In the Language of Miracles (25 page)

 • • • 

He changed into jeans and a T-shirt, put on his hiking boots, and sat back on his bed, waiting. Close to an hour had passed, but he still could hear the noises they made as they walked in and out of rooms, whispering to one another. His family was getting ready to leave for the memorial service, and he was not going with them.

When he finally heard the garage door rise and fall and his father's car drive off, he walked up to his bedroom door, carefully opening it. He looked around, suspecting that his father might have sent his mother and sister off first and waited for him. No one was there. The hallway was empty. Angry with himself for his paranoia, Khaled stepped out of his room.

Ehsan stood in the kitchen. He paused at the foot of the stairs, watching her. His car keys lay on the countertop; he needed to retrieve them. He could do so and not talk to her.

She did not look his way. Grabbing his keys and stuffing them in his pocket, he glanced at her, curious. She was standing behind the counter, packaging individual pastries of
shoreik
in transparent wrap and stacking them on one side. The column of
shoreik
was getting taller, and, carefully placing the last one on top of the others, she walked up to the freezer and piled the
shoreik
on a shelf, Pastries of Mercy frozen for future use.

She did not look his way. She was probably angry with him, just like everyone else: because he had spoken disrespectfully to his father, because he had not joined his parents on their trip to the memorial service, because of countless other shortcomings that he knew his family saw in him. His grandmother was practiced in the art of the silent treatment, and he was determined he would not fall for that. He turned around and walked out of the kitchen, made it halfway through the living room, expecting her to call after him with a question or a reprimand, or, as she
often did, to mumble something incomprehensible, forcing him to turn around and ask her what she had said. She did not. He stopped in place, vexed. He should not care what she thought; he had nothing to explain. Still, he turned around and walked back into the kitchen.

“He can't make me do something I don't want to do,” he spat.

Ehsan closed the freezer door and looked at him.

“He can't keep on treating everyone this way. He can't blame Mama for everything.”

“Your mother's troubles are her own,” Ehsan said, walking to the kitchen table. She pulled out a chair and sat down. He did not.

“You know what I don't get? Why everyone is so angry with me all of a sudden.”

“No one is, Khaled.”

He shook his head. “Everyone is.” He paused. “Even you,
Setto.
Don't think I don't know you.” He choked up. Fatima was wrong, of course. He was not jealous. Yet his grandmother's apparent disappointment in him hurt more than his father's did.

“That's not true, Khaled. We just expect so much of you.”

“Well, that's not fair.” He sounded like a little boy, complaining because his mother let his older brother stay up late but refused to grant him the same privilege. He bit his lip. His older brother had never had to prove anything to anyone.

Ehsan smiled at him. “Come,” she said, pointing to a chair across from hers. “Sit.”

He hesitated, and then he sat down. He would stay only for a minute or two.

“
Habibi,
these are difficult times for everyone. You have to understand that your parents are handling this whole thing the best way they know how to.” She sighed, shook her head. “Such evil has befallen this family. But I do pray for all of you in each of my five prayers. I stay up at night praying for you. I don't know what else I can do.”

Khaled searched his grandmother's face. Ehsan's reaction was typical of her: waiting for God to intervene, to make everything right again. After all, her entire existence, for as long as he had known her, seemed geared that way: days spent in prayer in order to ask God to take care of her children and grandchildren, ask Him to protect them from harm, or, if that failed, ask Him for compensation for what has befallen them, plead for a merciful execution of fate.

Another Arabic prayer popped into his head:
Allahuma enna la nasaloka rad alqadaa, walaken nasaloka al-lotfa feih.
God, we do not ask You to thwart fate, but we do ask You to execute it with gentleness.

“Who says that God has to fix all our problems for us?”

She looked up at him, puzzled. “He doesn't have to,
habibi.
But He's the most capable of doing so, so we ask Him for help.” She was watching him, her eyes betraying only a slight alarm.

“And what if He doesn't?”

Ehsan shrugged. “If He chooses not to answer our prayer, then the prayer must have been wrong. He knows best.”

