Girls of Yellow

by Orest Stelmach

  Elise eyed Ali. “Why did you really bring me here?” she said.

  “I told you. And about this I wasn’t lying. I’m just trying to stay in my boss’s good graces.”

  “If you didn’t lie about that, what have you been lying about?”

  Ali didn’t answer. He merely stared into space, deep in thought.

  Elise recalled his previous admission that he used the hookah to get relief from something shameful in his past. Her memory was a bit foggy now, and she couldn’t quite remember the source of his shame. Ah yes, she realized three beats later. It was a girl.

  “The first step to forgiving oneself is to confess one’s sins,” Elise said.

  Ali remained mute for a moment, then seemed to realize that he wasn’t alone. “Why? A confession won’t change the past.”

  “No, but it can help put it behind you.”

  “How?” said Ali. “If you’ve committed one of the most heinous acts imaginable by a human being, how can you ever put it behind you?”

  “By accepting that you’re human and, by definition, fully capable of doing something heinous under the wrong circumstances.”

  Ali studied her. “And this confession, it works for you?”

  “Sometimes yes, other times no. In my experience, it helps the least when you need it the most.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Sometimes, when we’ve done something that stains our soul, we can’t forgive ourselves without some sort of act of contrition. Sometimes we have to do something instead of just talking. But the confession is still a good start because we’re overcoming our pride and ego, and that’s essential if we’re going to purge ourselves of shame.”

  Ali reflected on her words for a moment. “Okay, you first.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You first. Confess, and then I’ll do the same.”

  The first and last time she’d seen Valerie flashed before Elise’s eyes. Her confession would be effortless because she replayed the sequence constantly. She wasn’t ashamed to admit that in the final scene she’d watched her sister taken away for money. She was ashamed of having done nothing to prevent this from happening, but not of admitting it to a stranger. She had no pride or ego left to defend. She’d purged them over time, or at least that’s what she wanted to believe.

  She told Ali how a nurse came and took Valerie away after her mother gave birth to her, in accordance with the bill of sale she’d agreed to with the Office of Slave Procurement.

  “And you blame yourself for this?” Ali said.

  “I blame myself for not defending my sister. For not saving my flesh and blood from becoming someone else’s property and losing the rights she’s entitled to in the eyes of all reasonable men.”

  “The shame is the mother’s, not the sister’s. If that’s the reason for your unhappiness, you must want to be unhappy. Because you were too young at the time—”

  “I was eighteen …”

  “And didn’t have the resources—financial or political—to do anything to change your mother’s decision.”

  “I could have tried,” Elise said. “I could have fought for her. I could have stolen her in the night and run away. That’s the thing. It doesn’t matter what my odds of success were. What matters is that I made no effort. I didn’t want to put myself in danger. I failed my sister, and in so doing failed myself.”

  Ali shook his head. “Are you one of these people that’s only happy if she’s miserable? Because there’s no reason for you to be so hard on yourself. Absolutely none. And I can prove it to you. Have you ever met a man so loathsome that you couldn’t stomach the thought of being in the same kingdom as him, let alone the same room?”

  Elise actually felt a twinge of anxiety at the prospect of what he might tell her.

  “I’ll take your silence as a no. Well, there’s a first for everything. My wife thinks the reason I want justice for the dead dhimmi girl is because she reminds me of our daughter. I didn’t tell her this isn’t true. I’ve told some of the people who’ve helped me with this case that my first love was a dhimmi girl that looked just like the dead girl, and that this is the reason I keep at it. But that’s a lie, too. I could never tell them the truth, which is that I won’t let go of this case because I’m trying to make myself feel better about what I did to the girl I knew long ago, which is basically something that makes me sub-human.”

  “Tell me what you did,” Elise said, “and I predict right now that I’m going to tell you the same thing that you told me, that you’re punishing yourself way too much.”

  Ali shook his head with self-loathing. “Listen and weep.” He took a long, deep breath. “When I was a teenager, my parents were upper-class professionals in the country formerly known as Jordan. My father was a family lawyer and my mother was a psychologist for women. They secretly yearned for a modern version of Islam—the kind you were thinking about when we had our conversation in the prison—one that condemned all violence and treated women with equal respect. But they could never come out against a fellow Muslim, especially not when the mullahs were blessing their actions, no matter how much they disagreed with them. Once in a while they’d even provide shelter to boys who were in hiding before a suicide mission.

  “When I was sixteen, a group of boys like that stayed in our basement for a month or so. They were uneducated, arrogant, and filthy. Back then I was a shy kid—I was such a disappointment to my parents because I wasn’t a good student. I just didn’t take to school or anything else, for that matter. All I ever wanted was to fit in. So I tried to be friends with these guys, but they hated me from first sight. When I look back, it’s no surprise. I had parents, we had money, to them I was super-rich. They made my life miserable when my parents weren’t home. They teased me, beat me up, told me to keep my mouth shut or they’d kill me. I knew what they had in those rucksacks they kept by their sides all the time. I knew they were different. They had nothing to lose and that gave them the upper hand over me.

