In the Language of Miracles

by Rajia Hassib

  They were going to plant the tree in the wrong spot. The hole was a good ten feet from where Khaled had seen the patch of blood-soaked grass. Perhaps this was done on purpose—to get the tree closer to the center of the clearing, or to avoid the exact location. Ehsan would probably think the area contaminated now, suffused with a sort of evil that would allow nothing to grow in it. He looked at the spot again, expecting to find dry grass. The grass was fine, green and lush. He looked away.

  Quietly, he lowered himself, sat on the ground, his legs bent in front of him. He knew no one could see him; the location he had chosen stood behind the clearing and high above it, the top of a hill that fell sharply ahead of where he sat until it joined the main road that ran through the park. To his right and a good twenty feet below him, he could see the parking lot overflowing with cars, the most recent arrivals parked in one long row on the grass.

  He found his father’s car before he could find his family. He looked through every row, recognizing people whose backs were turned to him: neighbors; high school teachers; Imam Fadel, the preacher at the mosque; kids from school. Garrett and his mother sat on the edge of one row of seats. Police officers stood at the corners, their cars parked by the road beside the news vans. A cameraman fiddled with his camera, already perched on its tripod. In the very last row, settled together and to one side, Bud Murphy sat with his entourage. Samir’s car was there, but Khaled’s family was nowhere to be seen. He began to think that he might have mistaken the car for a similar one when the entire crowd fell to a hush. All he had to do was follow the collective gaze.

  His father had gotten out of the car and was standing by it, waiting for Nagla and Fatima to get out and close their doors. Khaled watched them, wondering why they had waited in the car for such a long time, feeling a pang of guilt that he immediately dismissed. They walked toward the heads now turned their way, against the outburst of whispers that exploded from the silence. Samir plowed through, his step slightly faster than usual, the increased speed recognizable only to those who knew him. Behind him, Nagla walked, clutching her purse, with Fatima trailing her. They crossed the line of trees that separated the parking lot from the clearing and then walked across the grass to the seats. There, Samir stood still, scanning the area. Nagla, catching up, stood by his side. The place was packed. Already people were getting up in the back, shifting in place. Samir leaned toward Nagla, whispered something, and then they walked to the back, Fatima following. Halfway there, Samir stopped, spotting a few empty seats in the middle of one of the rows. They made their way to them under everyone’s scrutiny, his father bumping against people’s knees.

  Cynthia, Jim, Pat, and Reverend Fielding were standing by the podium that had been set in the middle of the clearing. They, too, watched the family as they arrived. As soon as Samir, Nagla, and Fatima were seated, Pat turned halfway to whisper something to the other three before heading away from them in brisk steps. Immediately Cynthia sprinted and held her back, shaking her head, her whispers urgent, emotional. The reverend, too, walked up to Pat and spoke to her, Jim following suit. She listened, openly staring at Samir and Nagla.

  Khaled watched it all but remained in place. Already his serenity was gone, the anxiety of the previous week, of the previous year, returning in a gush. Now that he was sitting here, he started wondering why he had come. Why did he need to see this? Had he not managed to break free of his father’s grasp and his brother’s control? Why was he here, and not miles away, on a train headed to New York? He could still cut his way through the park and make it to the train station. No one would see him.

  He got to his feet, still staring at the crowd, but did not walk away. People had fallen quiet, and Reverend Fielding was now alone at the podium, Jim, Cynthia, and Pat having taken their seats in the front row. The reverend cleared his throat, and people looked at him, waiting. In the back, the cameraman stepped up to his tripod, ready to film the speech. The reverend started talking.

  “We are gathered here today not to mourn, but to remember, in love, a precious life tragically cut short.”

  Khaled looked around. The microphones carried the reverend’s words his way, but he had to strain to hear them. He decided not to. He knew, now, why he had not wanted to be here, and why he felt no need to join his family in their self-imposed suffering and humiliation. He took a few steps back. Whatever was to happen had already been set in motion, and his presence here would change nothing. Already he felt a pang at the sight of people glancing toward his family, leaning closer to their neighbors and whispering, the neighbors nodding in approval. He knew what people were thinking, their judgmental stares needing no verbal expression. Khaled had hoped that, given time, Hosaam’s crime would have been accepted as the isolated act of violence that it was, a reflection of nothing other than his own madness. Now his entire family would be labeled deranged.

