The Aisha Prophecy (3 page)

He’d entered with his false Greek passport and visa, but had brought, as a back-up, his real Saudi passport. If caught, at worst he’d be quietly deported. They try not to make waves with the Saudis.

He took the airport taxi to Hilton Head Island. It was only an hour to the north. Using the maps that the sheik had provided, he had the taxi take him to this school for tennis where he found that he could walk about freely. Within an hour he learned, to his surprise and then confusion, what the sheik should have known, but did not.

Muslim girls at this school? Not so. They were gone. The Nasreens took them elsewhere more than three months ago. Why? Because someone had murdered the two Nasreens who ran it. Slashed one’s neck with a knife, stopped the blood to her brain. And abducted the other who was found miles away. The other had been smothered to death.

Murdered by whom, though? Abducted by whom? Clearly not by anyone sent by the sheik. By other hunters, perhaps, who came from other countries? Looking for runaway women of their own? The Iranians, maybe. Or some other Shiite country. The sheik would not have known because they would not have told him. The Shiites, after all, are heretics themselves and therefore have no love for the Hasheem. Especially for those who they’ve caught inside their borders. Either dead now or rotting in their prisons.

Nor did this happen on the grounds of this school. It happened elsewhere on the island at the house of a woman who often came here to teach tennis. That woman was lucky to have been somewhere else or she, too, would have been killed or taken. Mulazim learned these bits and pieces by asking other students. He pretended to be greatly saddened and shocked, all the better to conceal his disappointment.

The police had nothing. No suspects, only theories. A burglary that had gone badly, perhaps. No one was supposed to be home. The American woman who owned this house was believed to have plenty of money. Whatever had happened, the police had concluded that it wasn’t related to their being Nasreens or even to their being Muslims. Why? Who knows what their reasoning was? If it wasn’t a car bomb it can’t involve Muslims? Or maybe they were sweeping this under a rug lest it be labeled a terrorist attack and the rich might then go elsewhere for their golf. On the other hand, they could just as well have been right. The killings could have been a coincidence.

All the same, this was most inconvenient. He’d spent a day and a half on the grounds of this tennis school. He had asked several students where the Muslim girls had gone. He pretended that he had grown to know some of them, but had been back in Greece these past months.

He’d been friendly, he said, with one in particular. He showed several a photo that he said she had given him. In this photo, the princess wore an abaya. Only her face and half her forehead could be seen. He had hoped to get one in which she was bareheaded, but this was the best that her father could provide. Most of those he asked shook their heads; they didn’t know her, but at last he found two girls who did.

One said to the other, “Isn’t that little Rasha?”

The other looked more closely. She said, “Oh, sure. She was one of the new ones. Nice kid.”

Mulazim blinked in surprise. Here she used her real name? She must have felt very safe indeed.

The first asked Mulazim, “But what’s with the abaya? None of them dressed Muslim while they were here.”

“Old photo,” he told her. “She had nothing more recent.”

The other said to the first, “She still covered up. She’d only play tennis in a full warm-up suit. She wasn’t ready for a T-shirt and shorts. Girls don’t show much skin where they came from.”

“But she was into it. She worked at it,” added the second. “Only a beginner, but she could be good. Especially if Elizabeth’s still teaching her.”

“Still?”asked Mulazim.

“She took Rasha with her.”

Elizabeth must be the American woman. “These cowardly murders took place in her house?”

“I guess that’s why she didn’t want to stay there,” said one. “She and Aisha came and got Rasha.”

“Aisha, too?” asked Mulazim, as if he had met her.

“Oh, sure,” said the girl. “Elizabeth wouldn’t go without Aisha.”

Another Aisha, thought Mulazim. There’s already one too many. So much effort being wasted on that stupid prophecy. Good luck finding a particular young woman named Aisha. There must be millions of Muslim girls with that name. He waved it off. “So this Elizabeth took both?”

“And the other two new ones. The two sisters who got out of Iran.”

Mulazim raised an eyebrow. “Those two as well?” He asked this, once again, as if he had known them.

“The Darvi sisters,” said the second girl, nodding.

“Niki and… let me think. Oh, yeah. Shahla,” said the other. “Aisha wouldn’t go without them either.”

Mulazim made a mental note of the names. Shahla, fairly common. An upper-class Persian name. But Niki? What Muslim girl is called Niki?

