The Godless One

by J. Clayton Rogers

  Joe looked doubtful for a moment, then yelled, "Fatimah! Customer!"

  As Ari shuffled over to the glass-enclosed steam table, a girl in her late teens dragged herself out from a back room. She almost ran back when she saw Ari, but a grumble from her father kept her in place. She was wearing a plaid shirt and old jeans. Ari supposed it was a concession to local couture. The sight of a hijab would have left Joe with no customers at all.

  Or would it? Ari, already stooped, did not have to lean much further for a close look at the prepared food. The revolting mountain of deep-fat fried chicken was a quick-stop commonplace. But the adjoining trays of long-grain rice, mujaddara and biryani looked fresh and warm. He savored the aroma, but biting into any of these delights would cause exquisite pain to the cuts in his mouth. He could have cried.

  "This is a remarkable selection," he said to Fatimah.

  "Made fresh every day," she said timidly, with due caution.

  Ari understood her, but barely. She spoke in one of the many Madan dialects of Arabic. She was a Marsh Arab. Ari sensed difficulty ahead. Saddam Hussein had set his sights against the Madan people in 1991, draining the Mesopotamian marshes, resorting to mass displacement, forgiving some massacres and inflicting the rest himself, via his sons and their chief officers. Most of those who escaped fled to Iran, but a trickle had gone to Germany, England and the U.S.A. Joe and Fatimah must have taken a very twisted trail indeed to reach this spot in the Virginia countryside. They were a tough breed, very conservative. Ari's plan to draw the girl outside and scare her into doing what they wanted was not only losing viability, but also its appeal. The fact that her father allowed her to work in public like this, without covering her head, showed what lengths Joe was willing to go to do immerse himself in his new land. But it was still quite possible that, if Ari tried to lure the girl to the van, Joe would take up that carving knife on the counter and attack him—and in his present state Ari could hardly defend himself against a gnat.

  But what else could he do? He might revise the plan, but he couldn't do away with it completely. So he lifted one arm and moaned as he pointed at some lamb-stuffed manti. "I would like—" He interrupted himself with another moan, which was not entirely faked. "Pardon me...I can scarcely move. He beats me so thoroughly.... I hope you don't mind if I speak Arabic. My English is deracinated."

  "Who...who..." Fatimah swallowed, once again drawing back.

  "Fatimah!"

  She looked at her father, who gave a curt nod in the direction of the state forest. Ari immediately interpreted this to mean: Don't ask questions. He's from the group down the road....

  That explained the high percentage of Middle Eastern fare, all the foreign treats arranged along the counter. This was a veritable commissary for 'the group'. Considering who the members of that group might consist of, it was quite possible the pair had escaped the frying pan and landed in the fire.

  There was something wrong with Fatimah. She returned to the steam table and lifted the lids off trays that were not already uncovered. Her hands shook—in fear, yes. But Ari now realized she had been shaking ever since she came out from the back room, before she even saw him. Some form of palsy? And there was a strange hue to her skin, aside from the nicotine stains on her fingers. One hell of a smoker. That was another anomaly. Good Muslim fathers did not let their daughters choke on cancer sticks. Was her mind intact? Officer Jackson had said she smoked around the gas pumps, a not very bright thing to do.

  "I don't mind if you speak Arabic," she said, her pronunciation abruptly improving. Was this the diction of fear? "Please, take your time in making your selection."

  She was not being sarcastic. She was behaving as she would normally behave in front of anyone from the dreaded group. Ari decided that her mind was all right, but depression was wearing her to the ground. It was not uncommon to see immigrants slowly die on their feet, unable to adapt to their new country, unable to return to the old one. Ari felt like a cad, which was not an unusual feeling, though it was rare for it to affect his actions.

  "I have to hurry," he told her. "The Boss is waiting outside. He can't stand me being out of his sight for five minutes straight."

  "Is he the one who beats you?"

  "Fatimah!" Joe stormed over to the steam table. "If you can't serve our customers, I guess I'll have to." He glared at Ari. "If you're in a hurry, you'd better choose in a hurry."

