AHMM, July-August 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Ranya, please. Don't insult me.” He helped her into the car and hastened to his seat.

  Ranya folded her hands and stared at them. “The case . . ."

  "They pulled you off. I knew it!"

  "I wish that was all. The case is dead. The charges have been dropped. And—” She took a deep breath. “—they are blaming me. They say I bungled it."

  "What? Just because you did not exactly know the procedures—"

  "But it's not true! I made a fool of myself, but I did the job. They say I did not file all the documents. But I did. Someone lied.” She raised her eyes. “Yusef. Why would anyone lie?"

  His face twisted. “Why? Because you are surrounded by a pack of lazy, bitter transgressors who know they will never amount to anything and hate the thought that anyone else might succeed. I told you they would turn on you.” He slammed the newspaper against the steering wheel and stared out the window.

  Ranya eyed his angry face. Was he right? No. It made no sense. Ustaz Samir would never let them get away with it. He—

  Her gaze fell upon the newspaper and the bold headline halfway down the page: charges filed in 25-year-old murder.

  She reached out and pulled it toward her.

  "Murder charges were filed against Hosni Barsoum this morning by the Zagazig Public Prosecutor's Office in the 1983 death of Nadia Barsoum and her sister Afaf Naguib. On the advice of Judge Abdula Mohammed, evidence previously thought lost—"

  Yusef pushed the paper aside and took her hand. “Marry me, Ranya. Leave these pitiful people and this empty job. Come with me to Cairo."

  Ranya sat motionless. Waves of sickening understanding slapped at her consciousness, eroding the moral pillars of right and wrong, good and evil, exposing the truth that lay buried at their core. Samir had never intended to take the Showkat Mohammed case to trial. He had hidden behind her—set her up as his sacrificial lamb, offering Judge Abdullah his grandson's freedom in exchange for the promise to right an old wrong. And when she thought of that long-ago brutality, and how long he must have waited, and planned, she could not find it in her heart to blame him. She wondered if he would regret what he had done to her. He could have no idea she had uncovered his scheme. No doubt he expected her to take his offer, to creep away defeated and forget.

  "F'il mishmish," she whispered.

  Yusef's face blanched. “You don't mean that."

  Ranya roused herself. “Forgive me, Yusef. I do care for you, and I want someday to have a life with you—but I can't leave."

  Tears swam in his eyes. “Why not?"

  She thought of the shopgirl in Zagazig, and of young Hosni, each in their own way scarred for life. She pictured the smug face of Showkat Mohammed, grinning at her from the dock. Someday, she would see him there again.

  "Because there's something I have to do. No matter how long it takes."

  Copyright © 2010 Ellen Larson

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Fiction: NO TROUBLE AT ALL by Douglas Grant Johnson

  * * * *

  Art by Edward Kinsella III

  * * * *

  The ambush wasn't planned.

  It just worked out that way. When Bertha Hagstrom walked in the door of the tiny post office, the lobby was jammed with kids clustered around the postal boxes, picking up the family mail on their way home from school.

  "Missus Hagstrom!"

  At first it was one voice, then another, and another. A second later their voices became a chorus, each one trying to outshout the other. The mail was forgotten as they crowded around.

  She smiled in return and raised her arms in surrender.

  "How nice to see all of you."

  Their chattering didn't stop as she turned to the postmaster's window.

  "No package from Montgomery Ward yet, Mrs. Hagstrom,” the postmaster said before she could ask. “In fact, nothing at all."

  "I hope it gets here soon, Floyd. I've got work to do."

  "I thought you retired last year."

  "From teaching school. Not from working."

  "And not from kids, I see,” he said, indicating the noisy group around Bertha. “You watch out. Darn kids'll give you nothing but trouble."

  Bertha quickly fixed him with a look designed to stop a runaway cow.

  "Used to be my kids, Floyd . . . and they're no trouble at all, not for a minute!"

