Ordinary Obsessions

by Tom Corbett

  “I could try, but I fear the man is uneducable.” Sir Charles chuckled. “Permit me to continue. Another key building block was bringing Shahed on board. She is key, totally respected within the university, tireless, devoted, and with wide connections among the Muslim community. She appears to throw herself into her work, never married, no children. Rather the exception in her world, no? In any case, among the more financially successful adherents to Islam here, she has already garnered significant pledges of economic and community support. Many of these people want to recast Islam in a more positive light, they are appalled that their religion has been hijacked by fanatics and extremists that impose an ideology they despise and reject. They also cannot accept that so many young women are relegated to hopeless, servile lives. Yes, the response has been amazing. We will have the ability to expand rapidly.” Then he paused as if to change directions. He looked directly at Chris. “I am still puzzled by one thing: why not bring your daughters on board from the beginning? Why spring this on them so late in the game?”

  “Ah, yes.” Chris looked down at his hands. “By the way, only Azita is my legal daughter by virtue of adoption, but you are correct it turns out. I now think of both as my daughters.” Amar reached over and squeezed his hand as he concluded. “I have been afraid at how they might react, I wanted the proposal to be set first.”

  “Afraid? I am not sure I understand.”

  “You see, Charles, I first came to you when Azita decided to return to Afghanistan with others from my international service organization, rather than do medical research with Professor Aronson. I knew, or at least suspected, that the tug of her culture, her sense of obligation, was winning the battle for her soul. Later, it became apparent that Deena was leaning the same way. This is selfish of me, I know, but the thought of them returning for good scared the crap out of me. That is what their father did, went back after finishing his medical studies at this very university, and he and his wife were butchered one morning. Then Deena was almost assassinated on a visit. I could not push those thoughts out of my head. I cannot keep them out of harm’s way, not totally. I guess I am negotiating the best deal I can get.”

  Sir Charles leaned forward. “You do realize, my boy, that this initiative will not keep them totally safe, they will spend time back in harm’s way, not as much, but it cannot be avoided.”

  Chris sighed. “Yes, but I will feel more connected to their lives. I wish I could say that I am doing this for altruistic reasons. Yes, that is a big part of it, but I also want to remain part of their lives, to be able to protect them as much as I can. Is that wrong?” He looked first at Amar and then swung toward Kay.

  “No,” his twin sister whispered, “it is not wrong at all.”

  “Well, I have gotten my just punishment for leading a rather dissolute life for so many years. I guess there is such a thing as karma. I now find that I love those two girls totally and that is the greatest feeling possible - and the worst.”

  Amar leaned over to her husband and whispered, “I love you.”

  He seemed not to hear her words. Instead, he regained control of himself. “Did I answer your question about why I kept this from the girls - young women - I mean? Let me try again. I was deathly afraid of their reaction, more Azita’s than Deena’s. You must understand Charles, Azita - both really - are headstrong. From what I know, they got this from their mother, an educated and headstrong woman herself. If they thought this was merely a plot to keep them from going back home permanently, they would have rebelled. I would be challenging their independence, their right to seek a path in life that is theirs. I could not separate them from their identity and their culture, not by some all-too-transparent wiles. They would reject that, and I am not clever enough to fool them. I had to come up with an offer they could embrace with their hearts, which meant it had to have advanced to the point where it was real and something they could not easily reject. Hell, I was on pins and needles in that room, expecting Azita to jump up and leave. I still don’t know if she will accept this, nor Deena, with absolute certainty. But I grow more hopeful the longer that conversation in the other room continues.”

  Suddenly Kat stood up and walked to the office window. She looked out over the ancient buildings and, being high enough, could catch a glimpse of the countryside beyond. “Yes, I can see how this place can capture one’s heart. I thought Madison might be good competition but…” Then she turned back to the group as all looked at her. “Chris, Amar. I have been selfish. I wanted my brother near me as I took on Father. But, in truth, Chris can help me from here. It was just my residual insecurity. I never let it show but I looked up to this lug. We are all tugging at him, but he now has a real family, real people to love. You must return here next year, Chris. Bring Amar back where she belongs. Be nearer to Kay, your daughters, your real work. We will work something out. Hey, we are the Crawford kids - we are nothing if not resourceful.” Her voice caught at the end.

