AT LAST LAURA WILLIAMS had an Extracurricular Activity. Day after day she pursued her new interest.
Bet “Finding My Brother’s Killer” doesn’t show up that often on college admission essays, thought Laura, knowing the essay would be worth writing only if she found him.
School gave Laura a fever. She was hot and shivery from staring at her former friends. She tried to turn them inside out; inspect their secrets and their pasts. There was no time to eat lunch, only time to sit in the cafeteria and examine faces.
Jimmy Hopkins, for example, seemed worth pursuing. He looked Japanese, but his name certainly didn’t fit.
The eyes of a terrorist should be cold and amoral, unblinking and uncaring. Eyes to be afraid of. But in the eyes of Jimmy Hopkins, she could see only curiosity and pity.
“Jimmy,” she said sharply, “where are you from?”
“Los Angeles,” said Jimmy courteously. He ate his chips like a Londoner: squishing the head of each french fry into a puddle of vinegar and salt.
“But what are you, really?” said Laura. “What nationality?”
“I’m American,” he said, trying to be patient. Laura had interrogated almost everybody; he had known his turn was coming. “You want the whole nine yards? A Hawaiian grandmother who was part Japanese and part New England missionary married an Irish grandfather. That’s my mother’s side. I have an Italian grandmother and an origin-unknown grandfather on my father’s side.”
“That’s not enough Japanese blood to look as Japanese as you do.”
“So speak to my gene pool,” said Jimmy irritably. He took the remains of his sandwich to the trash can and got in line for dessert.
“Stop testing people, Laura,” murmured Con, tilting back in her metal chair until she was so close to Laura that conversation was muffled in each other’s hair. Con, as always, looked perfect. She was not beautiful or even pretty, yet she was a Ten in any numbering system. “Billy wasn’t killed by anybody at school, Laura. I know you’re upset, but don’t be melodramatic.”
“Murder,” said Laura, “is melodramatic. When you’re murdered by being handed your own personal bomb, it is very melodramatic. Billy was somebody’s choice, Con! He was handed his own murder weapon! He had to carry his own death up a stair.”
Every time Laura imagined it, she wanted to yank Billy to safety; her muscles seemed to believe there was still time to do this.
Con nodded understandingly—as if a person who used the word “upset” for Billy’s death could understand. “I’m sorry, Laura,” said Con. “You’re right. It is melodrama. It could be on stage, or be a movie.”
“No! You don’t get it! It isn’t a screenplay. It’s my brother!”
The whispered conversation exhausted Laura. Her strength was dwindling away, just when she needed it most. She had lost rest completely. Her sleep had become a strange shallow thing, a mere trembling on top of sheets.
“It makes me angry you even thought of anybody in school,” scolded Con. “I love this school. It’s terrible of you to think that way.”
The only way outsiders could tolerate the way Billy died was to make it ordinary. People who could not make Billy’s death ordinary had left.
Laura knew that she was ending friendships left and right. Her life used to be based on making, keeping, and strengthening friendships. No longer. She had abandoned sleeping, eating, and friendliness.
“Practically speaking,” added Con, “who could pull it off, Laura? They don’t teach a class in bombs.”
“Well, then, the bomb was made by their father, or their uncle, or their president, or their dictator.” Mentally Laura examined a geography class globe. Peeling away the three quarters that were ocean, she sorted through land. How many countries was she talking about? How many fathers, uncles, presidents, and dictators?
It was too big a task. Laura could never do it. They had beaten her before she began.
For a moment, she had no energy with which to go on. Then she remembered the only time you don’t have the energy to go on is when you’re dead. So only Billy did not have the energy to go on. She, Laura, must go on for him.
Jimmy came back with not one, but two desserts, and the second one he put in front of Laura. It was cake, European style, with many thin layers and thin, crusty icing. Billy’s idea of cake was chocolate, with soft icing an inch thick. Laura did not say thank you for the cake. She asked Jimmy for proof that he was American. His driver’s license, or his passport.
“You know, Laura,” said Jimmy, yanking the cake back, “somebody is going to mug you. Now quit this crap.”
