Exile: a novel (73 page)

“I’ve only known that I’m a father for two hours. But now I can put a price on all I’ve given up for you: Munira’s life. No father would leave this girl to Saeb Khalid.”

The only sign that Hana heard him was her stillness. After a time, she uncovered her face in what seemed to be an act of will. “Tell me what it is you want.”

“For you to testify in your own defense. Not as the angry Palestinian woman I saw fencing with the FBI but as the one I’m seeing now. And then I want you to sit back and watch me trade your life for Saeb’s.”

“Even if you think I’m the handler. Even if you think that Saeb blackmailed me into helping murder Amos Ben-Aron.”

“Even so,” David answered. “Ben-Aron’s dead. Munira’s still alive.”

Hana watched his face. “I’m sorry, David. I know what I’ve done to you. To be a parent changes everything.”

David let her apology go unanswered. “You’ve got eighteen hours,” he said. “Then you have to choose between Munira’s feelings and her life. I’m
going to spend that time reflecting on the only thing about this maze of lies I know for sure: that Munira is my daughter.”

As though in a trance, David returned to his office, coping with details that could not wait, striving to clear the mental space to absorb the fact that, elsewhere in this city, a girl who was part of him lived frightened and alone.

David heard a soft rap on his door. Expecting Angel, he called out sharply, “What is it?” When the door opened, he saw that his visitor was Carole Shorr.

Tentative, she stopped in the doorway, eyes filled with uncertainty. “I was afraid to call,” she said.

David touched the bridge of his nose, and then looked up at her. “You could have,” he said gently. “I’d never refuse to see you. It’s just that this isn’t a good day for it.”

She stood there, unsure of whether to stay or go. “I’ve been following the trial. All I wanted to say is that I understand a little better. Maybe when the case is over, we could talk about whether that matters to us.”

The word “us” told David more than anything else she could say. He did not know how to respond; all he could feel at this moment was the need for a friend, a way to share his burden. Softly, Carole said, “I’ve never seen you look this tired.”

Perhaps it was the simple word of kindness; perhaps it was the memory of days and nights when Carole was his closest friend, when they talked and listened and planned and argued, each believing, at least hoping, that the only end to their life together would come in their old age. Whatever the cause, David felt the rush of dammed emotions he could no longer quite control. “I’m more than tired, Carole. I feel like my life has been turned inside out, that I’ve completely lost my balance. You know me—I always felt I was prepared for anything, and could deal with whatever life threw at me. No more.”

Carole tried to smile. “Then maybe it’s good I came.”

David heard a familiar note in her voice, Carole as source of comfort and advice. “If anyone could fix this,” he said, “you could. But no one can.”

“I could try.”

David shook his head. “It’s more complicated than you can ever know. And I can’t tell you why, because it involves lives other than yours or mine.”

Carole shook her head, bemusement combining with persistence. “Please, David. I tried to walk away from you. But I’m finding that I never did, not in my heart. Give me the chance to help you. Please don’t shut me out.”

“I don’t
want
to,” David burst out. “You can’t know how much I’d like
to talk with you, and how much I don’t want to seem like someone who never loved you. Because that’s just not true. But what’s happened to me is something I can’t share with anyone. Because an innocent person could suffer, or worse than suffer. And I can’t burden either one of us with that.”

Carole watched his face. “Is this about Hana Arif? Please, tell me.”

David exhaled. “Hana, and much more than Hana. It’s also about me.”

Carole stared back at him, and the blood seemed to leave her face. “You still love her, don’t you?”

David shook his head. “It’s not just about love, or who I love. I can’t say any more than that.”

Carole looked away. After a time, she said, “Once I thought we were the essence of each other’s life. But you don’t have a life to give me. Whatever happens, you’ve given it to her. I could never be more than a substitute for Hana, standing with my nose pressed against the glass.” Abruptly, she stood, speaking in a despondent rush. “I’m sorry, but I have to leave now. I have to take my own life back.”

She hurried to the door, as if to make it outside before she fell apart. Then she was gone, the door ajar behind her, and all that remained was the rapid click of her heels on the marble floor.