  Chris stood and walked over to her, embracing her. “You be careful,” Kat murmured to him, “people will think we actually like each other.”

  He laughed as he released her. “That would be a tragedy.” Then he turned to the group. “Listen, I am hungry. I hear the Hairy Hare calling. Let me pop my head in and, if they are still going strong, let them know where we are headed.”

  He slipped through the door but returned momentarily. “They are huddled about a laptop, no idea what is going on, but they seem to be very engrossed in whatever it is.” Chris beamed. “They promised to join us in a bit. In the meantime, to the Hairy Hare.”

  “The Hairy Hare, really?” Sir Howard appeared astonished. “I know of a much more authentic establishment.”

  Chris cut him off. “Tradition, Charles, surely you understand tradition.”

  “The Hairy Hare is not quite the same with Karen missing,” Chris noted as they sat at a table big enough to accommodate the whole crowd when Azita, Deena, and Ahmad arrived to join them. “I wish there were not this tension between Karen and Deena.”

  “Why is that? Not the tension, I get that, but why is the Hairy Hare not the same? Unfortunately, it never changes,” Amar offered.

  Kay cast a suspicious eye in her brother’s direction and said, “I bet I know. You cannot make your usual tasteless jokes about Karen’s rack and compare it to the barmaid’s.”

  “Tasteless, perhaps, but she would be disappointed if I didn’t make them.”

  Kay stuck her tongue out at her brother but decided not to continue that discussion. “Here is my thought. The fact that they are still talking is a good sign. Dear brother, I hate to admit this, but you are a clever sot.”

  “Methinks that is the best compliment I am likely to get from my sister who has always been bitterly jealous of my many skills and accomplishments.”

  The rest of the table looked at him for a moment before breaking out in laughter. Amar then turned serious. “Kat, what you said at the end. I am grateful but now I feel guilty.”

  “Yikes,” Kat uttered loudly enough for nearby customers to turn in her direction. She continued in a lower register. “What is with the goddamn guilt today? It seems infectious. I am convinced that this is what separates you people from ninety percent of the sharks I deal with every day. You people care, for Christ’s sake. You are capable of empathy. You cry at sad events and disasters. Most of the wealthy have no souls whatsoever. They are an abysmal lot of blatant narcissists and stone-cold sociopaths, but that is my burden. Amar, I am fine with my decision on this though I am not sure I could have kept Chris with me even if I tried. But here is the thing, and I have thought hard about this. His presence is not essential. I still need his mind and his connections and his persuasive powers. But he can operate out of Oxford or London or wherever. That is the blessing of modern communications. Come back here when Azita finishes her internship. By that time, we will have a plan.”

  “Another plan? The Soviets had nothing on us,” Chris quipped with a broad smile as Kat threw a pretz
el in his direction.

  Amar rolled her eyes. “It is amazing they still let us in this place, the way you children keep throwing things at each other.” With that the three Crawford siblings each threw a pretzel at Amar who squealed as she ducked to avoid the missiles.

  “Seriously,” Kat said. “You have to understand I was the kid sister, the quiet one who had almost zero self-confidence at first. Maybe I still suffer from just a little bit of insecurity, nice to have my big brother around to protect me and all that crap. But I am past that now, mostly, I think. I am a big girl. Besides, I have Ricky and a crack security team. The big test is when I must confront Father mano-a-mano. Hmm, that doesn’t quite work, does it? If I can go head-to-head with him and not wet myself, then I know I am there.”

  “I don’t know. You are a better man that any of the guys I know.” Chris laughed and instinctively ducked, but no one threw anything. “Seriously, I do have a plan, well, a concept at least. Tell me, what political thinker said the following: What good fortune for governments that men do not think.”

  “Ah, Socrates,” tried Kay tentatively.

  “Machiavelli,” asserted Kat confidently.

