Arab Jazz

by Karim Miské

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Listen . . .”

  “No, you listen! You have seriously fucked up. I gave you a very simple task and look where we are now!”

  “But it was that fat fuck’s decision to get his brother on board. What was I meant to do?”

  “Fat fuck or no fat fuck, you should have stuck to the plan. For the moment, tell your people that we’re shutting everything down, then zero contact with anyone.”

  “Even the stuff already underway?”

  “What’s underway is underway. When that’s done, until you hear otherwise, we lie low.”

  The cigarillo-smoker hangs up and then redials, this time a cell number. Two rings, then a gruff voice with an indistinguishable accent answers.

  “Hello, is that you?”

  “Who else would it be?”

  “I’m busy, it’s time for . . .”

  “I only need a minute. Has my nephew left?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Make sure he does what he’s been told. Afterward, we’re taking a vacation. We put everything on hold for a while.”

  “But why? We’ve got plans, needs . . .”

  “It won’t be for long . . . Anyway, that’s how it has to be for now. We’re following orders, ya khouya, we’re following orders . . .”

  *

  The man from the telephone booth is now walking down the deserted street. A shadow appears by his side as if from nowhere.

  “Salaam.”

  “Yeah yeah, salaam.”

  “What’s up? You seem nervous.”

  “Someone’s fucked up. You’re going to have to sit tight for a bit.”

  “Not right now; give us a bit more time. We haven’t even reached twenty percent of our target.”

  “Ten percent, twenty per cent . . . I couldn’t give a fuck! We’re stopping. We’ll wait for the storm to pass and then we’ll see. You’ve got your guys under control, right?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “There we go. End of discussion. I will contact you.”

  “Peace be with you, brother.”

  “Yeah yeah, and with you. Right, goodbye!”

  *

  Rachel is sleeping like a baby—carefree, dreamless, breathing deeply—when the telephone rings. Before she even opens her eyes she knows that it’s 3:00 a.m. and that it’s Bintou and Aïcha. She grabs her cell, checks the time—3:06—and the name of the caller—Aïcha (VIP)—before hitting the green button.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello . . . Lieutenant Kupferstein, it’s me. Aïcha. I’m with Bintou. Sorry for calling so late.”

  “Don’t be sorry.”

  “We’ve got a technical question for you.”

  “A technical question?”

  “Are you on Skype?”

  “Skype?”

  “You know, that thing for making free calls anywhere in the world.”

  “No, I don’t have it. Why?”

  “Because Rébecca has agreed to talk to you on Skype this time tomorrow, so long as we’re there too.”

  “I see. Well I’ll get it installed for then. All you need to do is come around here at 2:30 a.m. We don’t have to do this at the station . . . Tell me, did you ever hear Laura mention ‘filth’? As in ‘the filth of the earth’? Ring any bells?”

  “Hold on, I’ll ask Bintou . . . No, Lieutenant, not as far as we can remember. But it does sound like something a Jehovah’s Witness might say . . . Ask Rébecca tomorrow . . . Laura confided in her the most about her past. Goodnight, Lieutenant.”

  “Goodnight, Aïcha . . . And since you’re phoning me at three in the morning, you might as well call me Rachel.”

  “Okay, Lieutenant . . . Uh . . . Rachel. We’ll try. Oh, er, do you know Sam, the barber?”

  “As in Sam’s . . . the men’s barber shop. Why?”

  “Well, I don’t know . . . Err . . . It might be worth . . . keeping an eye open . . .”

  “Is that all you’re going to give me?”

  “That’s all for now . . . See you tomorrow, Rachel. Sorry again for waking you.”

  Lieutenant Kupferstein just manages to get her “See you tomorrow” in before the line goes dead.

  Fully awake now, she goes online, finds the Skype website and downloads it. She hears the “ping” signaling a new message . . . Sent by Kevin Gomes half an hour ago. He’s managed to have a chat with an ex-Witness from Niort who seems to have a few things to say about the Vignola family. Damn he’s good! Ball’s in her court . . . The guy is willing to see her, she just needs to send him a message confirming the time and place. Tomorrow, 3:00 p.m., at Le Thermomètre in République. Rachel writes an e-mail to potterlover666@free.fr before sending a quick “thank you” to Kevin. Seventeen minutes later and she’s asleep again. Not so bad.

