Ali Eteraz - Native Believer

“What is that?”

“A pamphlet,” she said. “It was written by these assholes — Qutb, al-Banna, and Maududi. Mahmoud considers them the trinity of evil. This book created all the bin Laden and Zawahiri types in this world.”

“Well, good thing it’s in the trash then.”

Leila tucked it into her purse. “That could just be for show. I better take it with me. Mahmoud might want to see what kind of literature lives at this mosque.”

“But if it’s in the trash, maybe they really aren’t interested in it.”

“At one point they owned a copy. That is troubling.”

“You’re probably overthinking it.”

“I know Muslims well. I’ve been one all my life. We become quite good at putting on a show.”

We sorted through the rest of the books. They were old guides about the virtues of patience; manuals about Islamic ethics; and commentaries on the Koran. Leila dismissed them and sat back down to wait for the youth.

“I’m a little worried now,” she said.

“Why?”

“This seems like a fundamentalist place. And I’m a Shia. If these guys turn out to be crazies, they’re going to come after me for not wearing a hijab, for not being a Sunni.”

I wanted to tell her that she was panicking for no reason. But her increasing paranoia seemed to cut into my own sense of security as well. By the time the young people had loaded into the room — men on one side and women on the other — I was also looking at them with suspicion. Maybe they were exactly as Leila had alleged. Maybe they were all immoderate and maniacal.

The discussion, though, revealed anything but. The youth were engaged and informed and wanted to know about the internecine and granular theological debates that Muslims in America were having. About women becoming prayer leaders, about the inclusion of homosexuals, about excommunicating the extremists. These were things that Leila was better suited to handle. I let her talk and turned to play with the two-year-old son of a cheerful man in a leather jacket. I barely said a word throughout the presentation.

After the event was over, the men in the room came toward me to ask about my career and other hobbies. They were, almost all of them, in technical and engineering fields, with a few working as businessmen or entrepreneurs.

“I assume things must have been very difficult for you after the towers fell,” the man with the son said to me. “Being a Muslim here, it became an insult.”

I looked around to see where our State Department liaison was. I didn’t see him. I pulled the Spaniard closer to me. “Same with us. Same thing happened. They insult us for being Muslim. I was fired for being a Muslim.”

They seemed intrigued; my confession was something they hadn’t expected to hear.

Leila overheard my comment and came rushing over. She gave me a severe look for veering so far from script. “But you see, what the Muslims in America did is that we started to get involved in the politics and the media of our country. So we couldn’t be excluded. We are not marginalized in any way.”

The mention of media struck a nerve with the men.

“No one in the media wants to hear from us,” said a black-eyed Syrian-Spaniard with an Italian wife in a paisley scarf. “There are no Muslim columnists in any papers.”

“The Left and the Right,” said an immigrant from Jordan. “They just want to beat up on Muslims. We are responsible for all the job losses. We are responsible for all the crime. We are responsible for violence and death.”

“Have you tried writing to the newspapers to complain?”

“We write all the time but they don’t publish us. And the reporters don’t care.”

A frustrated lull hung over the room. The ever-cheerful Leila tried to use words like bridge-building and peace initiatives and networking methods, but no one stirred. I offered no meaningful assistance.

Eventually the little group drifted apart. Leila was pulled back toward the women. The guys, growing disenchanted by the meeting, invited me out to watch a match between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. The only place to go were the pubs. A couple of the establishments didn’t let us in because they were aware that Muslims wouldn’t purchase alcohol. It was almost halftime when a pub finally let us in. Even there the bartender and the patrons gave us dirty looks and had us sit far away from everyone else. We ordered fries and soda. I picked up the tab for all of us. I left a 100 percent tip; it was to bribe respect.

* * *

I ended up spending a couple more days in Spain, mostly just touring the museums or having listless conversations with Leila about what she wanted to do with her life. Her ultimate goal was to be a feminist human rights lawyer who served on war-crimes tribunals and on the side ran an Islamic reform think tank. Mahmoud had agreed to mentor her until she achieved her ends. Placing her in the State Department program was meant to bolster her credentials. She planned on putting a few years in, and then transitioning into an aide role for a senator, where she hoped to offer commentary on foreign policy and the Islamist threat. Then she would hit the lecture circuit and live her life fighting radicalization and fundamentalism.

I had no such long-terms plans. I simply wanted to return to Philadelphia five thousand dollars richer and get back to sorting out my little vicissitudes.

Marie-Anne had been sent to Las Vegas to meet with some of the soldiers who operated the drones out of Nellis. After that she needed to go to the Persian Gulf. I missed her; I had wanted to tell her all about my trip. I also hoped that if she saw that I had a solid gig going, she might become inclined to talk about starting a family. The possibility that Candace might be having my child didn’t make me less inclined to seek the same with Marie-Anne. If anything, it compelled me more, not only to cover up the crime I had perpetrated, but to remind myself that I was serious in my recommitment to Marie-Anne.

I took the alone time to spruce up the condo, to make it more of a home for her. I went and bought a couple of aloe plants to deal with the summer humidity. I got the air-conditioning vent and met with a real estate agent to find out about the financing that we would need in order to purchase the apartment. Later I went to seek out a bespoke tailor on Market Street and had myself measured for a pair of suits. I also got an estimate done for new kitchen counters. There was money in my hand and it had to be spent.

All this time I also kept in touch with Ali Ansari. He told me about the difficult time he’d had in tracking Candace. Not only was she not at her apartment but she also hadn’t been to work. He had made some inquiries with her colleagues at her job and they said she had taken personal days and gone home, without any explanation. She had no family or apparent friends in the area and Ali said that the trail had gone cold.

I told him it would be a good idea for us to meet. I recommended getting together that night at my apartment. But he said he was traveling back from New York and suggested meeting up the next day, at the deli near the Divine Lorraine.

“What took you to New York?” I asked, unaccustomed to him leaving Philadelphia, wondering if perhaps it was something Candace-related.

“Will update you.”

The next day I got to the deli a little before Ali. The sun was out, with egg-shaped clouds passing before it, a smokestack trying hard to touch the sky with its whorls. The owner stood at the door in his stained yellow wifebeater with his hand on his hip and a remote control pointed at the high-definition TV hanging on the wall. A number of young men chatted with one another about a soccer match. I had never much gotten into soccer. It was a game of perpetual motion, a sport for those who wanted to act more and reason less; we preferred our sports with starts and stops, with pauses affording the athlete time to come up with a plan for attack, the way the ultrarational like to play.