by Ali Eteraz
Next up were Ireland and Vienna, where the students were not as polished as the Canadians, most of them very recent immigrants from North Africa, Pakistan, and Turkey, and they were more interested in what life was like growing up in the States, whether we obsessed over Muslim sports figures like they did, and whether we had any doubts about our status as American. I flatly told them I loved being an American and felt not the slightest hesitation in saying it.
In Malaysia and Indonesia we went to Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta and met with three different groups of thirty-odd students and gave presentations at high schools. Most of the questions were about pop culture and the place of the American Muslim in that environment. This was where I shone. I told them about a filmmaker friend who was radically challenging racial stereotypes through his movies and about Muslim guerrilla reggae groups who were demonstrating that there was a place for everyone in the American cultural scene. I ignored the part about losing touch with these people. It was a presentation, not a confession. At the end of the trip I organized a makeshift spoken-word competition with Indonesian youths performing works written in English. Their poems had a Shakespearean tenor to them. He was the only Western poet besides Tupac and Biggie who they could name.
In every city I told the story about my firing. I talked about how my boss had seen the Koran on my shelf, placed higher than Nietzsche, and had discriminated against me as a result. I told them that even though in the beginning I had considered George Gabriel’s actions a slap in the face of my heritage, I had eventually come to realize that he wasn’t to blame. He was just unaware of what Muslims brought to America. I wasn’t resentful, I said, because I was a realist. If the blame rested anywhere, I explained, it rested with the men with Muslim names, acting under the aegis of Allah, who had created a schism between Islam and America by resorting to violence. They were responsible for the bad taste in the mouths of people like George Gabriel. “But there doesn’t have to be a schism,” I said with great passion in my voice. “And I am evidence of that.” In this manner I proffered myself as evidence of the possibility of bridge building, of the fact that if there was anyone to be resented, it was the terrorists and extremists of Islam, not the average American. Mahmoud had been right: my ability to make myself the Muslim everyman worked wonders with the crowds. By the time we reached Indonesia I was talking about the firing as part of my introductory spiel. My commentary seemed to evoke in the people we met a mystique in favor of American power. It must be a great entity indeed if even those who were wronged by it could become inclined to offer it forgiveness.
There was a kind of deception in being a moderate Muslim. It was less a philosophy and more of a position, a persuasion tactic. The trick was to lead the Muslims to believe that I was with them, from among them, that our connection was Islam, all the while putting before them a likable, even lovable vision of America, the same America that regarded them as infidels to the Enlightenment, as those who didn’t believe in our project, as those whom we needed to save. The triangulation came easier to me than to Leila, who was still quite young and needed to be able to believe that she was engaged in a reconciliation of civilizational proportions.
I had no similar misgivings. I was, simply put, an evangelist, channeling my strengths—in this case my appearance and my connection to Islam—as a way of proselytizing. I was an extension of the high priesthood that was formed in Washington, and which spread upon the world like a storm. The only way to assure the permanence of the Republic was by spreading its theology far and wide. It wasn’t anything devious we were doing. Every religion had a right to promulgate itself, to bring new members into its fold, to give its priests the opportunity to reach out to the skeptics, the disbelievers.
The question of what I am, it seemed, had been conclusively answered.
For the first time I wasn’t ashamed of saying my eight-lettered name.
Chapter Ten
During those five weeks, Marie-Anne was on her own world trip. In the Wazirate, for a possible sales pitch, and then to Doha, to sit down with an Al Jazeera broadcaster in studio. I thought it was bold of her to start doing media. She said the publicity would help her networking if she publicly discussed what MimirCo did.
We kept in touch as best we could. Her trip to “the Arabian Gulf”—as she had started calling it to appease her hosts—would take longer than expected because Mahmoud had arranged for a couple of extra meetings for her, one in Saudi Arabia and the other in the UAE, in addition to the one with the Waziratis.
I also kept in touch with Mahmoud, via e-mail, telling him about how well my trip had gone. The aim was to find out if there were any more paid junkets. He said there weren’t any immediate trips scheduled, but I was on the top of his list of people he would call up once there were. He also mentioned that he was in stuck in DC for a while because he was trying to create a Deputy of Muslim Outreach position. “But don’t tell anyone about that,” he said.
From the way he worded the e-mail, along with the compliments he had given me when he had been in Philadelphia, I was confident that he was creating the position for me. I let myself imagine what it would be like to get the offer. Maybe Marie-Anne and I would be able to move to Virginia. She would be close to MimirCo and I would get to dress up every day and go to Foggy Bottom, hobnobbing with diplomats, with ambassadors. I pictured the cuff links I might buy. In addition, I would have a massive flag pin, and it would be affixed on my chest every day. Eventually it would seep into me, permanently embossed upon the walls of my heart, so that even the angels wouldn’t mistake me for who I wasn’t.
The same morning as the e-mail from Mahmoud I got a message from Marie-Anne. It came with a lot of exclamation marks. Her appearance on Al Jazeera was confirmed at last and they were going to put her on live that evening.
On the appointed hour I took myself to the deli near Divine Lorraine. The place was mostly empty, just the old man who had accused me of being a spy from West Philadelphia. I sat down at the bar and ordered my usual chicken burger and proceeded to wait for the segment.