  It wasn't going to happen—Ari would not be able to get this girl outside. The father would have to be included in the scenario. The plan had been to shock Fatimah into playing a critical part in his scheme, which Ari had been adjusting and readjusting for days, and which took its final form when they discovered the Lexus in the woods. Joe's behavior was threatening to bring it all to a crashing halt.

  "Listen, let me go out and ask the Boss for a few extra minutes." Ari needed to alert Abu Jasim of the new player, that the satanic jack-in-the-box they were planning to spring on Fatimah might no longer be appropriate.

  But Joe had basked in hard times and was already deeply suspicious. What if Ari was not part of 'the group'? What if he was going outside to get help to rob the Stop-N? It struck Ari that Joe was scrutinizing his coat, searching for the telltale bulge of a firearm. But there was none. Ari, for once, was unarmed. Instead of being reassured, Joe's doubts grew. If Ari didn't have a gun, he must be waiting for someone who did.

  "I only want a sandwich," Ari said plaintively, turning back to the steam table and pointing through the glass at shawarma in pita bread.

  This did not calm Joe, but stalled his wrath long enough for him to reflect on consequences. He flattened his hands against a blue-striped bib apron and stroked downwards. It looked like a habitual gesture that helped him focus his thoughts. The apron was perfectly clean. Why wasn't Fatimah wearing one?

  "May I ask how you came to be here?" Ari asked in a tone that deferred to the man's anger. "As I understand it, most of the tribes moved to Iran."

  "What do you know about my tribe?" Joe said, becoming charier. He was not as adaptable as his daughter. His Madan accent was ineradicable. Ari missed some words, but caught the gist.

  "I just…" Ari’s social gyro had tilted unnaturally. If he said he assumed Joe was from the marshes, it would be tantamount to calling him a peasant to his face. Under the circumstances, this could be a catastrophic misstep. He hoped a non-response would mend the error.

  "You're not part of that gang on Sugar Loaf?" Joe asked.

  Ari paid the price for shaking his head, pain flaring through his neck.

  Joe reversed his hands, bringing them up the apron to his chest. There was something purposeful to the gesture that went beyond use as a personal mnemonic.

  "You're from the Hawizeh?" Ari carefully inquired. He needed to know more, whatever the risk.

  "We stick out, don’t we?" said Joe. "The Americans, Buddy Nguyen, other Iraqis…that’s where you’re from, isn’t it?"

  "Yes."

  "There’s plenty of Indians, too. But it’s Fatimah and I that stick out. We were made for one place only, and now it’s gone. Poisoned forever."

  "Poisoned?" Ari asked, knowing full well what Joe was talking about.

  "Saddam dumped every poison available to him into the rivers feeding the marshlands. Wheat smut, botulism, anthrax, aflatoxin, gas gangrene, ricin…. The barbel was poisoned, but there was little else to eat. The water was poisoned, but it was all we had to drink. I guess you couldn’t blame him for doing it. Both of my brothers joined the Badr Brigade to fight the Baathists. Most of the others took off for Khuzestan. But my wife and daughter fell ill before we could leave…"

  "Your wife?" Ari asked gently.

  "Allah gave her an easy and pleasant journey and showered blessings on her grave."

  Ari offered heartfelt commiseration.

  "Our home was destroyed. We were living in the village mudhif. There was no one else around, no one to chase us out. But I should have known better. You know mudhifs can be very large, and
when a group of American Army engineers arrived they camped inside. They put up a wall of curtains to give us privacy, but they were very noisy. They were very happy, too, always laughing and shouting. But they had come to blow up the dikes Saddam had built to starve the delta, so I did not complain. They fed us, and then someone named ‘Doc’ insisted on looking at Fatimah. He did not like the way she was shaking..."

  Ari guessed the medic had done some smooth talking to get permission to perform a cursory physical on the girl. Madan protectiveness towards its women was legendary even among strict Muslims. He considered giving Fatimah a knowing smile, but decided Joe was watching too closely.

  "Doc said he thought the mixture of chemicals in the water—he used the word 'cocktail'—probably had brought on brain disease in my daughter. He wasn't sure, though. Most of the poison Saddam used would affect infants that way, but not older children. Fatimah was around eleven at the time. Many of us got sick, but most died because the fish died and we starved. But there was something else. Doc said it might have been sarin. It caused my wife to hallucinate. And now Fatimah is starting to behave the same way. There was a murder nearby last year, and she began telling the police a wild story. I stopped her before she could do any harm."

