Amriika

by M G Vassanji

  The Community at first protested and went to see Stokes. They were rudely turned away. They went to the town council and the police, all to no avail. Then, one Thursday, three days after the books first appeared in the store, a large demonstration took place. Three hundred people from nearby areas, including Detroit and Windsor, Canada, were present. Angry speeches were made, and there were a few calls to burn down the bookstore. An action committee was struck, which included Michel. It met once, the night of the protest, but nothing came of the meeting. At the demonstration, however, Michel met two of his comrades from the Movement, Roy and Pierre, both of whom had gone with him to Dar. It was an amazing coincidence, though Michel did not make much more of it then. They had come from Ann Arbor to observe the proceedings, they told him. They too apparently had left the Movement.

  Then late Friday night the bookstore was bombed; events took a frightening turn against those who had spoken out at the demo. But Michel was certain now that Roy and Pierre’s presence in town had been far from a coincidence; the Movement had to be behind the bombing, it was just the sort of thing it would do, to draw attention to Islamic extremism. When he called the number in Ann Arbor which the two men had given him, he found that it was not even in operation. Who would give heed to his suspicions? Not the government, surely. He was onto a hot story but was himself under suspicion. He took a plane to Los Angeles from Detroit to look for Mr. Darcy of Inqalab. It was Mr. Darcy, after all, who had exposed the Movement’s activities in Dar once before.

  “The activities in Dar es Salaam did not involve bombing or any such crimes,” Ramji observed.

  Michel, seated across from Ramji, looked down, shook his head. “But you don’t know the Movement. Roy is no ordinary guy, I know that he used to go on the more active assignments.”

  “Which involved bombing places and so on?”

  Michel nodded.

  “Still, you have only a suspicion.”

  “That’s why I came to Inqalab.”

  “What did you think it could do for you?”

  “Publish my story. That’s all. You don’t have to do anything else for me — after that I’m on my own.”

  It was late. Michel had gone out for a long walk. Rumina was on the couch, absorbed with a recent preoccupation, writing in what she called her Swahili notebook. Ramji sat in front of his computer monitor screen, musing.

  So finally this is the story. And we sit here in the silent night, hostage to the events it describes. Electron images on a screen, really, put there by the fingers of this man.…And Michel, whose story this is, is out strolling in the street, thinking what? I wish I knew. The first part of his story has the ring of truth to it, it corroborates Darcy’s own version of the Pork Riots, and there’s the plane ticket and other evidence. But the last, the crucial part, hangs together with the rest by the sighting of two people and a suspicion. If there was a truth to that suspicion, surely the authorities would pay heed and dig it out. And, if necessary, a story in our magazine would provide the incentive. Isn’t that why he came to us, after all? I only wish all this was somewhere far away and not here in my own home.

  But suppose if that last part of the story were a lie.…Michel had grown into the household. You wanted to help him if he was in trouble. How do you imagine such a person making a bomb, planting it outside a bookstore window, causing a blast that would kill three innocent people?

  After the action committee in Ashfield have met, some of the younger members (three, for instance, is a good number) get together to form an even tighter group: outraged at the treatment of the Community and their faith by townsfolk, they will do something about it. They call upon Michel’s boasts of assignments abroad with a secret organization, and he shows them how to make a bomb. Late one night, when the protests have died down and things appear to have gone back to normal, they plant their device outside the bookstore and await the results …

  But then evidence of the bomb-making would be found, surely — some place where it would point a finger at him and his friends? He could always say it was planted there by the Movement …

  Rumina appeared behind him, said, “You look sad,” put her arms around him. “What is it?”

  “I don’t quite know … it’ll go away.” He took one hand and fondled it, kissed it. The idle screen in front of him, he noticed, was now showing a calming aquatic scene.

  “Anything I can do to make it better?”

  “I don’t think so …”

  “Oh?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way —”

  She tried to pull her hand away, but he wouldn’t release it. She tugged harder and their eyes met, hers flashing, his pleading. Don’t change, his told her, don’t become like that — and she thought the better of it and came closer, her face level with his.

  “It’s Michel’s story, isn’t it? Why have you kept it from me, and why is it so hush-hush?”

