“Fuck, I’m hungry,” Rashid’s crewmate, Jerry, complained from the passenger seat as Rashid inserted his security card in the truck’s dashboard tracking system. “Let’s stop at Dos Amigos and get a dozen tacos and some margaritas.”
“Can’t,” Rashid said.
“Oh that’s right, you fuckin’ sand niggers don’t drink.”
“Fuck you,” Rashid said casually, “bastard, you know I’m Pakistani not Arab.”
“Same shit. At least let me buy us some tacos. That rig food always sucks.” Jerry pulled off his grimy company cap and ran his hand across his forehead.
“Can’t. We got the source on this truck.” Rashid pointed up, to the ends of the 20-foot cylindrical tools just visible over the truck cab. “Gotta go directly back to the base or they’ll fuckin’ write me up for a diversion.”
“Like whadda they think we’re gonna do with a thimbleful of radioactive shit at a taco place anyway?” Jerry grabbed his stomach as it growled.
Rashid envisioned the source safely ensconced in its long pipe-like tool, lowered into a well, sending out energy to map the surrounding geological formations like an upside down periscope. Rashid marveled at the mind that engineered a tool like that. “Jerry, go buy yourself an imagination.”
“What the fuck for? Least drive fast and then we can get tacos after we drop the tools in the base.” Jerry set the cap back on his head, pulled it low to cover his eyes so he could nap.
Rashid drove precisely the speed limit, scanned his rear view mirrors every few seconds, just as he had learned from the Department of Transportation commercial driving safety course. He checked the odometer, estimated an hour and a half until they would reach the base.
The rocket launcher—as they fondly referred to their truck—followed the curves of the freeway climbing into the mountains north of Los Angeles. An endless parade of big cars, trucks, and even big rigs passed him, barreling along at gas-guzzling speeds.
As the monotony of the drive wore on, Rashid craved spicy food, sex, and a good sleep in their big bed. He checked the date on his watch. Almost forty days since his father had been killed. His brother had said they should take action within six months, not to wait too long. Majid had never been to America, what did he know of life here, of how much Rashid could enjoy, how much he could lose?
As he passed a sign displaying food, fuel, and lodging available at the next exit, he wondered if Kathryn would have any spicy food ready in the refrigerator, or if he would have to settle for hot sauce on whatever he could find.
From a billboard, a woman, grotesquely feminine, displayed her barely covered breasts to advertise a nearby casino. The West knows nothing of the value of the hidden, the power of mystery he thought.
Against the backdrop of the hillsides beyond his windshield, he saw Kathryn. He saw her learning to make rotis in his mother’s kitchen, slapping the dough back and forth in her hands, the way Mexican women here made tortillas. He saw her slipping into the all-black costume of the women in the Gulf, wearing the abaya and shela as an experiment, so she could know directly how it felt to be a covered woman. He saw her hailing a taxi to take her to her office, saw her dancing in nightclubs, saw her observing Ramadan with friends in their parents’ village in Oman. She could do anything. Why couldn’t she also help him take his revenge, in the American way? She would call her contacts.
“We need an international perspective for this piece,” Kathryn said. She doodled in her notebook as one of the journal’s contributors responded through the phone. “Yes, I know there’s the comment from the professor at the American University in Beirut. But can you find someone who might have a more contrasting opinion? Maybe a Persian intellectual or what about some of the young thought leaders in the Gulf?” She paused, clicked at her computer. “Let me see if we have someone in Iran in the database. And see if you can get some leads from the energy policy guy at the Center for Near East Policy or even the Farsi language department at Georgetown.” She picked up the pen again as she listened. “OK, cool, we need to make sure we aren’t just quoting expat American intellectuals. See what you can get in the next twenty-four hours, otherwise we may have to hold the piece for the next issue.”
She hung up and turned around at the sound of the Asia editor’s voice. He stepped into her office.
“Now that you’re back,” he did not bother to welcome her back from maternity leave, “I’m thinking we can move ahead on the series about the Saudis funding Islamic schools in Asia.” He pulled at his mouse-like chin.
“What’s your angle?”
“I wanted to focus on Indonesia, start with Jakarta and the Saudis’ interest in East Timor. Some of my old Bangkok friends have been checking out the schools.” He pushed up his sweater sleeve to glance at his watch. “But let’s talk more after the Thursday deadline,” and he darted back into the corridor.
Kathryn stood up and stretched her arms as she walked out to the secretary’s desk.
