Amsterdam 2012 (7 page)

My father’s name was Arthur G.
Aulis
.
 
He was an accountant with his own practice that specialized in small businesses and international money management.
 
He was born and raised a liberal democrat, but he was conservative when it came to businesses and individuals conserving their assets.
 
He was brilliant at it.
 
He didn’t make his clients into millionaires overnight, but they all saw steady growth in their personal wealth.
 
He made sure they understood what he was doing with their money and all of the ramifications.
 
In short, my dad was someone people trusted.
 
He enjoyed a joke, but never made one himself.
 
He hardly ever cracked a smile.
 
I wondered if it wasn’t because he had bad teeth as a young man and didn’t get them fixed until he was a successful businessman.
 
To relax he painted meticulous watercolors, which Mother spirited away to the framing shop and hung on our walls.
 
He wrote poetry, too.

My mother was a high-energy leftover hippy type common in California.
 
Beside her job as a psychiatric counselor for troubled teens, she was active in environmental causes, animal rights, Save the Bay, homeless rights, organic vegetable rights.
 
If anyone needed help, they called her.
 
She wasn’t ditzy but pragmatic, though she had blond curly hair and wore dirndl skirts and sandals.
 
Think
Mama Mia
.
 
Even as a child I knew she was eccentric, so by the time I was a teenager, I wasn’t as thoroughly embarrassed by her as one might expect—she was a relief from the super successful Armani-armored moms of LA.
 
I never once heard her talk about real estate.

My sister, Cynthia, was thirteen, a sensitive girl,
not
brilliant, but sweet and very pretty.
 
Everyone in the family adored her and tried to protect her.
 
I suppose we all sensed the world could easily crush her.

The ride from the airport was excruciating.
 
My father insisted on taking Lincoln Boulevard, the most direct route, but it was stop go, stop go, backed up for several light changes through Marina del
Rey
.
 
I began to feel more and more angry, impatience coiling tightly in my chest.
 
I stared out the window, glancing only once at Cynthia who smiled beside me, obviously eager to hear my stories, which made me feel even more annoyed.
 
I felt trapped, a captive, a runaway princess dragged home to be locked up and punished.
 
It all seemed so unfair.
 
What made it worse was I felt guilty for acting so childishly—for hurting my parents and Cynthia—which made me angry for not controlling my temper.
  

That night after dinner, we all sat in the living room and watched CNN news, something we almost never did together.
 
I was surprised to see Cynthia sitting next to my mother.
 
She had never been interested in world events before, preoccupied with her school friends, ballet, and her dreams of saving tigers in India, yet her eyes were riveted to the television.
 
Even my brother, Alex, who had just turned eighteen, joined us.
 
A taciturn fellow, Alex kept to himself and spent as little time at home as possible.
 
It seemed to me he disapproved of us, although he never said anything.
 
He was ridiculously good-looking, but, amazingly in this city where everyone assumes the right to take a stab at stardom, did not want to be an actor.
 
We had been close at one time—a fond combative rivalry—but since I left for college three years ago, we had rarely talked.

The news reported Amsterdam was under martial law.
 
The prime minister had asked for NATO troops to be deployed to assist the Royal Netherlands Army.
 
Eighteen hundred troops had been dispatched from Belgium.
 

The number of dead in the Netherlands had reached 420, mostly Muslims.
 
Hundreds were injured.
 
Over 260 mosques had been burned out of the 400 or so in the country, as well as 30 Islamic schools.
 
Hundreds of Muslim businesses, cemeteries, and schools were vandalized.
 
The international Muslim community was up in arms at the arrests—nearly 10,000—bandying about words such as
Kristallnacht
and
fascism
and
pogrom
.
 
Muslims who weren’t full citizens were being rounded up for questioning.
 
The large Muslim neighborhoods in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht were patrolled by soldiers.
 
The country was not yet in control, with eruptions of violence throughout the land.

The
Jenever
Theater murders, as they were now called, were mentioned in passing, completely overshadowed by the riots.

London was calm, but sporadic fighting continued to break out across France.
 
In Germany, a performance by members of the banned ultra-nationalist rock group
Landser
touched off riots in Berlin, which spread to Hamburg and Cologne.
 
The broadcasters used graphics that showed the riots as small red fires spreading across a map of Europe, the same graphics used when the Santa
Anas
blew hot in September, burning up hundreds of miles of California forest.
 
Europe was like that now, a raging inferno.
   

The broadcast cut to President Elliot
Gladwell
at a news conference.
 
Gladwell
was a tall athletic man with a robust energy and a booming deliberate voice.
 
In the last three and a half years since he was elected, his handsome movie-star face had become a little jowly, his chest thickening, his hair showing white streaks.
 
He was obviously wearing makeup—his face peachy with powder, his lips pink—which made him look oddly unhealthy.
 
“I was elected by the people of the United States to bring our soldiers back from the Middle East.
 
I promised to kill
Osama
bin Laden.
 
We have done this.
 
Our troops remaining in Iraq and Afghanistan are part of the United Nations Peacekeepers.
 
