One side is covered with a hand-drawn engineering design, with labels in English and Arabic.
“Can you make it? It’s our signature detonator.”
“I can see what it is, Ali, I’m an engineer.”
He gives me a leering smile. “I know, that’s why I was so happy to meet you.”
“No. I’m done. I’m not your tool.” I move toward the door.
“We’re all tools of Allah, brother. Don’t resist it.” He slams his fist dully on the table, then closes his eyes and slumps back in the chair, like a puppet released of its strings.
He looks ugly. His hair unwashed, and several weeks past due for a trim. I think for a moment that I hate him. That I want to beat him up for his childish sermonizing and tiresome opinions. I take a step back toward him. It would not be a fair fight. He is hardly more than a boy, and in this state, couldn’t even return a punch.
He cracks open one eye, smiles. “We need each other, Rashid. I can’t do this without you, you can’t do this without me.”
“I don’t need anything from you.” I turn and walk back into the night.
The early sun begins to chase away the darkness on my street. After two nights at home, the way seems clearer. I will talk with Kathryn’s father. I will tell him I have some information. He will know who to contact, what to do. This is his country.
I ride the elevator down to the parking garage. In the car, I look in the rear view mirror, catch the reflection of my eyes as I back out of my space. If only I could wash away some of the things these eyes have seen. Robert Capen, he will help. I’ll call him this afternoon.
Pulling out of the garage, I slam on the brakes as a man nearly jumps in front of my car. Ali. He raps on the window glass on the passenger side. I unlock the doors.
“What the fuck, Ali? Get in,” I hiss. I don’t want anyone to see him here with me. He jerks back into the seat as I peel out of the driveway.
“Nice building, Rashid.”
“What do you want?” I rack my brain, but can’t remember when I might have given him my address.
“I need a detonator.” He says matter-of-factly.
“That’s not my problem.”
“I think you don’t understand this situation.”
“No, Ali,” I slam my brakes at a stoplight, “I think you don’t understand. I’m done. I did what you asked. I’m sympathetic to what you’re trying to do, but I won’t give up my wife and children.” I look at him, feel unsteady even as I will my voice to sound forceful. “I’ll take you to your bus stop. And then…and then Ali, I don’t want to see you again.”
We drive in an eerie silence. My mind racing through my options. I need to call my father-in-law today. How to explain this to him? He can do something. Will I be arrested?
I pull up to a bus shelter. Ali looks at me, with something that looks like kindness. “I’ll see you soon brother, our fathers need your help, it’s not complicated.” He slams the door and I leave him.
The ferry will leave for the offshore rig in an hour, and the tools still haven’t been packed properly. I try to keep my mind on the checklist, hurrying so I will have time to make a phone call. My stomach rumbles, but the thought of food makes me nauseous.
At the vibration of my phone in the pocket of my coveralls I lose control of the tool in my hand, it clangs to the floor. “Fuck,” I mutter to myself, ashamed of my own weakness.
The phone again shows me an unfamiliar number. I open the message, another image sends fire through my veins. The little screen shows an office window, seen from outside. Through the glass I can see the outline of a woman holding her own breast in one hand, a little bottle in the other. Another vibration. Another message. She is a devoted mother, making your son’s milk. Keep them safe.
I flee to the bathroom, fumbling over Kathryn’s office number three times before I get through.
“Kathryn, where are you?...are you pumping?...why the fuck do you keep the blinds open?”
Kathryn replies defensively. But in my head I hear my father’s words: We don’t show our women, when other men see their flesh, they can’t help but lust. So we protect our women, keep them safe.
“Close the fucking blinds…and please, just be careful…” Of what? What could I say that she would understand? “I love you.” I cut the call before she can respond.
I dial another number. “You take a step closer to my wife and I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”
“Habibi,” Ali says smugly, “no need to sound like a Hollywood film hero.”
“She has nothing to do with this.”
