"I know what I see. It is one of my grievous limitations." He warded off the proffered lotion. "And as you can see, only my hands and face are exposed."
"You must be stifling in that jacket. Why don't you shun it?"
"'Shuck'," said Singh, bowing apologetically.
"A Sikh correcting my English patois!" Nabihah moaned.
"A veritable nuisance," Ari agreed. Ever since he had taken a savage beating at Manchester Docks, his erstwhile impeccable English had gone astray. He thought he might be brain-damaged, but if the only price was the occasional malapropism, he considered himself lucky. Everyone around him had made it their goal to correct his speech. He took it in good humor. Sometimes.
"I don't care," Nabihah huffed, lowering her lips to the wide daiquiri glass. "I suppose you want me to break into Arabic for Mr. Lawson's benefit?"
"It is his belief—"
"If I don't slip up in my adopted language, I'll slip up in my mother tongue? Allah yil'an il-shaytan!"
'God damn your devil!'
"Mr. Lawson and I speak the universal language, which is Business. If he expects me to spread my legs for his crooked body—if he even still has a dick…"
She stopped when Ari stood.
"Your language is unworthy of a lady. I will depart."
"Oh, don't be so—don't let him leave!"
Both Singh and Yilmaz stepped aside as Ari passed between them.
"Wait!"
"Mr. Lawson is not only my employer, he is my friend," said Ari as he approached the boxwoods.
"I said don't let him leave!" Nabihah shouted, knocking over her daiquiri as she leaped to her feet.
"My great apologies, Shrimati Sadiq," said Singh with yet another bow. "But Mr. Ciminon is correct. Your language is inappropriate. Would you say the same thing of me if I was maimed in your employment?"
"Of course not. I…" She turned to Yilmaz. "And you? Why aren't you helping?"
Yilmaz's face remained impassive, a karate master who would not betray her next move.
"You two…you two…"
Ari swiveled his gaze from Singh to Yilmaz. 'You two…?' No, it wasn't possible. At least, it was very unlikely.
"Allah yil'anek!"
This was a very severe oath. Singh and Yilmaz widened the gap for Ari. He was through the bushes when Nabihah relented.
"All right, I'm sorry! Mr. Ciminon, come back…please!"
Ari paused and turned. "The apology is due Mr. Lawson, who is so much a hero you are a worm by comparison."
"Now, wait—no, wait! All right! I apologize to Mr. Lawson, and to you, and to my fiendish employees, who are so concerned with my manners."
Ari turned and looked at her sternly. "And this apology comes from your naked heart?"
"The rest of me is naked, but I'm not about to tear out my chest. I just said that because I've been around Yilmaz too much. Oh, no! Yilmaz, I don't mean that, either. Forgive me, all of you." She threw her hand up, as though putting the women around the pool and on the terraces on display. "It is because of this. These women aren't just battered and abused. They've been raised to think they are sub-human. And it is not true! Touch me!" And she touched her head.
Ari gave her what could only be described as a look of condescension. Like everyone else, he was a product of his environment.
"I have a mind the equal of any man. And that is what you see around you. My wealth. Isn't that the proof?"
Ari had never been convinced that wealth was the proof of anything except wealth, but he held his tongue.
"They have the Tahirih Justice Center in Northern Virginia. But there is nothing like that down here. Look closely, Mr. Ciminon. Some of these women arrived here with bruises about their throats, their arms, all over. Beaten because they departed their house without the company of a male relative. Or they stood up against rape, and were thrown down as a consequence. They arrived at a new country where the old rules still apply. But America opened a window…and they fled."
Ari remained mute.
"I guess the Italian men aren't any different. If that's what you are…and I doubt it. Did you sneak in on a forged passport? No matter. These women deserve better. And they will get better, once there is reconciliation."
"I am confused," said Ari flatly.
"Don't mistake me. Arab men are magnificent. Does that please you?"
"It intrigues me."
"They are like nothing else in the world. They know God. There is nothing…" She glanced at Singh. "'Namby-pamby'…?"
Singh bowed. "Do you mean 'lacking in courage'?"
