Finding Nouf

by Zoë Ferraris

  "And you didn't tell her family."

  Muhammad crossed his arms and pressed his lips into a line. Nayir already knew the answer—Muhammad would not have told the family about Nouf's business any more than he would have told the police. Yet his silence made Nayir angry. An escort's job was to guard a woman, not to spoil her. A favorite phrase of his uncle's came to mind: If you cannot harden your heart, you cannot raise children.

  "Why didn't you tell them?" Nayir asked coldly.

  Muhammad wiped the sweat from his forehead. "When I got to the zoo that day, her motorcycle wasn't there. I waited at the service entrance for an hour, then I went into the zoo itself, but she wasn't there either. So I left. I thought she'd changed her mind, and I figured if she needed me, she'd call."

  "Yes, but later, when you realized she was missing—you don't think the family might have wanted to know where she was supposed to be, even you didn't think she'd been there?"

  Muhammad flushed. "Look, I checked the whole zoo—she wasn't there, and there was no sign that she'd been there. I didn't see how it would have help—" But his voice cracked, betraying his regret. "I honestly didn't think she'd even made it there that day."

  Nayir bit back his frustration at Muhammad's selfishness and idiocy. "What made her go to the zoo in the first place?" he asked.

  "She liked looking at the old exhibits. I told you she loved animals." His voice was shaky. "I swear I didn't see her there that day. I swear it in front of Allah."

  Nayir barely suppressed a snort. People were inclined to swear a good many things in front of Allah, most of them sincere, but this felt dirty. Muhammad was the one person Nouf had trusted, yet he'd done nothing to find her. If he'd just told the family about her trips to the zoo, they might have been able to put the pieces together more quickly. There might have been a chance they could have found her alive.

  "She trusted you," Nayir said. "She must have told you who she was meeting that day."

  Muhammad's blush was slow but harsh; it burned a streak down his neck. "Eric, I thought." He tried to look cool, but his voice trembled with anger. The meaning of the anger struck Nayir like a punch. Muhammad wasn't just concerned for her safety; he was jealous, and he feared that she'd been sleeping with Eric.

  "So perhaps she did meet with Eric when you couldn't keep her in your sights."

  Muhammad looked furious. Nayir remembered his beautiful wife, their baby, the apparent domestic bliss. He couldn't imagine that Muhammad had slept with Nouf, but now he knew that Muhammad had loved her, or believed that he did. He certainly glorified her and let himself be swayed to assist her in all sorts of potentially dangerous acts: running away, riding a motorcycle, meeting strange men in remote places. It was no longer a shock that Muhammad would lie about Nouf's secrets; what amazed him was Muhammad's possessiveness. How could he expect honesty from Nouf when he was in some way lying to his wife?

  Suddenly Nayir felt ashamed to have brought this kind of conversation into the masjid. He rose abruptly.

  "I'm sorry," the escort said. "I should have told you everything before."

  "I am not your judge." Nayir motioned for him to stand up. Muhammad rose and followed him out the door.

  By the time they reached the street, Nayir's thoughts were so busy that he could hardly focus. He forced himself to turn to Muhammad. "Did your wife know about your feelings for Nouf?"

  The escort's twitch of embarrassment answered the question.

  "I see," Nayir said. "Ma'salaama!"

  He was halfway down the block when he remembered one last thing. He turned back to find Muhammad still standing by the mosque, looking bereft.

  "Why would Nouf want to buy a pair of glasses with no prescription?" Nayir asked.

  Muhammad's look of shame turned to one of self-loathing. "For her costume," he muttered. "She had a small bag of clothes that she was going to wear when she got to New York. She was going to leave Qazi at the library, so she bought a suit that made her look like a librarian."

  "What else was in the bag?"

  "A wig, a brown suit, some high-heeled shoes. She was going to wear the glasses too."

  Nayir gave him one last disgusted stare and went back to his Jeep.

