Now Ali understood. Sabida was talking about the revelation he’d made during the interrogation about his chance sighting of Elise De Jong. The General had witnessed the interrogation, heard Ali admit that he’d seen her at the hookah bar before her arrest, and called his daughter today. Even though Ali had explained his presence at the hookah bar as a function of police work, the General could have chosen to believe it was complete bullshit, which it was. The irony was that his run-in with Elise was completely innocent. It was momentary and accidental. He really had been there only for the weed.
“You’ve been misinformed,” Ali said. “I never met the woman before I arrested her. It’s true that I saw her face at the hookah bar, but I didn’t meet her. I don’t know her.”
“Oh, no? Then why are you having your Christian friend in the kitchen cook gourmet dinners for her?”
Ali wondered how the General could have possibly learned about that. Then he realized that Jabil—the pork-loving sergeant he’d threatened to find the dhimmi witness—had probably delivered the meal and told Zaman all about it. Zaman, in turn, had probably informed the General. Ali also realized that his ordering Elise a special meal might have encouraged Zaman to approve the plan to lure her to the hookah bar this evening. Zaman might have deduced that Ali was working to gain her trust.
“I had an ice pack delivered to her,” Ali said. “Because I hit her. I hit her because she insulted Islam. Did your father tell you about that, too?”
Approval flashed on Sabida’s face, but her contempt quickly returned. “Who is this woman to you?”
Ali had just about had enough of her.
“You’ve lost your mind, wife,” he said, letting his voice rise. “She’s no one to me. She’s a prisoner. She’s a potential source of information for Eurabia. I didn’t know her before she wandered into my jail. I don’t know her now. And I have no interest in knowing her.”
Sabida stared at him for a few seconds, and then her tone softened. “What about the dead dhimmi girl? Are you all through with that?”
Ali didn’t want to lie to her. He hadn’t lied to her since he’d seen the suitcases and he wanted to preserve the purity of his responses. So instead of saying a word, he looked away.
“No,” she said. “I didn’t think so. My father gave you a way to get back into Zaman’s good graces, and still you want to risk everything we have on a dead dhimmi.”
“She has no one else but me. Her parents have no one else but me. It’s my duty as a policeman. It’s my duty as a Muslim. Islam is about justice. I must bring them justice.”
Sabida erupted. She launched into a tirade about his obligations as a husband, father, and subordinate to his bosses in the police department.
Ali stopped listening. He stared at the suitcases instead, the conflict of what to do with them stirring inside him. On the one hand, he wanted to pick them up and leave. On the other hand, he was the man of the house. This was his house. His daughter lived in it. If anyone were leaving the home, the wife should be the one leaving, not the husband. The thought of word spreading that he’d allowed Sabida to kick him out of his own home made his face burn.
Eventually she calmed down and a glorious moment of peace passed between them.
“Whatever this thing is inside you that’s compelling you to choose a dead dhimmi girl and her parents over your own family,” Sabida said, “it’s obvious that there’s no stopping you. So go, do what you have to do, and when you’re done, we’ll have a discussion and see if we can start all over.”
“Eyes to my soul—”
“Get out.”
Ali picked up the suitcases and left.
CHAPTER 30
Elise stood on the promenade along the Danube River beside the Little Princess Statue, scanning her surroundings, praying Valerie would appear. Foot traffic was light. Cars sped over the Chain Bridge to the right. When Ali had arrived in her prison cell at three o’clock and told her to be ready to leave in fifteen minutes, she couldn’t believe her luck. His agreement to let her out to meet Valerie meant he had an ulterior motive, but they were doused by sheer joy.
Soon she would see her sister again.
Elise had suspected they’d imbedded a tracking device somewhere in her clothing. It only made sense given Ali might fear she would try to escape. She found it as she was putting on her jihab in her prison cell. It was sewn into the hem at the bottom of her robe, barely distinguishable from the material around it. She located it without drawing attention to herself, certain that a guard was watching her on a remote camera monitor. But she remembered where it was, and when Ali lit a cigarette and turned away from her to enjoy the majesty of the Chain Bridge, she bent her left knee to let her jihab touch the ground and crushed it with her right foot. Now, if she needed to escape, with or without Valerie, no one would be able to follow her.
Elise knew that Darby’s men were probably close. They may have even seen her. But if they’d seen her, then they’d seen Ali, too. He was leaning against the railing on the opposite side of the statue. By now Darby’s men would be appropriately suspicious. If they thought one cop was present, they’d fear more might be lurking in the shadows.
There was no sign of Valerie yet, but it was only three forty-five. They were fifteen minutes early.
Ali ambled over to her.
“Do you know the story about this statue?” he said.
Elise shook her head.
