Samira feels too wired to go home. She doesn’t want to say anything that would unduly worry her mother or, worse yet, rouse Laila’s suspicions. “Let’s go to the Internet café,” she suggests to Muna. “You were complaining about not being netted up. Here’s your chance.”
“Great.” Her cousin nods appreciatively. “Can’t wait to check my e-mail and tell friends where I am.”
The two of them cross the garden to a squat annex housing the Internet café, part of the larger building belonging to the Rest House. In an open-plan room with fluorescent lighting overhead, computers are arranged to make optimum use of the space, some facing each other or the walls, others with their monitors back to back. After the early-evening rush, many machines have been vacated. A few refugees from Syria and Yemen occupy those in use. In the café Samira purposely avoids scrutinizing other customers’ monitors. It is a simple courtesy on her part that she expects from others.
She talks to the kid in charge. She knows Salameh’s family. He has been running the café since it opened. “We want fifteen minutes on two separate computers,” she tells him. As she waits for the codes, she inquires, “Anyplace you want us to sit?” The café’s variable access to cyberspace depended on the wind and the proclivities of the secret police. Salameh answers with a gruff jerk of his head and two paper slips. Samira leads Muna to the back, and as soon as a code is in her possession, she happily types away.
Samira checks her e-mails but there is nothing except spam. Because she has been reading the Arab press and perusing political tracts, the websites she visits display banner ads for Syrian charities and the documentary about Edward Snowden.
Muna eyes Samira’s screen, suitably impressed. “And all I get offered are sale T-shirts with ugly rhinos on them.”
Samira goes to Facebook. “Nowadays you can tell who’s religious and who’s not, even when people don’t declare themselves outright.”
“How’s that?” Muna is back again, perusing her cousin’s monitor.
“By their reactions. Some Sunnis like L+U+V+Surie.” Samira shows Muna a Facebook page with a picture of Astro Boy in a keffiyeh and with an Islamic beard. “He is against the Syrian regime but a staunch supporter of the Bahraini royal family.”
“Oh yeah,” says her cousin, who seems a little distracted but then focuses. “I read an article about the new housing constructed for Bahrain’s latest recruits, South Asian Sunnis hired to police the dissidents.”
“Then there are Shias,” points out Samira. “On Twitter Iranians express regret over their country’s involvement in regional wars—Syria, Iraq, and Yemen—but Tehranis don’t care that their government is on a war footing. More Revolutionary Guards abroad means less at home to control ‘bad hijab’ women. It seems the religiously righteous are always behind violence. The real revolution should be one of tolerance and compassion, not in defense of the faithful but the rest of us.”
“I keep asking myself,” Muna says as she goes back to her keyboard, “what happened to old-fashioned secularism? Less than a generation ago people thought there could be a political solution.”
Samira, casting an eye over the room, is no longer listening. “One second.” She maneuvers through the café and wonders if she’s right. She stops alongside a computer. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
Mustafa peers up at her. He looks more unsettled than the last time they met, and that was only a few hours ago.
“Hey,” he replies softly. On the screen in front of him is a lurid website on the dark web filled with bold Arabic script and hundreds of photos.
“I thought you were with Hussein.” Samira is trying to sound and look casual.
“I was.”
He returns to the screen, and she notices the cotton jersey, the one he put on in their house, is soaked through with sweat. The soldier has been going through a rough patch.
“What are you looking at?”
After a long pause, Mustafa gestures at a picture in the corner of the page and hits the maximize button to enlarge the image. “My brother.”
Samira leans in closer. The photograph shows a group of bearded men and boys in traditional clothing in the mountains of Afghanistan. They look at the camera like it is an imposition. More striking is that all of them, even the smallest, are armed to the teeth.
“There’s Sayeed.” A young man with a slightly smaller build than Mustafa’s holds an old-fashioned Lee-Enfield. The person on his right clutches a ground-to-air rocket launcher.
Samira’s finger lightly grazes the screen. “That you?”
Before he can answer, there is a loud scraping of a chair, and a brash, jocular voice calls out, “My favorite…” Samira reaches down and strikes the quit function on the computer keyboard, and the webpage instantaneously disappears into the blue oblivion of the desktop. Composed, with a broad friendly grin, she turns and faces her uncle Abu Za’atar.
