The mosque in Brooklyn was of a makeshift nature in a converted, small house. Ignoring his own discomfort, Yassin genuflected, lowering his forehead to the carpet until it touched.
Twenty minutes later, the service was over. Putting on his shoes, he caught sight of a boy aged eleven or twelve, huddling with the imam. It brought him up short. “Mohammed,” he muttered beneath his breath. The resemblance to his dead son was uncanny. How could one boy look so much like another? Or was he imagining it? For the thousandth time?
Trembling, he turned away.
The earliest memory was painful: Yassin was born a year after his parents’ unsanctioned marriage. His father had not only gone against custom by turning down the girl chosen for him, but had taken as his bride an outsider, a Christian from Norway, no less, a volunteer working for one of the many obscure charity organizations operating in Palestine.
After his birth, it did not take long for people to notice the lighter color of Yassin’s skin as well as his other Scandinavian features. Growing older, he was heckled and harassed endlessly. His mother insisted he learn to speak English, and he spoke it well. This was a further black mark against him. To make matters worse, his siblings who were born two and four years later, a boy and a girl, were spared the same fate, having inherited their father’s physiognomy.
Anger ruled his every waking moment. It festered, giving rise to near neurotic behavior. And it served as a catalyst, his impetus for making a name for himself among the militants who were so prevalent in Palestine.
Nine people lived in his small house in Jabalia Camp in Gaza: their immediate family of five, and four cousins whose parents had been killed in a raid a short time ago. This was the third house they had built in recent years. The first was destroyed by Israeli bulldozers when it was decided that the road needed widening. The second house was blown apart as revenge for the Qassam rockets that were fired into Israel by Hamas.
Attached to this third house was the restaurant Yassin’s father ran. The smell of food infiltrated the walls, often making it difficult to fall asleep. All members of the family pitched in. The hours were long, but complaints about it fell on deaf ears.
When he wasn’t attending school or working in the restaurant, Yassin spent his free time in training, learning how to prepare homemade bombs, learning the benefit of knives, rifles, and handguns, depending on the form of combat. He was not the tallest or heaviest among the volunteers, but few exhibited his stamina or determination.
Then came his twentieth birthday. There was no mistaking that the girl introduced by his family—Madras was her name—was intended to be his future wife. Hesitant at first, he was more than taken by her natural beauty. And something stirred inside, feelings that he never would have believed he was capable of having.
He and the girl began to see each other on a semi-regular basis. He found himself thinking about her more and more. It got to the point where he couldn’t get her out of his head. He proposed a few months later, and they were married in a small ceremony with close relatives present.
As a wedding gift, his parents cleared out the den. This was the only spare room in the house. And it gave the young couple some privacy.
Yassin found himself changing, in subtle but meaningful ways. His life no longer seemed as hopeless or as bleak. He eased up on his after-hours training, and spent more time at home with his bride.
When Madras became pregnant two months later, panic set in. As someone who had lived with juvenile diabetes from a very young age, she had been warned about the risks of having a child. Yassin had pled with her to have an abortion. She refused. Their son, Mohammed, was born a month premature. His wife did not survive the Cesarean-section. Struggling to stay focused, Yassin became more moody and quarrelsome than he had been before. He started taking risks. When the Israelis began to clamp down, he once again volunteered for active duty with the terrorists. It was on a clandestine excursion into Tel Aviv that an incendiary device exploded close by. Shrapnel tore into his upper arm, the pain remaining with him to this day.
The memory of Madras kept him going. As did the boy, of course. More and more, Mohammed began to resemble his deceased wife. From his pear-shaped face to his near-sensuous eyebrows and lips.
Mohammed was studious in nature. But he possessed a rather frail physique. Yassin loved taking him for long walks, took pleasure in teaching him how to play soccer, found it surprising that the boy was quick and agile on his feet.
By the time Mohammed had reached his ninth birthday, it dawned on Yassin that his son was habitually quiet, introspective. He’d never known someone of his son’s age so adept at memorizing and reciting multiple verses of the Koran by heart. It was no surprise, therefore, that the imam took a special interest. Yassin was honored that his son was being asked to go on weekend retreats with a few of the other boys.
Normally when Mohammed was away, Yassin would use the time to catch up on his reading, to put his personal matters in order. But on one particular weekend in the summer, a date now ingrained in Yassin’s heart, he found himself unable to concentrate. Time passed fitfully. A terrible apprehension filled his mind.
His relatives were on vacation, so the house was eerily quiet. By 10:00 PM that Sunday, hours after the time Mohammed should have returned, Yassin’s patience ran out. He left the house and hurried to the mosque.
He began to bang on the door. No one responded. He walked the short distance to the imam’s living quarters. He rang the bell but got no reply. Reluctantly, Yassin returned home.
Pacing his room, he prayed for hours, until it was six o’clock in the morning. He force-fed himself a coffee. Then he lifted the phone, was about to dial the imam’s number, when he heard a knock on the door. He put the phone down and went to answer it.
The imam wore a solemn expression.
Yassin’s heart sank.
The imam beckoned.
He did not remember closing the door, or even walking, for that matter. He followed the holy man, knowing but not wanting to know. They stopped on a deserted side street and the imam began to speak.
The Zionists were gaining ground. Their wall and their roadblocks were stopping the brave martyrs, the human bombs who sacrificed themselves, from crossing into Tel Aviv from Palestine. Only a strike into the deepest part of Israel would teach the infidels a lesson. To achieve this, they had concluded, they would have to use someone the Zionists would least suspect.
“Your son believed in the cause,” the imam said. “He was one of the bravest boys it was my privilege to teach. He will go down in history as the one who made a difference. Twelve bodies recovered so far. I am certain they will find more…”
The imam’s words traveled through Yassin’s head as if through a sieve. He did not even know if he was hearing them correctly. Something about how proud he should be of Mohammed’s sacrifice.
Yassin’s stomach threatened to burst. In his mind’s eye he was visualizing his son’s frailness, overpowered by the weight of the bomb strapped to his chest. He could hear the explosion. He could see Mohammed’s body parts disintegrating, flying through the air…
There was no way of knowing when the imam left his side. Or the exact time he returned home. All Yassin knew was that his life, for all intents and purposes, was over.
He stopped working. Stopped eating. Despite the efforts of family and friends, he remained morose. He felt like a phantom, floating through time and space.
No one had to tell him who was at fault. He did not have to be radicalized by fanatical clerics. The hatred he felt possessed him; he needed no other motivation.
When the imam suggested he take on a role in America, he jumped at the chance. He believed the imam when he said that the Israelis, with their American benefactors, had caused his son’s death. If not for their oppression, the imam would not have had to use Mohammed as a human bomb. If not for the Jews, his boy would be alive today.
They would be made to pay, Yassin decided. His life would be devoted to nothing else.