  “No,” said Amar, “sounds like Winston Churchill to me.”

  “Should have done your homework. Adolf Hitler. Another one, easier. ‘Can we build a wall high enough around this country to keep out the cheaper races?’”

  “Trump, of course,” Kat offered absent hesitation.

  “Give the lady a parting gift, Don Pardo. No, it was a man named Madison Grant, an early advocate of eugenics. My point is that he, along with Charles Davenport and Henry Goddard, along other devotees of eugenics, sold a simple idea to the American public about a century ago. Their big idea was that certain races were deficient and, by their very presence, polluted the pure American stock. Sound familiar? They had no rigorous empirical evidence, merely supposition and anecdotal examples. Look at those Irish and Slavic immigrants, they proselytized, they are uneducated, diseased, given to drunkenness and sloth, and very likely to be of a criminal nature. The eugenicists stressed that these deficiencies were not a choice. No! It was inborn and could not be cured. It was in their biological makeup and the only sensible policy was to keep the riff-raff out of the country and away from the pure American stock. They wrote numerous books and tracts and lectured relentlessly. Their impact went well beyond our borders. Hitler, in writing Mein Kampf, borrowed heavily from their writings. After 1880, a million immigrants a year poured into the country, some 75,000 through Ellis Island in most months. Starting in 1921, the eugenicists had put such fear into the country and its politicians, that the flow of newcomers was slowed to a trickle and remained so for over four decades. Their unsupportable idea became the national consensus.”

  “I sense a point is about to me made,” Kat said hopefully.

  “Of course. Most political types fight in conventional ways. They battle about candidates and short-term agendas and raising money and oppositional research to prove the other guy or gal is Satan. All well and good, that stuff needs to be done. Where the hard-right has dominated in recent decades is in the battle for the conceptual and normative underpinnings of the political discourse. Where are the default positions? Government is bad. Free markets are perfect. All benefit from unfettered capitalism. The mainstream media, and science, cannot be trusted. Diversity is a danger to America. We are constantly under some immediate threat by an ism - pick one. The poor are morally bankrupt and therefore responsible for their own situation. Guns really save lives despite our American carnage - a national embarrassment. The life of the embryo is sacred but, once born, if you have a pre-existing condition and cannot afford health care, tough shit. The list goes on.” He took a breath as he decided where to go next. “Listen to this for a moment. You have heard me, and Kay, wax eloquently on how sad the American healthcare system is, the costliest in the world, by far. At the same time, it bankrupts tens of thousands of families each year, killed some 40,000 per year before Obamacare, and delivers generally sucky health outcomes on average. Yet, your average American will rail against Obamacare and socialized medicine while saying nonsensical things like ‘get government out of our healthcare and expand Medicare instead’. I am speechless when I hear people talk.”

  “You can’t fix stupid,” Kay argued.

  “No, not entirely. But we can take a page out of the far right’s playbook. We need to win the war of ideas. There will be a lot of people doing the usual political stuff, getting out the vote. We need to focus on the power of ideas. Just think about the arsenal of weapons the right employs to shape the political dialogue: the Cato and Heritage Institutes, Citizens for a Sound Economy and the Club for Growth and the Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works and the State Policy Network. Oh, and don’t forget the Competitive Enterprise Institute or the Tax Foundation, the Reason Forum, the leadership Institute, the Federalist Society, and ALEC. Oh, how did I forget the Manhattan, Hoover, and Bradley Institutes, along with a growing number of media outlets to spread their propaganda? Has Murdoch bought up all the outlets yet?”

  Kat looked at him for several moments without saying a word. “Hmm,” she finally said. “I did wonder about what hook I could use to rope my sympathetic business colleagues into a more formal partnership. I have some meetings already set up to talk about the coming Trump debacle with money people like Tom Steyer, George Soros, Susan Sandler, and Gara LaMarche, to name a few. I wish we could flip more of the next generation of the elite. Listen, write something up for me, okay? In fact, join me.”

