by Nancy Madore
She hesitated. It was hard for her to say. “If you do this for our daughter—I mean really do it, Aabid, not just promise, but actually start making plans from the day our baby is born—I will promise to be a more willing wife. I will try to love you.”
Every word she uttered seemed to irritate him more. “You negotiate your duty?” he asked, incredulous.
“I’m not negotiating my duty,” she countered, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “It is my heart I am negotiating with!”
“It is already commanded by Allah that a wife give what you are offering. The prophet—peace and blessings of Allah be upon him—would have a wife such as you be beaten and cast into hell!”
“You have set me up to fail Allah’s commands!” she cried, thinking two can play this game. She was actually a little surprised by how much she’d retained from her lessons with Fa’izah, in spite of her reluctance to learn. “You’ve become a stumbling block, preventing me from doing what is right by making it as difficult as you possibly can. In this way you are sinning against Allah.”
He actually seemed to be considering her words. “How do I make it difficult?”
Helene offered a silent prayer up to Allah to give her the right words, and would have laughed at the irony if she had even realized she’d done it. Everything here was Allah, Allah, Allah. After a while, a person hardly noticed it anymore. “You use threats and brutality to get me to yield to you,” she began. “You rob me of the opportunity to give myself to you willingly.” She paused when she saw how her words moved him. “I know that you want that from me, Aabid,” she told him quietly. “Don’t you? Wouldn’t you rather have me willing than forced?”
He sighed. “But you are asking me to…”
“I’m asking you for one thing, Aabid. One. A relatively little thing too, considering that girls mean so little here—I don’t want to argue, never mind. We disagree about that. But you have to admit that a father is less concerned over a daughter’s soul than a son’s because the prophet says it is corrupt no matter what anyway, not to mention that her options in the afterlife are just as bleak as they are here!” She could see he was getting riled up again so she quickly changed her tack. “All I’m asking is that you let her determine her own fate. We will raise her as a Muslim and then send her to school in England. Muslims can do this. I know they can because Kulus told me that her friend…”
“Okay,” he interrupted.
“Okay?” she repeated. “Really?” She could hardly believe her ears, and the expression on his face was even more unbelievable. He actually seemed…happy. “You see!” cried Helene, spreading kisses all over his face until he laughed. “You see how good it feels to give something of your own free will?” She kept kissing him until he made her stop. His eyes were shining with emotion.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “You have proven yourself a wise and worthy wife.” Helene collapsed into his arms and stayed there, feeling content for the first time; if not for herself then at least for the life yet to come.
Chapter 43
Present Day
The neighborhood where Nadia’s grandfather lived looked a lot like the suburban neighborhoods of middle-America. There was a black car waiting for them in the driveway. Two Arab men got out.
“Lovely day,” said one of them, glancing at Nadia.
“It’s just after morning prayers,” said the other. “They’re expecting you.”
They went inside and waited in a large foyer. After a moment an old man came out to greet them. He squinted at Nadia as he got closer, as if he was having difficulty seeing her. Within a few yards of her he stopped.
“Helene!” he cried, taking a step back. He grew pale and stumbled forward, as if he might fall. One of the men rushed to his side and took his arm. The man asked him something in Arabic.
“No, no,” he replied. “I am fine.” But he didn’t look fine. The old man approached Nadia slowly, as if he was afraid of her. He seemed so helpless, not at all like the man she imagined. His skin was worn and deeply lined. His eyes were glassy and moist.
“I’m Nadia,” she said, offering him her hand. He took it and pulled her close, nearly crushing her in his embrace. His body shook with sobs. When he recovered he withdrew just enough so that he could look at her. His watery eyes moved over her face slowly, examining every detail, and then landed on her hair. He murmured something in Arabic and sniffed. “You are like her,” he said.
Nadia was aware of the five men waiting—and watching—behind her. She wasn’t sure how to begin. She remembered all too well her grandfather’s feelings about the djinn. She didn’t want a repeat of his performance in the desert with Helene. “We’re…trying to get information to prevent something terrible from happening,” she began.
“Yes,” he said, nodding and sniffing again. “I know. They told me. Come in. Come in. No! Not you,” he said to the men. “You can wait out here.” He pointed to a small room off the foyer. “I want to speak to my granddaughter alone.” Will started to object but then nodded. “Remember we have a plane waiting,” he said to her, and went into the room with the others.
“Someone will bring you refreshments,” her grandfather called after them. He took Nadia’s hand in his cold one and led her through the house and into a beautiful courtyard. Nadia gasped when she saw it. Her mother had not done it justice. “She did all this,” Aabid told her, noticing her reaction. He looked around as if he, too, were seeing it for the first time.
“You miss her,” observed Nadia.
He smiled. “Yes. So many things I wish…” Nadia waited but he didn’t elaborate.
“I have to ask you about something…” she began, but faltered. “My mother told me that you don’t like to speak of it, and I don’t want to upset you…”
“Please,” he said. “I know what you want to ask about.” He shrugged. “I’m afraid your grandmother only spoke of that incident one time, and I would not allow her mention it again.” He smiled contritely. “In my desire to see you I may have mislead those men out there.”
