“Very good, Kanaan, very good,” Virgil replied. “Good to have friends like you.”
“Hey man, you help me, I help you,” Kanaan said. “One hand washes the other, that’s what they say, right?” Virgil smiled, once again amused by Kanaan’s quest to learn American slang. They hung up and Virgil’s mind returned to the Chicago thing, wondering what step to take next.
CHAPTER 13
Alev and Jarrah
It was Alev’s third morning in Jarrah’s small but neat apartment, and the two were lying together in bed. They’d gone right back to intimacy as if five years hadn’t passed, and Alev still felt comfortable and safe in Jarrah’s arms. She’d had relationships with other Muslim men, but they hadn’t treated her as kindly and thoughtfully as Jarrah, nor as gently.
They’d spent the last two days exploring the city, with Jarrah giving her a private tour in his cab. He took her to the top of the Sears Tower, to Pizzeria Uno for Chicago-style deep-dish pizza and to the Museum of Science and Industry, which they both loved – no surprise considering their respective engineering and medical backgrounds. At the museum, he’d grabbed her hand as they watched baby chickens pecking their way out of eggs in a huge glass-covered incubator, and said casually, “It would be fun to take our children here someday, wouldn’t it?” They looked at each other and smiled, and her heart skipped a beat at the thought that he might finally be ready to settle down with her for the long term. But that was the only reference he’d made to any future plans. His actual life remained a mystery to her, and except for that one comment, he seemed reluctant to talk about anything beyond casual topics.
Now he lay back, silently, naked on top of the generic blue blanket that looked like a Wal-Mart special. She snuggled closer to him, but he pulled away and got up, starting to dress in the clothes he’d hung up on the chair next to the bed before retiring last night. The morning sunlight poked through the cheap white shade.
“Where are you going?” Alev asked, rubbing her eyes. “It’s Saturday, you know.”
“Saturday is a big day if you drive a cab,” Jarrah said, tying his shoes. “I want to get an early start.”
Alev yawned. She was naked too, but still under the covers.
“Why do you drive a cab?” she asked. “You studied engineering. Why can’t you get a job doing that?”
“It’s really complicated,” he said. “Look, I’ll be busy this morning, but do you want to meet for lunch? I know a good place. You’ll like it.”
“Do they have any vegetarian choices?”
“Oh yeah. Definitely. It’s a Mediterranean place.” He came up and kissed her cheek. “I’ll pick you up at noon.”
He left the apartment, giving her a house key so she could go out if she wanted. But she wasn’t familiar with this strange American city, and didn’t know where she’d go if she did go out.
Instead, she sat in Jarrah’s small living room, which had a window overlooking the El tracks. Trains rattled by every 10 minutes or so, like clockwork, and the entire 1920s three-story brick building shook each time one passed by, as if the building were somehow tied to the elevated railroad. She noticed the trains didn’t come as often on weekends as they had the last few days, but the noise still surprised her each time. She wondered if people living near the tracks ever grew used to it.
Jarrah’s apartment resembled a blank book. No family photos or any souvenirs of his life. Bland-colored furniture that looked seldom used. The pantry held some bare essentials, including coffee, which she was sipping now. It was a weak American brew, she found to her dismay. His few and simple clothes hung neatly in the bedroom closet, and he made his bed every day as neatly if he were in the army. Not a wrinkle to be found.
The shelves held a small assortment of books, and she got up and looked through them again, as she had when she first arrived a few days earlier. There were multiple copies of the Koran, which she thought was strange considering she’d never known Jarrah to be very religious. And there were some other volumes related to Islam, including one by Sayyid Qutb that she hadn’t noticed before. She vaguely remembered Qutb as the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, who’d been hanged by the Egyptian government back in the 1960s. She thumbed through it for a few minutes and a quote jumped out at her.
“History has recorded the wicked opposition of the Jews to Islam right from its first day in Medina. Their scheming against Islam has continued since then to the present moment, and they continue to be its leaders, nursing their wicked grudges and always resorting to treacherous schemes to undermine Islam.”
