Two From Isaac's House

by Normandie Fischer

  “That’s… okay,” he said through his teeth.

  She removed the old bandage and cleaned the wound. The antiseptic stung, the friction of the gauze was like needles piercing his skin. He wondered if more had been fixed than a mere bullet hole, but other questions seemed more urgent. “How did I get here?”

  She pressed some sort of wrapping against him, but he couldn’t pinpoint the origin of the pain that enveloped his right shoulder and shot toward his neck, down his back and arms and chest. He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to faint. Please. He needed answers.

  Her voice penetrated the fog enveloping him as he struggled to stay awake. “They told me the man who brought you in was not the one who found you. He said a Bedouin had stood in the middle of the road, blocking the way with you draped over his donkey. This man had not wanted to take you, because he was afraid you would be dead before he got here.” She pressed tape firmly across his shoulder, then averted her eyes and added casually, “The police, they have come every day.”

  “Uh… I… have… they… come today?”

  “Yes, already today, so I do not think they will be back until tomorrow. Unless I should call them.”

  Tony opened his eyes and tried to focus on her face. Middle aged, homely, with dark eyes that showed kindness and a hint of worry. Could he risk asking her for help? Well, he had no other choice and, anyway, little to lose.

  “This… it was accidental. A misunderstanding. I really… need”—he paused to breathe and let the pain recede enough for him to speak—“to make a call. To clear things.” Another pause. “A phone? Could I?”

  “I see.” She didn’t look as if she saw anything but wanted to please. “I cannot get a phone in here, but I could call someone for you if you would like.”

  “Thank you.” Another pause. “You… you are very good.”

  “You need more pain medication?”

  He blinked a nod and watched as she prepared the syringe and stuck it into something bandaged to his arm. “You have needed antibiotics and pain medication. You see how easy it is to give them this way?”

  “Thank you.”

  It would be risky to give her the number. But if he didn’t, he’d never get out of here alive.

  “Will this medicine make me… very sleepy? My family…”

  “Perhaps just a little. But it will dull the pain. You will heal better.” She raised the head of the bed and held out a glass with a straw so he could sip water. “You wish to give me a telephone number?”

  He drank and let his head fall back before he recited the number. “Please, ask for Yolanda Aziz. Say Anton…”

  When he paused, the nurse smiled. “You are Anton? Anton Aziz? Thank you. You had no papers.”

  “I need to see Mother tonight.” He gathered more strength, perhaps because of the hope he suddenly felt. “Tell her to come with Father.”

  “I can do that. I will tell her what happened. Oh, yes, it will be so nice for you to see your family.”

  “Shukran. Thank you.”

  “And perhaps I do not need to call the police until tomorrow to say you have awakened?”

  He reached his good hand toward her. “You are kind. My father… he can deal with them.”

  “That will be the best. Now, I will go to the telephone, then to bring you some food. You would like to eat something? Once the pill makes it easier?”

  “Already it helps. You are goodness itself. Mrs.?”

  “Miss Shafadi, Nouha.”

  “Shukran, Nouha Shafadi.”

  She blushed and turned away.

  If only they could have double-dosed him with pain meds. As it was, he’d nearly fainted when they moved him from the bed to the wheeled stretcher. A gray-haired and bearded man with wire-rimmed glasses stood next to the nurse. “You have been most helpful, Miss Shafadi, most helpful.”

  Tony heard hands chafing together and assumed that Nurse Shafadi was upset. He felt sorry for her, because he knew this wasn’t going to end well when Achmed showed up, as he undoubtedly would. Tony willed the elevator doors to open. For them to get out of here.

  “I cannot like this, Mr. Aziz,” she said. “Your son has lost a lot of blood. He is weak, too weak to be leaving the hospital. And the fever has just recently gone. It may return. You must not tire him.”

  “Ah, it is because of your excellent nursing and the blessings of Allah that he lives. Now you must trust me, my dear, and, of course, our good Dr. Rabbani, who will take the most excellent care of him. We will not let him become feverish again.”

