Beneath the Same Heaven

by Anne Marie Ruff

  I practice a series of words in my head, ways I might explain, forewarn. I try out different combinations of context and conjecture, approach the future from a dozen different angles. I even inhale, preparing to wake Kathryn, to speak. But the words will not come. So my hands take over. I reach my arm around her and press my palm to the curve of her breast, drawing her closer to me. In her sleep she recognizes my body next to hers and presses her hips back against me. I feel no desire for sex, only the desire that this intimacy, this present, her presence should last forever. 4:36am. And then without forethought, two words arrive, and my tongue delivers them with perfect clarity. “Forgive me.”

  “For what?” she whispers.

  “For everything.”

  Chapter 5

  * * *

  “Did you see the news?” The anger of Ali’s voice slices through my phone.

  “No. I’m on a job. What happened?”

  “Three more drone attacks this week.”

  I exhale, the power of my grief rising in my throat. “Where?”

  “Two in Pakistan, one in Palestine.”

  I move behind a steel container on the rig floor so I can speak out of my colleagues’ line of sight. “Deaths?”

  “The defense department commented on the Pakistani attacks. They are saying three militants near the Khyber Pass and five Afghan Islamic insurgents were taking refuge on the Pakistani side of the border.”

  I note that Ali has told me about the Pakistani attacks first. His usual Palestine-centric worldview momentarily shifted.

  “But they’re not talking about Palestine. The Israelis are beating their chests with pride, because they hit one of our bravest Hamas leaders. Killed in his bed. Sister-fuckers. The Israelis think they are so clever, but the drone was American.” He continues in a familiar screed about America’s complicity in everything the Israelis do. His words crescendo to an uncharacteristic silence.

  I wait. I know Ali will fill the void in a moment.

  “Now is the time for us to act.” His tone is completely devoid of his previous near hysteria. “My friend has received your new documents. Canadian Sikh. So now we need to make some arrangements on our end.”

  “When?”

  “No more waiting. As soon as you come back from your job. We can store materials at my house until we arrange for the U-Haul trailer.”

  “I…I don’t know if I’m ready, Ali.”

  “God will make you ready Rashid. Call me as soon as you are back.”

  I close the phone, pace back and forth, banging my hand against a steel railing. Years ago, when my father had made arrangements for me to study in London, I had sat close to him in our courtyard. Even though we were the same height, even though I could have physically overpowered him, I sat next to him like a child, trying not to allow any fear to creep into my voice. Daddyji, I had said, I don’t know if I’m ready. He had smiled. You’re a man now. God has made you ready, beta.

  I retrieve my wallet from the bag in my rig locker and pull out a phone card. I calculate the time difference and figure that my brother will be sleeping. I dial the long string of numbers to reach him. I hear the distinct rings of an international phone call through the speaker. The rings stop and I hear a shuffling before a voice speaks into the line. “Hahllo?”

  “Majid?”

  “Han ji, yes.”

  “It’s your brother.”

  “Rashid? How are you?”

  “Majid, I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “I need money. I want you to bring ten thousand dollars to the hawala we use in Lahore. Not the village one near the farm.”

  “What for?”

  “I just need it. Maybe not all at once, but make sure, it’s there with him. And depending on how things go, I may need more. I’ll let you know the hawala that will receive it on this end.”

  “You need a transfer? I can send it through my Citibank account.”

  “No. Just do what I say. Use the money I have in my bank there. If something happens, tell the hawala to send money to my wife and sons, every three months. Make sure the money is there.”

  “Of course, I understand.”

  One week. I return to shore and Ali tells me that we have one week to prepare, plane tickets have been purchased in my new name. Scores of details fill my world. I don’t even have time to go to the mosque. Every morning I check the traffic reports, trying to understand when the freeway interchange is busiest. I use the library computer to find U-Haul rental locations. Surprisingly, Ali calls less frequently.

  When I arrive at his backhouse this morning, his behavior vacillates between extreme anxiety and serenity. I notice that his refrigerator contains only a shriveled lemon and a few packets of ketchup.

  “I am ready,” Ali tells me as I heat the water for tea. “My father came to me last night in a dream. He said he has prepared a place for me.”

  I am not surprised. I have been thinking of my own father often, just before I sleep, almost hoping he will come to me in my dreams. “What did he look like?”

  Ali smiles and closes his eyes, recalling the image of the man in his dreams. “He looks as he did in the photo on his wedding day. Young and handsome and happy.”

  “Ali, have you warned your mother or your family?”

  “No. Insha’allah, they’ll be surprised. My mother will be proud that my jihad is successful.”

  Guilt strikes me. My mother will also be proud that her husband’s death will be avenged. But Ali’s mother will also lose her son in the process.

  “Are you sure this is the way you want to do it? Perhaps we can plan some other way, so you don’t need to be in the car. Perhaps I can pick you up before we detonate.”

  Ali cocks his head, looks at me curiously. “Why would I want to stay? To live in this horrible place?” he gestures to the room. “So I can continue to grieve my father and watch the kafirs continue to kill Muslims?” He places his hand on his heart. “I have only one regret, I didn’t make the Hajj. But Allah will forgive me. He knows I wasn’t able.”