  “There was a European girl in the neighborhood. Her father worked in the oil business and he’d married a Jordanian woman. I don’t know how old she was. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen? I have no idea. But she was very pretty and I always had a crush on her, but of course, she wouldn’t even acknowledge my existence. I always imagined she was a nice girl but it turned out she was the exact opposite. The boys that were staying with us had cannabis and hashish—I have no idea where they got it from but they had a constant supply. Well it turns out that the girl that I was in love with loved to party. She was a wild child.

  “So they became friendly with her. They would invite her over to share their drugs and watch haram movies and listen to haram music when she came home from school. Once they were all headed for the stairs to the basement, and one of the boys saw me down the hallway in the kitchen and said something. They all started laughing, including the girl. That’s when I knew she thought I was a joke. From then on I avoided all of them. I just wanted them to leave.

  “About two weeks after she started coming around, my parents went to some banquet on a Saturday night. They were going to be out all night. I was in my room doing whatever, paying no attention to those boys downstairs, until one of them came into my room and told me they had a surprise for me, that I was to go downstairs with him right away. I didn’t want to go with him but I didn’t want to get in a fight, either.

  “When I got downstairs, one of the boys was having sex with the girl while the other two were cheering him on. I tried to leave but the kid who brought me punched me in the stomach and told me he’d do worse if I didn’t do as I was told. The girl seemed a bit out of it. She was conscious but not all there. I had to sit and watch as they took turns with her. And then when they were done they said it was my turn.”

  He stopped talking. Previously unnoticeable cracks and crevices deepened on Ali’s face. A long silence passed between them.

  “You had no choice,” Elise said. “They forced you. Your life was in danger. T
here’s no telling what they would have done to you if you hadn’t done as they said.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “What don’t I understand?”

  Ali fortified himself with a breath. “They didn’t force me. I was aroused. Some vile primal urge got hold of me. My blood was so hot, I tell you, I didn’t even feel in possession of my own body. No one forced me. Whatever I did to her I wanted to do it. And when I was done with her, they dragged her upstairs and threw her out the front door. Then she went home and hung herself from a drainpipe in her cellar.”

  Elise watched as Ali rocked back and forth in the chair and chanted something under his breath—a prayer, she guessed. She understood his anguish now, just as she knew her own. And as opposed to reviling him for having committed a horrible crime, she sympathized with his plight.

  “You’re wrong,” Elise said. “I do understand …”

  “How can you possibly—”

  “I understand why you brought me here.”

  When Ali looked up, Elise could see the longing in his eyes. He wanted contrition, atonement, and forgiveness. She knew the feeling all too well.

  “You brought me here because you needed someone to listen, and it couldn’t be a Eurabian. It had to be someone who’d leave the country soon, someone who could never use the information against you, someone you’d never see again in your life.”

  Ali straightened in his seat. “I’m just trying to stay in my boss’s good graces.”

  “But if you think your act is so heinous, think again. In fact, take a ticket and get in line behind me.”

  “You cannot possibly think that what you did is in any way as horrible as what I did …”

  “I can and I do,” Elise said. “In fact, it’s not even close.”

  “What am I missing?”

  “The truth.”

  Ali frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Everything I told you?” Elise’s heart pounded in her ears. “It’s all a lie.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Ali was still savoring the unexpectedly blissful sensation of having finally admitted his sin to another human being. His skin tingled and he felt strangely lighter. And then Elise told him that everything she’d confessed to him was a lie and he felt even better. He’d been able to follow her advice while she herself had been unable to do so. Maybe that meant she was right. Maybe he really had helped himself by confessing.

  He was also shocked by the magnitude of his empathy toward the Christian spy. What had she really done? Ali didn’t even know how to start answering that question because her admission cast everything that he knew about her into doubt.

  For the first time, Ali spied desperation in her eyes. She looked as though she needed to confess her sins to someone. To his surprise, Ali wanted to offer her words of encouragement to do so. Whom better to confess to than a man whom she’d met only in passing?

  Then his phone rang.

  Ali answered it.

  “Are you alone?” Zaman said.

  Ali answered. “No.”

  “Get some privacy. Now.”

  Ali stood up and promptly almost fell. He steadied himself by grabbing the edge of the table, motioned to Elise that he was leaving, and stumbled out of the office. He pressed the door closed behind himself, his brain engulfed in a fog.

  “What’s up, boss?”

  “Any progress?” Zaman said. He sounded suspiciously cheerful.

  Ali suffered a pang of guilt. He hadn’t even tried to extract the name of a local contact in the Christian spy network from her, and for obvious reasons. Any attempt would have been folly. But he was a professional and should have made an effort.

  “Not yet,” Ali said. “And to be honest, we’re forging a bond but I doubt I’m going to be able to pull it off in one night.”

  “Don’t feel bad about. It was a long shot. I want you to bring her back to the station immediately.”

  “Why? We’re not … I’m not in the best of shape.”

  “Drink some coffee, chew on some khat, dunk your head in ice water if you have to. Do whatever you have to do, but I need you at the Matthias Church within the hour.”

  Matthias was the church where the killer had brought Greta Gaspar’s corpse. It was the place where it all had begun.

