The Garden of Last Days

by Andre Dubus III

  The line moves more quickly now. A man dressed in a suit approaches the window. A large woman walks to the next, and soon a kafir in athletic clothing is summoned to the third. The man’s shirt has no sleeves and his shoulders and arms are uncovered, the muscles there much larger than even Imad’s. But are we strong enough, Bassam? What if they are stronger? Surely Bassam and his brothers are weaker than this man. But in body only, Bassam. In body only.

  He is hungry. But there will be no midday meal. Already he is looking forward to the greater hunger, the emptiness that only the Sustainer can fill. And he wishes he began fasting days ago with Imad. But instead of this, what did he do? He drank alcohol and let his lust lead him and now he has lain with a whore and can only pray he will fight tomorrow, Allah willing, as did the pious early generations. He can only pray that his love for the Creator will be stronger than any kafir like this man and others like him.

  O Allah, protect me from them with what You choose.

  The line begins to move, and Bassam follows the mother and her now silent and sleeping child.

  THE PROTECTIVE INVESTIGATOR’S name was Marina, an unfortunate first name, Jean thought, in a place full of boats. But she was pleasant enough, sitting on the edge of the sofa beside Jean, nodding respectfully at Jean’s answers to her questions with the detached warmth of a nurse.

  “So she sleeps here every night?”

  “No, just on the nights her mother works.”

  “And that’s five nights a week?”

  “Sometimes four.” Jean sipped her ice water. The woman wrote something on her notepad. She was short, with olive skin and a man’s haircut, her khakis tight at her hips. She hadn’t touched her water.

  “What time does she get home every night?”

  “Oh I don’t know really. I’m asleep.”

  “But you said she used to carry her daughter upstairs. What time did she do that?”

  “Around three or three-thirty, I suppose.” Jean’s face burned. Most of the women’s questions were about April, but she began to feel scrutinized in a place she’d been hiding.

  “May I see the room?”

  “Certainly.” Jean led her down the hall to Franny’s bedroom, stepping to the side as the woman walked in ahead of her. Jean watched her look at the bed and homemade quilt, the stuffed animals, posters, and curtains; was she taking in how clean and neat the room was? The love and care obviously at work here? What else could she be jotting down in her notebook?

  The woman looked up, neither smiling nor frowning, and a weight began to press on Jean’s chest: What if she denied them anyway? What if what she saw wasn’t quite enough?

  “May I see your room, please?”

  “Of course. It’s that one.”

  Marina DeFelipo thanked her. Jean didn’t know if she should follow her or not. Would that look like she was hovering, trying to distract her from seeing something? But she couldn’t just turn and walk away either; it may seem as if she didn’t care what was put in her report. She stayed in the doorway.

  The woman took in Jean’s mahogany nightstands, the matching reading lamps with the tasseled shades, the half-empty water glass, and the paperback Jean bought last week in St. Armand’s Circle, Anxiety: The Cure.

  “Do you suffer from anxiety?”

  “No.” Heat tightened the skin of Jean’s face and throat, this lie so obvious. “Well, panic, I would say. I sometimes get these attacks.”

  The woman nodded slowly, taking her in more fully now: the loose jowls under her jaw, her fleshy bare arms and massive sundress, the varicose veins in her calves, the slippers she was still wearing. “Are you getting treatment?”

  “No.” Jean looked away, the weight pressing harder against her chest. A cool sweat broke out on her forehead and upper lip, the back of her neck. “It’s not that bad, really.” She walked quickly to the window and parted the curtain. She was thinking of the hospital Friday night, of ripping off the wires and leaving the pills in the bedsheets.

  “You should get some help for that, Mrs. Hanson. Anxiety is a common problem. May I see your bathroom?”