  I stir my tea out of habit. Ali no longer has sugar to add.

  “What’s the name of your town, where your mother is?”

  “Nablus. We are the Nassan clan of Nablus.” Ali sips his tea, winces as he burns his tongue. “We have had olive groves there for generations. My great grandfather was able to protect them during the 1947 war.” He looks up at me, his usual anger returning to his eyes. “You know the British supported the Zionists. They supported drawing lines in Palestine. The British drew lines all over the world, leaving people to kill their neighbors on the other sides of the lines.” He holds his hands in a circle on the table, outlining the globe. “We should plan something to hit Britain too.” He draws his fingers together, then floats them out, miming an explosion where London would be in his imaginary globe.

  “Others will take care of that,” I say. “We have our plan.”

  “Yes. Yes we have our plan.” He sits up in his chair. He starts to pick at his thumbnail with the opposite hand, abandoning the imaginary globe. “Brother, don’t call me unless it’s absolutely necessary. The closer we get, the more we have to worry about surveillance. The government can listen to our calls, read our emails. It’s best we talk in person.” He practically jumps out of his chair, turns off the light and pulls back the shade to look out the window. “Did you hear someone outside?”

  I strain my ears, but hear only the dull roar of the freeway a few blocks away. “No. Probably just a cat. Sit down, I want to make sure we have everything in order.”

  Ali returns to his chair, but does not turn on the light. Eventually my eyes adjust to the pale light of the streetlamp leaking into the darkness and I can see enough to write down a list in a notebook I have brought along. Ali quietly fidgets in his chair. Somehow the news of the latest drone attacks has flipped a switch in my mind. I bear a responsibility not only to my mother, but to the Pakistanis, the Muslims I don’t know, the
umma—our collective community persecuted by the drones of the West. I list the materials we will need, the expected times we will accomplish each detail, everything must be planned precisely.

  “You forgot the Koran,” Ali says when he looks over my writing.

  I look again at the paper as I would a packing list for a client job. I write down Koran, then look up, waiting for more.

  “The words of the Prophet, peace be upon him, should be with me.”

  “It will burn up.”

  “Let’s get a fireproof box, so when they investigate the remains they’ll know we are Muslims.”

  I add fireproof box to my list.

  Ali gets up and disappears into the bathroom.

  I flip the page on my pad to reveal an unblemished sheet. I start writing, not a list, but a letter. I don’t address it, as I am not sure who might read it. ‘I am acting out of love. I loved my father, I love my mother, I love my homeland. I am not alone, all over the world sons are loving their parents, seeking to honor their wishes or their memories. Your drones do not understand the love we feel. They are inhuman. They do not fear Allah. We are responding in the language the drones will understand. We will destroy a little piece of what you love. You will feel the same kind of pain.’

  Unaccustomed to writing such words, the effort exhausts me. I realize Ali has not returned to the table. I look around the room, walk to the back of the house and find him asleep on the little cot in the bedroom, the Koran next to him on the bed, his hand clutching the cover as Michael would clutch a stuffed animal.

  I let him sleep, leave him to his dreams.

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  “What were you doing on the West Side?” I bark into the phone.

  “I went to meet one of our contributors at the Federal Building,” Kathryn raises her voice defensively. “He was trying to locate some government documents and I thought I might be able to help.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? You have to tell me these things!”

  “Rashid!” she raises her voice in irritation. “I’m a grown woman, I have a job, why should I have to tell you everything?”

  I pause, try to temper my tone. “Where is the Federal Building?”

  “In Westwood, right off the 405 just north of the 10.”

  I feel my stomach turn. I take a deep breath, change my tone so I will not anger her. “Were the children with you?”

  “Of course not.” She is exasperated. “I went during school hours.”

  “Please promise me something. I am very serious. Please just promise me.”

  “What?”

  “Please promise me you will let me know where you are going… on the freeways. Anyplace not on your usual trips to work or to get the boys.”

  “What for?”

  I know I am straining her patience. She bristles sometimes at what seem like simple requests. In Dubai I had asked her not to go out on the sidewalk in a tank top. She argued fiercely, told me not to try to control her, she was not a Pakistani woman. On the sidewalk she felt the leers of the Eastern men. When a Pakistani laborer asked her how much she charged, as if she were a common prostitute, she came home and changed her clothes, satisfied she had done it for her own reasons.

  I take a breath, considering my reasons. “I lost my father when he traveled away from his usual route. I just want to make sure you’re safe.” I can sense her hesitating on the other end of the telephone, surprised I have mentioned my father.

  “All right. I’ll try.”

  “It’s just because I love you.”

  “I know,” she says. “I know.”

  I hang up.

  I sit in my car outside an agricultural supply store. I can’t help but notice my hypocrisy. I am far from my usual routes. I haven’t told Kathryn a word about this trip. What if Kathryn is on the freeway during the time Ali has planned to act? I must make sure I know where she is. I must tell Ali we have to start very early in the morning.

