The Terrorist, page 10
Fareed was not stupid. He recognized that Osama’s language was symbolic. But he thought that he had lived through the truth behind the symbol. He had seen, growing up, how Abdul, his father, a well-read, educated man, could never find dignified work because his skin was dark and he was a Moslem. Abdul had ended up earning his modest wage wearing a bright green jacket and sweeping dog shit from the streets of Paris.
Fareed’s mother, Fatima, went down to the grocery store, but not much farther. It had been years since she had been to Paris, although she had always loved to walk on the Champs-Élysée on a sunny Sunday afternoon. But the abuse and disrespect she had suffered—not always but often enough—since she and Abdul had arrived from Tunis now held her prisoner at home. She had been called names, laughed at, even spit on.
It is not difficult to understand how a young man like Fareed, who had witnessed the regular and unrelenting abuse and humiliation of his parents and others like them, might see in Osama bin Laden’s violent uprising the only possible solution, the only way to banish such evil from the earth. Protect and uplift the downtrodden, feed and clothe the poor, heal the sick, and drive evil—Satan—from the earth. How could anyone argue with that?
Fareed was not a religious scholar. But he knew enough about the Holy Koran to understand that it was the will of God that the evildoers of the earth should be vanquished. And he was certain that all other religions had the same goal. How could they not, and still call themselves religions? He had read about Jesus going into the Hebrew temples and driving out the moneychangers who were abusing God’s house.
The trouble was that the twin monsters of money and power had infiltrated and ruined those religions. Now even Islam was in danger of being undermined by moral corruption and lassitude if something dramatic was not done. Striking the World Trade Center and the Pentagon seemed like the perfect act, striking as it did at the symbolic hearts of money and power.
That is where the doubt came in. Fareed turned on the television as soon as he heard that the attack was under way. The planes had already struck, but the towers were still standing. Fareed had had no part in this operation. Still, when he turned on the television he expected he would feel triumph and joy. Instead he felt horror and shame. He saw people leaping from the towers to their deaths in order to escape the terrible flames. Some of the people were on fire. He imagined his mother and father falling that way. People were running through the streets, burned people, people covered with ash, terrified people. People like him, like Abdul, like Fatima.
The people. He had forgotten that, whatever the World Trade Center and the Pentagon represented, they were filled with people. How could I have forgotten that? he wondered.
Alain Dupré was someone to be despised and destroyed according to the tenets of Osama bin Laden’s Holy War. Alain was a Jew, which, in itself, was enough to place him beyond salvation. He owned a business and was, thus, just another greedy exploiter, a corrupt manipulator of bitter economic realities for his own selfish benefit. Except he wasn’t. He wasn’t any of that. He was a kind and generous man who had, for the last ten years, employed Fareed to do work that Fareed loved and found rewarding. It was purposeful, useful work, important work even, work that could eventually benefit all mankind.
Alain Dupré paid Fareed well for his work, and had done so from the start, so that Fareed now had a bank account with a substantial amount of money in it. Alain Dupré, a Jew, had treated Fareed Terzani, a Moslem, better than Fareed had ever seen any Moslem treat any Jew.
From September 11, 2001, onward, doubt was Fareed’s constant companion. Fareed still had his assignment; that had not changed. The words always fight the Holy War rang in his ears. But he could not do it. He could not intentionally harm other people. He could not take research that could heal people and turn it around so that it would harm people. He could not. His doubt would not let him.
When he met Natalie, doubt became anchored permanently in his soul. He found that he could not admit the love he felt for her into his heart and, at the same time, admit the rage. They simply could not coexist. He felt tender toward Natalie. She was small and delicate and naïve. That was what astonished him most and what he loved best. She was naïve. She believed in the goodness of people. She believed in his goodness. Imagine that. His goodness.
Fareed had forgotten all about his own goodness. Natalie was so relentlessly kind to him, so patient with his dark moods and unexplained anguish, that she banished the rage and anchored the doubt forever. Louis Morgon would have said—maybe he did say it when he and Fareed finally met—doubt was salvation. Certainty was evil. Only doubt could save you.
