Abu Za’atar peers blurry-eyed at a night filled with clandestine pursuits. In the dark with his magnifying glass rendered useless, his other senses intensify. Around him the air is suffused with the sounds of laughter, crying, moaning—the pleasure and pain. Weddings are like carnivals. With the rustling in the bushes, someone somewhere is getting kissed, smacked, or kidnapped. Outside the Matroub villa, the men who were shooting into the air have lowered their guns and are returning to their whiskys. At one time he would have joined in the carousing. Looking toward the mountain, Abu Za’atar deeply inhales the aroma of grime and dirt laced with petrochemicals before he starts stretching. He feels remarkably limber after his physical exertions. Muscle strain doesn’t bother him as much as the inexplicable behavior of his nieces.
His pursuit of them was no mean feat. He maneuvered though the parked cars until he was forced to insinuate himself into all manner of tight spots. He tucked himself behind wheels, lay over trunks, and even surprised himself with a gravity-defying sideways stork pose in the cavity beneath a passenger-side door, secured by a deftly placed foot. This Wonder was worth it. Because of her garb, she could have been easily overlooked, except for her shoes, a knockoff pair of Converse, which gave her away. It was a red rag to a falcon. Of course he recognized them; he had even tried to sell them in the emporium, but the distributor ran out. More than them, he admired her spunk and initial approach to Samira. It was so discreet that even at his close range he was unable to pick out a word between them.
He didn’t need to hear them because the unpinning of the niqab plays over and over in his head like a scratched record on Sammy’s turntables. Abu Za’atar is pulled away from the image of this improbable scenario by his vibrating phone. His son, sounding disturbed and breathless, is on the line: “I don’t know—men—” His voice keeps cutting out due to bad reception. “—watch out!”
Abu Za’atar scratches his back against a side mirror of a transit van and goes to where he can see the town. He follows two sedan-loads of mukhabarat cutting a swathe through the streets. Corrosive suspicion is like that, it permeates every crack like flammable exploding grease.
Sammy is yelling, “Everybody in the shop was rounded up and taken outside—I escaped—but before I did I overheard one of the men saying they’re looking for a secret cache of weapons. Dad, do they mean yours?” The phone goes dead.
When it vibrates again Abu Za’atar assumes it is his son. This time the call sounds like it is coming from the center of viciousness: yelling, thumping, and cursing are all he hears in between seconds of deadly silence. A mental picture forms in Abu Za’atar’s mind of big men in ill-fitting leather jackets, a bulk buy from Irbil, not Istanbul.
“We’re in the alleyways and the arghileh bars of the Eastern Quarter,” a man shouts above the cacophony. “Haven’t found him yet. We need to dig deep. What about your store?”
Before Abu Za’atar can put him off, the man bellows, “We’re coming to get you!” then hangs up.
This is not Abu Za’atar’s idea of a fun night out, but he knows better than to argue. They have his GPS coordinates. More disturbing is his house of cards, the Marvellous Emporium, tottering before him. One gasp and it’s gone.
As he waits another pair of glowing headlamps loses itself in the angular shadows of Jebel Musa. A volley of bullets inexplicably exploding from on high gets the Featherer’s synapses firing. Only one place can offer the level of intrigue, not to mention exotic animal husbandry, needed to distract and impress his new friends.
His cell phone vibrates and then is silent. Abu Za’atar touches his nose to his knees one last time. Mean, lean, and ready for action, he scurries through and around the dead metal of parked cars to a fate unknown on the other side.