  Nayir left town and drove south toward the Shrawi estate. The sun was blistering the road, and to his right the ocean seemed to laze in the heat. Following the coastal highway, he drove past the bridge road until he came to a white, expansive beach that was popular with windsurfers. It was just south of the estate. On his boat, during summer excursions down the coast, he'd passed it many times, but the presence of so many small boats and surfers had always prevented him from getting a closer view.

  He parked the Jeep at the edge of the beach near an outcropping of palms. The water was gentle; no one was surfing. To his left the sand extended as far as he could see, but to his right stood a strange, rocky region, beyond which lay a series of private enclaves, each sectioned off by high stone walls. The walls extended a good ten meters out to sea. Families came here seeking privacy so that their women could enjoy the water. There were no homes nearby; the beaches had thick iron gates and padlocks.

  It seemed logical that if Nouf had jet-skied from the island, she would have come here. Not only would the currents have favored it, but this was the closest shore for a landing. The rest of the nearby coast was rocky. It also seemed unlikely that she would have hauled the jet-ski out of the water—much easier to leave it in a quiet spot, behind the confines of a stone wall on a private beach.

  To access the restricted areas, Nayir had to cross the rocky part of the strand. It took him a good fifteen minutes of stumbling to navigate the field of jagged black stones. The stones were obviously imported, although for what purpose he couldn't imagine. Perhaps the wealthy beach-owners were hoping to thwart an attack of windsurfers. When he finally reached the first stone wall, he was winded, scraped in a dozen places, and nearly mad enough to abandon his Jeep altogether and swim back to his boat, never mind that he was wearing his coat.

  The wall was in a state of mild disrepair. Large stones were missing in places, and a concoction of sand, dust, and guano quilted the upper half. First he walked up the shore and inspected the gate. It was locked and impenetrable, a sheer slab of iron. Then he went back down the length of the wall, searching for a hole large enough to squeeze through. Nothing was suitable, and besides, squeezing into anything had never been his forte. His would have to be a vertical assault.

  Because of the wall's jagged design, heaving himself up proved easier than expected. When he reached the top, he stood up and looked around. A series of identical walls spread out before him, each neatly sectioning a ten-meter-wide portion of beach. Directly below him was a private enclave.

  The enormity of his task quickly became apparent. It would take him a whole week to investigate every beach, climbing up each wall, down the other side, snooping around in search of ... what? A cabana? A small pier? Quite possibly each beach had one or the other. And even if he did have a whole week to waste, he doubted he could scale so many walls.

  He climbed down the wall into the first enclave. The beach was empty, but he looked around anyway. Nouf might have chosen this enclave. It was at one end. To the north, the other end pressed up against the bridge road that led to the estate. She wouldn't have docked there; it was too close to home. She would have had to use the main road to reach the highway, and that would have been risky. Anyone driving into the estate could have seen her. She would have chosen this end of the beach. At least, this was where he would have come if he were Nouf.

  Finding nothing in the enclave, he scaled the next wall and looked down. A small skiff, looking as if it had been untouched for decades, was tied to a metal hook in the wall. Propped beside the hook was an old cabana, timeworn and somehow friendly. He began to get excited. In his mind he could see Nouf's slender black form, waspish and intent, buzzing across the waves on a yellow jet-ski and docking at this beach. He climbed down the wall.

&nbs
p; Inspecting the sand, he found a chaos of footprints, some of them small enough to have been made by a woman. He wrangled the good pink stiletto out of his pocket. A rudimentary comparison proved that at least three pairs of the footprints might have been Nouf's size. Many of the prints ended at the cabana.

  The cabana's door was held firmly shut with a combination lock on a metal hasp. He walked around the shack looking for an alternate ingress, but there weren't even windows, so he went back to the door. The lock was stubborn, but when he yanked it, there was a crack of wood and the entire metal plate, hasp and all, fell into his hand, leaving the door swinging free.

  Gently he opened it and peered inside. What he saw made him whistle with delight. In the center of the room sat a shiny black motorcycle propped elegantly on its kickstand.

