Sharaf seemed taken aback, but not in a bad way. The color of his neck had faded to medium rare.
“Laleh, you’re only going eighty now. If you really are worried for my life, then please concentrate on your driving or we’ll be rear-ended by some idiot doing two hundred.”
Right on cue, a Mercedes whizzed past on the right, blaring its horn and blinking its brights. Laleh sheepishly eased to the right amid more honking, and brought their speed back up to a hundred.
Sharaf took a deep breath, which seemed to calm him further. Laleh had disarmed him as only a daughter can disarm a loving father—with her care and concern.
“All right,” he said finally. “I see what you’re doing. And because of how you feel I can almost excuse what you did earlier this morning. Almost. And, by the way, have you phoned your mother? Does she have any idea where you are?”
“I was going to do that later.”
“You’ll do it in the next five minutes, even if we have to pull off the highway. And that is not negotiable.”
“Okay.” Demure voice, ceding ground she knew she couldn’t hold.
“Or maybe fifteen minutes would be better, because I can see now that it is going to be necessary for me to tell you a very old story. And to hear it you’re going to have to take this next exit, because I won’t tell it while you’re driving.”
She looked over at her father as if not quite believing him.
“Well, do you want to hear it or not?”
She took the exit, the one for Emirates Mall.
“Pull into the parking deck,” Sharaf said. “A lower level, where we’ll be out of sight.”
She circled downward and squeezed into a space between two other BMWs. They sat in silence for a few seconds while the color of Sharaf’s neck continued to fade down the spectrum. He turned toward Sam.
“This is a private story about my family. I am afraid I must tell it in Arabic so that only Laleh will understand it.”
“Sure. Okay.”
“No,” Laleh said, employing her new favorite word. Sam figured she hadn’t used it this much since the age of two. He braced for Sharaf’s next explosion.
But the older man contained himself. Maybe he realized he was dealing with a strange new phenomenon of defiance, a force of nature every bit as unstoppable as a sandstorm, or a plague of locusts. Whatever the reason, he asked his next question in English, and in a tone that was calm and reasonable, if somewhat puzzled.
“Why do you say ‘No’ to me now, my daughter? Are you overly tired? Or is it because, as all of those ridiculous Western television programs designed for ladies like to say, that you are suddenly feeling ‘empowered’?”
Laleh seemed to hold back a grin.
“My reason is more practical. If you really are about to explain why you can’t possibly turn back, then doesn’t Mr. Keller deserve to hear it as well? Now that your destinies are shared.”
Sharaf considered her words a moment, then nodded, apparently relieved to find himself back in territory where he at least understood the logic.
“A valid point. Very well, then. If Mr. Keller has the patience, then he, too, may hear the story of our family’s disgrace.”
“Disgrace?” Her resolve seemed to waver.
“Yes. ‘Disgrace’ is exactly the right word, as you will see. It is the foundation upon which our wealth has always been based. Do you still wish for a stranger to learn why?”
There was a pause, followed by a small nod and a very quiet “yes.”
“Then I will tell you. It is the very reason I became a policeman, or more to the point, an
“It wasn’t because of that television show,
“No, my dear. And it’s Perry, not Percy. Although that story is real enough. I really did feel like a shining knight of justice whenever I translated his triumphs for our neighbors. But that came later, when I had tutors and was learning English. By then my father could afford to pay for such things. The real reason came earlier, when I was twelve. It was summer, the year before Ali and I would put to sea. My family was not really poor, no more than anyone else. But our house was not as grand as it would become, and our pleasures were simple. One of mine was that on the night of every full moon I enjoyed sneaking down to the banks of the creek, because that was when the women and girls liked to swim. They went into the water in their dresses, of course, even after dark. But, well, you know what water does to dresses. It was the only way a boy of twelve could ever expect to see such things.”
“I’m shocked,” Laleh said. She was joking, but Sharaf hadn’t even noticed. From his eyes Sam could see he was swept away on a current from his past.
“So there I was, lying in the reeds, swatting at mosquitoes and trying not to make noise, not that I had to worry about that because the girls were laughing so loud. Then I heard footsteps coming up on the path behind me. I froze. I was sure it was the father of one of those girls, who would swat my head and turn me over to an imam on Friday for a lesson in proper behavior.
“But no. Nothing like that. It was my own father, and he wasn’t looking for me. Even in the moonlight you could see right away by the glitter of his eyes that he was a man on important business. Maybe that was why I decided to follow him. To see what was afoot.”
“So even then you were a detective,” Laleh said.
“Or maybe I just didn’t trust him. I never had. He was always trying to swindle someone in the souk, or cheat a boat captain out of his cut. So I moved out of the reeds and tucked in behind him, walking as quietly as I could. He