The desperation arrived in Fareed’s life the day Louis collapsed sick on his couch in Clichy-sous-Bois. It was not Louis per se. After all, Fareed had never laid eyes on him before. But there it was nevertheless. A dangerous stranger had found his way into Fareed’s apartment by feigning illness. There could be no question about that. Louis was sent by Osama bin Laden to deal, once and for all, with Fareed Terzani, the reluctant, the doubting Holy Warrior, the traitor, the turncoat. The Holy War could not countenance doubt.
“I have to leave you,” said Fareed. “I have to go away. He has come to kill me.”
“What?!” said Natalie. “Why would he want to kill you?” She had never seen Fareed like this.
“You don’t understand,” said Fareed.
“No, I don’t,” said Natalie. “Why would he want to…?” She tried to take Fareed’s hand, but he pulled it away. “You’re frightening me,” she said. “Tell me what it is.”
“The year I was in Tunis …,” he began.
“The year you were in Tunis?” Natalie tried to help him along.
“The year I was in Tunis,” he tried again and stopped. “It made sense somehow,” he said, “until I saw all those people on television.” Natalie took his hand, and this time he let her. “The year I was in Tunis, I was not in Tunis,” he said. Over the next hour, he told her the whole story. Natalie was astonished and appalled. But she was also relieved to discover the horrible truth behind Fareed’s dark moods. And she loved him all the more, not because of his evil intentions, but because of the anguish those intentions had caused him.
“That is why I have to leave,” he said.
“But how do you know who he is?” said Natalie.
“Who else could he be?” said Fareed. “Only jihadists know who I am, where I am. He must be one.”
“Maybe he is just an old man who got sick on the stairs.”
“He came back.”
“Can’t you just quit? Just give it all up? You just said it was up to you to organize your own action.”
Fareed held his head between his hands. “Eventually an action must be organized. You can’t just quit. It doesn’t work that way.” And Natalie and Fareed proceded to have more or less the same discussion Louis and Pauline had had after Peter Sanchez had showed up. “It doesn’t work that way.” “The world isn’t as you wish it were.” And so on.
“What about me?” said Natalie. “What about us?”
“This changes everything,” said Fareed. “I can’t ask you … I can’t ask you to just…”
“You don’t have to ask anything. This changes nothing,” said Natalie. “At least nothing important. If you’re going, I’m going with you.”
“Your job…”
“I’m a waitress,” said Natalie. “I’m going with you to … where?”
“Newark,” said Fareed.
XI
When it came to concealment and subterfuge, Fareed was an innocent. Such things had never been part of his training in Afghanistan. He called his cousin in Newark to see whether he and Natalie could stay with them for a while. He called the Intex labs in Newark and arranged to come do research there. They knew of him from MicroBio and were happy to help expedite a visa for someone with his skills.
Fareed knew, of course, that the telephone calls, the expedited application, the record, including videotape, of him picking up the visa, all of it would be in the American computers. But, rightly or wrongly, he was not worried about the Americans, never having done anything to attract their attention. He was worried about the al Qaeda assassin, the old man with unruly white hair who called himself Louis Morgon and who was coming to kill him.
Fareed and Natalie waited in line in the customs building at John F. Kennedy International Airport. A customs official scanned his passport. It was the clean one that showed nothing of his having been in Tunisia or Pakistan. The official pointed to the camera and Fareed and then Natalie gazed up into it. Fareed’s cousin, Lillian—actually she was his mother Fatima’s cousin—was waiting in the crowded reception area. Fareed did not see her right away, but she saw him.
“Yoo-hoo!” Lillian was tall and wide. She had Fatima’s gray eyes and round cheeks, and a voice like a full brass band. “Yoo-hoo! Fareed!” she hollered. Fareed looked around in consternation. His surreptitious departure from Paris had been compromised to begin with, and now it was on the verge of becoming a matter of public record. “Come here, you,” said Lillian, and enveloped Fareed in a big, bosomy embrace. “Oh, I would have recognized you anywhere. And Natalie? Look at you, you sweet thing. Come here, sugar, and give Aunt Lillian a hug.” All of this came out in a musical mixture of French, Arabic, and American.
