The Garden of Last Days

by Andre Dubus III

  In the name of Allah.

  Bassam’s first bite is of the rice. It is too moist with butter and he wishes for saffron. But he must be grateful for this food, and he must not think of himself or the pleasures found in the life of this world. They eat quietly. Tariq, as always, eats too quickly, pushing the bread into his mouth behind the rice. Imad ignores him. He regards Bassam across the small table. He smiles directly at him. It is the smile he gave when they said together their bayat so many months ago in Khamis Mushayt, a love for him borne from the greater love for the Creator.

  “In the morning, Insha’Allah, you and I will fight like Ali and Ubaydah, Allah rest their souls.”

  “Yes, Allah willing.” Bassam lowers his eyes out of respect, and again, the thrusting of his heart, the rising pride inside him that he has been called to fight like the heroic cousins of the Prophet, peace be upon him.

  He bites into the chicken cooked by the kufar. Do they know whom they are feeding tonight?

  Tariq reaches for his tea. “And I will fight like Hamza, Insha’Allah.”

  “Yes.” Imad looks at him and he nods as if he sees already that this will be true. “Allah willing, yes.”

  But it is as if Bassam’s blood has grown cooler by two or three degrees, the fear he begins to feel now. The inescapable fear before battle. But what is this fear? Surely it is not of death.

  No, it is the fear of failing and remaining here in this life. That is this feeling. The fear of living.

  LONNIE PULLED HIS truck up to the curb in the dark. He looked out his open window at the marine supply across the street. Behind the plate glass, the store was in blackness but a fluorescent light glowed behind the sales desk, hooks of life jackets hanging above it in shadow. Had he ever noticed that before? And April’s light on in the bedroom of her daughter. Before driving home, he’d sat in his truck across the street watching it like a creep. Over the top of the garden wall hung a flowering vine, the richness inside brimming over.

  How could he have ever thought she’d be up for a night out?

  He was happy for her. He was. And he wasn’t stupid. He knew when a woman was interested and when she wasn’t and April was not.

  Lonnie got out of his truck and closed the door and unlocked the squat rental he couldn’t afford much longer. The AC was on too low. The place was dark and smelled damp as a swamp, and Louis’s call today, his voice tense and teasing, “C’mon, Lonnie, I’ll be open soon. What else you gonna do? What else you good at but knocking people’s lights out?”

  FRANNY FELL ASLEEP while April read to her, her daughter’s head on her shoulder. Now they both lay under the sheet and new bedspread, Franny on her side, her small back curled against April, and she hadn’t washed or brushed her teeth but she wasn’t leaving. She reached up to the wall switch and flicked off the light.

  In the darkness, that woman who’d insisted on lifting Franny out of the van herself, and the look in her eye, some kind of resignation at having to hand her over. And Marina’s voice: “You’ll have to take some parenting classes. Reach out to some resources we have here. Work on becoming less isolated.”

  Isolated. She was, wasn’t she? Always had been. How was that going to change? Did anything or anybody ever really change? Lying here with Franny safe beside her, it felt like an intercession from God, but what had she done wrong other than to trust the wrong woman to watch her? What had she done to deserve the last two days? She was out of a job now. Yes, she had money, but it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t just quit working and buy something. Not yet. She needed more. A hundred thousand. Two hundred thousand. It would take time, but she was disciplined enough to do it. She had to do it, didn’t she?

  You do it for this. The drunk foreigner’s fingers on her. His bad English. Trying to say flesh. Is that why she did it? Because she liked it?

  No, he was wrong. What she liked was doing it so well, finding something she did better than other women, many of them beautiful women, but not as smart as she was. Not as forward-thinking as she was. She did it because of the money, yes, but also because it made her feel like more than just anyone. It made her feel she could do something not many others could.

  She still hadn’t deposited the money he’d given her. Tomorrow it would go into her account. Tomorrow, if the weather was good, she and Franny would go to the bank and then the beach. And Jean, maybe she would want to come along too.