“…and then the parking cop won’t even look at me as she’s writing up the ticket. I mean the dog’s in the backseat barking like crazy…” the secretary prattled on about her crisis du jour to the Korean-American Pacific Rim freelancer.
“Welcome back,” the freelancer greeted her warmly. “How are the babies?”
“Good, the older one doesn’t seem like a baby anymore.”
The Europe editor glanced up from his desk as Kathryn passed on her way to the bathroom. He smiled, raised a hand in greeting.
The bathroom door squeaked open in exactly the same way it had before Andrew was born. The exchanges with her colleagues could have been prerecorded, not a single person paused in their work to ask about her father-in-law. We are all intelligent, well-traveled, well-intentioned professionals, endeavoring to educate influential policymakers, she thought, could it be that no one here knows what has happened in my family?
Rashid repeated his prayers at the mosque. How hollow they seemed with no one else who knew they signified the passing of forty days of mourning. Baba, he asked silently, what should I do? You were proud of me, loved my wife, our family. Be patient, we will take our justice. He touched his head again to the floor and stood up, prayers finished, and walked back to his shoes with a dozen other men.
“You are thinking of your father?” a young man asked over his shoulder.
Startled, Rashid looked up, questioning.
“I think of my father too when I come to the mosque. He was killed. The Americans and their Israeli lapdogs bombed our neighborhood.”
Rashid put his hand to his heart in sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
The man looked at Rashid intently. Without a word, he seemed to look not just at Rashid’s appearance, but through him, into his thoughts, into the confusion in his heart.
Rashid shifted his weight uncomfortably, stepped back on the carpeted floor.
“I’m Ali,” the younger man finally smiled, offering his hand.
Rashid heard Ali’s Palestinian accent, unusual among the south Asians who usually came to this mosque. “I’m Rashid.” He took Ali’s hand.
“Yes,” Ali pumped his hand up and down. “Pakistani, yes?”
Rashid nodded.
“Good. And your father?”
“He was killed by the Americans too.”
Ali clenched his fist, inhaled deeply. “Come, let us have tea, we have many things in common.”
Rashid looked up from the refrigerator drawer as Kathryn came in. “You let these vegetables rot while I was offshore?”
She walked in with Michael clutching at her thigh. “Hello,” she reached out to kiss Rashid, determined to ignore his comment. Michael laughed and ran into the living room, jumping into a pile of laundry on the floor. “Michael,” she scolded.
“I washed the fucking clothes.”
“Rashid, we’re not rig workers, you don’t need to swear.”
“Anyway,” he said, “they’re clean.” He threw the rotten vegetables in the trash with a disgusted snort.
“Remember the ACLU guy I told you about?” she asked. “He’s got some ideas about organizations that are following the drone issue.”
“So?” He brought a pan of scrambled eggs and store-bought rotis to the table. Michael came to his side, freshly laundered adult socks on his hands, each attempting to eat the other amidst a series of childish roars.
“He wrote about Guantanamo Bay for the journal last year,” Kathryn said setting Michael in his chair, baby Andrew in his swing.
“What’s Guantanamo?” Michael asked, holding his roti up with both hands, flapping it back and forth against his forehead.
“Michael, don’t play with your food.” She poured herself a glass of water. “It’s a place in Cuba where the U.S. is holding people from other countries that our government thinks are dangerous.”
“The guy from San Francisco?” Rashid asked, eating his dinner.
“Yeah.” She took a big gulp of water.
“So what?” Rashid said indifferently.
Michael had set his roti on top of his eggs, obscuring them completely. “Why Cuba? Is Cuba far away from the U.S. so we’ll be safe?”
“Michael, please. I’m trying to talk to your father, we’ll talk about Cuba later.”
“Why can’t we talk about the ACLU later?” Rashid’s food was already half eaten, his father had always taught them to eat first, talk later.
“I want to tell you before they call you for another job.”
“Tell me what?”
“The ACLU’s director might bring a suit in the International Court of Justice in the Hague.”
“So what?” he said again.
“So what?” she said stunned. “Have you forgotten what we’ve been trying to do? Somebody has to take a stand against this undeclared war we’re waging along the border in Pakistan.”
“Stop fucking saying ‘we’.”
“Well it’s our country. Like during the Vietnam War, we were secretly bombing Cambodia. Students protested at universities across the U.S., Kent State in Ohio.”
“And did the protests stop the war, or the secret bombing?” Rashid sounded almost belligerent.