  You stopped her from giving the license plate number of Abu Jasim's van to the police, for which I am deeply grateful, Ari thought. And when she began telling you about seeing Saddam Hussein in the flesh pumping gas out in front of your very own little Stop-N, you were convinced you had behaved correctly. Because you thought it was just possible….

  "Doc told me about a program the Americans had, to bring people injured in the war to the States for medical treatment. They must have felt sorry for not helping us during the uprising after the first war. So we came. The doctors in Richmond gave her some pills that control the shaking, but she will never be cured. I applied for a green card and found this station up for sale. The American government gave me a loan. They say it's at a very good rate. And so we came here. Around the same time, so did the others."

  Ari's expression was a request for more information.

  "Those people on Sugar Loaf Road," Joe said, his tone going even more sour. "They're protecting someone, I don't know who. Someone from the homeland. They bossed us around from the beginning, telling us what to put on the shelves, taunting my poor daughter. Sometimes a fancy car comes racing by on Main Street, with others following. I think it's their leader."

  "Terrible," Ari agreed. "I hope you don't think I have anything to do with them."

  "They would try and trick me into saying something to a stranger." Joe's eyes narrowed. "They would want to know if I'm telling others about them." His hands began to run faster up and down his apron.

  A loud gasp that verged on a scream came from the other end of the shop. Fatimah had left the lunch counter and stepped over to a small window next to a frozen yogurt dispenser. She was pointing a shaking finger at Abu Jasim’s Astrovan.

  "Saddam! It’s him! It’s him! It’s him! It’s the same license!"

  Had Ari been healthy, he would have been the first out the door. As it was, he was hard on Joe’s heels as he raced to the parking lot. Yet he was too far behind when Joe pulled a gun from under his apron.

  Abu Jasim was sitting in the passenger seat, as befitted a prominent man waiting impatiently for his chauffeur. Hearing someone approach, he worked up his dreadfully accurate version of the famous Saddam Hussein sneer, guaranteed to make impressionable girls fall into his arms or pee in their pants, whichever came first. Turning in his seat, he saw a gun aimed at his head and gave a kind of squeak before flipping backwards over the consul. There was a loud crack and the passenger window shattered. Ari tried to chop the gun out of Joe's hand but was elbow-jabbed out of the way. Distracted briefly when Fatimah came running, Joe yelled, "Go back in!" before firing another shot into the panel.

  "Saddam!" Joe sobbed. "Come out you devil! You coward! You destroyer of innocents! You murderer of my wife!"

  "It's not me!" Abu Jasim yelled from inside. "I mean, I'm not him!"

  "He's telling the truth!" Ari yelled, feeling weak and useless. He saw a blue pickup truck passing slowly, the occupants gaping at the scene just within sight of the road. "Hello!" Ari yelled, offering a friendly wave. The truck sped on. "You have to stop this, Joe!" he cried out, staggering forward. "You'll ruin everything!"

  "Ruin! What do you know about ruin? And you're with him!" He turned the gun on Ari.

  Abu Jasim cracked the side panel and poked out his face. "See?" He whipped off his moustache. "Just acting!"

  He ducked back inside as Joe swiveled in his direction. "Colonel, I'll have to shoot him!" he called out.

  "You do and I'll kill you!" Ari found just enough panicky strength to fall down on the man. The gun clattered on the blacktop.

  "I don't care if it's acting! Anyone who wants to look like him has to be shot!"

  Abu Jasim leapt out of the van and took over the manhandling. But Ari kept his face close to Joe's.

  "You thought it was him at first, didn't you? You believed because you saw his son here! Uday is here, isn't he? Just up the road? You were afraid to say his name, but you saw him! He even shops here, doesn't he! It's impossible that he's alive, but he is, so you thought the father—"

  Joe yelled, almost shrieked. "He'll kill us! Both of us!"

  Fatimah ran up and began trying to tug her father away from Abu Jasim, who had lifted Joe to his feet. His Saddam-signature beret flopped off onto the ground.

  "Let him go!" She gave him a good kick on the shin.