  Still he could not tear himself away. He stared at his father’s bald spot, shining in the midday sun, at his mother, sitting with her head bent, at Fatima’s own head resting on her mother’s shoulder. In the front row, Jim and Cynthia sat motionless. Khaled imagined Cynthia holding Jim’s hand, or maybe his and her sister’s. Pat sat on her other side. His parents sat with a gap between them, a space whose vastness Khaled now saw clearer than ever. He stared at Samir, trying to evoke Ehsan’s words of understanding and to find excuses for his father, but he could not. Question after question forced itself into his head, and with each one his anger with his father grew sharper: Why was he always so stubborn? Why did he think he had the right to tell everyone what to do? Why did he think coming to the memorial was the best way to handle this situation? Why couldn’t he listen to Nagla when she told him, repeatedly, that he would only pile more humiliation on his family? Khaled had heard them arguing, but of course his father never listened to anyone. Why was he so disrespectful of his wife and his children?

  What was he doing?

  Khaled took a few steps forward, held on to one of the trees. His father had just pulled something out of his pocket and was looking down, staring at it. Samir’s neighbor, an elderly woman who had remained very still, was also looking down at the object in his hands. Khaled took a few steps to the left, trying to get a better view. A piece of paper. Samir was looking at a piece of paper, yellow notepad paper, just like the ones his father kept in his office.

  Khaled sank to his knees. Of course: his father intended to give a speech. How had he forgotten? Wasn’t this part of the reason Samir had wanted to attend the memorial in the first place? Perhaps it was the main reason; perhaps dragging his family along was not a show of support for the Bradstreets but for him as he walked up and preached to the crowd. Khaled tried to calm down and clear his head, think. He looked at the people around his family, at the townspeople among whom he had grown up. How many were there—a hundred? Two? Three? He could not tell. How would they react to his father’s speech? Would they even let him speak?

  At the podium, Cynthia had taken the reverend’s spot. Her voice was so low it hardly reached the audience, in spite of the microphones. Khaled strained to listen. She was describing Natalie, remembering her, telling stories. Her words reminded him of Ehsan’s stories of his brother, of her husband. He mistrusted stories of the dead, disliked their tendency for revisionism. “Natalie’s capacity for love and compassion was limitless. When I think of her now, I feel God created her solely as a vehicle to transmit his compassion to all she touched.” His father, his speech in his lap, was doubtless getting ready to tell stories of how Hosaam was, before, or of how he hoped he was going to turn out, stories of sports achievements, of medical school aspirations.

  Khaled looked around, tried to imagine how this crowd would react to his father’s attempt at describing Hosaam, to any mention of Hosaam, and felt his head grow dizzy, his stomach turn. Now he could see people he had not noticed before: the high school football coach who had cornered him one day in an empty hallway, lifting him by his collar and hissing that he would kill him with
his bare hands if he ever came near any of the town’s girls; the elderly police officer whom he had seen crying in the patrol car after he had walked out of the Bradstreets’ house that day; two of the men who had helped Jim carry Natalie’s casket—he had seen pictures—and who now sat with their own daughters, Natalie’s friends and playmates since childhood. As Cynthia spoke, people were dabbing at their eyes, the sight of the bereaved mother opening wounds that the passing of one year had not healed. These were his townspeople, his teachers, his neighbors—but his brother had caused them so much pain. His father was determined to show this town that his family still belonged—what he failed to see was that, as far as the townspeople were concerned, they were a cancer that brought nothing but suffering. All his father’s words would do was remind people of how cancers should be dealt with.

  Khaled looked around. His position, high above, was isolated, with no way down to reach his family. On his right-hand side the hill grew higher and then fell sharply. On the left the decline was more gradual, the hill sloping until it finally joined the road a couple of hundred feet ahead. Khaled looked back down and saw that Cynthia was done speaking; she and Jim were now heading toward the tree, where the town’s mayor was waiting to help them lift it. Khaled watched his father, saw him straighten up and tuck the paper in his breast pocket. Already Jim was lifting the tree by its trunk. The cameraman had moved closer, camera poised on his shoulder, set to film the tree planting.