“That simple, huh?”

“Yes.” She paused. He could see the panic creep up in her eyes, knew how lightly she treaded around any subject that, to her, seemed potentially blasphemous. “Remember what I always told you? That Islam requires surrender? You surrender your will to God's? You accept what he ordains for you?”

“That's not what I'm talking about.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

He got up, stood by the chair, shifting his weight from foot to foot, examining his boots. He should go now. Yet a thought was forming in his head, and he feared that leaving now would snuff it out. “You explained two words to me, some time ago. I can't remember them.” He frowned. “They sounded almost alike but they meant different things. One meant asking God for help but then going ahead and doing what
you need to do without waiting for His interference, the other meant a sort of passive dependence on Him. You remember?”

Ehsan's face instantly lit up with recognition. “Of course!
Tawakkol
and
tawaakol.
”

“Yes. Those two. Doesn't our religion warn against a passive reliance on God? Aren't we supposed to go out and try to solve our own problems rather than wait for Him to do so for us?”

“Yes, of course!” She was puzzled, he could tell. He wasn't being very clear, but he knew he could corner her, could use her own logic against her.

He pressed on. “This is exactly what I'm doing. I'm taking matters into my own hands. I'm getting out of here.” She watched him, and he thought he could see her lips twist in a slight snicker. He continued, “Because I know you're judging me for not going with them, but I'm only doing what you taught me to do. I'm taking control of my own fate.”

“So is your father.”

He stepped back, frozen in place.

Ehsan continued, “He, too, is trying to take things into his own hands. Yet you don't think he's doing the right thing, do you?”

“
Baba
never acts on religion,” Khaled protested.

“But you do?” Ehsan smiled.

“Sometimes.” He felt his face blush. “But that's not the point. The point is that I'm doing nothing wrong when I refuse to let my dad tell me what to do.”

Ehsan shook her head. “He doesn't think he's doing anything wrong, either.”

“And what do
you
think?” He searched his grandmother's face. “What would
you
do?”

Ehsan got up. “I'd pray that God help us and lead us all to do whatever He thinks is right.”

She walked to the sink, pulled her sleeves up, and ran the water. He
stood watching her. Questions were buzzing in his head, new ones that he had not considered before. He should ask her again what she thought should be done, try to get something out of her other than the stock answers she flicked at him all the time. But it was useless. She would only ask him to pray some more. Respect his parents. Ask God to shield him from the devil, the instigator of vexing questions.

He turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” Ehsan asked.

“I don't know. I need to get out.”

 • • • 

He opened the garage door and stood next to his truck staring at his mother's car, parked on the driveway and blocking his way. He swore. Back inside, he rummaged through the kitchen drawers, desperately looking for his mother's spare key, even though he knew his father kept it on his key chain. Ehsan watched him with silent curiosity. Back in the garage, he retrieved a hoodie from the truck before walking out to the street, the garage door falling shut behind him.

His father probably did this on purpose, he thought as he walked away from his house, putting his hoodie on. Samir tried to lock him in, to keep him prisoner. But he would not let him do it. He would walk to the train station and go to New York. He would walk his way out of there, if he had to.

He made it only to the corner of the street before he stopped in his tracks. Ahead of him, people were walking out of their homes and getting in their cars. Vehicles drove past him in silent processions. He wanted to think people were heading to church—it was, after all, Sunday—but he knew they were not. They were heading toward the park, to Natalie's memorial service.

As a traffic light turned red and a car stopped, he found himself staring at a couple of young boys sitting in the backseat, dressed in shirts
and ties. The younger of the boys waved at him, and his mother turned to look at Khaled. He spun around and walked away, not waiting to see her expression.

Quickly he headed back toward his house. Turning in through the gate, he walked up to the front door, stopped. He was not going to be driven back in. He glanced at the Bradstreets' house; he saw no one. They had probably left a long time ago. He hesitated, trying to decide where to go—and then he turned and sprinted around the house, the length of the wraparound porch, out into the backyard, and, cutting through it, out through the woods and into Summerset Park, where the trees enveloped him, shielding him from sight.