  With a grunt of effort, Ari retrieved Joe's .38 and stood. "Let him go."

  "I think he wants to die," Abu Jasim said doubtfully, managing to hold onto Joe while hopping on one foot.

  "I don't think so," said Ari. He held out the gun to Joe. "Let him go."

  "Shit," Abu Jasim spat, and released the proprietor. Joe did not lunge for the gun, but fought to regain his breath. Fatimah clutched him and tried to drag him away. He gently pulled her in the opposite direction, so that they both ended up staying in place.

  "What's this about Uday Hussein?" Abu Jasim said angrily, shaking. "He's dead. There are the dental records, the DNA tests, the pictures..."

  "But he's here, isn't he?" said Ari, looking closely at Joe. "Isn't he?"

  The blue pickup truck had returned, going in the opposite direction. The driver and passenger wore the same stupid gape as before. Ari embraced Joe. "Everyone," he hissed. Abu Jasim and Fatimah closed in for a group hug. The blue pickup gained speed and disappeared around the corner. They let go of each other and stood back, staring.

  Ari kept one eye on the road, concerned that the locals might find hugging Arabs more alarming than murder.

  "Yes," said Fatimah, "you're right. Uday is here."

  "No, no, no," said Abu Jasim with a stomp. "You've got him mixed up with Latif Yahia, that idiot who wants to be a movie star."

  "I don't think so," said Joe, his dread palpable.

  "Good," said Ari. "Excellent. Then we have him."

  Both Joe and Fatimah made incredulous sounds.

  "See these bruises? They were inflicted by one of his henchman before..." Ari bit on the sour grape. "...Abu Jasim saved me. I want him...I can taste it...I want him...once he's in my hands..."

  Seeing murder in Ari's eyes, Joe gingerly retrieved his gun. It was true that Ari was experiencing a sense of wish fulfillment, yet he was very much aware this was the kind of emotion that frittered away advantage and put at risk the thing so ardently desired. What he wanted, however, was to convince Joe and Fatimah that he was on their side, to recruit them to his cause.

  "Let's go back inside," he said, taking Joe by the elbow. "It would not do if Uday came by here and saw his 'father'."

  Joe’s gun had disappeared under his apron. It had taken courage of extraordinary blindness to attack the man many believed to be Satan incarnate. Now he looked drained and depressed. Ari understood the let-down, an
d intended to take advantage of it.

  "Uday my ass," Abu Jasim groused as the store’s bell chimed their entry. Then he was distracted by some interesting items on the shelves and began perusing the aisles.

  "Are you all right, now?" Ari asked Joe. He was also concerned about Fatimah, but the air was still too tense to show her undue notice.

  "He was in here only two days ago," Joe said, looking out the front window.

  "What is he like, now?"

  Joe didn’t answer right away. His hands worried across his apron, rasping Ari’s nerves. But the proprietor was not reaching for his gun. It was a nervous habit. Those hands, which for so many years had hauled heavy-laden nets out of the delta, still needed something to pull at. His caution was like a wound. A wound he shared with much of the world. A few years ago, Western pop psychologists had made a great to-do about inappropriate shame. There was no need for shame. Just forge ahead. Uday was shamelessness incarnate. Certainly, Ari thought, that was not the kind of society they were panting for. One Uday was too much.

  Yet this very man was a regular customer in Joe’s bucolic filling station. Hell had gobbled up him and his daughter before giving them the chance to die.

  Ari's sympathy could not be stretched out forever. If any of the men guarding Uday happened into the shop, one look at Abu Jasim, even without the moustache and Iraqi Army beret, would send them flying back to their employer with news of his father's lookalike. They might not make any critical connection between his presence and Ari's designs against Uday, but there were already too many weak spots in the plan to take unnecessary chances.

  "Does he still look like he used to?" Ari prodded Joe.

  "We didn't have any televisions in my village," Joe said. "One man had a radio. That was the only news we got. The first time I ever saw his picture was on a playing card the Americans showed me. There were other cards, too. The face did not stick in my mind."

  "Uh-huh," said Abu Jasim on overhearing this.

  "But we all heard about him. He and his brother were the ones commanding the soldiers who poisoned our water. We heard that he was insane. And this man who comes to my shop is truly a madman."