Beneath the Same Heaven

by Anne Marie Ruff

  “You will want to stay here?” the old man asks.

  “No.” She is firm. “I will see as well. I’ve already come this far.”

  We sit in the car. The squeak of the car door hinge sounds like the first few notes of a song I remember. As we drive through the village, and past farms green with mustard and melons, the memory of the melodic line of a dance tune from my time in Dubai echoes through my head. My mind seizes it, works to remember the lyrics.

  Eventually we arrive at an abandoned lot. Piles of trash and debris have been separated into their constituent parts. A mangy dog licks a stained brick.

  We all step out of the car, an acrid, smoke-scented breeze confronts us. I hold out my hand to help my mother to her feet. The old man walks into the lot, narrates the space with his hands. “This is where my house was. You can see the outline of the courtyard here.”

  My eyes start to notice the patterns in the disorder. What I had taken for rubbish are the remnants of the house. The walls toppled into piles of bricks. What must have been a bookshelf, reduced to piles of fluttering papers. The stain on the bricks—I realize with horror—must be the blood of the wedding party. The guests. My father.

  “This is where everyone was gathered, outside.” The old man’s face glistens with tears. One of his relatives, a nephew, I assume, rests a comforting hand on his back. “The lights I had gone to replace were going to hang from the wall to this tree.” He points to a stump. He continues to tell the story, his words coming faster, his tone increasingly shrill.

  I separate from my mother, walk among the piles, stepping over a brick, a piece of burnt and melted plastic. I lift up a broken wooden beam with my toe. A swarm of flies swirls out from under the beam with the metallic smell of blood. I see a tangled clump of hair, black with strands of silver grey, matted into the ground, a small piece of flesh still attached.

  My stomach churns. I turn around, looking for a place where I can retreat. I see fragments of red cloth with gold embroidery—the bride’s dress—a tiny boy’s shoe next to a twisted shard of metal. I see the memories of things that were only recently intact. I double over and wretch, trying not to draw attention to myself. The remnants of my goat curry will decay here in this place of death.

  I hear a vibration in the sky and I look around trying to identify the source. From behind our heads we see a dark shape in the sky, like a giant metal hawk. As the shadow of an aircraft sweeps across the jagged edges of the ground around us, my mother reaches down and grabs a broken brick. She throws it into the sky and screams. She curses the machine with a string of profanities—sister fuckers, dogs, sons of bitches—the likes of which I have never heard from her. She reaches again and again for bricks, rocks, sticks, anything she can throw into the sky. Her headscarf falls back, exposing her silver hair. Her voice loses its power as her projectiles fall back to the earth just a few feet in front of her.

  My brothers and I, stunned, do not move. We feel her rage, understand her need to act. But we cannot recognize our proud strong mother in these childish gestures. Only when she collapses to the ground, spent and shrieking, do we all rush to support her.

  The old man, suddenly agitated, frantically herds us back into the car. “Sometimes a drone will follow a plane. We won’t be able to see it, but we should take cover, they don’t like it when people make rash motions or fall to the ground.”

  Back in the car, we move quickly, the nephew, slightly older than me, is driving erratically, peering his head out the driver’s side window, trying to spot any danger from above. My heart is beating so loud I think I can hear it over the engine. I place my arms over my mother’s head, as if I could protect her.

  Once we turn on to a bigger road, and join a steady flow of cars crawling along, the nephew seems to relax. The old man turns around, “Please forgive me for frightening you. We can never be too careful. And I should never forgive myself if your mother were harmed while she was my guest.”

  “Thank you for your care, brother,” my mother says, lowering my arms without looking at me. “I can only imagine how you suffer with this kind of fear.” Composed again, she raises her hands to include the whole dangerous sky. “I am a woman, all I can do is throw stones.” She sets her hand above mine, making a fist. “But my son can accomplish much more.”

  “Insha’allah, God willing,” the old man says, “insha’allah.”