  “Yes, please, follow me.” Jean moved down the hall quickly because moving helped; her breath seemed to come more easily, the weight on her chest easing up a bit. She didn’t wait for the woman this time; she knew she was going in there to look for medications; in the mirrored cabinet she would find some for her blood pressure, another to lower her cholesterol, some aspirin to thin her blood. But nothing for anxiety or panic. Nothing that would make her look like a liar.

  While the woman was inspecting the bathroom, Jean picked up both water glasses from the coffee table. Her vision blackened as she stood, her heart fluttering. Now she could see clearly again, but there was more cold sweat she wiped away with the back of her arm, her skin cool.

  “Are you all right?” Marina DeFelipo stood at the end of the hallway. There were the beginnings of gray along her hairline, and she had put on glasses with silver wire rims.

  “Yes, I just haven’t been sleeping well.” Jean moved around the counter. She rested the water glasses in the sink. She could feel the investigator watching her and she’d had quite enough of this, she who’d done nothing wrong. “Are you going to interview April now?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Her eyes lingered on Franny’s drawings on the wall, so many of them crooked houses under bright suns.

  IT WAS ONLY one inspector, the same woman who hadn’t let her see Franny, and April was surprised she’d gone into Jean’s first. She was down there a long time. Now she stood in April’s living room looking at the dusted row of Disney movies under the TV, her notepad open.

  “How is she?”

  “She seems very nice.”

  “No, my daughter. Your tests. Please, how is she?”

  The woman looked steadily at April. “She shows no real signs of having been abused. I’ll be seeing her again, however.”

  April nodded, her eyes filling. She turned and walked past the peninsula into the kitchen. Thank God, Thank God, Oh thank God. But she didn’t like how the woman didn’t ask to see her daughter, just informed her she would. Nor did April like the hope in her that this woman had taken note of her tears.

  “May I see her room, please?”

  April led her down the hallway. She stepped to the side to let her in, and it felt as if she were showing her a lie.

  The woman looked at the made bed and the Barbie dollhouse at the foot of it. She looked at the new beanbag chair. She walked over and tested the latch on the window.

  “This is kept locked?”

  “Yeah, the AC’s always on.”

  The woman glanced at the poster of the moon over the ocean and she opened the closet and took in the hanging dresses and tops, Franny’s pink backpack on the floor, her new flip-flops lined up neatly beside her old ones. She peered inside and looked in both corners. She turned and smiled. “Is this where she plays a lot? Here in her room?”

  “And downstairs with Jean. She’s there every morning.”

  “Until you get up.”

  “Yeah, that’s about ten.”

  “Jean said eleven.”

  “Between ten and eleven.” April’s face hummed. She tried to smile but couldn’t.

  “Does she know what you do?”

  “Jean?”

  “Your daughter?”

  “I’ve told her I’m in show business.”

  “Does she know what that means?”

  “I tell her I dance on a stage.”

  “What did she see Friday night?”

  “Just women in a dressing room. Just, you know, women.”

  She nodded. She kept her eyes on her, and April saw Mary, her good sister Mary, who never broke a rule and never would. And should she tell the woman now that she didn’t even work there anymore?

  “May I see the rest of the home?”

  “Please.”

  April stood to the side and let her go look herself. Yesterday she’d put the ironing board and i
ron in the closet where they never went, she’d hung her clothes on hangers and dusted off the bureau and bedside table. She’d straightened the stack of magazines and vaccumed the carpet and washed the windows. Now she heard the closet door slide open. Her leather pocketbook was on the floor beside her bed. It was zipped shut. All that money from the foreigner she hadn’t deposited yet. Today was her first chance to do it. Would the inspector look inside it? Could she?

  But now she was a shadow moving down the hallway, smiling at April as she found the light switch and stepped into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet.

  “Do you own any weapons? Firearms?”

  “No, never.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  The woman closed the cabinet. She parted the shower curtain and looked at the gleaming tub, Franny’s bath toys lined up along the porcelain, her Barbie mermaid sitting at attention.

