After America

by John Birmingham

  “I am afraid it is not a luxury vehicle, Caitlin,” he said. “But the station pays for it and allows me to take it home for family use.”

  She waved away his apology.

  “From what I’ve seen since getting in last night, you’re lucky to have it, Sadie. Main thing is, it’s not going to attract attention.” She paused. “So you’re cool with this?” she asked as they drove out onto the street. “Taking me out as your assistant?”

  She mimed invisible quotation marks around the last two words.

  “It is nothing,” Mirsaad said. “I have been meaning to do a series of reports out of Neukölln anyway. It is one of the local areas where sharia law will be accepted for the resolution of civil cases, you see. If this goes through the parliament, of course. The reality on the ground, as you Americans say, is that German law already holds no sway within the boundaries of the town.”

  They pulled out onto Emser Strasse and into a cloudy gray morning.

  “And do you have an opinion about that, Sadie?”

  “It is rank foolishness,” he said without hesitation. “People do not understand the nature of law, Caitlin. They seem to think of it as an expression of good manners. It is not. The law is codified violence, a balance of power struck in the words of a statute. To cede that power to a rival, as the German state is doing, is to invite a contest for true power at some point in the future. It is inevitable.”

  “So you’re agin it, then?” She grinned.

  “I have daughters,” he said seriously—the full extent of his explanation. He hunkered over the wheel to concentrate on his driving. Caitlin recognized the type. Bret was like that, too. She wondered how he was getting on and wished she could call him and the baby.

  Neukölln was the next suburb over, little more than five streets away, but in that distance the assassin felt herself pass from the modern world into something altogether archaic and oppressive. Mirsaad motored through a former green belt—now a gray and squalid wasteland—just before entering the suburb. The strip of rubbish-strewn land, pockmarked with mysterious sunken pits, mounds of gravel, and the leafless specters of dead trees, marked a visible discontinuity. Back in Mirsaad’s neighborhood she had felt herself in a depressed environment characterized by empty shops, sullen unemployed youths, and occasional bright spots such as Ahmet’s coffeehouse. She had recognized the atmosphere of an economically damaged lower-class area and the low-grade hostility that focused on her as she moved through it, so obviously privileged and wealthy in her luxurious SUV.

  As they passed into the streets of the shariatown, however, all that changed. The footpaths were thronged with many more people, and most of the streetfront shops were open, although not in their original guise. A thriving souk had grown up here, with the locals taking over previous businesses and establishing small but vibrant markets of their own. Caitlin examined them closely. A former restaurant had been converted into a clothing store, with racks of jeans and windbreakers standing where diners once had sat at their tables. Next to it a former liquor store now sold electronics, and a onetime video rental outlet two doors down played host to a smokers’ maqhah, a café offering its patrons a selection of tobaccos and possibly more. Dozens of men sat drinking short cups of coffee and drawing on ornate glass hookahs in the weak morning sun. There were women on the streets, many of them, but they were almost all covered head to toe, some in burkas, some in long shapeless olive drab or gray coats with scarf and veil. And they invariably traveled in groups, always with a male escort. Here and there she did notice a few younger women who wore only a head scarf, like hers. But they, too, had male escorts, and their clothing was still modest, revealing nothing of their bodies’ true shapes.

  “Sadie,” she asked, “what chance if we hopped out and had a look through this lively Persian bazaar that I’d find most of this stuff was sourced from the United States?”

  Mirsaad grinned diffidently.

  “A very good chance indeed, Caitlin. I shop down here a lot. Usually without Laryssa because she does not approve, but it is very cheap and we do not have much money.”

  “I’m not judging you, buddy. You got kids to look after, and I’m guessing the local ALDI is looking more like some gruesome old East German people’s Kommisariat these days. I’m just curious. How much of this stuff has been looted from the United States, do you think?”

  “Let us see,” he said, taking her by surprise as he suddenly pulled over. In spite of the obvious vitality of the local economy, there were still few cars here and he had no trouble getting a curbside parking spot. Before they hopped out, the Jordanian turned to her and spoke quickly and quietly.