  The gravesite is unremarkable; a patch of disturbed earth, small piles of stones above the mounds that cover the bodies. We do not speak as we get out of the car. My brothers have been here before, they were here to lower the plain wooden box into the ground. Later I will ask them about the condition of my father’s body.

  My mother walks unsteadily toward the mound that the old man indicates is her husband’s grave. I follow, hold her arm and shoulders to support her.

  “Husband,” she says quietly. “You were a good man. You raised your sons well. And your daughters. We will carry your name with pride, uphold your honor.” She steps toward the grave and squats down, running her right hand in the dirt. I can hear her whispering, but cannot make out her words. I watch her hand moving gently over the ground, as if she were caressing him through the soil. She looks down and then up into the sky, perhaps she is trying to locate his spirit, to know where she should send her words.

  I remember when my grandfather died. The old man had a heart attack during Ramadan. My father had spent the whole day after Babu’s death holed up in the little booth in the phone store down the lane, his voice growing hoarse as he called our relations. Never once did he break his fast or ask for water. I was a teenager, my voice just starting to change. We buried Babu at the far end of the mustard fields, at the top of a little rise. My father said even in death, we should understand that Babu would watch over the farm. The whole village came, as did all our relations who were within a day’s train ride. My mother had arranged for the washing of the body and all of the food and drink we would need prepared for the hundreds of mourners to break their fast after the sun set. We found comfort in the sheer mass of people who supported our family in our grief. Of course I felt the sadness, but even as we repeated the solemn burial ritual, I couldn’t help noticing a girl across from me. She stood out in my mind as she was my age, with beautiful cheekbones, a lustrous sliver of her hair left uncovered before her headscarf. As the breeze blew, the thin cotton of her kameeze blew against her skin so I could discern the outline of her firm breasts, and I wondered about the rest of her body.

  I close my eyes as my mind returns to the sight of my father’s grave. Stones crunch underfoot as my brothers and Shoukart’s relatives move gently around me. A car passes along the road, a lone bird cries out in the distance. What do I say to my dead father? How do I thank him for his care, his guidance, his wisdom to send me abroad? How do I repay the pleasures I have enjoyed, the expanse of the West that I have known because of his decisions? I simply say, “Peace be upon him,” the same words I have repeated after the name of the Prophet.

  Riaz steps close to me, so that I can feel the heat of his body. I long for the crowd of mourners that should hold us up, that should remind me of the continuity of our community, despite the interruption of death. I reach out for Riaz, grateful for his masculine arms encircling me.

  “I have called some people who can help us,” says a young man I hadn’t noticed earlier. He is slim, his beard carefully trimmed, his eyes reflecting a clear intelligence.

  Shoukart’s grandfather leans back on a bolster inside his brother’s house. “Help us in what way?” he groans with an ache in his bones.

  I accept a cup of tea from the young girl who had served us earlier, feel the adrenaline of the afternoon dissipating, leaving a hard anger. “Help us to take our next steps,” the young man replies crisply.

  Three men appear at the door, simple wool shawls draped around their shoulders. Shoukart’s grandfather begins to rise. The men gesture for him to stay where he is. Speaking in Pashto, they lean over, grasp h
is hands in greeting. They make their way around the room, greeting other relatives, the young man, my brothers, me.

  “They are my brother’s neighbors,” the old man explains, “they have come to share condolences with you.”

  They sit, drink tea, the hardened and stained soles of their feet poking out from under the billows of their pants.

  The young man continues, “I have called Abu Omar because he knows how to plan things, he knows people.”

  Majid sits on the floor, hunched over his tea cup. “I don’t know how much planning we need. I think if we could bomb the ring road in Los Angeles, we would make our point.”

  “There is no ring road in Los Angeles,” I say quietly, “it’s a network of freeways.”

  “So pick one,” Majid shoots back.

  “It’s not that simple,” I tell Majid.

  Another group of men arrive, repeat the same ritual as the first group of neighbors.

  Shoukart’s grandfather rubs his shoulder. “They say that Abu Omar is the lion of Afghanistan, he knows how to strike at the Americans. He will chase them out of the country…or kill them.”