  She held his gaze for a few seconds and turned away to face the children with a smile. Like a sergeant directing a charge, she raised her arm and pointed in the direction of her home.

  "All right,” she said, “anybody going that way can walk a ways with me."

  When she left the post office, she was followed by close to a dozen boys and girls of various ages. All had been, at one time or another, students in her fifth grade class. She tucked a loose strand of silvery hair back under her hat and started off, letting the chattering kids set the pace.

  Watching them go, the postmaster wondered how someone who was widowed early with no kids of her own could cast her spell so easily . . . and put up with so much.

  He shook his head. Kids, he thought. Yes, nothing but trouble.

  * * * *

  The boy heaved a sigh of relief when he finally found the girl.

  She was walking along the side of an unpaved street near the edge of town. Her arms hugged her body as if she were cold. He wondered why because it was the middle of a very warm October. He hurried to catch up. When he was close, he saw her stumble on a clump of roadside grass she should have seen. A small child's purse dropped to the ground and he hurried to pick it up and hand it to her.

  She took it and clutched it close, but didn't respond with a glance or a word. He walked alongside for a moment to catch his breath before he quietly spoke.

  "Where y’ been?"

  Her answer was a long time coming.

  "Around."

  "Around where?"

  She didn't answer, and they walked along for a few steps.

  "Y’ okay?” he finally said. “I been lookin’ for y’ all afternoon."

  The girl answered with a sound that could have been half a sob. He noticed tears, too, and thought she must have been doing some serious crying for some time. But in all of his twelve years, he hadn't learned what to do when confronted by tears like these.

  "What are y’ doin’ out here?” he said, a little more forcefully.

  After a moment, she answered in a voice he almost didn't hear.

  "Lookin'."

  "What for?"

  The boy waited again for her answer.

  "Daddy says it's my fault."

  "Ain't nothin’ your fault."

  They walked along silently for a few moments more.

  "Y’ goin’ home now?"

  "No."

  "Where y’ goin', then?"

  She didn't answer, and he had no suggestion to make. He knew he couldn't bring her to his home. His father simply wouldn't like it.

  He debated whether to say what was on his mind, not sure whether it would help or hurt. Everyone knew her mother had run off. His dad had said so. What troubled him was, he was pretty sure her mother was dead, and the girl's father had . . .

  Before he could figure out how or whether to say it, a car rattled along the street, out of sight around the next corner. The girl stopped to listen.

  "It's Daddy's car,” she said, stopping and staring in the direction of the sound.

  He quickly took her by the hand and pulled her off the street toward a tall board fence.

  "C'mon, we'll cut through Jeppson's barnyard."

  She moved quickly and let him help her climb the fence. At the top, she jumped, and a second later he heard a sharp cry that meant she had landed badly.

  The car reached the corner. He glanced at it just long enough to see it was not her father's car, after all. He quickly climbed the fence himself to see what had happened. On the other side, he saw her sprawled on the ground, grasping one of her knees with both hands.

  "Crimi
ny!” he said, but not loud enough to carry to the girl.

  He quickly jumped down and hurried to help her up. If he didn't know what to do about tears, he did know what to do about a badly scraped knee.

  * * * *

  When Bertha turned a corner a block from the post office, most of the kids were still crowding around, lightly jostling one another for position, one after another calling out for her attention. She smiled and responded with patience as each in turn related the profound news of the moment. Ordinary things, usually, but important to each one. Like showing off a drawing the teacher had praised. Or a math test marked “100.” Or, tearfully, one marked “45.” Or the details of a rare visit to a movie house at the county seat where one boy told of seeing Will Rogers in A Connecticut Yankee.

  Or in another boy's case, a new pair of shoes.

  Now that was unusual, Bertha thought. Not many kids that age got a new pair of shoes, especially these days.

  As she listened, she noted the absence of complaints about the hard times. Somehow, it seemed to her, it was easier for kids to accept things the way they were, to make do, at least in front of their peers. She suspected, though, one or two might have a different story if the audience wasn't so large. Over the years, it wasn't unheard of for a few of her students to approach her here or there, seeking a quiet moment of her time.

