Quicksand (18 page)

“Yeah, I know that no one pays any attention to it. What's your real reason?”

Nora was silent for a moment, and then sat back down in her chair, saying slowly, “Can't bring a non-Muslim white boy home to Daddy.”

Wansbrough shook his head. “Girl, what's the matter with you? You are a grown woman. You gonna tell me you can't date who you want to date?”

She raised her chin, almost defiantly. “I can't and won't date at all. My family is really close, really conservative, and my dad's been through a lot. It would kill him.”

John stared at her, his strong jaw working back and forth. Then he sat down and powered on his laptop.

“What's up?” she asked. “Is something wrong? Isn't Olivia waiting in the car, John?”

“Look, I feel like I need to tell you something that could change your perspective on all this. I think … I think I'm going to upset you, but eventually you're going to thank me.”

Nora stared at him. “Upset me how?” she demanded. “What's this all about, John?” Cold fear was beginning to clutch at her insides.

His eyes were gentle. “Nora, many of us know your dad's story. In fact, it was kind of famous around here. Our epic post-9/11 mistake.”

She was nodding, frowning, trying to follow where her partner was going.

He turned to his laptop. “Not everyone knew all the details, though. But this was a special case, because so much was in the media about it, and there were so many rumors circulating that tried to explain what happened. How could we have messed up so bad? Arresting an innocent man…”

Nora sat forward in her chair, looking over John's shoulder intently. “What
details
?” she demanded, her heart beating furiously.

John called up Google Images, then looked at Nora. “It being a terror investigation, we weren't obliged to relate all of the details to the press. Normally, I wouldn't know any of this. But this part of the case became common knowledge because the woman involved was very vocal—she'd show up in the lobby even after your dad was released, asking for Schacht, asking for her idea of justice.”

“John, you're really scaring me.
What details?!
”

“Nora, the anonymous tip that resulted in your dad's detainment after 9/11 wasn't anonymous. It was from a woman who.… Well, a woman he knew very well.”

Nora's insides crumbled as John told her about the dental hygienist who had worked on Market Street and had been coming regularly to the restaurant for lunch. He told her about her small apartment in South Philly, where her dad would disappear on his way to or returning from the Italian Market for eggplant or tomatoes or lettuce.

John told her that she had been beside herself when Ragab had refused to leave his wife and children for her. In an act of scorned fury, she had called the FBI and told them that the Egyptian owner of the Cairo Café was plotting to bomb several Market Street skyscrapers, including the one in which she worked.

Nora listened in complete silence. When her partner was done speaking, she said, working hard to keep an even tone, “Did you go to Google Images to show me a picture of this woman?”

Wansbrough nodded, then turned back to the monitor and called up the photograph. She was lean, bottle-blond and hairsprayed, exactly what Nora would have expected from Wansbrough's story. Nora gazed for a long, long time at the woman's features. Limpid blue eyes, mascara-lengthened lashes, small pink lips, no discernible cheekbones, a tiny pug nose.

“The Bureau had every intention of prosecuting her for the false tip. But she was clearly mentally unstable, so we knew we didn't have a case…”

Nora nodded, feeling as though she might vomit at any minute. She understood everything now. She sank her fingers deeply into the arm of her chair, fighting hard for control. When she spoke, the words came out hoarsely. “My mother would have begged them not to anyway. So we wouldn't find out. To protect us.”

“Yes, actually. I was told that your mom was relieved to hear about the psych issues because Schacht had had every intention of prosecuting. And she just wanted it all to be forgotten.”

Nora suddenly pushed back the rolling chair and stood up. Wansbrough followed suit, wincing as he moved. “Look, Nora,” he was saying. “Let's talk about it! I'm sorry if I overstepped. You're like a daughter to me, you know that.”

“John, you did the right thing. I just need … You know, a little time. To … sort it out.”

She brushed by him as she made her way down to the women's locker room to change.

*   *   *

She was glad
for her old Temple sweatshirt, a soft red buffer against the icy night air. She should have put her Windbreaker back on, but she hadn't been thinking clearly, hadn't been thinking at all, had only known she needed to be out of that building and outside, running. She sprinted as quickly as she could through Chinatown, dodging pedestrians and bicyclists and taxis that could now dart swiftly through the streets in the post-rush hour lull. She crossed Broad Street and the sweeping expanse of the parkway, oblivious to the fast-filling pubs and restaurants that lined the streets of Center City. Soon she found herself by the river, where long eddies of white light from the street lamps splayed across its mute surface. She knew as soon as she started running that she should have stopped immediately and gotten someone to look at her rib. But she couldn't think about that now. She just … she just needed to run.

Your father is a good man, but he is not wise
.

Nora almost laughed out loud, finally understanding what her mother had meant by this.

Oh, Baba you are so, so stupid
.

Theirs had been a marriage of opposites. Nora had always felt this. Her mother was shy and introverted, seeking refuge from the noisy city in the records of Abd al-Haleem and Umm Kulthoum and the poems of Nizar Qabbani. Her father was always talking, laughing loudly and deeply, clapping people on the back and plying them with food. He would pause now and then from tickling his kids to tell them that their mother had eyes like the ocean or a face like the moon. Ragab had a near-infinite ability to love intensely, but no tolerance for sitting still long enough to listen to his loved ones.

Even when—or, perhaps,
especially
when—it came to religion they were very different. Their mother's Islam was a warm, still pond, filled with books and knowledge and light. She prayed meditatively and emerged calm. One of Nora's favorite memories from childhood was the sound of her mother's voice, lush and low, reciting Qur'an during the most silent hours of the night.