  The young man nods. “He has had very good training, he has friends abroad, he can make things happen.”

  A few of the strangers continue the conversation in Pashto. I follow some of their words, they mention the Americans in Afghanistan, the CIA in Peshawar.

  Again, a few more men step inside the room. I move closer to my brother and a guest who had arrived earlier moves closer to me to make space. A water pipe appears and the smells of sweet tobacco smoke and sweating men fill the room. One of the neighbors, or relatives—I can’t really keep straight who is who—points at me. The others begin talking more quickly. I lean over to Majid, “Do you understand what they’re saying?”

  “They’re talking about what you can do in America, what Abu Omar can do to help arrange things for you.” He pauses, “I’ve told them how smart and capable you are.”

  Majid’s compliment catches me off guard. My middle brother has spent a lifetime demonstrating all the ways in which he has surpassed me.

  A few men push themselves up off the carpet and make space for new guests. Now familiar with the ritual, I greet them, thank them for coming, nod at their curses for the Americans, their calls for justice.

  The young man continues in English, “If we took action in Los Angeles, we would be staking out new territory, no one has touched the American west coast yet.”

  “But innocents would be killed,” I shudder thinking about my wife and children.

  “Innocents!” the young man roars, “Tell me brother, wasn’t your father innocent? Shoukart? The bride? Do you think for a moment the kafirs, the infidels flying the drones wonder about the innocence of our women, our children, our fathers?” He opens his arms to include the other men in the room who nod in somber agreement. “Do they wonder about our innocence when the drones come and drop bombs on the people who gather to bury those they have already killed in an earlier drone attack?”

  An indignant murmur ripples through the room.

  “Because we are men with beards, because we are Muslim, because we believe in the honor of our families, we are all guilty in their eyes. Even you,” his eyes narrow as he points at me, “even you, brother, with your American passport and liberal ways, are an enemy the Americans would kill if they could.”

  An older man, stoic and quiet stares at me from just a few feet away. I stare back, clench my fist to hold back tears, to hold back my anger. Finally he speaks, almost a whisper. “It’s good you have come back to your country, to sit among your brothers. We’ll help you accomplish a great thing. The Americans need a reminder, a prick in their side. You can help to protect us.”

  I wrinkle my eyebrows in question.

  The man passes me the hose of the water pipe. I take a long draw, wait for the feeling, the lightness in my head.

  “Look at us,” he continues, “we are men in a poor country, every day we fear what will drop out of the sky. Look at you, you live in America, you are rich, accomplished, intelligent.” He moves closer to me, sets his hand on my shoulder. “We need men like you to carry our message, the memories of our dead, of your father.”

  My brothers nod. I look around the room, recognize shadows of my father in the faces of the men who have come. I see the intelligence of my father’s eyes above the beard on the young man’s face, see my father’s long sharp nose in a man with a deep scar across his cheek, see the roundness of my father’s lips in a wizened old man who scratches his beard with mangled stumps where his first two fingers should have been.

  “We understand your suffering,” speaks the old man, squeezing my shoulder. “All of us have lost someone, or have been forced from our homes. I have seen my own children bleed because of the Americans.” He looks up, turns to the others, “Yes?” Around the room, I see men nod, tears sparkling in the eyes of a few. He looks back at me. “Your father would help us if he could. He would ask you do to the same…” My mother peers out from the kitchen curtain, nods forcefully at me. “…if they hadn’t blown him to bits.”

  The image of burned flesh rises again in my mind. I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, try to block the vision. And I cannot hold back any more, tears come. My lungs gasp for breath. I have lost my father. This single death has blown my world apart, ripped away my future. I open my eyes to see every man in the room touching the shoulder of the man in front of him, all hands reaching out in a web to this man who has set his hand upon my shoulder. He draws his forefinger across his forehead, then across mine. “It is written.”

  I nod. It has been written.