  By the time she reached the corner a block from her home, the last two boys were ready to peel off and head for their own homes.

  As they did, she remembered a boy who hadn't been in the group. She knew he usually stopped to pick up his family's mail after school.

  "Where's Thomas today?” she called. “Is he ill?"

  "Oh, he took off at lunchtime . . . sluffed the rest of the afternoon,” said one of the two.

  "Teacher says he's gonna be in trouble,” said the other.

  She paused to consider that news and asked herself what might have possessed the boy. After a moment, she gave a sigh for her missing shipment and the work waiting at home and trudged on, wondering why she went to the post office as often as she did. She wouldn't have gone today if her package wasn't overdue. She tried to picture which shelf—and in which post office—it might presently be sitting.

  Nome, Alaska, briefly crossed her mind before she glanced upward and quickly retreated from an unkind thought.

  * * * *

  The boy spotted Bertha's big floppy garden hat as he rounded the corner a block from her house. She was working in her garden, and he heaved a sigh of relief. She was alone. Bertha was in fact his mother's aunt, but it had never occurred to him to fix her exact position in the family tree. To him, she was just who she was—Aunt Bertha—and she had always been his last resort when he had a problem he couldn't bring to anyone else.

  He put his hand on the shoulder of the girl he had found and gave her a slight nudge.

  "C'mon . . . let's go see Aunt Bertha."

  After a slight hesitation, the girl moved along, a few tears still threatening. She was limping slightly, too, favoring the knee that had recently been bloodied.

  Not for the first time, he glanced at her wound.

  "Ow-w-w,” he almost said aloud, as a tingle of her pain echoed in the pit of his stomach.

  * * * *

  Bertha was working on the last row of her string beans, carefully depositing them into an over-large pocket of her apron. Every few feet, she would straighten up, massage her lower back, and empty the apron's pocket into a bushel basket sitting in a weathered wooden wheelbarrow. She compared the available space in the basket with what remained of the row of beans and decided she wasn't going to have as many beans to bottle as she had hoped. And this year, it wasn't just the beans that were not reporting in at harvest time.

  It was as if the times had reached out to strangle even the soil so it wouldn't produce, she thought. It was almost two years after the crash of twenty-nine, and life all over the country was starting to seem like a two-week-old leaf of lettuce, wilted and turning brown around the edges. Half the country, it sometimes seemed, was out of work. The newspapers were full of the reports of families being devastated when work and money and hope ran out. Still, she remembered the kids who had followed her from the post office and was reminded of how often good things go unsung.

  She took stock of her harvest again, glanced heavenward, and gave a short sigh of acceptance. Then she turned to resume her work and almost walked into the missing Thomas and a girl about the same age.

  "Thomas . . . and Anna!” she smiled. “My goodness, how did you two sneak up on me?” Her eye was drawn to the girl, thin as a rail, whose clothing and hair were both in somewhat poor repair.

  "I must be getting deaf and blind, or else you've learned some magic powers and you can make yourselves invisible! Or maybe I've been looking at beans so long everything is starting to look like beans."

  She was just talking to keep the conversation going while she tried to think of what the girl might be doing here with Thomas, and why she looked like she might break and run any minute now.

  And how she had gotten that nasty scrape on her knee.

  "Did you have an accident at school today, Anna?"

  Anna merely looked at the ground and folded her arms and clutched her purse as if it were a life preserver. Or as if someone might take it from her.

  Bertha stepped closer for a better look. In addition to her wounded knee and some minor scrapes on her hands, it didn't appear that her face had been washed recently. In fact, more than a few tears had left dusty trails on her cheeks. She reached out to tilt the girl's chin up where she could see things better and noticed fresh tears beginning to form.

  "Didn't your teacher have a look at your knee?"

  Instead of answering, the girl made a move that signaled flight was impending.