  “It’s almost finished — you’ll be the first to read it when it’s done. It’s not hush-hush. It’s just that I —”

  “All right. I’ll wait.”

  She eased herself gently from his hold and went away, and he stared after her, his heart pounding. Perhaps you’ve already guessed, he thought. Perhaps you already know.

  10

  They had failed to watch the news last night, and so a headline in the morning paper’s front page caught him with a jolt:

  BOMBING SUSPECT DETAINED.

  An FBI spokeswoman acknowledged Thursday that a male suspect has been detained in Detroit for questioning in the bookstore-bombing case. He was identified as Asif Lalji, a businessman, aged 25. Other suspects are expected to be named soon, the spokeswoman said, adding that a nationwide net had been cast for the perpetrators of the bombing on January 20, which claimed three lives and destroyed approximately a third of the bookstore. Several hundred people have been questioned by federal agents …

  Ramji passed the paper over to Michel, across their breakfasts, with the item of interest facing up, and Michel took his time reading it, before looking up and saying quietly, “They haven’t named me,” then adding a little more strongly, “They’re completely on the wrong track. Asif only spoke out against the book.”

  And the right track? And Asif? Rumina was home, lounging in the living room taking in the gloss of Good Morning America, having promised Michel a sightseeing tour later in the day. Ramji had convinced himself not to misinterpret what was only a natural act of hospitality on her part towards their guest. So, telling Michel to be discreet and not draw too much attention to himself, and giving Rumina a look that implied the world (kissing in public had never been their way), he drove off to work.

  Today was the day of decision, in the matter of Michel, though the outcome was far from certain. But, it seemed to Ramji, they had taken so long simply listening to Michel’s story that Inqalab now owed it to him to publish it. After that, as Michel himself put it, he was on his own. But would Darcy go along with that? Michel’s presence appeared to have unsettled him. He seemed uncharacteristically cynical, and even unpleasant towards Michel, when he should have welcomed the young man who had come to seek his help, drawn to him by his radical image, his sensational exposé in Dar, his magazine. To Ramji, even in his drunken form Darcy had seemed far from himself. Well, we’ll see today what he comes up with …

  As soon as he arrived at the office, Ramji handed copies of Michel’s story to Darcy, Basu, and Zayd. The four of them got together in the conference room a couple of hours later, and a bitter quarrel ensued over the story’s fate.

  Darcy and Zayd had begun a heated argument in the latter’s office, emerging from it still debating, pausing just long enough for Zayd to scowl and tell John and Sajjad to disappear until after lunch, before entering the conference room. Basu and Ramji were already seated across from each other; Basu had just invited Ramji to a wedding reception for a friend’s daughter in Torrance on Saturday. Darcy sat as usual at the head of the table, Basu and Zayd further up on either side
, and Ramji next to Zayd.

  By Michel’s own admission, Darcy argued, he had trained in the use of firearms; had even volunteered for, as he put it, more dangerous missions; and therefore had shown himself willing to damage property, do physical harm, perhaps even kill. He had expressed no qualms about misrepresenting himself as a religious zealot or fanatic, as he had done during his sojourn in East Africa. His views on the Phantom’s book were unequivocal — he disliked it intensely, he had been part of a rally that had called for its burning. Perhaps he was not very bright and was easily duped. How could one be assured then of his innocence? Perhaps he had been deluded into thinking the Company had ways of hiding him, had contacts that could take care of him.

  “We simply cannot publish it. It’s too risky.”

  “But we’ve known of the risks all along, Mr. Darcy,” Basu said. “We’ve never been afraid to take risks in the past — it’s in the nature of our mission as journalists.”

  Darcy glared at Basu, then at Ramji. “There’s a line to be drawn. We cannot afford to be associated with this — this — fanatical element,” he said. “We cannot be seen to be abetting terrorists — or —”

  “Please!” exclaimed Zayd.

  Why did it take the old man three days to tell us this? Ramji wondered. What was he up to yesterday? Did he run any checks on the Movement, as he said he would? And since when has he been afraid of risk? He’s been to jail for publishing his views, he’s been beaten up for exposing people, he risked his visa application to the U.S. for a controversial account of the Pork Riots in Dar.…And now Michel’s story about the Movement: one risk too many?