  “It would be best if you let me do all the talking. At least here. Your accent …” He shrugged helplessly.

  “Don’t sweat it. You’re the man. I believe that’s how it’s done here.”

  “It is.” He smiled. “Let us go, then.”

  They alighted, and immediately her fair complexion and a few loops of blond hair peeking out from under her scarf drew attention. But Caitlin had worked for many years in both the Middle East and the various diasporas within Europe. She withdrew her stage presence, dropped her head a little, and fell in behind Mirsaad as he stepped onto the footpath and walked over to the clothing stalls she had seen. Immediately an aged Turkish shopkeeper swooped down on him, offering the best “morning price” and bragging about the quality of his wares. When he asked about the infidel woman, Mirsaad laughed his query off and explained that she was a refugee on a government work-for-welfare program with his radio station. She had no money. At that point the wizened old Turk grinned hugely, exposing a mouth full of missing teeth, and immediately lost interest in her.

  As the two men rattled away in Arabic, Caitlin stuck close but took in as much detail as she could. The racks were heavy with U.S. designer labels. Jeans from DKNY, Calvin Klein, and American Apparel, sweats and shirts by Hilfiger and Kors. There were a few European brands in there, too, but not many, and they looked like cheap knockoffs judging by the stray threads and the way the fabric bunched up around the stitching. While Mirsaad and the shopkeeper chattered at each other, she took her time examining some of the items more closely. On a pair of 501s she found a security tag from Old Navy. And three brightly colored Nautica windbreakers still sported price stickers from a Macy’s on Fulton Street in Brooklyn.

  Looking bored but submissive, she let her eyes wander over the electrical goods piled up on makeshift display tables next door. She could see a lot of Japanese brand names for sale at insanely low prices but imagined she would find they’d all been sourced from the United States if she ventured over and checked them out, looted from somewhere on the East Coast. It meant nothing to her, but she logged the information away. Somebody back at Echelon would want to make a file note. The Brits were absolute maniacs for file notes.

  Mirsaad reappeared, looking sheepish and holding up a plain white shirt.

  “I had to buy it,” he said.

  Caitlin said nothing but smiled at him with her eyes.

  “Would you like to look around some more?” he asked.

  “Maybe the electronics place,” she said quietly, staying in character. “I would like to get a small radio … for my dorm.”

  A few minutes browsing the stolen TVs and microwaves farther down the footpath confirmed her suspicion. The Neukölln markets were so healthy partly because the vendors were getting their stock for free or at least for the cost of looting and transporting it back to Europe, which until last week had been negligible. It would be interesting to come back here in a month and see whether Kipper’s Manhattan offensive had made any difference or whether the sellers would be able to find new suppliers. The fighting in New York was intense, but there remained thousands of miles of unguarded Atlantic coastline and hundreds of towns and cities open to pillage.

  When they got back into the car and had safely pulled away from the curb, Caitlin took out her wallet and passed fifty euros to Mirsaad.

&
nbsp; “I’m sorry you had to buy his stolen rags,” she said. “I can pay for them. You did good.”

  He looked like he was about to object, but she insisted.

  “No, Mirsaad. You have kids to feed, and there will be more expense involved before we’re done today. Put it on my tab. I’m working, and I’ll be reimbursed. You won’t.”

  “Okay, then,” he said, obviously grateful. “I did beat him down on the shirt, though. Not as well as Laryssa would, could she bring herself to come in here, but still …”

  “Take the fifty, anyway,” Caitlin said. “Like I said. Expenses. Now let’s have a look around the manor, as my paymasters would say.”

