Zeitoun (30 page)

“What am I going to do with money in a canoe during a flood?” Zeitoun said.

“But Nasser had money,” one of the men said.

Zeitoun shrugged. He could not account for why Nasser had money with him.

The interview lasted less than thirty minutes. Zeitoun was struck by how friendly the men were, how easy the questions were. They did not ask about terrorism. They did not accuse him of plotting against the United States. At the end, they apologized for what Zeitoun had been through, and asked if there was anything they could do for him.

“Please call Kathy,” he said.

They said they would.

Kathy was in a state. She’d just gotten the call from the missionary a few hours before. And now the phone was ringing again. Yuko, who had been fielding calls for days, no longer knew what to do. Kathy picked it up.

A man introduced himself as belonging to the Department of Homeland Security. He confirmed that Zeitoun was at the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center.

“He’s fine, ma’am. We have no more interest in him.”

“You have no more interest in him? Is that good or bad?”

“That’s good.”

“Well, what was he in there for?”

“Well, they have ‘looting’ on his arrest sheet. But those charges will be dropped.”

The call was brief and businesslike. When she hung up, Kathy
praised and thanked God for his mercy. She shrieked and jumped around the house with Yuko.

“I knew he was alive,” Yuko said. “I knew it.”

“God is good,” they said. “God is good.”

They called Yuko’s husband and made plans to get the kids out of school early. They had to celebrate. And plan. There were so many things to do.

First of all, Kathy had to go. She knew she had to go. She had to leave that day for the prison. She didn’t know where it was yet, but she had to go. Where was it? She looked it up online. St. Gabriel, less than an hour from Baton Rouge.

She called Hunt and was bounced around the various automated extensions until she reached a person. She could barely speak. She wanted to fly through the phone and be there with him.

“I’m trying to reach my husband. He’s in there.”

“The prisoner’s name?” the woman asked.

Kathy had to take a breath. She could not stomach the idea of her husband being called a prisoner. By naming him she was expanding this lie, the one being told by everyone involved in his incarceration thus far.

“Abdulrahman Zeitoun,” she said, and spelled it.

Kathy heard the typing of computer keys.

“He’s not here,” the woman said.

Kathy spelled the name again.

Again the sound of typing.

“We have no one by that name,” the woman reiterated.

Kathy tried to remain calm. She told the woman that she had just received a call from someone from Homeland Security, and that that man had told her that Abdulrahman Zeitoun was at that very prison.

“We have no record of him,” the woman said. She went on to say
that Hunt had no records for anyone who came via the hurricane. None of the prisoners from New Orleans were in their computer system. “All of those records are on paper, and we don’t have that paper. We have no actual records of any of those people. They’re FEMA’s.”

Kathy almost collapsed. She was spinning, helpless. She didn’t have a number for the Homeland Security man who had called; she cursed herself for not asking for a way to contact him. And now she was being told that her husband was not in the institution where the Homeland Security people and the missionary had seen him. Was this some kind of game? Had he been there at all? He might have been moved already. He had been a prisoner at Hunt but then some other agency wanted him. He had been spirited away to a secret prison somewhere—

She had to go. She would go to Hunt Correctional Center and insist she see him. She had a right to see him. If he wasn’t there she would demand they tell her where he’d been taken. It was the only way.

She told Yuko and Ahmaad she was going.

“Where?” they asked.

“Hunt. The prison,” she said.

They asked her if she was sure he was there. She was not. They asked if she was sure she would be allowed to visit. She was not. They asked where she would stay. Kathy didn’t know. Already she was crying again. She didn’t know what to do next.

They convinced her to stay in Phoenix for the time being, until she could be sure of Zeitoun’s whereabouts and how she could actually help him. She needed to be smart, they said. They didn’t want to worry about her, too.

Kathy called Raleigh Ohlmeyer, an attorney they had worked with
before. Raleigh had helped a few of the Zeitouns’ workers who had legal issues to straighten out. Raleigh’s father was a well-known and powerful lawyer in New Orleans, and Raleigh, though in the family business, had chosen to break away, at least in his appearance. He wore his brown hair long, usually pulled back in a ponytail. He worked downtown and took on a wide variety of cases, from traffic tickets to criminal defense. Kathy was sure he would know how to straighten out this Hunt business.

There was no answer. She left a message.

Kathy called Ahmad in Spain and woke him up. She didn’t care.

“He’s alive!” she said.

He yelled a string of Thank Gods and Praise Gods.

“Where is he?” he asked. “With you?”

“No, he’s in prison,” Kathy said. “But it’s okay. I know where he is. We’ll get him out.”

Ahmad was silent. Kathy could hear him breathing.

“How? How will you get him out?” he asked.

Kathy did not have a plan just yet, but she had a lawyer, had put in a call to him, and—

“You need to go there,” Ahmad said. “You have to see him and get him out. You must.”

Kathy was unsettled by Ahmad’s tone. He seemed almost as worried by Zeitoun’s incarceration as he had been by his disappearance.

Fahzia, Zeitoun’s sister in Jableh, called soon after.

Kathy told her the good news. “We know where he is. He’s in prison. He’s okay.”

Another long silence.

“Have you seen him?” she asked.

Kathy said she had not, but that she was sure she would soon.

“You need to see him,” Fahzia said. “You need to find him.”

In the afternoon, Raleigh Ohlmeyer called Kathy back. He had fled the city just before the storm and had been staying in Baton Rouge. His house in New Orleans was under six feet of water.

Kathy told him what had happened to Zeitoun.

