A guide for the perplexed: a novel

by Dara Horn

  Nasreen continued for her. “Josephine Ashkenazi was the businesswoman who came to the library, the one who was kidnapped.”

  Zulaika’s face showed no emotion. Her eyes narrowed as Nasreen continued. “She received a message from her sister, sent from Malek’s phone.”

  “From Malek’s phone?” Zulaika repeated.

  “Yes, from Malek’s old phone. The one that’s no longer connected. I’m sure you know what I mean.”

  Zulaika seemed to hesitate, though perhaps that was just to translate her own thoughts. “Malek lost his phone a few weeks ago,” she said. “I can give you his new number, if you like.”

  Nasreen had been sitting gingerly, balancing a hand on her knee as she sipped hot tea. Now her nostrils flared. She put her tea down on the floor at her feet. “You want money from me, Zulaika,” she hissed. “This time I cannot help you unless you help me.”

  Zulaika responded with a thick, blank stare. Judith watched the two sisters, wondering what was being said beneath the words. Then Zulaika rose from her seat and stepped away from them, bowing her head as she backed toward a door in the corner of the room.

  “Excuse me for a moment. I must fetch my mother-in-law,” she announced. Then she turned, opened the door onto what appeared to be a closet or a darkened hallway, entered it, and closed the door behind her.

  Judith assumed they would wait for a minute or less. But soon she found that the moment had dilated, expanding to encompass the entire room, the entire day, the entire city. She and Nasreen tumbled into the silent void, eyeing each other with a suspicion bordering on fear.

  “What is she doing?” Judith finally whispered. She hoped Nasreen would offer her some logical explanation, some reassuring words that would explain how no one but an irrational idiot would ever think anything in this situation could possibly be awry. Like Josie would have.

  Instead, Nasreen whispered back, “This is dangerous.”

  “Why?” Judith asked. She didn’t bother lowering her voice this time.

  “I’ve never met her mother-in-law,” Nasreen said softly. “This must mean her husband is watching her, through his mother. Be very, very careful what you say.”

  “But her mother-in-law wouldn’t understand English, would she?”

  Nasreen’s eyes widened. “She would, in fact. Malek’s mother worked as a tour guide, years ago, before she became religious. I thought she was dead. But of course everything here is a lie. Be careful.”

  “Careful?” Judith asked. “Careful how?” It occurred to Judith that she had no experience being careful, that as thick with disappointment as her life was, she had never in her entire life been in danger. Now the strange brusque woman from the library had become her closest relative, a paragon of sanity and intimacy in this strange shadowed room.

  “Watch what you say,” Nasreen whispered. And then Zulaika returned.

  She came through the door slowly, escorting a stooped, frail-looking woman whose face and body were entirely veiled in black. The veil swathed her figure, with a narrow slit in black fabric that exposed, as if by accident, the slightest glimpse of the woman’s dark eyes, which were cast to the floor.

  The veiled woman moved with slow, deliberate gestures, and an anguished limp suggesting profound old age. When she turned toward Judith and Nasreen she appeared to straighten, heaving her ancient body upward as though alarmed. But when Zulaika shifted, the old woman faltered, stumbling until Zulaika steadied her and eased her onto a bench against a tapestried wall. The old woman lowered herself onto the bench in tandem with Zulaika and then breathed deeply, a sound that seemed to demand an audience. Judith listened to the woman’s breath as it echoed through the room and sensed that she was in the presence of royalty, as though she had been summoned to an audience with an ancient queen. The old woman breathed heavily now. She seemed to be watching Judith, contemplating her from behind the safety of the thick black veil. Judith was surprised to find herself trembling. Be careful, Nasreen repeated in her mind. If only Judith knew how.

  The veiled old woman raised a finger, barely exposing it from beneath her robe’s immense dark folds. Her hand, Judith saw, was eerily pale and smooth, as if belonging to a corpse, one whose wrinkles had been embalmed away. Zulaika murmured something in Arabic and passed her a small notebook and a pen. The old woman took the notebook and pen in her strange pale hands. A metallic clicking announced the presence of bracelets beneath her robes.

  “My honored mother-in-law has taken a vow of silence,” Zulaika announced. “If she wishes to speak to you, she will write her words and I will read them.”

