Doubt (8 page)

SHE COULDN’T STOP RUNNING
.
Minutes earlier, she had exited the Physics building, stumbling down the stairs. She could hear Kerim and Harry calling her name as she ran out into the street. The air was heavy and humid and clung to her like a wet bathrobe. It was late in the evening and the sky was an angry purple. The moon was low in the sky, a crescent shape with a burnt orange color.

“Cristal, wait!” Kerim cried out, running toward her.

Something in his voice made her stop and turn to face him.

“Leave me alone.”

He stopped in front of her. “We need to talk.”

She looked past him to see if Harry was there. He wasn’t. She shifted her eyes back onto Kerim, crossing her arms.

“Okay, explain to me how come when I’m near you, I feel like you are inside my head. And it seems you know what I’m feeling and thinking.”

He took a deep breath and then looked away.

“So, are you going to tell me?” She stepped closer to him. “Or are you just going to stand there?”

“Okay, let’s sit,” he said, pointing to a bench a few feet away.

His voice was distant yet soft. His tone didn’t exude its usual confidence.

He walked over, sat down, and placed one arm on the back of the bench. She followed him and sat on the far end of the bench. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to read her mind if she created a larger expanse of space between them. She raised her chin slightly and focused her energy on watching his steel grey eyes.

“So, go ahead.”

He began speaking, but his words were spoken so softly that she couldn’t understand him. She inched closer and closer, straining to hear him. She realized at that moment that if she were to move any closer to him, she might end up in his lap.

He gave her a wicked grin but then tried to cover it up with his hand.

Oh, this guy is driving me nuts!

“Like I said before…I was in the Turkish Army serving as underground intelligence. I was trained to do a lot of things, one being, understanding and reading body language.”

She tried to focus on his words.

“I can tell when someone is lying or if they are nervous,” he continued. “I needed this for gathering intelligence for my covert missions. But when I left the Army, the skill was really useful with the ladies, if you know what I mean.”

He made that statement as if it were a fact and nothing more.

She rolled her eyes, then stood up, and said, “Oh, please!”

Kerim reached out and grabbed her hand.

“Let me finish,” he said, and pleaded with his eyes.

Cristal sank back down onto the bench. This was Kerim’s last chance to explain himself. Patience was never her strong suit.

“I don’t know what it is, but when I’m with you, I feel something more.” He held her hand tight. “I can sense what you are feeling, especially when you are under stress.”

She didn’t know why she was still holding his hand. He looked down at her hand and released it from his grip.

“You mean like this?” she asked.

So you
can
read my thoughts.

“I sense what you feel. It’s like you’re sending me messages with your mind. Never in my life have I experienced something like this with anyone.”

He spoke so differently from people she usually hung out with. He spoke in plain English—straight to the point and blunt. Not like the vague way Harry spoke to her. She closed her eyes and tried harder to take in what he was saying.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She opened her eyes. “Yes, I’m fine. Just trying to process the info.”

He patted her hand and gave her a small smile.
“Do you believe in fate?” he asked.

“Not really. I hope you’re not going to tell me you believe in destiny and all that fluff.”

Kerim raised his eyebrow. “Well, not really. But I was told that kismet or destiny would bring me to someone who would change my life.”

He paused for a second as he searched for his words. “When I first met you, the word ‘kismet’ entered my head. Honestly, I don’t know why.” He looked into his hands.

Thoughts were swirling in Cristal’s mind. Kerim had just admitted to hearing her thoughts. And now he’s given her a bunch of stuff about them being destined to be together.

Kismet? I don’t know what to say,
she thought to herself.

Suddenly, a dark blue four-door sedan drove up, slowed down in front of them and then stopped. They both glanced up
to see Harry sticking his head out from the passenger window. He had a crazed look on his face.

“Cristal, get in the car.”

Who the hell does he think he is?

She could see Dr. Saeed was in the driver’s seat. She stood up, clenching her fists while trying to keep her cool.

“Like I said, I’m not going to be part of your experiment anymore, Harry.”

She shot a look at Kerim who was a few steps behind her. “Come on, Kerim. I want you to take me home.”

Harry flung open the car door. He stepped onto the street, his intent gaze never moving away from Cristal. He walked up to her with long strides and stopped only when his face was inches away from hers.

“Get away from me, Harry,” she said in a low whisper.

“You have to let me explain,” he said.

Cristal couldn’t believe her ears. Harry had a 200 IQ but the social skills of an ass.

“Explain what? Explain that you planned all of this, because you want to find your mother?” She jabbed her finger into his shoulder.  “You never told me she was missing. And to think I thought we were friends.”

She blinked her eyes hard, trying to stop the tears from coming.

Harry paced in front of her, like a black panther ready to pounce on his prey.

Kerim stood up from the bench. With Harry walking
around her as if claiming her as his property, Kerim did not step inside the invisible circle.