  BETWEEN THE ‘ASR and Maghrib prayers, Imad and Tariq take the opportunity for one more exercise session in the hotel’s gym. Imad urges him to go as well, but Bassam has not been disciplined enough and knows his muscles will be sore tomorrow, Insha’Allah.

  “I have not finished the instructions. You two go, Imad. What you need from me are speed and resolve, and these things I already have.”

  Imad in his sweat suit they purchased at a Target in Boynton Beach, Tariq in his—they stood in the hotel corridor like two boys on their way to play a game in the streets. Imad nodded his acceptance, and now it is a joy to be alone. In the quiet of the room, still darkened by the drawn drapery and lighted only by the bedside lamp, Bassam feels the beckoning opportunity to study and to pray and to better prepare himself.

  His mouth is dry, but he will not drink water. His hunger has returned, but he will not think of food. He sits back upon his bed and takes up the final instructions for the shuhada’, these words the only nourishment he needs.

  Do not forget to take a bounty, even if it is a glass of water to quench your thirst or that of your brothers, if possible. When the hour of reality approaches, the zero hour, wholeheartedly welcome death for the sake of Allah. Always be remembering Allah. Either end your life while praying, seconds before the target, or make your last words: “There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is His messenger.”

  Afterward, we will all meet in the highest heaven, Allah willing.

  Bassam can no longer lie still. He refolds the instructions and pushes them back into the envelope. He stands and walks back and forth between the beds and the television cabinet and minibar.

  Do not forget to take a bounty.

  Tariq, could he have been correct? Was it allowed, even encouraged, for them to take this whore? And so they could do it again, could they not? Something to quench their thirst?

  No, no, this is weakness. No, he must wait. This time tomorrow, Insha’Allah, he will have been in Jannah for hours.

  So close. They are so close!

  Upon the table beneath the curtained window are what Imad purchased this morning, the cans of cream for shaving, the two bags of disposable razors. Bassam should shave his body now, in the bath. He steps toward the table. But no, the instructions are for the last night and it is still day. He should have gone with Imad and Tariq to the gym. He could exercise lightly. No, he was right; this would only make his muscles sore and slow.

  He steps to the window and parts the draping. Outside, sunlight upon the new brick walls of the hotel. Down below the courtyard, its trees full and green. He wants to go there. He wishes to be under this sun, walking, moving his body. But then he will be among the kufar. He will be among them and all their distractions.

  No, Bassam. Calm yourself. Make an ablution and pick up the Book and read from Al-Anfal and Al-Tawbah as instructed. Read the words of the Holy One.

  And yes, it calms him. Yes, it fortifies him. But so early in the sura, Bassam reads it as if for the first time:

  Your Lord bade you leave your home to fight for justice, but some of the faithful were reluctant. They argued with you about the truth that had been revealed, as though they were being led to certain death while they looked on. These words refer to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and the victorious Battle of Badr, but Bassam also sees Karim, hears again his words defending the Zionist/Crusader alliance as if they truly are fellow People of the Book, as if they are not corrupting polytheists and unbelievers. And Ahmed al-Jizani, Bassam sees his father as he sat against the wall, his elbow upon his raised knee, his tea steaming in the clear glass he held, his eyes on his youngest son. “And if it comes to fighting, it is only for defense, Bassam. A fard kifaya.”

  But jihad is not a collective duty, it is fard’ayn, a personal obligation. An eternal jihad against apostates near and far. And have they not read the words of Allah? Is it not clear whom He favors most? Those who stay home in comfort and make excuses, or those who leave and fight?

  But this pride in himself is wrong, the heat of shame rolling upward through his face. All this is not for him, but for the Creator, for the Judge and the Ruler, for the All-Knowing and the Merciful. And Bassam must be more respectful to his own father. Yes, he may not be destined for the highest rooms with his son, Insha’Allah, but he is the builder of a sacred mosque, the father of fourteen children, the husband of Bassam’s dear mother, and is it not promised to the shahid that his sacrifice will erase the sins of seventy members of his family as well? Is it not? And yes, if Bassam is forced to slaughter, Allah willing, he must dedicate it to his father. He will dedicate the first spilled blood to Ahmed al-Jizani.