“Yes, your American wife must be innocent.” He pauses, “So you will make it for me?”
I exhale, bang my hand against the bathroom lock.
“Come to my place, now. Bring your tools.”
“You promise me she won’t be harmed.”
“I promise…on my father’s soul.”
“I’ll be there in an hour.”
I drop the phone in my pocket, turn and double over, retching into the toilet.
Chapter 7
* * *
Ali looks disheveled, tired. I don’t speak except to ask him for water. I work at his kitchen table, devising a simple plastic explosive trigger than he can set himself. Every few minutes he comes to me, touches my shoulder, recites verses from the Koran, praising me as a good Muslim. I try not to think about anything but the mechanics of what I am doing. After several hours I explain the trigger to him. He presses me to configure the signature detonator his paper describes in both English and Arabic—as a back up.
“I won’t go with you,” I say.
“I know,” he says softly. “But you will leave this country.” He places a piece of paper on the table next to me, an airline itinerary for flying to Dubai via Vancouver. “It will be better for you, for your sons, if they cannot find you in America.”
The flight departs tomorrow. Ali places a Canadian passport on top of the paper. The photo inside is me, the name belongs to another, matches the name on the airline itinerary.
Ali pulls out his phone. “Look at the camera, Rashid.” I look up, surprised. He snaps a photo of me sitting with my tools, the detonators I have assembled. He presses a few buttons.
I reach up to grab the phone. He slaps my hand back. “I have already sent it. My Egyptian friend will be sure it goes to the proper authorities if you cause any trouble.” He pauses, waiting for me to understand his seriousness. “Now, you will travel with this passport as far as Dubai.”
“No, I can’t go tomorrow.” What will I tell Kathryn? I need to see the boys again.
“When the time is right Sheikh Omar will be able to help you in Pakistan.”
“Sheikh Omar?”
“You’ve met him. Everyone in the CIA would like to get as close to him as you have been.”
“Abu Omar’s son,” I whisper to myself.
Ali recites an address in Pakistan’s southern port town of Karachi, makes me repeat it a half dozen times until he is sure I won’t forget. He refuses to write it down.
The sun has set and Ali pulls back the curtain. No street light shines in. “The darkness will cover us as we load the truck.”
I look up, distraught. I haven’t thought about loading the truck.
Ali shakes his head. “Don’t even think about complaining, you’ve come this far. I still need your help with this.”
I only want to sleep. I close my eyes and pray for this whole scene to disappear.
“Now!” Ali roars, suddenly livid.
I look up, astonished.
“Please, habibi,” he softens.
I stand, follow him to the truck, listen to his explanations for how we will pack the canisters, with shrapnel—nails, ball bearings, nuts and bolts—above the explosives. I do as he tells me, he has planned more carefully than I believed possible. I don’t speak, only think of how I can warn Kathryn, get word to her father.
Near dawn Ali closes the back doors of the truck. He o
pens the driver’s side door, shows me a small metal safe on the front seat. “Fireproof,” he says proudly. He opens the door, places a Koran inside. He holds out his hand, “Your ID, Rashid Siddique. You won’t want to be that man after tomorrow.”
“But if you have my ID, it will look like I was in the van with you.”
“Exactly, brother. If they think you have blown up with me, they won’t go looking for you.” He talks to me simply, my mind must reach across the chasm between our thinking to understand him. “I’m giving you a chance. A chance to go safely. A chance to go someplace. You can call your wife and children to you later, insha’allah.”
“No. No.” I can only shake my head.
“Brother, you can’t resist your fate. Come.”
He takes my arm and we walk inside the house. He closes the door, locks a padlock from the inside.
Ali drives me to the airport departure level. All of my identification, my phone, even my wedding ring, sits inside the fireproof safe between us. A small suitcase with clothes Ali has provided; a wool coat, a change of shirt, some socks, rests at my feet. He has filled my wallet with enough cash to see me through a few weeks. I stare at my image in the Canadian passport, trying to memorize the spelling of this other man’s name.