She frowned. She hadn’t remembered Jarrah ever talking about Qutb, but the book brought back her fears about what he might be up to. Had he fallen back in with his old friends? With an unconscious shake of her head, she placed the book back and looked at the rest of the shelf. There was nothing else too interesting. Just some Chicago guidebooks and maps, and a few detective novels.
Suddenly she felt guilty. Why was she spying on Ziad? Well, she justified to herself, he hadn’t been very open with her about why he was living here, and tomorrow was her flight home. Studying his bookshelves seemed logical enough. She decided today’s lunch would be her best chance to get an understanding of his plans. Did they have a future together? Would he consider moving back to Germany? And why was he driving a cab in Chicago? She knew one thing: her feelings for Ziad ran deep, and spending this time together with him reinforced her desire to be with him. Her skin tingled at his touch and she longed to truly know this man she loved. But what of his feelings for her?
Not long after noon that day, the two sat at a window table in the tiny, Persian-rugged storefront restaurant on North Broadway in Chicago’s busy East Lakeview neighborhood. They sipped warm, savory carrot soup and Alev decided it was far and away the best thing she’d eaten since she’d arrived in Chicago. She could even forgive the place for its choice of music: The Gypsy Kings. After they ordered their entrees, Jarrah picked at a piece of pita bread and seemed preoccupied. Outside on the sidewalk, the weekend crowds bustled by wrapped in warm coats but undeterred by the chilly December weather.
“Ziad?” she asked, when things grew quiet for a moment.
“Yes?” He turned to her. He’d been looking out the window.
“What do you think of Jews?” Alev asked.
His forehead wrinkled.
“Why do you ask?” he said slowly, folding his arms. He was wearing a blue button-down oxford shirt.
“I saw you had a book by Qutb on your shelf, and he’s an anti-Semite. I read a quote in there and it called the Jews wicked.”
“The book says a lot of things, Alev,” Jarrah said, looking at her intently. “It’s not just about Jews.”
“You don’t like them though, do you?” she asked.
He stared at her for a minute. “It’s complicated,” he finally said.
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“What?”
“ ‘It’s complicated, it’s complicated,’ “ she parroted, and was glad to see his brow furrow, because she knew she was getting through enough to annoy him. “Ziad, life is complicated. But saying so doesn’t give you an excuse not to talk to me about things.” As always, he was being mysterious, and it frustrated her to no end.
“We’ve talked about a lot of things since you got here,” he said, picking up a piece of pita and dipping it in his soup. “I’ll talk to you about anything you want.”
“OK,” Alev said, taking a careful sip of the warm, comforting soup so as not to drip it on her black sweater. “What are you doing here?”
“You know that,” he answered matter-of-factly. “I’m driving a cab.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid, Ziad. I know that. But why here, and why now?”
“I’m making good money,” he said, looking away again. “It’s not forever.”
“What about us?” she asked quietly, reaching across the table for his hand. “You said something the other day about having kids.
Did you mean it?”
“Sure, sure,” he said, dropping her hand and turning red, as if embarrassed that he’d said such a thing. “But that’s a long way off. Let’s just live one day at a time.”
“No,” she answered firmly. “I lived one day at a time with you back in Germany and you never committed to me. Then you left, and didn’t call me for five years. Five years! If you want to be with me, you have to make a commitment. You’re very important to me and I care about you a lot, but I’m worried.” Her blue eyes looked into his imploringly.
“Why are you worried?” he asked, reaching for her hand again. She dropped hers into her lap and continued to stare at him.
“Because you’re hiding something from me,” she replied. “You’ve gotten mixed up with those bad people again, haven’t you?”
He looked down, not meeting her gaze.