"Yes. Right. There is no lack of courage. And it is a wondrous thing in a cowardly world. My husband…he is a wonder. Not an ounce of fear, and for that I love him."
"'Love'?" Ari inquired.
"'Sicilian' my ass," said Nabihah. "'Respect', if you insist. I don't belittle my religion. It is part of my blood. Islam is my blood. Don't judge by appearances. You see me in the privacy of my home."
"That is the issue," said Ari. "I see you."
"You mean you see too much of me. But there are Turkish women, good Muslims, who bathe at public beaches in this state. Believe me, you wouldn't find me at Virginia Beach in this condition. I go to the local mosque. I think my husband pays the imam to berate me. Still…I go. Do you?"
"Alas, no."
"Oh, right. You're Italian. You must go to the cathedral."
"Alas, my unbelief is very promiscuous," Ari admitted.
"You don't believe in God."
"It depends on my mood."
"That's not belief."
"It is of a part with my manhood, like my gun."
"This sun is really intense," said Nabihah, frowning. She reached for her blue beach robe.
"Your butter is not efficacious?"
"Let's understand one another. I don't disrespect Islam, nor the men of the Faith. What you see here…yes, some of these women were beaten by their husbands. But something else has happened. It is of no concern to you."
"I'm sorry?"
"We believe someone has arrived in this country. You would not be interested. It only concerns women."
"The Namus," said Yilmaz.
"You are not a party to this conversation, and I'm sure Mr. Ciminon isn't interested in your primitive superstitions."
"You hired us to protect you against this 'superstition'," Yilmaz shot back. "You say we're here to shield you from your husband, but what if he has hired the Namus to harm you?"
"Tareq is not chickenshit," said Nabihah.
"'The Namus'," said Ari. "I don't understand. This is a concept. It is the duty of a man to protect the namus, the virtue, of his family. Or, so I've been given to understand."
"Interesting," said Nabihah. "You understand the word…"
"I do. But—"
"Yes, it refers to the honor of the household. But Westerners equate it with 'honor killing'. For a woman to fornicate is punishable by death. I can understand that, whatever you think of me. But when a woman steps outside to get a doctor for her sick son, and she is unaccompanied by a male relative…for this woman to be burned alive as punishment…at that point, you have entered the land of barbarism. Mohammed, alayhi as-salām, had too great respect for women to condone such a thing."
"You were speaking of 'chickenshit'…"
"Isn't English wonderful? So apt, so to the point. Some husbands are too chickenshit to do the job themselves, so they hire others."
"I have heard of such a thing," said Ari, a dark memory casting a cloud on his face. "But these are petty criminals. One could walk into a coffee house in Basrah and hire a common thug."
"Why do you choose Basrah for your example?" asked Nabihah, eyeing him suspiciously.
"It is a name I took from my keffiyeh. I thought you might find 'Cairo' offensive."
"There is nothing petty about murder, Mr. Ciminon. There were a series of unsolved murders in the Detroit area last year…murders of Muslim women. The male members of the women's families
had perfect…"
"Alibies," said Singh.
"That is the word. Yet all of the killings had the…"
"Earmarks," said Singh.
"Your expertise in English is most annoying," said Nabihah.
"Yes," Ari agreed, though he had no intention of smacking the giant.
"The killings were all made to look like accidents…but they had the feel of honor killings," Nabihah continued.
"Then these are not unsolved murders, but accidents that have been resolved."
Nabihah brushed this aside. "During the Spring, there were a couple of such incidents in New Jersey. The victims had succumbed to Western ways. They went to the shopping malls without escort. They spoke to strange men. It was known that the husbands and fathers disapproved, but no one could put blame upon the families. That is only because the police are corrupt and incompetent, as they are the world over. Still…a 'Namus'?" She shook her head. "Such a creature is a myth, summoned up to scare the likes of Yilmaz."
"But you're the one who told us—" Yilmaz began with a stomp of her foot.
"Mr. Ciminon, I hired Yilmaz and Singh because I believe my husband wants to kill me. You don't know him. He would not hire some kind of Namus thing. He would put his big hands around my neck and that's…"
"That's all she wrote," said Singh.