  Judith looked again at the strange dark figure. Nasreen opened her mouth to speak, but Judith spoke first, seized by a boldness that once belonged to Josie.

  “I don’t have anything to say to your mother-in-law,” Judith said, her voice firm. “I—”

  But already Judith had said too much. Nasreen leaned forward, jutting her chin at Judith. Nasreen was barely balanced on the edge of the stone bench, like a bird perched on a wire. She spoke quickly to her sister in Arabic. Her sister spoke back loudly, almost angered.

  Nasreen sighed. “The mother-in-law will remain here,” she said in English. Her tone made it clear: it was a concession. Zulaika now turned to Judith. Her face was calm, triumphant.

  Judith glanced at Nasreen, who slowly nodded. Everyone was waiting for her. Judith turned to the old woman, who appeared to be squinting at her through the slit in her veil. “It is—it is an honor to meet you,” Judith finally said, carefully choosing her words.

  The old woman watched her, an intense watching that Judith could feel. “An honor,” Judith repeated, looking directly at the old woman. As silence settled in the room, she felt the veiled woman waiting for more. Helpless, Judith rose slightly from her seat and bowed before her, a strange, deep bow. In this room, it felt natural. The gesture seemed to please the veiled figure in the armchair. The old woman leaned back, as if satisfied at last.

  “How may we help you?” Zulaika asked in English. We, Judith thought.

  Judith glanced again at Nasreen, but Nasreen was seething, refusing eye contact. Judith swallowed, and began. “You can help me find my sister,” she said. “Josephine Ashkenazi. The woman Nasreen was hosting at the library in Alexandria. The woman who was killed—supposedly killed—after being kidnapped. Nasreen—I mean, Nasreen and I—we have reasons to believe that you might know where she is. As Nasreen mentioned, my sister sent me a message from your husband’s phone number. Or at least someone did.”

  Was it too much, Judith wondered? Surely it was. But how long could this go on? What if the evil brother-in-law were to arrive? Or perhaps he was already here, in some hidden room, listening in? Surely he was the one who had the answers.

  Judith turned and saw Nasreen shuddering, the tough, impenetrable professional façade suddenly shaken. Watching her sole guide in Egypt fluttering like a leaf frightened Judith. It occurred to her that she herself was trapped, that without Nasreen she could go nowhere, that she could never escape, never return home. But did she even have a home anymore?

  Zulaika’s eyes were on the old woman, who was writing something on a scrap of paper before passing it to Zulaika. She seemed to write for a long time, crossing things out and beginning again as she looked to Zulaika for an approving nod. The old woman’s bracelets clicked again as she raised her hand. Zulaika’s hand still rested at the small of the veiled woman’s back, an intimate gesture. Judith noticed the old woman cringe at Zulaika’s touch.

  Zulaika read the note aloud, in a strange halting voice—as though she were translating, or having trouble reading the woman’s writing. “My honored mother-in-law says she is sorry for your loss,” Zulaika said.

  This was maddening. Judith glanced at Nasreen, but there was no hope anymore from that quarter: Nasreen had become like a small child, tapping her feet against the room’s stone floor. Zulaika looked again at the old woman’s notebook, and once again spoke aloud.

  �
��My honored mother-in-law would like to know why you have come alone.”

  “Alone? I’m not alone,” Judith said, genuinely puzzled. She looked again at Nasreen, but Nasreen was staring at the floor.

  The old woman scribbled again. Judith strained her neck, but could not see the woman’s writing across the room.

  “Alone, she says, without any other people from your sister’s household,” Zulaika said. “Did your sister have a husband? Children? Parents? Why were you sent alone?”

  Judith breathed, startled. “Nobody sent me. I—I just came.”

  The ancient queen stared at her, waiting. Zulaika said nothing. The silence sat in the room like a person, watching Judith. At last, submitting, Judith spoke.

  “My sister was married,” she said. She was surprised by how much it hurt to say it. If only—she thought for the first time—if only it had been me, and not Josie! No one in the world would have missed me. “They have a little daughter,” she added, bereft. “I was helping my sister’s husband take care of her. Her daughter was the one who told me to come here, to find her mother. I came for her.”