  This business about Pierre and Roy, Darcy went on — unable to hide a sneer at the mention of their names — surely that was a red herring. How could any organization, let alone the Movement, believe they could get away with a bombing in the United States with such a far-fetched plan, implicating innocent citizens? He didn’t believe it.

  “We need to find out more about those two, Roy and Pierre,” Basu said. “But timing is of the essence. Much of the story is true in any case, and if the rest isn’t, we can retract; we’re only journalists. This is our chance —”

  “We wouldn’t have to retract it,” Ramji said. “We simply publish it as the story told to us by a frightened young man from Ashfield — the town where the bookstore was bombed. He came to us because he trusted us to listen to it.” For the briefest moment he met Darcy’s eye. “We owe that much to him — we led him on, after all. We’ve always known his story ultimately had to do with the bombing, he told us at the outset what his views were on that book, and that he thought he might be named as a suspect.” Ramji paused, then finished: “And if any part of it is untrue, so be it, it’s his responsibility, he’s out in the open and answerable.”

  To which Zayd said emphatically, “It’s our opportunity for a major story. We have a man in our hands who has a damning story to tell about the hypocrisy of the U.S. government abroad.…Look, Mr. Darcy,” Zayd pleaded, “this is what we’ve always stood for — the little guy, the powerless fellow. The poorest countries of the world who are pawns of big governments, where children die because they cannot afford a couple of Aspirins or a blanket … you’ve stood for the same causes before —”

  “Yes,” answered Darcy tersely, “and for more than forty years now.”

  “Then let’s publish this guy’s story, for God’s sake. Part of it you yourself were witness to, you wrote about it. The rest of it, true or not, can be our — our gift to him!”

  “We don’t give gifts to killers,” said Darcy in the same cold voice.

  “So now he is a killer!” Zayd shot back, losing his temper. “What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’? Does he look like a killer? He is from your community! Ask Ramji, he’s known the boy — Ramji, does he look like a killer to you?”

  They all stopped to stare at Ramji, and he returned their look hesitantly: Zayd turned sideways to face him, impatient, ready to shake an answer out of him if need be; Basu, a sympathetic eyebrow raised, perhaps sensing his discomfiture; and Darcy, almost sinister with that thin cold smile, so different from the convivial guest of the other night, lovesick and nostalgic in his cups, spouting Persian poetry.

  “I think by ‘killer’ we mean here someone who planted a bomb for a cause and in the process killed some people unintentionally,” Ramji said, but didn’t answer Zayd’s question.

  Darcy’s smile turned triumphant, and Zayd looked away disgustedly.

  Do we know what it means to kill? Ramji wondered. Do we see the death, the destruction, and the grief when we speak so glibly about it? Do we think of the survivors and what we owe to them, and to the memories of the innocent dead? … We owe it to them and to our own security, and to that of those we love, and to our commitment to make this society work, to hand over the guilty to punishment.…Perhaps these thoughts, or some of them, came only much later, when the time came to sit with himself and understand his actions, look at a shattered, legless torso of a woman and ask: How did I come into this picture?

  Ramji went on, “But, to be absolutely fair, Mr. Darcy, we’ve not used terms like ‘killer’ and ‘terrorist’ so lightly in this office before.”

  “A wrong choice of words on my part then,” Darcy said, reddening a bit. “In any case, I don’t want to dredge up that pork incident now, unless it ties in to the bombing, which I am not convinced it does, as I’ve just explained. I know you people are disappointed, but this is where I stand.”

  He looked briefly across at each of the other three men in the room, both his hands on the table, as if ready to get up if there was no more argument. Boyish-looking Zayd, toying with his pen, eyes smouldering as he glared first at Ramji and then at Basu, couldn’t resist the gauntlet. In a controlled voice that seemed to take him an effort to achieve, he said, “Forgive me for saying this, Mr. Darcy, but you don’t seem to be the same man who took over Inqalab from Basu and me. And also, this is not the first time you have stood in the way of a crucial, unique, and groundbreaking story — there was that PLO interview …”

  “I have not stood in the way of anything!” said Darcy sharply; a spray of spittle from the mouth, a drink of water, then a clearing of the throat. “All I have required is a rigorous editorial policy and less of this hot-headed radicalism simply for the pleasure of it!”

