Girls of Yellow

by Orest Stelmach

  Her immediate problem was that to exercise her leverage over him, she needed him to join her in the interrogation room. And that wasn’t happening. It didn’t happen for the first fifteen minutes after she was brought to the room or the fifteen minutes that followed. Elise didn’t have a watch so she estimated the time as best as she could.

  A half hour later, Ali finally entered the room with a thick manila folder under his arm. He fired a blank look in her direction and then marched purposefully toward his seat. He looked like an intense man focused on the job before him, the kind who paid less attention to what might appear in his peripheral vision. He was a straight-shooter, not a player, she inferred, strong of mind and body but nevertheless unsettled—contented people didn’t self-medicate with the dregs of society at the hookah bar.

  • • •

  “I’m told you want to speak,” Ali said in Arabic. “So speak.”

  Elise didn’t appreciate his choice of words. He sounded like an owner addressing a dog with human capabilities. That shouldn’t have surprised her, she thought. After all, he was an authority figure and she was a woman.

  “I didn’t say I wanted to speak,” Elise said. “I said I wanted to speak with you.”

  “Fine. I stand corrected. What is it you want to speak to me about?”

  “When you arrested me, you informed me of my rights. I told you that I wanted to exercise my right to counsel. Where’s my attorney?”

  Ali remained mute.

  “Have you called the delegation from Christendom to let them know I’ve been arrested?”

  Ali waited for a beat. “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?

  Elise stared at him.

  “You could have asked Captain Zaman the same question when he tried to interview you. Or any of the officers working at the holding cell.”

  Elise glanced at the camera mounted near the ceiling in the corner of the room before looking back at Ali.

  “You looked like a man who might be more understanding,” she said. “A woman gets a feeling about a man sometimes. Especially the first time she sees him.”

  Elise had first seen him at the hookah bar. If he didn’t understand that she was threatening him before, she thought, he surely did now.

  “The first time you saw me?” he said. “You mean at the hookah bar?”

  Elise couldn’t believe it . He’d just admitted to indulging in haram tobacco products on camera and most likely in front of his superiors.

  “A police officer,” Ali said, “has to assume various disguises and visit all sorts of unsavory places when he’s investigating crimes in Eurabia. And to lure a criminal, sometimes he has to pose as one.”

  Elise felt the walls close in on her.

  “What was your excuse for being there?” Ali said. “What would the delegation from Christendom think if they knew that one of their translators was a drug user?”

  Elise didn’t answer. She was too busy deflecting images of a forty-five year-old Valerie being sold at a secondary slave market for pennies on her original dollar.

  “You have no leverage over me,” Ali said. “None whatsoever. And you’re in very serious trouble, the kind of trouble that can land you in Heroes Square.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about, Miss Elise De Jong. Why did you enter a private residence illegally?”

  “I had an appointment to see the owner. I was in his home last night. We set a time for my return tonight.”

  “And what was the nature of your business with him?”

  “I was there to discuss the acquisition of a painting for the Kingdom of Christendom. The agreed-upon currency was diamonds. If you call the delegation at their hotel, they’ll verify this to be the truth.”

  “Don’t you understand what’s happening here?” Ali said. “No one’s calling anyone on your behalf. A man was murdered in a home that you broke into illegally. And you weren’t there to buy any painting. You were there conducting espionage activity and thereby propagating against the government of Eurabia.”

  “How exactly was I propagating against Eurabia?”

  “By seeking to acquire an item that could be detrimental to the Kingdom of Islam.”

  True but inaccurate, Elise thought. It was an item that might bring glory instead.

  “More precisely,” Ali said, “you were seeking to purchase the location of an item that might discredit Islam.”

  They knew, Elise thought. They knew about the supposed proof of God.

  Elise sat stunned for a moment, and then she understood. The man in the wheelchair must have promised to sell the treasure to Arabia, too. That’s how they knew that the treasure was the location of an item. Then Elise remembered that she’d seen three cats in the room. There were four major theocracies. Perhaps the man in the wheelchair had promised to sell the location of the proof of God to all four theocracies. And maybe whoever killed the man in the wheelchair had broken three porcelain figurines to remove the coordinates from inside. And if there was a fourth, perhaps he’d taken that one with him. If so, Elise wondered, why?

  “So you see,” Ali said. “No one’s going to be contacted on your behalf. No lawyer, no official from Christendom is coming to your rescue. You’re going nowhere.”

  “That’s not acceptable,” Elise said.

  “You’re more likely to permanently disappear than you are to get a phone call or a lawyer. Unless, of course, you cooperate.”

  Elise knew what was coming. She knew what they really wanted.

  “Tell us the truth about your mission. Tell us what your real business was with the man in the wheelchair. Tell us anything and everything you know about his murder.”

  “I don’t know anything about his murder.”

  “And your contact here in Budapest.”

  There it was.