  TUESDAY

  IT IS STILL quite early, the lobby of the hotel empty, its red carpet soft beneath their feet. They walk together with their luggage to the desk of the concierge. There are two kufar, a man and a woman. She is African and beautiful, her hair quite short, her lips red with cosmetics. She smiles brightly at them all, but Imad ignores her and hands to the man their plastic room cards.

  “Did you enjoy your stay?” says the woman. Imad does not look at her, and surely, this is a distraction from Shaytan, but Bassam smiles and says, “Yes, thank you.”

  Again she smiles so brightly and it is difficult to ignore her large nuhood beneath her blouse and buttoned jacket, Shaytan working harder now, and the dark kafir in Florida, what she showed to Bassam.

  “A taxi?” She looks to Tariq and Imad, who say nothing, who stand at the polished counter waiting for the receipt out of habit, for surely there is no need for it.

  Her smile, it has not diminished, but there is the tightness of a business transaction across her features, the lovely face of another whore. Bassam says: “We have telephoned for it, thank you.”

  And it is here. Beyond the glass, a yellow auto pulling to the curb outside. The brick wall of the building across the street sits in a pink and golden light, and now the bellman approaches them. He is as young as they, his hand outstretched to take their bags.

  “No.” Imad moves past him, Tariq as well, and is it weak of Bassam to smile at the boy and say, “No, thank you very much”?

  The driver is not Morrocan or Pakistani or Indian, as so many here are—he is a white kafir, a short and heavy man who wears a bright green cap and opens the trunk lid for their luggage.

  Imad remains there with his bag, and it is clear to Bassam he is making a silent du’a before entering a transport. Tariq hands to the driver his duffel and so then does Bassam.

  “Logan?”

  “Excuse, sir?”

  “Logan Airport?”

  “Yes.”

  The man’s face, it has lines in it beneath two or three days of no shaving, white and silver, and there are small broken veins across his nose and upper cheeks.

  “What airline?”

  “Yes, the airport.”

  Forcefully the man closes the lid. “What airline, sir? United? American? Delta?”

  “American.”

  Imad and Tariq are seated in the rear, their supplications completed. The driver pulls aside newspapers and Bassam sits and pulls closed the door and makes his own invisible du’a: In the name of Allah and all praise is for Allah. How perfect He is, the One Who has placed this transport at our service, and we ourselves would not have been capable of that, and to our Lord is our final destiny. All praise is for Allah, All praise is for Allah, All praise is for Allah. Allah is the greatest. How perfect You are, O Allah, verily I have wronged my soul, so forgive me, for surely none can forgive sins except You.

  The man drives fast and recklessly. The streets are nearly empty of other vehicles. In the rose light the sidewalking areas hold few kufar, but an old woman walks her animal before a furniture shop, a dog who walks quickly and sniffs the concrete.

  A radio plays. Kufar talking loudly. There is the smell of coffee, a white covered cup of it in a holder beneath the radio. The ashtray is full of ash and smoked cigarettes, and from the rear mirror hangs the cross of Mary’s son. Taped beside the driver’s photo is a small painting of her, rays of light shining from around her uncovered head as if she were holy, this mother of nothing but a messenger these polytheists worship.

  Bassam looks away. There is no god but Allah. Al
lah is all we need. He is the best to rely upon.

  A black kafir dressed in soiled and ripped clothing stumbles along. At his feet a discarded newspaper, an empty bottle. There is a restaurant for Indian food, its sign a bright yellow plastic. There is a restaurant for food from China, yesterday the kafir in the doorway, the music she made from her stringed instrument—beautiful, the work of Shaytan.

  The driver speaks. He says more loudly than the loud talk on the rado, “You boys going home? Where you from?”

  He views Tariq and Imad in his rear mirror. He looks to Bassam.

  “We are students.”

  “I figured that. Engineering, right?”

  Bassam says nothing. The car rumbles over steel tracks. He looks out his window and in the hazy air between low buildings, a train approaches. It is far away and will take time to arrive here, but his heart begins its thrusting. Allah is all we need. He is the best to rely upon.

  “I’ve met a lot like you. You come here for your educations, then go back to help your own people, right? You gotta respect that. Kids nowadays, I’m telling you, they’re in it for themselves. Number One, know what I mean?”

