Garage Sale Diamonds (Garage Sale Mystery) (7 page)

“God’s blessings upon you,” he said. “So, Important Traveler, is your room comfortable?”

“Blessings also upon you. Yes, it is. Thank you for your hospitality, Mahmud.”

“Come.” He led his guest to the dining room where they took seats at a table set with two places.  “First, breakfast and then shall we go to accomplish your tasks today?”

“A good plan,” Ahmed agreed.

“Heba,” Mahmud shouted impatiently toward the closed kitchen door. It opened quickly to reveal a woman carrying a laden tray. She wore the hijab, a scarf framing her face and hiding her hair. Mahmud ignored her. His host’s wife? With downcast face she served coffee, cream and sugar.

“Coffee?” Mahmud asked his guest.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Pour,” Mahmud directed.

Her loose-fitting floor-length clothes disguised her shape, leaving only her hands and face visible, as in the Middle-East. Seeing her gaunt, down-turned face, Ahmed thought she looked fifty, about Mahmud’s age. She placed pastries and fruit on the table, took the empty tray to the kitchen and closed the door.  

“For me to understand your household, she is…?”

“My servant. I bought her from a Turk I met a month after I arrived in the U.S. He bought her from someone else who got her from someone else and so on. She works hard and does everything I want her to do.” He gave Ahmed a significant look. “Everything I want her to do.”

Surprised, Ahmed grasped this meaning and then thought of the irony. No woman would ever grace his life or his bed, and this man had two.

“Her wage is food and a sleeping room in the basement, so I list her as a dependent for taxes. She cooks, cleans house and launders clothes, which pleases my wife. And she does not speak.”

“No tongue?”

“They don’t punish blasphemy that way in this country. I don’t know why she’s silent. But in a household with four women,” he gave a thin laugh, “one not talking is a blessing.”

“Four women?”

“Yes, here they come now,” he said as two women and a child entered the room. To them he said, “This is Ahmed, who visits us for awhile.” He turned to his guest, “This is my wife, Zayneb. She is Muslim-American, born right here in Fairfax County. We met at a mosque in Falls Church twenty-four years ago and married a month later. This is daughter Khadija, who is twenty-three years old and here’s my dear little daughter, Safia, who is five. Come, Safia, and sit on my lap.”

The wife wore a demure long-sleeved blouse, ankle-length full skirt and no make-up. Ahmed thought her pale Nordic coloring and high cheekbones produced a regal look, enhanced the more by the hijab framing her face. His indoctrination taught repulsion for American women, but he found her modest in demeanor and striking in appearance.

The little daughter had her father’s dark eyes and black hair. Neither she nor her sister wore the hijab. Khadija’s hazel eyes and lustrous light brown hair reflected a mix of her parents’ genes. Ahmed tried not to gape at the unmistakable female contours revealed by the older daughter’s slacks and loose sweater. He stared, marveling at her beauty.

Unlike the submissive shyness and downcast glances his culture equated with femininity, this young woman’s hazel eyes looked directly into his as if looking deep into his mind…into his heart. In his country, men and women not of the same family didn’t touch in public so he fought shock as she boldly approached and shook his hand in the American manner.

“Welcome to McLean.” Her sweet voice, lovely face, warm smile and the unexpected feel of her soft hand triggered a flood of longing so unexpected and powerful Ahmed feared he could not hide his spontaneous reaction from anyone in the room.

15

Friday, 7:34 AM

Ahmed tried not to stare at his host’s beautiful daughter. Aside from the family women he knew as a small boy, until arriving at this home he had little proximity to females. From ages five to twelve he’d endured long days in the strict, all-male madrassa where memorization of inflexible religious rules reinforced Islam’s rigid Sharia law. Islam was heritage, in your genes, like your nose shape or skin color. This wasn’t a choice. Destiny assigned you to this religion, your ultimate Muslim identity. Even doubting Islam was a sin. Reading other religions’ holy books, if they could be found, meant grave heresy and severe punishment.

