The Amateur Spy (9 page)

He looked up in surprise.
Taqiyya
is an Arabic term for an Islamic tradition of behavior in dangerous circumstances. It basically maintains that when your life is threatened, especially in the presence of the enemy, you are allowed to hide the truth, or even lie, in self-protection.

“How do you know of these things?” Omar asked. “From the Holy Quran?”

Clever boy. It was a trick question designed to expose me as a dilettante, which is exactly what I was. But I did know that
taqiyya
hadn’t come from the Prophet himself, but instead from the philosophers who parsed his words for deeper meaning.

“Not from the Holy Quran,” I said. “Although I have read the Holy Quran.”

“Have you, now. All of it?”

Still testing me.

“Well…no. Not all of it.”

At this he actually grinned, and you could feel the air pressure in the car drop by several notches.

“Neither have I. But don’t tell my mother.”

A week later, after we had completed our final patrol and I thought I had seen the last of him, I was sitting up late in my apartment on the Mount of Olives, seated by the picture window with its fine view as I filled out Omar’s evaluation. The lights of the Old City twinkled against the clear night sky. His future was in my hands, and for a while I considered recommending dismissal. His temper had endangered our safety. But I doubted Hans would have the heart to drop the axe, and Omar had noticeably mellowed after our close call.

Perhaps, if held in check, his passion would be a good thing. And maybe his lack of control had been as much due to my inexperience as his. Endorsing him for further action seemed like a risk worth taking.

Three months later I knew my gamble had paid off when I walked into the office in Jerusalem to begin my last quarterly hitch and found Omar waiting, smiling and patient. He had asked Hans to reunite us, and for the balance of our time together he was steady and communicative, and played the game as well as anyone.

Might that be what he was doing now? Still playing the game, only on a different field, and with new players? Balancing the hotheads against the cooler ones in order to squeeze out a few million for the rabble at their feet? It would certainly explain why he was keeping the sort of company that would make my handlers queasy. If so, then this could be my mission: to save Omar from his own instincts, even if it meant lying about the true nature of my work. Maybe it was my turn to engage in a little
taqiyya.

And if I failed? Then I suppose I would instead become the agent of his destruction. The writer of the bad recommendation I hadn’t been able to muster before. Only this time the penalties might be harsher than mere dismissal.

That was my final, sobering thought as the taxi pulled up outside his office door.

8

Washington

A
liyah sat up from her nightmare and threw back the sheets. Beside her, Abbas mumbled in his sleep. It was a recent habit of his, as if he had at last found someone to confide in, but only by traveling to another plane of existence. Aliyah had sensed for days that he was up to something, so she was all ears. But the words were incomprehensible, neither English nor Arabic. He paused in conversation, uttered a deep sigh, and rolled onto his side.

For a moment all was quiet. Then a distant siren wailed from somewhere across Chevy Chase, a police cruiser, probably headed for the District. She heard a squeal of tires and somehow knew it was the sound of the pursued, not the pursuer, and she surprised herself by offering a brief prayer for escape. A year ago her sympathies would have been with the police. No use trying to sleep now, so she threw on a silk robe and padded downstairs to brew a cup of tea.

The same dream as always had awakened her, the one that invariably followed her weekly visit to the office of Annie Felton, a grief counselor on Wisconsin Avenue. For almost a year now, Aliyah had used her Thursday lunch hour for an appointment with Annie. Then, without fail, every Thursday night she dreamed she was in London searching for their daughter, Shereen. The scene varied slightly from week to week, but the essentials never changed—Aliyah on a restless foot patrol, walking down rows of redbrick homes, knocking at brightly painted doors one after another. Then, bobbies in pursuit, followed by angry red double-decker buses bearing down from all directions. But no sign of Shereen. Not even a thumbprint. When she awakened she always experienced a despairing emptiness.

Aliyah had come to believe that the dream was Shereen’s way of urging her to keep trying, to keep searching for some fuller understanding of what had gone wrong. Prayer helped, too, of course. But in navigating the waters of her grief, some channels were so dark that even God couldn’t light the way. So she forged onward with Annie’s counseling, week after week, talking her way upstream toward the source of her sorrow. If the dream ever stopped, she would know she had reached her destination.

She wished Abbas could accompany her on this journey, but he had always been too preoccupied with his own despair. Her friend Nancy was willing to lend a sympathetic ear, but with regard to Shereen, Aliyah’s emotions were often too raw. She wouldn’t dare tell Nancy, for example, that sometimes it gave her comfort to see news footage of American mothers grieving for their lost soldier boys, killed in Iraq. It wasn’t that she took pleasure in the deaths. It was that she thought her country needed this kind of sorrow to keep it humble, because that was how it worked in the rest of the world. And also because, to Aliyah, Shereen was just as much a victim of the war on terror as anyone in uniform. That was another thought she could never share with Nancy. But Annie only nodded professionally and asked for more, nudging her with gentle questions and calm reassurance.

