by James Reston
“We strolled down a street, crowded with stalls, where Syrian shopkeepers sold their cheap wares, and the urchins played in the mud puddles.
“‘This is the street of the massacre,’ the doctor said.
“‘What massacre?’ I asked.
“The sunniness of my guide’s disposition vanished, and he looked at me in disbelief.
“‘You lived here, and you don’t know?’ he said.
“‘No, I’m sorry. I don’t.’
“‘In 1982 Sharon massacred seven hundred of our brothers along this street.’
“‘Sharon, the Israeli general?’ I said.
“The doctor turned full face. ‘Young man,’ he said, ‘did you really grow up around here?’
“Toward the end of my visit, Uncle Assem invited me to ride out to the Bekaa Valley to see the plot of land the family had bought for us, Karima, where my relatives promised to build us a splendid house as a wedding present.
“Uncle Assem’s big diesel car roared up the winding highway above the city past the pastel high-rise apartment buildings that dot the mountain slopes where wealthy oligarchs from the oil countries reside. At the summit we stopped for coffee at a roadside restaurant. After the coffee, Uncle Assem ordered shots of arak.
“‘Drink this,’ he said. ‘It is called the milk of lions. Our ancestors in the mountains used to drink it and fight courageously.’
“The fertile valley stretched before us. Far to the south, above a low layer of cloud, loomed Mount Hermon. Once on the valley floor, Uncle Assem edged his car down the dusty main street of Al-Marj. Modern calligraphy of the Haddad name emblazoned nearly every store: the Haddad furniture store, the Haddad electronics store, the Haddad wedding gown store, managed by Uncle Assem’s wife. And then he turned down a side street where lovely granite houses, tan and sunbaked, were positioned one by one in the Haddad family compound. At the end of Haddad Street was the grandest of all, belonging to Uncle Assem himself.
“‘I never told you this before, Sami. But I am a retired brigadier general in the Lebanese security forces.’
“I turned to look at his strong profile. I admired him so much, Karima. I was proud that a Haddad had risen so high in the ranks for his valor and leadership and sacrifice. Was I living up to the ideals of this secret soldier? I wondered. ‘No, uncle, I didn’t know that,’ I whispered. His revelation stoked my pride, but my fear also. What did the Lebanese security services know about our mission? With all his cunning, what had his uncle discovered after that visit to Germany? What would Uncle Assem think about my own warrior spirit?
“A little farther on, he stopped at an empty lot. From the back seat he unfurled the plans for our house. In a flash I saw our future spread out before me. I understood now that the family was only humoring my dream of becoming a pilot. They were sure that eventually I would give up my pipe dreams and return here with you, raise a family, and take over the leadership of the Haddad clan after father died. A comfortable life as a shopkeeper awaited. I tried to imagine how you could be happy here, far away from your roots, a European Turk toiling among disapproving Arabs. Could you ever be comfortable near hills dotted with caves holding Hezbollah rockets, only miles from the Israeli border and along their invasion route? I could not imagine it, any more than I could imagine myself happy in some drab suburb of Stuttgart, living out my life caring for your invalid mother.
“Uncle Assem prattled on about the kingdom of wealth and security and love that awaited us. As Uncle Assem talked, a vision of the Sheikh in Afghanistan rushed into my head.
“‘You are living a great story, my son.’
Karima turned the tape machine off and picked up Dr. Meyer’s report. Under the heading “The Challenges of a Gummy Smile,” her eyes fell on the opening paragraph.
“Short and long teeth can detract from a patient’s smile and may compromise cosmetic restorative procedures in the smile zone. Surgical manipulation of hard and soft tissues can enhance cosmetic appearance. Gummy smiles, ridge defects, and gum recession are candidates for this treatment.”
She looked over at the hoodlum who was cackling to his mate, her eye falling with professional interest and secret pleasure on his gummy smile.
“Ideally, after successful surgery, when a patient smiles, the inferior border of the upper lip, should be at the gum line of the upper lip, with upper front teeth measuring 80 percent as wide as they are long.”
She had met Dr. Meyer once. A tall, distinguished man with white hair and half-glasses, he stood at the top of their profession. She had put a question to him about ridge defects, and he had responded with the evident pleasure of a man who had once been a lover of attractive women. Karima had not read this particular paper of his.
At Göttingen the students and the Indian couple got off. Karima watched them disappear into the station. The station clock ticked down toward the departure time. Four minutes before the train was due to leave, she saw the pimply student run back through the station door and board the train again. A moment later he ran down the aisle to her.
“A man asked me to give you this,” he said breathlessly. “He gave me five marks.” He handed her a letter, then turned and ran back down the aisle and disappeared. She looked at the envelope. Dr. Karima Ilgun. Confidential.” The train jerked forward.