He asked if they knew where Elizabeth had taken them. One answered that Elizabeth had friends up north someplace, but was unable to be more specific.

He asked, “You haven’t heard from them? No postcards or letters?”

“Umm… a couple of the kids here got emails, I heard. From Niki, She’s the younger Darvi sister.”

“Recent emails?”

“I guess so. A week or two, maybe.”

He brightened. “Which kids? Might I speak to these kids? News of Rasha would ease my heart greatly.”

These two conferred briefly. They were trying to remember. In the end, they could not recall who. They had only, one said, heard of this through the grapevine. He took this to mean indirectly.

“But what of the content of these emails?” he asked them. “Niki must have had some news to pass on.”

“Let’s see,” said one, musing. “They’re planning a party. For Aisha. Her birthday’s coming up.”

Not helpful.

The other asked the first, “And they moved again, right? They moved in with some man.”

“Some old friend of Elizabeth’s. An old boyfriend, I think. Niki said he bought Rasha a puppy.”

The other shook her head. “No, she said a kitten. Saudi Muslims think dogs are unclean.”

Mulazim wanted to scream. Kittens, birthdays, no relevance. He calmed himself, asking, “Moved again? From where to where?”

They didn’t know.

“This man they moved in with. Did she say this man’s name?”

The two looked at each other. More shakes of their heads. “If she did, we never heard it,” said one.

But the other, seeing his great disappointment, suggested that he speak to a woman named Bernice. This woman, she told him, worked at the front office. She assumed that Bernice would be forwarding any mail that might come for any of those girls. She might also know who this man is.

The girl said, “You can catch her if you go up there now. Or else you’ll have to wait until Monday.”

He understood. This was Friday afternoon. In the West comes two days off after Friday. He said “Thank you and God bless you,” to these two.

He would speak to this Bernice, but not at the office. Unlike these two young students of tennis, she would probably not answer the questions of a stranger, no matter what story he concocted. And she would likely report that this foreigner had asked questions.

A good hunter would not take that chance.

THREE 

He waited for Bernice until she quit for the day. She was a black woman, in her forties, and big. Bigger, maybe stronger, than he was. Mulazim followed her to her car as if he were strolling toward his own. She took a remote key out of her purse and clicked it, unlocking all four of her doors. When she climbed in, he leaped in alongside her.

He said, “I have a gun, but I have no wish to harm you. I need only to get off this island.”

She looked him in the eye. She said, “Let’s see the gun.”

Part of his training in dealing with women was how to take advantage of their feminine nature. How it’s easy to play on their sympathies. So he made a show of seeming to sag and making his chin and lips quiver. He drew his hand from his pocket. He showed both empty palms. At this, he pretended to break down and weep.

Women always soften when they see a man weeping. Not all are sympathetic, but all are less afraid. He brought his hands to his face as if he were ashamed. He said, with a sob, “All I wanted was to work and send money to my family. Now they will arrest me and deport me.”

“Go on.”

He told her that he was in this country illegally. Last night, men came to get him in the food store where he worked. Men in suits and dark glasses. He did good honest work, but someone had betrayed him. He ran. He didn’t know what else to do.

This was a gamble, but it seemed one worth taking. This was a woman who’d helped shelter so many Muslim girls. This woman, who might even be a Nasreen herself, knew a thing or two about illegals. He thought it unlikely that she’d turn him in. The question was would she be willing to help him? This would be so much easier if she were.

She asked him, “Last night? What have you been doing since?”

“Hiding. No sleep. I am so tired.”

“Have you eaten?”

“Not today. My stomach is all knots.”

She shook her head as if having a debate with herself. But she started her car. She backed it out of her space. She said, “Okay, we’ll get some food into you. After that, I might know someone who can help you.”

Her house was on the other end of the island. There were no rich peoples homes where she lived. They’d passed clusters of old trailers, most on dirt roads. On her street, however, there were mostly real houses, all small, all older, but neatly kept up. All her neighbors seemed to be black people as well. Here the streets were paved. Young children played on them.

He was relieved to find that Bernice lived alone even though her house had four rooms. He had confirmed this by looking through her medicine cabinet. Prescription bottles showed only her name. All her toiletries suggested only one user. He saw no products for men in her bathroom, no clothing for men in her closets. The only evidence of family was in framed photographs on the bookshelves of her living room. Nor was she Muslim. On her shelves he saw a bible. Also he found bacon in her icebox. A small nook in her kitchen housed a laptop computer. He touched a key. It blinked on. Many people leave them on. Not such a good idea, but good for him.