Nadia didn’t know what to say. “Do you mean to say…you don’t have any information about where that djinn might be? Didn’t my grandmother tell you anything…any clue?”
“No. Not to me,” he replied, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. Nadia could see how Helene might have found this man to be self-centered and inconsiderate. Yet she was touched that he wanted to see her. There must have been something in Nadia’s expression that revealed her thoughts because his watery eyes were suddenly filled with regret. “But maybe someone else…” he suggested.
“Who?” she asked.
“Your grandmother was very close to my first wife, Fa’izah,” he said. “She may have told her something that will help you.” Nadia thought this was a good idea. “Come, we were about to enjoy our morning meal. Fa’izah has prepared your grandmother’s favorite dish. Maybe you will like it too?” he asked.
“That sounds lovely,” Nadia agreed, following him into the kitchen.
An older woman was waiting in the doorway for them when they got there. She was much better preserved than her husband, though Nadia guessed her to be in her eighties. She was petite, with dark brown hair still holding its own against the gray. Her expression was vibrant and alert, her features still intact. Nadia could tell that she had once been quite beautiful.
“I can’t believe how much you look like her!” Fa’izah exclaimed. “Just as lovely! If only you could have come a few years ago. How she would have loved to see you!” Sadness came into her eyes. “We loved her so much,” she sniffed. “She taught me English you know. If not for her I would not be able to speak to you now.” If not for her, I wouldn’t be here now, thought Nadia, but she was delighted to be able to talk to the woman who was her grandmother’s closest friend. “Come!” Fa’izah said. “Sit down! I made her favorite.”
The three of them sat together at the table and Nadia self-consciously slipped her fingers into the warm bo
wl Fa’izah offered, feeling a strange sense of deja vu as she did so. She had to remind herself that it wasn’t her memory but her grandmother’s.
Fa’izah did most of the talking. Her enthusiasm never waned. Aabid was quiet and respectful. He seemed almost helpless now, obliged in his old age to let his wife be the strong one.
“We loved her so much.” Fa’izah said again.
“Are none of your children here?” Nadia asked. “I was hoping to see my aunts and uncles.”
Fa’izah sighed. “Everything is changing. They do not want to live in the house of their fathers anymore.”
“Oh,” sighed Nadia, disappointed. “I had particularly hoped to see Zaahid.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Fa’izah, moved to tears by this. “Gisele told you about him? He loved your grandmother very much! They were so close. It is kind of you to think of him.” Her voice quivered a little, as if she might cry, but she quickly pulled herself together. “He would have loved to see you too, but there was no time! They only told us you were coming late last night. There was no time to plan.”
They ate in silence for a while, then Nadia ventured—“I was hoping you could tell me more about my grandmother. There are some things the men out there need to know…but you may not know any more than we do.”
“Your grandmother and I shared everything,” she said. Tears filled her eyes again and Nadia could see how much the woman missed Helene. Fa’izah stood up. “Come. We will talk in the courtyard. That’s where she and I always used to talk.”
On the walk over, Fa’izah took Nadia’s hand and pressed something into her palm. Nadia looked down and saw an old, decrepit locket and chain. Heart hammering, she carefully opened the locket and saw a black and white photograph of a woman she had never seen before. “That’s your great-grandmother,” Fa’izah told her. “Helene had that necklace since she was a very small girl. She wore it all the time. It’s not very pretty anymore, I suppose, but I thought you might like to have it.”
The necklace was in terrible shape, bent and misshapen, with several links having been roughly repaired, but Nadia squeezed it tightly in her hand, as if she could extract some small part of her grandmother from it. “Thank you,” she said.
They went into the courtyard and talked for nearly an hour, but within the first few minutes it became apparent that the rest of the story—there was a lot of it Helene never told Gisele—held no hint as to where Lilith might be. As she and Fa’izah talked, Nadia was ever aware of the time but it was hard to break away. She would have liked to spend all day with the woman who knew more about Helene than even her daughter had.
There were tears in Nadia’s eyes when Aabid interrupted them to tell her the men were ready to leave. Fa’izah embraced Nadia as if she was her own granddaughter, her eyes damp. “I hate goodbyes so I will let your grandfather see you out,” she said, trying not to cry.
Aabid led Nadia back to where the others were waiting. Nadia turned to him and smiled.
“Goodbye grandfather,” she said awkwardly. She wasn’t sure if she was allowed to touch him or not. “Thank you.”
“Goodbye Nadia,” he replied. His eyes were watching her with what looked like regret.
Will came to her side. “Are you okay?” he asked as they walked outside.
Nadia blinked away her tears “I didn’t learn any more about Lilith,” she said. “Just more details of my dysfunctional origins.”
“Things your mother didn’t tell you?” he asked.
“I don’t think my mother knew.”
He sat next to her in the car. “The plane is near here,” he said. “You’ll have plenty of time to tell us about it on the flight back to the states. But first, we have some good news.”
And Nadia suddenly noticed that all three of them were in a much better mood. “What is it?”