Dr. Ilgun,
We know you have the holy tokens of Abu Tareq al Lubnani with you. For your good and that of your mother, do exactly as you are told. When you arrive in Hamburg, proceed to Bahnsteig 8 where the train to Koblenz will be ready to depart. Walk to the middle of the platform where you will see a circular trash receptacle next to an elevator. Deposit the tokens in the receptacle, immediately take the elevator up the main floor of the station and exit.
Omar
The image of her mother’s cassette bubbling and curling into a liquid, viscous goo on the coals the night before, flashed through her mind. She had watched it curl and writhe from the heat, finally taking fire and transforming into a grotesque shape, before it became a cinder.
Two men were gazing at her across the aisle. She had not been aware of them before. One had a crewcut; the other wore the unmistakable costume of the BKA. Crewcut averted his glance.
Quickly, Karima ejected the cassette, glanced at them again, and then examined the cartridge carefully. She thought about what it covered: his training in Afghanistan, the meeting with Mohammad Atef, his weeks in Karachi with Muktar, his early months in Florida, his trip to Beirut. She stared wide-eyed out the window. Well then, she thought, it is not exactly Mutti’s plan, but close enough. With a jerk, she rose to go to the restroom at the end of the car. Sauntering slowly by the two agents, she looked directly into their eyes and gave them a smile of recognition. They shifted their eyes to the passing countryside.
In the toilet she reached in her purse and pulled out a cigarette, her lighter, and a bottle of nail polish remover. And then she pulled out the cassette, laying it carefully on the stainless-steel sink. With evident satisfaction, she began to pull the acetate tape out of the housing, letting it spool into a Medusa-like tangle in the well of the basin.
The Americans really didn’t want a human story. She was sure of it. It was much easier for them to think of Sami as a monster. She was doing them a favor. And al-Qaeda? Sacred relics of glorious martyrdom … never!
She watched the viscous drops of the nail polish remover ooze slowly out of the bottle and onto the tape. “Goodbye Sami,” she whispered. Then she lit the tangle, jumping back as it burst into flame. The shrill, staccato smoke alarm went off. After a moment, she quickly doused the mess with water, squeezed it into a ball in a paper towel, and flushed it down the toilet. Then she sat down on the toilet, lit a cigarette, blew a smoke ring at the mirror, and waited for them.
In Hannover, the agents led her through the crowd on the platform. Crewcut guided her by the elbow, making no effort to spare her feelings at being made a public spe
ctacle. They wound their way downstairs and through back corridors below the tracks. The rumble of trains overhead shook the walls. At the police office, processing the paperwork to fine her for smoking in the train took an age, and no one seemed to be in a rush. When they were done, they put her in a spare room with two chairs and a simple table. Had they not finished? Yes. Then why could she not leave and catch the next train? Orders.
In time, Kommissar Recht entered stiffly, followed by Sergeant Braun and the agent in the leather jacket, supposedly Augsburg bound, from her trip down. She rose to greet the vice kommissar as if he had come to deliver her from this unfortunate difficulty. Seeing the grim look on his face, she backed off into a more formal posture.
“You have been a naughty woman,” Recht said.
“I’m sorry, Günther. I’ve tried to stop smoking so many times. Sometimes the compulsion is just too great. You can understand that. You know the pressure I’m under. I didn’t know about the alarm. And anyway, you smoke those horrible French things.”
Recht glanced at Braun. “Did you bring it, Sergeant?” he asked.
Braun nodded. Recht fished rubber gloves out of his pocket. As he snapped them on, he said, “I want you to empty the contents of your purse onto the table, Dr. Ilgun.”
The usual detritus of a woman’s purse scattered before them: keys, wallet, change purse, old bills, pocket mirror, cosmetics case, small scissors, lipstick, fingernail polish, nail polish remover. Braun handed the kommissar a small stick, and he began to pick through the debris.
“Does a woman’s privacy mean nothing around here?” she demanded, half-heartedly. Recht said nothing. He picked up her wallet and began to go through the credit cards, money, and then the pictures. He pulled one out of the billfold and flashed it to the agent in leather.
“Recognize this guy?” he asked leather jacket.
The agent nodded. “The death pilot.”
Recht regarded the picture as if it were a museum specimen, then glanced at Karima. “Okay, you can put all that stuff back. Now the briefcase.”
She hoisted it on the table and took out the prospectus for the Fourth Annual conference, then her tape recorder, a few patient files, and three microcassettes. At the appearance of the cassettes, Recht showed keen interest, reaching his hand out to Braun. The agent handed him a microcassette recorder.
“Please be careful,” Karima said. “Those belong to the hospital library. I only have them on loan. I don’t suppose you’ve ever experienced the wrath of a librarian.”
Again, Recht glanced at her with a trace of amusement. He slotted a cassette into the machine with the proud look of the sleuth who had just cracked his case. He hit the start button.
