"Please," Ari protested. "There is no need. I am happy to meet all of you. This is…a convocation?"
"We're all members of a business association," said Sanad. "This is our monthly gathering. We usually meet in the mosque, but the qazi reserved the reception area ahead of us."
"There is a wedding?"
"A blessed event we would not dream of interrupting with our common business talk." Sanad had an interesting voice. Cultured. Soothing but emphatic, like a snake charmer's. A few chuckles greeted his assertion. Humor that was undercut by a burly man in a white short-sleeved shirt who jabbed a plastic knife in the air and said:
"Aryri Feek."
My dick is in you.
Sanad deflated a bit. "This crude creature is Nizzar Saqqal. He is, sad to say, my business partner."
"Every successful business needs one," Ari observed, wondering what kind of business they were involved in. Were they arms smugglers? If so, he might like to cultivate their company. He himself had made a small bundle by stripping drug dealers and would-be assassins of their weapons and selling them on the black market.
Sanad's lean lips slipped sideways, as though dodging something distasteful.
"And these are also associates in your company?" Ari asked, nodding at the room.
This caused some mirthful and mirthless chuckles among the guests. A half-hidden woman in the next room overheard and glanced up. Her upper lip curled up in a visual growl before she caught Ari looking at her. She quickly lowered her head.
"These are fellow dues-paying members of the Greater Richmond Arab Businessman Association," Sanad informed him.
Ari, who had been bombarded with acronyms for the last couple of years, conjured 'GRABA'. Grab a what? Judging from the mercenary looks on some of their faces, it probably meant anything that wasn't nailed down.
"Non-deductible!" declaimed a man wearing a grey and black thobe.
"It is true," Sanad sighed. "Arab non-profits in America are not allowed to claim dues on their taxes."
"It is a country of greed," Ari nodded.
"One thing in our favor!" This man's shout was greeted by laughter.
Ari guessed half or more Middle Eastern countries were represented here. To his surprise, one of them was wearing a kufi.
"Yes, our half-white African member," said Sanad. "You should see him in his grand boubou."
"I am the butt of many jokes," the West African confessed, though he was as light-complected as most of the others in the room.
"Has Mr. Sadiq stepped out?" Ari asked.
"Here's here, but he is momentarily indisposed. Please, I'm sure he would want you to have some refreshment…"
Sanad guided him through the living room, a hazardous trek through stretched legs, plates and clear plastic cups. About a dozen women were seated in the dining area. They hastily pushed away from the table as the two men entered and approached a buffet. He had smelled the shawarma from the front door, the roasted lamb and chicken stirring his appetite. Ari placed several of the snacks on a paper plate before moving on to the mashed potato and tahini and shortbread.
"You would like something to drink?"
Ari was guided to a bar covered with a checkered tablecloth. There were soft drinks and tea, but he was drawn to the arak. He put some in a cup and mixed it with water. When he poured it over ice it turned a translucent milky white. He took a sip and smiled as he savored the licorice fusion.
The women who had pulled away from the table remained against the wall. Ari might return to reload his plate. He gave a vague nod and shuffled out of the dining room. All of the seats were taken, but since other men were sitting on the floor he felt no compunction about joining them. However, as he began to lower himself Sanad signaled for him to come over to the couch. Hopscotching across the carpet, he found Sanad squeezing against the sofa bolster, making an almost imperceptible gap between himself and Nizzar, who seemed none too pleased by the intrusion.
"Don't mind him, he growls at everything."
Ari settled in, giving a small grunt as he forced his buttocks onto the cushion. The crush of elbows and thighs did not bother him. Unlike their American counterparts, Arab men did not cringe at physical contact. Having served in Saddam's Iraqi army, he was comforted by the memory of young men jammed tit-to-ass in the mess hall. Carefully resting his cup between his feet, he began eating his shawarma. Sanad had found a porcelain cup and saucer and was sipping daintily at a cup of tea. Ari detected a hint of sage. Nizzar leaned forward and sneered.
"Abstainer!" he laughed harshly, raising his bottle of Almaza pilsner.