  Neukölln was an Enclosure in all but name, with one crucial distinction: The residents had chosen to shut themselves off from the outside rather than being internally exiled as was the case back in London. That helped explain why the township hummed with an energy that was singularly missing from any of the Enclosures. The locals were exercising their power rather than finding themselves subject to someone else’s. But there was more to it. Driving around, marveling at the vigor and intensity of the street life—even if it did seem to her as medieval and bigoted—Caitlin had to conclude that the engine of the local economy was fired by a primitive but effective form of reverse colonialism. They were living off riches looted from another country, in this case, the United States and maybe Canada. Vancouver had been no more successful at securing and resettling its eastern provinces than Seattle had.

  Mirsaad drove her around for half an hour to get a feel for the place, transiting the center of the village three times. There she found markets that put to shame the small stallholders they had first encountered. A Kaiser’s Supermarket had become a prayer room around which hundreds of people gathered, chatting in the midmorning warmth. Restaurants still wearing the livery of their previous incarnations now served as “Red Sea” grocers, halal butcheries, and in one case a pet store. New proprietors had painted over the signage of a former F.W. Woolworth building on Harmannstrasse, whitewashing the old logo and replacing it with a hand-lettered announcement that it was now operating as the Dahabshiil funds transfer bureau for Berlin. From the brief drive-by it also seemed to be trading as a furniture depot and carpet warehouse. Everywhere they went she saw trestle tables piled high with clothes, electronics, and homewares, all of them surrounded by eager customers dickering furiously with the stall owners. The longer she observed, the more convinced she became that she would have to report back to Echelon in much greater detail than that required for a simple file note. There was real wealth here—stolen to be sure, but it was merely the tip of things. All this bustle and activity—so alien to Europe now—spoke to deeper currents of power. Just organizing the logistics train to deliver all this pillage across the Atlantic and through the German border controls—and who knew, maybe even the French or half a dozen other countries, too—all that implied a vast undertaking. Not necessarily by a single monolithic organization but certainly by an unknown number of networks operating in concert sometimes, perhaps in competition or even conflict at others.

  It was not Caitlin’s area of expertise and certainly not within her mission brief. There would doubtless be other agencies monitoring all this. But her interest was piqued simply because al Banna’s trail did lead here, and she found it hard to believe that Baumer would remain disconnected and aloof from all this activity. If nothing else, the movement of goods and people and the wealth it generated could all be exploited for his own ends, whatever they might be. As they drove past a busy Afro-Net Café on Werbellinstrasse, she decided it was time to find out.

  “Okay, Sadie, let’s head on over to Rollberg. We can get something to eat, and I want to keep an eye on the little council office over there.”

  “Can you tell me why?” he asked.

  “Better if I don’t. I’m looking for somebody. Someone connected to the man I need to find.”

  “The one who sent the criminals to your farm?”

  “Not to the farm. They tried to grab Bret and Monique a few miles away, but yeah, that guy.”

  The Jordanian shrugged. “It is almost time to eat, and I can write up my notes from our tour this morning. This is a fascinating place, do you agree? So full of life and yet darkness, too.”

  He swung the Lada left into the cross street that would take them through to Rollbergstrasse. A group of youths were lounging on the corner, one of them was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the Kurdish flag. A brave choice, she thought, given the large Turkish majority living here. It was also one of the few gatherings of young men she had seen anywhere that morning. Neukölln was a town of women, children, and older men, some wizened like the Turk from whom Mirsaad had bought his shirt, and many others middle-aged and well fed, all deporting themselves with that peculiarly arrogant gait of males who think themselves in charge of their world.

  There were comparatively few young men, though.

  You tended to miss that, your gaze drawn by the packs of black crows, as Caitlin thought of the women in burkas.

  It was as if the young men of Neukölln had all gone off to war.

  She allowed Mirsaad to order her lunch, a falafel roll and a glass of black, unsweetened tea. Not that she would have been allowed to order on her own, anyway. She distinctly heard the gray-haired, one-eyed old coot behind the counter ask Mirsaad whether she was unclean. A younger, less experienced operator than Caitlin might have bristled, but that would have betrayed her language skills and she preferred to move about in seeming ignorance of the conversations around her. Also, there was no point investing emotionally in someone’s stupidity and backwardness. It was simply data to her, something to be filed away, possibly for future reference, possibly not.

