Allah's Fire

by Chuck Holton

  She looked up and down the street at the line of luxury hotels and the small businesses. Then she began her mission.

  As she did every time she came here, she went to the various merchants, retailers, and servers at the boutiques, cafes, and souvenir stands, even to those sitting at the outdoor cafés enjoying a relaxing drink. To each she showed a picture of Julie.

  “Did you see this young woman the night of the fire? No? Have you seen her since?”

  The answer was always the same. “She is very beautiful. I would remember. No.”

  Today Liz approached an old man seated in a white molded plastic chair in an outdoor café two doors from the hotel. His arm was in a sling, and one cheek was black and green and a sickly yellow. His foot in a bright green cast was propped on another chair. A crutch leaned against the wall behind him.

  Liz was sure she hadn’t seen him before, and hope flared. If, as she suspected, he was one of the old men who sat in the cafés for hours each day, enjoying the sunshine, the coffee, and the people walking by, he might well have been here the evening of the explosion. That would account for his cast and the bruises.

  Then again he might have had an auto accident or fallen down the steps.

  “Malhaba.” Hello. She smiled warmly.

  The old man looked up at her and smiled back. At least he smiled until his cheek reminded him that it hurt to smile these days.

  “I made it through the war without a scratch.” His hand went to his bruised face. “Then I sit here in my chair to enjoy the summer night and boom!” His good hand flew up in the air. “I go to help, but the fire is too fierce. I’ve never seen anything like it. As I back away, I trip over something and go down.”

  He had been here! “Oh, I’m sorry.” Liz pulled up a chair to sit with him. Her hand was shaking as she held out Julie’s picture. “My sister was in the hotel when the bomb went off.”

  “Ah.” He nodded. “She is dead. I am very sorry.”

  Liz shook her head. “We don’t know that. We think she might have escaped.”

  The old man frowned. “Not many escaped. And wouldn’t you know by now? It has been two weeks.”

  “I think she was in a room away from the blast.”

  He gazed at the tower, his head tilting as he looked toward the top floors.

  “No, not up there. I think she climbed out a window into that alley.” Liz pointed to the opening between the hotel and the boutique next to it.

  “Why do you think this?” His voice was gentle.

  “I found her necklace there the next day.”

  The old man turned thoughtful. “So much was happening, you know.”

  Liz nodded as she put the picture in his hand. “This is Julie. She lives here in Beirut.”

  The old man reached into his pocket, pulled out a pair of bent spectacles, and slipped them on his nose. He peered at the photo, then looked at the alley. He turned back at the picture, running his finger slowly over Julie’s blond hair.

  “She is very beautiful.”

  “Yes.” Liz wanted to shake him to make him hurry. “But did you see her?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” Hope exploded like brightly colored pyrotechnics lighting a night sky. She dropped to her knees beside him and looked at Julie with him. “What did you see that you think might have been her?”

  “I was lying on the ground with my leg twisted and my head throbbing. I think when I fell, I hit my head and knocked myself out for a while. When I woke up, I realized my leg and arm were probably broken. Brittle bones, just one curse of old age. My glasses were missing, too. Lights were flashing and no one paid any attention to me. Everyone ran to the hotel.”

  He picked up a cup of some brown liquid and took a sip. “I come here every day.” He took another swallow. “Since my wife died, I hate my house. I come here, and I watch the people.” He held out his glasses, and Liz realized one lens was missing. “It is strange when I look through them now. I will have new ones next week.”

  “Good. That’s good. But what about Julie?”

  The old man put his hand over the eye where the lens was missing. “Ah.”

  Ah? What does ah mean? Ah, this is better? Ah, I remember her?

  “You’re lying on the ground. Your glasses are missing. What happened next?” Her voice shook with tension.

  “I felt all around me, and I found the glasses under my shoulder. Even though one lens was gone, I put them on. They did not fit right anymore. That’s when I think I saw a woman with this color hair come out of the alley. She was limping. Her dress was torn. I thought maybe she was a—” He cleared his throat. “But I guess she wasn’t.”