  "She didn't go to school today,” Thomas said, almost in a whisper.

  "Then what—"

  "Climbing a fence,” he said just as softly.

  Bertha looked carefully at Thomas. Without words being said, she knew Thomas had brought Anna for a reason and she wondered if the tears were for more than a skinned knee. She remembered Anna from her fifth grade class. She had been an intelligent child, but shy, almost reclusive, and she had been shunned by most of her classmates. Recently, she had attended Bertha's Sunday Bible class a few times, mostly due to Thomas's encouragement, Bertha thought.

  Thomas held Bertha's gaze and flicked his eyes toward Anna a couple of times, almost as if he was urging Bertha to take over.

  Bertha wanted to know more, but she glanced at the girl's skinned knee and decided action was certainly needed, and she thought she had better take it before the youngster could make her escape. She wrapped the girl in one of her ample arms.

  "Why don't you come with me for a minute and let's see what we can do about your knee.” It was expressed softly, with a lot of sympathy, but it was a command, and she didn't wait for an answer.

  "Thomas, we'll be a few minutes,” she said, handing him the apron with the oversize pockets. “If you've got time, you can finish the row for me and then wheel the basket over to the back door. I made a batch of pumpkin cookies this morning, and the cookie jar is full."

  She paused for a second to fix Thomas with a slight frown combined with a hint of a smile.

  "By the way, I heard you missed a bit of school yourself today."

  Thomas, surprised, colored slightly, but figured he was not in serious trouble. If he was, the subject of cookies would never have come up. Anyway, he thought, if she knew the reason, she might understand why he had taken off.

  He looked at the twenty feet of beans that were left and sighed. But Aunt Bertha had taken over as he had hoped, and he knew a deal had been made. He put on the apron and went to work. Besides, a couple of Aunt Bertha's cookies would be worth picking the whole row.

  He also hoped for a moment alone with Aunt Bertha. If he had learned anything in his life, it was that people sometimes took most everything a kid said wit
h a grain of salt. But maybe she would understand his suspicions about Anna's mother.

  From time to time, he glanced down the street in the direction Anna lived. It was past time for her to be coming home from school and he was expecting to see her father, Mr. Tullis, out looking for her.

  Her father was the one person Thomas didn't want to see.

  * * * *

  Bertha's kitchen was comfortable and still filled with the sweet scent of this morning's batch of cookies, but Anna seemed not to notice. While Bertha cleaned and dressed her scraped knee and wiped away the tear tracks on her cheeks, she sat with her shoulders hunched and her arms folded as if there was a spring inside ready to be released.

  Bertha thought she could usually charm the shyness off any kid any day of the week and twice on Sunday. But so far, nothing was working with Anna.

  After the first aid and the cleanup, it was cookie time. Anna took one disinterested bite and sat there as if she had forgotten how to chew.

  "What's wrong, Anna?” Bertha said.

  Before she answered, Anna remembered the bite of cookie in her mouth, quickly chewed it, and swallowed.

  "Mama."

  "What about your mother?"

  She took another bite and stopped as tears began to form.

  "Mama . . .” she said, her eyes on the floor. “Daddy says she's gone away ‘cause she don't like me no more."

  Anna stifled a sob.

  "Oh, I'm sure she does, dear,” Bertha said, not quite believing her own reassurance.

  "An’ Daddy says it's my fault."

  "Why, of course it isn't."

  A small attack of shivers came over Anna, and she began to click the snaps of her small purse open and closed.

  "Daddy says she ran away an'—"

  Bertha knew that much was true. News travels fast in a small town, and by now, it was likely almost everyone in town knew about it too.

  "—an’ I got to forget her."

  "We never forget someone we love,” Bertha said, trying to smile, at the same time noting the shivers and the nervous tic with the snaps of the purse.

  "He says she took the bus."

  In a voice so low Bertha wasn't sure what she said, Anna added, “But she didn't."

  * * * *