The terrorist, p.11
The Terrorist, page 11
“Well, who is it, sweetie?” said Lillian.
“Al Qaeda.”
“Lordy!” Lillian gasped and clasped her hands to her mouth. Bobby’s eyes got wide. “Well, Jesus,” he said. “We don’t want to call them. Jee … sus! Stay away from New York, Fareed.”
“Yes,” said Fareed.
“You know what?” said Bobby. “I’ve got an idea.”
“What’s your idea?” said Lillian.
“Jamal,” said Bobby.
“What about Jamal?” said Lillian. Jamal was Lillian’s eldest.
“Fareed and Natalie can stay with Jamal,” said Bobby.
“Bobby,” said Lillian, “are you crazy? Jamal is a policeman.”
“Exactly,” said Bobby. “Who better than a policeman to protect somebody against al Qaeda?”
“He’s been on the job less than a year,” said Lillian.
“Jamal’s got a legal gun, and he knows how to use it. And he’s got the whole police force behind him. You think if al Qaeda comes looking, they’ll want to fuck with the Newark police?”
“Sweetie …,” said Lillian.
“I’m telling you,” said Bobby. “Listen, we get Fareed a job…”
“A job? A JOB?! Are you crazy?!”
“Now listen to me, honey. Listen to me.” He laid his hand on her shoulder to calm her down. “There’s an opening down at the long-term parking. Freddie’s desperate to find somebody. It doesn’t pay anything, but that doesn’t matter. Money isn’t the issue. I can work it out with Freddie. All Fareed’s got to do is sit there and take people’s money. It takes five minutes to learn. A smart guy like him, two minutes. I can get him hired. I’ll be right nearby if he needs me. You find something for Natalie at Mimi’s Hair and Nails. Then every night they go home to Jamal. And just like that, they’re gone. Out of sight. And safe. Nobody will find them.
“Come on, you two, let’s go see Jamal.” Bobby was already on his feet. “Come on, Fareed. Come on, Natalie.” He turned to Lillian. “You call that boy, sugar, and tell him we’re on our way.”
Jamal lived less than a mile away. He lived alone in a first-floor apartment. He shook hands with Fareed and Natalie. Bobby explained his plan and Jamal listened.
“Who’s after them?” said Jamal.
Bobby explained. Jamal looked Fareed up and down. “Bobby, I’ve been on the force less than a year. This is a big thing, man. He should turn himself in. He’d be safer. They’d put him into protective custody.”
“Jamal,” said Bobby. “You know what kind of protective custody they put Arabs in? No offense, Fareed. You read the papers, Jamal. You watch the news. Guantánamo Bay, that’s protective custody for a cat like Fareed. Anyway, I’m not asking you to do anything but let him and Natalie stay in your back room. It’s not for long. Just until we figure something else out. Nothing’s going to happen. Nobody’s ever going to find them. You won’t have to shoot anybody, Jamal. Relax.”
XII
The Tigers had just beaten the Eagles. Joshua Sanchez had fumbled the ball, and that fumble had cost the Eagles the game. Peter walked with his arm over his son’s shoulder. “It’s a game, Josh,” said Peter. “You did fine. It was a bad snap.”
Josh tried to walk ahead. He wished his father weren’t there. “You don’t understand,” he said.
Peter’s phone rang. He took it from his shirt pocket and looked at the screen. “I’ve got to take this.” Josh was happy he could walk on alone.
“Jesus, Louis, don’t you ever sleep?”
“I need you in Cairo,” said Louis. “I’m ready to start again.”
“Really? How’s your health?”
“Good. Good enough to go to Cairo.”
“Cairo.”
“Abu Massad was only the first name on your list. It led nowhere, so we move down to the next name.”
“There’s no need, Louis. It’s over. We tried to get something going, and it didn’t work. I know you’re thinking you need to find something, to get some leverage to get Zaharia Lefort out. But it isn’t like that. I’m working on it. It’s not that far off.”
“I need you in Cairo,” said Louis. “Same place and time on the tenth.”