  15

  Watchtower Society, Brooklyn. Twenty-one months earlier.

  A file entitled “Shipments/Belarus” tucked under her arm, Susan pretends to be lost as she wanders the endless corridors that she knows like the back of her hand. Though it does take a while to familiarize herself again with the contours of this labyrinth of interlacing tunnels lit by cold, neon strips, glass-clad capillaries feeding the countless rooms and blocks that make up the complex known as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. Built a century ago at the foot of Brooklyn Bridge, the global headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is a veritable hive, and one which the faithful never have to leave. This amniotic universe, with its central heating in the winter and air conditioning in the summer, provides them with everything they could possibly need. The Watchtower . . . Susan Barnes had lived there with her father, Abel, and her brother James since their return to New York in the month she turned four.

  An expert at maneuvering the twists and turns of the building, the young lady slows her pace to give herself time to decide whether or not to go for yet another coffee in the cafeteria. She checks her watch and gauges that it’s time to make a brief appearance at her work station. She forks right, nods at ten new faces and a former colleague from Office Supplies, stops and opens a door. Logistics: European Department.

  Three sets of middle-aged female eyes home in on her immediately. Unflustered, the young lady—slender, beautiful, detached—heads toward her desk and sits down. Her boss whispers to her in a voice that manages to convey both venom and sweetness.

  “Susan, where have you been?”

  “I was fetching the Belarus file—look!”

  “And that took you a whole hour . . . ?”

  No answer. It’s just a game. For nine minutes Susan plays the role of employee, flicks through the file, and completes seventeen lines of her Excel spreadsheet. She then excuses herself in an aloof fashion.

  “Right, I’ve got some errands to run. I won’t be joining you for lunch.”

  She leaves. The three frustrated women don’t even look up. The boss settles for a malevolent hiss under her breath.

  “That one . . . If it wasn’t for her father . . .”

  She walks at an assured pace, subtly taking out her cell from her black leather handbag, which is virtually identical to the ones slung over the shoulders of the mass of people packed together in the wide corridor leading to the exit. With a discreet glance right and left to make sure she’s not being watched, she cups the phone in the palm of her left hand and opens the text message that James sent that morning. A smiley flashes up on the screen, causing her second giggle of the day. Susan is twenty-eight today; James is on a mission in Belize, so she’s got no one else to celebrate with. No way can she confide in anyone: she mustn’t let herself disobey the primary rules of the organization, no matter how senior her father is. This makes her brother’s text all the more precious. It reminds her that she is not alone. Since they were nine, every September 23, she and James have found a way to do something special, something nice together. Or at least to send each other a sign or a secret message. James is away, so she’ll permit herself a little solitary treat at
lunchtime. A treat she prepared herself for by fussing over her choice of clothing in the morning. An unusual outfit, even if sartorial sobriety is big among the Witnesses. Full-length skirt, long-sleeved cream blouse and navy-blue anorak, and then the final touch that she pulls out of her bag once she is a safe distance from the checkpoint—a green, felt beret into which she manages to squeeze her entire head of Nordic-blond hair, a marker of her proud Estonian heritage on her mother’s side.

  Down in the subway, the excitement rises. She amuses herself pretending to be Agent Barnes, tasked with an undercover mission in Crown Heights. She observes the passengers: blacks, Jews, Poles, Chinese. You don’t know who I am or the dangerous life I lead. You don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on around you! As she gets off at Kingston Avenue, she wonders what would happen if a riot were to break out like in 1991. She pictures herself surrounded by a group of crazed black youths mistaking her for the wife or daughter of a rabbi. The image sends a shiver down her spine. Not exactly the most pleasant of shivers, but that’s what she’s into—fear. That is the thing that has accompanied her and her brother through every second of their life since they were three, from the moment their father explained to them that only a few chosen ones would experience salvation and gain access to heaven, the kingdom of Jesus. The others are divided into those who will be granted permission to be reborn into God’s kingdom on Earth, and those who will remain for eternity as dust, their spirits as dead as their bodies: the “left behind.” For as long as she can remember, those two words have plunged her into unspeakable anxiety. She has discovered an escape route: real, physical danger, laced with the specific fear that comes with it. This is the only way that she is able to feel truly alive. In her eagerness to face concrete threats, she invents virtual ones to kill time.