  The old woman seemed to absorb this. Judith felt crippled by not being able to see her face. At last the woman scribbled on the notepad again, showing the paper to Zulaika. “Why didn’t your sister’s husband come with you? Or without you?” Zulaika read. “Why are you here now instead of him?”

  Judith sucked in her breath, remembering Itamar’s rage. “He couldn’t believe that she might still be alive,” she said. “I was the one who believed it. He—he just couldn’t. I know it would have killed him to believe it and then to have it not be true. He couldn’t bear to put himself through that again.”

  The old woman paused, her body straightening under her robe. After an interminable moment, she wrote another note. “How could you know what he believed? Do you know him so well?”

  Now Judith shook, unable to control her body. The fire that had consumed Itamar on her last night in her sister’s house burned her, tormented her flesh. There was nothing for her to do but let the words fly free.

  “I have been living with my sister’s husband since my sister’s death,” Judith said at last. My sister’s death. She felt the deep pit opening at her feet again. This time it swallowed her into a bottomless, fathomless grief. No, she thought, as Itamar had surely thought when he first heard. Not the beautiful, talented, endlessly demanding radiance that once was Josie. It cannot be happening, it’s impossible, it cannot be real.

  Another note was passed. “What do you mean, that you are living with him?” Zulaika read.

  This was more than strange. Judith glanced at the veiled woman again and felt herself being dragged into a deep dungeon in the earth, as though they were trying to bury her alive in her own shame. Was this what Nasreen meant when she warned her to be careful? She thought, selecting words. But there were no words to mask what she had done. “I mean living with him,” she said.

  The old woman breathed in slowly, and passed another note.

  “Why?”

  Judith knew that this had gone too far. She did not turn to Nasreen, did not even look at Zulaika. Instead she stared at the slit in the old woman’s veil. “She was dead, and he was alone. He couldn’t live without her,” she said. She paused. “And I knew it.”

  The old woman breathed again, a thick, swollen, nasal breath. How horrifying to grow old like this, Judith marveled, gasping for air in an ancient necropolis. But now the veiled woman had become a divine tribunal, putting her on trial in this courtroom in the city of the dead. I can’t be forgiven, Judith knew. I should never be forgiven.

  Nasreen clicked her tongue, a loud, echoing click like the report of a gun. “This is nonsense, Zulaika,” she announced. “Complete nonsense. We don’t have time for this. When is Malek coming home?”

  Zulaika glanced at the floor, then at the veiled woman. The veiled woman shrugged her shoulders, her bracelets rattling underneath her robes. Then Zulaika spoke to Nasreen, her voice firing in rapid Arabic.

  Nasreen stood, her feet in their ballet slippers firm against the floor. “No, Zulaika,” she said loudly, in her perfect English. “I will not give you anything. No more money. Nothing more, unless you tell us what we need to know. This is your life, not mine. If you want to remain a prisoner here, that is your choice. I will not pay for your prison anymore.” She stepped away from the stone bench, moving toward the door. “Miss Ashkenazi and I are leaving now. Thank you, and may God be with you.” She beckoned to Judith.

  Judith remembered how she was chained to Nasreen, how without Nasreen there was no escape. But she couldn’t leave now.

  “I’ll give them whatever they want,” Judith blurted.

  Nasreen, who had already turned toward the door, stopped short, reversed, gasped. “Don’t be a fool,” she hissed. “This is nothing but a trick.”

  It was what Itamar had said. Perhaps they both were right. But Judith had played her own tricks before. If there were more tricks awaiting her, she deserved them.

  She turned to Zulaika, and to the old woman beside her. “What can I give you?” she asked. Her voice was meek, pleading. She bowed her head, groveling before them. “If you know anything about my sister, anything at all, I’ll give you anything you ask.”

  Nasreen glared at her across the room. “No, Miss Ashkenazi. We must leave now.”

  But Judith was desperate, a swelling desperation that reverberated through her bones, through the air, through the invisible pit at her feet. “I have money. I have credit cards,” she said. Her voice heightened, begging. She pulled a wallet out from a pouch in the waistband of her skirt and opened it wide, displaying cash and plastic. “I’ll pay whatever you ask. I’ll be indebted to my sister for the rest of my life. I already am.”