  Liz frowned. A what? Then it hit her. The old man had thought Julie was a prostitute! Because she came out of the alley. Because her dress was torn. Because good women didn’t limp around at night unescorted.

  “No! No! Her husband was killed that night. She was married to a Lebanese man, a banker. And now she’s disappeared.”

  “Ah, well, I think she sat on that big rock by the alley.”

  Liz looked where he pointed. It was the rock she’d sat on the day she found the locket.

  “She sat there and stared at the fire. I lay a short distance behind her and stared, too. I needed a doctor, but not like the people in the hotel. So I waited. She waited. Then a man came up to her. He picked her up and carried her across the street to a car. Two of his friends followed them. It was good to see someone rescued.”

  He thought someone rescued Julie? But that made no sense. If she was rescued, they should already have her back.

  “Who took her? Can you tell me what he looked like?”

  The old man closed his eyes and frowned. “Remember I’m lying on the ground with one lens missing, there are people running and screaming, and it’s dark.”

  Liz felt sick with disappointment.

  “But I do remember one thing about one of the men.”

  Hope fizzed through her veins once again.

  “He wore a black and white kaffiyeh. And the man who carried her put her into a black Mercedes. An old, very dirty Mercedes.”

  Somewhere in Lebanon

  JULIE ASSAN LAY on her narrow bed in the windowless room little larger than a closet, feeling worse than she had ever felt in her life—and that was saying something.

  If she lay on her back, her neck and spine throbbed unbearably. If she lay on her side, her shoulders and hips screamed. Her ankles had lost their flexibility, and her knuckles were hot and swollen like an old lady’s. Even grasping the blanket to pull over herself hurt.

  In short, she was a mess.

  When she had first been brought here—wherever here was—she was fed some drug to keep her docile and pliant. She welcomed the soft, cushiony world rather than face the reality she sensed at the edges of her consciousness, ready to pounce like a lioness on a gazelle.

  Her rheumatoid arthritis and its attendant pain had been masked, but nightmares plagued her, dark, soul-shattering dreams in which she was trapped in a burning room with no air and no escape or in which she managed to climb out a window only to fall and fall and fall.

  Most distressing were the dreams about Khalil. In one he stood in front of her, dressed in morning coat and gray striped trousers, just like he wore at their wedding. Smiling, love lighting his eyes, he held out a single red rose. “An American Beauty for my American beauty.”

  She smiled back, happiness washing through her.

  His smile twisted to a scowl, and the light in his eyes curdled to condemnation. He held not a rose but a scimitar and shouted, “Too much leg. Too much bosom.”

  Crying, she would wake to darkness and the bitter taste of abandonment.

  He was dead. Every time that thought penetrated her haze, a great unbearable weight descended, crushing her chest and making it impossible to breathe. As if it wasn’t devastating enough that Khalil was gone, even worse was the knowledge that they could never reconcile, never heal the rift that had separa
ted them.

  “I love you,” she whispered in the dark, tears wetting her face. “I miss you.”

  She listened for his answer but never heard it. Instead, she tumbled into another terrifying nightmare.

  Then she stopped drinking the coffee they sent each morning with Lebanese flat bread, and the drug haze cleared. While she welcomed the mental alertness, the more aware she became, the more she ached in heart and body. Now it hurt to move at all.

  She eased up on her cot. Was it time for Karima to come again? Julie tried to determine how long since her caregiver’s last visit, but she couldn’t. Her mind was still too sleep-hazed, and the absence of windows kept morning and evening a secret.

  She heard the key turn in the door and smiled. Her internal clock and her captors’ schedule were meshing. Painfully she swung her legs over the side of the cot. She grabbed the kerchief lying on the floor by the bed and with stiff fingers tied it over her head. Being in the custody of strict Muslims meant she must dress in a long, loose dress and cover her head with the scarf. At least they weren’t making her wear a veil.

