to achieve.”

  “I remember.”

  Though in truth he’d forgotten how generous Diana had been, becoming more and more closed off, so that each of them had gone on to fight their battles alone.

  “You said you wanted to achieve whatever measure of justice you could for communities just like ours. And I said you should take the job. Do you remember why?”

  Years had passed since that conversation had taken place, but now he recalled her words with a shiver of premonition. She had predicted the fallout from the rise of groups like the Allegiance. Conditioning, she’d call it. But what she’d said had cracked open the truth, like a thin and jagged spike.

  You have to do this, she’d said. What we’re facing is just the beginning.

  61

  Alizah couldn’t eat with the others at the gathering. She was too tense and her stomach was still roiling from her confrontation with Max, and now from the sense that she’d forfeited Esa’s trust. Perhaps because she’d insisted on heading to the vigil in the woods. Or maybe because she’d accused him of using her to give him cover. There was also a chance that he might have drawn back because Sehr Ghilzai didn’t like her.

  She pushed a heavy wing of hair from her face, finding a corner of the Soufianes’ garden where she could speak to Amadou privately.

  “You have to tell Esa the truth. Leaving him in the dark like this isn’t fair. It might put him in greater danger, and you know he’s already been hurt.” />
  “He’s going to think I’m involved.”

  “He’s the one who insisted on your release. He wouldn’t have done it if he thought you were involved.”

  Amadou shrugged his powerful shoulders, the movement so effortlessly graceful that Alizah wished she were like her sister Nazneen, the artist, who would have captured the gesture on canvas. But she was more like her sister Miraj. Doggedly after the truth.

  Something was going to happen at the vigil tonight. That’s why she needed to be there.

  “What happened at the mosque has nothing to do with Michel Gagnon or his flunkeys.”

  “Or your brother?” she asked Amadou softly.

  Amadou blinked to hide the moisture that sheened his eyes. “Bilal is gone. It’s time to let him rest in peace.”

  Alizah’s white teeth bit at her lower lip. There was something she needed to say to Amadou—he and Youssef had been her steadfast partners in the battle against the insidious poison seeping through the veins of Saint-Isidore. But she was afraid that putting it into words might make Amadou think she blamed him, when she didn’t. No matter how carefully she said it, she could still see it going wrong.

  “Spit it out, Alizah. Tell me. You can tell me anything. Even about Maxime.” He shrugged again. “If you want him, we’ll find a way to get him on our side.”

  Startled, her eyes flew to his.

  “I don’t want him; why would you say such a thing?”

  When Amadou wisely didn’t speak, she knew he was thinking of the photograph she hated. The one where she’d taken Maxime’s face in her hands. Anyone looking at it would draw the wrong conclusions. Including Esa. But Esa had seen their interaction firsthand. Surely he wouldn’t think she’d set aside everything she believed in for someone like Max?

  Or maybe, she thought wryly, she was protesting too much.

  Amadou’s voice boomed in her ear.

  “If it’s not about Max, then what? Whatever you want to say, say it to me, Alizah.”

  Their eyes met and held, eloquent with fear. At last, Alizah exhaled on a sigh, her arms clasped to her middle, as if still in the posture of prayer.

  “I just wanted you to know that you didn’t bring this … madness … to Saint-Isidore. You didn’t kill Youssef, and you aren’t responsible for what happened at the mosque.”

  Amadou’s shoulders sagged.

  “So you do think it was a hit.”

  They’d kept a close watch on Wolf Allegiance’s online chatter. And on other online platforms. The comments after the prayer at the church had terrified them both.

  “I don’t know what I think it was. Gagnon’s men. Max’s followers—or maybe Maxime himself. I don’t know. I just keep thinking…” Her voice trailed off.

  “What? Tell me,” he said again.

  “I keep thinking about that woman in the abaya. The one caught on camera. Who was she? Why did she have a gun?”

  She glanced around the garden, her gaze moving from face to face.

  “It couldn’t have been one of us. It doesn’t make any sense. Then why was she wearing an abaya?”

  “If you dive into the abyss, go all the way to the bottom.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. She was afraid to ask Amadou the meaning of his words, and unconsciously she cast a yearning glance at Esa. His clear green gaze was focused on her, solicitous and intent. She wanted to speak to him—to go to him—but she was afraid of what he might say.

  Amadou tugged at her arm. “By wearing the abaya and getting caught on camera, the shooter succeeded at the most important thing.”

  She looked back at him. In a whisper, she asked him what he meant. But she should have known the answer.

  “He put the blame for our tragedy on us.”

  * * *

  Esa was quiet at Alizah’s side as they followed Amadou across the stone bridge to a path that led deep into the woods. At the bridge, there were views of the mosque, the church, and the university on the hill. Some forty minutes later as they headed west of the town, they were surrounded by trees in the thickly forested wood, their path shadowed by the murmur of water. The officers whose presence Esa had requested were waiting at the edge of the clearing they approached.

  “Where’s Rachel?” Alizah asked, feeling her absence.

  Esa looked at her briefly, and she felt herself floundering, though she kept her face composed.

