“Did you go to the safety deposit box to see if her passport is there?”
“No, yesterday I had to chair a three-hour offsite meeting. The market isn’t as calm as it was last year. We need to get our cash-burn rate under control. It may be necessary to dehire some people.”
I almost choke at the expression he uses for firing an employee. Then he begins to ramble on about market share, competitive disadvantage, and going public to raise new capital. In short order, his business-speak begins to grate on me.
I interrupt him by saying, “This is a life-and-death situation, Adi.”
“It sure is,” he replies. “This morning around 5 I got a call from the police. They asked me to go see a body at the morgue.”
My vision blurs. “What?”
“A woman’s body was found in Lake Washington. It wasn’t her.”
“Oh my God!” I shake my head. “Must have been difficult for you. I don’t know what I’d do if…” I get a grip on myself. “Could we meet this morning? Put our heads together? The earlier the better. We need to mobilize our community. I’ll be happy to drop by your office.”
“Hold on now, Mitra. I
don’t
want even my friends to get wind of this, never mind the whole community. You, of all people, should know how things get blown out of proportion when the rumor mill cranks up.”
I sag on the couch. Losing face with his Indian peers is more important to him than seeking help in finding his wife. In a way, I get it. Our community is small. We have at most two degrees of separation between people, instead of the hypothetical six nationwide. Word spreads quickly and rumor insinuates itself in every chit-chat. Still, how silly, how counterproductive Adi’s pride seems in this dark situation.
And that makes him more of a suspect.
There are times when I think Adi is still a misbehaving adolescent who needs his behind kicked. According to Ka-reena, he was an only son. Growing up, he had intelligence, if not good behavior, and bagged many academic honors. His mother spoiled him. Even on the day he punched a sickly classmate at school, she treated him to homemade
besan laddoos
.
Finally, Adi suggests meeting at Soirée at 7 p.m.
How empty the place will seem if I go back there without Kareena. But I don’t want to risk a change with Adi. It’ll give him an excuse to weasel out of our meeting.
I ponder why he’s so difficult. Rumor has it that his family in New Delhi disowned him when he married Kareena against their wishes. Not only that, his uncle sabotaged his effort to obtain a coveted position with an electronics firm by taking the job himself. Adi endured that type of humiliation for a year before giving up. Eight years ago, he and his new bride left India and flew to the opposite side of the world, as far away from his family as he could possibly go.
He landed in Seattle, where he found a plethora of opportunities and no one to thwart his monstrous ambitions. Before long, he formed his own software outfit. There was a price to be paid: long hours, constant travel, and a scarred heart. In spite of this, he persisted and ultimately succeeded. These days he flies frequently to India on business, and rings his family from his hotel room, but his mother will not take his call.
What is Adi doing to locate the woman on whose behalf he sacrificed the love of his family?
Would he really show up at Soirée this evening?
I walk over to my home office and dial Kareena’s office number. Once transferred to the private line of the agency director, I leave her a message to get back to me a.s.a.p.
Then I wander into the bedroom where I confront the unmade bed, sheets wavy like desire building to a crescendo. Herr Ulrich floats in my mind, a man who appears so strong and unyielding, but who turns out to be tender and pliant. Right now, his taut body is pushing, lifting, and stooping in the brown-gray jumble of a construction site, the angles of his face accentuated by the strain. Did he stop for a split second, stare out into the distance, and reexperience my lips, my skin, my being?
It’s a little too soon to get moony about a man, friends would surely advise me.
Just picturing Ulrich, however, warms my body. Not just the electric tingling of sex, but a kind of communion.
Muted piano music floats from the Tudor across the street. As I reach for the phone with an eager hand, my gaze falls on the bedside table. The pad of Post-it notes is undisturbed. Ulrich hasn’t jotted down his phone number or his last name. He promised he would, but he didn’t.
My dreamy interlude is sharply broken. With a drab taste in my mouth, I realize that a promise is an illusion and so is “next time.” It’s similar to hoping that your parents will never die, your friends will forever be around you, and your tulips will always sprout back the next year. This morning I’ve learned how untrue my assumptions can be.