Hana’s husband stared at him, making no move to step aside. “What is it?”

“I came to see Munira. And you.”

An emotion akin to irritation, but more edgy, crossed Saeb’s face. “Without calling?”

“Hana wants me to talk with her daughter. I was on my way home, and I realized that this is my window of opportunity.”

Saeb’s eyes hardened. “I lack your sense of urgency. It is not as if Munira’s leaving. As you know, we are prisoners of your government.”

“Munira’s certainly a prisoner. And I’m still standing in the hallway.” David kept his voice quiet. “You and I have some things to settle. As for Munira, if you want Hana to get an order giving her lawyer access to her daughter, I’ll be back. Or we can just talk now.”

A smile of disdain, summoned with apparent effort, flashed and vanished on Saeb’s face. “Such theatrics. But I suppose you’re tired.”

Grudgingly, Saeb admitted him. Glancing about the starkliving room, David looked for Munira and saw no one. He took a chair without invitation.

Saeb hesitated, then sat on the edge of the couch across from him. “Hana will be testifying,” David said bluntly. “I want Munira to be there. Professing maternal devotion to a girl the jurors have never seen is no longer an option.”

Saeb shook his head. “This is too much stress for her.”

“More than a dead mother? I don’t see Munira as quite so fragile.”

Saeb gave David a long, appraising look. “And if I refuse?”

“I already told you.” David still spoke quietly. “I’m not here to ask your permission. I came to take Munira to dinner and tell her what to expect. Alone.”

The corners of Saeb’s eyes narrowed slightly, as though he was sensing a change in the balance between them. “Hana’s on trial. Her needs are paramount, I agree. But it is not for her lawyer to bark orders at me about our daughter.”

David inclined his head toward the bedrooms. “I count three doors in that hallway. You can make me open them all, or you can get Munira yourself. I’ve got no more time to spend with you.”

Saeb hesitated and then smiled, a belated effort to evince superiority. “As I said, such theatrics. But soon this will be over, and you and I will part company, as will you and Munira. So enjoy your little moment of transitory power.”

Stiffly, Saeb stood, walking past David to the hallway. David did not look over his shoulder; he heard Saeb, speaking in Arabic, then the light voice of his daughter. Only when a door opened did David turn.

Munira stood beside Saeb, glancing in confusion at David, still a girl at the beginning of her emergence into womanhood. But the alteration David saw in her was more than the passage of weeks, and it was all he could do not to show this on his face. With a penetrant gaze, Saeb looked from Munira to David. “I’ve explained to Munira why you’ve come,” Saeb said. “So take her. You and I will discuss this later.”

Side by side, they walked five blocks to the Elite Café, where David could secure a private booth—a lawyer in his business suit, an Arab girl in a dark head scarf and
abaya.
Recognizing David, the hostess ushered them to a table, with a curious look at Munira.

The girl sat across from him, carefully rearranging the folds of her clothing with graceful fingers. “You came to talk about my mother,” Munira said worriedly. “Is she all right?”

David nodded, clinging to his role as lawyer. “She’s testifying soon. I know, and you know, how important you are to her. I’d like the jurors to see for themselves how important
she
is to
you
.”

Munira looked at him from beneath dark lashes. “You wish me to be in court?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will be, no matter what he says. I could not stand to lose her.”

She spoke the words with such intensity that David’s heart went out to her. David imagined her sleepless nights and anxious days, cocooned from the world in a place that held nothing of her own, not even the person David was now certain Munira loved most. “Good,” he said. “That will really help her.”

Munira nodded gravely. Their waiter came, dispensing menus. “Take a look,” David suggested. “You could probably use something to eat.”

As Munira considered the Cajun offerings of the menu, David studied her without embarrassment. A few moments of this changed his earlier assessment: she
would
be beautiful, he decided, merely in a different way from Hana, the lines of her face stronger and more chiseled, her eyes less limpid but flashing with intelligence. Still scanning the menu, Munira put a curled middle finger to her lips and rested her index finger on her cheek, and David knew at once where this mannerism had come from. It was his mother, to the life.