“Amo, you’re the last person I expected to see. What brings you here?”
“Research.” He darts about her, trying to get a better look at the computer screen. “And your friend?” He smiles at Mustafa. “Don’t think we’ve met.”
Mustafa stands as Samira makes the introduction. “Ali and I know each other from college.”
“So you were training to be a teacher too, at the women’s college?”
Another hand is vigorously thrusted toward Mustafa’s. Muna gate-crashes the small group. “Hi! Don’t believe we’ve met.” She winks at him. “I’m Samira’s cousin from America. Just arrived from the land of the Great Satan!”
Then shining her goodwill onto Abu Za’atar, she takes his arm and begs him, “Come and join me.” On the way back to her seat they begin an animated discussion on the dark arts of Internet bidding.
Alone once more, Samira confronts Mustafa. “According to my brother, you need to keep out of sight. You should get out of here.” When he doesn’t react, she promises, “You leave first. Muna and I will catch up.”
She coolly rejoins her cousin and her uncle. “Don’t mean to interrupt, Amo, but Mamma and Laila are waiting for us. See you at the wedding feast tonight.”
Both girls give Abu Za’atar an affectionate peck on the cheek and depart quickly. Beyond the windows of the Internet café, they find Mustafa in the garden in the back. No one speaks until the café is out of sight and the streets empty.
Samira addresses Muna: “What made you come to our rescue?”
“I could see you needed help,” Muna replies. She turns to Mustafa. “What’s happened to you?”
With downcast eyes the soldier admits, “I must be suffering from…” He doesn’t continue.
“PTSD.” Muna recites the letters as though quoting from a medical journal, then catches herself. “Oh, sorry,” she apologizes. “American soldiers who served in Afghanistan and Iraq suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s all over the US news.”
With his gaze still lowered he describes to Samira and Muna the walk he took with Laila and her two children. “I had a…” His voice trails off again.
Muna, who has been watching him closely, finishes his thought: “An episode?”
Samira understands now the reason for Laila and the boys’ upset.
“I’m leaving.” He takes Samira’s hand and holds it gently—his warmth against her natural coolness. “Thank you. Good-bye.”
“I thought you were staying around a little longer.” She peers over her glasses up at him.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Well, good-bye. Again.” She looks long and hard at him. She will remember his intensity. But she doesn’t want his memory of her to be meaningless; she does care. “Listen, stay,” she won’t let his shy smile derail her. “Stay out of sight. Take the most direct route home. Talk to no one.”
It takes everything in her to turn away and go with Muna in the opposite direction. Once the two women are beyond earshot, Samira sighs sadly and pushes the soldier from her mind.
As they pass Sammy’s music store, Syrian rap blares from the loudspeakers: “Outside the tent there was talk about honor… about haram... I’m a woman not a slave…” Samira and Muna keep to the shadows away from the flashing signs of the Marvellous Emporium and skirt the deserted roundabout of Lovers’ Lane. Walking briskly through unfenced yards, the women emerge fifteen minutes later onto the unnamed dirt road. From the new house they can hear the TV before they see light flickering through the living room curtains. Samira pauses before the front steps. In all the excitement she almost forgot the letter. She checks that it is secure before running after Muna.
In the living room the boys are engrossed in an episode of CSI. Mother Fadhma, lightly snoring, is napping in a chair with her swollen feet, in stockings, propped up on a stool. Everything appears as it should be, nothing untoward. Relieved, Samira offers Muna a seat on the sofa. Looking a little tired, Laila enters the living room and announces, “If we don’t get ready now, we’ll never go,” although she doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry herself and stares vacantly off into space.
Mother Fadhma rubs her eyes and yawns. Muna helps her out of the chair and she leans on her granddaughter’s arm as they navigate the hallway.
Alone in her room, Samira takes out the envelope and holds it against the light. She can’t make out anything, but then she’s not supposed to. Placing it carefully on the table, she changes clothes. Folded, it fits snugly into another convenient pocket. Once Muna joins her, they dismiss the unsuitable clothing in the suitcase and choose again from Samira’s closet. As the two of them wait for the rest of the family, Samira repeatedly touches the letter as though it’s a religious relic or lucky charm.