We have a limited presence on the Arabian Peninsula, but our commitments to Israel and to the new democracies of Iraq and Afghanistan remain strong.
 
We will not remain isolationists.”
 
He went on to say the United States was prepared to send financial assistance to Europe, but would deploy no troops at this time.
 
He reassured the American public he did not anticipate sympathy riots in America.
 
When a reporter asked why, President
Gladwell
said, “Unlike in Europe, the American Muslim population has integrated well into our culture.
 
The average Muslim American male earns well above the median, and their unemployment numbers are lower than the national average.
 
As a percentage of the population, their numbers are also far
fewer
than in Europe.
 
We are a country founded on religious tolerance and we will remain so.”

“Will the United States accept Muslim refugees?” asked a second reporter.

“The United States has always opened our doors to those persecuted because of their faith.”

“Jesus,” scoffed Alex, who leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed.
 
“We’re going to let more of them in?
 
Is he nuts?”

“
Shhh
,” hissed mother, jabbing her finger at the television.
 

“Mr. President,” another reporter queried, “if Europe’s response to this crisis violates the human rights of European Muslims, will the United States take any action against our European allies?”

“I cannot comment on speculation.
 
That’s all the questions I can take at this time.
 
Thank you.”

“It sounds like he’s preparing to send troops to the Middle East,” Alex commented.
 
“Why would he do that?
 
The trouble is in Europe.”

My mother turned off the television and looked at Dad.
 
“It can’t be that bad.
 
Can it, Arthur?”
 
He didn’t respond, staring solemnly at the black screen.
 

#

Later Alex stopped by my room as I was unpacking, sorting my dirty clothes into a pile to take to the laundry room.
 
Peter and I had packed in a hurry and I had several of his T-shirts.
 
They smelled of him.
 
I put one over my pillow like a pillowcase.

Alex gave me a crooked and not entirely pleasant smile.
 
“I’m sorry about Peter,” he said, sliding his finger down the molding of the door.
 
“It’s too bad he got mixed up in all this shit.”

“Thanks, Alex, but he’s not mixed up in anything.
 
It’s all a mistake.
 
We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Yeah.
 
Well Europe kind of deserved what they got—letting in all those Muslims.”

“How can you say that?”

“They were greedy, too lazy to raise enough children, too lazy to take factory jobs.
 
Nice and liberal and stupid.
 
They let in cheap labor and now they’re fucked.”

“So you think America should’ve kept Peter’s father out of the United States?”

“I’m not saying that.
 
His father speaks English.
 
He was educated.”

“So we should let upper class Muslims into the country.
 
Just not the poor.”
 
I was really getting pissed off.

“That’s pretty much how it worked out.
 
Germany, England, Holland, and France imported guest workers.
 
We got upper-class escapees from the Ayatollah and Saddam Hussein.”

“You make me sick.”

“Are you sure Peter isn’t involved somehow?”

“You
shithead
!”
 
I vaulted off the bed and dove for Alex.
 
“How can you say such a thing?”

“Hey, don’t get mad at me.”
 
Alex dodged, scooting around the bed.
 
“All I’m saying is maybe you don’t know Peter as well as you
think
you do.
 
Maybe the FBI isn’t stupid.
 
Maybe the FBI doesn’t waste taxpayer’s money for no reason.
 
I like Peter—you know I do—but I never really understood how you could be attracted to him.
 
I mean, Jesus!
 
Islam sucks the big one.
 
Especially if you’re a woman.”

“Alex, leave my room.
 
I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

“Sure, I’ll leave.
 
But you ought to know it’s pretty dumb to be seen around with an Arab.
 
I can’t believe you went to Europe with him.
 
I’m glad he’s not here.
 
I’m glad I don’t have to defend my sister for dating a
raghead
.”

I charged, slapping the side of Alex’s head, kicking his calves, punching his chest.
 
He grabbed my wrists with one hand.
 
As I bit his arm, he shoved me hard with the other.
 
I tripped backward onto the bed.
 
Alex scooted out of the room and slammed the door.
 
I ran to pull it open, but he held fast.
 
Laughing.
 
I tugged and tugged at the knob, banging on the door, yelling at Alex to let me out, until Father came to investigate.
 
He told Alex to let go, and the door with my weight on it flew open and I collapsed on the floor.

“Won’t you two ever grow up?
 
What’s this all about?” Father asked, glancing at the crescent of teeth marks on Alex’s bicep.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Nothing,” Alex said.

Father glared at us.
 
“Fine.
 
Nothing is going on.
 
I’m glad to have a household so full of peace and harmony.
 
If you don’t mind, I’ll go back to meditating.”
 

Alex smirked at me as Father stalked away.
 
“You gonna stay home all summer?
 
I can hardly wait.”
 
He turned and sauntered down the hallway.
 
My teeth itched to sink into his meaty butt.
  

#

The next day after he got home from work, Dad took my hand and led me outside to the garden.
 
He sat me down and told me Peter had been taken to a military prison in South Carolina.
 
“He is being held as an illegal enemy combatant.”