These days I feel like I’m living in a ghost town. I don’t know where to go, who to see, what to do next, or even what to believe. The last five days have coalesced into an endless dreary road. I’ve reached an impasse in my search for Kareena. Adi cancelled our meeting at Soirée at the last minute. From my repeated phone calls to him, I’ve gathered that Kareena’s passport is missing, an indication she’s left deliberately. It strikes me as odd that Adi seems so blithe about her being gone for so long. He even had the nerve to joke about it.
“You know what? I think she’s flown somewhere for an impromptu vacation. She’s punishing me for not taking her to Acapulco last February. Don’t worry. She’ll get a big scolding from me when she gets back.”
Where might she have gone?
I’ve contacted the police and given them an account of the bruises I saw on Kareena’s arm. Detective Yoshihama assured me he’d do what was necessary and gave me his cell phone number. This morning, I buzz him again, but he doesn’t return my call. How high is this case on his priority list? To him, Kareena is no more than a computer profile of another lost soul, yet another
Have you seen me?
poster to be printed, whereas to me and our mutual friends she’s a person of importance.
I’m not ready to give up. I call the Washington State Patrol’s Missing Persons Unit, but am advised to wait thirty days.
I miss Ulrich too, even though he’s practically a stranger. Everywhere I go, I see his broad face, neat haircut, wary green eyes. He appeared in my life about the time Kareena went missing. I haven’t heard from him since he left my bed that fateful morning.
I have no choice but to get on with my life, except that the daily duties I took on happily before have become meaningless. I put off grocery shopping, misplace my car keys, and ignore e-mails from the library warning that three books are overdue.
Late this morning, I check the tulip patch. The buds are still closed and a trifle wan, despite the fact that the soil, sun, and temperature are just ideal for them to bloom, and there are still dewdrops hanging from them. Whatever the connection might be, I can’t help but think about Kareena. Why didn’t she confide in me?
What concerns me most is the nothingness, the no-answer bit, the feeling that the answer is beyond my reach.
I decide to make a trip to Toute La Soirée this evening. A voice inside has been nagging me to do just that, not to mention I have a taste for their kefir-berry cocktail. Kareena confided not long ago that she was saving the pricey Riesling for the next special occasion. Will her wish ever be fulfilled?
The café is located on busy 34th Street. To my surprise, I find a parking place only a block away. The air is humid as I walk up to the entrance. The stars are all out. I check my watch. Despite the popular spot’s catchy name—meaning “all evening”—it closes at 9 p.m., less than an hour from now.
Inside, the café pulses with upbeat, after-work chumminess. It is nearly full. A middle-aged man fixes me with an appraising look over a foamy pint of ale. I ignore him and survey the interior. The décor has changed since my last visit. The smart black walls sport a collection of hand fans. Made of lace and bamboo, they’re exquisitely pleated. The new ambience also includes a wooden rack glittering with slick magazines and jute bags of coffee beans propped against a wall. I don’t find this makeover comforting.
As I thread my way through, a speck of tension building inside me, I overhear snatches of a debate on human cloning. Ordinarily, I would slow down for a little free education, but right now my attention is focused on finding an empty seat.
The table Kareena and I usually try for is taken; how could it be otherwise at this prime hour? I was half hoping for a minor miracle, but finding a parking spot must have filled my evening quota. “Our” table is occupied by a couple whose heads are bent over an outsize slice of strawberry shortcake. Right now, I find even the thought of such sugary excess revolting. And the blood-red strawberry juice frightening.
Something about the couple nudges me and I give them a second look. Oh no, it’s Adi and a blonde. He looks slightly upset. The overhead light shines over his copper complexion. He’s dressed in a crewneck polo shirt in an unflattering rust shade—he doesn’t have Kareena’s color sense. The blonde wears crystal-accented chandelier earrings that graze her shoulders. I wouldn’t bear the weight of such long earrings except on a special occasion. Or is this a special occasion for them?
Their presence so rattles me that I decide to leave. Besides, Adi might notice me and complain I’m spying on him.