“I’m going back tomorrow,” she said firmly. “You can come with me. Even if there aren’t any seats on my flight, you can book another ticket and be back in a few days if you want.” He continued to look down and away from her. She took a breath and sat up straighter as she finished. “But if I go back and you don’t agree to come too, we have no future together. I’m not just someone you can call out of the blue every few years and keep me around till you get tired of me. You’re going to have to choose. It’s me or them.”
This time, she really meant it about cutting things off. This visit wasn’t turning out the way she had hoped. She thought if they spent time together, he’d be his old self, but the person sitting across from her seemed like a stranger. Her heart ached to see, once again, that she’d lost the man she cared for so much.
He continued to gaze at the table, randomly pushing around bread crumbs with his fingers. There was silence as the server, a small, brown-skinned young man with a moustache, set down their food – vegetable kababs for him and vegetarian couscous for her. Neither of them picked up a fork.
Finally, he looked up again and spoke.
“Alev, I can’t make a promise like that,” he said. “I’ve made a commitment to people here, and they’re counting on me. I’ve got to go through with it.”
“Go through with what, Ziad? Driving a cab?” she asked, looking into his eyes.
“No, not the cab,” he started, and then quickly added, “Nothing. Nothing. It doesn’t concern you. But I’ve got to stay.”
“Then why did you call me?” she asked, finally taking his hand. “What made you want to see me?”
“It’s like I told you; I’m lonely,” he replied. “But I can’t go back with you. I just can’t. I’d like to, but it wouldn’t be right.”
“It would be right to go back if you’re mixed up with those bad people again. Don’t you see? They want to hurt others. They hate non-Muslims. They hate women. You’re not like that, Ziad. You’re just not.” There were tears in her eyes as she looked at him. He looked away.
“Stop crying, Alev,” he said quietly. “You know I don’t like that.”
“I don’t care,” she replied, but she wiped away the tears anyway. Then she took her fork and began eating, tears still forming in her eyes.
After a few more bites amid more silence, she put down her fork.
“Ziad,” she said slowly.
“Yes, Alev?”
“You’re not planning to hurt people, are you?”
He looked back out at the sidewalk.
“Ziad…?”
“Let’s eat,” he said.
He began hungrily attacking the food on his plate, but she just twirled her fork around her couscous aimlessly, not taking a bite. He didn’t seem to notice. But she’d noticed some things about him. He’d ordered vegetarian food, and hadn’t eaten meat the entire time she’d been with him. He also hadn’t ordered a beer, though he used to have one with every meal back in Germany.
Ava smiled as she thought back on those days, especially the weekend trip they’d taken to Passau, an ancient town of red-roofed houses, winding streets and churches perched on a peninsula stretching like a finger into the Danube. He’d loved going into towers of the old public buildings and climbing to the roofs to look out at the scenery. She’d never been much for that, preferring to sit at a café nearby with her book and listen for him to call down to her once he reached the top. “Ava!” he’d call, waving frantically at her from the rampart of an ancient castle or the uppermost window of a medieval church. She’d put her book down, smile, and give a small wave back, feeling slightly embarrassed as others looked at her, wondering what she was waving at. But he’d never let her get away without acknowledging him.
“Aren’t you hungry, Ava?” he asked, looking up from his nearly clean plate. She’d been staring out the window as she thought, fork in hand. He wiped his clean-shaven face with a cloth napkin and took a sip of water.
“I’m just thinking back,” she said. “Remember how you used to love climbing towers and waving to me?”
He looked confused for a second, as if he didn’t remember at all. Then a smile slowly came to his face.
“We were so young and innocent back then,” Ziad said, reaching across the table for her hand. His eyes gazed into hers for a moment, then looked away again.
“We’re still young,” she said, smiling back.
“You’re younger than me, remember,” he replied. “Now go on, don’t let yourself get hungry. I’ll wait while you finish.”
CHAPTER 14
Held Hostage
After two weeks in her little room, with only a short break here and there for a blindfolded walk outside to breathe fresh air, Nancy was more bored than terrified. Her captors had let her write a note to Joanna and her parents, so that was good, but as much as she begged, they wouldn’t let her speak to them. “We can’t take the chance of cell phone calls,” Ram had told her. “That would probably give away our position.”