Sanad ignored him and took another genteel sip. Ari noted that half the men were drinking alcohol in one form or another. The rest were content with tea and soft drinks.
Nizzar shifted his attention to Ari. "Haven't we met somewhere before?"
Lowering his cup, Sanad shot his business partner a glance, then smiled at Ari. "'Ciminon'. Is that Italian?"
Ari finished another meat pastry and nodded.
"You seem very aware of Arab ways."
"In what way?" Ari asked.
"The way you left the women to themselves. Being a strange man, they felt uncomfortable. You left the dining room very quickly."
"I have many friends among the Muslims of Sicily," Ari answered. "I learned their culture."
"Sicily! What part, may I ask?"
"Syracuse."
"Interesting," Sanad said. "You must know Abbas ibn Muhammed? Or Jafar ibn Fadhi?"
Great, Ari thought. A world traveler. Best to play it safe and confess ignorance, which he did. Sanad responded with courteous puzzlement, as though amazed how much one could miss even when it was right under one's nose.
"Well-known businessmen?" Ari responded, putting on an abashed expression. "Do you do trade with them?"
"Oh, no, they are bankers. Nizzar and I are in the…reclamation business."
Nizzar looked up for a moment, as if to ask, 'We are?' or 'What's that?' Then he shook his head and once again leaned over his plate, almost invisible under the marvelous heap he had managed to fit on top. His fingers were coated in sauce that he removed between bites with loud slurps. The man on the other side of him watched warily, worried that the small mountain would collapse sideways and stain his clothes. Sanad was not eating. He continued to sip at his hot tea.
Conversation hovered between glumness and silence. Ari did not know what to make of it. Taking note of his confusion, Sanad explained:
"One of our members lost his wife. We encouraged him to attend our meeting. We felt seeing friends and talking about work would ease his sorrow. But Abbas Al Jallawi suddenly…"
"Was it expected?" Ari inquired. "Was she ill? Or was it an accident?"
"Well…"
"'Whoever kills himself intentionally, he will be in the fire of hell for eternity'," Nizzar intoned.
Ari recognized the quote from an ancient Shia imam.
"You surprise me, Nizzar," Sanad said, showing a trace of irritation. "I didn't know you remembered your lessons from childhood."
"She killed herself?" Ari's voice was hushed. Suicide was completely illogical. It was like throwing away a trunkful of diamonds. True, it made a little more sense to blow yourself up while taking off some enemies in the process, but even this lacked finesse, and betrayed a sorry lack of imagination. Killing an enemy from ambush or in hand-to-hand combat was more Ari's style—basically because it was repeatable.
The idea of a woman killing herself sent a shiver of horror through him. How dare she do such a thing—presumably without her husband's permission? There was so much to be done. A household must be maintained, children must be raised. Suddenly, it dawned on Ari that women were essential. They shouldn't be allowed to whimsically off themselves.
He imagined Nabihah Sadiq scoffing at this notion. Women could hold jobs, could run businesses. But Ari mentally countered that these things were not…well, essential. Where would a man be without a stable house and home?
Lately, some
suicide bombers had turned out to be female. Which, to certain parties, must have seemed useful. Cleaning up the national house, so to speak.
"I hate weepiness," Nizzar groused through a mouth half-full of roasted lamb.
"You hate everything," said Sanad.
"No, I love this stuff," Nizzar shot back, propping open his jaw so they could see what he was chewing on.
Sanad and Ari turned away from him.
"When Abbas broke down in the middle of a perfectly normal conversation about freight rates, Teraq escorted him to the bedroom to help him gather his wits."
"How long have they been back there?" Ari asked.
"Poor Abbas fell apart the moment before you arrived," said the man on the other side of Nizzar. "You were lucky. It was unsettling."
"So I would think," said Ari. Shifting stiffly between Sanad and Nizzar, he twisted far enough to look out the picture window behind the couch. He could just make out his car at the far end of the parking lot. Anyone who happened to glance outside ten minutes ago would have seen him walking up the sidewalk. The edge of the window cut off the two men sitting in the Lincoln. Had Tareq or Abbas received a phone call before the 'weepiness'?
"I tried to call Tareq to make sure I had the right place," Ari said to no one in particular.