“A Hungarian sculptor named Marton had a daughter who played the princess. She pretended her bathrobes were gowns and made crowns out of newspapers. So he made a statue in her honor. After it became a symbol of Budapest, he made a copy and gave it to a museum in Tokyo. No big deal back then, but now it’s a symbol of intertheocratic harmony, Buddhist and Islamic cooperation.”
“You and your oxymora,” Elise said.
“You and your darkness. There’s beauty all around you but you’re too busy judging people to stop and see it. Look at the Chain Bridge behind you. You know why the Caliph lights it green in the night? Because green is the color of Islam. It’s the middle of the color spectrum and the Prophet Muhammad preaches moderation.”
“Is that why you slapped me instead of punching me? Moderation, is it?”
“You’re here with me now, against all odds, aren’t you? And look around. There’s not another cop to be found. On the streets or in the buildings.”
Elise couldn’t deny the improbability of the event but it would be a cold and frigid day on the equator before she apologized to the bastard.
Ali didn’t say anything more. They leaned against the railing beside the Little Princess and remained silent for a minute.
Daytime running lights flashed from the street perpendicular to the promenade. A car headed directly toward them. It descended down the hill and turned right. As the vehicle drove by, Elise spied a man’s face in the passenger seat.
Four men, Darby had said. Two cars. All Christians of Arabian descent. All soldiers, all reliable. I trust them with my soul.
The sequence of the man’s expressions informed Elise that he was one of those four men. First he glanced at her, then he appraised Ali, and then he looked back at Elise, seemingly without emotion.
Ali’s mere presence was enough reason for them to abort. She was supposed to be alone. In addition, they could probably sense he was a cop. Experienced agents and cops were the same that way. They recognized their own kind.
“Who were those men?” Ali said, as they drove out of sight.
“How would I know?”
“Because you arranged for them to be here.”
“You’re paranoid,” Elise said. “I’m here alone.”
“Those men were here for you. I could see it in their eyes. What have you not told me?”
“No more than you haven’t told me, I’m sure.”
They stood beside the statue quietly. There was nothing more for either of them to say, because neither was prepared to divulge any more information, Elise thought.
They would not return, Elise thought. As she suspected would be the case given Ali was with her, she was on her own.
Over the next fifteen minutes, Elise grew increasingly despondent. She’d been so worried about her incarceration and finding a means to be released that she hadn’t stopped to consider the risk that Valerie would not show up. But as the minutes passed, she grew increasingly certain that her smallest fear had turned out to be her greatest risk.
She had no doubt that Ali could sense her apprehension.
“Do you have a way to get in touch with her?” he said.
Elise shook her head.
They waited, and waited, and waited. To Ali’s credit, he paced back and forth along the Danube to stretch his legs and pass the time, but didn’t complain or pressure Elise to give up, even though she was to be out of jail for only one hour. In fact, he appeared to be waiting for her to admit the rendezvous had failed. Meanwhile, Elise’s imagination began to run wild with ugly possibilities, most notably that the killer whom Ali was trying to apprehend had struck again. She had absolutely no foundation for such a fear, yet her mind kept returning to that scenario.
At five-thirty, an hour and a half after their agreed-upon meet time, Ali spoke again.
“If she were going to show,” he said.
“She would have showed by now,” Elise said.
“She might have been caught trying to get out of her house, or something might have happened that kept her from even trying. A man like Salim is going to run a tight ship. A girl isn’t going to be able to just wander off that easily.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right.”
“I don’t think there’s any way I can get to her through police channels,” Ali said. “This case isn’t exactly the department’s top priority. But I’m going to give it some thought tonight and see if there isn’t a way.”
Elise couldn’t hide her surprise. “A way?”
“A way for me to get access to your sister, whether as a rumored witness to a crime or something entirely unrelated. Like I said, I doubt it’s possible but if it was … If I managed to … would you like me to pass on a message to her?”
Elise was so shocked at his offer that she couldn’t contemplate an answer.
“Think about it,” he said.
They returned to the car and Ali drove away. Elise was crafting a message for Ali to deliver to Valerie when she realized that they weren’t heading toward the police station.
“Where are you taking me?” she said.
“To our favorite place in the world.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve been given orders to take you to the hookah bar and see if the cannabis loosens your tongue.”
“You’re joking,” she said.
“The most successful interrogations are based on trust,” Ali said, “not violence. Trust is based on a human bond, and the hookah is our bond, is it not?”
“You’re not kidding.”
“No, I am not.”
“I’m just a translator. I don’t know anything about anything else.”
“I’m not going to ask you about anything. I’m not going to ask you about anything other than what you want me to tell your sister if I happen to get through to her tomorrow. You have my word on that. I know that doesn’t mean much to you but you have it.”
“So what do you want?” Elise said.
“To tell my boss that I did what he told me to do so that I stay in his good graces. This business with the man in the wheelchair is more important to Eurabia than the murder of a bunch of dead dhimmi girls.”
“A bunch? There’s been more than one murder?”