The Islam of their father was more of a vague ideal he didn't quite understand. He prayed only sporadically but fasted the month of Ramadan with titanium precision, breaking his fast on a cigarette. His main fatherly concern was to get his daughter to wear longer skirts, baggier jeans, and blousier T-shirts.
Because Muslims don't dress that way!
was the only justification he could ever come up with for badgering her to dress more conservatively than she already did. Her father tried to force, cajole, and ultimately to bribe her to pray. No overnights, no dances, no prom. And she could never, under any circumstances, marry a non-Muslim man.
I would disown you. You would no longer be my daughter …

Nora had been sure that her parents loved each other, but equally sure that, had it not been for their children, they would have gone their separate ways. Even when Fatin had been loneliest or most frustrated in her marriage, Fatin could not have separated her husband from his children. Ragab adored his kids, and would do almost anything for a kiss or to elicit their laughter. And they adored him, for he was tall and strong and handsome and funny, capable of fixing everything broken, and known for giving them gifts they didn't need when they least deserved them. Above all, they loved watching the effect he had on people, whether customers or guests in their home, and the light that he brought to a room.

He must have been lonely as well
, she said to herself.

Oh, God, but some South Philly skank? Really?

Nora's breathing was hard and fast, overcome by the memories of the pain and fear following her father's disappearance. That horrible picture in the papers of him being led away in shackles, that picture for which she was bullied and mocked for so long afterward, even after he was let go, even after he was proven innocent … It was cold and getting colder, but Nora's mind was churning, and she barely noticed anything beyond the boundaries of her mental minefields.

She saw a few different courses of action open to her.

One, she could confront him, demand to know how he could have cheated on Mama, attack him for his twisted double standards, and generally make a big scene.

In this scenario, Ahmad would find out, and his image of his father would be trashed, just as hers had been.

It felt bad. It felt so, so bad, and Nora couldn't imagine doing that to Hammudi. Especially not now, with the SATs looming.

Shit
.

Two, she could pretend she didn't know anything about it, and they could all go on about their lives.

But that was what her mother had done for her. Protected her.

Would things have been different if she had known?

Shit, shit, shit
 … Her feet pounded harder as she ran even faster, refusing to submit to the pain in her rib.

Her father needed to know she knew.

Because things just couldn't stay the same after this. Because everything was different now.

She found herself at the top of the museum steps. She sat down painfully on the top step, looking at the light-adorned city stretched out before her. She listened to the din of traffic—distant sirens, the screech of brakes and gunning of motorcycle engines unleashed on the beckoning parkway. She listened as her own jagged breathing came slowly but surely under control.

*   *   *

All she knew
was that her blood was on fire.

She couldn't think, couldn't link together two actions, or align in her head the steps necessary to walk out the door or bathe herself or make it to the bathroom or call for help or even just to slash her thin, brown wrists.

But she could see her mother's face, knowing she would surely have preferred that she be dead of starvation at home instead of here. Anything but this. And now she was oceans away … Rahma pictured the ocean, pictured herself floating in it as she tried to cool the fire in her blood.
If all the sea were ink 
… Rahma's mind trailed off, searching, searching for the rest of the verse, but it hid, elusive in the gray depths of her mind.

Her mother knew the verse. Her mother knew. When he entered the room not long after sunset, he found her curled into one corner, rocking, rocking, rocking.
Mama knows
, she said, tears pouring down her cheeks.

Not you, not you …

He stood over her for a moment.

All that Rahma could register was the revulsion on his face.

He hoisted her up to a standing position and steered her into the bathroom; cockroaches skittered as he flipped the light switch.

Mama …
she sobbed.
Mama …

He twisted back one of her arms, then shoved her into the tub and turned the shower on over her. He gruffly rinsed the worst of the filth from her before dragging her back to the sagging mattress.

 

CHAPTER
6

The pain in
Nora's rib cage was searing when she awakened the next morning. She gathered herself slowly and painfully, determined to come up with some kind of breakfast for Ahmad before school. When he walked into the kitchen, he found her pouring hot milk into matching mugs that held Lipton tea bags.

He stopped to stare at her before sitting down. “What's the matter with you?”

She shrugged, laying out slices of soft white cheese and Kalamata olives on a plate. She flicked on the stovetop burner and warmed a pita over the open flame with the tongs, then handed it to him, doing the same for herself.

He looked at her suspiciously. “Did you get hurt?”

“No, I didn't get hurt, I'm completely fine, thank you.” She sat down next to him, trying not to groan, and, as if for proof, took a long sip of the warm, milky, tea.

“Trouble with Special Agent Colleague?”

“Ahmad!”

“Then what?” he asked, as he chewed a huge mouthful of bread and cheese.

She knew if she told him about the drive-by he'd be totally unable to concentrate. She reached over and tousled her brother's hair. “Just up late worrying about a case.”

“The gangbanger?” he asked, smoothing his hair.

“Yeah.” She studied her brother's face thoughtfully. “You got gangsters at school?” she asked, sipping at her tea.

“
I'm
pretty gangsta.” He set down his mug, then flashed a hand sign at her, his thumb and first two fingers widespread, and his final two fingers curled over tightly.

Nora laughed. “Yes, you are, I can tell. Do you even know whose sign that is?”

Ahmad shook his head. “No idea.”

“Well, don't go flashing it anymore, it'll get you killed in some parts.”

“Why, whose is it?”

“Latin Kings. Where'd you learn it?”

“Kid in class. Does it all the time, mostly when he's angry at the teacher.”

“Yeah, you just stick to SAT signs, okay?”

He regarded her thoughtfully. “Is it worse to be thought of as a gangbanger or a terrorist?”

She sipped her
shay bi-laban
slowly. “Gangbangers do more damage in the long run. But since the victims are usually people who can't speak up, or when they do no one pays attention, we don't really get it. A bombing holds people's attention a lot better than a shooting in a ‘bad' part of town.”