"I heard a phone ringing before you came," said the man on the other side of Nizzar. "But no…it was Sanad's—"
Nizzar's mountain of oozing snacks toppled sideways onto the man's lap.
"Xara!" Nizzar responded to the man's cry of dismay. "I couldn't help it. Something bit me. Tareq needs to fumigate this place."
A small woman rushed out of the dining room and moaned. "That yellow is turmeric. It might not come out. We have to clean it out instantly!"
"You hear that?" Nizzar said, grinning. "You'd better strip now, Rami! Your wife can throw your pants in the sink!"
This drew laughter from the men tossing napkins in Rami's direction. He knocked away Nizzar's helpful hand and used the napkins to gather up the mess and slop it back on the plate. He seemed tempted to throw it all back on Nizzar, but Nizzar's bland expression of menace dissuaded him. He thrust the plate on the window sill and shot out the door with his wife.
"Half hour drive to his home and washing machine," Nizzar clucked with a shake of his head. "And with turmeric stains, time is of the essence. Hope I-95 isn't backed up like it was the other day. Sanad had to pick me up in Fredericksburg. It took him over two hours to cover fifty miles."
"Is that so?" said Ari. Badawi Bahrani had been greatly put out when Truck 21 spewed shreds of truck tire across I-95 near Fredericksburg. Had Nizzar been a passenger in the rig? The traffic might have been bad, but Sanad could have still managed to retrieve his partner and get back to the O'Connor's depot around the time someone attached the exhaust hose to the trailer containing the cargo of women.
Sanad did not seem as put out by Nizzar's buffoonery as Ari would have expected. "Ah, more room," he sighed as Nizzar and Ari shifted to fill Rami's vacated space.
The other guests raised their voices, as though the incident had punctured the gloom caused by Abbas's grief. Much of the conversation Ari overheard concerned the departed Rami, who was not held in high regard. It appeared some of the business club members thought did not belong in their group.
"He imports Persian rugs," Sanad informed him.
"Genuine Persian rugs!" Nizzar elaborated. "Mostly gabbeh."
"Which means he must be Persian!" the West African noted disparagingly, which Ari thought a bit uncharitable, considering his own origins.
"There are no Iranian businessmen in Richmond?" Ari asked.
"None we should deal with," Nizzar snarled, taking his plate off the sill and inspecting the remains. To everyone's unspoken disgust, he began picking through the shattered meat pastries and poking the bits into his mouth.
"Give credit where it's due," said another man. "He's pulled the rug out from under the Americans."
"Hey, I'm an American," another man protested comically. They all laughed at the joke.
"Almost all of us are Americans," Sanad said coyly. "The L-1 requirements imposed by Immigration are too much of a headache. It's easier to spit out the camel and become a U.S. citizen."
"'O say can you see—'" someone began to sing. He was laughed into silence.
"Have you become a citizen of this country?" Sanad asked Ari.
"Still Italian," Ari shrugged, grinning wryly. "Or a 'Euro', as they say now."
"Keeping the escape hatch open, eh?" said one man.
Nizzar greeted this with a look of amused skepticism. He began to look at Sanad, then saw Ari watching and lowered his head to his shabby snacks.
"In what way has Rami tricked the Americans?" Ari asked.
"Don't tell us you don't know about the embargo," the West African said. "The Americans hate the Iranians even more than Arabs. You aren't too young that you don't remember that little embassy hostage situation."
"That was over thirty years ago!" Ari protested, although he knew very well what the man was talking about. He had worked for Iraqi Intelligence, after all. But he had not known the embargo included Persian carpets.
"There are some things the Americans manage to remember, and that's one of them."
"But if Persian rugs are forbidden, how does Rami manage to sell them?"
"By renaming the product," Sanad said. He frowned as he slid a finger along the bottom of his cup. His tea had cooled into impotability. "His store is called 'Allah's Oriental Carpets'."
"But his name is 'Rami'."
"For all they know around here, that could be a Persian name. He wants potential buyers to be reassured that they are buying from despised Arabs instead of despised Iranians."