  “Alhamdulillah,” the supposed Dr. Rabbani said from beside the stretcher. “He will be directly under my care and supervision. You need have no fear.”

  “But he really shouldn’t be moved for several days yet. The doctor here— ”

  “Yes, my dear.” Mr. Aziz—whose name wasn’t Aziz—took her hand in his and patted it. She blushed. “As his father, I want him near home. You can understand that, can’t you? The ambulance will travel very carefully.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. It’s just—”

  “There, you have the proper forms. All is in order.” He nodded to the orderly, who wheeled the stretcher onto the waiting elevator, and turned back to Nurse Shaffadi. “Oh, and I understand the police wish to inquire into the nature of my son’s injury. As I told them downstairs, I can be contacted at home, or they can reach Dr. Rabbani at the clinic. I shall be delighted to assist them in any way they require.” His smile glittered from behind his beard.

  “Of course, sir. That will be fine, I am sure.”

  The elevator doors closed. No one spoke.

  Tony braced himself for the move from stretcher to ambulance. He did not want to lose consciousness, not yet.

  They got him in the back without him blacking out and thanked the orderly for his help before the two men climbed in front seats. The trip through the city seemed long but probably only took fifteen minutes, and then he felt them turn, heard a gate swing open and then click shut.

  The supposed Mr. Aziz, whose name was actually Avner Sharon, climbed in next to him. “Are you all right?”

  Tony laughed weakly. “You were incredible in there. Thanks. Sorry I had to expose the phone number. She may remember.”

  Avner removed the glasses. “Don’t worry about that. It no longer exists. Now, we change cars. I’ll drive you to Aqaba, where we have a boat waiting to take you across.”

  “By sea?” Tony groaned.

  The second man, who was either a doctor or came equipped like one, joined them and began digging into his satchel. Tony watched as he pulled out a needle and got to work readying it. “A bit of morphine to get you from here to there, and it won’t make you too woozy to board the boat. Nice of them to have left a hep-lock when they took out the IV.”

  “I’m not exactly featherweight.”

  “No, and carrying you would be conspicuous if anyone could actually do it.”

  Avner drew Tony’s attention while the doctor—if he was a doctor—administered the drug. “I’m sorry you’ll have to do the boat run, but if they know you’re still alive—and they’re bound to find out soon—every crossing into the West Bank will be monitored. You’d never make it. It will take them a while to think of a boat.”

  “You hope.”

  “Yes, I hope.” Avner fumbled in a small case and pulled out sweat pants, a shirt, and a pair of running shoes. “I wasn’t sure what size your waist would be after your ordeal. These should get you started.”

  Clothes. He hadn’t thought of clothes. “Thank you.”

  The two men worked together to dress him. Thank heaven for the morphine.

  “In Eilat,” Avner said as he tied the shoelaces, “there will be someone waiting to move you to a safe house while you recover. I don’t think a hospital’s a good idea. They’ll be watching for you to show up inside Israel. Think you can make it?”

  “I'll have to.”

  The breeze picked up as the boat headed away from the protected
wharf in Aqaba, and waves slapped against the hull. To avoid the watchdog boats hovering near shore, the skipper, Jahad, motored out into the fishing lanes. But with every up and down plunge, Tony’s shoulder, head, and stomach revolted, the latter losing the first solid meal it had consumed in days. The night air penetrated his cotton shirt, but he couldn’t stay below. The engine’s fumes exacerbated the nausea and the migraine.

  A motorized skiff awaited them just outside Jordanian waters. Over to the west, the lights of an Israeli patrol boat bobbed on the waves, watching for any border infringement. A hurried colloquy took place between Jahad and the skiff’s captain, and Jahad helped Tony to the side of the boat. Strong arms lowered him into the skiff. When someone grabbed his right arm, he fell mercifully into oblivion and missed what was surely a miserable ride into Eilat. He came to as the motor slowed and they approached the dock. Voices spoke from shore to boat.

  The man who’d brought him in answered. “’Twas the handling, sir. He’d best be treated real gentle. See, he’s bleeding again.”