Before all this, of course, he drove a fist into her kidney as she was fixing him a sandwich and heating noodle soup. It took more than a fist. It also took two good kicks. This was a formidable woman. But he was able to bind her to a stout chair with arms and stuff a dish cloth into her mouth.

The chair was in her kitchen. A rack of knives sat on the counter. He chose a thin filet knife for his work.

For twenty minutes he inflicted great pain on this Bernice, prying at the joints of her knees with this knife. Even gagged, they beg to know why this is happening to them. They ask with their eyes and the sounds that they make and with a frenzied shaking of their heads. Even gagged, they beg to give you whatever you want if only you will stop hurting them. Stop too soon and some will curse you. You’d have to start over. It’s best to get them well softened up.

At the end of twenty minutes, he said to this Bernice that he would now ask her where the Muslim girls had gone. He would pull out the dish cloth, but he’d shove it back in if she should feel disinclined to answer. He removed it and waited while she gagged and she retched.

He jabbed her. “Kindly answer my question.”

“Gone. Just gone, you miserable cock su…”

She stopped herself short. Calling names was not prudent. But little by little, in response some encouragement, she answered the question more fully. There were nineteen in all. Mostly girls in their teens. Older women had come and packed them all up. Gone where? All over. Some as far as California. Mail? They had no mail. They never got mail. Or if they did, it never came through the office.

Perhaps not. But what of emails? He told her that he knew that other students got emails. This seemed news to this Bernice. He saw that in her eyes.

He gestured toward her computer. “Emails to you?”

She shook her head. She said, “Never.”

Well, thought Mulazim, we shall see about that. He showed her the photo of the princess named Rasha. He watched her eyes. He saw that she knew her. She looked away. He stuck her. He said, “Speak or more pain.”

She blurted, “New England. Some place in New England.”

At this she made a deep growling sound. It seemed to him that she was berating herself. For telling him this. For being so taken in. He felt himself wanting to offer her comfort. He wanted to tell her she should not be ashamed because this was his talent. He was Mulazim, the Greek. He’d have defeated her one way or the other.

He knew of New England. It was close to New York. But this could still be a lie. At best it was vague. “To another Nasreen safe house? There is one in New England?”

She blinked. She made an involuntary shrug. His sense was that she did not know of a safe house. He was about to ask her what city or town, but he thought it better to test her first by asking a question whose answer he knew.

“You said they have gone north. They means who?” He asked this while tracing a line with the knife along an uninjured part of her thigh.

She swallowed before speaking. She glanced toward the photograph. “Rasha was one. And two other new girls.”

“The Iranian sisters. Niki and Shahla. Don’t make me squeeze such details out of you. You get one chance to tell me who else.”

She gritted her teeth. She knew that he knew. “Those three,” she said softly. “Aisha went with them.”

“Taken by?”

“Aisha’s… friend.”

“Named Elizabeth,” he told her. “ Do not dawdle. This provokes me. Who is this Aisha? Another Nasreen?”

“No. Just a girl.” She said this with force. It seemed an attempt to be protective of her. Bernice added, more softly, “She’s… sort of a counselor. She was helping the new ones get settled.”

“Helping them to turn from God? And from their families?”

“Not from their religion. No one here would do that.”

Doesn’t matter, thought Mulazim. They are already lost to God. He asked, “Where in New England? What address?”

She answered, “I don’t know. Nobody here knows. They went there to meet someone. I don’t think they planned to stay.”

Aha, thought Mulazim. This agrees with what those two girls had told him. He said, “I know they met a man who was a friend to Elizabeth. I know that he stayed with them when they moved someplace else. And I know that you know where that is.”

“I do not. No one knows.” She fairly shouted these words. “That’s the whole point. To be gone. To not be found. To live in peace.”

Bernice said this so firmly, looking into his eyes, that he thought it could well be the truth. All nineteen were fugitives from Islamic justice. Yes, probably the one called Aisha as well. Fugitives don’t leave forwarding addresses.

He shrugged. He said, “Very well. I believe you. You have saved yourself more pain. You have spared me the need to inflict it.”

He stood up and laid the knife on her kitchen counter. He tasted the soup and ate half of the sandwich. Peanut butter. Very good. With grape jelly. This was also to give her more time to be grateful. They talk even more when they are grateful.