  He carried the vote, by way of veto. The story could not go in.

  Meanwhile what to do with Michel? He is not our responsibility, Darcy said, flatly — it’s up to his family to help him. We are his family, in a manner of speaking, you and I, Ramji thought. If Michel calls his relatives in Ashfield now, Zayd said, the cops might be upon him and us like a pack of hounds. At this juncture Darcy got up and left the room. When he had gone, the rest of them felt free to discuss Michel’s fate. Zayd volunteered to spend time with Michel the following day. Let me take him off your hands, he said to Ramji, at least for a day. I’ll take him to meet my family, and on the way I will also discuss his options with him.

  And he took it upon himself to verify, in the coming week, as much of Michel’s story as was possible. The story was still there, he said, it hadn’t gone away. There was only the question of what to do with it, and when.

  Basu improved on Zayd’s suggestion. Why not convince Michel to return to Ashfield in the meantime — that would create a good impression on the authorities there. It would also take Michel off their hands completely, though they did not voice that thought.

  It was finally agreed that Zayd would pick up Michel from Ramji’s home the next day and convince him to return to Ashfield, reassuring him that some of those at the Company would try to do whatever they could for him.

  Following that meeting Ramji drove straight home. When he arrived, Rumina and Michel were not back yet. It was four o’clock and Ramji decided to go out for a walk. It was brilliant outside but gusty and he wore a sweatshirt over his shorts. He felt dismal; the quarrel earlier in the day at the office had bee
n bitter and emotional; it had left echoes, many thoughts in the mind. Yet perhaps it had been inevitable. After all, Darcy was only human. It was he, Ramji, who since his childhood days had held him up in awe, a fiery knight fighting selflessly and with abandon for the causes of the downtrodden. And perhaps he had been some of that, once upon a time. But who could fault him, this late in life, for being too careful, for not taking the risks he might once have taken?

  Ramji walked all the way to Manhattan Beach and back. When he returned, Rumina and Michel were not back yet. He made himself a drink and sat down in the living room. He wondered if it was time to cook, decided not yet. All of a sudden he found himself entertaining a thought which startled him. It would be so unlike me, he said to himself — yet it would be perfectly within my right to do what I am about to do.…He paused for sounds, in case that very moment Michel and Rumina had arrived and were on their way up. They weren’t. Then, still a little nervous, he went over to Michel’s room and looked for his guest’s valise. It was on the desk, and he unzipped it open. He found the L.A.–Detroit return ticket, the incoming boarding pass, a dog-eared John Grisham novel; a copy of Inqalab, a couple of months old; a diary with assorted entries. Next, Ramji went through the clothes in the closet, found nothing interesting. So far so good, he thought; as it should be. He found the suitcase under the bed, pulled it out. There was a lock on it. Ramji knew all about these luggage padlocks, they provided only placebal security. He went out to the kitchen, found a bunch of tiny keys in a cabinet drawer, and in two tries had the suitcase open. There was an attaché case inside, with a hefty feel to it, locked with a combination. Nothing else of significance. Stumped, angry — why couldn’t this search end simply? — Ramji put the suitcase back as he found it. He went back to the valise, flipped through the diary. There were phone numbers and addresses, of friends, family members across the continent, the Company in L.A., and a few others, unfamiliar. And then two short, cryptic entries caught his eye, one below the other: each beginning with the letters LH, followed by three digits and then what seemed like dates and times, for the coming Sunday night, Monday night. Pulse racing, yet with cold purpose, he took the book to the kitchen, copied the lines on a piece of paper, returned to the bedroom, and put everything back, telling himself, Ramji you’re imagining, this means nothing. But a locked attaché case in a locked suitcase? No proof, and you have his word.…Word? Can I simply depend on his word? You want an easy way out, admit it.…But what’s the harm in making sure, one owes it to oneself, and to the girl who’s naively showing the guest around?