Ali hesitated, but then he sighed and said, “There’ve been eight other murders.”
“Oh my God.” Elise’s stomach turned over. “Is it one man? Do you have any leads?
“That I can’t discuss with you.”
“Please.”
Ali sighed again. “He’s of average height and build, dresses in black robes, speaks perfect Arabic, and loves curry. And something’s wrong with his wrist.”
Elise waited for more description but none came. “That’s not much to go on …”
“If you prefer not to go to the hookah bar, I can take you back to jail, but it might cost me some political capital, which might make it impossible for me to try to reach out to your sister.”
The truth was that Elise could already taste the smoke, feel the cloud swirling in her brain, and savor the sweet relief that would follow.
“I don’t want to cost you any political capital,” she said.
Ali drove to the hookah bar and parked on the street nearby. When they entered the establishment together, the attendant at the front desk did a double take.
“Two bowls, buttered rum,” Ali said. “With cannabis. We’ll be here three hours. No longer.”
“Men and women cannot smoke together,” the manager said. “That is strictly forbidden. Strictly forbidden.”
Ali flashed his police ID. “Official business.”
“I’m the manager here,” the attendant said. “And I don’t care if the future of the planet depends it. Not in this bar.”
“Of course not,” Ali said. “Who said anything about us smoking in the bar?”
The attendant frowned. “Where then?”
“Where there are no men or women that could be offended.”
“There is no such place.”
“Of course there is,” Ali said.
The attendant shook his head.
“Your office.”
The attendant stood dumbstruck.
“I’m going to give you my business card,” Ali said. “And with it will come a favor, from me to you. One and only one favor, to be paid on demand. Now a man who runs an establishment like this … surely a business card like that is of value to him.”
Five minutes later Elise and Ali were seated in a cramped basement office that smelled vaguely of dead mice. Ali told Elise to sit behind the manager’s desk while he took a seat in a folding chair facing her. His reason for doing so was immediately apparent. By seating her in the manager’s chair, he was placing himself directly between her and the exit. The most noticeable result of this arrangement was that Elise sat two heads higher than Ali, whose chair was built low to the ground.
The manager brought the hookah and the cannabis. The hookah contained two mouthpieces. They passed it back and forth, alternating taking slow, deep inhalations. The smoke poured into Elise’s chest and she held it there—cool and soothing—until she exhaled and pushed it out her nose and mouth. Forcing the smoke out her nose maximized the hookah’s flavor and left Elise with a dazzling rum sensation from her sinuses to the tip of her tongue.
Soon the sweet taste of rum-flavored pot rendered all other sensations except for one irrelevant. The shock of having been arrested, incarcerated, and thrust into uncertainty dissipated. But the fear that something had gone terribly wrong with Valerie remained.
“When did you start using cannabis?” Ali said.
“In my teens.” Elise took a long hit and blew the smoke out her mouth slowly. “What about you?” she asked, her speech garbled from smoke.
“A year after I got married.”
“You needed relief from marriage?”
“No,” Ali said. “From the past.”
“Your marriage brought up baggage from your past?”
Ali didn’t answer.
“How did that happen?” Elise said.
“I had a daughter.”
“Ah.”
“What about you? What did you need relief from?”
E
lise thought of something that might sound like the truth. “The dhimmi tax, loss of religious freedom, persecution, the usual Christian maladies in Arabian controlled lands.”
“Where exactly are you from?”
“East of Budapest, or west depending on your perspective.”
“The more cannabis you consume, the more you sound like a spy than a translator. Aren’t you going to ask me where I’m from?”
Elise thought about the question. “I’m more concerned with where you’re going tomorrow …”
“When I see if I can find your daughter and get a message to her. I’m sure you are. It’s very noble of you to care so much about a person you never met before, whether she’s family or not.”
“It’s not a matter of nobility,” Elise said. “It’s a matter of forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness. I’ve heard of this word. It’s a Christian concept, isn’t it?”
“I think it transcends religion. Just like guilt. You’re a cop. You know—”
“Yes. I know all about guilt.” Ali’s face tightened. He appeared to be contemplating something that had brought him great anguish. “Whom are you trying to forgive?”
“The same person you are.”
They exchanged a look of understanding. Then Ali took a long drag from the hookah, Elise did the same, and they sat reflecting privately for about ten minutes. The cannabis calmed Elise’s nerves and slowed down her thought process. With each passing minute the silence became more comfortable and less awkward, until the reality that she was a prisoner and he was her captor became a secondary consideration, background noise that neither of them was going to allow to infringe on their disengagement from the world outside.
After they passed the hookah again, Ali slouched in his seat so low that Elise feared he was going to slide off the chair and under her desk. She had to remind herself that it wasn’t really her desk, although her chair was quite comfy and the cheap metal furniture was starting to look like retro, industrial chic.
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