“I have to find out who killed Billy.”
“You think somebody’s going to tell you?” yelled Jimmy. Half the cafeteria turned. “ ‘Oh, rats, Laura, you got me, I’m from a terrorist family.’ ”
Laura flushed. She didn’t know how to be a spy and find out things. She was as blunt and imperfect as Billy. Jimmy was right. Who would tell her anything? Nobody.
Laura pretended to have finished lunch, pretended to saunter off, but she was running away, and when she got into the hall, she did run. Nobody was after her; she was running away from being a jerk. She stood hidden in a corner of contradictory doorways that led in and out of the music rooms.
Laura was not musical and did not participate in choir or band, but the music rooms were centrally located, so against their will, she and everybody else knew what the Christmas concert was going to include. They had known since September.
Leila and Avram were practicing a duet. Leila was Syrian and played the violin, while Avram was Israeli and played the cello.
Weren’t Syria and Israel mad at each other? Didn’t they have different religions and different politics and argue about their borders and hate each other? What were Leila and Avram doing playing a Christmas carol together? Laura thought of Syria as primitive and Israel as sophisticated, and both had terrorists.
What nationalities were in Billy’s grade? Had he gotten mixed up in some Israeli-Syrian mess? Some Irish-English mess?
In the months she had lived abroad, Laura had not made the slightest effort to understand what those messes were, or which side stood for what.
I’m ignorant, thought Laura. I was proud of being ignorant. I felt superior because I didn’t know anything. When you’re an American, and you’re the best and the strongest, you don’t have to worry what all those little guys are up to.
Laura had tired quickly of British television news. The BBC told you about every single political party in every single country on every single continent. Just when you thought you were going to go into a coma, you would find out about the royals. A princess was bound to have visited an old folks home, or else Australia, or else was getting a divorce. Then it was back to global news.
Time to be like the English and learn political situations, thought Laura.
So instead of being late for current events, Laura was early.
Naturally Mr. Hollober loved it that a student had come to hear his wisdom. He straddled the high wooden stool on which he liked to perch. “Civilization can vanish pretty fast,” he began. “Look at Yugoslavia. Sarajevo was a lovely town. The Winter Olympics were held there, but a minute later—as time goes—neighbors were killing each other off as fast as they could reload the rifles. Bosnia is a nightmare of terrorism against one’s own.”
Laura did not want to get into the Philosophy of Neighborliness. She wanted to cut to the chase. “Which country has terrorists?” she said abruptly.
Mr. Hollober shrugged. “Terrorists are just criminals. Evil people who kill for selfish reasons. Every country has its criminals.” Mr. Hollober folded himself up: fingers, knees, and elbows tucked in tight. His students joked that he could lecture only in fetal position. “The difference is, terrorists think they’re good guys. Terrorists believe they are changing the world, not just damaging it.”
“I don’t want details, Mr. Hollober. Just a list of who has terrorists.” Laura was normally courteous to her teachers, partly because she had been raised to speak politely, and partly because she never wanted to jeopardize a grade. I’m beyond grades, she thought, the way I’m beyond friendship.
Mr. Hollober regarded her for some time without saying a word. What if he decided not to tell her? “I have to know,” she explained, “because I believe somebody in this school had something to do with my brother’s death.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Mr. Hollober was personally offended, as if anybody at London International Academy was an automatic Good Citizen. After all, they had studied current events with him.
“Think about it,” Laura said. “What did Billy do all day long? He went to school. Right here. With these kids.”
Mr. Hollober lost it. He jumped up from his neat folds and loomed over her. His voice was sharp and angry. “He also wandered all over London, Laura! Your parents let him do anything! He stole bricks from construction sites! Took photographs! Kept notes! Asked questions! Bothered people! Went right up to strangers! He was one very invasive little boy!”
Laura could hardly breathe. She wanted to deck the man. “Are you saying it was Billy’s own fault he got murdered?”
“No, Laura. I’m saying he could have stumbled onto anything, anywhere. Billy Williams was completely unsupervised.”
Now the man dared blame her mother and father. She would never attend current events again.