  She wondered what had happened to the clothes she had been wearing the night of the fire. Not that it mattered much. They were undoubtedly ruined beyond repair. It was her pendant she mourned. Annabelle would just have to paint her another when she got home.

  The door opened fully, and Karima appeared, tray in hand. She walked to Julie and held it out.

  Julie didn’t have to look to know what it contained. She had been given khobez and hummos at every meal for the two weeks she’d been held. She’d always liked the flat bread, and she used to enjoy hummos, but now she’d be happy if she never ate another mashed chick pea in her life. Twice she had been given kibbe, and the lamb dish tasted wonderful.

  Julie took the tray Karima offered in her swollen fingers, more dropping it than lowering it to her lap.

  “Sit.” She patted the cot beside her and smiled at Karima.

  The young woman had cared for her since the first day, bringing her food, helping her walk to the chamber pot, even lowering her and helping her rise as the RA made it impossible for her to manage by herself. And wonder of wonders, twice Karima had managed to get hold of aspirin for her to help dull the constant aching.

  Julie patted the cot again. She’d invited Karima to sit several times before, but always the young woman had taken one look at the guard, standing in the open door, and hurried away. Today there was no guard.

  Still Karima looked toward the door, her face uncertain.

  “Men fadlik,” Julie said in Arabic. “I’m very lonely.”

  Karima gathered her voluminous black skirts close and perched on the edge of the cot as far from Julie as she could get. She had a black scarf tied over her head, covering all of her hair, and dusty sandals peered out below her hem.

  Julie tore off a piece of khobez. She scooped some hummos on it and took a bite. “Did you know that a Mexican tortilla is something like khobez but thinner? So is an American pancake or a French crepe or pita bread.”

  Karima didn’t respond, but Julie thought she was leaning just a bit toward her, like she was interested in spite of herself.

  Julie held out her coffee mug. “Did you know that they drink a lot of coffee in America? I know because I went to college there. Then I went to college in England. They drink mostly tea there.”

  Karima looked at the mug, then at Julie. “I don’t know much about England, but I see much about America.” Her voice was scornful.

  Julie could just imagine. “You mustn’t believe all you see. America is a wonderful country, especially for women. We have many freedoms there.”

  “Indecency,” Karima spat. “Immorality. Exhibitionism.”

  Julie nodded. “Sadly, some of that is true, but most American women aren’t like that, Karima. Most are wonderful people who are kind to their families and friends. They work hard and are good citizens. My sister, Liz, lives in a place called Philadelphia where she writes for a newspaper.”

  “But you live in Lebanon now.” Karima said it as if Julie had come to her senses even if Liz hadn’t.

  “Yes, in Beirut. I’m married to a Lebanese.” As the truth struck once again, Julie closed her eyes against the knife thrust. “Or I was.”

  Karima’s face clouded as she looked at Julie. “I-I am a widow, too.”

  Astonished at the confidence, Julie reached out and laid her hand over the young woman’s. “Oh, Karima, I’m so sorry.”

  Karima lowered her head and nodded.

  When the girl said no more, Julie asked softly, “What happened?”

  “Rashid was a freedom fighter.”

  That said it all.

  The room fell silent, but the tension between her and Karima had greatly lessened by the acknowledgment of the common bond of widowhood.

  “Tell me more about Rashid,” Julie coaxed.

  Karima didn’t need much encouragement. “I fell in love with him when I was fifteen and he sixteen. He was so handsome and strong. He was a good friend of my brother Sami, and he was at our house often. My sister said she couldn’t decide whether he came to see Sami or me.”

  Julie studied Karima. It was difficult to guess her age exactly, but she didn’t look all that much older than fifteen now.

  “One night Rashid and Sami went with others on a raid against the Israelis, and Rashid was captured. He spent five years in an Israeli prison. I thought my heart would break. I was terrified I would never see him again.”