  A five-minute walk and she’s in front of Kingston Pizza Kosher. The familiar sign details a wood fire with peculiarly blue flames. As ever, before entering, she casts an eye over the photo of Menachem Mendel Schneerson—the last rebbe, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe—and kisses her index finger discreetly. This ritual dates back to the day of her sixteenth birthday when, lost without James who had left the day before on his first out-of-town mission, she found herself strolling aimlessly through Brooklyn. Crown Heights had had a soothing, positive effect. The men with their hats and the strictly dressed women had eased her dismay. And then she saw him, Schneerson, and he was like a revelation. He was at once the father, grandfather, and mother she had always longed for. A great ocean of kindness rippled in his eyes. All the goodness in the world. She instinctively kissed the knuckle between the first and second phalanges of her index finger, went in, ordered a pizza, and felt better than she ever had before. Today, twelve years later, this filthy pizzeria remains the one place in New York where she can find peace. Fifteen minutes on the subway and a ten-minute walk is all she needs to separate her from the isolated universe of her childhood. Twenty-five minutes to transport her to a world apart which has the extreme advantage of not being her own. Amid other people’s craziness she is able to break away from her destiny. She is convinced that something major is going to happen today. Especially if the person she is looking for is there, sitting in his usual place, as she hopes he will be.

  She spots him immediately thanks to his appearance, which is that of a slightly flabby quarterback. Like most of the men in the neighborhood he is wearing a black fedora, sidelocks, and tzitzits. But his hair is bizarre—more like dreadlocks than sidelocks. Beneath his white shirt she can distinguish the outline of a T-shirt adorned with a green, yellow, and red portrait of Bob Marley. Seated at the table at the back, he pokes vacantly at his tiramisu, his eyes lost and empty, just like he was two weeks ago when she came here and saw him for the first time. That time Ariel, the pizza chef who wears a skull-cap in the colors of the Italian flag, had spoken to her about this funny Hasidic Jew who’d arrived in the area a few months before, an Ashkenazi from Kansas who was tangled up with some fairly disreputable Sephardic types, and who always wore the green, yellow, and red colors underneath his regulation white shirt. A really weird guy. She’d met Ariel, the chef, six years ago when he’d started working at Kingston Pizza. He knows she’s not Jewish, but it doesn’t bother him at all. Her sketchy, makeshift Hasidic costume cracks him up. He appreciates the fact she takes the time to lean on the counter and have a chat with him while he makes her pizza. Always the same: fake bacon, green peppers, tomato, and basil.

  Susan subtly brings the conversation around to the Hasidic Rastafarian. Amused by the interest the pretty Jehovah’s Witness is taking in this Jewish guy, who’s as big as he is bizarre, the chef fills her in on what he knows about the regular at the table at the back—which is not much, truth be told. His name is Dov, he studied at Harvard, but the reasons he’s turned up in Crown Heights—Hasid Central—remain unclear. The place opposite the young man frees up, and with a smile Ariel tactfully encourages her to go and sit there. He’ll bring over her pizza when it’s ready. She nods gratefully and crosses the room.

  Dov looks up and his jaw hits the floor. When she starts coming toward him, he lowers his eyes and carries on jabbing away at his pudding. Without a moment’s hesitation, the young woman sits down in the space vacated by a fifty-year-old lady who had left in a hurry—long skirt, gray sweater, auburn wig—and who patently works in the neighboring mikvah. Fully aware of Susan’s presence, Dov continues fidgeting with his spoon without looking at her. She makes the most of the opportunity to check him out.

  She is particularly gifted at initiating conversation, at coaxing people to reveal things that they would hide from everyone besides her, and at using her newly acquired knowledge to manipulate their thoughts and actions. She inherited this faculty from her father, who excels in the art of manipulative listening. She hates her father, Abel Barnes, with all her heart and soul. She only acknowledges this deadly genetic hand-me-down because one day she intends to turn it against him and everything he believes in. It was one year ago today, on September 23, that she had started plotting with James; since they had realized that this man had stolen away their very essence—their mother and their childhood. They will only come close to being at peace when they have succeeded in making him lose everything that is dear to him. A secret meeting had been called at a Georgian restaurant on Brighton Beach. When the waiters sang them “Happy Birthday”—first in their language, then in English—Susan had been unable to hold back her tears. James held her tight in his arms, and they had promised each other that they would find a way to get their revenge and find happiness.