  Zulaika’s eyes narrowed. The old woman leaned forward. There was something strange about the veiled woman’s eyes, Judith noticed, an odd compassion in them, even through the slit in the cloth. But Judith no longer cared. The people in the room were irrelevant.

  “She would never have forgiven me,” Judith said aloud, her voice containing a cry. She was no longer speaking to the women in the room, but to God. And to Josie. “I don’t deserve her forgiveness. I don’t deserve her family. Please, take my money. Take everything. I only want my sister back.”

  Zulaika stood up slowly, her hand still braced behind the old woman.

  “I do not want your money,” she said.

  This alarmed Judith. The danger that had hovered in the room suddenly thickened, as if the room were filling with dense smoke. Nasreen was standing by the door now, frozen. Zulaika began to raise her hands slowly into the air, but Judith’s eyes were fixed on the woman in the veil.

  The veiled woman, Judith noticed, was shaking. At first Judith assumed she was shaking out of fear, the way Judith herself was trembling. But now she saw that the woman was shaking intentionally, wriggling, visibly shaking her head with a vigor that belied her stooped body. At last she lifted her hands to her face, and as the sleeves of her robe slid back, Judith could see that the clicking metal bracelets were handcuffs around the woman’s wrists. The woman pulled off her veil. Underneath the fabric was a long narrow face, sallow and gaunt yet somehow still beautiful, except for the square of duct tape over her mouth. It was Josie.

  “What I want is you,” Zulaika said, and pointed her gun at Judith’s face.

  “Josie?” Judith whispered.

  “Zulaika, you’re mad,” Nasreen shrieked.

  Zulaika turned the gun toward Nasreen, then back at Judith. Judith raised her hands, but did not take her eyes off Josie. Josie’s face was thin. Her eyes shone with tears.

  “Malek is coming soon,” Zulaika was saying. “If he sees what I’ve done, I will die. Just take her out,” she said to Nasreen, and gestured toward Josie. “Send her home, to her daughter.”

  Nasreen stepped toward her sister. “Zulaika, please. Let’s all leave,” she said, openly wailing now. “You can stay with m
e. You can—”

  “No,” Zulaika rasped. “He’ll follow me to Alexandria, he’ll know where I’ve gone. And Rana is coming home later. She needs me. I cannot go with you. Just—just go.” She muttered more, in Arabic, and then turned back to Judith. “Don’t speak,” she said to Judith. “Get on the floor.”

  “Zulaika,” Nasreen cried, and moaned more words Judith could not understand. Zulaika was still holding the gun at Judith’s face. Judith bowed to the floor, pressing her forehead against warm stone.

  “She will stay here,” Judith heard Zulaika say above her. “If I veil her, he won’t know. Then I will have time to think of something else. Go, now. Both of you. Go.”

  Judith turned her head and saw Nasreen, her horizontal profile rising against the stone walls as she tore the tape from Josie’s mouth. Beside her, rising to her feet, she saw her sister Josie.

  As Josie hovered, stooping slightly over Judith’s groveling body, Judith remembered her as a child, towering above her. Josie had always towered above her, always would. Beyond her sister’s face Judith imagined she could see the sky.

  “Judith,” Josie said, in a voice Judith recognized from many years before, when they once played together, in a time before memory. “I forgive you.”

  11

  LONG AGO, JOSIE remembers, her mother had a jewelry box, a wooden case full of little doors and drawers. But her mother never wore jewelry. One day when Josie was thirteen, she sneaked into her mother’s bedroom and opened all of the jewelry box’s little doors and drawers. The tiny compartments, one after another, were filled with nothing but Judith’s and Josie’s baby teeth, resting on velvet like pearls.

  She once imagined that when she was an adult she would have such a box herself, only better—with little compartments where you might open one and find your mother holding you, and then you would open another and find yourself holding your own child, and in a third drawer you might be opening a door for someone coming home, your face suddenly brushed with the scent of that person as that person leaned toward you. In her work she had almost succeeded in building such a box. But the elusive thing about the box she envisioned was that you could also see yourself in it, as if from the outside—even though when those moments had actually happened, you were only able to see the other person, not yourself. But for that, Josie had not managed to create the code.