Refuge (27 page)

“Do you have any brothers and sisters?”

“When I was born my mom got an infection, and they had to remove her uterus. It was a serious bummer for my dad, especially when he realized I took after Mom. He was always trying to steer me towards the things he thought important, and like some guerrilla warrior she always tried to counter his influence. The trips were part of that. Though he’d never admit it, I think her death was a relief to him. Eighteen months after she died he married this uptight paralegal in his office, and they had twins. Finally he had the family he’d always dreamed of, yet for some crazy reason he wouldn’t let me just do what I wanted.”

“And what was that?”

“Be an artist‌—‌that was my dream at least. He couldn’t understand it. ‘Art is something you go to benefits for,’ he’d tell me, ‘it’s no career,’ and when it came to choosing a university, he wouldn’t let me apply to CUNY and instead used all his influence to get me into Duke. I think deep down he thought that one day I would change just like he had, and thank him. But I was never like him…”

“You were like your mother.”

“I felt paralyzed, like I was heading down some path I’d never be able to get off, and then one night, just before I was about to head down to North Carolina, Beau Geste came on TV, and suddenly I had an idea. I’d enlist in the army‌—‌it was the biggest ‘F you’ I could think of. I called him on the way to boot camp. He was so stunned he could hardly speak, he kind of just sputtered and told me if I got on that bus I’d be dead to him. We haven’t spoken since.”

“Did you enjoy the army?”

“If I thought my dad’s rules were stupid, the army’s were insane, but in some ways I didn’t mind. In the army, at least, I knew none of it was personal. And I made friends, with the type of people I’d never have come across at Duke‌—‌black guys from the Bronx, farm boys from Kansas, high school dropouts from the Jersey Shore. Don’t get me wrong, there are times I regret not going to university, there’s a lot I wish I knew which I don’t, but every time I meet college graduates back home all I see are a bunch of people who’re only interested in making money. It’s as if college has sucked every ounce of originality out of them. My buddies in the army were different. We may have been the lowest of the low but we were loyal to each other, a brotherhood‌—‌it was the first time since my mom died that I felt like I had a family again.”

Charlie looks over and gives her a bashful smile.

“Sorry, must be boring you to death,” he says.

“Not at all. I’m sure your mother is really proud of you.”

“I’d love to think that, but unlike you, I don’t believe in an afterlife.”

“But she did?”

“What do you mean?”

“That song,
My Sweet Lord
, the one she had you sing.”

“She was never religious.”

“But it sounds like she was spiritual.”

“Yeah, I suppose she was.”

“So how does the song go?”

“It’s really just the same words repeated over and over.”

“Sing it for me.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to hear me sing.”

“I’d love to.”

“Well don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Charlie starts to sing, his voice tentative and strained at first. However the more he loses himself in the song, the more melodic his voice becomes. Noor watches him entranced until eventually he trails off and stares out through the branches as if searching for his mother. Noor fights the urge to reach out and take a hold of his hand. She stands.

“Good night, Charlie.”

He looks up.

“Oh, you out of here?” he says.

“It’s late.”

Charlie nods.

“Well thanks for listening.”

“It was my pleasure.”

Noor walks back down the bough. When she reaches the trunk she looks back. Charlie is still staring off into the distance mumbling the words to the song. What she sees is a fourteen year old boy holding his dying mother’s hand, bringing her untold comfort as she slips into the next life, and it breaks her heart.

***

UP ON THE
bough, Charlie watches Noor walk along the verandah, her posture straight, her gait graceful.

I love her. I love her like no other woman I’ve ever met.

It scares him to death. He remembers what Noor had said the first time she came to the house.
“I assume you weren’t going to ask my father for my hand in marriage?’
and when he’d asked her if she was kidding how she’d remarked that the only thing he could thus be hoping for was
‘an erotic fling with an exotic woman’.
Charlie can’t help but smile; only Noor could come up with such a phrase. At the time he thought she was being ridiculous, but the more he thinks about it the more he realizes she has a point. For a self-respecting Muslim woman the only romantic relationship she can have is a married one.