  “All right, four of you do it and be careful. We don’t want him to die on us now.”

  Again, Tony collapsed into darkness.

  This time, the pain woke him. They had some kind of stretcher under him. He risked opening his eyes and groaned.

  “You’re with us, that’s good. I’m sorry they hurt you.”

  The effort to answer overwhelmed him. He signaled by blinking and closed his eyes. They made him as comfortable as possible on the back floor of a station wagon. Words circled. Someone opened his shirt, pulled back the bandage, and down into blackness he tumbled.

  At times, consciousness assailed him. He preferred when it didn’t and he could escape the blinding pain in his head, the throb of his shoulder, and the alternating shivers and drenching sweats. Once, when they stopped, he awoke enough to drink coffee from the thermos cap held for him. The driver spoke. Tony only remembered the tone of his voice: calm, gentle. He must not be as ill as he felt.

  Now, it was a woman’s voice. The engine was off, and sounds carried. Gentle hands and the cool feeling of a drug coursing through him.

  This time he had to walk. He’d done it before. He could again. It was merely one foot in front of the other. The woman was surprisingly strong, the man large enough to bear the brunt.

  She must be a doctor or a nurse. She fussed over him, stuck a thermometer toward his mouth, gave him some water, added more of that drowsy medicine to his already woozy head. The sound of Hebrew coupled with English eased him toward sleep.

  One thought circled. He needed to contact Rina. He needed to know she was okay. That Ibrahim hadn’t gotten her, too.

  32

  RINA

  Tucked behind a letter from Auntie Luze was an airmail envelope with an Arabic postmark and a Jordanian stamp. Her heart flip-flopped.

  Tony. It had to be from Tony.

  She dashed up to her room two stairs at a time. Closing the door behind her, she rested her back against the heavy wood and studied the envelope. It felt lumpy, and something slipped around inside. She held it to the light and slowly tore one edge.

  Halves of two photographs tumbled out into her palm. One had been torn so it showed half of her face and half of her smile. The other, the selfie of the two of them, was ripped through a smiling Tony. She remembered their laughter as they stood in front of the Basilica in Assisi.

  She fell heavily onto the bed, too stunned to do more than glance up at her own intact copies of those pictures, there on her dresser.

  Who would send such a thing, and from Jordan?

  Tony wouldn’t. He would never wound her like that. Even if he had wanted to say good-bye, he wouldn’t be hurtful. She may not have known him for long, but she knew him well enough.

  But, if he hadn’t sent it, who had? And why? She grabbed the pieces, grabbed the envelope, and headed out.

  Acie ushered her into Mae’s front room. “Tell me.”

  Rina drew the envelope from her bag, and Acie scooted closer to her sister so they could both see the jagged pieces, half a face and one eye, the edge of a nose, a ripped smile.

  Mae was the first to ask, “What does this mean?”

  Rina could only shrug. Acie pushed her glasses further up her nose and turned with unblinking eyes. Her stare unnerved Rina almost as much as the ripped photos had. “Acie?”

  “I don’t know,” Acie said, “but I’m not thinking anything good.”

  “It couldn’t have been Tony,” Mae said, a hitch in her voice. “You don’t imagine that, do you?”

  “No,” her sister agreed. “Tony wouldn’t have done this.”

  Rina sighed. Where did that leave her? Some horrid person trying make her suffer? “So who would have?”

  Acie shrugged. “We don’t have enough evidence to know.”

  “All right. But there’s some message here, someone’s trying to tell me something. I just don’t know what or why, and my imagination’s having a field day.”

  “Mine’s not far behind.” Acie’s voice was barely audible.

  “Something’s happened to him, hasn't it?”

  “I don’t—”

  Rina didn’t let her finish. “It has, and you know it. Your visions told you, like they told you he’d been forced to leave.”

  “But we can’t listen to those any more. Remember how wrong they were at the end, trying to make me crazy.” Acie grabbed her arm. “Don’t you go jumping to conclusions. Somebody could have found the photographs and wanted to play a nasty game.”

