He sipped his bourbon and surveyed the room, imagining what it would have been like attending the function with Jami. Would they have clicked? Become a couple? Would she have been as provocatively dressed as some of the other women in the room? Exotic. Alluring. That was the right word, alluring.
His second bourbon set his mind aglow. His thoughts returned to the girl … Cheryl Haddad, barely out of high school. He wondered about her relationship with Dalton. Had they been lovers? He had been attracted to her, he knew that, but not as much sexually as sympathetically. Yes, she had been attractive. There was no question about that, but she was so … alone. Vulnerable. John realized he felt protective when he thought of her. He wondered if she’d made peace with her mother, wondered if she’d ever contacted AAAI in Chicago. Maybe he could get a journalist interested in her father’s case. He made a mental note.
As he threw back the last of his bourbon, he wondered how Jami and Cheryl’s fate might be locked together. A young, innocent professional murdered by extremists for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The girl from Joliet, whose father had disappeared more than a decade ago. Their stories were beginning to meld into one in his mind.
“John.”
He looked up to see the senator.
“Let’s head in and get seated.”
They followed the crowd into the ballroom, the senator shaking hands with others along the way. At the head table, John saw a nameplate with his name on it. Reserved, John Veranda. He swelled with pride. Finally, he’d made it. Big time. Well, sort of big time. Still, if only his parents could see this, and especially his classmates from Saluki. He took his seat and introduced the senator and himself to the others. The person sitting next to him introduced himself as Salim.
“Your senator, he is very brave,” he whispered.
“Senator Wamsler fights for what he believes in,” John replied.
“Seriously, he has the courage. But he will likely lose the election. The political money is against him. AIPAC will destroy him.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that prediction, but now, for all his high-minded ideals, John’s first thought was self-serving. He finally had a seat at the table, but it could all so easily go up in smoke if the senator lost his re-election bid. Stuart told him he was naive, but he still couldn’t understand why was everyone in this town was so consumed by AIPAC’s influence over Congress. To his knowledge, AIPAC donated millions to national elections and especially campaigns of senators on the Foreign Relations Committee, or to those who had oversight of foreign aid. But other groups had plenty of money to throw at campaigns, too. What made AIPAC the group feared by everyone whose name was on a ballot?
He tried to push the idea of losing his job out of his mind and turned his attention to the buffet. With a second bourbon under his belt, he needed food in his belly to make sure he didn’t end up under the table.
He relished the wonderful aromas, but didn’t recognize many of the dishes. He’d eaten at a Moroccan restaurant and at an Ethiopian place in Adams Morgan a couple of times. Those were both pretty weird but absolutely wonderful. He leaned toward Salim and pointed to the buffet table. “Can you tell me what this is?”
“Kibbe, a staple of Middle Eastern meals.”
“And that one?”
“Kibbe.”
“And that one? Kibbe, too?”
“Yes!” Salim laughed. “Kibbe comes in every shape, size, variety, lamb, beef, meat, no meat, thick crust, thin crust, raw meat, cooked meat, pine nuts, no pine nuts, spicy, bland. You name it.”
“Kind of like pizza, I guess,” John cracked, as he dished several varieties of kibbe onto his plate.
As they ate, and conversation was directed at the senator, John excused himself. He’d spotted the AAAI director and thought he’d be able to shed more light on the perpetrators who bombed their offices—and on Jami.
“Sir, John Veranda. We met briefly before—”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Veranda. I am so sorry we met on such a sorrowful day. It seems inconceivable that such a bombing could take place in this country, and in our capital, no less.”
“And the girl, Jami . . .” John found himself choking on her name. “You must be devastated. Her family must be devastated. Is there a way to send condolences?” Veranda felt like he was revealing his real reason for speaking with the director.
“Yes. I’ll get the information for you and send it to you through Senator Wamsler’s office. One cannot conceive of a more ironic tragedy. A young Jewish woman working in the offices of a Middle Eastern civil rights group in America murdered by Jewish extremists. Kafka could not have made this up.”
“Has the FBI obtained evidence as to those responsible?” He’d read just that morning in the Washington Post that the evidence was far from conclusive.
“What the FBI finds hardly matters. The crime has all the marks of Kahane and his cronies at the Jewish Defense Organization. The attacks on our offices in Boston, New York, Los Angeles were similar, they’re the radical terrorist wing of the Israeli settler movement.”
“Have you found new offices yet?”
“We were outgrowing the old one anyway. Jami had been to an event at the Kuwaiti embassy earlier in the evening, and they found some money to help us out.”
Yes, she told me, John wanted to say. If it wasn’t for that event, she might have been out to dinner with me instead of back in the office and she might not have died. Instead he said, “I guess they don’t have to look very far.”
The director chuckled. “And we are grateful to Jami’s family. They’ve made a sizable donation, along with their synagogue, to our organization in her name and dedicated a scholarship fund to the continued pursuit of peace and her passion for human rights.”