  “Excuse me,” Samir yelled, lifting one hand in the air. Around him, people shushed, but he, persistent, stood up, his hand still lifted. Nagla tugged at his jacket. He ignored her. “Excuse me,” he yelled again, louder this time.

  “Sit down!” someone yelled. Samir did not. The cameraman turned around, pointed his camera at Samir, who was making his way out of the row of seats. Around him, people hushed, hissed, tugged at him, tried to hold him back—but he continued. Behind him, Nagla followed, trying to grab hold of him. He ignored her still.

  Khaled took one more frantic look around him. He would have to take the long route. Planted in place, he struggled to tear himself away—he did not dare miss what was going to happen next. But he would have to follow the long slope down. He would have to tear himself away from his family if he wanted to join them.

  He started running. He strained to listen to the escalating commotion, but could hear nothing above his own breathing and the sound of twigs breaking under his feet and brushing against his face and arms. He ran faster. He thought he heard his father’s voice. The hill sloped down and down. Still the end of his road was too far away, and, once he made it there, he would have to run all the way back. He ran, scanning the side of the hill. Midway to the end, the side slope seemed gentler. He could probably walk down there. He veered to the right too quickly, stumbled over his own feet, and fell.

  He tumbled down. Frantically, he tried to grab at something. His hand found a tree root, clutched it. The root skinned his palm, and he let go in pain. He rolled down the rest of the hill, came to a stop at its foot. He jumped up, ran limping to the clearing, brushing thorns and dirt from his face, his hands. He could hardly breathe and became suddenly aware of the heat now that he was out of the shade. He pulled his hoodie over his head as he ran, the twigs that stuck to it scratching his skin.

  By the time he reached the clearing no one was seated anymore. People were stretching their necks, looking at the commotion in the front. In the back row, Bud was standing on top of one of the chairs, laughing, and, his phone in hand, capturing the commotion on film. He would post it online so that everyone could bask in Samir’s humiliation, in Khaled’s. Khaled ran alongside the edge of the crowd. He found Garrett, grabbed him by the shoulder. Garrett turned around.

  “Hey, where have you—Jesus Christ, what happened to your face?” Garrett asked.

  “Get Bud’s phone,” Khaled said, pointing to the back. Garrett turned, saw Bud, and nodded, heading his way.

  Khaled ran to the front. The closer he got, the tighter the throng of people seemed to be around a center that he knew held his family. Getting nearer, Khaled could hear his father’s voice.

  “I just want to say a few words!” Samir pleaded.

  “Baba, wait,” Khaled yelled, pulling at people’s arms, trying to reach his father. Craning his neck, Khaled glimpsed Imam Fadel, who seemed to be struggling to lead Samir away from the crowd. Khaled searched for his family and saw Fatima’s braid ahead, heard his mother’s words, in Arabic, louder and clearer the closer he got to her.

  “Kefaya ya Samir!” Nagla yelled. “You’re making a fool of yourself.”

  “Let me be, Nagla! I just want to talk.”

  “No one wants to listen to you!” she yelled again.

  “Baba, please,” Fatima’s voice came. Khaled, hearing his sister, plunged into the middle of the crowd.

  “Get your stupid father out of here,” someone shouted at him on his way.

  “I’m trying. I’m trying,” he said.

  He had almost made it to his father when Samir, breaking free of the imam’s grasp, made a dash toward the podium. “Baba!” Khaled hollered, but he could no longer reach his father. He couldn’t even see him, nor could he see his mother or Fatima. Quickly, Khaled jumped on one of the seats and then, hopping from one seat to the next, made it to the center of a row only a few feet from the podium. His father had reached it, was holding his speech in his hand, tapping on the microphone, bending down to look for its power button. “I just have a few words to say! Is this so wrong? Can’t you listen to me say only a few words?” A couple of feet away, Reverend Fielding was holding Jim back, words sputtering from his mouth. Around Samir, everyone gathered: Nagla still yelling at him in Arabic, “You’re making a scene!” Fatima still pleading. Imam Fadel had made it there, as well, and was trying to pull Samir away while everyone else around him talked, some trying to restore order, some shouting at Samir, others gathering around Jim. In the back, still holding the young tree, Cynthia was talking to Pat, sobbing as she spoke. The calm that had presided a few minutes ago had imploded, releasing a constant hum of noise interrupted by occasional shrieks from Samir and Cynthia, who stood on opposite sides of the crowd, each surrounded by a group of people, the space between them empty, a no-man’s-land promising imminent conflict.