It was the same news program, with the same anchor that Ali Ansari and I had watched last time we’d been here. After a couple of unrelated segments the anchor brought out her main guests.
There was Marie-Anne, dressed in a loose pink tunic with a light scarf thrown around her neck. Her red hair shone in the studio light; her skin, heavily touched up, seemed a little murky, almost gray. The anchor greeted her by restating her qualifications and affiliations.
“I’m happy to be here,” Marie-Anne replied.
“Tell me what you think about that expert,” I said to the old man.
“The white woman?” He seemed to put the emphasis on woman and only gave a brief glance. “Why?”
“She may have something interesting to say.”
We turned back to listen. The anchor asked Marie-Anne a series of questions that revealed some of the campaigns she’d worked on. It quickly became apparent that Marie-Anne’s team had sifted a great deal of the video that led US troops to the doorstep of various militant groups around the world. Marie-Anne took the compliment in the anchor’s voice and tried to spread the congratulations to all the other people on the program. I was quite surprised by how candidly Marie-Anne spoke. She had never shared so much about the program with me.
The show faded out to advertisements.
Upon returning, the anchor introduced a pair of new studio guests. One of them was an old bearded man in traditional tribal clothing, sitting morosely with his arms folded. The other man was someone I recognized: it was Sajjad from the Pierre.
As the camera focused in on the anchor’s face, I saw a certain rapid blinking of her eyelashes and a twitch in her forehead. It suggested an imminent explosion. I started worrying about what Marie-Anne might have to face.
The attack didn’t take long to arrive.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we return to our program. We are here today with a private contractor working with an aerial intelligenc
e-gathering program,” she said while pointing to Marie-Anne, “and we are now joined by Sajjad Shahryar, an Insanistani columnist and former member of the parliament, who has been advising the Pentagon on its plans to arm its surveillance robots. We also have in our studio Rahim Farid, a resident of the Insanistani tribal belt, who spent his entire life savings to come to Doha and talk about the killing of his son by a missile shot by an unmanned surveillance craft. We’ll turn to you,” the anchor looked at Marie-Anne, “and ask you what your response would be to someone like Mr. Farid here. Why would you feel the need to arm your robots with missiles?”
The first real fight Marie-Anne and I ever had occurred over Scrabble. We had played a long game and our scores were both in the high 300s. Marie-Anne was ahead. I only had one letter left: Z. She had just finished making the word EROS, leaving open a triple-letter score just above the E. I stuck the Z in the open space and won by one point. It left her horrified. She kept shaking her head saying that the correct spelling was zeroes. She was so adamant about rejecting my version of the spelling that she laid down an official challenge. We went and consulted the Merriam-Webster, as well as the American Heritage, and found that both spellings were acceptable. This made her cry. Her black mascara ran from the corner of her eyes and trailed along the outside of her face and met at the chin, giving her face a circular black outline. All night she cried, shocked that she had been beaten, shocked that I exceeded her in English. By morning time we had coined a new verb. Zeroed: the state of being defeated unexpectedly.
Zeroed was the expression on her face right now. As the tribal man looked at her with congealed, cataract-laden eyes, swimming in tears, Marie-Anne stumbled and stuttered. Her face was blank. She had nothing to say. She was lost.
It was Sajjad who had to step forward to save her. He made a long statement about the regrettable things that happened in wars, offered a brief apology to the old man, and reminded the anchorwoman that using drone technology to hunt terrorists was sparing countless lives and preventing violence from escalating. “I don’t think we want a situation in Insanistan where we have American soldiers in a face-to-face position with our citizens,” he finished.
The newscaster was adamant: “But no one has even determined if such action is even legal. And isn’t it unethical besides that? This man lost his son . . .”
The intercession by Sajjad allowed Marie-Anne to recover from the ambush. She took a deep breath and clenched her fists. “There are gray areas in war,” she said. “The question of armed drones is one of them, and people who know law should answer it. But just because its legality is not yet settled doesn’t mean that it is unethical.”
“Aren’t you simply saying that because your technology is ahead of the law you are free to do with it what you like? Even kill this man’s innocent son?”
The argument pressed forward, without balance, without rhythm, like a ping-pong match played on a triptych. Marie-Anne was more or less in agreement with Sajjad who, it was revealed, supported increasing the number of drones even more, “because it will reduce the financial cost of the war.” The old man who came to Doha to have his say tried to piece together a sentence in English, but Sajjad struck him down in another language.
The anchor, left by herself, tried another tactic, arguing that before sending a missile to execute someone, it might be wise to have a trial to prove guilt.
Marie-Anne jumped back in. “We aren’t dealing with people here—we are dealing with terrorists!” she shouted.
The final enunciation was evidently so painful for her that she decided to walk off the set. As she moved away against the protestations of the anchor, she tried to strip the microphone from her body; but it stayed on and continued relaying her muttering. I heard the words “hairy” and “thin-skinned” and “leper” before the wire on the microphone snapped and the camera and the sound connected back to the anchor.