“The irony continues, perhaps?” John said. They shook hands and John returned to his seat at the end of the dais thinking only of sending his condolences to Jami’s family. No one knew he had asked Jami out that evening, and he saw no reason to tell anyone. Stuart had always teased him that he wore his heart on his sleeve, his emotions in his shoulders, and that the contents of his brain poured out of his mouth on a regular basis with little prompting. Yet this he kept buried inside, something unfulfilled under lock and key.
His thoughts turned to Jami’s last seconds. What had they been like? Had she been afraid? Had she died instantly, or had she suffered? What condition was her body in when the paramedics got there? He didn’t have the right to ask any of these questions. Jami was not family, friend, classmate, or even acquaintance. She was only a quick business introduction, a short phone call from the street, and a date for lunch. She represented potential only. But oh what potential. The potential for love, a life together, a family perhaps. As the days and hours and weeks since the attack ticked away, John became more convinced that his life would have been intertwined with hers, had she lived.
Instead, her death was the death of love at first sight.
With a nudge, Salim pulled John out of his thoughts.
“Here comes dessert,” he said, “the reason why it is good to be of Middle Eastern heritage. Or know people who are!”
“What do you mean? More Kibbe?”
“No, no. Baklava! The dough so thin it melts in your mouth, a mirage of sugar and honey, a sweet dream that always comes true.”
As dessert was served, Senator Wamsler stepped to the podium and delivered his speech, heavy with condolences to AAAI and the Strachan family, and the denouncement of the unspeakable violence. He alluded to his formidable political foes without mentioning AIPAC by name and issued a plea for campaign contributions.
After the senator’s closing remarks, the AAAI director said that the serious work of community organizing, media relations training, and electoral politics would begin with renewed dedication first thing in the morning. But, he said, “I will not give a long speech with such a festival before us. Tonight is for our enjoyment and fun. So please, stay and celebrate!”
The
hall was immediately filled with traditional Middle Eastern music as belly dancers appeared in the ballroom doorways and twirled and shimmied through the aisles, gold medallions flashing and colorful scarves flying. John headed for the bar again, chatting along the way with bejewelled women and men anxious to meet the senator’s aide. He got his third drink, a beer this time, and took a swig as the music changed. An older man next to him set down his drink and clapped John on his back.
“Now you must learn the dabke!”
“The dabke, what’s that?”
The man removed his jacket as he talked, revealing a pronounced paunch. “The dabke is our traditional folk dance from the Levant. You must join in.”
Join held up his beer in protest and the man shrugged and took to the floor with an agility that made John smile. Any sense of somber reflection had evaporated and a growing group of men were on the dance floor forming a circle.
“Come, come!” John turned to find Salim at his side.
John held up his drink in response. “Maybe the next round. After I study it and see how it’s done.”
“Study the dabke? There is no such thing. You learn by doing!” Salim wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Remove your jacket and follow me, my friend.” John decided it would be rude to resist. Even the senator was on the floor. He shed his suit coat and followed.
Salim was right. Soon John was holding hands with a beautiful older woman on the left and Salim on the right, following their lead, stamping his feet and watching the man at the head of the line twirling a white kerchief while leading the whole group around the dance floor. The dabke seemed to flow into and through them like they were all born knowing the beat, knowing the steps, like all of life was made for these moments.
Thoughts of Jami and the girl who lost her father left him. The flavors and aromas from dinner not only lingered in his mouth, they infused the pores of his face, the lining of his throat. His smile widened as the moment swept him away from sorrow and what might have been or worry about what he’d do if he lost his job or every other mundane thought. He stamped his feet and moved to the driving beat of the music, reveling in the joy of being a part of something outside himself, of something old and lasting and new and exotic.
And then he saw the security guards enter the room from the adjacent side doors and realized the music had stopped, replaced by the wail of fire alarms piercing the atmosphere and turning the night from pure joy to sheer panic. At first, guests on the dance floor appeared stunned. Those few still seated rose to look beyond the crowd to where heavily armed police now swarmed around the entrances of the ballroom. John looked down the line to locate the senator only to see a man in a dark suit ushering him toward the exit. A loud speaker squawked that everyone was to move calmly to the exits and evacuate the building. This wasn’t a joke. John wondered if, like Jami, he and the others here would be blown to bits as, all at once, the throng became one huge coagulating mob, surging toward the doors.
Police called for calm and managed to get everyone downstairs and out on the street. Rumors ricocheted through the crowd that a bomb scare had been called on the hotel or that, no, it was just a fire in the kitchen.
An hour later, the room was cleared. False alarm. No suspicious packages found. No fire in the kitchen. As people began to make their way upstairs to gather their things, John looked around again for Senator Wamsler. No doubt he was long gone. John checked his watch. 11:20. He realized he’d left his jacket in the ballroom. He didn’t care. He could get it from the hotel’s lost and found tomorrow. He took one last look at the crowd, turned, and started walking.