  Khaled looked around. The cameraman, probably taking his cue from Khaled, was up on a chair as well, filming the whole thing. Khaled, desperate, looked at his father: his face sweaty, his shirt out of his pants, his tie crooked. The speech he held in his hand was crumpled now, but he still held on to it, still tried to yell louder than anyone else, still tried to reach for the microphone. “If you would just let me speak! Only a few words!”

  “Baba, enough!” Fatima shrieked, her voice much louder than usual yet hardly loud enough to break through the noise erupting around her.

  Khaled stared at his sister. He had to do something. “Baba!” he shouted, trying to get his father’s attention. “Baba!” Nothing.

  Khaled jumped two rows to the front, made it as close as he could to the podium. He tried to think, looked down, and saw he still had his hoodie in one hand. Holding it by the sleeve, he lifted his arm and started swinging the hoodie in circles. A few people noticed him and watched, waiting. His father, struggling with those closest to him, was not looking. The cameraman still did not see him.

  “Hey!” Khaled yelled. “Hey!”

  The cameraman turned around. Now his lens was pointed at Khaled. Khaled kept turning the hoodie in the air, the circular, rhythmic motion reminding him of the whirling dervishes he had once seen in a street festival in Egypt. In the blazing heat, the hoodie provided a gentle breeze that might have cooled him down, had the motion not made him sweat even more. He looked around, saw he had gotten everyone’s attention, even Cynthia and Jim’s, even Fatima and his mother’s, and, yes, even Samir’s. Slowly, Khaled let his arm come to a stop, brought the hoodie down.

  He wanted to say something, felt everyone was expecti
ng him to, but did not know what to say. Even if he had known, he was too out of breath to speak.

  So he waited, like everyone else.

  They all waited for something major to happen. Khaled remembered Ehsan’s assertion that God would take care of things, so he waited for some sign from God saying that all would change, that all would be better, perhaps. He looked to the sky, up between the trees whose branches intertwined on top of the podium, expecting to see something. Maybe rays shining through the branches and onto the podium. Maybe thousands and thousands of monarch butterflies, suddenly lifting off from their habitats in the middle of the trees, jubilant in their successful migration back from the south. For a moment, looking up, he thought he saw something moving, and he believed that this might happen still, that God might make it happen, that He might intervene to stop this humiliation, to send him a message, a sign, a flock of butterflies summoned just for him, like the single cloud that gave Muhammad shade or the crow that gave Solomon news of the Queen of Sheba. The sea splitting to let Moses and his people pass. The ground spouting water under Ismail’s heel. Nature, controlled by God, just to serve him.

  Ehsan would deem this possible. Ehsan would see it happening. Ehsan might even have the power to make this happen.

  Then again, she might not.

  Looking up, Khaled saw nothing but the blinding sun shining through the moving branches. Looking around, he saw faces watching his. He had caught their attention, yes, but he could do nothing else, because he controlled nothing. He did not control the butterflies, nor did he control the movement of the wind to make it shake the branches violently enough to send every nesting bird flying. He could not even make his own father stop humiliating himself, just as his father had been incapable of making Hosaam turn into the son he had imagined him to be. He knew perfectly well that there was absolutely nothing he could do, but somehow all those around him still looked at him, still expected him to have the answer to it all, just because he had stood on a chair and waved a hoodie around. Even Cynthia had stopped crying and was looking at him. Even his own parents stared, as well as the imam and the reverend. He looked behind him. Garrett was standing next to Bud, who still held his phone up. They were both watching him. Khaled, looking first at Bud’s phone, then at the newsman’s camera, realized he was finally in control—everyone was waiting for him to act.