Could I marry her?

Maybe. No, not maybe. Yes. Absolutely.

So you’re certain you love her?

Yes.

Just like Dad was certain he loved Mom?

Charlie would like nothing more than to argue that his father’s feelings had been fraudulent, but whenever his mother spoke about their whirlwind love affair, it was always with a sparkle in her eye. It was magical, she’d tell him; the two of them had felt like no one else existed in the world.

So what happened?

They weren’t compatible. They had different outlooks on life.

And how can you be so sure you and Noor don’t too?

Questions begin to pepper his brain. Will he really be alright with a Muslim wife? What if she wants to raise their children Muslim? Would he be okay walking in the door at night to see them prostrating themselves towards Mecca?

You’d be an alien in your own home.

Unless of course he became a Muslim too. The concept seems absurd, but perhaps Noor would pressure him into becoming one, just as his father had pressured his mother into going to church and joining the Junior League. Noor might deny it now, be as fine with him drinking as his father once was with his mother smoking joints. But it hadn’t been long until his father had disapproved. Hell he’d objected right up until the end, even when his mother’s doctor said it could help with her nausea.

Will I be sneaking beers on the porch? Chewing gum on the way home after going to a bar with a buddy?

He knows he’d start to resent Noor, just like his mother had come to resent his father.

And then what? Live a sham of a marriage like my parents did? Never. I’d never do that to myself, more importantly I’d never do that to Noor. No one deserves that.

The breeze picks up, and the decaying leaves rustle all around him. He sits rock still and listens for his mother, hoping for some words of wisdom. He hears nothing but the wind.

It must be nice to think like Noor does. To believe your mother’s out there looking down on you.

But he knows different. Once you’re gone, you’re gone, dust at best, lost for eternity. And he knows any hope of him and Noor being together has crumbled as surely as any dead body will.

It will never work, and if I respect her I won’t try to make it.

Charlie stands up and makes his way back inside, turning off the lights as he goes. He walks down the upstairs corridor and stops next to the switch outside Noor’s and Bushra’s room. He stares at their door. To know she’s so close is almost unbearable. With a heavy sigh he flicks the light off and continues on.

THIRTY

TARIQ STANDS OUTSIDE
the Prince’s tent, two Saudi bodyguards cradling high-end assault rifles on either side of him. To call it a tent is a gross mischaracterization; it has nothing in common with the miserable canvas dwellings that are spread out in front of them. The Prince’s tent could hold a wedding for two hundred, has warm air pumped into it, and its floor is lined with the most sumptuous of rugs.

Now that is living.

A lumbering Ford Bronco appears at the far end of the camp, and he watches it bounce its way towards them. The Saudi bodyguards tense.

“It’s fine,” Tariq says.

The Prince had told him to expect an American guest, and ever since he’s been intrigued to meet him. The Bronco rolls to a stop, and two well built Americans climb out. The passenger door opens, and a weasel of a man steps out. He sniffs the air and takes in the dispirited mujahideen trudging about in the snow.

How he must deride us.

The American catches Tariq staring at him and approaches.

“Ivor Gardener, he’s expecting me,” he says in Arabic.

“Your men have to stay outside,” Tariq says in English.

The man’s eyes flicker.

“No problem,” he says.

The American spreads his arms and legs wide. One of the Saudi guards comes over and pats him down for weapons. Tariq tells the other to go and inform the Prince that the American has arrived.

“I haven’t met you before,” the American says.

“My name’s Tariq Khan.”

“Ah, so you’re the one. Congratulations.”

Tariq can’t help but feel a visceral thrill that the American knows who he is. The guard nods at Tariq. Moments later the other returns and relays that the Prince will see the American immediately. Tariq wishes he could keep the conversation going but knows it’d be unthinkable to keep the Prince waiting. He pulls back the flap.

“Have a good meeting, Mr. Gardener,” Tariq says.