  “With Sehr.”

  So he’d sent Rachel to Sehr but was here with her himself.

  She hugged his concern to herself, refusing to admit what it meant to her.

  The rain had cleared away the humidity, and the night air was crisper than it had been in the Soufianes’ garden. She’d worn a long-sleeved sweater knowing the night would grow cool. She’d been to the Lilies’ meeting place before, both as a matter of personal curiosity and in the process of coming to understand them. The meeting place was a thickly forested spot deep in the heart of the woods, where a secret pond much smaller than the lake was set in a circle of trees. An hour’s walk east would see them back in the center of town, but at the moment it seemed as though they’d stepped through a portal to a quiet, unfamiliar world.

  Émilie and Réjeanne had often discussed the sacred nature of circles, and Alizah had sometimes tagged along. She knew there was more to it, though. The Lilies were rebels, outsiders who’d been scorned for their ties to the Muslim community. The woods made them feel safe … special … a place where no one intruded, where they were free to be themselves. To explore what they called the feminine in nature.

  But Alizah had also accompanied them so she could keep an eye on Chloé, who was younger and more passive than her friends. Her views were often swept aside by the other girls’ stronger personalities. So watching out for Chloé was Alizah’s gift to her friend Youssef, the one person who’d been able to reach the fragile girl inside. Chloé had blossomed under his attention, and Alizah was uncomfortably reminded of the letters she herself had written to Esa.

  In the center of the small lake, some twenty feet from the shore, a miniature dock was anchored to the bottom by a set of posts, one of which supported a bird feeder with a slate-gray roof. Alizah drew in a breath, savoring the bite of the pines and the smell of rain-washed earth. The path was littered with small stones, and little pebbles found their way into her shoes.

  She’d wound her shawl around her torso to keep warm, and whimsically she imagined herself as a bluebird guiding others into the woods.

  When they were all assembled at a little clearing by the lake, Réjeanne intoned a strange set of words in French—rustic, arcane, empty of meaning. As she spoke, she sketched an incantation in the air. Alizah stole a glance at Khattak, wondering what he made of Réjeanne’s actions. His expression was impassive, even faintly bored.

  Réjeanne had dropped her knapsack on the ground and now she opened it, taking out her phone and setting it on a rock. She hit a button and an intricate little melody drifted over their heads. Next she produced a miniature, leather-wrapped bundle and lit a match to a fragrant pouch of herbs.

  Émilie took Chloé by the hand and pushed her into the center of the clearing. Réjeanne circled Chloé, holding a bundle of sage aloft in her hands. Its smoky-sweet scent made Alizah cough.

  As Réjeanne continued to circle Chloé, she recited a kind of eulogy. She spoke of Youssef Soufiane and of other victims of the mosque shooting the Lilies of Anjou had known. While she spoke, Émilie knelt on the ground beside her knapsack, taking out a set of lanterns, painted a faded gold. She lit the lanterns with matches from a little matchbook. The matchbook was from the café near campus where Alizah had taken Esa and Rachel.

  A rustling sounded from somewhere behind them and Alizah turned to look. Esa nodded to the officers on the perimeter, who swept their flashlights back over the path they’d traveled to the lake. Nothing moved in the dark. There were only the sounds of the forest. The wind brushing lightly over the maples, small creatures scurrying swiftly over ground. The slow, warm bene
volence of the lulling motion of the waves.

  Esa switched his flashlight off, observing the trio of Lilies perform their dance to the music from Réjeanne’s phone. Their flowing skirts trailed behind them as they danced.

  Though they performed the dance with quiet concentration, Alizah sensed that something was off. The scent of sage turned acrid as it burned. Without having moved, she found herself between Amadou and Esa, shielded from unknown danger. Émilie’s concentration was broken. She scowled over at Amadou, whose body sheltered Alizah.

  As the music wound down, Réjeanne intoned, “Let the lanterns of death carry your grief away. It’s time, Chloé. Time to mourn Youssef and let him go.” She wheeled suddenly, her arm falling in a graceful arc, and whispered straight at Khattak, “Let your husband go.”

  The other girls went still. Somewhere over the lake, the cry of a loon punctured the darkness. Émilie began to push the floating lanterns out toward the mooring post in the water. She’d lit the candles inside, and now in the immutable darkness of the woods the candles glimmered like fireflies bobbing above the waves.

  Chloé tugged the long sleeves of her dress all the way over her hands. Then she put up her hands to her face and began to cry, not daintily as she’d done before, the tips of her ears and her nose red, but with harsh, convulsive sobs that shook her fragile frame.

  Réjeanne abandoned her act and snatched Chloé up in her arms.

  “Shhh, shhh, it’s all right. You can tell them about Youssef, Chloé. It’s time to tell them the truth.”

  62

  Esa’s gaze tangled with Alizah’s. He looked over her head back at the way they’d come, thinking of how Lemaire had refused to assign an officer to Sehr for protection. He needed Rachel here. This was the kind of thing she excelled at; she had already established a bond with Chloé.