  Fifteen minutes later, she has discovered the name of the man across the table—Jakubowicz—as well as a bit about his story: brilliant child born into a secular Jewish family from Wichita, Kansas; gets into Harvard without any trouble; it’s there that he carries out his teshuvah—his repentance, or return to Judaism—totally unexpectedly; before logically enough winding up here in Crown Heights. The tale is smooth—too smooth—delivered in a tone that is half-absent, half-amused. As if he were asking, “Do you really want to know all this?” Sure she wants to know, but there’s no hurry. When she’s done with her pizza, she proposes they make the most of the nice weather and go for a walk—provided he has time—around Central Park just across the river; the No. 3 line on the subway goes direct to Columbus Circle. A proposal laden with the sort of fake indifference that girls know how to direct at boys. She doesn’t think about what might happen next. She’s not attracted to him; just eager to figure out the secret she knows he’s harboring. And for that to happen, she’s got to get him out of the Hasidic end of town. The young man, for his part, finds this girl intriguing and amusing; this fake Jew fallen from the heavens to deliver him from his boredom. Today he doesn’t feel like doing anything, especially not going to yeshiva. So Central Park . . . Why not?

  Susan is staying true to form. Ariel hasn’t taken his eyes off them since the start of their conversation. In a caring way, sure, but protective too.
No way she’s going to leave with Dov . . . Sliding back into Agent Barnes mode, well versed in the rules of working under cover, she instructs Dov to wait for her to leave before ordering a coffee, drinking it unhurriedly, paying, and then meeting her on the platform of the Nostrand Avenue station toward the rear of the train going via President Street. Twenty-three minutes later, they are sitting across the train car from each other. Few words are exchanged in the rough-and-tumble of the journey, which is fine. A moment; a transition. One thing’s for certain: she’s not going to sleep with him. She’s not sure what she’s going to do with this guy, but what’s certain is that he is going to play a role in her life. She ditches the people she sleeps with after half a day. It’s curious—at the heart of her shambolic upbringing, with all the abiding nonsense that she thought she’d managed to escape, she still can’t stop herself from thinking in irrational terms, putting faith in signs and destiny. It’s so deeply ingrained in her. And at this precise moment, her intuition is telling her that her life is about to change. The meeting with Dov is the moment she’s been anticipating for so long. It’s within reach. She just needs to play her hand right.

  16

  5:00 a.m. Ahmed is asleep. 6:00 a.m. Still asleep. Before he became essentially asexual, he had read the Christian mystics like Saint John of the Cross and Theresa de Ávila. A girl had put him on to them. A sensual, spiritual girl who had liked praying, crying, and making love. Ahmed had enjoyed her company enormously. Catarina came back to him as his sleep drew to a close. He had nicknamed her “Catarina sessuale.” She had taught him all about the significance of THE NIGHT in the mystic tradition, her unsettling Venetian accent thinly veiled and full of sweet promises. “THE NIGHT, it’s terrible. You cannot imagine. It is to live without God. You understand, God has turned away from you. He is looking the other way; He gives light, love, and life to others. La luce, l’amore solo per gli altri! I can accept that He loves others, too. But He cannot abandon me! He cannot deprive me of His warmth! Senza Dio non posso vivere! But why am I telling you this? You with your chess on the computer . . . Non capisci niente di Dio! Non capisci neanche dell’amore! Saint John of the Cross was the greatest Catholic mystic. He was Jewish, you know, like Jesus! He endured everything, even torture. All for his God. And his greatest suffering was to endure THE NIGHT. La notte. Losing God. Being alone and unworthy while God’s back is turned to warm other hearts!” Catarina started crying and Ahmed drank her tears, feeding on them as he consoled her. That was his mystic experience: imbibing the tears of “Catarina sessuale.” As transcendental as prayers are for other people.