A year later, John and the other staffers spent a grim election night watching the numbers flood in. Wamsler lost. It had been a squeaker, but there was no second place in politics. The next day, the staffers were told to begin looking for other jobs. Wamsler was heading back to Illinois to take a job at a prestigous Chicago law firm. He told John he’d put in a recommendation for him and that he was sure there’d be a place for him in the firm, but doing corporate law was not what John had signed up for. He cleared out his office and went home for Thanksgiving. He stayed in the bedroom he’d grown up in and told his parents he’d be returning for good by Christmas.
Interlude
Ya abi,
I have been looking for a real job, Papa, a skilled job, but have had no luck. I answer classified ads for positions as writers or copy editors, even applications for journalists on small newspapers just to get started. People tell me what a great talent I have for writing, but I guess if I don’t have a college diploma, no one will hire me.
Maybe I should have listened to Frank Dalton about college when I had the chance, instead of believing all of his praise about my talent. Mother was right. She said teachers are trained to give students positive reinforcement, not the truth. Well, he’s history now, no point in dwelling on him. The idea of sitting in classes for another four years with the same kinds of people, the same teachers, to get a piece of paper just doesn’t seem right.
I did at least get one call for an interview, but the man said if I was hired I’d start by writing obituaries. I couldn’t see how anyone could write about people who had died for the entire day, or week, or month! Then he told me he had fifteen applicants for the job. And they all had college degrees.
Anyway, I can learn on my own, which is why, Papa, I’ve made a grand resolution for this New Year! Every year from now on, I will pick one subject and learn as much as I can about it throughout the year. If I have money, I might take a class or two as a supplemental thing. I can get books and tapes and records at the library and even play them there with headphones and all.
My first subject is music, the history of music, the great composers, all those composers and music you taught me to love! I am going to try to attend as many performances as I can, although it might be a little difficult because I don’t have much money since I’m still waiting tables at the diner.
Papa, I wish you were here to tutor me, and learn with me. We would have so much fun together. The composers you introduced me to, as I have since discovered, only scratch the surface of what’s out there. Wherever you are, Papa, I hope you are able to listen to the music you love, and taught me to love so much.
—Yom tani fil jannah bin tak
16
October, 1994
Father Moody recognized the truck bombing in the parking garage of the World Trade Center for what it was: a silver lining. His FBI surveillance work had dwindled to practically nothing throughout the mid-1980s. First the Berlin Wall had come down in 1989, then the Cold War was declared over, and the peace dividend became a fixture in federal budget rhetoric. It had all been bad news for Moody who remained on the FBI payroll in name only, given a monthly stipend barely covering the minimum payments on his credit cards and his revolving charge accounts at Chicago’s finest clothiers.
After Bill Clinton was elected in 1992, his handlers told him to seek work elsewhere. He wasn’t exactly involved in the kind of government work that promised retraining when you were laid off. He couldn’t construct a resume from clandestine undercover work. There were opportunities in private sector security, but his brand of surveillance was being eclipsed by technology: video cameras at important public locations, high-crime hot spots, and high-profile buildings and landmarks.
Private investigator work wasn’t an option, because he had no experience actually investigating anything. After thirty years with the FBI, he realized he had no marketable skills in a world where peace was breaking out all over. And he was long past done with pretending to be a man of the cloth. His cover as the faithful Father Moody, respected priest of the Syriac Orthodox Church, was not an option. Hell, he’d lost his faith before he was even out of seminary. So for the past few years, he’d measured the deterioration in his standard of living by the dwindling length of curb space needed to park his automobile in front of his Lincoln Park townhouse.
Finally, he’d caught a break. He answered one o
f those ads in the paper, which could be anything from door-to-door sales to pornography. Self-starter, work from home, make your own hours, that type of ad copy. Turned out it was The Association of Health Insurance Providers initiating a pilot program to determine if their members could increase revenue through higher premiums on smokers. Moody had to agree to sign a confidentiality statement before talking to the association’s representative the first time. After he got past that wicket gate, he called his handlers at FBI to see if they could pull some strings.
During his second interview, he was told an industry lobbyist recommended him. “Word is, you’re the kind of guy who doesn’t need to be trained to keep his mouth shut.”
The Association guy rattled off statistics like machine gun fire. The known percentage of smokers in the population at large was twenty-six percent. Those who self-identified on their insurance forms as a user of tobacco products were less than one percent. Most smokers were smart enough to prep for their medical tests, so tobacco derivatives would not show up in the urine samples.
“The business model is pretty simple, really,” the man said. “We can charge anywhere from twenty to thirty percent more in life insurance premiums for smokers. We just need to catch the liars.”
“More smokers, more money . . .” Moody continued with the obvious logic. “So, what will be my job?”
“We give you a list of names, addresses, workplaces, that sort of thing. You gather hard evidence someone is a smoker. Bring back a photograph, for example, of the person smoking or buying cigarettes.”
The Moment Before Page 12