  Beside the door he found a camping lantern, which he used to prop the door wider. Sunlight flooded into the narrow space, which was spartan, dusty, and smelled vaguely of sunscreen. A basket hung from a nail in the wall, and in it he found a tube of lipstick, some powder, lotion, and a small box of cardamom-flavored Chiclets. Beside the basket a white robe hung from a hook, and a helmet hung beside it, with a pair of gloves tucked inside. On the floor, half hidden beneath the robe's hem, was an old city map. He picked it up and read the scribbles in the margins. It was a graceful script, in a woman's hand. Second left after stoplight and right on the first dirt road after that. Someone had circled the zoo.

  Nouf. He rubbed the back of his neck against a quick chill. He had imagined her many times, but he'd never had quite this feeling before, as if at any moment she would step into the room. He went outside and looked around, half expecting someone to be there. The beach was empty, but the eerie sense of her presence remained.

  He ran a hand down his face and went back inside. The motorcycle was slender and elegant. He walked around the bike, but in the shadows behind it his foot hit a soft spot, and with another loud crack the floorboard splintered and his foot dropped into the sand below. He extracted his foot and saw an edging of black beneath a thin veil of sand. Bending over and prying out the floorboard, he found a hollow space, almost a compartment. In the space was a small black book, no larger than his hand. He was so surprised that at first he didn't touch it; he just stared as if waiting for it to become an old brick or a rotten slab of wood. But no, it was a well-worn, leather-bound book. Gently he brushed the sand from its surface and took it out.

  In the empty compartment, a hint of light came from the left, and putting his face as close to the floor as possible, he saw that the compartment was an arm's length away from the sunlight. Someone had probably slid the book in here from the outside.

  Opening the book's cover, he discovered a journal, as densely packed with text as a Quran commentary—written text, in this case, in the same elegant script he'd seen on the map.

  "Allah forgive me." Turning to a page at random, he began to read.

  In the name of Allah, all-merciful, all-knowing, I almost killed myself today, but I was too frightened to do it. I didn't have the courage to see my own blood. So I got on my jet-ski and rode like crazy, I rode and rode until I ran out of gas and I was all alone in the middle of the sea. I could still see the coast, but it was getting dark and I thought I would die by accident then, because THEN I realized I didn't really want to die, I just wanted to get away. I was so happy to realize it, and so, so scared to realize that I MIGHT die, because of stupidity. But then, like an angel's messenger, he showed up on the boat. He came with the spotlight and the horns and somebody else, and he pulled me out of the water. Allah, forgive me, I held on to him and cried and I didn't let go until he took me home. And I never even asked how he found me.

  Nayir skimmed the next few pages and read another passage at random.

  Allah, please forgive me, I know it's wrong to love him, I know it would chain me and make me miserable for the rest of my life, but my whole body yearns for him. I can't stop thinking of him. I remember every little thing he does. I wish I could always see his smile, hear his voice, so soft, so secure and intelligent. I long for his touch and he KNOWS it, but he doesn't act. He can't. Neither can I. It would lead to so much pain, so much danger for me—and for him too, I know it.

  He tore his eyes away. Who was she writing about? Someone with a boat, or access to one—but that could be anyone. Boating was an extremely popular pastime, especially on summer nights, when being on the water was the only way to cool down. What sort of man would have followed her out to sea?

  Miss Hijazi was right; there had to be a third man. Nayir skimmed a few more pages but found no mention of a name, only a vast outpouring of frustrated longing. He decided to read the journal later, when his mind was clear. He tucked it into his pocket.

  Then he got up to inspect the bike. It was covered in a fine coat of sand. The glove compartment was unlocked but empty, and much too small to hold a pair of shoes. He peered at the handlebars, the pedals, the seat, any place she might have touched, if only to make sure that he'd covered all the bases. There was a heavy coating of sand on the tires, caked into the treads. He stuck his finger into one of the grooves and scraped the sand into his palm. It was a fine grain, the palest beige. Most likely it had come from the desert. When he stood up, his eye fell on the chrome logo on the gas tank. A Honda logo. His fingers traced the familiar design: a bird with a single wing spread to the side. Each feather was deeply grooved. Then he saw it.

