“Relax, Terry. I don’t want to cause the professor any problems. You have my word.”
“Your word?” Terry ran a hand across his scalp. With his scarred, flat face and epicanthic folds he looked like a club boxer or one of the Mongolian Muslims who had immigrated after the transition, wanting to be part of the great experiment. He squinted suddenly, pointed at Rakkim’s left hand. “Is that Fedayeen ring of yours real?”
“As real as it gets.”
Terry looked him over. “I was regular army.”
“You look like you saw some action.”
“You might say that. I was there at Newark. Every day of it.”
Rakkim brought his right fist to his heart in salute.
Terry returned the salute. “Be careful with the lady, Fedayeen,” he growled. “I’ll hand you your head if you don’t.”
Marian breezed back into the room with a squat woman who wore a chador the same gray color as the bodyguard’s tunic. The woman was carrying a heavy silver tea set as though it were weightless. Terry flung open the doors to the veranda, stood aside as the woman in the gray chador laid the tray on a small table. The woman poured them tea and backed away, closing the doors behind her. No wasted movement.
Marian waited until Rakkim sat down. “I don’t know where Sarah is. If that’s why you came here, I’m afraid you wasted a trip.”
Rakkim smiled. “Gas is cheap. Besides, Sarah trusted you to contact me that first time. Maybe you know more than you think you do.”
Marian sipped her tea, her pinkie crooked. The cool breeze rippled her chador, but she sat so that her modesty remained perfectly intact.
It was late morning and the smog from the industrial plants in the Kent Valley was piling up, sulfurous tendrils drifting over into the city. Through the haze he could see dozens of rusting oil tankers in the Sound, supertankers fresh from the Arctic Reserve, waiting to off-load. Looming behind the ships was the aircraft carrier Osama bin Laden, the former USS Ronald Reagan, now permanently on patrol offshore. Seventeen years ago a group of terrorists, an end-times Christian sect from Brazil, had hijacked a jumbo jet and attempted to crash it into the Capitol. Only the grace of Allah, and the outdated version of Microsoft Flight Simulator that the terrorists had trained on, had prevented a disaster. The tail of the jumbo jet still protruded from the waters of the Sound, out of the shipping lane, left there as a warning to the people to remain vigilant. Rakkim turned his chair toward Mount Rainier, a craggy dormant volcano covered in ice, rosy in the light.
“Sarah used to do that same thing when we sat out here,” said Marian. “I like the city view myself. The people. The cars and trucks coming and going. The energy. I have no use for nature, but Sarah…she preferred to see the mountain, just like you.”
Rakkim imagined Sarah sitting here on a day just like today, sipping tea in this exact spot. It had been six months since he had seen her. Six months of broken promises. “Did Sarah visit you often?”
“Almost every week. We met at the university about a year and a half ago. Quite by accident. She sat down at my table in the faculty lounge, and it was as if we had known each other for years.” Marian ran her index finger around the rim of her teacup. “I knew of her, of course. How the West Was Really Won had caused a sensation on campus. You have no idea the resentment that book engendered among her colleagues.” Marian kept watching him, then breaking away eye contact, as though not wanting to stare. “It was suggested by my department chair that I avoid her, but I ignored him. To be honest, I was pleased to be in the presence of such an iconoclast. It made me feel like a bit of an outlaw myself.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Um…two Sundays ago. A lovely day.” Marian entwined her fingers. Her nails were clipped, perfectly shaped.
When Rakkim had first infiltrated the Bible Belt, one of the first things he’d noticed was the dirty, ragged fingernails of the women. Muslims kept their nails short and scrubbed, as required by the Qur’an, while women in the Bible Belt preferred their hands to look like talons, their nails often painted garish colors-their flag was a preferred motif, the old Stars and Stripes with a Christian cross in the field of blue.
“Is the tea not to your liking, Mr. Epps?”
Rakkim raised his cup. She looked poised, but weary in the morning light, crow’s-feet etched into the corners of her eyes. His arrival must have confirmed her worst fears for Sarah, but she was carrying on, refusing to panic. No wonder she and Sarah were friends. He leaned forward to reassure her, saw Terry react from the other side of the glass. “I think your bodyguard is looking for an excuse to break my back.”
“Terry is very protective. He and his wife take care of the house, but they also take care of me. My parents are deceased, and a spinster needs company.” Marian smoothed her chador. “As it is written, loneliness is a doorway for the devil, Mr. Epps.”
“The devil has plenty of doorways, Professor. Too many doorways and not enough locks. Loneliness is the least of our problems.”
Marian smiled, lowered her eyes. “It’s strange to be sitting here with you. We only met that once, but I feel that I know you. Sarah talked about you all the time.” Her eyes darted up. “I wish she were here now.”
“So do I.”
“We were collaborating on a book. Did she tell you that?”
Rakkim shook his head.
“Well, we were. We actually started making notes, gathering research…” Marian adjusted her head scarf, pushed an errant strand of hair back out of sight. “We were going to write about the intellectual deterioration of our society since the transition. A risky topic, but Sarah relished the prospect of further intellectual combat, and I would have been careful to credit the religious authorities for our many advantages.” Marian added another lump of sugar to her tea, the spoon clinking against the side of the cup as she stirred. “I was born a Muslim. You have no idea what it was like growing up under the old regime. The taunting, the insults…” Her mouth tightened to a thin line. “As a child, I had my hajib torn off my head more times than I can count, and after 9/11, it got worse. I’m not telling you this to elicit pity. The happiest day of my life was when we became an Islamic nation, but as a sociologist, I’m troubled by what I see.” She looked directly at him, unflinching. “We used to lead the world in science and technology. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Now, every year we have fewer graduates in engineering and mathematics. Our manufacturing plants are outdated, our farm productivity falling, and patent applications are only forty percent of what they were in the old regime.” She toyed with her teaspoon, set it down with an effort, forced her hands still. “I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”
Rakkim was thinking instead of the iris-scanning security software that didn’t function, the weather reports that were mere guesses because the satellites were out of orbit. At least no one starved in the Islamic Republic, or froze to death in winter because they couldn’t afford heating oil. The Bible Belt might have Coca-Cola and Carolina broadleaf, but it also had power brownouts and rickets, and unlike Islam, which treated almsgiving as a requirement of faith, beggars in the Bible Belt were hungry and cold.
“Rambling on is an occupational hazard for professors,” sighed Marian. “Our students hang on our every word, but they’re a captive audience.”
“What happened with this book you and Sarah were working on?”
“She changed her mind. Six months ago, out of the blue.”
“Was that when she got engaged to the son of the Saudi ambassador?”
“Who told you that?” Marian grimaced. “Her uncle tried to interest her in the petro-prince, and the prince was certainly taken with her, but you know Sarah.”