The house was probably built by our ancestors in the fifteenth century, she grunted, flinging a grizzled piece of lamb into the sink. If her husband would only fix things but where is he? Disappears every day and leaves me to face the shame. That’s what happened, Jalak suddenly decided. The pistachio thief salesman knew who she was. The butcher knew who she was, a family, a whose son lived in the Martyrs Home because of an unsuitable parent.
They were fortunate not to be beheaded like the perverts and tossed into the sea, Jalak trembled.
“Are you home?” Jalak shouted at Abdul, walking up the staircase.
“No, I’m a ghost.”
Big mouth. No respect, like his father.
“And do your homework.”
The soccer ball bounced up the steps.
“Without the ball.” She stood at the bottom waiting, arms folded. Abdul kicked the ball over her head, running into his room and locking the door before she could catch him. “Stay there and do your homework,” Jalak yelled into the keyhole before returning to the kitchen to exact revenge on the washed potatoes in the sink.
A bearded man in a frayed black hood peered through the window. Jalak gasped and pointed the long knife.
“Get out of here,” she shouted.
“Apologies…”
“I said get out…”
“What’re you doing, woman?” Mustafa rushed in, smelling of fish from a short trip with tourists. He bowed over the sink. “Allah have my head for my wife.”
Abdullah chuckled. “I have two wives. I understand. May I?”
Mustafa shoved Jalak aside and frantically opened the back door.
“You’re not letting a bum into my house…”
As Mustafa started explaining, Abdullah tossed him a warning glance.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, my woman. My feet are too dirty for your floors and my breath is filled with a stench that would mar that wondrous meal you’re cooking.”
Jalak wasn’t sure what to say, so she allowed anger to talk. “That’s right.” To Azhar, she said contemptuously, “Go talk to your beggar friend on the street.”
As they walked down the driveway, Azhar tried apologizing profusely, but Abdullah would have none of it.
“She’s a perceptive woman. Would you want her letting in someone dressed like this?”
“Your wisdom.” Azhar respectfully lowered his head.
“Common sense in a marriage is difficult.” The Son led Azhar a few blocks away. Mustafa was surprised that they didn’t get into a car, but instead sat on a bench near the sea. Azhar shifted slightly away, reddening.
“My odors,” he apologized.
“You’re a fishing captain. You must make money. It mustn’t be easy after what I did to you.”
“You? I made my own shame.”
“By trying to save the orphans?”
“I jeopardized security and the lives of your men.”
“Those al’abalahs,” Abdullah snorted. “That’s why I do what I do. And why you rescued that little girl from the orphanage.”
“I lied.”
“Yes, you did.” Abdullah smiled thinly. “But it was to return her to the infidels, with whom she belonged. Then they kill her. We have a long road ahead.”
Azhar shrugged limply.
The Son squeezed Mustafa’s arm. “Do you worry about your son?”
“Omar has a strong heart…”
“He’s lost to them. At that age, there’s no turning back.”
“He is but sixteen…”
“Lost,” Abdullah said firmly. “Accept that. Accept that he is our enemy.”
He shuddered at the image of his son in a black robe holding a scimitar. “I can’t.”
“Abdul is our future. Perhaps it will be soccer. Think of Abdul scoring goals against the Crusaders, a stadium full of Muslims and… “ he caught himself. “…non-Muslims.
We’ll need to find a different word for them. Perhaps even for us.”
They watched sleepy sailboats pass.
“I’m sorry your life is upside down, Azhar,” Abdullah finally said. “But it was necessary.”
“Allah needs me to be suspected of heresy?”
“No, but I do.” The Mufti’s son leaned forward. “I imagine your wife won’t care if I take you off on another trip.”
“I believe she’d thank you.”
They grinned together for a moment.
“May I ask where we’re going?”
Abdullah leaned back with a mischievous smile. “No. But pack warm clothes.”
He didn’t think it’d be wise to ask Jalak to knit him a scarf.
• • • •
ZELDA SLOWLY WALKED up the wide chipped steps into the abandoned building. The nearest light was on the next floor. She used both hands on the railing, smiling wryly that falling might do the trick except for the broken bones.
Two more flights up, where she paused to catch her breath, glancing through the soiled square window at desolate East 166th Street, then down a corridor lit by a simple exposed bulb. There were no sounds other than her rasping.
One last brave sigh. The door opened on the fourth knock. A narrow bed with a fresh sheet greeted her, come lay with me, my mattress is firm and you shouldn’t be here long. This was the only furniture, except for a wobbly floor lamp, light spilling apologetically onto a dour woman silently washing her hands at the sink. Least she used soap, Zelda thought.
A friendly man in a white surgical gown and a reassuring smile came out of another room.
“Dr. Watt.” He iclasped her hand. “Good to know you, Zelda.”
“Same here. I wish the circumstances were different.”
He looked around as if they were at Lebanon Hospital and it was her fault she couldn’t see the nurses and doctors running around saving lives.
“Next time. There’s no reason why you can’t have many children.”
“I had two after.” The dour women held up a pair of fingers.
Zelda thought Dr. Watt was going to applaud and vidup photos of the dour children on the peeling wall. Instead he nodded grimly and told Zelda to sit while the woman laid gleaming hot, really very sharp instruments on a towel on the kitchen counter.
Her thighs pressed together.
“Can I give you a head’s up how