Cristal pushed her thoughts towards his direction
.
Kerim, please stay.

He looked intently at her, as if affirming that he wasn’t going anywhere without her.

Harry stopped and turned towards her. “There were times when I thought about telling you about my mother. About everything, but…”

“But what?”
The anger she was struggling to push down was wrapping its fingers around her heart.

“But nothing. I’m not very good at sharing. You know that about me.”
His voice sounded tired.

“Is that it? Are you serious? You used me for your experiment like one of Dr. Saeed’s lab rats? I trusted you, Harry. How could you do this to me?”

The tears she didn’t want to cry started burning her cheeks.

Harry didn’t let down his guard. He was never good with expressing his feelings and she knew that. But knowing that wasn’t enough. She had shared with him everything about herself—all of her deepest, darkest secrets and fears.

No more excuses from Harry. She waved to Kerim to come over. “Take me home.”

He walked up to both of them. Harry stepped in front of her, giving Kerim a dirty look.

“Sorry, Harry,” Kerim said, “but you got yourself into this on your own.”

Cristal reached out for his hand. “Let’s go. Where’d you park?”

Harry grabbed her by the arm. “No, you’re not going anywhere.”

She froze in her tracks
. Harry Doubt wasn’t a touchy feely kind of guy. For all the years she knew him, she never witnessed him even pat a guy on the back before.

“You can’t stop her from going, Harry,” Kerim said.

His words were respectful but firm.

Harry didn’t move, but his hand squeezed her arm tighter.

“When I asked you to be a Truth Seeker,” Harry said, “I never promised to tell you everything. You knew that and you accepted the invitation. I’m not going to apologize for not telling you about my mother. I didn’t tell anyone about her.”

His jawline was tense and his words were coming at her like sharp knives.

She tugged at her arm, trying to remove it from his grip. “I don’t want to play your game anymore, Mr. Doubt,” she said.

Her words revealed the bitterness she felt in her soul.

Harry stepped closer to her. His gaze was magnetic. His eyes were a deeper blue than she had ever recalled seeing before.

“It’s not about me, or you, or any of us. And you know it. Your dad still communicates with you. You told me that yourself.”

Her eyes widened. She glanced over to see Kerim’s dark frown. Turning back, she could feel her heart pounding wildly against her chest wall.

“What does that have to do with anything?” she cried. The shrill tone in her voice could have broken glass.
She looked over her shoulder to see Dr. Saeed standing with them.

“It has a lot to do with everything,” Dr. Saeed said. “Your dad and all your friends’ missing loved ones are trying to communicate. We need your help to find out what your dad and the others are trying to say.”

A beacon bright in the blackne
ss,
Fragile sanity within all this madness.
They fill her dish with love and
Broken promises.
AR Vasquez

THE SUN WAS POURING
into the musty hotel room. Cristal walked over and closed the shutters, which were made out of flimsy aluminum, the white paint peeling on the edges. They made little difference blocking out the blistering heat or the sounds of car horns blaring and the chatter from the street below. She had arrived in Tel Aviv ten days earlier, but she still could not adjust to the climate or the culture.

The days were blurred with meetings at the GN office in Haifa in the day and mission meetings with Harry, Dr. Saeed, Gabriel, Kerim
, and Rinaldo at night. After the earthquake one week earlier, many GN computer networks had a melt down. Harry used the opportunity to get a temporary transfer for Cristal and himself to the GN Haifa office citing that the data that she had recovered all point to Israel being the location where their missing family were being held. Dr. Saeed must have made arrangements, too, because he arrived a few days after they did.

She could have pretended that
she was vacationing, if she wasn’t staying in a shabby two-star hotel where the only good feature was that it was close to the Bograshov Beach and restaurants. Global Nation proudly stated at their regular all-staff meetings that they did not misuse their donors’ funds for unnecessary travel expenses. Of course, that same rule didn’t seem to apply to senior management. She recalled how her senior manager, George Beaver once bragged that when he went with Lionheart to a convention in Brazil, they had stayed at a “Five Star All-Inclusive Resort.”

Her
room was on the fourth floor and was modestly furnished. It had a queen-sized bed with a mattress that had a huge depressive dent in the middle with wired springs that jabbed into her back when she slept. Two wooden chairs were positioned by the window that looked like they were held together with rubber bands. The other furniture included a wooden side table and a small twenty-four-inch old style Cathode ray tube television that sat on a metal bracket hung from the ceiling in the corner of the room.

Although
she had a “non-smoking” room, she spent the first morning “airing out” the room to get rid of the cigarette smoke stench. And despite the fact there was an air conditioner, she preferred to keep it off, because instead of the box spewing out cold air, it filled the room with smelly dank air. To top it all off, the bathroom was so small that she could do her makeup, have a shower and sit on the toilet all at the same time.