On the way to the door, I knock over a chair, which I put back in its place. Then I almost collide head-on with an Indian man who has just entered the shop. Although he’s young, dark, and devastatingly handsome, somehow I know he’s not my type. Clad smartly in a silver woolen vest, this prince heads straight for the take-out counter. His impressive carriage and smoldering eyes have caused a stir among women seated nearby. A redhead tries to catch his glance. He touches the jute bag, an Indian-style
jhola
, dangling from his shoulder. Even Adi stares at him.
I slip out the door, too drained to absorb anything further, pause on the sidewalk, and take several deep breaths to cleanse my head. Please, Goddess Durga, no more intrigues this evening.
It’s starting to drizzle, but the streets are mercifully clear. Within minutes, I pull into my garage and step out of my Honda. As I close the garage door, I flash on the enchanting prince from the café. Didn’t Veen mention that Kareena was last sighted with a
jhola-
carrier at that very place?
A jolt of adrenaline skips through my body. Why couldn’t I have been more alert? Stuck around longer to scrutinize another potential suspect and his belongings?
Should I drive back?
I check my watch: 9 p.m. Soirée has just closed.
Filled with nervous excitement, I enter my house. Neither a hot shower nor a mug of holy basil tea tempers the thought racing through my head: what really happened to Kareena?
In a need to restore my spirit, I retire early. As I lie in bed, I can’t help but run through the day’s events, foremost among them being Adi’s public appearance with a blonde. Suspicions about him blow in my mind like a pile of dry leaves in the wind. Eventually, the atmosphere settles; my mind clears.
I’m worrying too much about Kareena. Worry is a sand castle. It has no foundation.
Could my assumptions about Adi be wrong as well?
Assumptions, like appearances, can deceive, I tell myself. Adi’s cheerful façade and his lack of concern about his wife’s unexplained absence just might be more sand-castle building on my part. I’m reading the worst in what might be a perfectly plausible and innocent situation.
You’ve been acting silly, Mitra, pure silly. You have no reason to fret. Pull your covers snug and get yourself a restful sleep. All will be well. The morning will come, the sun will be out, and Kareena will return, her bright smile intact, as surely as the swing of seasons.
I awake refreshed and invigorated. Last night’s drizzle has evaporated, leaving behind a bright morning. The sun streams through a wide gap in the window draperies. A spider is building a nest outside the window, intricate but fragile.
I have the perfect task to usher in this new day. I shall tend to Kareena’s tulip patch. The plants will soon release their full yellow blossoms as emblems of beauty and renewal and she’ll cradle a bunch lovingly in her arm.
I don my gardening clothes—faded jeans and a worn black cardigan—gather my tools, and hurry outside. The morning light shines brilliantly on my front flower patch. An errant branch of camellia needs to be pruned. Its shadow falls over the tulips. I step in closer to inspect, an ache in my belly. All the tulip buds are shriveled and brown, as though singed by blight, their dried stalks drooping over to return to brown earth.
Why are they dying on me so soon? I fall to my knees and caress the tulip plants, lifting them up and squeezing their brittle stalks and wilted leaves. I roll each wizened bud between my fingers, but don’t find a single one with any hope.
Holding a broken stem in my grasp, I think of Kareena, so vibrant, so full of life, and brood about the promise of these tulips.
D
olores leaned forward against the back of the taxi driver’s seat, eased her choke hold on the man’s throat, and pressed the gun barrel harder into the side of his head. “If it helps,” she said, “think of me as a messenger from God.” In the rearview mirror, she watched a tear trickle from the driver’s bruised and swollen right eye. “Tell me, Mister…” Dolores glanced at the Yellow Cab ID tag on the dash. “Farah, is it?”
“F-Farah.”
“Farah. Almost sounds Spanish. How do you say your first name?”
“Ab-Abdelaziz.”
“Well, that’s a mouthful.”
“It means—”
“What?”
“Servant of G-God.” He bit the inside of his mouth to stop stuttering. “It means Servant of God.”
