“She does, you know.”
Sameh’s wife returned to the kitchen. Marc gave the living room a careful inspection. Sliding glass doors faced a paved inner courtyard. The outdoor living area was perhaps thirty feet across and encircled by other rooms. The roof angled out and shaded much of the patio. Where the roof ended, raised concrete boxes the size of watering troughs held flowers.
The living room walls held many photographs, starting in color to his left and moving to faded black-and- white by the entry. The older photos showed men wearing peaked Ottoman-style caps and curving mustaches and women in dark head coverings.
The room’s furnishings were modest. Two Turkish carpets covered the tile floor. A coffee table with a round brass top stood between a well-worn calfskin sofa and matching chairs. Beneath the photographs, bookshelves stretched along two walls. Marc inspected the titles. The books looked well used, some quite old. Dickens and Thackeray stood next to Trollope and Melville and Hemingway.
Two shelves were given over to works in Arabic. Another was filled with CDs. Most of them were classical, but there was also some Arabic music and jazz from the big-band era. A small stereo had been placed beside the divider between the living room and the dining area. Across the room stood a television and bookshelves containing DVDs. The films were mostly remastered black-and-white classics. Ingrid Bergman, Sophia Loren, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, John Huston. Marc also spotted a few newer films, mainly dramas.
Bisan entered the room carrying a steaming tulip glass on a saucer. “Here is your tea.”
“Thank you.” Marc seated himself on the divan, clasped the tulip glass between thumb and forefinger, and blew carefully.
Bisan sat down across from him, the picture of a miniature adult in a pale blue ankle-length frock with matching headscarf. She folded her hands in her lap and said, “You are still looking worried.”
In truth, Marc had been wondering if he should interrupt a family gathering with the ambassador’s offer of green cards. “Sorry.”
“Uncle Sameh has nights when his forehead looks like this.” She used both hands to pinch her forehead into deep furrows. “Uncle Sameh says there is only one thing that makes him feel better when he is like that.”
“Which is?”
“I sing to him. Would you like…?”
Marc figured Bisan hesitated because Leyla appeared in the doorway. She and her daughter exchanged one of those woman-to-woman looks that said a lot more than any ordinary male could ever comprehend. And then Miriam appeared in the other doorway, and she and Leyla started to tell him something.
When it happened.
The boom was soft, a single rolling thunder that compressed the air and rattled the windows. The looks between the three females tightened.
They waited. Silent. Unmoving.
The phone rang.
All three women breathed as one. Miriam rushed over and answered in a voice scarcely above a whisper. She listened for a moment, then hung up and said, “Sameh is three blocks away. The police are driving him. He is safe.”
The words spoke volumes to Marc. About these three striving to knit a life of normalcy amid the chaos of Baghdad. Of hearing countless explosions, and waiting in silent agony for confirmation that all the members of their little family were safe. Of worrying over a man they held in deep respect and even deeper love. A man who lived for honor and integrity in the face of impossible risk. Who above all was their protector.
In the distance, a siren wailed.
Bisan said, “One.”
The two women smiled, but their eyes were ever so sad.
Another siren joined in. Bisan said, “Two.”
Leyla said, “Even when she was little, Bisan always counted the sirens.”
Bisan said, “The most was twenty-two. Do you remember, Mama?”
Leyla was saved from answering by a sound at the door. Sameh entered. “I am sorry I am late.”
The three females moved as one. Whatever protocol might have normally governed such moments was brushed aside. They enveloped Sameh in one giant embrace. The man stood at their center, his face given over to weary relief. And something more. Marc felt a lump grow at the base of his throat. Not so much in memory of what he had once known, as in what was for him no more.
Marc waited until his glass was refilled and Sameh had washed his face and the ladies had brought in plates of finger-sized delicacies to announce, “I am sorry to interrupt our time together, but I have news that can’t wait.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
T he last thing Sameh expected was what happened next.
The young American talked as he worked his way through the array of appetizers Miriam and Leyla set upon the coffee table. He continued as they moved to the dining table. He spoke through the main course of lamb and pilaf rice and Miriam’s famous coriander salad. Marc ate like a starving man, which endeared him to the ladies. Several times Marc apologized for discussing such matters over the splendid meal. Leyla explained how, in this family, there was a code of not merely honesty but openness. And that Bisan had been included in this openness since before she was old enough to talk.
Marc described events in the direct manner of an American, with a professional’s ability to recount the important issues without an overlay of personal reactions. He started with the call that came while he was working with the families lining Sameh’s stairwell. He then described the unexpected appearance of the man he called the leopard in the square, the conversation in the cafe, the phone call to Duboe, the Rhino, the embassy, Boswell, the meeting with the ambassador.
When he had finished recounting the most important piece of information, there was a unified silence. Leyla spoke first. “Green cards.”
Sameh was increasingly concerned with how events were overtaking him. It was not just what had happened to Marc. It was the entire day. He was an expert at drawing together seemingly disconnected strands and weaving a tapestry that could be presented to a jury. But this present situation confounded him.
Miriam asked, “How many green cards is the ambassador offering us?”
“Four.”
“All of us would receive a green card? You are sure?” From Leyla.
“He mentioned each of you specifically. Sameh, his wife, his niece, her daughter. He had all the pertinent facts.”
Bisan, the child who had been made an adult far too early, asked, “Can we trust this man?”
Marc wisely responded to her as he would another adult. “I do not know for sure. But if you want my opinion, I would say yes. He made this offer in the presence of Barry Duboe. Sameh has worked with Duboe. This suggests the ambassador was using Barry Duboe to confirm his offer was real.”
Leyla said, “My daughter meant no offense.”
“None taken, I assure you. If I were in your position, I would be asking the same thing.”
Leyla said, “And we must give our response by tomorrow afternoon.”
“By five.” Marc glanced at Sameh. “Unless we can perform the impossible before then.”
When he had recounted his request for additional time and the ambassador’s response, Miriam asked, “Why is he doing this?”
“If you will please excuse me, that is not the question you need to be asking.”
Sameh huffed a humorless chuckle. Despite the fact that the American was still in his first week in Iraq, he had given the proper Arab answer. “Marc speaks the truth.”
Marc went on, “What you first need to decide is, do you want the green cards?”
Those two words were never translated. They needed no explanation, not even in the smallest village in the