She spent the first day by herself staring at t
he worn marble tiled floor and at the walls with their ugly strokes of lumpy plaster covered with salmon-colored paint.

Instead of staying at the
same hotel, Harry had decided to camp out with his aunt who lived fifteen minutes away. He had told them that he needed to connect with his family in order to help them with their missions.

Kerim had
been busy arranging accommodations for Gabriel and himself. He found an ex-military friend who lived close to the hotel, which left Cristal by herself in her miserable room.

To pass time, s
he flipped through the photos on her cell phone, and stopped to enlarge a photo of Kerim where he was smiling at her and his fingers gestured a peace sign. The photo was taken onboard the flight to Israel.

***

It had been her first international flight on a Boeing 747 across the ocean. It started out horribly. The plane was full of screaming kids and crying babies. Thankfully, Kerim and Gabriel were on the same flight, although they were seated in different rows.

Her seat number had been
F29, the middle row in front of a wall with a toddler on her left who spent most of the trip wailing at the top of her lungs. The child’s mother who was seated on the other side of the girl had put earplugs in and covered her eyes with an eye mask. Cristal couldn’t believe how she could ignore her own child who obviously was frightened and uncomfortable. She tried to talk to the little girl in an effort to comfort her. But the girl only reacted by screaming louder.

So much for trying to be a Good
Samaritan.

On her right side
sat an unsociable woman, probably in her early forties with dark hair, cut short. Sitting like a queen on her throne, her elbow hung over the arm rest between them, digging into Cristal’s side. She was what Kerim described later as a “full-bodied woman” referring to her wide hips and generous-sized bosom. The woman had eyed Cristal carefully, her lips pursed together as if she had just eaten a bucket of lemons.

Get a life
, she remembered thinking to herself.

When she gave up all hope of having any rest on the flight,
Kerim had suddenly appeared in the aisle. He looked over at her and gave her a wink.

What is he doing?
Harry had told all of us to be inconspicuous.

The woman who had
been flipping through a beauty magazine glanced up to look at him. Cristal noticed that her grim face melted and her pursed lips turned into a warm glowing smile.

Kerim, you have the power
to melt glaciers.

Kerim began
speaking in a language that Cristal guessed was Hebrew, given that the flight was a direct flight to Tel Aviv and over 60 percent of the passengers were Israelis returning home from their holidays in New York. The other 20 percent were New Yorkers who apparently had dual Israeli citizenship. This is what Kerim had mentioned to her while waiting at the airport before boarding the plane.

Although Cristal
couldn’t understand what they were saying, she knew Kerim was doing what he was good at—charming the lady and making her giggle like a schoolgirl. Kerim pointed towards Cristal and said something that caused the lady to burst out into peals of laughter.

What the hell?

His
hands then waved towards his seat at the back of the plane.

Still giggling, the lady
nodded her head, grabbed her things and stood up, her fat bottom brushing against Cristal’s arm. She glanced down and offered Cristal an apologetic smile before turning back to Kerim. He offered his hand to help as she squeezed herself out of the row into the aisle.

“
Shalom
, handsome. I will see you in the land of milk and honey,” the woman said, purring like a cat, as if in an attempt to sound sultry, but instead, it reminded Cristal of a squawking seagull.

Cristal rolled her eyes, trying
her best to contain her laughter. The woman waddled away, swaying her hips. She glanced back at Kerim, blowing him a kiss.

Oh
, how sweet.

When the woman was far from sight,
Kerim eased himself into the recently vacated seat. He slipped his messenger bag under the seat in front of him and leaned back with a boyish grin on his face.

“
What was that all about?” Cristal asked, looking at the aisle where the lady had said her good-byes.

He
smirked.

“
My skills come in quite handy in these types of situations.”

Before she could respond, he
reclined his seat and closed his eyes. She sighed and resigned herself to not ask any further questions.

You are a funny character
, Kerim Ilgaz
.

Taking his lead, she
reclined her seat and closed her eyes. Maybe a snooze would help her relax.

Nine hours left and counting
, she thought to herself.

***

Less than an hour later, she opened her eyes. Sleep had not come, despite all her efforts. The little girl beside her had thankfully cried herself to sleep. Her parents now were chattering to each other loudly across the other aisle in their language, while shoving nuts into their faces.

Cristal
’s ears were picking up many conversations in multiple languages around her. The sounds seemed to be increasing in volume, hurting her ears. For some reason, words spoken in other languages always seemed to magnify in her ears, reverberating in her skull. The worst part was that no matter how hard she tried to understand the meaning of the words, her brain drew a blank slate that caused her to become even more frustrated.

“
Hey, what’s the matter? Can’t sleep?” Kerim asked.

She grumbled
, “I have a headache.”

She turned her head away from him.
How could she tell him about her bizarre problem?