“Really. Well, that’s why you’re here, Abdelaziz—serving God… God’s messenger, anyway.” Dolores appraised his raw head wound from the pistol-whipping she’d given him. “You’re still bleeding. Keep both hands on the wheel.” She let go of his throat for a moment and fished a tissue from her parka.
“I have to use restroom. My—”
“Shh.” She dabbed at the blood coagulating on his scalp. “It’ll be light soon; just have to wait now, enjoy the view. Look, you can see the Olympics out there.”
“Please—” Abdelaziz flinched, started to shake. “Take all money, I already say.”
“Money?” Dolores shook her head. “You think I’d be wandering the streets during Easter vigil looking for money? I was looking for you, my friend, a man with a turban.”
He turned, trying to look at her. “But—” She gave him a hard rap on the forehead with the butt of her pistol.
“I told you,
quiet
. Now you’re bleeding again. And I’m out of tissues.” She reapplied the choke hold on his throat. “You did a good job not getting stuck in the sand. I wasn’t sure we’d make it this far.” Dolores glanced over her shoulder. “Can’t see us from the parking lot. That’s good. You’re a great driver for such a small man; I almost thought a boy was driving when you pulled over to pick me up.” Her eyes drifted to the gun she held to his head—his blood trickling onto the barrel. “My son’s a good driver too… that’s what he did over there.” She looked away, cheeks swelling as if she was going to vomit.
Abdelaziz started coughing and sputtering. “Too strong—you squeeze too much.”
“You think I’m strong? That’s funny. I’m dying. And I wasn’t strong enough to protect…” She closed her eyes and ground the barrel deeper into the side of his head.
Abdelaziz whispered, “Please…”
Dolores cocked her head, listening; there—the approaching rumble of a southbound locomotive. “I forgot trains come through here,” she said. “We took the bus here once, just for the ride. I told Roberto we’d go someplace special for his fifth birthday, a place with so much sand that they call it Golden Gardens. He thought I meant Mexico and he’d get to meet his
abuela.
But I couldn’t afford that.” Her eyes began filling with tears. “So we packed lunch; he had his little blue truck. We walked right through here, right along the beach.
Mamí, mamí, look at the train
, he was so excited.” She gazed at a distant, moonlit embankment leading to the tracks.
“I have two child—”
She whipped the gun across his head. “I said QUIET! Now look, your turban’s all ruined.”
“Ku… faya.”
“What?”
“Not t-turban.” Abdelaziz thought his voice was broken—he hardly recognized it. “Kufaya. It is called kufaya.”
“Well, it looks like a turban.”
“But it is not—”
“It doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?”
“Why?” he asked.
“That’s what I want to know—
why
? He was so young!
Ay, mi’jo.
He was on foot, just walking across a street…”
Abdelaziz groaned and felt at the side of his head.
“Don’t even think about moving!” She squeezed his throat harder, her grip lifting his eyes to the rearview mirror.
“Look at me,” she said. “Does my face look strong?”
Abdelaziz stared into the mirror as Dolores pulled back the hood of her parka, gasping at the sight of her sunken, bloodshot eyes, faded teardrop tattoo, disheveled cinnamon hair curling across the ash smudged on her forehead. He blinked and envisioned a card from the special deck another driver had spread across the hood of his cab one night. The card showed a woman in white sitting up in bed, face buried in her hands, nine swords hanging on the wall.
A greater sadness the world has never known.
That’s what Abdelaziz remembered the driver saying; that the cards predict the future and he’d better drive safe, he could die behind the wheel.
No, no
, Abdelaziz had responded,
they’re from Shaitan, the Great Deceiver.
Abdelaziz squirmed. He had to urinate so badly. He wanted to reach down, pinch his member, ease the discomfort, the shame, in front of this woman who overpowered him and dared to call herself a messenger from God! Mocking the Prophet (peace and blessing be upon him). As if Allah would ever choose a
woman
as messenger!
A gull wheeled across the water, pale sliver against the gray marble Olympics. He thought of Mogadishu, endless golden sand, surf all the way from India, pounding the weary shoulder of East Africa. He thought of his mother and wept, tears falling on his captor’s hand and wrist.