ENGLISH
: For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

Bible

ARABIC
: Then to Him shall you return, and He will then declare to you all that you have done.

Qur'an

K
haled made his way across the thick woods, zigzagging through the forest he had known since he was a child. He inhaled the smell of the pines and the dry soil and listened to the sound of twigs and leaves being crushed under his boots. The familiar mixture of smells and sounds soothed him. His stride fell from the frantic trot that had whisked him through his parents' backyard and into the park to a steady walking speed, and he could almost pretend he was on one of his many hikes, exploring the vast park in search of butterflies.

He knew the way because he had taken it before. Steadily he walked, cutting through the trees, through the meadow where he and his brother had once tried to access Ali Baba's cave, and through a second set of thicker trees, their branches intertwined, snagging his clothes. He was
grateful he had put on the hoodie. With every step he felt his mind become clearer, falling into a serenity that led him by the hand, showing him the way. He did not stop to question his destination, accepting it the moment he became aware of it.

He reached the spot he had been looking for, the way there as familiar to him as if he had been treading it every day, even though it had been a full year since he was here last. He slowed down when he could hear the sounds of people talking, the hum of engines slowing to park, the clicking as car doors slammed shut. He found the same location he had stood in a year before, when he, one day after his brother had died, had walked that same route to stand transfixed, staring at a square patch of grass enclosed in yellow tape, the square's center stained a dark brown from which he could not avert his gaze, a black hole that he knew would pull his entire life in, crushing him. Today, the meadow by the park's Visitors' Center was lined with white folding chairs probably used most often for weddings. Scattered throughout the chairs, people sat in groups, huddled together and talking, while others exited cars parked nearby. In front of the chairs stood a podium, and, a few yards to the side, a young tree lay on the ground, its roots wrapped in a dark mesh. Beside it, a hole had been freshly dug in the soil, ready to receive it.

They were going to plant the tree in the wrong spot. The hole was a good ten feet from where Khaled had seen the patch of blood-soaked grass. Perhaps this was done on purpose—to get the tree closer to the center of the clearing, or to avoid the exact location. Ehsan would probably think the area contaminated now, suffused with a sort of evil that would allow nothing to grow in it. He looked at the spot again, expecting to find dry grass. The grass was fine, green and lush. He looked away.

Quietly, he lowered himself, sat on the ground, his legs bent in front of him. He knew no one could see him; the location he had chosen stood behind the clearing and high above it, the top of a hill that fell sharply ahead of where he sat until it joined the main road that ran through the
park. To his right and a good twenty feet below him, he could see the parking lot overflowing with cars, the most recent arrivals parked in one long row on the grass.

He found his father's car before he could find his family. He looked through every row, recognizing people whose backs were turned to him: neighbors; high school teachers; Imam Fadel, the preacher at the mosque; kids from school. Garrett and his mother sat on the edge of one row of seats. Police officers stood at the corners, their cars parked by the road beside the news vans. A cameraman fiddled with his camera, already perched on its tripod. In the very last row, settled together and to one side, Bud Murphy sat with his entourage. Samir's car was there, but Khaled's family was nowhere to be seen. He began to think that he might have mistaken the car for a similar one when the entire crowd fell to a hush. All he had to do was follow the collective gaze.

His father had gotten out of the car and was standing by it, waiting for Nagla and Fatima to get out and close their doors. Khaled watched them, wondering why they had waited in the car for such a long time, feeling a pang of guilt that he immediately dismissed. They walked toward the heads now turned their way, against the outburst of whispers that exploded from the silence. Samir plowed through, his step slightly faster than usual, the increased speed recognizable only to those who knew him. Behind him, Nagla walked, clutching her purse, with Fatima trailing her. They crossed the line of trees that separated the parking lot from the clearing and then walked across the grass to the seats. There, Samir stood still, scanning the area. Nagla, catching up, stood by his side. The place was packed. Already people were getting up in the back, shifting in place. Samir leaned toward Nagla, whispered something, and then they walked to the back, Fatima following. Halfway there, Samir stopped, spotting a few empty seats in the middle of one of the rows. They made their way to them under everyone's scrutiny, his father bumping against people's knees.