David felt as if his heart had skipped a beat.
You’re my daughter,
he wanted to say.
Don’t you feel it?
Looking up at him, Munira asked, “What is blackened catfish?”

David managed to smile. “I’m not sure you want to know, Munira. How do you feel about spicy seafood?”

He knew nothing, of course, about what his daughter liked or disliked—except, perhaps, Jews. “At home,” Munira informed him, “we eat many spicy things.”

“Then maybe you should try the gumbo.”

Taking their order, the waitress bought David coffee. Munira gazed at the porcelain cup in front of him. “Whenever I see a coffee cup,” she said softly, “I remember my grandfather’s parents, leaving their teacups on the table when they ran away from the Zionists. They thought they would be back soon.”

Gently, David said, “That was almost sixty years ago.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the girl insisted. “I want my grandfather to have his house back, as beautiful as it was.”

How long would it be, David wondered, before the dream of return did not consume the members of Hana’s family? Munira was his daughter and yet not his daughter, estranged from him by history and deception. “The most important thing,” David told her, “is that you have your own life, and your own dreams. You can’t make up to your grandparents, or even your parents, all the things that happened to them.”

But this was too abstract, David saw at once. Her face closing, Munira said,
“They are part of me. Their struggle is our struggle, the struggle of all Palestinians.”

This rote echo of Saeb Khalid jarred David, reminding him of the delicacy of the psychic space he suddenly occupied. He was no different from a surrogate father, except in his intentions—Munira had lived her life with others, oblivious to her power to change
his
life. Awkwardly, he ventured, “I know how hard things have been. I’m wondering if there’s some way I can help you.”

Munira’s brows knit as she considered his offer. Shyly, she asked, “Would it be okay for you to buy me a cell phone?”

Her request was so unexpected that David smiled; then he realized that, for Munira, a cell phone might be the only way of breaking her isolation. “What would your father say?” he asked.

Munira looked down, a young girl caught between her desires and the truth. “He would be angry at you,” she conceded. “But my mother wouldn’t. She’d just tell me not to lose it.”

David cocked his head. “So what should I do?”

Munira looked into his face. “I have to talk with my friends,” she said with sudden fierceness. “I haven’t talked to Yasmin since the Zionist was killed.”

“Who’s Yasmin?”

“My best friend from Ramallah. But she’s in America now— Washington, D.C. Her parents work for the Palestinian Authority.” Her words came out in an angry rush. “When we came on this trip, my mother said I could call Yasmin every day. But then I lost my cell phone. My mother was sleeping, and I couldn’t find her phone. When I borrowed my father’s he got so mad I thought he’d kill me.”

Sipping his coffee, David gazed across its rim at the outraged girl who was his daughter. “When was that?”

“A long time ago.” Pausing, Munira looked at the ceiling, calculating the time of the injustice. “It was the day before, I think.”

“Before the assassination of Amos Ben-Aron?”

“Yes.”

Carefully, David put down his cup. “Were you able to call Yasmin?”

Munira nodded. “I had to leave a message.But then she called me back, and we talked until the battery died. We’d just got through talking when my father started banging on my door.”

“What happened?”

“He was looking for his cell phone. He opened the door and saw it in my hand. He started yelling that I’d stolen it from his coat.” Munira looked
as bewildered as she sounded. “Sometimes I borrow my mom’s. But he said the phone was not to be used by children, and asked me if I’d been calling people.”

David kept his tone neutral. “What did you say?”

Munira looked down. “I was afraid of what would happen if I admitted that I’d used it. So I said I never did.”

“Did he believe you?”

“He kept asking me if I was lying, or if I was sure. I was too frightened to tell the truth. Instead I told him the battery was dead.” Munira shook her head. “But he still won’t give me another cell phone. That’s his punishment for stealing.”

David felt a swift sequence of realizations come to him—that Saeb had kept the FBI from meeting with Munira; that he restricted her contacts with David; that she almost always saw her mother in Saeb’s company; that he’d kept her from attending a trial that featured repeated references to cell phone calls and raised the pervasive, lingering question of who else had access to her mother’s phone. Which was, perhaps, not quite the right question.