“What?” Raleigh said. “I just saw him on TV.” He had seen the local news broadcast of Zeitoun in his canoe.

Kathy told him about the calls from the missionary and the Homeland Security officials, how they had seen him at Hunt.

Raleigh was reassuring. He already knew all about Hunt. After the storm he had set up a makeshift office in Baton Rouge and was already working with prisoners brought to the prison.

The system’s broken, he said. There was no means to post bail. It would take some time before it could be rectified. Raleigh promised that he would get Zeitoun released, but given the state of the courts—there were none to speak of—he could not predict or guarantee a timeline.

In the morning Ahmad called Kathy, tense.

“Did you tell Fahzia that Abdulrahman was in prison?”

His tone was severe.

“Yes, she asked and—”

“No, no,” he said, and then softened. “Let’s not do that. Don’t worry them. We cannot tell them he’s in prison. We cannot do that.”

“Okay, but I just thought—”

“We’ll call them and tell them he’s fine, he’s home, it was a mistake. Okay? We need to tell them this. You don’t understand the worry they’ll have if they think he’s in jail.”

“Okay. Should I—”

“I’ll call them and tell them he’s fine. If they call you, tell them the same. He’s at home, he’s safe, all is fine. You made a mistake. Okay? This is what we tell them. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

Ahmad wanted to know which prison he was in. Kathy told him it was in St. Gabriel, and that because the legal system was in limbo, it would be some time before they could even hope to get Abdulrahman out. But she had spoken to a lawyer, and he was on the case. It was only a matter of time.

But Ahmad was thinking beyond simple cases of attorneys and bail. He did not want his brother in prison at all. A Syrian in an American prison in 2005–this was not to be trifled with. Abdulrahman had to be seen. He had to be freed immediately.

The next time Kathy checked her email she saw a message from Ahmad; she had been cc’ed. He was trying to find Zeitoun, but he had gotten the city wrong. He had done an internet search for San Gabriel in the United States, had found a match, and had written this:

Kathy began to see the situation through Ahmad’s eyes. What if the prosecutors, hoping to justify Zeitoun’s incarceration, tried to make a case against him—a connection, any distant connection, to some terrorist activity? Any connection, no matter how specious, might be used to justify his incarceration and extend it.

Kathy did not want to think this way.

She called Raleigh Ohlmeyer again. He had just called Hunt, and they had confirmed that Zeitoun was there.

Kathy called Ahmad and told him the news.

“Yes, but has anyone seen him?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Then we can’t be sure,” he said.

“Ahmad, I’m sure that—”

“You have to go,” he said. “Kathy, please.”

He apologized; he knew that he was pushing too hard, that he was calling Kathy too often, but his mind was filled with images of his brother on his knees, in an orange jumpsuit, in an outdoor cage. Every additional hour Zeitoun was in custody increased the chances of something taking a turn for the worse.

“I’ll fly to New Orleans,” he said.

“And do what?” Kathy asked.

“I’ll find him,” he said.

“Don’t. Don’t,” she said. “They’ll put you in jail, too.”

By now Raleigh was familiar with some of the judges and administrators working to process the post-storm prisoners being kept at Hunt. Hoping to get Zeitoun’s case dismissed, Raleigh told Kathy it was time to come to Baton Rouge. She should fly out and be ready to come to the prison at a moment’s notice; there was a chance she could visit him on Monday. Kathy booked a flight and called Adnan, Zeitoun’s cousin.

“Abdulrahman?” he asked, hesitant.

“He’s okay,” she said.

He exhaled. She told him the story of her husband’s incarceration, and that she was coming to get him.

“You’ll stay with us,” Adnan said. After sleeping on the floor of a Baton Rouge mosque for that first week, he and his wife had rented an apartment for the month, and were living there.

Adnan would pick her up and drive her to the prison.

There was something wrong with the airplane. They were flying so low, descending too quickly. Kathy was certain the plane would crash. She no longer trusted anything about New Orleans, even the sky above the city. She gripped the armrest. She looked around to see if anyone else was alarmed. The pilot’s voice came on the intercom. He announced that they were flying low over the city so the passengers could survey the damage. Kathy couldn’t look.

When they landed, the airport was desolate. There were airport security officers, New Orleans police, National Guardsmen, but few civilians. The passengers of Kathy’s plane seemed to be the only people in the building. All the stores were closed. The lights were dim. There was detritus all over the floors—garbage, papers, bandages and other medical supplies.

Adnan picked her up and they drove to the apartment he and Abeer had rented in Baton Rouge. Kathy, exhausted and overwhelmed, fell asleep with her shoes on.

Zeitoun knew nothing about the work Kathy and Raleigh were doing. He still had not been allowed a phone call. All he knew was that he had been assured by both the missionary and the Homeland Security men that they would call his wife. But since then, he had no assurance that contact had been made.

After lunch, Zeitoun was taken from his cell and again handcuffed and brought to the same building near the front gate of the prison. Inside he was brought to a small cinderblock room, where a table and a handful of chairs had been arranged. Sitting on one side of the table was a man in his late fifties, wearing a suit. On the other side were two men in coats and ties. Three other prisoners were seated in chairs at the back of the room. It was some kind of courtroom.

A young man introduced himself to Zeitoun as the public defender. He would be representing Zeitoun that day. Zeitoun began to explain his case, the mistakes that had brought him to prison, and asked for an immediate phone call to his wife. The public defender closed his eyes to indicate that Zeitoun should stop talking.

“You’re not here to be judged,” he said. “This is just a hearing to set bail.”