The disembodied voice said, “Correction of a gummy smile can have a dramatic and long-lasting impact on a patient’s smile. The surgical procedure utilizes an incision to allow separation of the gum from the teeth, removal of a small amount of supporting bone and the replacement of gum tissues to expose the crowns of the teeth fully.”
With each of Dr. Meyer’s words, Recht’s scowl grew darker. He looked up coldly at Karima, and she mugged a big, mirthless smile, pointing to her exposed gum line. Over Recht’s shoulder, she could see Braun smirk. Recht ejected the cassette and put in the next.
“The management of a patient with a tooth-sized discrepancy in the so-called smile zone is a challenge to both the orthodontist and the restorative dentist. To evaluate, diagnose, and resolve the aesthetic problems caused by tooth discrepancy an interdisciplinary approach is recommended.”
He discarded that tape quickly and went to the third.
“Since their introduction in the early 1980s, porcelain laminate veneers have become a popular treatment in the cosmetic dentist’s armamentarium.”
Recht switched off the machine, picked up her briefcase, and looked into the depths of its empty compartments. He examined the stitching and the Velcro. Anger and frustration mixed with embarrassment.
“Can I go now?” she asked sweetly.
Recht looked at Braun. The agent shrugged his shoulders.
“All right. You can go for now,” Recht said. He glanced at the clock. “There’s another train to Hamburg in fifteen minutes.”
“In the future, Dr. Ilgun, please comply with the rules of the Deutsche Bahn,” Braun said officiously.
Karima carefully put her things back in the briefcase.
“They ought to have special cars for smokers,” she said with a pout, as if to put a fine point on the charade. “At least I don’t smoke Gauloises,” she said.
Recht turned toward the door without answering. “Do we still have a date tonight?” she called out after him. “I could bring slides of smile zones that need correcting.” She glanced impishly at Braun. The man in leather seemed to take note.
“Yes,” Recht said.
“Good. Ten o’clock. At my place, then. You bring the wine.”
He nodded darkly. As she started toward the door and the detectives viewed her suspiciously, she stopped.
“Günther,” she said, “I almost forgot. You might want to have this.”
She pulled Omar’s letter from her inside pocket and handed it to him.
10
AT 10:00 P.M. TO THE MINUTE, Kommissar Recht arrived at her apartment. He came across her threshold with a long face.
“I suppose you’re quite pleased with yourself,” he said.
Karima mustered a warm greeting to cover her nervousness. She had prepared a lavish spread to assuage his bad feelings. Scented candles flickered on her mantelpiece, and soft Ottoman music played in the background. She wore a casual, floor-length shift of red kelim design. She knew she looked gorgeous.
“I know I behaved badly today, Günther,” she said, as she took his coat. “I am sorry. Will you accept my apology?”
He uttered a half grunt.
“Good,” she said, taking his vocalization as an affirmative. “After all you’ve done for me, you did not deserve that.”
“No. I did not deserve that treatment,” he said, “especially in front of my colleagues.”
She went to her pantry and reached for a shot glass and a bottle.
“Have you ever tasted arak?” she asked, pouring the clear liquid into the glass. “The Lebanese call it the milk of lions. They give it to their best fighters.”
He gulped it down. “I prefer schnapps,” he croaked.
At her kitchen table she put the goulash and wine before him and watched him eat in silence. “Tell me your news,” she said at last.
He wiped his face politely and folded his napkin carefully.
“The good news first?”
“Please,” she said. “I’d welcome some good news.”
“For once we did things correctly,” he began. He reached in his vest pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. “This is classified,” he said, “You can read it and give it back.”
“What is it?”
“A police report.”
She read:
At the call from Kommissar Recht from Hannover, five officers deployed to Hamburg Station. When the train from Hannover arrived at Bahnsteig 8, Agent A got off the train and made her way through the crowd waiting to board for Koblenz, deposited a packet wrapped in brown paper in the trash receptacle, and proceeded to the elevator and the upper floors. Two suspects were surveilled coming through the crowd. After looking around suspiciously, one retrieved the packet and started to walk away quickly as officers moved in on them. One was detained immediately, but the other took off running through the crowd down Bahnsteig 8 with the packet under his arm. An officer gave chase and tackled the suspect before he reached the stairs. Looking down at his prisoner, the officer said, “God is great,” and the suspect spat in his face.
Karima looked up at him in amazement. “Who was my impersonator, Agent A?” she asked.
“The one known to you as Frau W
einer. She had taken off her wig. She’s not much older than you. She’s one of our best performers.”
“Who are the prisoners?”
“Mere foot soldiers. When I got back to Hamburg, I interrogated them.”
“Yes, and?”
“They cracked like an eggshell.”
“What do you mean?”
“Later this evening, police in Duisburg arrested an African.”
“An African?”
“Yes, a professor from Mauritania named Abu Musab. We think that he has been posing as Omar, that he was the one who left those messages on your answering machine and who wrote the instructions for your drop today.”