Cynthia, Jim, Pat, and Reverend Fielding were standing by the podium that had been set in the middle of the clearing. They, too, watched the family as they arrived. As soon as Samir, Nagla, and Fatima were seated, Pat turned halfway to whisper something to the other three before heading away from them in brisk steps. Immediately Cynthia sprinted and held her back, shaking her head, her whispers urgent, emotional. The reverend, too, walked up to Pat and spoke to her, Jim following suit. She listened, openly staring at Samir and Nagla.

Khaled watched it all but remained in place. Already his serenity was gone, the anxiety of the previous week, of the previous year, returning in a gush. Now that he was sitting here, he started wondering why he had come. Why did he need to see this? Had he not managed to break free of his father's grasp and his brother's control? Why was he here, and not miles away, on a train headed to New York? He could still cut his way through the park and make it to the train station. No one would see him.

He got to his feet, still staring at the crowd, but did not walk away. People had fallen quiet, and Reverend Fielding was now alone at the podium, Jim, Cynthia, and Pat having taken their seats in the front row. The reverend cleared his throat, and people looked at him, waiting. In the back, the cameraman stepped up to his tripod, ready to film the speech. The reverend started talking.

“We are gathered here today not to mourn, but to remember, in love, a precious life tragically cut short.”

Khaled looked around. The microphones carried the reverend's words his way, but he had to strain to hear them. He decided not to. He knew, now, why he had not wanted to be here, and why he felt no need to join his family in their self-imposed suffering and humiliation. He took a few steps back. Whatever was to happen had already been set in motion, and his presence here would change nothing. Already he felt a pang at the sight of people glancing toward his family, leaning closer to
their neighbors and whispering, the neighbors nodding in approval. He knew what people were thinking, their judgmental stares needing no verbal expression. Khaled had hoped that, given time, Hosaam's crime would have been accepted as the isolated act of violence that it was, a reflection of nothing other than his own madness. Now his entire family would be labeled deranged.

Still he could not tear himself away. He stared at his father's bald spot, shining in the midday sun, at his mother, sitting with her head bent, at Fatima's own head resting on her mother's shoulder. In the front row, Jim and Cynthia sat motionless. Khaled imagined Cynthia holding Jim's hand, or maybe his and her sister's. Pat sat on her other side. His parents sat with a gap between them, a space whose vastness Khaled now saw clearer than ever. He stared at Samir, trying to evoke Ehsan's words of understanding and to find excuses for his father, but he could not. Question after question forced itself into his head, and with each one his anger with his father grew sharper: Why was he always so stubborn? Why did he think he had the right to tell everyone what to do? Why did he think coming to the memorial was the best way to handle this situation? Why couldn't he listen to Nagla when she told him, repeatedly, that he would only pile more humiliation on his family? Khaled had heard them arguing, but of course his father never listened to anyone. Why was he so disrespectful of his wife and his children?

What was he doing?

Khaled took a few steps forward, held on to one of the trees. His father had just pulled something out of his pocket and was looking down, staring at it. Samir's neighbor, an elderly woman who had remained very still, was also looking down at the object in his hands. Khaled took a few steps to the left, trying to get a better view. A piece of paper. Samir was looking at a piece of paper, yellow notepad paper, just like the ones his father kept in his office.

Khaled sank to his knees. Of course: his father intended to give a
speech. How had he forgotten? Wasn't this part of the reason Samir had wanted to attend the memorial in the first place? Perhaps it was the main reason; perhaps dragging his family along was not a show of support for the Bradstreets but for him as he walked up and preached to the crowd. Khaled tried to calm down and clear his head, think. He looked at the people around his family, at the townspeople among whom he had grown up. How many were there—a hundred? Two? Three? He could not tell. How would they react to his father's speech? Would they even let him speak?