"He still has to be careful," said one of the guests. "They check on illegal imports, especially when they're displayed in the shop window."
"He tells people his rugs are made in Kurdistan. But the real aficionados know Persian when they see and feel it. That's why he does background checks before making a sale. He tells customers that he needs to run credit checks on them. And at what he charges, they swallow the story."
"He's making sure the prospective customers aren't from Customs?"
"Exactly. It's not hard, if you have the right connections and the baksheesh to back it up."
'Baksheesh' was a word with Iranian origins, and they all appreciated the West African's pun.
"None of this makes Rami Iranian," said Ari.
"Doesn't make him Ya'rub, either," Nizzar responded, referring to the first man to speak Arabic.
"Persian carpets are made all over the world," said Ari.
"You mean Azerbaijan?" one of the men said. "He's got those. And China, and India, and the Maghreb. I've been to his store. He's got knock-offs all over the place. But when he sniffs out a real player, he takes them to the back room. I hear he's got one carpet from the Safavid Dynasty, but no one can afford it. If he ever manages to unload it, he can retire and go home to Tehran."
They had convinced themselves that Rami was Iranian. Ari was not so sure. After all, Persian carpets were sold in Iraq--in the luxurious days before the war, by bona fide Arabs. Rami might have similar connections.
The room fell silent when the bedroom door opened and Tareq emerged. He looked like a man hammered out of shape. This was not the same gruff former-owner Ari had encountered at O'Connor's, shouting at employees and demanding justice from his wife. He stopped when he saw Ari seated between Sanad and Nizzar. Ari sensed profound mistrust…a mistrust not entirely directed at himself.
"How is Abbas?" someone asked solicitously.
"As well as a man can be after his wife has immolated herself," Tareq snapped, causing the inquirer to flinch in shame. Tareq deflated. "I'm sorry, Akmal. It has been very hard…"
There was a small 'ting' and one of the older guests glanced at his watch.
"Alhamdulillah," he said, standing and facing the rear of the building—presumably the
direction of Mecca. "Hayya-al Khair al amal…"
This was the Shi'a version of the Adhan, the call to prayer. Ari darted a glance at Tareq. He had assumed he and his wife were Sunni, or at least raised in that tradition. Judging from Mrs. Sadiq's bikini, they weren't very strict about it. There had certainly been Shi'a among Nabihah's dinner guests. And the very fact that the man chosen to act as muezzin was Shi'a showed some flexibility on Tareq's part.
Ari sensed Sanad stiffening next to him, but no one else showed reluctance to answer the call. There was some shyness, a few awkward glances were exchanged, but everyone stood, covered one or both ears, and recited, "There is no power or authority except Allah." Tareq directed them to the bathroom to wash their hands and face before prayer. It promised to be a cumbersome, time-consuming rite as they lined up. The kitchen sink was being used by the women. Ari did not join them. Neither did Sanad. Having been introduced as Italian and probably Catholic, Ari drew no more than curious glances. On the other hand, Sanad caught a number of sharp-edged looks that bordered on rudeness.
On hearing the watch-chime, Nizzar had thrown his messy plate onto the window sill and leapt up. He hastily pulled out a nylon prayer mat before noting his greasy fingers. He thrust the mat back inside his pocket and bulled his way into the line. Several guests took note of this behavior and nodded glumly, as though passing judgement on an incorrigible (and rather menacing) child.
"Time to stretch my legs," said Sanad, casually placing his cup and saucer on a small table and rising.
"Time for a smoke," said Ari, finishing off his drink with a rattle of ice and placing the glass and plate on the sill.
Sanad gave him an appraising look, then shrugged and led Ari out the door.
Outside, Ari paused to light up, then followed Sanad down the sidewalk.
"What is it?" he asked when Ari paused.
The Continental with the two men in the front seat was gone. Ari was confident in his conclusions, and was disappointed when this one melted before his eyes and dribbled into the gutter. They had not been with Sanad, after all. Nor were they sitting guard for Teraq. Was it Rami who had received the call? Then why had he begun to claim someone else had received it? It could have been that the call did not come from the car. Or there had been no call, at all.
The Shelter for Buttered Women Page 24