  That she would never give them, which implied her situation was hopeless. They’d never let her go by tomorrow afternoon. But Elise refused to accept that reality. There was a solution to every problem. She lived and breathed that philosophy. The prerequisite for finding the solution was to find her opponent’s weak spot. She’d thought Ali would be vulnerable to having his drug use exposed. She’d been wrong about that, but there had to be something else.

  “I’m traveling on a diplomatic passport,” Elise said. “I demand the phone call to which I’m entitled by intertheocratic law. I demand the attorney to whom I’m entitled by intertheocratic law, a law that all four Kingdoms have signed an oath to uphold, including the Kingdom of Islam.”

  “Tell me the truth, submit to a polygraph test to verify it’s the truth, and you’ll get your phone call and your attorney immediately.”

  “Is Eurabia a complete fraud?” Elise said. “Is the Kingdom of Islam a fraud? Do your laws mean nothing? Does your word mean nothing?”

  “Of course, it does. I give you my word, as an officer and a gentleman. Tell me your contact’s name, submit to a polygraph, and I’ll deliver everything you want.”

  Elise tried to extract a point of leverage against Ali based on what he was saying and how he was saying it, and based on what he wasn’t saying. She applied all her skills as a translator to read between his lines but came up with nothing. But then, just as all hope seemed lost, it was the thought of translation—her profession—that made her discover his weak spot. And by him she was not referring to the man but rather the cop. Elise may have had no leverage over Sami Ali, but she had a powerful bargaining chip with the Eurabian Police Department, if not the Caliph as well.

  “No,” Elise said. “I don’t think I’ll agree to your terms. In fact, I’m done talking to you. Get someone with real power in here.”

  “Why?” Ali frowned. He didn’t seem so much insulted as he was confused by her request. “That would just be a waste of time. What would you say to one of my superiors that you can’t say to me?”

  “Actually, I’d be saving you time. It’s not that
I can’t say what I have to say to you, it’s that you’re just a major so you might not fully understand the magnitude of what I’m about to say.”

  To Elise’s surprise, Ali didn’t smirk or act patronizing in any way. Instead he shrugged as though agreeing with her. “That may very well be the case. But to get someone with real power in here, I’m going to have to give him a reason. So, please, tell me anyways.”

  Elise straightened in her seat and cleared her throat. “I’d like to file a complaint and inform the General of the Eurabian Police Department that I’m going to be filing a lawsuit against the Police Department, the Caliph, and the Kingdom of Islam in intertheocratic court.”

  Ali remained stoic.

  “I doubt your superiors plan on bringing me to court on a silly charge or making me disappear during a time of great intertheocratic harmony. I doubt they want their massively successful intertheocratic conference marred by an international incident like that, or by one where one of their translators files a grievance against a moral crime of the worst kind.”

  “Moral crime?” Ali said. “What moral crime?”

  “You’re denying me my basic rights as a member of a diplomatic corps because of the inherent bias of your religion.”

  Shock flashed in Ali’s eyes. “What?”

  “I’m filing a lawsuit claiming discrimination.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Why do you think we’ve discriminated against you?”

  Elise straightened her posture. Doing so reminded her of the girl with the perfect posture. It reminded her of Valerie. Then Elise set her jaw firmly and leveled her gaze at Ali.

  “Because I’m a woman.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Ali wanted to laugh. Who’d care if some translator filed a lawsuit in intertheocratic court? The latter was a joke. No one took it seriously. Each kingdom had its own religion. None of them were interested in compromising with the other.

  But then Ali thought of the murders of Greta Gaspar, Hanna Kalmar and the others girls in Eurabia, and his superiors’ desire to bury the crimes. And suddenly he didn’t want to laugh anymore. The translator might be right, he thought. Appearances mattered, at least for now, with the feel-good from the conference dominating news headlines. Ali decided to tread carefully and respectfully. He told himself to imagine what a smart detective would do under the circumstances, and imitate that man. And maybe he could still extract something valuable from her in the process.

  “No one has discriminated against you because you’re a woman,” Ali said. “If a man were sitting in your seat, everything would be the same.”

  “On the contrary,” she said. “Everything would be different”

  Ali was genuinely curious about her reasoning. He had no idea what she could be thinking. “How so?” he said.

  “You’ve been systematically programmed to treat men better than women since birth. It’s part of your DNA. You’re not even aware of it.”

  What nonsense, Ali thought. He doted on his daughter at every turn and cared about his wife more than himself. Despite his outrage at the translator’s misinformed claim, Ali managed to stay cool. In fact, in some strange and unexpected way, her statement fascinated him.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “Then let me explain it to you,” she said. “Muslim men treat women like breeders and personal possessions.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the laws of Islam.”

  Ali glowered at her. “Which laws?”

  “A female inherits half of what a male heir does. The testimony of a female witness is worth half a man’s testimony in court. A woman is not supposed to hold a man’s job. The penalty for killing a woman is half of what it is for killing a man. The child of a Christian mother and a Muslim father must be Muslim or be put to death. A husband can have four wives but a wife can have only one husband. See what I mean?”

  “That’s the way Allah intended life to be. To say that these laws mean that men treat women like breeders and possessions—“

  “For their own benefit,” she said, “and for the benefit of the Islamic political movement.”