“Not immediately. But they were pivotal. If we could be named plaintiffs we could be involved in the suit.” She felt the burn of the green chilies in the eggs.
Rashid inhaled, shook his head. “A waste of time, this will take years. Even if you can bring a suit, who says you’ll win?”
“But the government needs to be held accountable for its actions. Thousands of predator drone attacks in Pakistan since 2001 have killed more than thirty-thousand people.” She looked away from Rashid, noticed Michael sitting still in his chair. “Michael, finish your dinner.”
“Do as your mother says,” Rashid scolded.
“If we’re involved in some kind of litigation, we can show that this military action isn’t just unconstitutional, without the approval of Congress, but effects U.S. citizens directly.”
“Kathryn,” he sighed, “since when has the U.S. government cared about what the International Criminal Court says? It hasn’t changed the U.S. policy in Israel and Palestine.”
“Why are you fighting me on this? I thought you agreed with me.”
“Go ahead. Call those people if you want.” Rashid picked up his plate, set it on the counter with a bang, and walked out of the room.
Kathryn exhaled, suddenly exhausted. “At least I am trying to do something,” she muttered to herself.
“Mummy, can a language make you angry?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean when I hear Daddy on the phone speaking that other language he sounds angry. Can it do that?”
“When did he sound angry?”
“Today.” Michael picked at his food.
“Someone called him?”
Michael nodded.
“Who?”
Michael shrugged.
“Words can make you angry, not just a language, but words… for sure.”
Once the children were asleep, Rashid surprised Kathryn with a bottle of Scotch. He poured himself a small glass of the golden liquid and slowly sipped. He motioned for her to sit next to him.
“You want me to drink with you?” she asked.
“Yes, please. You won’t nurse until morning. I need to relax, it’s all so serious.” He smiled, and for a moment she glimpsed the old Rashid of the discos.
“OK, just a minute.” She pressed her hands into his shoulders, squeezing him into waiting. In the bathroom she combed her hair, removed the cloth diaper over her shoulder that had become a permanent fixture of her wardrobe and even sprayed perfume. She raised an eyebrow, smiled at herself in the mirror, and turned sideways trying to smooth her belly into pre-pregnancy form.
She returned to him, he smiled at her fragrance. He pulled out a chair for her and offered her a drink.
“Cheers,” she said as they toasted. Kathryn felt the Scotch burn, the gentle buzz strangely out of place without the thumping beats of their night-clubbing life. She reached out to him, running her hands up the length of his thighs. The same pleasure in his form, his strength, that she had initially felt, flickered back into flame in her body.
He met her hands with his, interlacing their fingers. Silently confirming he loved her, he stopped her overture.
She raised an eyebrow in question.
“I just wish I wasn’t in this position,” he said, as if picking up the thread of some previous conversation.
When he didn’t elaborate, she asked, “What position? Sitting in this chair?”
“No, in this position of obligation.”
“Obligation to who?”
“To my family, actually, to my mother.”
“We’re all obligated to our families. That’s the nature of the relationship.”
“Yes, but this obligation feels so big, like it fills my whole sky, my whole future,” he looked directly into her eyes, trying to gauge her understanding, then consumed the rest of his glass in a single gulp, grimacing in pain.
“What are you talking about?” Her voice trembled briefly.
He stood up and walked to the window, looked out into the impotent darkness of the city with its perpetually bright streetlights. “What happens in this country to a man when he kills another man?”
Caught off guard, she hesitated. “He’s put on trial. If the jury finds him guilty he goes to jail.”
“And?”
“And what?”
He tapped on the window, as if punctuating some idea beyond the glass. “And then the state takes its revenge, by taking the life of the murderer.”
“No, that’s not revenge, that’s a deterrent, a lesson to other would-be murderers not to do the same thing.”
“OK, call it a deterrent. But it’s a punishment, a price that the responsible party has to pay, isn’t it?”
“I guess. What does this have to do with anything?”
“It has to do with everything. Just listen.” He mapped out with his hands two different territories. “What happens in America when another country attacks and kills people, murders Americans?” With a fist, he smacked into the palm of the other territory.
“Well, after Pearl Harbor, we joined the war against Japan and the Germans.”
“And American soldiers did what?”
“Went to war…”
“And killed people, they took revenge for those murders, in other countries.”
An unfamiliar defensiveness crept into her voice. “Why would you call that revenge? That’s war. We had to make them stop. You can’t just go into another country and attack their people.”
