One hour later.
“Knock. Knock. Knock-Knock. Knock.”
“I hear. I come.” Safeed’s deep wound bound tightly, he held fast to the iron rail and tottered to the bottom of the stairs. He tried to quiet his own labored breathing, put his ear to the door, listened to a familiar voice, and answered, “Agreed.” Gharam rushed down, ready to lash him with her tethered tongue.
“Why? Why must you hike down here like a wounded, stubborn, mountain goat? I am sorely tempted to box your ears. Just look at you–as pale as a Caspian winter. You shouldn’t be on your feet. ”
Jinny watched from the landing as Gharam, all the while shaking her head, helped her brother climb slowly toward the kitchen. Gharam grumbled, “Yes, look down on my brother, Safeed—the stubborn goat with shriveled teats. What am I to do with him?”
Safeed abruptly stopped long enough to land a firm spat on her rear. “Be more respectful. I went down to find out what’s up. The message was for me and me alone. The fire is out, but I have much to do. You must be patient.”
Safeed rejoined Jinny and Dalal at the kitchen table. He tensed and groaned as Gharam lifted his injured leg to a chair and knelt beside him to unwind the gauze, treat the oozing wound with ointment, and apply a fresh bandage. Jinny tried to lighten the mood in the room. She quipped, “Looks like you got a leg up on us this time, Safeed.” No one, not even the boys, chuckled. Question-marked faces told her no one could abide the American idiom. Jinny mentally dropped back five yards and punted: “Can anyone tell me what the two-humped camel said to a gas station attendant?” Gharam and Dalal winked at one another. Safeed monotonously thumped the table with his fingers, unaware that now he, too, was getting on everyone’s nerves.
Jinny traced the splintered table edge with a finger and imagined sitting comfortably and safely at home, surrounded by family. Instead of Asad and Asif, she pictured Conor and Isabelle sitting cross-legged on the floor playing pick-up-sticks. Safeed rested his elbows on the table, supported his aching head, and massaged his neck. He made funny popping noises with his lips to amuse the children, and then mumbled, “Your boys are nodding off.”
Jinny fixed her eyes on Asad and Asif. “Is it nap time? Soft bed? Hint, hint. What do you say, little soldiers, shall we bivouac in the bedroom?”
Without asking for a definition of bivouac, Asad stood, helped Asif to his feet and said, “Thank you for the bed, Gharam, but I am a dirt sleeper.”
Asif bleated, “Me, too.”
Jinny stood and tenderly patted Safeed’s naked shoulder. “Please wake us when . . . well, you know.”
Asif crawled into the bedroom, reached up, and pushed his hands onto the mattress. “Mama, this bed is soft like . . . oh, I don’t know what it’s like.”
“Like a mattress,” Asad announced. He and Asif lay down on the floor and left room between them for Jinny. She pushed Gharam’s bedroom door halfway closed and gracefully fluttered down to nest on her back between them—used her hands as pillows—and closed her eyes. After a few minutes of fidgeting and grunting, Asif raised up on one elbow and stared down at Jinny’s comely face. Feeling his breath on her nose, her lashes fluttered apart. She couldn’t help but smile into eyes mirroring her affection.
“I can’t sleep. Will you sing.” Asad looked to be asleep already.
Jinny raised up on her elbows, shook her mane, and nuzzled her youngest colt. “Hush now; I will sing. Lie back and close your eyes.” The tender timbre of Jinny’s voice, tinted with a touch of Irish brogue, resonated in the hearts of all who listened:
Llewellyn’s child
1 ‘Twas high upon the lea that day
Mó Da he bade goodbye.
A Dunnock flock passed overhead,
Filled up a clouding sky.
The heather hummed farewell to him.
Da climbed down through the glen.
Llewellyn’s child, I slipped the crag
And skirted round the fen.
2 Mó mum she waved her naipcin high
But dared not follow me.
And ne’er a gol fell from her eye
Back there upon the lea.
Da climbed aboard not looking back
His ditty-bag got stowed.
From bollards, mates cast off the ropes
And out to sea they rode.
3 The waves they made the walty worse
The jib sheet snapped and hung
Da tried to douse the mainsail once
He climbed each ladder rung.
The spanker flapped, came crashing down,
A donnybrook blew wild.
“Oh bear away, Da bear away
Come back to your dear child.”
4 Waves crashed across the bow aloft
Mó Da he turned around.
Off came his cap, he waved at me.
His ship sank in the sound.