  “Why Matthias?” Ali said.

  “Because I have a tremendous gift waiting for you there.”

  Ali remained skeptical. The last time he’d been told a great gift awaited him, Sabida had trouped out their daughter, who proceeded to tell her father that she hated him.

  “What kind of gift?” Ali said.

  “Another dead dhimmi girl.”

  “What?”

  “But this time,” Zaman said, sounding downright ebullient, “we caught the killer red-handed—or, dead-handed—I should say.” Zaman laughed. “We caught the bastard carrying the dead girl into the church with his bare hands.”

  “Who?’ Ali said. “Who is he?”

  “I want you and only you to wrap this up for us, Ali. The reason I want you to do it is because I know the case has become a bit of an obsession for you. Well, this will put your mind to rest. And the other reason I want you to close this case is because the killer has asked for you.”

  “Asked for me?”

  “That’s right,” Zaman said.

  “Why would he ask for me?”

  “Because you know him.”

  Zaman told him the name of the killer.

  Ali lost his breath, train of thought, and equilibrium. He had to reach for the wall to keep from falling. His brain swirled. He hung up on Zaman before the conversation was finished, not out of malice but because he needed to get to Matthias as quickly as possible to understand the circumstances, see the alleged killer with his own eyes, and most of all, speak with the person himself.

  Ali returned to the office and told Elise they were leaving immediately. The wind whipped their faces when they stepped outside the bar. The air felt moist as though a storm were imminent.

  “It’s another body, isn’t it?” she said, as they walked along the sidewalk.

  Ali wondered how she could have possibly known.

  “I’ve had this feeling,” she said. “I’ve had it since last night. God help me, I hope I’m wrong.”

  Ali realized the obvious, that her sister hadn’t shown up at the rendezvous. He’d been so focused on the alleged killer’s identity that he hadn’t thought about the implications for Elise at all.

  A gust of wind sobered him up just enough for him to realize that he wasn’t entirely sober at all, and as they approached his car, Ali tried to remember if there was a bodega on the way to the station where he could buy a large cup of coffee so he didn’t show up looking like a —

  He heard a thump between his ears. Pain wracked his head. His knees gave out from under him and his vision blurred.

  Ali fell to the ground. He saw the arc of a man’s boot headed toward the side of his head and told himself to move but his reactions were too slow. Another sharp sting in the head was accompanied by the sound of a foot connecting with his cranium.

  As Ali’s eyes pressed shut, the last thing he saw was two men descending on Elise and two more emerging from behind him. One of the men wrapped duct tape around her mouth while the other three corralled and lifted her up. Ali watched as the four masked men hustled past him, further away from the hookah bar, where life had seemed tranquil and manageable, and then everything turned black.

  CHAPTER 32

  Elise recognized Darby’s men as they snuck up toward Ali. She assumed they were coming to free her, until she saw one of them raise a blackjack over his head. Even before the man hammered Ali’s skull, the other two men grabbed Elise from behind and a third taped her mouth shut. They were trained, confident and physically fit. She had no chance of escape. Before she knew it, Elise found herself bound and gagged in the trunk of the sedan she’d seen circling by the promenade.

  If they were sure they wanted to
kill her, she’d probably already be dead, Elise thought. They didn’t need the risks associated with keeping her alive and conscious in the trunk of a car, such as being discovered during a traffic stop or an accident. They could have injected her with a lethal substance or broken her neck. They still might kill her later, she realized, depending on what they learned from her about the rendezvous.

  She could predict their questions. Why didn’t the girl show up? Why did a cop accompany her? Why didn’t she warn Darby that the cops were onto her? Ali carried himself with a cocky sense of entitlement that most cops possessed without even knowing. Darby’s men might have guessed who he was instinctively, or they might have snapped his picture and run it through a database they’d hacked and identified him. These were all questions she’d soon be asked and her answers might dictate whether she lived or died. For no matter how much Christendom valued its personnel, no individual was more valuable than a local network that had taken years to assemble.

  En route to whatever destination her captors had in mind, Elise gathered her senses and prepared to fight for her life. Until she was certain that Valerie was dead, her personal mission was incomplete, and she’d do whatever was necessary to stay alive to see it through to the end.

  Ironically, she wished she hadn’t destroyed the GPS device. If it were still operational, Ali could have tracked her and caught up to her captors. But now, thanks to the precautions she’d taken to prevent him from following her if she needed to escape for whatever reason, he’d never come to her rescue.

  Elise knew she was on her own.

  CHAPTER 33

  Ali woke up to find a pair of twenty-somethings in hiking gear and backpacks leaning over him and shaking his shoulders. They asked him if he was okay and if he needed an ambulance. He responded by standing up, albeit with their assistance. Ali thanked the good Samaritans—anarchists, he thought, because people who slept in the forest, by definition, loathed society—and climbed into his car. The blow to his head had knocked the cannabis high out of him and replaced it with a concussion of unknown severity. Ali tested himself by trying to remember his name, address, occupation and current personal and professional circumstances. The answers came quickly and with depressing clarity.