"Well, yes, it's all written." Nabihah cinched the cloth belt of her robe and focused her eyes on Ari. "Men have always taken their fists to women. In this Christian country—"
"Only 77% of Americans identify themselves as Christians, Shrimati Sadiq," said Singh.
Nabihah clutched at her stomach, as though suffering from an ulcer. "Very well, in this mostly Christian country there are shelters galore for battered women. Is it so unusual that there are some for battered Muslim women? Men have the virtue of loving their inheritance, but it is also their curse. It gives our men vibrancy. It also betrays their humanity. Would you not agree that they, like all of Mankind, are the victims of cultural accident?"
"I would," Ari nodded, in full agreement with the philosophy.
"The Bible says this, the Koran says that, but it usually accords with the male dominance that preceded the Book."
"You are most wise," said Ari.
"So what do you say?" said Nabihah. "You want to know more about my husband? I am half-convinced he is the one who planned the hijackings. He knows all the routes, the routines. I was quite content, being his bookkeeper. But I could see where things were headed. My husband has no business sense. And as you can see…" She cast her hand in the direction of the mansion.
"Indeed, you have prospered," Ari said. "Over how many years did it take you to amass such wealth?"
She gave him a long look.
"Not pertinent," she finally said. "Well? Are you going to help Mr. Lawson, your good friend?"
Ari again ran his eyes over Nabihah's female-dominated dominion. Trucking was a man's business. Every business was a man's business. There were exceptions, of course, even in Iraq. Many women operated small shops, but mainly as employees of their husbands or male relatives. But there were a fair number of Arab women in the higher echelons. Everyone knew Lubna Olayan, CEO of Olayan Financing. Of course, the Saudis could afford the luxury of female executives. And from Bahrain to Morocco, and from Kuwait to Qatar, one could find the occasional woman in the upper ranks. The Director General of Rafidain Bank in Iraq was Khawla al-Asadi. In Nabihah's and Yilmaz's homeland, Lobna Helal was Deputy Governor of the Bank of Egypt.
No, it wasn't inconceivable. But the average male Arab would shrug these women off as grotesque anomalies unworthy of consideration. 'Behind all these puffed-up hens there are men dealing the cards.' They were often right…but sometimes wrong. Nabihah gave all the appearance of being a shrewd businesswoman. She also showed little inclination to respect tradition.
"Before I agree to this, be it understood: although I am Sicilian, I am descended from Assyrians."
Nabihah and Yilmaz laughed. Singh cocked his thick brow.
"My complexion is the unfortunate bypass of a conquering army."
"Does that really matter to you, Mr. Ciminon? You are no darker than Singh, here, and in America that counts for…"
"Yes, that counts for a very great deal, if you have watched the news." Said Ari, who never watched the news.
"Mr. Ciminon…" Nabihah gauged Ari, tapping her lower lip. "When I was a little girl, we often had Anwar Sadat over for dinner."
Her family had entertained the former President of Egypt? This confirmed Ari's estimate that Nabihah had come from a privileged background. Highly privileged.
"In private, my father sometimes called him Nasser's 'black poodle'. He was quite dark, that little man, but even then, I thought my father was unfair. Dark? Yes. Stupid? By no means. I liked him, but I was only a girl, and I kept my lips to myself."
"Your lips were sealed," Singh conjectured.
"My father was saying that Nasser himself was on the dark side. The light-complected Egyptians made fun of both men. It is everywhere, this prejudice against dark skin. But I learned early that it was meaningless. Do not look at me with wonder, Mr. Ciminon. I am not godless. I see god in everything. Including the beauty of the female form."
Ari could not think of anything to say.
"You bear a striking resemblance to Nasser. I did not meet him. If I was that old, I would not be betraying my body this way. But he had a noble bearing. I see it in old photographs. Maybe that is why I am willing to trust you with my business concerns. I may be mistaken, of course. For all I know, you are the Namus."
"Who you just called a myth."
"There might be…something to it."
"To harm a woman would be like harming my wife," said Ari. "An inconceivable torture to my soul."