Come pinch and luff the laundry now
Cry tears, yes not a few.
Each morn I spy Da by the gate
And blow a kiss or two. And blow a kiss or two. And blow a kiss or two.
Mesmerized by the melody—but mystified by the lyrics—Dalal urged a lower lip forward and blew disheveled hair from her forehead. “This apartment is as hot as the Bastak Bazaar in July.” She was tired of sitting, tired of being cooped up, and tired of hiding from the troubles in the village square. She pushed from the table, stood, and stretched most of her well-conditioned sinews. “What a day, cousins.”
“It’s not over yet.”
Dalal whispered, “Safeed, what is to become of them . . . and us?”
The bald superintendent stared straight ahead as if nothing blocked his view of the future. “Our enemies will not prevail. Allahu Akbar. Their ranks are fractured and now poke through the thick skin of self-aggrandizement. As for us? We will pass through this present storm, but not unscathed.” Barely audible, he added, “As for Jinny, she is a fierce protector of her sons; and someday . . . someday they and we will return home, I hope.”
Initially, Dalal had been skeptical of the attractive intruder who lay between two orphans in the adjoining room. Her prejudices and judgments had been batted back and forth like twin shuttlecocks in a game of Badminton. But now, her generational hatred of Americans—more especially of American soldiers—found itself assuaged by the good she saw in Jinny, and most especially in Jinny’s devotion to the Persian children.
Dalal’s life had been hard. At age three, Nouri, her youngest, had died of influenza. Her twins, Hadi and Sanjar, had been drafted into Khomeini’s army and whisked away in the bed of a pick-up truck at midnight without even a hug. Scheil—their father—had only weeks later perished while at work in a classified nuclear facility beneath the Gilan Mountains—or so Dalal had been told. All this and more spawned feelings shared by wives and mothers in many lands, over countless generations.
Sensing she had been roused from the shortest nap in recorded history, Jinny mused aloud, “Yes, return to Kansas—to Kansas with honor.” After a few minutes, she returned from the bedroom and took a seat at the table. Dalal asked, “Is that how they sing in Kansas?”
“Only if your ancestors came from the Emerald Isle.”
“And do you have brothers and sisters in Kansas?”
“Yes, and a mother, too. My older brother, Conor, died in Herat not long ago. Lance and Isabelle are younger. They help Uncle Albert on the farm. For several generations the O’Dwyers have grown Kansas wheat and corn . . . and, I hope, good citizens.” Tears spilled, soothing parched skin, and Jinny fell silent.
An alarm clock rattled everyone by bouncing and beat time on the kitchen counter. “1500 hours.” Safeed lifted his throbbing leg, tried to stretch, and broke his silence with a groan. “Jinny, I know you want to know about the fire. It’s out, but I must leave.”
Pulling her hand from his arm, Gharam stiffened. “Leave? And go where?”
“Yes, leave. Abdul and Fasad are expecting me. This was part of the message whispered by Elias at the door.”
“Why did you not tell me so.” Indignant, Gharam stepped between Safeed and the downstairs exit. “You are scaring away my hopes for peace. You will walk to Abdul-Akim’s apartment with your injuries? No, no, no. I say again, have you lost your mind? I will not permit it.” She pointed at the injured limb. “Look at your leg. You are in no condition . . .”
“Gharam, take courage. You know I must go,” he replied sternly. “Are we better than our Lord who was persecuted, beaten, and scourged with a whip that tore His flesh? Should we not willingly sacrifice for our friends?”
Jinny registered surprise. “Safeed? Gharam? Dalal? You are Christians?”
“You could not tell?”
“Well, yes and no. I thought you were followers of Mohammed.”
“No, Gharam and I are second generation Christians, but that is story for another time. Goodbye.” Safeed paused long enough to light a white colored candle and hand it to his sister. “Gharam, I give you a sign. Keep the flame alive in your heart until I return.” She continued blocking the door. Safeed turned away and sighed, As you wish. I will leave through the back.” Before disappearing into his windowless bedroom, he turned to reassure Jinny. “You are safe here, isn’t she Dalal? Please don’t leave before I return.”
Before Jinny could interrupt and ask why he had lit a candle in the middle of the day, Safeed added: “About the fire—it was started by a few of Karim’s men. The municipal building has been gutted by the blaze and two are dead. Barakah—one of our village fathers—got too close and, well, you can imagine the rest if you want. Barakah’s passing is a great loss to our people.”