“Louis,” said Peter. “It’s futile. It’s ridiculous. It’s not going anywhere. Stay home.” But he was talking to a dial tone.
Anwar and Pauline drove Louis to Saint Leon. Anwar drove back to Paris, but Pauline stayed with Louis. The following morning, Renard rapped lightly on Louis’s door. “Come in,” said Louis. Renard opened the door and tiptoed into the room. He held a pot of violets in front of him like a religious offering.
Louis was sitting on the couch reading. He gave the policeman a puzzled look. “You’re a little early for the wake.”
“These are from Isabelle,” said Renard.
Louis got up and carried the violets to the windowsill. He still leaned on his cane. He moved gingerly. “Should you be up and about?” said Renard.
“The surgery was almost two weeks ago. I should be playing tennis.”
“Didn’t they split you open stem to stern?”
“A couple of one-centimeter openings. They use scopes and robots these days. They hardly need doctors anymore.”
“Let’s have some coffee,” said Renard.
“Tea,” said Louis. He put water on the stove.
“What have you heard from Peter Sanchez?” said Renard.
“I’m sending him to Cairo,” said Louis.
“You’re sending him?”
“I have a peculiar hold on him.” Louis smiled. It was a haggard smile. But it was a smile, and the policeman was glad to see it. “I told him to meet me there.”
“You’re going back to Cairo?”
“No, I’m going to Newark. That’s why I want Sanchez in Cairo. I need to get him out of the way, to give myself elbow room. And then there’s Dimitrius. I don’t quite know what to do about him. Remember, I told you about him following me in Algiers? I think he’s still snooping around and muddying the waters.”
“I thought you liked for the waters to be muddied.”
“I like to do it myself.”
“Why don’t you send him somewhere?”
“What an interesting idea,” said Louis. He smiled again.
“And Newark?”
“Outside New York City, in the state of New Jersey.”
“I know where it is,” said Renard. “I just don’t know what’s there, why you’re going.”
“Neither do I exactly,” said Louis. “I don’t know much of anything.” He counted off the levels of his journey so far on his fingers. “First, Giorgio Smarth—whose connections are dubious at best—led me to Abu Massad. Then Abu Massad—who may or may not know anything—gave me the name of Fareed Terzani—who may or may not know something useful about al Qaeda. In any case, I scared Fareed Terzani, and he fled. To Newark.”
“That’s a lot of maybes.”
Louis went into the bathroom and closed the door. Renard heard him vomiting.
Louis’s recovery had not gone as the doctors would have liked. He was weak. The chemotherapy still caused him to be violently ill. His face had a wan and hollow look.
“You have an infection,” said François. He took his stethoscope from his ears. He had come to Louis’s house. “May I?” he said, and sat down on the chair beside Louis’s bed.
“A pathogen?” said Louis.
François gave him a puzzled look.
“It’s just a word I’ve come across,” said Louis. “How did I get an infection?”
“Probably at the hospital.”
“The hospital?”
“It’s full of sick people,” said François.
“You got me on the medical merry-go-round,” said Louis. “Now get me off.”
“I’m going to put you on a course of antibiotics. One every day, for three weeks.” He reached into his black bag. “Here are a few to get you started.”
“Can I travel?”
François gave Louis a withering look.
“I’ve got an important trip,” said Louis.
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“So you’re a spy again? Do you want to get off the medical merry-go-round, or not?”
“Yes.”
“Then do as I say. Antibiotics for three weeks…”
“A course.”
“And a course of acidophilus at the same time…”
Louis said nothing.
“What, no wisecracks?”
Louis said nothing.
“And rest. Stay home. Walk a little, but don’t overdo it. Mainly rest.”
Louis did as he was told. Pauline saw to that. He took the antibiotics and the acidophilus faithfully. He went to bed early. She often sat in the chair beside his bed until he fell asleep. She watched as he breathed deeply. The covers rose and fell across his chest. He slept deeply, and still his brow was furrowed. He has led a life I can only imagine, she thought. Can I ever know him? What exactly is it that I love?