She’d started thinking of Ram as a kind of Jekyll and Hyde. She’d never been too interested in fantasy novels; her tastes ran more to political non-fiction like Bob Woodward and Arthur Schlesinger, and when she did feel like light reading it was usually something trashy like Us Magazine. But her daughter was a huge Lord of the Rings fan, and Nancy had sat through the entire film trilogy, swallowing her boredom the best she could in an attempt to be a good sport.
Ram, she decided, reminded her of Gollum, the character in the Lord of the Rings with the split personality, one side fawning and friendly, the other vicious and enraged. Ram could be pleasant for long periods, explaining patiently to her why his religion permitted the sort of terrorism that Nancy had seen throughout the country and why Shiites and Muslim rulers of Arab countries could be legitimately marked for death. The topics weren’t pleasant, but Ram approached them calmly with her, and never yet had he or anyone else caused her any physical harm. He emphasized again and again that he and his men considered it theologically forbidden to hurt a woman. She wasn’t about to mention that this contradicted what she’d seen and heard about their culture. She was just grateful she’d been treated well so far. Her leg seemed to be healing nicely, and she could place her weight on it a little. They’d given her a crutch that she used to get exercise in the yard, blindfolded and guided along.
But Ram could go from pleasant to enraged in a split second, and Nancy never knew quite when to expect it. Just yesterday, in a discussion that had wandered from Muslims and their acceptance of other religions to the coming Iraqi elections, Ram exploded when she mentioned Israel.
“Why is your country so supportive of the Zionist entity?” he’d cried out, waving his arms and stalking around the room. “Do the lives of Palestinians mean less to your government than the lives of others? Ever since I was a child, Israel has been killing innocent Palestinians with no response from America, using American weapons!” He continued pacing, and suddenly, with one hand, swept a newspaper off of a little table onto the hard mud floor. “And if one Israeli is killed by a Palestinian, whose cause is just, that’s an excuse for more Israel
i violence! Death to Israel! As the Sheik has said, ‘We will stand by the oppressed Palestinians and fight the Jews and their allies!’ ”
Although Nancy was momentarily shocked by Ram’s invective, she had grown somewhat used to his rants, so she waited patiently until the red drained from his face and he’d sat down to drink a cup of tea, usually a sign that the yelling was over. He’d said one thing that was interesting, and she asked him about it once he’d calmed down.
“Who’s the Sheik?” she had asked.
Ram replied. “You really don’t know? Well, I’ll let you figure that out, yourself. He is near and dear to me, and you may meet him in time. May peace be upon him.”
Nancy had her own idea about whom the Sheik might be, but decided to keep her mouth shut for now regarding her suspicions that Ram worked for Bin Laden. She’d work on Ram the way she’d learned to work on sources over time as a journalist. It was tough for someone with her lack of patience, and she had to fight the urge to probe Ram for further information. No use sending him off the deep end again.
“OK,” Nancy said. “I’ll look forward to learning more. In the meantime, can you give me a sense of how long you’re going to keep me here? Are you holding me for ransom? You know America never pays ransoms.”
“No, we’re not holding you for ransom,” Ram said, sitting down and taking a sip of tea. “We aren’t hungry for dirty American money. We only want back what America took from us – our people. We were fighting in this land and the Americans interfered where they had no business. We want American troops out and our fighters back. That’s how you’ll get released. Do you think you’re the only one we hold? Oh no. We have many Western prisoners, and the same demands for all of them. Your country will eventually yield to our demands. The Americans have no backbone for a long fight with us, especially in our own lands. I trust you will eventually win your freedom, but I have no control over when that will be.”
“But you do have control,” Nancy argued, deciding to press a little. “You have me right here. You could let me go any time you wish, so I can go back to my daughter.”
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