“Say hello to Bobby,” said Lillian, pushing Fareed and Bobby toward one another.
Bobby was dark brown and even larger than Lillian. His head was shaved. He wore sunglasses, a Fu Manchu mustache, and a gold stud in one ear. He looked ferocious, until he smiled. Then his face lit up like the sun. “Hey, Fareed, how are you doing?” He gave Fareed a complicated in and out, back and forth handshake that Fareed found difficult to follow. “Hey, Natalie.” He pronounced it Natly. Her hand disappeared into his enormous paw. “Give me those suitcases,” he said, “and let’s go home.”
“Let’s go through the city, Bobby. Give them the fifty-cent tour,” said Lillian.
“Through Flatbush, over the Brooklyn Bridge, the Holland Tunnel?” said Bobby.
“Perfect,” said Lillian.
Fareed and Natalie rode in the enormous backseat of Bobby’s ancient Cadillac, their heads swiveling this way and that, as they passed through the wonders that were New York.
“There’s where the World Trade Center was,” said Lillian.
Cars crowded from ten lanes into two and squeezed through the Holland Tunnel, fanning out in different directions on the other side.
“Statue of Liberty,” said Bobby and pointed.
“Newark,” he said as they left the New Jersey Turnpike.
Bobby and Lillian lived in half of a small duplex on Keyser Street in the city’s First Ward. Keyser Street was two blocks long and tucked between the abandoned Bergen Industrial Canal and the Filipo Testaverde Public Housing project. It was a mix of single families and duplexes and assorted small businesses. There was a muffler shop next door, and farther down the street were a used furniture shop, Louie’s Pizza, a video rental place, Mimi’s Hair and Nails, and a liquor store.
Bobby parked by the fire hydrant in front of the house. “Go on in,” said Lillian. She held open the gate of the cyclone fence. A large black and white dog came bounding around the side of the house. “That’s Junior. He won’t hurt you. Stay down, Junior!” Junior jumped up on Fareed. “Stay down, Junior,” said Lillian.
“I’m gonna kick your ass, Junior,” said Bobby. Junior jumped up on Bobby, and Bobby smiled his radiant smile.
“This was Felicia’s room,” said Lillian. “My youngest. She’s up in Patterson. The bed’s a little small. You stay as long as you want. Are you kids hungry?”
Lillian didn’t wait for an answer. “Bobby!” she hollered. “Go down to Louie’s and get a couple of pies.”
Bobby hollered back, “What do you want on them, hon?”
“Double cheese. Bacon. The usual,” said Lillian. “And get some Pepsi.”
They sat at the kitchen table eating great slices of pizza and drinking Pepsi-Cola.
“It’s good,” said Fareed.
“It’s good,” said Natalie.
Lillian saw the exhaustion in their faces. “It’s a long way from Tunis,” she said in Arabic. “I’ve been here twenty-five years now. The first six months I hated it. Now I love it. It’s not like Tunis. It’s certainly not like Paris. But do you know what? Nobody cares what color you are, where you’re from, what language you speak. Most people treat you decently.” She switched to English. “Am I right, Bobby?”
“What’s that, sugar?”
“Nobody cares what color you are.”
“As long as your money’s green,” said Bobby, and grinned.
The Intex Laboratory was just off Orange Avenue and on the way to Newark airport’s long-term parking, where Bobby worked. Bobby pulled into the Intex parking lot. “Here we are,” he said. “That door sticks, Fareed. Just give it a kick.”
Fareed watched the big Cadillac disappear down the street. Intex was in a windowless brick building. You pressed a buzzer to be admitted. Fareed buzzed and waited. The door buzzed, and the lock clicked open. He stepped inside.
“Yes?” said the receptionist.