Laura turned on her heel and spun out of the classroom, ran down the ugly open stairs that belonged in a lighthouse, ran down the carpeted halls papered with art class garbage, ran toward the nearest exit, ran up to the door to shove her hand against the push bar—ran into Mohammed.
Mohammed caught the exit door before she got it open. “Laura, you of all people must not go outside without your bodyguard.”
“My bodyguard?” She was completely astonished.
“Mr. Evans,” said Mohammed.
Laura thought of Mr. Evans as a pleasant, middle-aged, fatherly policeman. Body. Guard. A person to guard your body. A person to make sure nobody blew you up.
How Billy would have loved it. His sister had a bodyguard.
“Oh Mohammed,” she whispered. And she was not angry, not vengeful. She was just tears and loss. “Billy could have every one of my Twinkies if I could just have him back.”
Mohammed nodded. “My Twinkies, too.”
She cried for a while and then she found a tissue in her pocket and mopped her face. Billy of course had never considered the use of a tissue. He loved his sleeve. He said runny noses reinforced the fabric. Little boys were so disgusting.
She smiled, thinking how much she would like the privilege of yelling at Billy for being disgusting.
“What are Twinkies?” said Mohammed then, smiling also.
Laura shook her head. There were times when you had the energy to explain American stuff and times when you didn’t.
One day, Con had brought Laura a bag of American snacks that you could not buy in London but that Con, because her father worked at the embassy, could get from the commissary: Twinkies, Mallomars, and Peppermint Patties. Laura locked herself in the bathroom to keep Billy from stealing her precious snacks. Billy wrote messages on Kleenex and poked them under the bathroom door with a pencil tip. HAVE PITY ON ME, I AM STARVING.
Laura wrote back with lipstick on toilet paper. CANNOT FIT TWINKIES UNDER DOOR. Billy stuck his tongue under the door, imploring her to put Twinkie crumbs on it. “Mop my tongue with Twinkie filling,” he moaned. Laura tried, but the filling scraped off when Billy pulled his tongue back.
Mohammed was so much taller than Laura that her eyes were level with his chest and she could not see past him. Mohammed was so solid. His seemed a body that nothing could destroy. But she would have said that of Billy, too: there was too much personality in Billy for a mere bomb to take him. “Oh, Mohammed,” said Laura, “we can’t have him back. I still can’t believe it’s true.”
“Here is another thing that is true,” said Mohammed. “Your parents need you, Laura. You must be careful for yourself. You must not rob them of their other child.”
Laura hated being told how to behave. “I have things to do,” said Laura, her hand going to the push-bar.
“Laura, stop it. Don’t be such an American. This is not a game.”
“Oh, you Arabs,” said Laura, “you just want to push people around.”
“Oh, we Arabs,” said Mohammed, “would like our friends to behave rationally and not endanger themselves.”
One of the differences between American kids and foreign kids was age. Kids like Mohammed always seemed older, as if they had suffered more, or understood it better. Americans expected more good things from life: more comfort, more fun. Other people expected less.
Billy had expected everything, always.
“I want to go into the tube station,” said Laura, “and see where it happened.”
In a voice as even and smooth as his olive complexion, Mohammed said, “I don’t think that is a good idea.”
His accent was American. Most kids at L.I.A. could talk American. Imitating American was in. You had to have American sneakers and American jeans, listen to American rock groups and eat American french fries. Above all, you had to use American slang exactly right.
But he was not American.
“What country are you from, Mohammed?” she asked.
“Palestine.”
She was exasperated. “That’s not a country.”
Mohammed did not react like an American. He didn’t make a face or swear or tell her where to go. He said gravely, “It is to me.”
“It’s Israel. It’s been Israel since before my father was born.”
Mohammed did not argue. He went back to the original question. “They’ve fixed the escalator at the tube stop, Laura. You can’t tell that anything happened. If you want to go into the station, I will go with you. But you should not.”
Israel, she thought, is like Northern Ireland. Just when you think the Israelis and the Palestinians are going to have peace, somebody throws a bomb. Is Mohammed a Palestinian who would throw a bomb?