And with that he returned to the pool and seated himself on the edge of the chaise lounge. Nabihah reseated herself and they spent the next hour deep in discussion.
CHAPTER 3
Camp Rustamiyah – Baghdad – Iraq
June 7, 2006 - 2200 hours
Private Hutton, so worthless that he could not keep his feet or find his way, lost track of his special-secret exit from Camp Rusty. None of the guards would have taken much interest in him. But he was with Ghaith. Everyone knew Ghaith—or rather, Haji. A swell guy, the perfect interpreter, but well…you know…not to insult…but he was a fucking Iraqi. What was Hutton up to, wandering around in the dark with Captain Rodriguez's favorite terp?
Ghaith was surprised by Hutton's passion for an Iraqi girl. What he knew of the private could fit in a beer cap, but it was enough to suggest that he had wandered far from home cooking. He had arrived in Iraq with the hard, skeptical leer young Americans reserved for foreign oddities. Having come from a small boilerplate town in the Panhandle, that leer was all the harder. What did these Iraqi yahoos mean by their odd behavior? This business of hiding their women's faces was off-putting, and those men in thobes…well, jeesh, usually someone got dressed after getting out of bed! The beards Hutton could live with. You could find long, scraggly hair on the faces of any number of Confederate wannabes in Diddley, Texas. But then there was all that bowing and scraping, accompanied by such a load of mumbo-jumbo that one couldn't tell if they were praying or swearing. They seemed intent on showing up all the other world religions—especially the Renewal Fellowship Church that Hutton belonged to. His attendance record might be a little ragged, but he was second to none in his belief in a Great Big Guy in the Sky, whose bear hug reached Eternity, and whose Great Big Blowout was the centerpiece of redemption. How could these guys banging their foreheads on the ground match that? Who were they trying to kid?
"What the fuck is that noise?" Hutton complained when they again heard the creepy moaning and creaking in the distance.
"Perhaps there is a factory out there," Ghaith reasoned.
"What could they be making in the middle of the night?"
"There is a large scrap yard out towards Al-Za'franiya. "
Their compactor might need oiling."
"But why now?"
"There is much scrap in Baghdad these days," Ghaith said. "They need to work 24/7 to gather it all up."
"That doesn't sound like—"
"There is also the vast weapons research facility at Al Qa'qaa, just across the river, where Saddam kept many of his weapons of mass destruction. You might remember that 377 tons of high explosive disappeared from there in 2003. Perhaps the insurgents have discovered more and are digging it out of the ground with a steam shovel. Another possibility is that the Big Babylon Supergun has been revived and they are preparing a nuclear cartridge for Jerusalem..."
Hutton's irate response was drowned out by a pair of Warthogs returning to the Rasheed airbase next door. To Ghaith, they sounded far more ominous than the strange noise. The last time he had been at the business end of an A-10 he had crapped his pants. He had not been the only one to shuck out of his soiled clothes. It had been an undignified day for the Republican Guard, racing down the Highway of Death with their naked dicks flapping in the smoke.
They had paused at the edge of a motor pool. Hutton jumped when the door of an M35 popped open. A soldier dropped to the ground and moved furtively under the corrugated roof of the car port. He stopped just short of running into Hutton and Ghaith.
"Oh, shit! You guys scared the bejeezuz out of me!"
It was Private Ropp, who had shared with Ghaith 'four fingers of death' (beef hot dogs) after the fight in Sadr City. In his hands were two olive-brown packages.
"What're you doing out here?" Ropp asked.
"Nothing," said Hutton. "What were you doing in the deuce-and-a-half?"
"Nothing…"
The two liars stared at each other across the murky half-darkness.
"What's that you've got?" Hutton asked, nodding at the packages.
"Nothing," Ropp said again. It seemed to be his favorite answer to any question.
"They're MRE's," Hutton asserted. "What's that…teriyaki?"
"Fuck." Ropp gritted his teeth. "OK, I'm a little hungry, all right?"
Hutton shook his head in puzzlement. "Why are you sneaking around with them? Did you hide them in the truck?"
"It's Mastin. He's on my case."
The Shelter for Buttered Women Page 6