“See you around,” the American says.

Snow starts to fall, and Tariq stomps his feet to keep them warm. The stump on his right arm throbs as if someone’s hitting it with a hammer. One more hour of this guard duty, and they’ll rotate, and he’ll be inside and beside the Prince once more.

Tariq sees three men walk up the track and recognizes them as Salim Afridi, and his two brutish, oldest sons, Iqbal and Nasir. The three of them stare at Tariq with undisguised malevolence. Iqbal, his nose running, snorts like a farmyard animal and hawks a hefty glob of mucus at Tariq’s feet.

“The Prince is expecting us,” Salim Afridi says.

“One moment,” Tariq says.

He turns for the entrance, and Salim Afridi grabs a hold of his arm.

“Did you hear what I said, boy?”

“I did, but the Prince put this protocol in place, not me.”

Tariq stares down his father-in-law. Salim Afridi lets go of his sleeve, and Tariq pulls back the flap. He steps into the interior’s warm embrace. Two bodyguards, on the other side, give him the go ahead, and he walks to the far end of the tent where the Prince is conferring with the American. The Prince knows he’s there but doesn’t acknowledge his presence. Tariq hopes the Prince makes him wait forever just so his father-in-law and his two idiot sons freeze their balls off. Tariq projects an air of studied indifference while listening intently to what the two men are saying.

“So you haven’t spoken to bin Laden recently?” the American says.

“You make it seem like we’re the best of friends,” the Prince laughs.

“You guys hung out all the time.”

“We were two Saudis in a foreign land, our paths were bound to cross.”

“I went by a couple of his training camps in Nangrahar. They’re totally deserted. The Stingers we gave him too.”

“I believe he distributed them equally amongst the factions..”

“So he has left?”

“If he gave away his Stingers then one would presume so.”

“But you don’t know where?”

The Prince stares back at the American.

“No. If I did I would have told you. Now enough about bin Laden, I want to hear more about what your sources in Kabul are telling you? Do you think it is a propitious time to attack”

Please say no,
Tariq prays.

The Prince glances up at Tariq.

“Where’s Salim Afridi?” he says.

“He’s waiting outside.” Tariq says.

“Then what are you doing standing there. Show him in.”

Damn.

Tariq hurries back outside.

“You’re good,” he says.

His in-laws barge past him. Tariq zips the entrance shut and pulls out the letter he received from Yousef that morning. He reads it one last time.

Tariq, As-salaam Alaykum. No success yet in finding your package. Are you sure it is still in Peshawar? Yousef.

Tariq pulls a lighter from his pocket and lights the letter. Before the flames can lick his fingers he lets it go, its ashes intermingling with the snow flakes.
.

He walks over to a nearby tent. Sarosh, one of the Prince’s clerks, looks up.

“When’s the mail going to Peshawar?” he says.

“End of the day,” Sarosh says.

Tariq pulls out an envelope addressed to Yousef and hands it to the clerk. Inside is a simple two word reply.

Keep looking.

THIRTY-ONE

NOOR SITS MEMORIZING
a list of Dutch nouns. She glances at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. It’s close to midnight. She wonders if Charlie is ever coming home.

Maybe he’s sleeping somewhere else
.

It’d certainly solve the mystery of why they hadn’t seen him all week. She wonders whether he has a lover, another aid worker perhaps.

Why do you care?

I don’t.

She tries concentrating on the words in front of her but instead reminisces about her visit to Elma’s earlier that week. Elma’s cottage had only been a ten minute walk, so close to Charlie’s house it was perturbing. Elma had opened the door with an infectious smile, and swept Noor into the house, and for the next two hours had insisted on only speaking Dutch as she plied Noor with food.

She still thinks I live in the camps, that’s why she fed me so much
.

As the evening had progressed Noor had become increasingly paralyzed. Elma was speaking so fast that Noor could barely pick out one in twenty words.

There is no way I’ll be able to learn this language in time,
she’d thought.