  Ali couldn’t believe his ears. “What?”

  “Islam spreads because Muslim men exploit women to advance their own wealth and power. Islam doesn’t grow through religious awakening. It grows through mathematics. A man with four wives tends to have more children than a man with one wife. The European countries that began allowing Sharia in certain neighborhoods eventually lost grip of their own legislatures when the Muslim population grew. It took time but it was inevitable. Like mathematics.”

  Ali didn’t understand her point. “What does any of that have to do with you being discriminated against here because you’re a woman?”

  “Simple. If I were a man, I would have been given dramatically more respect than I’ve been given as a woman because in all the laws I mentioned, a man is treated at least twice as well. So it’s logical for me to think that If I were a man, I would have gotten a phone call. If I were a man, the delegation from Christendom would have been called on my behalf.”

  “And this is what you’re going to file a lawsuit about?”

  “Yes,” the translator said. “I’m going to put Islam’s treatment of women on trial. How’s that going to play with your leaders?”

  Ali thought about the question, and then saw an opening to strike a bargain. “I’m not sure. That’s beyond my pay grade. But if I had to guess, I’d say, not that well. But how’s it going to look when the woman filing the lawsuit is made out to be a drug addict and a spy who was arrested for breaking into a home where a murder had just taken place? What if some journalist decides to suggest you’re a suspect in that murder, based on anonymous sources? How’s that going to play with your leaders?”

  The translator gave him a condescending smile. It was the same kind of look the other detectives used to remind him he was inferior to them. The mere sight of it raised Ali’s blood pressure. It always had, Ali thought, and it always would.

  “I think we’re at a stalemate here,” Ali said. “Neither of our kingdoms needs any bad publicity. Give me some information I can use to satisfy my bosses. Give me something. Give me anything. And I’ll get you your phone call.”

  “You haven’t been listening,” the translator said. “I have nothing to give you but the comeuppance that your backward religion deserves.”

  Ali exploded from his chair, knocking his manila folder off the desk in the process. He grabbed the translator by her prison uniform, pulled her across the table with his left hand and slapped her face with his right.

  When he shoved her back into her seat, she wobbled but quickly regained her composure. Blood trickled from her lip and a sense of remorse washed over Ali. Rather than crying or complaining, however, the translator chuckled and licked the blood with her tongue.

  “Still think we’re at a stalemate?” she said.

  Ali backed away, awash with loathing for this wretched woman and himself, wishing the General had found some other way—any other way—for him to get back in his and Zaman’s good graces.

  A moment later the door behind him opened. The General and Zaman marched inside. Ali marched over to them and Zaman slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “You never touched her. It’s our word against hers.”

  The General, meanwhile, didn’t betray his emotions. “Only one slap. Such restraint.”

  The General and Zaman moved to the side and spoke to each other in hushed tones as a guard came in and unchained the prisoner’s hands so he could take her back to her cell.

  Ali returned to his office. He considered the interview a failure because he hadn’t extracted any valuable information from the translator. She deserved to have been slapped, he thought, but a smarter detective would have restrained himself and continued trying to get something out of her. Ali walked in circles around his desk for a minute, and then realized all was no
t lost. As long as she was a guest in their jail, he still had an opportunity to try again.

  Ali grabbed his phone and called the kitchen. When one of the assistant cooks picked up and greeted him, Ali asked him to put Florence on the line.

  “Yes, Major?” Florence said.

  “I brought in a translator from Christendom a few hours ago. A woman.”

  “I heard.”

  “She hasn’t had anything to eat. Fix her a dhimmi tray. And bring her an ice pack.”

  “An ice pack?”

  “To reduce the swelling of her Christian head.”

  “On it.”

  “And Florence?”

  “Yes, boss?”

  “Make her some of that spaghetti your famous for, and try to maximize those anti-depressant qualities you told me about.”

  “I cook to serve.”

  Ali ended the call.

  Only after he hung up did he realize he was craving some of that pasta himself.

  CHAPTER 24

  Elise savored the stinging sensation on her lip. Now she had an episode of tangible physical abuse that strengthened her threat of a lawsuit. Ali’s superiors probably had seen it on a live monitor. Even if they denied it happened and erased the surveillance tape, Elise would pass a polygraph that would strongly suggest she was telling the truth.

  Not that it would ever come to that. She had no intention of filing a lawsuit. She merely wanted to become such a nuisance that they let her go sooner rather than later. The satisfaction she experienced from manipulating Ali into hitting her by insulting his religion didn’t embarrass her at all. In Eurabia and beyond, a woman had to take her pleasures where she could. In Eurabia and beyond, a woman had to enjoy those pleasures without remorse.

  And then she saw the pictures.

  They’d slipped out of Ali’s manila folder when he’d jumped up to slap her, and she’d stolen a glimpse when he’d bent down to collect them. The first one was a picture of a dead blond girl who appeared to be Valerie’s age. The second was a print advertisement for the Persian School of Dressmaking.