A few days later, Peter Sanchez called.
Pauline brought the phone to Louis’s bed. “Do you want to talk to him?” she said.
Louis took the phone. “What do you want?” he said.
“Zaharia is being released,” said Peter. “I’ve found him. It will take a few days, but he’ll be released soon.”
Louis said nothing.
“He’s fine,” said Peter. “He hasn’t been tortured.”
“How do you know?” said Louis.
“He’s fine,” said Peter.
“What do you mean by ‘a few days’?” said Louis.
“You know how these things work…”
“And what do you want from me?”
“Nothing,” said Peter. “Your visit to Cairo is unnecessary. Our ‘project’ is done. How are you feeling? How did your surgery go?”
“You don’t know?” said Louis. “You haven’t studied the files?”
“I only know what you told me,” said Peter.
“I’m still going to Cairo,” said Louis.
Peter was silent for a long moment. “You know, Louis,” he said, “it’s good to be suspicious. Especially in our trade. But suspicion can also poison your mind. Some things you know, and other things you don’t know. The trouble is, you can’t always distinguish between what you know and what you don’t know. So, if you want to doubt everything, fine. But if you doubt every thing, then you don’t know any thing.”
“I’m still going to Cairo,” said Louis. “I’ll see you on the tenth.”
“I’ll call you again when I know more about Zaharia’s release,” said Peter. He hung up the phone. He sat at his desk looking out at the bare, black trees. A few snowflakes were falling, the first of the winter. He went out to his assistant’s office. “Book me a flight for Cairo on the eighth. Make the return open-ended. And get me a suite at the Ramses.”
“What should I say if anyone asks?” said the assistant.
“Don’t say anything to anyone,” said Peter.
“Louis Morgon?” said the assistant.
“Nothing to anyone,” said Peter. He went into his office and closed the door.
The day was sunny and cold. Louis took a walk. He left his stick at home. He walked between Pauline and Renard. Walking felt wonderful. He felt the urge to keep putting one foot in front of the other until the end of time. He linked his arms through Renard’s and Pauline’s. His cheeks got pink, and his skin tingled. Still, he got tired after a half hour. He took his breath in deep gulps. “Let’s go back,” he said.
“Do you believe Peter Sanchez?” said Renard.
“I don’t know,” said Louis.
“Why would he lie about Zaharia being released?” said Renard. “What does he possibly gain from that?”
Louis stopped walking. They were on a little bridge that crossed the Dême. He leaned on the iron railing and peered into the stream. Ice was forming along the bank. The water gurgled as it passed under the ice. It caused the daggerlike ice crystals to glisten and shimmer. Once in a while, a little silver dagger would break off and tumble downstream. “Sanchez gave me a little lecture about how suspicion can destroy me. He’s right. It can. Maybe it already has. But I’m still suspicious.” He smiled. “I have to ask myself, why that particular lecture at this particular moment?”
“Maybe he’s concerned,” said Renard.
“Maybe he likes you,” said Pauline.
“I certainly hope I haven’t given him any reason to like me.” All three laughed.
“You know,” said Louis, “I’ve never been an interrogator. But I’ve watched it being done. All the while Sanchez was talking, I kept thinking about how, when fear isn’t working for an interrogator, they’ll try hope. Something like, ‘Good news, Renard, your release papers are in the works. Here they are. See? In just a few days, you’ll be back home in Saint Leon with Isabelle.’” Louis pushed an imaginary paper across an imaginary table. Renard stared at the space between Louis’s hands.
“‘There’s just one small bit of information we still need from you, the smallest detail really…’ That’s what Sanchez’s news felt like to me. It gave my heart a little flutter of hope. That sort of hope, expertly delivered, can break a prisoner better than almost anything. It reminds him of everything he is missing. How everything he once had is gone. How his life is essentially over. How he only has to do one little thing, and he can have it all back.”