“I am Fareed Terzani. I am a researcher. I called two days ago.”
“Oh, yes,” said the receptionist. She was chewing gum. “Have a seat. Mr. Blumenthal is on the phone. He’ll be right with you.” She stopped chewing long enough to take a sip from a soda can.
“Please come in,” said Mr. Blumenthal.
Fareed sat down facing Mr. Blumenthal. “We’re very pleased that you want to do research with us, Mr. Terzani. Mr. Dupré has spoken very highly—”
“You have spoken with Mr. Dupré?” said Fareed.
“Well, of course,” said Mr. Blumenthal. “He has always spoken very highly of you. And he seemed very glad—and relieved—to know that you were coming to work with us.”
“But he cannot know I am here,” said Fareed. “He must not…”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” said Mr. Blumenthal. “When you called to say you were coming, I called him—”
“But I asked you not to call him…”
“I couldn’t very well take you on, even temporarily, without knowing that you had left MicroBio on good terms.”
“But I told you.”
“I know, Fareed, but I had to check.”
“I’m sorry, but I cannot work here. I cannot stay.” Fareed jumped up and ran from the office. He ran across the parking lot and back up Orange Avenue in the direction of Keyser Street.
“He just bolted,” said Arthur Blumenthal. He had telephoned Alain Dupré. “Is Fareed in some sort of trouble?”
“I think he must be,” said Alain.
“What kind of trouble?” said Arthur Blumenthal. “When I said you knew he was here, he gave me a look like the devil was right behind him.”
As far as Fareed was concerned, the devil was right behind him. “Are you in trouble, sweetie?” said Lillian after Fareed found his way back to Keyser Street.
Fareed did not answer but merely looked at the floor. “You have to tell them,” said Natalie. “They will understand.”
“They won’t understand,” said Fareed. “And even if they did, they could not help me. What could they do?”
“Talk to me, Fareed,” said Lillian. Bobby was home from work. They were having supper. “If you’re in trouble, boy, which you obviously are, then we’ve got to know.”
“I can’t tell you,” said Fareed.
“Listen, Fareed,” said Bobby. “You have to tell us. Or you have to move on.”
“Bobby,” said Lillian, but Bobby held up a huge hand. “No, sugar. We’ve got a right to know what we’ve gotten ourselves into. I haven’t been mixed up in anything since I was a kid. I’m not going to get in trouble now, after all this time. So listen, Fareed. If you’re in some kind of trouble, that’s cool. We can live with that. We can understand. We can even help you work it out. But you have to level with us so we know what we’re up against.”
“Please, Fareed,” said Natalie. “Tell them. They are good people.”
Fareed looked at the three of them—Natalie, Lillian, Bobby. They waited. What choice did he have? He told them everything. He told them about training in Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden.
“Damn!” said Bobby. “Holy shit!” He and Lillian looked at each other.
Fareed told them about watching the towers burn and fall and how it changed everything for him.
“Uh-huh,” said Lillian. “I know about that.”
“But you can’t quit al Qaeda, can you?” said Bobby. “It’s like the Crips and Bloods. Once you’re in, it isn’t easy to quit.”
“No, you can’t quit,” said Fareed. “And now they have sent somebody to kill me.”
“And they know where you are?” said Lillian. “Oh, Lord have mercy.”
“No, no,” said Fareed. “They know I came to Newark, because Mr. Blumenthal talked to Mr. Dupré. But if I don’t go near Intex, they don’t know where to look. I told nobody I was coming to you.”
“Nobody?”
“Nobody.”
“Bobby?” Lillian looked at Bobby.
Bobby sat with a scowl on his face. He was chewing on his lower lip. His mustache twitched. His enormous arms were folded across his chest.
“Bobby?”
“I’m thinking, sugar.”
The four sat in silence while Bobby thought. Their food sat half eaten and forgotten on the plates in front of them.
“You know anybody else here? In the U.S.?” said Bobby.
“No.”
“You got any other contacts?”
Fareed looked at his hands. “I have some phone numbers. In New York City.”