  She sat demurely at the small round table under the shade of an awning, watching the small office building across the street. A large sticker, the emblem of the Berlin city council, stood out on the boarded-up front windows. She assumed they had been smashed so often that the glass had been replaced with plywood. A heavy metal grille protected the front door, which opened every few minutes to let visitors in or out.

  Mirsaad returned with the rolls before doubling back to fetch their tea.

  “This is good?” he asked.

  She nodded as the piped in music increased in volume.

  Mirsaad leaned forward and spoke in a soft voice, in English. “We can speak freely here if we are careful. I know the owner. He is married to my cousin.”

  “That old guy?”

  She nodded toward the one-eyed troll behind the counter before taking a bite of the roll. It dripped with chili and yogurt sauce, and she enjoyed the pleasing crunch of the falafels and their warm soft filling. The tabouleh, as always, reminded her of shredded weeds.

  Mirsaad’s mouth sketched a quick grin. “No. He is just filling in. He speaks no English.”

  She decided to take that information with a pinch of salt. After all, nobody but Mirsaad knew that she spoke Arabic.

  Keeping one eye on the small council office across the street, she took a sip of tea and adjusted her posture to stop one of the machine guns from digging uncomfortably into her breast.

  “What sort of story are you going to file?” she asked.

  The reporter finished chewing a mouthful of food before answering. “Not one that will make me popular with the good burghers of Neukölln,” he said quietly. “The shariatown vote is very big news here. Very divisive. It is being used by the right to whip up anti-immigrant feeling. It is being used in the Muslim neighborhoods to further entrench separatism. Meanwhile, guilt-ridden liberal Germans torture themselves over how much respect they must show other cultures because of ‘past mistakes.’”

  “The best lack all conviction while the worst are full passionate intensity, eh?”

  “Something like that, yes,” he answered once he understood what she meant.

  “And your story?”

  “Well, I must be balanced, of course.” His cheeky expressi
on implied that he would be nothing of the sort. He leaned forward and spoke carefully. “But I see nothing good coming of this, Caitlin. Back in 2001, well before the Disappearance, the Islamic Federation of Berlin, after twenty years of trying, finally succeeded in getting the city to allow purely Islamic schools to take in Muslim children. The city no longer controls those lessons, which are more often in Arabic than German and usually are held behind closed doors, especially for girls. Not long after that, the hijab became much more common. Girls began leaving school as early as possible. Groups of male students formed associations that now lobby for their schools to become fully fledged madrassas. It is a disaster for these children, and for Germany …”

  He paused and glanced around the small café.

  “I see this vote on localized sharia law for civil cases as being the same but worse, infinitely worse. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes.” She nodded while keeping one eye on the building across the street.

  “Let me tell you a story,” he said, warming to his theme so much that he forgot his lunch. “When I first arrived in Germany in 1992, I came as a trainee for Deutsche Welle Radio. I was hired partly because of my background, partly because of my language skills. I speak five languages; did you know that?”

  “Bret did say something about it once,” she said, nodding. Two black crows and their male shadow disappeared behind the iron grilled door.

  “The flight I caught from Amman stopped in Turkey, and many migrants got on. Families of guest workers. One of them sat next to me. He looked like a goat farmer, because he was a goat farmer from somewhere outside Nevsehir. He had never flown before. Probably never been in powered transport at all. I had to do his seat belt for him. Show him how the tray table worked. Show him to the toilet. I don’t know what he did in there, but I heard the crew complaining bitterly about it later. He sat next to me in his old sandals and skullcap, working his prayer beads. He was inches away but unreachable. He lived in another time. Another world, Caitlin. If he is alive, he lives there still, despite having been in Germany for over fifteen years. His body might dwell here, but his mind and soul remain firmly in the past. A past he considers superior in every way to the reality of modern life.”