  Bassam nods to his question, or the sound of it in his voice, for he is not listening to this kafir who reminds him of Cliff in Boynton Beach. The same inked markings on his bare arms upon the wheel, the same evidence in his face of a life of drinking, but he is warm, friendly, and Bassam does not wish to like him, even for this short ride. Even for this.

  They speed onto a low bridge over water. A river separating two parts of the city. And now the sun begins to show itself, its light reflecting off the bottom floors of the many office buildings on the other side. Some are quite high, the sky beyond them a deep and cloudless blue. Bassam begins to sweat. He feels it come out on his forehead and behind his neck. And look at the lighted sign for oil, Bassam. It is larger than some buildings, another monument for these kufar to worship: CITGO.

  The windows are open. Cool wind fills the auto. It is the angels calming him. It is the mala’ika keeping him steadfast.

  Now they are in city streets and there is more traffic and the driver turns left and travels down a boulevard of tall trees. The buildings they pass are made of brown stone or gray stone or brick, green vines growing thickly up their sides. The radio talk has become music, not the stabbing electronic the young listen to, but something softer, a man and woman singing together, two lovers, and Bassam is grateful when the kafir turns it off.

  Imad says in their language, “Bassam, is he going the right way?”

  The driver looks briefly at him in the rear mirror.

  “Sir,” Bassam says, “is this the best way to airport?”

  “I’ve lived here my whole life, pal. I’d better know where it is.”

  A yellow cargo truck looms up and the driver turns sharply, his coffee spilling outward from its container, Bassam leaning.

  “Fuck you!” The driver yells this from his window, but he does not seem as angry as his words, more like a man expected to perform a role so he is performing it.

  “Bassam, what does he say?”

  “Don’t worry, Imad. He knows where he is going.”

  There are traffic lights and stops and many more autos on the streets. Now they are driving beside the river they have crossed. The sun shines more directly upon it, and on this side are green parks of trees, many kufar jogging, men and women, some on roller blades Bassam saw so much of in Florida, others on bicycles. Always this drive to keep their bodies strong so that they may live many, many years, pleasuring themselves as long as possible.

  “What’re you? Electrical? Mechanical? That’s what most of you study, right? Computers too. We can’t forget that.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What’re you taking up in school?”

  Does he ask what he studies? Yes, he must be asking this. “Medical.” Bassam does not know why this is his answer. There are no doctors in his family.

  “Yeah? Medical school? Whereabouts? Over to Harvard?”

  “Yes, Harvard.”

  “Impressive. Very impressive. How ’bout your friends?” The kafir regards them in the mirror, more respect in his eyes now, subservience even. Yes, Bassam can see it, a humbling of himself, his descent to his social station away from where they are rising. And Bassam wants to tell this noisy kafir the truth, that their true titles are far more exalted than that of doctor who does nothing but tend to the living.

  His mouth is dry. At the airport he will drink water, Allah willing. “Yes, medical too.”

  The driver nods his head and seems to drive faster, as if he is now carrying very important people. They descend into a tunnel. Its light is a dull yellow that makes the day too bright when they enter it once more and then they are in city streets and there are many autos and the shops’ doors are open, their electric signs lighted in the early-morning air that smells of concrete dust and garbage and gasoline. There is a hospital, a large parking garage. A police officer stands beneath the canopy of a restaurant, a container of coffee in his hand, and his eyes stare briefly into Bassam’s. He closes his and makes the du’a for entering a village for he has never been to this part of the northern city and he must remind the angels to remain with him, to guide and protect them: O Allah, Lord of the seven heavens and all that they envelop, Lord of the seven earths and all that they carry, Lord of the evils and all whom they misguide, Lord of the winds and all whom they misguide, Lord of the winds and all whom they whisk away, I ask You for the goodness of this village, and I take refuge with You from the evil of this village, the evil of its inhabitants and from all the evil found within it.

  At a traffic light, the driver brakes suddenly, the cross of Mary’s son swinging. The kafir drinks from his cup. Once again he nods his head. “You guys goin’ home for a visit?”