  "Allah, what a fool!" He touched the logo again. Five feathers, as neat as the stripes on the camel's leg. Looking closer, he saw a trace of blood and hair on the logo. It was probably from the camel.

  In a rush, it came together. So this was how the killer had returned from the desert. Nouf had arrived at the zoo on the motorcycle. The killer met her there, knocked her out, and put her in the truck. He squeezed the motorcycle into the back of the truck with the camel, then drove to the wadi. The heat must have turned the logo into a brand—thus the marks on the camel's leg. Once the killer had abandoned Nouf, the camel, and the truck in the desert, he hopped on the bike and rode back here.

  Nayir left the cabana and stared at the sand. Ten dozen pairs of footprints led down to the water, and another five dozen led up to the gate. At least one thing was obvious: after ditching the motorcycle, the killer could have gone in any direction.

  He took a miswak from his pocket and began to chew. Although the killer hadn't left obvious prints in the sand, he had left a curious print of sorts: the fact that he'd returned the motorcycle at all. Clearly he knew Nouf well enough to know about this beach and its cabana, just big enough to hide a bike. It was what a person would know if he'd been following her around on a boat at sea. But once he returned the bike, which way had he gone?

  Nayir walked down to the water's edge. There was no jet-ski there, only the small boat. He looked around for a pair of oars but saw none. Muhammad had said that Nouf used a jet-ski to get to the beach. According to Othman, the servants had found her jet-ski at the island's dock on the afternoon she'd disappeared, so whoever had returned the motorcycle here must have taken the jet-ski back to the island. Did he do it to get rid of the evidence that Nouf had been at the beach? Or did he do it because it was his only way to get home?

  Nayir looked down at the mysterious whirl of footprints and decided it was time to call Mutlaq.

  ***

  Later that afternoon the two men climbed over the wall. When Mutlaq saw the sand, he gave a low whistle.

  "An awful lot of activity," he said, rubbing his hands with relish.

  Nayir followed him around, listening to every hmmph and trying to divine its meaning from Mutlaq's face, but his friend wore a look of intense concentration.

  "You were here," Mutlaq noted. "And so was your friend Othman. But not at the same time."

  Nayir struggled to understand how Mutlaq would know that, then he remembered that Othman's prints had also been at the campsite in the desert.

  "He was here before you," Mutlaq said. "The
se are his prints—very recent, too." The prints were deep, and once Nayir had isolated them from the dozens of others, he saw something else.

  "He came here with someone?"

  "With a woman, I think." Mutlaq pointed to the other prints, which were smaller but also deep. "It's a strange fact that people make deeper prints in certain types of sand at night."

  Nayir thought Othman must have come here with Katya, although perhaps he'd come with one of his sisters. "So you think they were here in the evening?"

  "I'd say it was pretty dark."

  "Do you recognize any other prints from the desert?" Nayir asked.

  "Yes. Othman didn't come here with the girl from the desert. But she came here before him. Here." He traced a set of tracks leading from the jetty to the cabana, and another set from the cabana to the gate. Apart from shoe size, the two sets looked nothing alike. When Nayir pointed this out, Mutlaq merely shrugged. "So she changed her shoes in the cabana. From the cabana to the gate, she was walking with a motorcycle—here are the tire marks. She probably needed sturdier shoes to ride the bike."

  Nayir didn't know what to say. He trusted Mutlaq.

  "In any case," Mutlaq said, pointing to the prints near the motorcycle marks, "these are the same footprints we found in the desert."

  "So let's say Nouf left here with the motorcycle," Nayir said. "Who brought it back? It's in the cabana right now."

  Mutlaq wandered around. He was able to isolate the motorcycle's return, but the footprints beside it had all but been obscured by more recent marks. There was only a single print, and it belonged to Nouf.

  Mutlaq walked around the print, studying it carefully from a variety of angles. Then he knelt and got very close to it. He even pressed his cheek to the sand and inspected it from the side. When he stood up again, wiping his cheek, he said, "It's Nouf's print. She brought the motorcycle back."