Imprisonment is a physical state and a state of mind. The physical part of prison is unambiguous and clear. It amounts to a concrete cubicle. The mental part is labyrinthine and deep, and has impenetrable layers. Every prisoner becomes a student of his own imprisonment. He cannot avoid it. His imprisonment is with him night and day. He observes his own spirit, his soul, his physical body as they are diminished by the experience.
Zaharia was no exception, although, being barely out of childhood, his study of his situation was entirely intuitive and scattered. Its truths came like a sudden revelation without context or meaning.
Disbelief is almost always the first stage of imprisonment. Zaharia overcame his disbelief quickly. It did not amount to much. Perhaps his difficult childhood had prepared him to accept sudden waking nightmares as part of the everyday.
His disbelief was soon replaced by the persistent and undeniable reality of his three-meter-by-three-meter cell, of bad and meager food, of discomfort, of isolation, of torture, of loneliness. This was his new life, and he took careful inventory of it. He could do this, in part, because he was so young.
Next, Zaharia entertained the hopeful thoughts that everyone wrongly imprisoned entertains. It is all a mistake. Someone will come and release me. It can’t last much longer. This phase also passed quickly. Logically, from Zaharia’s point of view, there was really no reason to believe that his lot would improve. He banished the idea from his thoughts. The here and now was sufficiently enormous to last forever. If you waited for things to get better, you were courting insanity.
The trick, Zaharia decided, was to empty his mind of all expectations. Forget the passage of time altogether. Obliterate time. Let the hours pass into days. Let the days pass into weeks. Let the weeks pass into months. Let the months pass into years, if it came to that.
Even in a place without clocks or windows, and where the light was always on, forgetting time was not an easy thing to do. He would sit on the hard edge of his bed with his eyes closed and try to shut out all sensation—the stench of the slop bucket, the rotten straw, the taste of his teeth and gums, the burning flea bites—everything.
The trouble was that just beyond hope lay despair. And despair was different from hope. Despair arrived of its own accord, like an independent being. How had it arrived? One day it was just there. It lived in him, around him, on him. It gnawed at his spirit like an animal. And only a razor-thin sliver of blessed emptiness lay, like a no-man’s-land, just beyond hope and just this side of despair. Zaharia embarked on a search for that sliver of territory.
Sometimes when the guards peered into his cell, they saw him standing on one foot with his eyes closed. He stood that way as long as they watched. Back in the barracks the guards would try it, but they couldn’t do it for more than a few seconds without losing their balance.
Other times they saw him having an animated conversation with imaginary characters. One character he gave a low, menacing voice, the other a high and innocent one. When they saw him like that, the guards thought of their own children making up stories and acting them out. In those moments, Zaharia seemed most like the boy he was. Zaharia spoke excitedly and even laughed. He gestured to the characters who were seated beside him. He asked them questions and answered for them.
“And if you get out?”
“Even if they throw the doors wide open, I’m not leaving,” said the deep, menacing voice. “I will always live here. I love it here.” He gave a villainous laugh. This was Zaharia’s voice of despair.
“But think of all the good things you’re missing,” he said in a high, almost silly voice. This was his version of the voice of hope.
“He’s going crazy,” said the guard to his sergeant. But Zaharia wasn’t exactly going crazy. He was trying to put hope and despair in their proper place by making them characters in a bedtime story and thus rendering them as harmless as he was able. He was determined to do the same thing with whatever demons entered his cell. And he almost succeeded.
Zaharia’s interrogation had slowed down, so that sometimes three or four days passed without his being called. Then, when he was finally called, it almost made him glad. He was glad when the guards entered his cell, when he was taken to the showers once a week and hosed off. Just to be around other humans. The torture had also mostly stopped, and when it happened, it seemed halfhearted. Zaharia wished he had something to tell them.
After he had been imprisoned for nearly a month by his reckoning—six weeks in actual fact—a new interrogator was put in charge. The man from Texas was gone. The same two torturers stood behind the new interrogator. They were always there, whether there was torture or not. There was a lot of water on the floor around the toilet, which Zaharia took as a sign that the interrogation today would be forceful.