At the podium, Cynthia had taken the reverend's spot. Her voice was so low it hardly reached the audience, in spite of the microphones. Khaled strained to listen. She was describing Natalie, remembering her, telling stories. Her words reminded him of Ehsan's stories of his brother, of her husband. He mistrusted stories of the dead, disliked their tendency for revisionism. “Natalie's capacity for love and compassion was limitless. When I think of her now, I feel God created her solely as a vehicle to transmit his compassion to all she touched.” His father, his speech in his lap, was doubtless getting ready to tell stories of how Hosaam was, before, or of how he hoped he was going to turn out, stories of sports achievements, of medical school aspirations.

Khaled looked around, tried to imagine how this crowd would react to his father's attempt at describing Hosaam, to any mention of Hosaam, and felt his head grow dizzy, his stomach turn. Now he could see people he had not noticed before: the high school football coach who had cornered him one day in an empty hallway, lifting him by his collar and hissing that he would kill him with his bare hands if he ever came near any of the town's girls; the elderly police officer whom he had seen crying in the patrol car after he had walked out of the Bradstreets' house that day; two of the men who had helped Jim carry Natalie's casket—he had seen pictures—and who now sat with their own daughters, Natalie's friends and playmates since childhood. As Cynthia spoke, people were dabbing at
their eyes, the sight of the bereaved mother opening wounds that the passing of one year had not healed. These were his townspeople, his teachers, his neighbors—but his brother had caused them so much pain. His father was determined to show this town that his family still belonged—what he failed to see was that, as far as the townspeople were concerned, they were a cancer that brought nothing but suffering. All his father's words would do was remind people of how cancers should be dealt with.

Khaled looked around. His position, high above, was isolated, with no way down to reach his family. On his right-hand side the hill grew higher and then fell sharply. On the left the decline was more gradual, the hill sloping until it finally joined the road a couple of hundred feet ahead. Khaled looked back down and saw that Cynthia was done speaking; she and Jim were now heading toward the tree, where the town's mayor was waiting to help them lift it. Khaled watched his father, saw him straighten up and tuck the paper in his breast pocket. Already Jim was lifting the tree by its trunk. The cameraman had moved closer, camera poised on his shoulder, set to film the tree planting.

“Excuse me,” Samir yelled, lifting one hand in the air. Around him, people shushed, but he, persistent, stood up, his hand still lifted. Nagla tugged at his jacket. He ignored her. “Excuse me,” he yelled again, louder this time.

“Sit down!” someone yelled. Samir did not. The cameraman turned around, pointed his camera at Samir, who was making his way out of the row of seats. Around him, people hushed, hissed, tugged at him, tried to hold him back—but he continued. Behind him, Nagla followed, trying to grab hold of him. He ignored her still.

Khaled took one more frantic look around him. He would have to take the long route. Planted in place, he struggled to tear himself away—he did not dare miss what was going to happen next. But he would have to follow the long slope down. He would have to tear himself away from his family if he wanted to join them.

He started running. He strained to listen to the escalating commotion, but could hear nothing above his own breathing and the sound of twigs breaking under his feet and brushing against his face and arms. He ran faster. He thought he heard his father's voice. The hill sloped down and down. Still the end of his road was too far away, and, once he made it there, he would have to run all the way back. He ran, scanning the side of the hill. Midway to the end, the side slope seemed gentler. He could probably walk down there. He veered to the right too quickly, stumbled over his own feet, and fell.

He tumbled down. Frantically, he tried to grab at something. His hand found a tree root, clutched it. The root skinned his palm, and he let go in pain. He rolled down the rest of the hill, came to a stop at its foot. He jumped up, ran limping to the clearing, brushing thorns and dirt from his face, his hands. He could hardly breathe and became suddenly aware of the heat now that he was out of the shade. He pulled his hoodie over his head as he ran, the twigs that stuck to it scratching his skin.