He went to her icebox to find something to drink. He saw something there called CranApple juice. He drank from the bottle. Very tasty. Her icebox was the new kind. It spits ice through the door. He found a box of plastic bags in a drawer by the sink. He took two bags and filled them with ice. These he wrapped in two other dish towels. He placed them on the knees of this Bernice as proof that he regretted her discomfort. Although she did not acknowledge this kindness, she gave a small sigh of relief.

He said, “No address, and yet they told you New England. Why would they tell you even that?”

She took a moment to rock in her chair as if she were considering her reply. She said, “They didn’t tell me. I overheard. They were waiting in the lobby with their bags and their prayer rugs.”

Prayer rugs, thought Mulazim. At least they still pray. But useless. Their prayers are not heard.

He said, “Go on. What did you overhear?”

“Aisha was telling the other three girls about a man who was meeting them there. For all I know, it could have been an airport, not a town. But it sounded as if this man intended to take them somewhere else where they’d be safe.”

“I will ask you again where that place might be. Keep in mind that I already know a great deal. I even know about Rasha’s kitten.”

Her eyes showed confusion. “What kitten?”

He could see that Bernice had no knowledge of the gift. Not good. She was not so up-to-date after all. But she still might know where they went next.

“Someplace safe, you say. Someplace far away? What?”

“Some place where they won’t be easy to find.”

He heard defiance in her tone. This was also disrespectful. He reached to remove the two ice packs. But she realized her mistake. She said quickly, “All I meant is… a place where they would fit in.”

“A place with many young Muslims?”

“No. Well… I don’t know. I think it’s more that they’d go to a place where new faces don’t attract much attention.”

Mulazim grunted. This was sensible of them. Not helpful, but certainly sensible.

He asked her, “Who is this man they were meeting?”

“I don’t know.”

He reached again. Again she spoke quickly. “He’s someone Aisha knew… and who Elizabeth knew… but Elizabeth had believed this man to be dead. Aisha, I guess, had just learned that he wasn’t. She was very excited about seeing him again. But she was telling the others that she’d known it all along. Her mother told her in her dreams that he was alive. So she knew he’d come back to them one day.”

Mulazim wondered whether he had heard this correctly. “Her mother speaks to her in dreams? Where is her mother?”

“With God. She’s dead. Both her parents were murdered.”

She said this accusingly as if to suggest that they were murdered by people like him. But he brushed that thought aside. He found himself staring blankly. A man back from the dead? Information from dreams? This intelligence seemed less than reliable. Unless, of course, this man they were meeting was named. It would make them somewhat easier to find.

He asked, “And the name of this man who was thought to be dead?”

“I only heard Martin. “

“First name or last?”

“Aisha wouldn’t have called him by his last name.”

Mulazim supposed not. That would be impolite. Nice to hear that good manners aren’t totally forgotten after being exposed to the West. He adjusted an ice pack that was sliding off her knee. He mouthed the name Martin. Not much, but it was something.

He said, “A few more questions and then I will leave you. Tell me about this Elizabeth.”

“I… really didn’t know her that well.”

“She’s a teacher of tennis? She’s the one who taught Rasha?”

The woman paused to reflect on how she might reply. “No, she’s not an instructor. I mean… she’s not on staff. She’s just a friend. A friend of the Nasreens. She and Aisha were especially close.”

“Such a friend that she would give up her home on this island for the sake of four Muslim girls?”

“She… didn’t want to live in that house anymore. It’s where Jasmine was killed. It’s up for sale.”

Jasmine. The name of the murdered Nasreen. Small pieces were coming together. “This Elizabeth,” he asked. “Is she a Nasreen? Even with a name like Elizabeth?”

The woman paused again. Reflecting again. She said, “No. Not a Muslim. Not a Nasreen. I think she knew some Nasreens from a long time ago. From over there somewhere. From the Mideast.”

“This Elizabeth lived there?”

“In Israel, I think.”

“A Jew?”

“Not a Jew. She just… worked there.”

Mulazim felt a chill at the back of his neck. Elizabeth… Martin. Elizabeth… Martin. These names seemed to ring a distant bell. He asked, “This Elizabeth. What is her full name?”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She asked, “Are you going to kill me?”

“In this I am forbidden. On this I can swear. However, when I go, I must leave you tied up. In how much comfort depends on what you tell me.”