  THEY WERE LATE. Marina said one o’clock but it was already fourteen past. Three times cars had driven up Orchid, the sun reflecting off their hoods and windshields, blinding her just before they drove by.

  April leaned against her Sable. The trunk was hot against her lower back, and her mouth was dry and her heart seemed to be pounding in her empty stomach. Jean had waited with her awhile, but then got a little faint under the sun and went inside for her straw hat. April was sweating and thirsty, but she didn’t move.

  A dog barked. A door opened and shut. She was squinting and needed her sunglasses.

  A white car turned onto Orchid, then a dark blue van. The sun hit the chrome and glass of both and April held her hand over her eyes. The first car was Marina DeFelipo, and she was alone and April was already out of the driveway and walking fast down the sidewalk to the van pulling to the curb. It was new, its side windows tinted, and a woman sat behind the wheel, and as she put the gear in park, April was already at the rear passenger door jerking on the handle. There was a clicking noise, then a whimper, her eyes filling, the dark glass a smear. She kept jerking on the handle but only the front passenger window rolled down.

  “Let go so I can unlock it.” A polite voice but firm, and April let go. She wiped her eyes and pressed her face to the glass. She cupped her hands to her temples, and there she was, locked in a car seat in a white dress, smiling at her and waving, her curly hair bouncing, her legs kicking, her feet in new white shoes.

  JEAN SAT AT the patio table, her cheeseburger untouched, the bricks warm beneath her feet. The mottled light of sundown lay over her garden, and in it sat Franny and April across from her, Franny in her mother’s lap talking about how there were good toys and a sand box and a little pool she swam in. Her hair was clean and curly, her face unmarked, her eyes as clear blue and lit with as much joy and curiosity as they’d ever been. How was it possible to feel any greater happiness than this?

  Jean raised her glass and sipped her Cabernet. She’d wanted champagne but couldn’t tolerate the thought of leaving Franny for even that one errand. And how good it was to sit here behind these walls among the hibiscus and bougainvillea and frangipani, the gate latched, all officials gone, the three of them safe. Now Franny slid off her mother’s lap and walked around and climbed up onto Jean’s. A welling caught itself in her throat and she pulled her close, this strong young body. This strong, unharmed, miraculous body. “Oh I�
��m so happy you’re home.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t like that I couldn’t come home.”

  “We didn’t either, honey.”

  April said, “Remember what I told you, Franny? They wouldn’t let us see you. It’s because of what I did, honey. Not you.”

  April looked as if she might cry again, one bare knee drawn up to her chest. Her hair was pulled back and she wore little makeup and she hadn’t eaten much of her food. Before, Jean would’ve felt uncomfortable holding Franny like this in front of her, as if she were stealing something. But not now. April was looking at them both like they went together, one essential to the other.

  Franny was eating a tomato slice from Jean’s plate. Jean kissed her, could smell her hair. Some kind of floral shampoo. It’s not what April used, and it smelled wrong to Jean, as if Franny had been someplace so very far from them. Someplace foreign.

  THE SUN HAS set, and for their night meal they have ordered from the hotel’s room service: chicken and rice, yogurt, though it is sweetened, salad with extra cucumbers they will mix with the yogurt, bread and tea. And if they were not breaking their fast together in Imad’s room, would they keep the kafir server from entering as does Imad? Would they have been so pure?

  But again, there is no resentment inside Bassam as he wonders this. He is grateful for Imad’s steadfastness. And when they are seated around the table, a third chair carried from their room by Tariq, they lower their heads and make the supplication for fast-breaking. The thirst has gone and the veins are quenched, and reward is confirmed, if Allah wills.