The Garden of Last Days (62 page)

Just meters ahead is the light of this day. He closes his eyes:
La ilaha illa Allah wa Muhammad ar-rasulullah
.

They merge into the sunlight behind many autos. The driver accelerates and they are on an overpass and on the other side of it are brick buildings, apartments Bassam can see, small balconies attached. There are grills for cooking meat, flower boxes, outdoor plastic furniture. Over the railing of one is clothing drying in the early sun, and on the roof is a large sign, a photographed woman looking directly at him, smiling with seduction, a glimmering stone on her finger.

“Bassam,” says Tariq from the rear, “look at the sky.”

It is the same uninterrupted blue he had seen over the clouds when they flew here from Florida. Surely, a sign. Surely, the angels at work for them.

And Imad speaks quietly the words of the Prophet, peace be upon him, whenever he would receive pleasing news, “All praise is for Allah by whose favor good works are accomplished.”

“American, right?” The driver looks briefly at Bassam.

“Yes, American.” Now they are nearing the airport, its control tower visible beyond concrete overpasses and the traffic of buses and autos. Beyond it, in the deep blue, a passenger jet descends and to the south another rises steeply. It is as if there is no moisture in Bassam’s mouth and never was. His heart is beating erratically inside him, and he breathes deeply, and
please, Mala’ika, calm me, keep me patient, steadfast, and tranquil, for truly, Insha’Allah, I am less than three hours from entering Jannah
.

There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His messenger
.

“You guys travel light. Christ, whenever I go anywhere I pack a whole trunk. And the wife is worse than me.” The kafir laughs though Bassam is not completely certain what he said. But it no longer matters for the taxi pulls up beneath a sign for American and the kafir pushes a button on his price machine, the red numbers like those of the hotel clock in their last room, like all the clocks of all the motels, the red numbers stating the price. The Egyptian would try to negotiate this number downward, and will he be as joyful and at peace as he was two evenings ago? Is he already here?

“Thirty-two seventy, please. You need a receipt?”

“No.” Bassam pushes two twenty bills into his hand, knows it is customary to give a gratuity, but all the money he gave freely in the South in the small black room. His drunkenness, his weakness.

The kafir places two coins into Bassam’s palm, then a note of five and notes of one, and in the care with which the driver does this, Bassam can feel his hope for some to be given back to him.

Shouldn’t we take these last hours to offer good deeds and obedience?

Bassam gives the kafir the bill of five. The driver looks him in the eyes and smiles the satisfied smile of a surprisingly successful transaction, but in that green cap of a boy he looks foolish, and doomed. “Thank you, sir. You have a good trip now.”

He exits the auto and retrieves from the trunk the duffel bags of Bassam’s and Tariq’s. The kafir drives back into the roadway, and Imad is already walking ahead of them, his cell phone pressed to his ear for the call to Amir, Tariq close behind. Bassam wants to call to them to wait, to remember their instructions and to say first a du’a for place, but they have entered the revolving door and in the turning glass he sees briefly his reflection, his narrow shoulders and ironed clothing, his smooth face, his bag hanging beside him. Then the door opens and his reflection is gone, a sign of his fate, yet another sign of his blessed Al-Qadr.

A family moves quickly past. The woman holds an infant and the hand of a young boy who hurries beside her. The man carries a girl. Her head rests upon his shoulder and her eyes are open and her thumb is inside her closed mouth.

O Lord, I ask You for the best of this place, and ask You to protect me from its evils
. Bassam waits for the glass to swing open once more, and then he follows this American family into the matar.

The line for tickets is short. Very soon they are standing before a kafir who, behind the long counter, asks for their names and their destinations.

“Los Angeles,” says Bassam.

“Name?”

“Al-Jizani.”

“Spell it, please.” The kafir is older than they and tall, his shoulders rounded downward beneath his shirt. He wears the eyeglasses of the aging, the sort that is only half as high so he may look at them over the lenses. Bassam spells for him his family name, as well as Imad’s and Tariq’s, though these are no longer their names.

“ID, please?” The man briefly regards their driving licenses from Florida, and he thanks them without looking in their eyes. “Checking baggage?”

“No thank you.”

And the kafir directs them to their gate and prints their passes, and when he hands them to Bassam, how strange it is to receive these from a large and aging kafir who does not even know, Allah willing, he has given three shuhada’ their tickets to Jannah.

But the gate. They must first pass through security at the gate.

“Bassam, Tariq,” says Imad, “this way.” And he points to the area so close by, a short line there as well, men and women dressed in business clothing, an old couple, and the young American family. Imad is nearly smiling. He stops and says, “Stay calm, brothers. Al-Aziz is with us. Make your du’a for meeting the enemy.”

They walk slowly. There is a Starbucks coffee shop, four or five kufar waiting to be served. There is a shop for newspapers, books, and magazines, again the colors of bare flesh. Bassam looks away to the broad back of Imad before him. Beyond are the matar security guards in their white and black uniforms and their sensors and X-ray machines. Again, the dryness of his mouth and throat, the need for water, and now the need to relieve himself. “Tariq, Imad, please.”

The bathroom area is large with a long row of many sinks before a mirror, and Bassam enters the privacy of the enclosed walls and locks the metal door. He lowers his pants and sits. There are the sounds of water running in the sinks, footsteps upon the floor, the flushing of toilets, the main door as it opens and closes. A hand dryer is activated.
A kafir answers his ringing cell phone, speaks into it. “Yeah, I’ll be in Denver tonight.”

These people and their assumptions. How they never invoke the Holy One when discussing the future, how it is simply believed by them they control their own destiny and no one else.