  “I will. But listen, the work our staff is doing will be very useful no matter which direction we go. They are drilling down into the deeper segments of the American political mind, who believes what and where are they. We can play the same game the Russians apparently are playing, targeted messages and misinformation. For us, we will not target misinformation, but real, evidence-backed information tailored in a way that people might listen.”

  “Oh look,” Amar cried out as Kat was about to respond. “The prodigal children have decided to join us.”

  Azita, Deena, and Ahmad found seats as everyone looked at them. For several seconds, there was awkward silence.

  “Well?” Amar could wait no longer.

  The three newcomers looked at one another. Then Azita spoke up. “We turned the offer down. Shahed is a phony, we saw right through her. Connection to the Jordanian royal family my foot.”

  Deena then supported her sister. “And that Sir Charles whatever, where did you find him? Is he a paid actor?”

  Ahmad just nodded his approval but added nothing.

  “What!” Chris sputtered. “You did what…?” Then he lapsed into silence, not knowing what to say next.

  Azita turned to her two companions. “Ahmad, Deena, look carefully. You are witnessing a miracle. After all these years, I have rendered him speechless.” Then she broke into a broad smile, followed by the other two.

  Chris continued to register uncertainty for another moment before his face relaxed into a grin. “Hoisted by my own daughter. Remember, young lady, I can still put you across my knee.”

  “And I keep reminding you, old man, you would have to catch me first. Besides, now I have a strong, young man to protect me.”

  “Do not worry, sir, I will help you catch her,” Ahmad said tentatively as if feeling his way into the conversation.

  “Ahmad!” Azita exclaimed in a light voice. “You traitor.”

  “Welcome to the family,” Chris boomed. “Finally, a male ally.” Then he looked at Amar and Azita to see if he had gone too far but neither registered disapproval, so he relaxed. “I think this young man realizes that he needs my permission to take on the burden of managing the new family jokester here.” Chris pointed toward Azita. “He does have to ask me, doesn’t he?”

  “Now you are getting into deep water, my reckless husband,” Amar chided him.

  “I suspect I will,” Ahmad said so lightly that not everyone aro
und the table were quite sure of what he had said. He reached out to take Azita’s hand.

  “This was all Azita’s idea, to play a joke on you.” Deena jumped in to divert everyone.

  “Et tu, my sister. Can I trust no one?” Azita protested and laughed nervously as Ahmad withdrew his hand.

  “So,” Kat now joined in, “what did you discuss after we left?”

  “Much,” Deena enthused. “I finally can see what I want to do now, and a reason to finish my education. Mother…I mean Madeena, would be so proud of me.” Deena looked at her sister.

  “We even discussed a role for me,” Ahmad added with enthusiasm. “Okay, perhaps I will be a token male but the possibilities here are endless. I…I…I want to thank you, sir.” He looked directly at Chris.

  “Sir? You mean me? Charles Howard is to a royal lineage born, no royal blood in our family tree, that is for sure.”

  “I think there you are wrong, Father,” Azita added softly. “From your mother, Mary…I think there is something royal in her line. She has, as I understand it, put up much of the initial endowment for this work. Why should she care? I don’t understand.”

  “Oh,” Chris responded immediately. “it is not hard to fathom. She loves you, and Deena. You can hardly imagine the depths of that love.”

  “But why?” It was Deena.

  “Hmm, look at it this way. She had loved her first-born, Chuck, with a special passion. He was most like her, both kind and artistic with a passion for beauty and art. He was taken from her and then she was stuck, she thought, with a son who was a borderline pervert.”

  “Borderline?” Kay smiled.

  “And not a word about any coat racks.” Chris looked crossly at his twin sister. “In any case, I was a disappointment to her. Then, I came back from Afghanistan with a wife and a young girl who was to be my child. That shook her at first but soon she saw a totally different son. Sure, part of the transformation was due to marrying well but much was due to this child…you my dear. You probably are not aware of this, but my mother took an extraordinary interest in what you were doing, all your accomplishments. And she read about your culture and homeland. She wanted to know as much as she could about you and your world. With time, she got to know Deena a bit. Her fondness just grew.”