Sometimes Aliyah got so wound up that she consumed her allotted hour with a single nonstop monologue. Other times she paused for laughter, sweet reminiscence, or calm conversation interspersed by long and tranquil pauses.

Today’s session had been a bit out of the ordinary.

“Is it unusual for grief to have colors?” Aliyah had asked.

“Colors?”

“Yes. There are mornings when I wake up, and the day seems to have a certain tone. When I close my eyes that color is wrapped around everything, and it’s around all of my thoughts.”

“What kinds of colors?”

“Well, there was black at first. I guess that happens with everybody. Everything is black and you can’t find your way out of it. And red, too. When I’m angry it’s almost like a halo, an aura around everything you look at. Or, no. More like it’s burning off of everything, like the corona in a solar eclipse. But the other colors are more interesting.”

“What colors are those?”

“Purple’s the latest. A very soft purple, almost velvety. Like you could curl up inside it and shut out everything else. But not blinding like the black.”

“Is there room for your husband in this place, when things are purple?”

They had discussed Abbas many times—his reticence, and the possibility that he and Aliyah might find some way to reunite with the help of their sorrow.

“I think so. He’s never there with me so far, of course. But sometimes I still feel like there’s a little space for him. It’s like walking into a room with a big plush chair, and you can tell someone’s been sitting there because they left an impression on the cushions. Maybe that person will come back, or maybe not.”

“Like the space is still waiting for him. On your purple days, at least.”

“Yes. Do you think this means he might still come? Or just that I want him to?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll have to bring him there myself. Without him even knowing it.”

“And how would you do that?”

“I haven’t figured that out.”

“It’s a good thing to think about, though.”

“Yes, it is. I’m worried about him.”

“Why is that?”

She told Annie about the accident they had witnessed Monday, her confrontation with the policeman, and the look in Abbas’s eyes that she found so disturbing. Then she told her about finding the vial of antidepressants.

“Hmm. Doctor, heal thyself?”

“Yes, I’m afraid that’s his approach.”

“Do you remember the name of the drug?”

Aliyah did, so she told her.

“Well, it could be worse. But I’d watch for side effects. They can sneak up on you, and sometimes they get worse over time.”

“What are they?”

“The worst is suicide, but that’s rare, and usually with adolescents. Too many raging hormones. With Abbas it might be violent behavior, or delusions of grandeur, also rare. The most common ones are the kinds of little things you might never notice. Dry mouth, constipation, insomnia.”

“He’s been up a lot lately in the middle of the night. But so have I, and I’m not taking anything.”

“The one you’d probably notice first is sex drive. Sometimes your libido disappears completely.”

“Then I might not notice for a while.”

“Sorry. So everything’s still quiet on that front?”

“Two months now.”

“Who is his physician?”

“It used to be Stanley Wilkerson. The one who treats all the congressmen. Unfortunately they had a falling-out, maybe a year ago. Over a stupid political argument.”

“Let me guess. The Iraq War.”

Aliyah nodded.

“Abbas left the office shouting, still buttoning his shirt. Everyone in the waiting room heard it. There was even a little gossip item about it in the
Post,
that horrid little column in Style.”

“Have you asked him about the pills?”

“It would only make him angry that I’d found them. Then that would be yet another wall I’d have to climb next time we talked.”

“Sounds like he’s building new ones every day.”

“Yes.”

“And you need him, Aliyah. Especially with Faris off on his own.”

“Maybe I should make helping him part of my own therapy.”

“Tricky, but possible. As long as you’ve got a handle on your own emotions. And I’d say you do. You’ve made real progress. In fact, before you brought up this business I was going to suggest you go without me for a while. Maybe a trial run for a month or so.”

“Even if the dream keeps coming?”

“Maybe if you don’t see me, the dream will stop. Besides, the way you’ve described the last ones, it sounds like even that might be easing up. Didn’t you used to see everything from Shereen’s point of view?”

“Yes, and I was always frightened. Now it’s more like I’m seeing it through a camera, and I just wake up sad.”

“The sadness you’ll always have. The part that will drive you ’round the bend is hanging on to the belief that there’s something you could have done to save her.”

“I guess that’s why I worry so much about Abbas. He’s still trying to set things right, as if that’s even possible.”

“Not healthy, especially with those pills in the mix. He really should talk to someone.”

“I guess that’s my job. To get him to talk.”

“He’s liable to be hurtful, you know. He might even blame you. Not because he means it—only because he has to blame anyone but himself.”

“Oh, he won’t blame me. But blaming other people? That’s a different matter.”

“Then heaven help them, whoever they are.”