The mullah identified devoted, obedient Ahmed as an alert boy. He sent the thirteen year old to an all-male Yemeni terrorist camp to train for military skills. Impressed with his quickness to improvise auxiliary solutions when primary solutions failed, the commandant selected him for the competitive special-operations hierarchy. This brought him to the attention of the Great Leader, who finally chose him to lead a part of this brilliant, long-planned suicidal strike against America.

Hate lessons during those formative years included pictures of heathen American women wearing disgusting, skimpy clothes and garish makeup. Yet inwardly, powerful emotions warred between Ahmed’s learned revulsion for such blatant decadence and a natural curiosity about women and their seductive magic. After all, most Middle-Eastern men took one to four wives, to discover what forbidden mysteries lay beneath their flowing robes. The brashness of Mahmud’s daughter shaking his hand should affront him. Instead, her touch left an electric tingle upon his palm.

“Hello, Ahmed,” Zayneb spoke from across the table, her polite smile not reaching her eyes. “A  blessing that God kept you safe during your travels. How was your flight?”

My flight? Good, Ahmed thought, Mahmud told her nothing of his real journey here, never mind his purpose. “It is a pleasure to meet you.” He repeated the memorized, respectful phrase before adding, “My trip was long. I am glad to arrive at last. Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Will you take breakfast with us now?” Mahmud asked his wife.

“Thank you, no. Friday mornings I drive Safia to school and stay to assist her teacher. We already had a bite in the kitchen.” She gave Ahmed another superficial smile. “Welcome to our home.”

“Thank you very much.” He recited the expected response.

“Sorry, but my youngest and I must leave now for the school. Please excuse us.” Zayneb left holding Safia’s hand.

“Thank you for inviting us to join you for breakfast this morning, Baba,” Khadija said. Her father frowned disapproval as she put food on a plate, sat at the table and turned toward Ahmed.

“Your English is good. Where did you learn to speak our language?”

“In the madra…in my school and later at special language camps,” he answered.

“Would you like to learn more?”

“Yes, I would.” His answer surprised him. Why improve his language skills when he’d be dead in a week?

“Watching television is a good way to hear and practice the language, especially the news channels. Did you notice the TV on the wall in your room?”

“Not yet, but I will make a point to do so when I return upstairs.”

“If you like, maybe I can help also. I teach ESL at a nearby community college.”

“E…S…L?”

“English as a Second Language. I teach my students to speak and write English plus practical skills, like filling out a job application. I also teach them about our culture because life here may be very different from what they’re accustomed to in their homelands.”

Mahmud frowned harder. He allowed women at the table after his own twenty-four-year exposure to American habits, but this high-ranking guest came straight from a different Middle-Eastern culture. Khadija’s refusal to behave according to Sharia law, the cornerstone of Muslim life, angered her father and must horrify Ahmed. He felt rage that his daughter embarrassed him in front of this honored visitor with whom he would soon shape a violence of such proportions all American lips would speak their names. “Khadija, enough!” he shouted with authority. “Our guest has no time for this. His schedule here is busy. His English is excellent and…”

“No,” Ahmed interrupted on impulse. “To know more is wiser than to know less. I accept your daughter’s gracious offer, Mahmud.”

As Khadija’s face lighted with enthusiasm, Ahmed marveled at the length and thickness of her eyelashes and the way her soft hair brushed the delicate skin of her face. Could the others hear his heart’s loud pounding inside his chest? Shifting self-consciously in his seat, he hoped the motion distracted Mahmud from noticing his strong reactions to the man’s daughter.

Mahmud’s look of surprise at Ahmed’s reaction froze into a rebuffed and disapproving scowl. They ate in silence until Khadija looked at her watch, sipped the last of her coffee, stood and announced, “I’m off to class. Back about one o’clock. See you all this afternoon.”

Her father grunted annoyance and Ahmed said, “Safe travel.”

He felt as if a piece of him left the room when she did.