Bassam reaches for the paper. Above the dispenser are scratchings from a pen, the drawing of a man’s erectness and his seed leaving it, a telephone number beneath. The whore, her rising and falling onto him. Again, his weakness, the feeling he has just begun to know women in this world, and now he must leave.

This
cursed
place! Everywhere a temptation. Everywhere a stronghold for Shaytan.

Bassam cleans himself and flushes the toilet.
Allah, forgive me
.

His bag beside him, he washes his hands a very long time, the water quite hot. The mirror begins to fog slightly and in it is his face, the nose and mouth of his mother, but the eyes of his father, the eyes of his father when his belief was still pure, when Bassam had only ten or eleven years and his father returned from the hajj. The family compound was filled with joy, his mother and aunts cooking and passing out gifts and offering praise to the Creator. Bassam’s uncle Rashad had slaughtered a goat and a sheep, donating the meat of the goat to two poor families outside Khamis Mushayt. And Bassam and his brothers ate the roasted sheep with the men in the outer building. His father had never looked so young to him, so strong and free of his worries. His beard appeared darker, his eyes shone, and he sat straight but with humility, and when his eyes passed over Bassam, Bassam felt his father’s love pass through him straight from the Creator, for his father had made the holy pilgrimage to Makkah. His father, Ahmed al-Jizani, was now a hajji.

“Bassam.” Tariq appears in the glass. “Imad waits for us. And do not forget. Act calmly.”

Bassam nods his head. There are three other men at the sinks, two white kufar and one Asian. Each in the shirt and tie of a businessman.
Each washing his hands. Each in his own thoughts. And why does Tariq call him Bassam and not Mansoor as he did earlier? Has Bassam not changed since they were boys? Is he the same youngest son of Ahmed al-Jizani, forever in the long shadow he casts? Is this what Tariq sees? Why does Tariq not call him Victorious?

Bassam splashes his face. No, Tariq calls you Bassam because he has always done this.
You must stop looking for negative signs. This is only the work of Shaytan. Do not forget the mala’ika who guided you here. Allah is all we need. He is the best to rely upon. He is the greatest
.

Once again in the matar, the same noise as before: the voices of announcers over the system, the rings of cell phones—one nearby, a musical tune—the rolling of luggage wheels and the clicking of women’s shoes upon the floors and throughout all of this is talking, incessant talking.

A hand squeezes Bassam’s shoulder. Tariq nods and smiles as if Bassam has just told him a funny story. “You look too serious, Mansoor.”

“Yes, all right.” The smell of Tariq, his cologne, his shaved face and washed hair, the hotel’s shampoo. Their knives are each in inner pockets inside the carrying bags. They are allowed, but now is the test. Now is the test.

A woman has carried her child through the X-ray doorway, and the guard beckons to her husband, who holds a girl. He follows.

Imad places his bag on the moving beltway. He takes a plastic bowl and puts into it coins and his watch with its silver band, one Bassam knows he purchased in Peshawar. He holds his pass, and the guard, his belly protruding, his pants too long, he motions Imad forward. The X-ray doorway of course remains silent, but Bassam’s heart thrusts now inside his head for he is watching the woman guard who studies the screen of what is shown in the bags. She is of middle age, and she has changed the color of her hair to blond and she chews gum, her eyes narrowed upon her work. Tariq is now called to enter, and surely Imad’s bag has passed through and still the woman’s eyes do not change.

Yes, Bassam can see it, Imad grasping it and walking away from them.

Bassam places his bag onto the beltway. There are only a few coins remaining in his pocket and he wishes he had given them all to the driver so he might avoid this extra step. He takes the gray bowl and drops into it his coins. His watch is plastic and glass and he leaves it upon his wrist. And look, Bassam, Tariq is walking away with his bag now as well.

Bassam’s heart slows slightly, but his breath is shallow, his tongue thick. He prays he does not appear the way he feels.

“Come through, please.” The kafir regards him. He looks quickly from his face to his shoes as if he is sorting pomegranates, putting the new here, the old there, and he is bored with his duties and has been for a very long time.

Bassam passes through.

“Have a nice day, sir.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

There it is, his bag exiting the machine and rolling down to his waiting hand. No kafir speaks to him. No kafir stops him. He squeezes tightly the handle and he begins walking. There is a calmness, a warmth and a lightness in his arms and legs and face and heart, as if he is water that these twenty-six years has been contained in a vessel and now the vessel is broken and what he viewed before as himself has spilled free and there is no fear at the sudden lack of clay walls to hold him.

“Sir?
Sir?
”

There is no god but Allah
. Bassam turns. It is the kafir guard. He smiles and holds forth the container of loose coins. “Don’t forget this now.”

“Yes, thank you.” Bassam releases his breath he did not know he was withholding. He steps forward and allows the man to pour the money into his cupped hand.
All praise is for Allah by whose favor good works are accomplished
. Then Bassam turns and joins his brothers, who await him in the crowd.

LONNIE WOKE AT
noon. He found he was out of coffee and drove into town. The inside of his truck was hot, and the AC wasn’t cooling it off fast enough, and he rolled down his window, the air smelling like palm fronds and newly turned dirt. He needed to buy some groceries. Get something in the fridge. He thought of April dumping him to go shopping. He could’ve gone with her. Felt pathetic for thinking that.

At the corner of Osprey and Ringling, he stopped for the light, a car pulling up beside him, its windows open, the radio on. He heard the word
hijacked
, then more words. The woman behind the wheel was shaking her head, her mouth half-open. She stared into the empty intersection.

He turned on his own radio.

“Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand

If there were only water—”

He ejected the tape, found a news station, but they were all news.

Adrenaline. That old dangerous friend. Such a gush of it, his arm and legs as light as razors, and it was like the whole club had erupted into a hundred open pockets, yet there was nowhere for him to go, no one to defend.