The woman was mad, caring not that he was no Arab or Iraqi, or even from that part of the world. If only he could explain…
“Is that a prayer you’re mumbling?” asked Dolores. She had been lost in a waking dream, adrift above Baghdad on a magic carpet, searching for her son. But what she found was the glorious city of an age forgotten. The great Golden Gate Palace… an emerald dome… minaret voices across the Tigris, calling the faithful to morning prayer… a causeway with horsemen and their lances… dissolving into an American platoon on a potholed street two blocks from the Green Zone, Roberto’s desert camouflage boot descending onto the trigger of a homemade bomb. A blinding flash, bloody and terrible, quartering his body like God’s avenging sword.
“Are you praying, Abdelaziz?”
“I pray, yes.”
“That’s good,” she whispered. “Even to a different God.”
“But our God is the—
oow!
”
Dolores hit him again, then wiped the gun on his shoulder. “It’s good to pray,” she said softly. “That’s all I’ve been doing. Got out in December, eight years locked up in Purdy. The doctor said the malignancy’s too advanced, I have less than six months. I couldn’t bear to tell Roberto, I’m all he had. I was going to wait till June, he had leave then…”
Was she was possessed by a
djinn
, Abdelaziz wondered, or could she even be one herself, a creature of smokeless fire, created by Allah? If she was a
djinn
, could she not, then, be bound to an object, as Süleyman once did, binding a great
djinn
to an oil lamp? But bind her how, and to what?
He could feel wind through the back window she’d cracked open. He should have known that no woman would be alone on this night, vigil of the resurrection of the last prophet before Mohammed (peace and blessing be upon him). But business had been slow, and he’d thought little of the hooded emptiness in her eyes when she’d asked to be taken to Golden Gardens. It wasn’t far from where he’d picked her up, the restaurant whose name someone once told him meant
The Way
in the language of Mexico.
“You’re mumbling again,” Dolores said. “No matter, the sun’s rising, it’s time for you to choose. You understand?”
“N-no.”
“What I mean, Mr. Farah, is that you choose when to pull the trigger. And, yes,
you
will pull it, not me. Now do you understand?”
“No.”
“Give me your right hand… Ah-ah, slowly.”
Abdelaziz felt her fingers tighten on his throat as she placed the gun in his right hand, wrapping her hand around his. Her iron grip made him wonder if the teardrop tattoo conferred power from Shaitan, the Great Adversary. She moved their hands till the pistol pressed against his right temple.
“Yes, like that,” he heard her say. “Now, you choose when,” she said. “Just calm your thoughts. Relax, and when you’re ready, just slowly make a fist.”
“Suicide is s-sin,” he said. “Only Allah may t-take life. I will have to repeat this on Ju-Judgment Day. Please, no.”
“Don’t be afraid, this is God’s will. I’ll help you. We’ll do it together.”
“No.” Abdelaziz watched a discarded holiday balloon bounce along the beach in the gathering light, the Easter bunny cartwheeling across tendrils of seaweed. The blasphemy of suicide! But no, she
forces
me… doesn’t she? Did I not struggle? Was I not beaten senseless? And does not the Qur’an say that if we kill, unless it be for murder or a just… NO! She sees this as a
just
killing, for the death of her son!
“So-Somali,” he said.
“Shh. No more talk.”
“I-I am shamed, I have soiled…”
“It’s all right. Anyone can have an accident…”
“Will it hurt?”
“You’ll see light,” she said.
“Light?” He was floating high above the cab; looking down, he could see right through himself. The cards were right, he was going to die behind the wheel.
Then across golden sand, streaking through the pale dawn, a rainbow rush of flashing lights. Abdelaziz felt ushered to the Garden gates.
“Do you know the Bible?” Dolores whispered.
“I know that which was written before Jesus.”
“Then you understand an eye for an eye.”
“Yes—”
“And a
vengeful
God.”
“Please!”
Dolores saw red and blue lights strobe in the mirror. She heard a door opening, frantic shouts, footsteps stumbling in the sand as their hands closed, voices joining, blasted apart by the gunshot, “God forgive me.”