Amsterdam 2012 (31 page)

I had been envious of her peace, just as I had been envious of Sara
Jiluwis’s
poise and equanimity.
 
It was hard to forgive myself.
 

Our house was an empty coffin.
 
My father was a robot, moving through his quotidian without expression.
 
My mother didn’t cry or shut herself up in her room.
 
She, too, went on with her routine.
 
There was so much work to do, so many people to care for.
 
But she would never be the same.
 

Sometimes I saw my mother staring out the window into her garden.
 
She no longer talked about dialogue or diplomacy or conciliation or world peace.
 
She asked my father to teach her how to shoot a gun.

#

I completed my nursing classes and was now a RN.
 
It didn’t feel like much of an accomplishment.
 
It was nothing I ever really wanted.
 
It felt more like I signed up for a tour in the military and was counting the days until my discharge.
 
I worked hard at the hospital and my days seemed short, yet I felt as if I was waiting for something.
 
For what, I didn’t know.
 
For the war to be over?
 
For Peter to contact me?
 
For things to return to normal?
 
Maybe—like my family and the rest of the country—I was in the process of grieving, grateful to be alive and not have people dying all around me, too numb to believe there was a future ahead, to make plans, to dream.
 

I thought about how women have spent centuries waiting.
 
Waiting to grow up, waiting to get married,
waiting
to have children.
 
Waiting to hear news about wars.
 
Waiting for the men to return.
 
Even in liberated times and in times of peace there was waiting.
 
Waiting to discover
yourself
, waiting for answers from college applications and job interviews and auditions.
 
Waiting for the phone to ring.
 
Waiting for excitement.
 
Waiting for love.

I figured it must be in our genes, this ability to wait.

I was tired of waiting.
 
I felt the weight of time.
 
I listened to its silences.
 
I felt it slipping away.
 
I felt it pressing down on my body.
 
I feared soon I would be old, filled with aches and pains without ever having really lived.
 
I feared I would never know love again.
 

There had to be more to life than this.

#

Congress decided it could not work with President Warren P. Mullet.
 
Democrats and Republicans concurred—he had to go.
 
They decided to impeach him on “high crimes and misdemeanors,” more specifically, that he failed to adequately respond to the influenza epidemic, and failed to respond to the “clear and present danger” abroad, thus endangering national security.
 

Unlike the sex scandal of the Clinton administration, there were no belabored hearings.
 
The House Judiciary Committee deliberated on the impeachment resolutions and forwarded them to the House of Representatives.
 
The House voted for a formal impeachment inquiry by the House Judiciary Committee, which then drafted Articles of Impeachment and sent them back to the House of Representatives.
 
The Articles of Impeachment were voted on and sent to the Senate for a trial.
 

No doubt, President Mullet found the prospect of being the first United States president to be impeached and removed from office less than appealing.
 
Perhaps he became persuaded a protracted trial would be devastating for the country.
 
In any case President Mullet resigned, only the second president after Richard Nixon to resign from office.

This all took place in less than two weeks.
 
Mullet had held office for a little less than a year.
 
Vice President Joseph Finkelstein, who also had been vice president under Elliot
Gladwell
, stepped into the Oval Office.
  

With all of our domestic problems, we were getting very little coverage from Europe, but a letter from Alex said the U.S. troops were ecstatic about the change in U.S. leadership, and European leaders were “breathing a sigh of relief, already figuring their military strategies based on additional U.S. support.”

The flu epidemic slowed down the war.
 
In some places—Senegal, Sierra Leone, Spain, Russia, and Switzerland, nearly 10 percent of the entire population died.
 
Numbers from the UNI countries were not forthcoming, but estimates were 7-10 percent of the population died.
 
Originally the plan had been to keep UNI troops from entering Istanbul and making their way across the Sea of
Marmara
.
 
Rewarded with easy victories, allied troops pushed back UNI troops into the heart of Turkey.

The UNI had counted on assistance from the central Muslim-led governments in Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, and Macedonia.
 
They were disappointed.
 
They had hoped to transform ethnic factions into transcontinental Islamist militias.
 
This did not happen.

Our new commander-in-chief, President Joseph Finkelstein, was anxious to take advantage of any weakness in the Islamic army offensive left by the flu epidemic.
 
“Military force is not the only solution,” he announced in his first television speech as President.
 
“Overwhelming military force is the only solution.”
 
He reinstated the draft, extending the term and number of draftees, increasing troop strength to three million.
 
The navy tripled, and the tank force and number of aircraft surged to the largest size since World War II.
 
Instead of declaring war against the United Nations of Islam—which was bound by the laws of war and regulated by international bodies—Finkelstein asked Congress to “authorize the use of force.”
 
The Secretary General of the United Nations, a liberal Muslim from an African country, declared the invasion was “illegal” and “not in conformity with the UN charter.”
 
Finkelstein’s press secretary did not offer a rebuttal.
 
But then, no one was paying much attention to the United Nations anymore.

The United States was now fully engaged in war.
   