  “But you did.”

  Karima nodded. “When he returned, he was hardened in his resolve and his commitment to our cause. Israel must go. We must have our land back.”

  Julie sighed inwardly. It was more than fifty-five years since the War of Independence and the establishment of the nation of Israel. The Jews weren’t going anywhere. All the world except the extremist Palestinians seemed to understand this.

  “When Rashid came home, we married. I was so happy. Then one night he went on another raid. They brought his body back to me, and we buried him in the clothes he wore, like we bury our martyrs.”

  “Oh, Karima, I’m so sorry.”

  “Allah ak’bar.”

  Right. “How long were you married?”

  “Two months.”

  Two short months! Julie’s heart shuddered at the girl’s loss.

  But Karima didn’t want sympathy. “I am very proud of Rashid. He sought to regain our homeland and was a brave, bold fighter.”

  The two women sat in silence for a time. Julie finished off the hummos and held out her water bottle to Karima, who took the bottle and with a brisk, casual flick of the hand loosened the cap.

  Julie sighed. Such dexterity! It was all she could do to hold the bottle when Karima handed it back. She allowed herself five swallows, let Karima cap it, then carefully bent to set it on the floor beside the cot. Pulling herself upright again was harder by far than the bending down.

  She blinked back tears, uncertain whether they were tears of pain or fear.

  Lord, I hate the chronic aching. And I resent my captivity.

  A tall, thin man she’d never seen before strode in. He wore olive drab, the sleeves rolled up, the legs tucked into high boots. Even though she didn’t know who he was, she knew he was the leader of whatever was going on because of his air of authority. He frowned fiercely at her.

  Was he the one who had taken her? The one who was holding her? “Why?” she wanted to ask, but one look at the harsh set of his features dried her mouth. She tried to look unafraid, knowing instinctively he wanted her to quake with dread.

  Immediately behind him came two men wearing black ski masks and carrying wicked-looking assault rifles.

  One glimpse of the ski masks and the leader got his wish as far as she was concerned. Terror struck deep, making her lightheaded.

  Lord, how can this be? Help me!

  The two masked men rushed at her and grabbed her roughly, each seizing an arm. They pulled her from the bed and
dragged her toward the door. She screamed with fear and pain.

  They paid no heed to her cries, not that she thought they would.

  Lord, this is it, isn’t it? The end. Help me be brave.

  She thought of how shallow her faith had been, how cavalier she’d been toward God. Right from the beginning she told Him how much of herself she’d give Him. Then she knowingly disobeyed His Word when she married Khalil. What right did she have to ask God for anything? But plead she did.

  Please, Lord, don’t let it hurt too much!

  She shut her mind to all the terrible things the news carried about the fate of hostages like her. As the men half-carried, half-dragged her from the room, a wisp of thought carved its way through the wall of fear.

  I will never leave you or forsake you.

  They dragged her down a dark hallway to a dingy room whose walls had once been pastel blue.

  Set into one wall was a large window, and the bright light pouring in made her squint and turn her head away. She hadn’t seen or felt the sun for so very long. Being careful to keep her eyes closed against the glare, she turned her face to the light, letting the warmth wash over her.

  “Over there,” the leader barked.

  The men turned her from the sun and pulled her across the room. The agony in her shoulder joints brought tears. She stared at the black banner hung on the wall opposite the window. On it was painted a verse from the Koran. “Slay the infidels.”

  That’s me. I’m an infidel.

  She shuddered.

  I will never leave you or forsake you.

  The masked men pushed down on her shoulders, forcing her to kneel in front of the banner.

  Lord, it hurts so much to kneel! Her stomach reacted and forced her to swallow repeatedly.

  I will never leave you or forsake you.

  With rough hands the men bound her wrists tightly behind her. The angry man in olive drab strode to the door and barked commands, something about a camera.