Jillian Abbott's - Queens Noir

Azis had given Ramzi absolution when he first warned him this would happen. They had prayed together. In the end, Ramzi grew too ashamed to face Azis. Perhaps God would forgive him. After all, he had submitted to serve Allah. But Beryl would go to Hell.

He feared telling Azis the worst. This abomination had given him the most intense pleasure of his life, while the shame crushed him. How could he ever speak with a decent Muslim woman again? Azis’s dispensation meant nothing. He was tainted, dirty, and the shame of it would never leave him.

“It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?” Beryl said.

He turned his face toward hers and hoped his anguish didn’t show. “Not compared to you.”

“Flatterer.”

“Truthteller.”

“You are free next Sunday, right? There’s no reason to miss my mother’s party. You’ll enjoy it, it’s a fundraiser for the Jewish orphans of Kazakhstan. That’s your part of the world.”

Ramzi didn’t bother to hide his annoyance. “Oh yes, Pakistani Muslims and Kazakh Jews, we are almost brothers. And clearly we all look the same to the Jews of Scarsdale, New York.” He had bolted upright, his muscles tense and his neck throbbing.

“Oh Ramzi, this is America, that sort of thing doesn’t matter. Besides, the only religion I’ve seen you practice is the same one I do — lapsed. Lapsed Jew, lapsed Muslim, what’s the difference?”

Ramzi had no retort. In truth, he could not be bothered to find one.

“She wants to raise money to bring the orphans here for six months to get the medical help they need and to learn English, math, and Hebrew so they might get a better start in Israel. My mother’s getting on. She thought maybe you could teach them. We both could. Maybe we could move in with her and look after her and teach the Kazakh children. You speak Aramaic.”

“How do you know I speak Aramaic?”

“You told me, remember? The first day at school when you were lost and I told you some of our students were from central Asia.”

He’d forgotten. What other lapses was he guilty of? It was all too much for him. Great levivot and off tapuzim to die for was one thing, but no amount of knish was sufficient to entice him to embrace the Jews, except for Beryl, of course. Then Ramzi had the merest glimmer of a thought.

“All right already,” he said, taking pride in his mastery of New York speak, “I’ll come to the party. But only if you let me take your picture.”

Beryl laughed good-naturedly.

“Stand here,” he said, positioning her so that his shots would take in the undercarriage of the bridge.

While she fussed and clucked over her hair, he took a dozen photos, from all angles. Beryl wasn’t in half of them.

As Ramzi walked home on Liberty Avenue that same evening, he spied standing in a doorway the same man he’d recognized so many weeks ago at the paan sellers. As their eyes met, the man left the cover of the storefront and slowly approached, his right hand inside his overcoat even though it was much too warm to be dressed that way.

The man was called Mohammed, Ramzi recalled in a flash. He had been foolish and naïve to think he could avoid Azis. He would not get away that easily. The best he could hope for was that Mohammed had come to question his absence from the mosque. Mohammed’s expression gave Ramzi little reason to hope for the best. If he made a run for it now, he would die. He would never see Beryl again. Then he admitted the truth to himself: He had abandoned jihad. He was a changed man, an infidel, a fornicator. He wanted to live.

“There is no God but Allah. Praise be to Allah,” Ramzi said in greeting.

“The true believers are those only who believe in Allah and His messenger and afterward doubt not, but strive with their wealth and their lives for the cause of Allah. Such are the sincere,” Mohammed said, closing the distance between them.

Ramzi knew the quote from the Qur’an, and the guilt it produced in him squeezed his chest like a vice. At first he thought to reply: Allah, most gracious, most merciful , but that implied a certain culpability, and so instead he said, “Allah is all-knowing, all-aware.”

He approached Mohammed, careful to keep his movements steady and nonthreatening.

Mohammed’s face flashed uncertainty, and taking advantage of this brief moment, Ramzi added, “I have taken a woman.” His tone meant to convey that this explained everything.

“A Jew,” Mohammed said, his mouth pulled tight with contempt.

“A whore,” Ramzi agreed, although it pained him to speak the words. “A controlling She-Devil to whom I must account for my every movement. And yet, Azis knows the value of the hussy and encouraged me to take her.”

“No man cowers before a woman. What have you become?” Mohammed’s small eyes narrowed to slits and his glare felt like a laser beam slicing into Ramzi. He moved toward Ramzi.

“I serve Allah through jihad. That is who I am,” Ramzi said, standing very still. He hung his head as if the shame of his dalliance with Beryl was tangible weight.

“You are a favorite with Azis. I have seen him have a man killed for less than what you have done. I would be happy to oblige my imam should he change his mind. You are expected at the mosque tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. Fail to come and I will be given my chance.” He took two more steps toward Ramzi, meeting him head on, then sidestepped and walked past.

When Ramzi was sure Mohammed had gone, he headed up the stairs to his apartment. As he put keys to the lock, he caught the end of a message being recorded on his answering machine. “ I know you’re probably tired but I’ve got to run a bunch of chairs and plates and flatware over to my mother’s. You wouldn’t help, would you? I could really use you.”

Ramzi dashed into the apartment and grabbed the phone. Life was mysterious, and he, merely a fallen leaf tossed and blown on the wind. “Beryl, my love, of course I will. And why don’t we visit awhile?”

Had it really been six months since his meeting with Mohammed? The first class of Kazakh orphans were about to graduate. As they fed the pet rabbits and turtles kept at the school behind the Chabad, he realized he’d grown quite fond of them, and was sad to think they’d soon be leaving for Israel. What a pleasure to teach children so hungry to learn.

He glanced up as Beryl entered the classroom. She leaned against the blackboard beside him and smiled at the children. He wanted to slide his arm around her but knew he couldn’t do that in front of the orphans. He stroked his beard. He’d been surprised by how quickly it had grown in. He’d dyed all of his hair silver, making him look at least fifteen years older than he was. This may be America, but he still equated age with wisdom, and was happy to think of himself as growing wise.

“Almost done?” Beryl asked.

He nodded.

“Good. Mom’s cooking up a storm. She loves you... almost as much as I do.”

Ramzi’s world had shrunk in the relocation. He felt safe here, and he kept to the neighborhood. He walked each day from Beryl’s mother’s house, which was now his home, to the Chabad and back, occasionally stopping at the local deli to pick something up for the evening meal. Except perhaps for the paan , he didn’t miss his old life at all. Beryl was due to move in with him when school ended in June, and he looked forward to that.

It was Hanukkah and the menorah would be lit tonight. As with many converts, the rituals of Judaism seemed to have more meaning for him than for those who’d practiced from birth. Most of all, he was looking forward to Gloria’s (he had begun calling Beryl’s mom by her first name) famous levivot and applesauce.