  After all the men leave, save the young man with the neat beard, my brothers and I stand with him at the door. I want only to collapse right there and sleep. I suddenly remember his first words of the day. “You said Abu Omar would come, he could help us. When will he come?”

  The corners of the young man’s mouth turn ever so slightly, “He was already here.”

  I feel disoriented. “Who? Which man? Why didn’t you introduce him?”

  “You will know all in due time.”

  I wish for another draw on the water pipe, for the patience I feel with the smoke in my lungs. “And brother, I didn’t properly hear your name.”

  Again the corners of his mouth turn up. He nods deferentially. “I am Omar.”

  He embraces me and turns, walking away without another word.

  I stand silent under the stars, trying to think back on which of the men I saw today could be his father, Abu Omar.

  Chapter 2

  Los Angeles, California.

  Months before the bombing

  * * *

  A sterile white corridor opens into the cavernous receiving hall of the international terminal in Los Angeles. Asian women with designer handbags rush past me, high heels clicking on the floor, to get to the front of the U.S. citizen line. I slow my pace. I am in no rush to return to this country.

  When I reach the front of the line, I consider telling the immigration official I would like to renounce my passport, make my way back to the plane and return to Pakistan. But he has a set of prepared questions, an interrogation of friendly chit chat.

  “How was your journey?”

  I don’t respond.

  He looks at my American passport, looks at my face to confirm I am the same man in the photo. He has no idea how different I am now from the man in the photo, how my journey has changed me.

  “Did you visit family in Pakistan?”

  I resist the urge to reach across the counter and throttle him.

  “Funeral,” I say curtly as he swipes my passport through the magnetic reader.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says looking at the screen. He turns and hands me back my passport. “Well, welcome home.”

  The first time I saw this place, Kathryn and I had queued in separate immigration lines, my green Pakistani passport fortified with a U.S. fiancé visa. I had spoken ea
gerly with the immigration official, even pointed out Kathryn in the other line as he asked me about my reason for coming. I felt Pakistan impossibly far away. I knew that with an American wife and American children in my future, America would become my home.

  I proceed to the baggage carousel, feeling the overwhelming bigness, the formal sturdiness in such contrast to the shoddy haphazard feel of the Pakistani frontier. Two young women take up position in front of me to watch for their luggage. One turns to face her companion and I see the tops of her breasts, practically bursting out of a tiny tank top. I feel the instinctive surge in my loins. I move away, I don’t want the distraction.

  I scan the room, the baggage carousels, the piles of luggage carts. I notice a DEA official with a sniffer dog, alert, stern. Groups of people laden with luggage queue before the customs inspectors, the final bureaucratic hurdle before stepping into the vastness of America.

  Today I realize that I didn’t absorb America, I merely stepped into it. I wore an American identity as I might wear a sport coat over a t-shirt and jeans. Being with my mother, feeling the absence of my father in the company of my brothers, Shoukart’s family and neighbors, reaffirmed my identity. Rashid the American has faded, like a suntan after returning from a beach holiday; revealing, restoring Rashid of the Siddique clan, of Lahore, of Pakistan, of the umma.

  And I am back in America. My brothers were right, I have no difficulty entering America, I can mix easily with Westerners, no one suspects me. Nor should they, I remind myself. I have done nothing wrong. I have only promised my mother that I would carry out what was written.

  I step into a taxi. Perhaps I should not even return to Kathryn and the boys. Perhaps everything would be easier for them if I just disappeared. But I hesitate, and when the round-faced Armenian driver turns around and asks a second time for my destination, I can only remember my home address.

  The wide open freeways at this early morning hour deliver me too quickly to my building. I remember Majid’s comment, which freeway should I pick? I still haven’t thought of what I will say to Kathryn. How can I explain anything of what I experienced in Pakistan, in the frontier? I stand on the sidewalk as the taxi pulls away, trying to remember if I have ever told her stories of other families that might have prepared her. I reach back to images of our wedding, but my mind can’t hold them in focus. I am exhausted, I need to sleep.