“That one is very good eating. You must have it for breakfast.”
“I couldn’t cook it. Please, take it for your family.”
“No, they will cook it for you at your place. Taste your good fortune before you return to the States.”
“Yes, all right.”
With enhanced sensitivity, born of the day’s trauma, to every small thing, Liz shuddered at the sound of the boat’s motor starting up again. It seemed to thunder the fact that she must return to a very changed world. She was grateful, at least, that the noise covered the sound of the beautiful blue fish’s last gasp.
Newton, Massachusetts, December 18, 2000 Having traveled by train from New York City, Samir Hasan stepped off the Green Line trolley at the Newton Highlands T stop and pulled a sheet of paper from his small backpack that contained Ellen’s purse. He scrutinized the map he had printed on a computer in the New York Public Library. Then he set out in the direction of Fenwick Street near Newton City Hall. While making the half-mile walk along sidewalks banked with shoveled snow and crunchy with rock salt, he reflected that he was ill dressed once again. In the World Trade Center, it had been a question of style. Now the problem was fabric. His thin jacket, which was more than adequate for his work driving a heated taxi, was hardly hefty enough to fight the chill breeze that sent sheets of snow flying from piles all around him.
At least here, in a town of many Volvos and top-of-the line SUVs but few pedestrians, it was easy to tell no one was following him. Why did that provide him with a sense of relief? He wanted to believe he still had a chance to get the woman and himself out of danger. But how?
Why should such thoughts cross his mind? What was it about the shaqra that caused him to question the mission he had been assigned? Just because she moved to help him in the restaurant, just because she asked him about his son, were these enough to stop him from carrying out his promise?
What promise? He had never pledged to end this woman’s life. Not with his own hands. In the New York City mosque, when he’d been asked to transmit the list of code words, he knew the cause justified killing. Killing on a large scale, perhaps. But he himself was only a—what was it called in English?—a cog. A cog in the turning of a bigger machine. Now he was called upon to be the wheel that crushes. Was he man enough to do this deed? Or, was he strong enough to listen to his heart, to save this woman from the danger in which he had placed her?
Every time he considered warning her of the danger she was in, the thought was paired with panic about the practical aftermath of such an action. His own life would then be threatened, too. How would the two of them—together or singly—elude Fa’ud for any length of time? Perhaps the only course was to kill her.
A gust of wind whipped icy crystals into his face. Samir Hasan squared his shoulders and picked up his pace.
With the cookie-making ingredients set out in the kitchen, Ellen decided to make herself a cup of tea. Taking out the china she had bought in New York City to replace the cup Veronica had broken recently, she realized she now owned an extra saucer, since the shop would sell her only the cup-and-saucer set. Turning the saucer over, she looked again at the name of the china pattern: Forget Me Not.
And then it happened again. A strangely unsettling feeling washed over her like a wave breaking on the side of her head, spilling down her arms and torso, producing a cold sweat. Gripping the saucer in one hand and the kitchen counter with the other, she saw again the marvelous shapes of topiary trees. And then, like a relentless lens trained on a reluctant subject targeted by paparazzi, her mind’s eye zoomed in on a sort of umbrella of pine needles. And, yes, there was the tuneless hum again. And more sounds came to her too. The moan of a man, the man seated stroking himself under the tree. After he moaned, he formed a word, a word starting with the sound of the letter F, and this time he finished the word. With horror, Ellen heard two all-too-familiar syllables, Flicka.
Swedish for “Pretty Girl.” Her father’s pet name for her.
“Forget me not!” Ellen cried out, shocked into a state of mind that was no longer dreamlike in the least. Keenly aware of the saucer in one hand, of the counter edge she gripped with the other, of the shriek of the teakettle, Ellen recalled, with a kind of exhilaration, the sound of a zipper in the shadows, her father standing up, emerging from the shadows, taking her in his arms. Then he pointed, thrusting out his finger as if to stab the air, and he bellowed, in an unfamiliar, throaty voice, “Forget me not, young man! I will not let you get away with this.”
Loosening her grip on the countertop, Ellen picked up a piece of chalk and wrote the words “FORGET ME NOT” on her blackboard. Her hand was shaky, but the writing seemed to settle her. She turned off the teakettle, and without washing the new cup, prepared herself a cup of tea in it.
Marveling at her mastery of these ordinary things, she carried the cup of tea into the living room, sat down in her chair, and then realized she had carried the extra saucer along without realizing it. She set the teacup with its own saucer on the side table and picked up her Arabic phrase book. Still holding the orphaned saucer in her left hand, she found herself tapping it on her thigh as, all at once, the flow of words, words in any language, seemed marvelous to her. So did the sound of her own voice. She sat and tapped the saucer against her thigh and read phrase after Arabic phrase with a facility that had heretofore always eluded her.
Meanwhile, Hasan had made his way to the Johanssons’ front steps. Hearing Ellen through the door, he found himself astonished again at this woman’s ability to surprise him. Perhaps her conversational Arabic was rather good, as he’d originally thought, even though she seemed perplexingly unfamiliar with the word for coffee and the names of some fruits. How could he be certain about the shaqra’s failure or success at understanding the code words? It was all too much for him. Utterly unmanned by the consternation he felt, Hasan did the only thing left to him.
He whispered a fervent prayer for guidance.
Only then did he reach out and ring the doorbell.
Startled, Ellen stood up, and set down her book. She was not expecting anyone. Still holding the saucer, she crossed the room and opened the door.
Hasan could take no chances. Even as he greeted her politely, he strode past her directly into the house, knocking her arm and causing the saucer she was holding to crash to the floor.
Allah be praised! This gave Hasan an excuse to bend down and assist in the cleanup, hiding his face while he continued to deliver the complicated greeting that he hoped would buy him entree into the home.
“Dear lady,” he said, “I have news of vital importance, which I beg of you to hear.”
“Please, I’ll take care of that,” Ellen said, glancing at the shattered saucer. But she remained standing, afraid to squat near this intruder. “I must ask you to leave.”
“Please, it is for your good that I have come to say . . .”
“I will call the police!”
Hasan clenched the shard, cutting himself. “Ayah!” He cried out, dropping his backpack and the china and standing up suddenly, clutching his bleeding hand.
Alarm overcame Ellen’s instinct to help but Hasan cut short her effort to shove him toward the front door. Holding his uninjured hand over her mouth, he pushed her toward the back of the house, through the dining room and into the kitchen.
“Please, lady!” he urged, as Ellen squirmed free and rushed toward a block of wood holding a set of knives. To prevent her grasping a knife, he grabbed her hands with both of his, including his injured hand, dripping blood. Ellen slipped her left hand from his slippery grip. Disgusted, she shook her bloodied hand over the countertop.
“You!” she cried recognizing him fully now. “What are you doing here? What do you want with me?”
“Hamdu-lillah! I only want to—”
Ellen opened her mouth to scream.
Lunging, Hasan clamped his hand over Ellen’s mouth. But her panic gave her cleverness he did