She shook off such an awful idea. Mohammed was in her Shakespeare class. They had memorized lines together. It was impossible to imagine Mohammed planning the deaths of children. He was a wonderful person. She was ashamed, but the thought would not go away. “Is your passport Israeli, Mohammed?”
Back in Massachusetts, nobody even knew what a passport was. Vaguely you knew if you went to France or something, you needed one. But most people weren’t even going to Boston, never mind France. A passport wasn’t like a driver’s license, that you cared about.
Here in London, however, the word “passport” had a certain strength. You could not leave a country without showing your passport at the airport or the harbor, nor could you enter the next country. You could not stay at a hotel without your passport. You could not cash a traveler’s check.
Some passports were better than others. U.S. passports were best.
Mohammed seemed so remote that when he finally answered, it felt to Laura as if he really were in another country. “I don’t have a passport,” he said softly.
Laura didn’t get it. You had to have a passport.
Mohammed shook his head. “Quite a few kids at L.IA. don’t have papers. We’re not here legally.”
Laura was stunned. She had not known there was such a thing as wealthy illegals. Illegals were poor peasants who crept over borders in the dark and went to live in slums. Mohammed was very wealthy. You could be rich and still be illegal? “Does the school know?” she whispered.
“They look the other way.”
“What would happen if you got caught?”
“Rich illegals don’t get caught.”
What a motto, thought Laura.
“It’s the reason I’m not going on the class trip to France in January with the rest of you,” said Mohammed. “I can’t get into France, and if I did, I couldn’t get back into England.”
Some kids didn’t go to Europe because they couldn’t? They had all the money in the world—and were prisoners? Laura could hardly process this information. “But Mohammed, how did you get here to start with? Do you have a fake passport?”
“Laura, stop asking questions. I like you. I understand Americans. I know they can’t shut up. But you will cause trouble, asking the wrong questions of the wrong people.” He touched her, unusual for a Muslim boy, resting a hand on her shoulder. It was not affection; it was guidance. “Laura, this is a school with secrets. You must let people keep their secrets.” His eyes moved away and fastened onto some distant place of sorrow.
Laura’s place of sorrow was not yet distant. Billy, as Tiffany had put it, was hardly in his grave. Laura began to weep again. “I’m sorry, Mohammed.”
He could not know that she was apologizing for thinking he was a terrorist. He thought it was because she had started to cry again. “A brother deserves tears, Laura. He deserves more than tears. But taking the stairs he died on … I still don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Then what is a good idea?” she said. “Mohammed, I have to find him!”
Mohammed thought “him” meant Billy. “Laura, if I may ask you, doesn’t Christianity tell you where Billy is?”
Laura did not think of herself as a Christian, but as a Congregationalist, although she knew one was part of the other. She had been yelling at God for allowing this, but she had not asked Him who the terrorist was.
She didn’t want to either. She wanted her God in a realm where only the keeping and cherishing of Billy counted.
The headmaster came pounding down the hall. Laura remembered now that Mr. Frankel could watch every corner of the school on his television monitors. He must have seen her cowering between doors near the music rooms.
“I want you both in class right now!” Mr. Frankel all but spat the syllables. His voice was way too angry.
Laura knew the feeling.
The problem was that the police, Scotland Yard, and the antiterrorist squad had discovered nothing. They did not know one more thing about Billy’s death than they had known the first hour. Nobody claimed responsibility. Nobody who’d seen anything came forward. None of Billy’s activities or collections led investigators anywhere. Explosives experts were examining fragments of Billy’s bomb, but results were inconclusive.
Nothing is more frightening than nothing.
Even the slimmest clue would have comforted the headmaster, her parents, and Laura. But there was nothing.
She imagined the truth as nothing.
Billy as nothing.
God as nothing.
It was too terrible. There had to be something.
The terrorists of the world swirled in Laura’s mind. Men full of rage. Men with weapons. Men with a Cause. Men who did not care about children.
I will suspect everybody. I will find my terrorist. Even if he is in my class. Especially if he is in my class.