A large copper sign engraved with the seal of the government of Iraq greeted Omar and Shafiq when they got to the Basra Electricity Department. From a crown at the top hung two unfurling curtains that framed a standing lion on the left and a standing horse on the right. Together they flanked the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flowing down both sides of a palm tree.
“I’m not sure this is such a good plan.” Omar was hanging back, as though that government seal could read through their subterfuge.
“We’ve been over this a hundred times,” Shafiq said. “And besides, it’s your plan. So let’s go.” Some people drank wine for courage; Shafiq had Omar.
“I’m thinking we need a little more time to prepare,” Omar said, shrinking into the slender shadow of a palm tree.
Shafiq was always the timid one, so he knew this routine. More time meant “I’m chicken, let’s forget it.” “What are you saying?” he asked. “We’re here, let’s go.”
“Look.” Omar pulled Shafiq toward him, as though the tree’s skinny shadow might hide them both. “This is life we’re talking about, not some way to get pocket money for a Ping-Pong ball. Think about it. People’s futures.”
Nothing had ever given Omar one second’s pause about diving into any caper until now. “So you’re afraid?” Shafiq challenged.
“You said Marcelle will be ruined if the engagement is called off. I don’t want to be the reason for that.”
“First, I didn’t say that, my mother did,” Shafiq argued, stepping out of the shadow. “Second, it’s not that Marcelle will be ruined, she might be ruined.” He turned toward the door with its government seal. “And third,” he said, looking over his shoulder as he headed for the entrance. “She will definitely be ruined if he’s a liar, so we’d better find out now.”
It was a bluff, going in alone, but Omar didn’t follow.
Which left Shafiq with nothing but their plan.
He rehearsed it in his mind as he passed the noisy generators, shuffled across a wooden floor littered with wires, and climbed a staircase toward offices where the men wore suits.
Omar should have been there. Shafiq’s usual role was just to boost the charade as a supporting actor. But before he was ready, the understudy was in the lead.
“Excuse me, sir,” he began when he arrived at the large corner office where the manager sat behind a polished mahogany desk. And then it all flooded out—not the pre-planned lie about seeking a job at the plant, but the simple truth. About how his sister was supposed to marry someone employed there. About how the family needed to know if his credentials were real. And even the names. “She’s Marcelle Soufayr,” Shafiq said. “And he’s Moshe Khabazza.”
It was suddenly too late to avoid meddling in their lives.
But it worked.
“Say hello to success,” Shafiq told Omar outside.
“What do you mean?” Omar bounced out of the shadow with his grin back on. “You found out the truth?”
Shafiq had done it all on his own, and he was going to make Omar pay for not going in. So he described the insides of the building, the walk up to the office, the man’s shirt and tie, and even the pictures on the walls—“the king of Iraq and a map of the province”—before getting to the point.
“Wow,” said Omar when Shafiq was through. “From now on you’re the mastermind.”
Unless, Shafiq thought, it all goes to rot.
Two days later, when the letter came from the Basra Electricity Department, there was that national emblem again.
The teens tumbled over each other reading it. “Moshe never even went to university!” Omar said.
“Just some vocational school in Bombay.” Shafiq felt a looming sense of dread. Now they would have to actually do something.
“Looks like he just finished ‘one year of a two-year power generation program’ back in ’thirty-six,” Omar said scornfully.
“Half the requirement.”
“‘Moshe Khabazza is employed as an assistant technician at a salary of twelve dinars per month,’” Omar read.
“Not a bad living, but he told my parents he earns fifty,” said Shafiq, wondering, What am I going to tell them?
His brothers were properly awed by the letter and its fancy, official-looking seal. But their father just crumpled it up on the spot.
“What did you do that for?” Shafiq asked. “That was proof Moshe’s a liar.”
“It was one of the finest universities in India,” Naji joked, “if only he had really gone there.”
“Enough,” Roobain said, leaving the paper on the table and walking out.
Naji picked up the crumpled ball and started tossing it around randomly. Something like Marcelle’s fate.
Shafiq dragged himself out to report the news. “I guess we messed up,” Omar said, once they were safely inside his living room.
“I messed up,” Shafiq said, dropping his body into the family’s burgundy couch. “You tried to stop me.”
“Yeah, but when it worked, you know, I guess I started hoping…”
Omar never finished the sentence. And Shafiq didn’t ask. He had his own futile hopes and couldn’t take on any more.