  “But how did they know where to mail them? To find me?” She needed to understand what Acie’d seen. “Tell me all of it. Please.”

  Her friend bit at a thumbnail. “I hate being reminded.”

  “I think you should tell her,” Mae said.

  “Okay. Fine. It wasn’t much. By then, everything was getting pretty jumbled, all the horrible and weird stuff flashing through my mind day and night. But I saw a place with squat houses in stucco or mud, along with tents and men shooting at targets.”

  “And you think Tony was there?”

  “I don’t know. I never saw him or any figure that might have been him after that image with the Mercedes.”

  “I’ll get us some tea.” Mae’s voice was tight.

  Rina watched the retreating back. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let herself fall apart. “If Tony’s all right, how would someone have gotten this picture or my address? If he’s not all right, if something has happened to him, they could have taken these from him, found my address among his things, and sent these torn pieces as a warning or a message of some kind. Couldn’t they?”

  Acie stared down at the pictures before readjusting her glasses again. “I suppose so. Or they could have forced him to give them up. I wish we knew who the ‘they’ are.”

  “He hung around with some really questionable types. Like Ibrahim. I wonder who Ibrahim worked for, other than himself.” She paused, took a deep breath and ran her sweating palms down her thighs. “If Tony isn’t dead, why hasn’t he written?”

  “He could be hurt, could have been in an accident. He could even be captured someplace, but let’s not think dead. Please.” Acie started to get up and fell heavily back in her chair. Her face, already pale, stared in horror. “The body on the sand.”

  A body meant dead. A body meant…

  “I assumed it was a beach, another plaguey vision sent to drive me over the edge.” Acie chewed at her lower lip in the pause between words. “But maybe it was a desert.”

  All the blood rushed somewhere, as tears filled Rina’s eyes, rolled onto her cheeks, and spilled off her jaw. “And Tony face down.” O God, please, no.

  Acie reached behind the couch to grab a box of tissues, passing over two, but the tears wouldn’t be staunched. They fell from eyes that saw nothing.

  “Oh, Rina, don’t, please don’t. Oh, why did I say anything? It’s probably just like the baby things, those awful pictures we know aren’t true because M
ae just had a sonogram and the baby’s fine, even if it is another boy, but who cares about that, at least he’s fine, and the nightmares lied. See how wrong the whole thing was? Just like now. I’m so sorry, I’m sure Tony’s fine. You’ll hear from him soon. Please don’t torture yourself like this.”

  Rina blew her nose, but the tears continued.

  Mae stood in the doorway with a pot of tea and three cups on a tray. “What?”

  “She’s just a bit upset, that’s all. Nothing to worry about, nothing to be afraid of, is there?” Acie punctuated her words with strokes down Rina’s arm. “Tony will be all right. He’ll write soon. It’s all right. Really, it is.”

  Finally, she sniffled and turned to whisper. “I’m okay.” She swiped at her eyes and blew her nose. “I’m being silly, I know. Probably PMSing. Don’t pay any attention to me.” Another sniffle and a tiny smile. “I’m fine. Thanks, Mae. The tea looks lovely. Let’s have some, shall we?”

  She got through that day and that night—not well, but she survived. Now it was day again, and she stared from her bed out the window.

  He was probably dead. She might as well admit it. All right. “Dead.” She’d said it.

  But, God, why?

  The gunman, Ibrahim, must have shot him. That had to be it. They’d been together, and now they were both gone. What if Tony had been involved in more than engineering? If he’d had something to do with guns, with men like Ibrahim, that would explain a few of the whys and the dead men who’d cropped up all over the place since she’d arrived in Perugia.

  The sky was a perfect blue. What did they call it, cerulean? In the stillness that seemed like timelessness, she stared at the blue, saw in it hints of green, touches of gray, the gray that tones and darkens, makes the color richer. A bird, some black thing, not a pigeon, swooped through her line of vision momentarily, darting back into the picture to repeat its movements twice more. And then it was gone.