  I can’t bring myself to enter the store yet. So I turn on the radio. “You can have it all,” the advertiser promises brightly, “great beer taste and fewer calories.” If only my desires were so simple, satisfied with a mediocre light beer.

  I change the radio station. “…as stocks closed lower. In other news, a State Department spokesman told reporters today the American presence in Afghanistan is bringing stability to the region. President Mohammed Karzai’s government is moving towards democracy. He warned, though, that Osama bin Laden is still at large, and the intelligence services are tracking other Al-Qaeda operatives such as Al-Zawahri and a man known as Abu Omar.”

  I shouldn’t think too much about this. I need to go inside and purchase nitrogen fertilizer. I change the station again. The high end of my radio dial—which plays popular rock and roll from a station in Los Angeles—plays country Western music here just east of Bakersfield, two hours north and a world away from the city. I listen to a sad song about a U.S. soldier returned from the war in Afghanistan, fighting for God and country, only to return to a wife who had left him for another. “But our love for you is true,” the refrain repeats, “we give our thanks for what you do.” My stomach turns acidic. I step out of the car and slam the door, as if the singer might feel the force of my anger.

  The store is an unremarkable single-story structure filled with tools and supplies for the vast farms of the central valley. Irrigation tubing, spare parts for tractors and fruit conveyors, pesticides, and, of course, fertilizers. I examine the aisles. I know the substance I seek will come in big white bags. I have seen these bags in the online videos, ANFO tutorials. Ammonium nitrate fuel oil. At the far end of the warehouse, a padlock secures an area enclosed behind wire fencing. Piles of 50-pound white plastic bags are piled neatly inside. I do not approach them. I busy myself examining irrigation connections, joints for delivering water to individual fruit and nut trees.

  I move closer to the far end of the store and notice a few men in turbans. Their long beards and thin cotton kurta pajamas mark them as Punjabi Sikhs. I am surprised to see them here, appearing familiar with the piles of tractor tires and soybean seeds. I can understand their banter in Punjabi, can tell from the way they hold lightly onto the vowels at the ends of their words, that they are jatts; farmers, likely from Indian Punjab, the other half of my British-divided Punjab. They make their way through the pile of tires, arguing amongst themselves about the relative merits of each. When they have selected four, they stride up to the counter, set their purchases down in front of the counter and one fishes his wallet out from the pocket hidden in the side seam of his kurta. He pats his hand on his round belly, telling his companions he is hungry.

  The door clangs. A Mexican man, dressed in blue jeans, a faded red t-shirt, and a dirty baseball cap steps in and allows his eyes a moment to adjust to the interior lighting. He walks to the counter and pulls a folded paper out of his pocket. The man behind the counter, who also looks to be Mexican, chats briefly with him in Spanish. The clerk eventually comes from behind the counter and starts to load up a battered metal trolley with goods. First a box of large O rings, some Teflon tape, and a faucet handle. Then he moves toward the back of the store. I meander down another aisle so I can continue to observe. The shop owner pulls on his key ring and pops the padlock opening the door to position the trolley for loading. He pulls a clipboard down from the inside of the fencing and reaches out to the customer. Knowingly, the customer reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, its outline visibly worn into the denim. He withdraws his identification, which the shop owner slides under the metal clamp on the board, and then copies down the information on the paper. He is following the federal requirements I have read about, the list should include the names and details of each customer buying nitrogen fertilizer.

  I continue moving round the end of one aisle into the next, so as not to attract attention to myself. The shop owner asks “Quanto?” and the customer replies “Dos.” I hear the small white grains of chemicals cru
nch against each other as two bags of nitrogen fertilizer land on the trolley. This substance, which will spur green plants to grow bigger, will accomplish another purpose for me. Once I have altered it, the transformed material will respond to a small charge, growing almost instantly into a fireball. I have seen the blasts online. From a screen in the Hollywood public library I was bewildered to find the FBI had posted a video of their own experiment detonating a bomb similar to that used in the Times Square Bombing. Cameras placed at four different angles recorded the force, played back in slow motion, ripping one car apart, leaving only a smoking black frame, and flipping over each of four surrounding cars. The FBI even opened the video with a helpful graphic explaining the bomb included 250 pounds of ammonium nitrate and a remote controlled trigger.

  My phone rings. I step outside into the parking lot to answer.

  “Rashid?” Kathryn says. “Should I plan to make dinner for all of us? Will you be home? The boys have been missing you.”

  “I don’t think so, the job is still going on,” I lie.

  The top of my head grows warm in the midday sun. I look up at the blue sky framed by the powerlines running along the road. An airplane flies overhead, leaving a tiny silver vapor trail. No one fears the sky here in America. No one checks frantically for what the planes might drop from the sky.

  “So you won’t be home today?” she sounds a little disappointed.

  I imagine us around the table, a little cluster of relationships, love, biology. I ache for this, the simplicity of it.

  “No. Not today. I think tomorrow.”

  “All right,” she sighs. “Keep me posted.”

  “Sure.”

  I sit back in my car, avoid walking back in, I don’t want to attract too much attention to myself. The radio plays another song, “Through all the years, the babies and the tears, I just couldn’t imagine lovin’ this life without you…”