“We finally found our smoking gun,” said Will. “A syringe hidden in a package delivered to a Muslim extremist in DC yesterday afternoon. They have it in a lab right now. It looks like our infectious disease.”
“And the guy who the package was sent to just happened to be scheduled to work at the bank meetings Tuesday,” said Clive.
“That’s right,” said Gordon. “It’s a miracle that the operative even found the syringe. He’d been watching this guy for months. But now, everyone’s on high alert looking for strange deliveries from medical supply places and the like. So yesterday he notices his guy gets a package from an adult toy store. Looks about the right size to ship a vibrator in….”
“The op knew this because his wife just got hers in that week,” said Clive.
“Save it for the team review meeting,” said Will.
“I’m practicing,” said Clive.
“Anyway,” continued Gordon, giving Clive a look—“The op was suspicious. They were supposed to be looking for shipments coming from medical labs and pharmaceutical companies. But this op’s thinking; ‘Why would a single, straight guy be buying a vibrator?’”
“You can set him straight on that later, Gordon,” interjected Clive.
“And then it occurs to him that most vibrators are made of either rubber or silicone,” continued Gordon, intentionally ignoring Clive. “Which would make a perfect cushioning material for a syringe. He opens it and…jackpot.”
“There won’t be any more sex toys delivered this week,” observed Clive.
“Finding this syringe forces DC to act,” said Will. “Everyone is under a microscope. The city is crawling with ops. They’re even canceling flights into DC.”
“So…what does all this mean?” asked Nadia.
“It means they can start working on an antidote, for one,” said Will.
“And they can take the necessary steps to keep this thing contained in DC,” added Gordon.
“And now that they know how these syringes are being shipped, they can intercept the ones that haven’t already been delivered,” said Will.
“And people will once again be able to look upon vibrators without fear,” added Clive.
So it was real. Everything they’d been saying was true! Nadia was glad she was sitting down. “But…it’s still going to happen?” Nadia asked.
There was a moment of silence.
“And we have no idea where Lilith is right now,” she added.
“Look,” said Will. “We’re not giving up. We’re gonna keep doing what we’ve been doing. Okay?”
“But I already told you, they didn’t tell me anything that will help,” said Nadia.
“We’ve got a twelve hour flight ahead of us,” said Gordon. “Can you think of anything better to do?”
“Yeah,” agreed Clive. “And besides, I’ve developed a soft spot for your grandmother and I’d like to hear what happened to her.”
“We’ll go over the rest of Helene’s story and see where it leads,” said Will.
“Looook!” cried Clive in a raspy voice that Nadia had never heard him use before—“Ze plane!”
Chapter 44
April 1966
Helene closed the book and sighed. Another dead end. It was surprising how little information there was in these so-called research books. Yet she was grateful that the college let her use the library—and, too, that her father-in-law agreed to drop her off and pick her up three days a week on his way to and from the hospital for treatments. It was an unexpected kindness brought about by a shared interest. He loved to read, and could therefore sympathize with Helene’s plight in finding books that were written in English. The college was better equipped than the local book store, but its focus remained on Islam, so here she was again, limited to science, history and religion.
Helene didn’t mind. It was what she preferred now. The library reminded her of her father’s library—less the window seat she loved so much. And, of course, Edward.
But it was time to leave. Helene sighed again. Time passed so quickly when she was reading. In the months she’d been coming here she read everything she could find on ancient scrolls. The discov
ery at Qumran made particularly interesting reading, though they made no mention of her father, Huxley or Butch. She was currently working her way through the books on djinn. She was puzzled by how little information there was. Islam recognized the djinn as a very great evil and therefore had a lot to say on the matter, but none of it was of any use! Surely others had made similar discoveries to the one they made at Qumran. Lilith claimed the angels prepared a Book of the Dead for every Nephilim who lived in Kiriath Arba—in triplicate. How was it that not one of them made it into the history books?
She supposed this was just one more thing she would have to work around. They were adding up, these things she had to work around. Sometimes when she thought of all the concessions she’d been forced to make over the years she couldn’t help being impressed. She would never have thought she had it in her. Not that she had a choice. But some of the things—like Fa’izah and the children—turned out not to be so bad after all. It was worse to imagine her life without them.
As she gazed out the large library window, watching for her father-in-law, her mind drifted back, as it often did when she was here, to her father’s library. At times like these she couldn’t help thinking about Edward and wondering what happened to him. Where was he now? Did he still enjoy reading? She could picture him; his light-brown, slightly wavy hair falling over his forehead no matter how hard he tried to slick it back like the other boys, his blue-green eyes sincere while the dimple on his left cheek twitched mischievously. Yet the image of his face seemed older today. Helene blinked and took a step forward.
“Edward?” she whispered. She closed her eyes and opened them again. Was it possible?
Though she had barely breathed the name, the man turned his head in her direction with a questioning look. Helene waited to see if he would recognize her but then remembered that she was completely covered except for her eyes. She took a few steps closer, staring openly at him.
The man looked at her with a blank smile. “I’m sorry,” he said politely. “Do I know you?”