“And how did the Americans eventually make it stop? How does a country take its revenge?”
She paused, uncomfortable with the reality of the answer she had to acknowledge.
He answered for her. “The Americans made it stop by attacking Japan, by killing millions of people in Japan, innocent people, dropping an atomic bomb.”
She looked up, stricken.
“I’m not saying it was wrong. The Americans had to do it, they were attacked, they had to take revenge. It’s human. Revenge satisfies the anger of grieving people, it’s inevitable.”
Adrenaline shot through her body at some nebulous danger. “No.” She stood up, stepped unsteadily toward him. “Revenge just perpetuates a cycle of killing, we didn’t go to war for revenge. We’re not that kind of people. We went to war on principle, to stop a greater evil.”
He inclined his head, as if to consider her position as he returned to his chair, sat down and poured himself another drink.
“And tell me, Kathryn, tell me how much the killing has stopped because of the Americans’ actions? Because of wars of principle?”
She felt a chill in her veins.
“Vietnam. Cambodia. Iraq. Afghanistan.” He paused and said one more word with infinite tenderness. “Pakistan.”
“We’re not at war with Pakistan, Rashid.”
He looked up at her, raising an incredulous eyebrow. “Tell that to my mother, to my brothers.”
She suddenly perceived a border between them, where before there had been none. “It’s not my fault. There was nothing I could’ve done to prevent your father’s death.” She tried to reach across the divide with some reason, some idea that would comfort them, unite them. “America’s trying to eliminate the camps that train terrorists.”
“I never said it was your fault. This kind of killing, it is written,” he drew his index finger across his forehead in the habit of Muslims referring to fate. “It is written,” he said again drawing his finger across her forehead, causing a shiver along her spine.
“Nothing is written, Rashid. Revenge wouldn’t make your father come back. Understand what happened…was an accident.”
He pulled his hand away, his eyes grew wide with anger. “An accident!? Fucking hell.”
She flinched, tears dropped on her cheeks.
“In my culture, revenge is a personal thing,” he said, beginning to slur his words. “When a man kills, he knows that he may look the dead man’s family in the eye, just before they kill him. That’s a deterrent.”
“What are you saying?” she whispered. “What do you mean?”
“My family expects revenge.”
“We,” she paused, flaring her nostrils, “we are your family.”
He looked at her, his eyes roving over every point on her face. He nodded, almost imperceptibly. “But how can I accept that this is my country?”
In the morning he did not wake as the sun stretched across the bed. She turned to see him, both boys held fast in his embrace, one in each arm.
She ran her fingers along the contours of his arms. She marveled at their mutual connection. Maybe everything would be fine. She willed herself not to replay their words from the previous night.
She rose stiffly, went to the kitchen. Defiantly, she broke eggs into a bowl, chopped chilies and onions and tomatoes. She kneaded flour and water into dough, struggling to roll out round rotis, a skill she still had yet to master. She prepared his breakfast, Pakistani style.
As she chopped the cilantro, Rashid emerged from the bedroom, groggy and grumpy, grey from the previous night’s alcohol.
The chai. She had forgotten the chai. No Pakistani breakfast would be complete without the sweet milky tea. She poured him a big glass of water. “Sit, wait while I boil the milk for tea.” He did not speak, capitulated to her instructions.
Just as the milk nearly boiled over the rim of the pot, Michael padded into the room, his hair tumbling over his forehead. “What’s that smell?”
“Breakfast,” Kathryn said and kissed him on the forehead, a wooden spoon still in her hand.
“What kind of breakfast?” He walked to Rashid, struggled to climb into his father’s lap.
Rashid leaned back, allowed the boy up. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “Breakfast like I ate when I was a boy like you,” he said. But the aromas, incomplete without the smell of burning cow dung, exhaust from the generator down the street, the rose smell of his mother’s hair oil, only heightened his sense of dislocation. No matter how she tried, Kathryn could only produce a simulacrum of the land still embedded in his heart.
The baby whimpered, then let out a full fledged cry. Rashid slid Michael off his lap and they walked hand-in-hand to the bedroom. They emerged a moment later, Rashid quieting the baby in his arms and Michael tickling his brother’s feet.
They all sat down together before this unusually elaborate breakfast. Kathryn told Rashid and Michael to eat as she tucked the baby’s head under her shirt to suckle. For an instant all was right in her world, her entire family’s needs met. What more could be required of her? What more could she possibly do?