Dalal added, “As you witnessed, when he arrived home, Safeed was blackened by soot, by which he avoided detection. To hear him tell the tale, his escape was—how shall I say—a miracle.” Her feet slapping her sandals, Dalal walked toward the bedroom window and pointed, “This is my shortcut home, but I’m not going home. Safeed asked me to make my way to the minaret, observe below, and bring you word.” Dalal retrieved the shotgun, nimbly exited through the window to the fire escape, and climbed from sight.
Her departure startled the children, who hippity-hopped from the floor into the kitchen. Gharam had not abandoned her post at the door. Asad asked, “Is someone knocking? Where is Safeed?” He had vanished.
“My stubborn brother has another mission to perform, and I am as done as goose cooked on the Kara-Kum!” Gharam snatched a broom by the throat and angrily smacked the floor. As if in slow motion, the handle fractured and—like a broken bat at a ballgame—twirled end over end and struck Asif in the eye. “Nooooo! What have I done to you?”
Dalal backed through the window into the bedroom and, turning around, declared, “I raced a few meters toward the minaret, but the tiles are too hot and, oh Mother Mary, what happened?”
Jinny hovered over Asif—in shock, sobbing, and breathing rapidly—and staunched the flow of blood with a towel. Asad knelt, saucer-eyed, lips pasted together, and silent. Dalal stood and stared. Gharam covered her face with her hands, wedged her back against the door, and slumped to the floor.
Safeed had descended by a secret passage to the street and immersed himself in creeping shadows, as yet unaware that the bodies of Ajani and Coco had been found around the corner and carted away. Safeed felt numb; he didn’t feel like singing; he didn’t feel like humming; he didn’t feel like walking; but he felt like doing his duty, and so, he hobbled the seventy-five yards to Abdul’s apartment singing, Faith of our Fathers. It rejuvenated his spirits.
Abdul’s welcome, like the weather, was very warm. “Come in, come in dear nephew. Fasad should arrive momentarily. We can simmer through summer together. Please, be seated.” The modestly decorated domicile consisted of four small rooms and smelled of incense. Safeed dropped into an overstuffed chair and stared at four drawing room walls, one at a time. Above the divan hung two framed, color photos—one of Abdul’s deceased wife, the other of Dalal. Worn woven rugs hugged the floors. Like warp and woof, Safeed and Abdul had together been scuffed and scuffed and scuffed.
“Please eat and drink. “The almonds and water are for you. I haven’t much appetite today . . . Safeed, your leg! How did you injure your leg? Had I known I would not have asked you to . . .”
Bang. Bang. Bang. “That will be Fasad, but he never knocks like that. Poor fellow, he must have forgotten the code. Our old friend moves with difficulty now, but once upon a time he bounced like a rabbit; the swiftest of the litter. Why, I remember one time . . .”
“Excuse me, Uncle, shouldn’t I invite him in?”
“Oh, yes, of course, please, if you can. My arthritis and I will be much obliged.”
Struggling to his feet, Safeed felt a trickle of blood run down his leg as he hobbled to the door. He reached and backed off the latch. Abdul gasped. “Wait.” Too late. A sudden burst of energy knocked Safeed on his back.
“YOU!” Rendering sit-ups impractical—if not impossible—a big boot landed on his chest.
“I ought to squash you like a sour grape, you blipping carpet-bagger.” Four bearded thugs plugged the doorway, jockeying for position behind Karim. To their rear, a bearded head bobbed as if its owner were jumping on a trampoline, trying to watch a parade. Unable to see, he wrangled for attention. “Let the old man in.”
He pushed his way forward, straightened up, and with one hand nervously twisted his scraggily beard, while with the other he fondled a small purse suspended from a leather lace around his neck.
“FASAD!”
“Good afternoon Safeed. You look a little down,” he said, a thick slice of sarcasm in his voice. “We’ve come to visit Abdul, but what a nice surprise to find you here.” Warily stepping around Karim, he helped his lame countryman to his feet, ceremoniously kissed him on each cheek, and whispered loud enough for Abdul to hear: “Cooperation seems advisable.” Trying to act nonchalant, Fasad’s squinty grey eyes did a quick survey and fixed on Safeed’s waistline. “Ah, what a beautifully engraved knife. May I see it?”