#

I waited impatiently for the rhythms of life to resume, the
thunk
of the morning paper against the garage door, the hum of traffic as the city awakes, planes taking off overhead, a neighbor grinding coffee beans, the slam of car doors of commuters headed to work, garbage trucks grinding their way down the street, which would mean it was Wednesday.
 
So one day when I woke to the call of the muezzin for noontime prayer—a rich and vibrant human voice, not a recording—I yelped with joy.
 
I nearly threw on my clothes and headed to the mosque myself!
 
Yes, life would go on, with all of its conflicts and differences of opinion and prejudices and debates about religion, but it would go on!

Everyone in the city admitted that during the pandemic, the Muslim community pitched in admirably.
 
They opened their mosques and community centers to the sick.
 
Women swathed in black
hajib
walked the neighborhoods in pairs, delivering food and medicine.
 
Men patrolled the streets to keep looters in check.
 
Soon garbage trucks driven by men in turbans rumbled down the street.
 
Fliers announced Muslim schools had reopened and were “open to children of all religions.”
 
The flier noted while Islamic instruction would be a part of the children’s day, all other courses, as required by the California Board of Education, would be taught.
 
Proper dress, segregation of the sexes, and rigid discipline would be maintained.

Most parents were grateful.
 
There was no way they could go back to work and resume their routines without their kids in school.
 
And without school, many children had become unruly.
 
Some parents figured Muslim indoctrination would be no worse than sending their children to Catholic school, which many non-Catholics had done in the past because of the schools’ excellent academic records and discipline.
 
Uniforms and headscarves might be good for the children.
 
If the schools were rigid and puritanical, perhaps that too was good, an antidote to the rebelliousness, nose rings, tattoos, bare bellies, rap music, promiscuity, drugs, knives, and gang violence that had seemed to possess their children like an evil spirit.
  

The fact that the United States was at war with Islamic
jihadists
in Europe and the Middle East did not prevent parents from accepting Muslim generosity.
 
American Muslims were peaceful Muslims, they said, not radical
jihadists
, and if they did not support the war effort and did not condemn the UNI, well, that was understandable.
 
How many Jews protested Israel’s aggression toward Palestine?

Soon the Muslim schools were filled to capacity, and the city, which still could not afford to pay teachers or maintain its buildings, leased out its vacant school rooms to Muslims.

The Muslim community also took in a large number of orphans, estimated at 37,000 in Los Angeles alone.
 
So many single mothers had died without any other family member able or willing to take on the extra children.
 
Black, white, Hispanic—the Muslim community welcomed them all.
 
They bought office buildings which had stood empty during the recession, and made them into dormitories.
 
All of the children were entered into
madrassahs
far stricter than those schools open to the general public
.
 

The Muslim community got an unexpected endorsement from conservative Christian talk show hosts and media stations.
 
Many applauded the emphasis on modesty and “family values.”
 
Several pointed out that Islam was based in large part on Judaism and Christianity, and therefore was a “sister religion.”
 
Liberalism had corrupted Christianity and had corrupted America, they said.
 
Many supported “modesty” for women, and the Islamic condemnation of gays.
 
“It is time for America to take back control from homosexuals.
 
It is time for America to return women to the home to raise children, and to love and support their husbands.
 
Why do you think American culture has become decadent and Godless in the first place?
 
Women have abandoned their jobs at home to take the jobs of men.
 
A woman cannot raise a family by taking six weeks off from work to have a baby,
then
abandon it to daycare centers.
 
Stop the insanity!
 
Women have abandoned their children to run wild.
 
Does anyone in their right mind think girls of twelve or thirteen should be having sex?
 
Women have cast aside their job as moral linchpins of the family.
 
If it takes Muslims to teach us what we have forgotten in our own faith, then let us welcome them into our schools and our communities.”

To a lot of Americans, this made sense.

Los Angeles Mayor Malcolm Jefferson did not hesitate to hand over several city functions to the Muslim community—garbage collection, fire departments, community policing.
 
He had, as had several other mayors and governors across the United States, already allowed
Sharia
courts in Islamic neighborhoods, and when non-Muslim criminals who had committed crimes in Muslim areas began to be tried in the Islamic courts, no marches or cries for civil rights interrupted the proceedings.
 
At least someone was dealing with criminals was the consensus.
 

Trucking businesses owned by Muslims appeared to have no problems filling up with gasoline, and soon they had a monopoly on delivery, including all of the produce grown in the Central Valley of California.
 
When buses began to resume their schedules, no one asked if the service had been contracted out by the government.
 
If Muslim-owned companies outbid other contractors—because of low petroleum costs, a deal they profited from exclusively—who complained?
 
It was the forces of a competitive marketplace at work.

There were other changes in the city no one protested.
 
Porn shops were gone.
 
Nightclubs, which were closed during the flu epidemic, never reopened.
 
Gay clubs vanished.
 
Swimming pools and health clubs were open on alternate days for men and women.
 
At least they were open again!
 
Then there were the things few noticed, like the library seemed to have fewer books.
 
Grocery stores now carried
halal
meat, which was often cheaper and fresher.
 
Music no longer blared in elevators or public places.
 
Gone were billboards with lips and hips and naked bellies.
 
The rhythms of the city now revolved around the five calls to prayer.