  “No.” Why do you tell him the truth, Bassam?

  “A few days off?”

  “Bassam,” Imad says, “what is he talking about?”

  “Nothing. He is nothing.” He turns to the kafir. “Yes, we are visiting friends.”

  “That’s good.”

  The light becomes green and the driver pushes gasoline into the engine. Soon they are passing an outdoor market, men in soiled aprons handling vegetables and fruit, fish laid out on ice, their bodies slit open a dark pink, the smell of it—fish and damp cardboard and something rotten from days before, rotten and stepped over in the street. And when they enter another tunnel, this one longer and darker, some of its lights broken or blinking with little power, Bassam sees the souqs from home, how during prayers he would lie down beneath a covered table away from the muttawa and smoke one of Khalid’s Marlboro cigarettes and watch the smoke rise. It may as well have been smoke from his own burning soul.

  Just meters ahead is the light of this day. He closes his eyes: La ilaha illa Allah wa Muhammad ar-rasulullah.

  They merge into the sunlight behind many autos. The driver accelerates and they are on an overpass and on the other side of it are brick buildings, apartments Bassam can see, small balconies attached. There are grills for cooking meat, flower boxes, outdoor plastic furniture. Over the railing of one is clothing drying in the early sun, and on the roof is a large sign, a photographed woman looking directly at him, smiling with seduction, a glimmering stone on her finger.

  “Bassam,” says Tariq from the rear, “look at the sky.”

  It is the same uninterrupted blue he had seen over the clouds when they flew here from Florida. Surely, a sign. Surely, the angels at work for them.

  And Imad speaks quietly the words of the Prophet, peace be upon him, whenever he would receive pleasing news, “All praise is for Allah by whose favor good works are accomplished.”

  “American, right?” The driver looks briefly at Bassam.

  “Yes, American.” Now they are nearing the airport, its control tower visible beyond concrete overpasses and the traffic of buses and autos. Beyond it, in the deep blue, a passenger jet descends and to t
he south another rises steeply. It is as if there is no moisture in Bassam’s mouth and never was. His heart is beating erratically inside him, and he breathes deeply, and please, Mala’ika, calm me, keep me patient, steadfast, and tranquil, for truly, Insha’Allah, I am less than three hours from entering Jannah.

  There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His messenger.

  “You guys travel light. Christ, whenever I go anywhere I pack a whole trunk. And the wife is worse than me.” The kafir laughs though Bassam is not completely certain what he said. But it no longer matters for the taxi pulls up beneath a sign for American and the kafir pushes a button on his price machine, the red numbers like those of the hotel clock in their last room, like all the clocks of all the motels, the red numbers stating the price. The Egyptian would try to negotiate this number downward, and will he be as joyful and at peace as he was two evenings ago? Is he already here?

  “Thirty-two seventy, please. You need a receipt?”

  “No.” Bassam pushes two twenty bills into his hand, knows it is customary to give a gratuity, but all the money he gave freely in the South in the small black room. His drunkenness, his weakness.

  The kafir places two coins into Bassam’s palm, then a note of five and notes of one, and in the care with which the driver does this, Bassam can feel his hope for some to be given back to him.

  Shouldn’t we take these last hours to offer good deeds and obedience?

  Bassam gives the kafir the bill of five. The driver looks him in the eyes and smiles the satisfied smile of a surprisingly successful transaction, but in that green cap of a boy he looks foolish, and doomed. “Thank you, sir. You have a good trip now.”

  He exits the auto and retrieves from the trunk the duffel bags of Bassam’s and Tariq’s. The kafir drives back into the roadway, and Imad is already walking ahead of them, his cell phone pressed to his ear for the call to Amir, Tariq close behind. Bassam wants to call to them to wait, to remember their instructions and to say first a du’a for place, but they have entered the revolving door and in the turning glass he sees briefly his reflection, his narrow shoulders and ironed clothing, his smooth face, his bag hanging beside him. Then the door opens and his reflection is gone, a sign of his fate, yet another sign of his blessed Al-Qadr.