Uninvited, he perfunctorily lifted and handed the blade to Karim, who, bubbling like a boiler about to blow, ran his thumb across the serrated edge and then slashed back and forth within inches of Safeed’s nose. “So, this is what you skewered my best friend with. I found my dead lieutenants right where you murdered them! It was—shall we say—troubling that you didn’t have the decency to bag them both. But then, to be fair, Ajani did need a little more help dying. Yep, yep,” he sneered sarcastically. Karim pressed the tip of the blade against Safeed’s dimpled chin and hissed, “Get my point? I can get closer if you like. Now where’s the old man?” No answer. “Your slippery Sunni tongue won’t be able to answer after I cut it out.”
Safeed bit his tongue. It squirmed loose. “I acted in self-defense.” Looking askance at Fasad, he continued, “And I suppose I needn’t wonder who led you here to betray Abdul-Akim.” Fasad deflected Safeed’s glare by looking up as if to count stars in the late afternoon sky but could only imagine a solitary pigeon opening and emptying its bombay upon his padded pate.
Karim barked orders. One of his men pushed Safeed aside and went in search of Abdul. Returning empty-handed, the searcher shrugged and tensed, expecting to be slapped. “The old man’s not here, boss.”
“Wrong. I heard two voices.”
Though nauseated and weak, Safeed stood his ground. “I should have mentioned, I am a ventriloquist, and you—are mistaken. I am here alone. Didn’t I tell you I am minding the place while Abdul is, shall we say,on vacation?”
Karim grabbed Safeed by the scruff of his neck and jerked him off the floor. “Say, Bald Baxter, what do you take me for, an idiot?”
“Well, you’re close.”
Karim blew a gasket; his face flushed red with rancor; he pushed Safeed back onto the overstuffed chair and struck the bandaged leg with the butt of his gun, demanding, “Tell me where the old fool is or you die. And where’s the American?”
Fasad pulled on Karim’s sleeve, trying to get his attention while Safeed groaned and writhed in pain. Karim snarled, “I ask you for the last time, dog-face, where are they?”
“They? All of a sudden you are looking for two people? I tell you the truth. Abdul asked me to watch the place. Said he’d be back in a few days. I know nothing of any American. We here are all Sunni, as you have surmised.”
“Untrue, quite untrue. Safeed, I am surprised at your lack of integrity,” chided Fasad.
Karim put his foot to Safeed’s chest and commanded, “This time, two of you search this shack and be quick about it. Look in the closets and under the beds.” The men searched every room and tapped every wall—still, no Abdul.
“Don’t you move. I’ll search this dump for myself.”
“And I hope you find yourself, Brutus,”whispered Safeed, bleeding and dizzy. He put his head in his hands and listened as Karim stomped through the apartment, upended furniture, knocked pots and dishes to the floor, and punched a hole in the wall.
Exasperated, the intransigent hoodlum returned and scowled at Fasad. “How am I supposed to crack this pothead? You know him. Speak up. Time’s running out.”
“Remember? We already discussed this.” Fasad cupped his hands in an attempt to veil his reply. “Think women.”
“Oh yeah, now I remember.” Bunching his brow, Karim spun around and bared his teeth. “So—little man—surprise, surprise,” he tittered. “I actually found your digs and your harem. Harem—scare ‘em—snare ‘em.”
Safeed steeled himself and heaved up a gutsy retort. “I swear by my ancestors, if you hurt . . .”
Karim reached down, threatening to back-hand him across the mouth. “Button it, bozo. We already got them. As I was about to say, your feisty females acted like a fox broke into their hen-house. You shoulda seen them cackle—hee-haw—circling the room, a kicking and a scratching and a screaming. But they’re not screaming now—oh no—are they boys? Now where’s the old man?”
Thinking his men too stupid or too tired to play along, he turned to Fasad and demanded, “You—Traitor Joe—what were their names again?”
Fasad betrayed his indignation by grumbling, “Gharam and Dalal.”
“Grubs yes, how could I forget? Gharam Crackers and Dalicious—a purty pair, tabled up, staked down, and waiting for happy hour—that is, unless you decide to corporate.” BJ missed Ajani and could see his prospects of becoming wealthy withdrawing like a tray of uneaten grits through the doggie-door back when he was shut up in solitary confinement. Sweat had soaked through his uniform; he looked but didn’t smell like he’d just showered; even his icy persona was in melt-down, and so, he stepped back and re-thought his approach to interrogation. “Now, now, bald A-rab, I don’t think you get my problem. I need to patch a hole I made in the U.S. Army, and I heard on the sly that you or your pilgrims know where the woman shooter’s holed up.”