Ali’s clothes are immaculate, a white button down shirt—perfectly ironed—and a pair of black dress pants. He has trimmed his beard and washed his hair. I feel a strange intimacy with him, as if I have been with him the night before his wedding. He is nervous and excited.
The freeway delivers us to the airport dangerously fast, inexorably in one direction. And here we are. Ali pulls up to the curb.
“Please, just wait a day, Ali. Just one day.”
He doesn’t want to stay too long at the curb. “Fly away, brother. May the blessings of Allah be upon you.”
I don’t move. He starts to look irritated.
“All right. Sure. I’ll give you 24 hours. What does one day mean when I’m bound for heaven?”
I nod. “And blessings upon you too.” I step out, turn back. “There will be no shame if you change your mind.”
But he is already looking over his shoulder to pull into the next lane. I recite the license plate number.
I proceed to a computer kiosk for my boarding pass. Once I am safely past security I will find a phone, alert the authorities, call Kathryn. Or when I arrive in Vancouver, once I am safely out of this country. I have 24 hours, don’t I?
I stand in the security line, my shirt sags with perspiration. A businessman stands in front of me, grumbling about the inefficiency of the TSA. Two teenaged girls chatter meaninglessly behind me. I see a Sikh man in a turban reach the conveyor belt, remove his shoes, belt, jacket, steel bangle. I have no turban, no bangle, how can I pass as a Sikh man?
My hand trembles as I show my boarding pass and passport to a woman in a blue shirt with a black badge. She shines her light on the passport, looks me in the eye. I blink. The girls behind me snap their gum. She looks again at the passport, scowls. Her latex glove-covered hand scribbles with a pen on my boarding pass. She nods and I move through.
I follow the business man, who is already setting his shoes in a plastic tray. “I sure do feel protected from the terrorists with this extra security,” he says in disgust. He pulls out his belt, holds both ends the same way I had once seen my father loop his belt before he struck me for disrespecting my mother. I freeze, feel myself a teenager again, wonder if he will whip me for my behavior. Then the man throws his belt in the tray and the girls shove their own trays onto the conveyor belt. And I am through.
I walk quickly to the gate, avoid looking anyone in the eye. The plane is on time. I have time, I can call. I just need a phone. When did the pay phones all disappear from the airports? I hear a woman announce the boarding for my flight.
I glance around, notice a mounted television screen. A live helicopter shot shows a plume of smoke, flames rising toward the sky. Scrolling across the bottom of the screen …car explosion on the 10 freeway at the 405, unconfirmed reports of several fatalities.
“Oh my God,” a woman near me covers her mouth
I close my eyes, bow my head. He didn’t wait. He knew he wouldn’t wait. He did this. He couldn’t have done it without me.
I can only move in one direction. I join the queue to board.
Chapter 8
* * *
The air hostess pantomimes the safety procedures, points to the emergency exits with practiced boredom. My foot shakes, almost uncontrollably. I remind myself the foot is not mine. I am no longer Rashid Siddique. The foot belongs to Srabjeet Dhillon, Pakistani-born Canadian citizen. This flight will return me to my “home” in Vancouver and then I will take a connecting flight to Dubai.
We taxi down the runway and I force myself not to look out the windows. This is not my city, not my country, no longer my home. I reach for the in-flight magazine, flip through the pages without seeing any of the images. The plane accelerates and lifts off the ground, I feel the invisible tether that holds us to the earth strain and then snap against the force of movement. For a moment I am weightless, homeless, disconnected from both the head and tail of my family. I must think only about myself during this trip, I must be alert to any commotion, any security alert, or unusual announcements from the pilot. If someone comes to me to ask questions, I must have my answers, my story ready. I close my eyes, I will stay alert with my ears. The woman next to me chats to her husband about who will pick them up from the airport and then about the grocery shopping they will need to do. I resent the triviality of their lives, then envy their connection to each other, to the person who will deliver them from the airport. I wonder about Kathryn and the children. Exhaustion overtakes me and I drift into a black sleep.