16

Friday, 7:47 AM

As Khadija’s car pulled out of the driveway, Mahmud volunteered to Ahmed, “The others have gone and Heba’s in the kitchen where she can not hear us, so we can speak openly.”

“A Muslim-American wife, Mahmud? How did this happen?” Ahmed’s own training forbade unnecessary social mingling with the enemy, never mind marriage.

Rather than apologize, Mahmud allowed his smug expression to suggest an opposite story. “In truth, it’s genius. Although I executed the task brilliantly, I can’t take credit for originating it. Years ago, when the Great Leader placed me in this infidel country, he instructed me to find an American bride. Imagine my disgust at this unthinkable duty. But marrying an American put me in the quick-line for American citizenship and proved to everyone here my willing integration into this life—a life you and I know is entirely false.” He gave an ironic laugh. “Who would suspect this ‘Americanized’ Muslim man is actually a terrorist?”

Recognizing the strategy’s cleverness, Ahmed said, “I see we all play needed roles here. And have these twenty-four years of integration changed your dedication to carry out our mission? Speak truly now, for this is essential.”

Mahmud’s face sobered. “If anything, my resolve grows ever stronger. You have no idea how hard this is. Every day I am torn between acting like a perfect American husband or killing my wife. My life is a nightmare! Only a strong man could endure the madness. And she’s not even pretty. But the homely ones are easy targets, wanting husbands to validate their worth. She insists on some independence, and when I give her the discipline she deserves, she threatens to leave me. American men, she argues, don’t treat women that way. Then I show her newspaper stories proving this untrue. Many American men beat and even kill their women. But I cannot risk doing this during my assignment here in case someone calls the police. I must blend into this filthy culture to avoid all suspicion. I cannot draw attention to myself until Allah, blessed be His name, calls me soon for our great mission. ”

“Rocks fill your path. I see that,” Ahmed agreed. But how could this man thinks his wife plain? “Your wife is homely?”

“Ugly. Her color is washed away: white skin, blue eyes and the hair beneath her hijab is yellow.” He flinched. “She’s not at all our kind. Never would I willingly choose her for a wife.”

Mahmud spoke with such venom that Ahmed didn’t doubt his sincerity. Odd, because the very differences he loathed fascinated Ahmed. He remembered his father’s delight in his mother’s unusual green eyes, perhaps a genetic gift from early European plunderers or European women brought centuries earlier as gifts for powerful Sultans or Caliphate rulers.

“In this country the wife’s family expects no dowry. Imagine! None! Coaxing her to marry was easy, at least for a clever man like me, but living with her is impossible. She disgusts me every day. First, the way she looks. Second, she wears only the hijab, not a veil. Third, she won’t stay at home under my protection and control.” He shrugged. “Unlike our homeland, this degenerate American society fails to combine laws and customs with religion to enforce a man’s sovereign power over the women in his household. Even so, many American men correctly regard women as inferiors.” Mahmud laughed. “Some of their own religions, especially those called ‘fundamentalist,’ instruct men to rule as undisputed, respected heads of families…just as we do.”

Ahmed cleared his throat. “Your wife’s manner and dress show Muslim modesty…”

“Yes, but she’s not our kind of Muslim woman. She goes to meetings in the community and helps at Safia’s school. I insist she account to me where she goes and what she does. She drives a car, unheard of in our homeland. She questions my decisions, or did until I punched that notion out of her.” Mahmud gave a conspiratorial grin, confident any Muslim male understood his mandate to flex control upon household members defying his will.

Inwardly, Ahmed winced. His own father lifted no hand to harm the beloved, beautiful creature who was his wife.

“The final insult: she prevents conception. Oh, she denies this but what else explains we have only two children in twenty-three years of marriage? We should have at least ten.”

Ahmed nodded gravely.

“Zayneb is her Islamic name; she was called Phoebe before. She changed names when she converted from Protestant to Muslim because she correctly recognized the greater wisdom of our teachings. She joined Islam on her own. When I show her the Quran teaches a wife’s total submission to her husband, this sometimes works to my advantage.”