The old man working the deli walked to the TV, his rag-wrapped fingers having intercourse with the glass in his hand. The TV showed a close-up of Marie-Anne. He reached out with the rag hand and touched the pulsating veins in her forehead. “That’s a crazy bitch.”
“Watch your mouth,” I replied. “That’s my wife.”
He looked at me with disbelief. Like he wanted to punch me. Having seen Marie-Anne flayed publicly, even embarrassed, I was already feeling vulnerable, and I was in no mood for a confrontation. I just wanted to get out of the deli, away from this man’s excoriating stare. I got up and leapt to the exit. My sudden move excited the owner and he followed me outside. To avoid any further conversation I ran into the bar next door. He stopped outside the entrance, probably reticent to enter an establishment with alcohol. I could see him through the glass. He was drenched in light from the lamppost above. He cupped his face against the door, dragging his grizzled gray hair on the surface, fogging the glass with his breath. Even though I was just inches from him, because of the darkness that surrounded me, the burning old man was unable to see me.
I walked to a stool and decided to wait him out. I should have never gone into the deli and aimed for camaraderie. Moderate Muslims, who were just playing the part of believers, couldn’t be friends with other Muslims. We could only report on them. The rest of the time we were better off in bars like this, separated from them, maintaining a safe and cautious distance from our marks.
* * *
When I came out of the bar, the deli was closed, the old man was gone, and I was properly drunk. Marie-Anne’s words rang in my mind. Hairy, thin-skinned lepers. I knew that if I turned on Fairmount, keeping the penitentiary on my right, I could follow it all the way to Pennsylvania and make it home in about fifteen minutes. But the other part of me, the vulnerable part, the part that had witnessed Marie-Anne dismiss a man whose son had been obliterated, wanted to go and hide. Without thinking, I started hustling down Broad Street, toward city hall.
That night I roamed around Philly in a much larger circuit. I wanted to see everything in the city. To delve into it. To experience its mysteries and hold its secrets in my heart and find joy in my discoveries. That was, ultimately, what it meant to have a home, to be familiar with everything in the space, familiar to the point of hatred, and yet still be surprised by what you might discover.
I headed farther east on Girard than I had ever gone. Once I reached Northern Liberties I went north toward Fishtown, parallel to I-95, its underside booming and rattling with each vehicle. There were only warehouses here, some stockyards, some parking lots full of bulldozers. I heard a barge creaking in the Delaware River. It carried the stench of trash. I saw in the distance, next to an abandoned warehouse, a dumpster lit on fire. There were maybe five or six people standing near it, rocking on the balls of their feet. A couple were close to the fire; the rest maintained an agreeable distance. I headed in their direction, to see into their eyes, to see their faces behind their hair, to see into their hearts. But they didn’t acknowledge me. They didn’t give me their face for an entry point into their person.
Just as I was about to turn back to make my way home, it occurred to me that I wasn’t too far from where Front Street ran into Cecil B. Moore. I could take Cecil all the way toward the other side of Philadelphia and emerge near Diamond Street, where Ali Ansari lived. I had never before cut through the entirety of Philadelphia horizontally like this, and doing it in a vulnerable state, with the possibility that anything might go wrong, only compelled me more.
The one interesting thing I saw on the way occurred near Temple University. I glimpsed the glow of red light falling upon a wall. There was a long, faded mural here. The picture was of a tree. A simple, faded blue tree. Big, tall, majestic, and otherwise without adornments. But it wasn’t wholly lifeless. Beaming onto the surface of the wall was an entire panoply of red lights. Lasers. It was the same technology Ken Lulu had used to project the Arabic words onto Constitution Hall. Except this time, instead of words, each little light made the shape of a distinct bird. Many of the birds found in Philad
elphia were there. A pair of large sandpipers, different types of rails, as well as gulls, warblers, meadowlarks, thrushes, woodpeckers, crows, sparrows, terns, and ducks. They were depicted hopping around on the tree, a little artificially created avian society. I stopped and joined the admiring audience. One of the men standing there told me it was a new urban arts program that the city had started.
I arrived at Ali’s doorstep drenched in sweat. I gazed up at the sky, the clouds reformulating above. I sat on the steps and put my hands on the cement. A sense of connubial stasis passed between me and the city. I gently caressed the cement, trying to locate in its lines and patterns the faces of all the people I knew. The people I loved and the ones I sought escape from.
Suddenly I felt a warm hand reach out for my shoulder.
I turned abruptly, about to push the agent, when I realized that the person facing me was Candace.
She was in a tracksuit, with a big blue jacket, a black scarf tied around her head, and a jeweled pin in an eyebrow. She had her hands on her hips, giving support to her back.
“You should stay south of Girard,” she said.
I reached for her, something between a kiss and an embrace. I got neither. She backed away and pulled at my arm to grapple with my turgid hand. “Where have you b-been?” I stuttered. “I looked so hard.”
“You looked? Or you sent someone?”
I stared at her with all the bereavement I could muster. “What was I supposed to do?”
A man’s voice came from behind me: “Hey, glory hole passing for a human, I’ll tell you what to do. Leave my wife alone, stop wandering around these parts, and go back to your hairy, thin-skinned leper.”