Safeed mumbled, his speech slurring, and his eyelids drooping. “I told you, she’s . . . I don’t know where she is. Maybe the ungrateful wretch fled to the mountains; or maybe she’s gone south toward Karachi and took the brats with her. And good riddance, I say.”
“Aha! You just admitted you’re a blinking liar. You know she’s holed up somewhere in the project. Now looky . . . say, you’re not falling asleep on me, are you?”
In an insipid attempt at self-redemption, Fasad stepped up and savagely slapped his countryman on the cheek. Safeed’s scathing stare propelled Fasad backward, causing him to step on Karim’s foot and shrivel like a plastic milk jug set afire. A wormy harvest of foul expletives and a balled fist wrinkled his face. “OUCH, YOU FAILED ME, you bleeping camel-jockey.” Karim shoved Fasad out the door and then, crossing his eyes, he pushed his own forehead against Safeed’s and declared, “We’re done here. Time’s up, slum-lord. Now you get to suffer like Hitler’s little Geppetto freaks—I’m gonna carve you up and make jerky.” Karim played the disgruntled soccer player and kicked Safeed’s bandaged leg with the side of his boot. The Sunni Samaritan lost consciousness and toppled to the floor like an unconscious goalie.
“Where I come from that spells p-a-n-e,” announced the Mississippi mongrel. Just looking at Karim was painful. Muddle-minded, he sniffed something fowl in the air. “It’s just like Ajani used to say, ‘Yep, yep, whatever you do is fine with me, boss, if you get my drift. Time to corporate. Ha, ha.”
Disgusting.
“Drag this scumbag to the gallows, but don’t kill him . . . yet.” With their prisoner in tow, the motley crew left the apartment door wide open and didn’t see it slowly close and latch behind them. They headed down Faisia Street toward the round, towering, stately minaret on the northwest edge of the village square. Abdul-Akim breathed deeply for the first time in ten minutes. “Fasad, how could you?”
As the procession rounded the base of the glistening Muslim minaret, Fasad— trying keep astride of Karim—leaned up, and whispered, “Do you see how my hands tremble with age?”
“All ten of your scrawny paws oughta be trembling—with fear.”
“Be that as it may, it’s time to settle up and bid you goodbye. Pay me the balance of the promised silver, and I will leave.”
Karim ignored him once, twice, and then after the third demand— “Reward, you say? You failed me, you ticking termite. Let’s stop so’s Seaman’s Cap can bind and gag this old fool. We’ll string him up first and call it a purview of coming attractions.”
Fasad’s feet tried to play catch-up with the cobblestones as he was dragged off balance across the square. Disgraced and crazed at the prospect of imminent death, he lifted his bound hands sufficient to pull the gag from his teeth and choke out the words: “Safeed, Karim lies! He does not have the women. He . . .” In one swift motion, Karim drew and fired point-blank.
“Leave him.”
The surviving remnants of Karim’s mob heard the shot and reluctantly legged from the shadows like earwigs from beneath the bark of a sycamore tree. Saturated by sweat, they fell in behind their leader and silently plodded out of step like an Okefenokee Band between photo-ops at the Tournament of Roses parade. Safeed—surrogate grand master—was dragged by the armpits and dropped, semi-conscious and delirious, on his face in front of the hospital.
Oh, thank you for ending our ride, Jinny. I’m glad you stopped before we ran out of desert, but it felt good to wrap my arms around your waist. I’ve been holding on for dear life. For some reason this galloping dromedary made me nauseous. I think I’m going to—as you say in America—puke; and . . . Safeed, regained consciousness, twisted his head on the gravel, puked, and looked up through bleary eyes. His last cognition: How odd–our hospital, disparaged by a gallows.
No large sycamore tree’s branch shaded the executioner’s primary prop. The double strand of clothesline—twisted, looped and left dangling—had been previously posited. A gopher-wood chair, damaged by the fire and designated as a disposable drop, fumed indignantly. The stage was set. It reminded Karim of the menacing hanging tree just off Pigeon Roost Road outside of Tupelo.
Pa would be proud.
The pitch and yaw of a surveilling drone high overhead made it difficult to record activity on the ground. The semi-circle, filled with Karim’s men in the courtyard far below, resembled a rudimentary triple-violin quintet, poised to play. But up close, discordant, disenchanted, and disheveled derelicts fingered instruments of destruction, while a few villagers—silent surrogates, faces smudged and too tired to flee–squatted in the dirt awaiting the performance.