Annie said it with a light tone, and they shared a laugh. But in retrospect, as Aliyah dunked a tea bag in steaming water at 3 a.m., it was unsettling. She had to find a way to keep Abbas from drifting farther away, even if it meant being a little pushy, even meddlesome.

She carried the mug into the family room, thinking she might watch some television, perhaps surf for an old movie. But her attention was drawn to the far side of the room, where the door to Abbas’s study was ajar. Months ago he had begun locking it, which had disturbed her for reasons she couldn’t pin down. It had always been “his” room, so he had a perfect right to lock it. He used it as a refuge whenever he was caught up in an emotionally demanding case at the hospital, and after Shereen’s death he spent even more evenings there.

But it was also where he kept the bills and checkbooks, the family correspondence, and his elaborate plans for their annual vacations. So in that sense his recent embargo seemed unwarranted, and even unfair. Maybe that was why her first reaction upon seeing the door open was an urge to enter.

She paused at the threshold to listen for any footfall on the stairs. There was a muffled grunt from up in the bedroom, but nothing more. She opened the door wider, thankful the hinges didn’t squeak. Then she slipped inside.

The room’s nerve center was an oak desk with a hinged top that folded down to become a writing surface. Abbas had inherited it from his father. Aliyah opened it without hesitation. The first thing she saw was a blue American passport, which sent her heart to her throat. She opened it and saw that it was indeed Shereen’s. Beneath it was a torn envelope with a year-old postmark. It had been mailed from the American embassy in London. Abbas must have collected the mail the day it arrived, and thank God he hadn’t showed it to her. It was hard enough seeing it now, Shereen’s face smiling at her from a photo taken only days before her death.

Here is how Shereen died:

She was in London, a college graduate out on her own at last, touring a few cities in Europe with her two best friends from Stanford. One last dose of the carefree life before they tested the job market. Not that Shereen had many worries on that score. Corporate recruiters were already in pursuit.

A day before the young women were to fly home, someone broke into their hotel room while they were at breakfast and stole their purses and passports. They raced off in a panic for the American embassy. Not to worry, they were told. Happens all the time. We’ll have everything fixed by the close of business.

So the three girls had their photos snapped, filled out the paperwork, and paid the fees. Then they toured the Tower of London before returning at the appointed hour to pick up their new passports.

Sorry, the man said, but there was a complication. Not for Catherine or Jane, but for Shereen Rahim. Nothing serious, just a little further checking required. When Shereen phoned home that night she tried to put a good face on it, covering for her countrymen as if it had all been an honest mistake.

Abbas saw right through it.

“It’s your name,” he told her. “Your name and your parents’ country of origin. It’s because your mother and father are Palestinian. That’s why they are making you wait, I’m sure of it, for extra security checks. I’ve heard of these things happening. Just like what happened to us in New York. Ever since 9/11, the consular officers have gone a little crazy.”

The next day, a Tuesday, Catherine and Jane flew home as scheduled. Shereen’s passport still wasn’t ready. Abbas went into his study and placed a call to the embassy in London. Aliyah still remembered how angry he was afterward.

“He wouldn’t tell me anything, of course! Just a lot of lame bureaucratic excuses and vague insinuations. I could just imagine him there in his office, some political appointee who contributed a lot of money to someone with all the wrong ideas about the world. Sitting there with his little flag on his desk and an autographed picture of the president up on his fucking wall!”

“Abbas!” He
never
used the F-word.

“It’s warranted. Because when I pressed the point he decided to lecture me on what it means to be an American, and not just ‘someone who holds an American passport.’”

“Good God.”

“You see? And he said that in his position he has to be very careful, and that we have to learn to live with a few extra inconveniences. It’s one of the sacrifices we make for living in a safer nation.”

“He really said all that?”

“And then, of course, he mentions my little arrest last summer in New York. The same old shit.”

“Didn’t you tell him she has a job interview on Monday?”

“Oh, he was quite magnanimous about that. He said he would be happy to phone the prospective employer if necessary. But of course he would have to explain that the delay was due to security concerns. Which would make a perfect job reference, don’t you think? The stupid bastard! The son of a jackal!”

Wednesday came and went without a passport. Then Thursday. If Friday didn’t work out, Shereen would have to wait until Monday, and would miss her interview.

On Friday afternoon, London time, Shereen called from her hotel room with the latest update. Still no luck. Then her cell phone rang.

“Hold on, that might be them!”

It was, but she had to move fast. They had her new passport, but the consular office closed in twenty minutes.

“You mean they can’t send it by courier, or at least leave it with the duty officer?” Abbas shouted. “That’s outrageous.”

“You’re probably right, Daddy, but I might just make it. Better run, then. Bye!”

“Good luck!” Aliyah chimed in from the extension.