I hear a question, once, then repeated, twice, three times. “Sir,” the woman is starting to sound agitated. I open my eyes, scrambling to remember how I will answer questions, which pieces of false information I will provide. “Sir, do you want anything to drink?”
I exhale, letting my shoulders drop. “Water, please.” She hands me a plastic cup and I pour the water into my mouth, feeling only a void where my body should be. Trapped between the other passengers, I fear the flight crew. Can they tell what I have done? What in fact did I do? I took revenge. I honored my family, I tell myself. Maybe Ali pulled me through what was written for me, to take a stand against an aggressive and inhumane military. Innocent blood shed for innocent blood.
Paralyzed with anxiety, I do not leave my seat during the flight. So once the plane lands and I walk the jetway unmolested, I dart into the nearest restroom. I relieve the pressure in my bladder, only to understand my vulnerability as soon as I leave the stall. I pull the wool coat out of my bag, pull up the collar against a phantom cold and join the flow of people on the concourse. Without speaking to anyone, I check in for my flight to Dubai at the electronic kiosk. Without baggage to check, I proceed directly to the security line. I resist the urge to seek out a television screen, to stand before it and wait for the ticker line at the bottom of the screen to tell me about what I have set in motion.
I look at the floor as I pass through the metal detector. I wish to be invisible against their eyes. So many ways they have to look into my physical presence. But this will give them no clue of who I really am, the history of my family and my actions. I must shield the contents of my heart and my mind, protect my memories so they will not betray me.
I brace myself for the pressure of a guard’s arm, for the sternness of an alerted voice. But only the usual irritated flurry of the airport surrounds me. Within minutes I am on another airplane, strapped into a seat. The plane ascends into the sky and as if my heart felt only the decreasing pressure of the atmosphere outside, it expands, almost to bursting. I am filled with a giddy lightness. I have done what was written for me. Somehow I have accomplished my mother’s wish and have escaped not only the country, but the continent of those who murdered my father. I look at my hands, pre
ss them into fists and open them again to expose my palms. They are copies of my father’s hands. When I was a child, I wondered at how big his hands were, the flat nails and calluses, always clean, despite his work. I touch each of my fingers in turn. Perhaps my father was working through them. Perhaps he recognized them as his own and took control of them. I interlace these fingers, his or mine, I can’t be sure, and rest them in my lap, closing my eyes to pray for my father’s soul. May it rest now.
When the meal comes, the man in the next seat passes me the little plastic tray, making an opening for conversation. He asks if I have been to Dubai before. I begin to answer yes, but then catch myself. Has Srabjeet been to Dubai before?
“I flew through on my way to Canada.”
“I have not been before,” he says, a faint roll on his r hints at an Arabic accent. “I flew from Beirut directly to Montreal when I emigrated.”
I nod my head, hoping to end the exchange, but he continues. “I will be teaching Islamic history in Dubai. Well, not exactly in Dubai, but nearby, at the American University of Shaharjah.”
“Sharjah?” I ask, correcting him.
“Yes. I meant Sharjah. How do you know it?”
I shouldn’t have said anything. I shrug my shoulders, allowing for the possibility that the name is common knowledge.
“Well, I understand it’s a very good university. I’ll be teaching about Islamic history, you know, the time when we dominated the world because of the power of our collective intellect, our grasp of mathematics and astronomy, poetry and geography. We could, of course, return to that golden age. But we are continually disgraced by a small group of radicals. You know, people with narrow minds, bent only on showing the West they have devised clever ways to surprise and kill people, like those crazy people in Los Angeles.” He takes a bite of his food. “You are a fellow Muslim, yes?”
Beneath the Same Heaven Page 26