The Mirage: A Novel (18 page)

Her two roommates were Jemila and Iman, both arts majors but otherwise as different as could be. Jemila, a Beirut native who was studying theater, was what was known in the parlance of the day as a “modern” girl, a term that could mean either “sophisticated free spirit,” or, said another way, “whore.” Jemila had a steady stream of boyfriends, and it was the boyfriends who most often used “modern” in its second sense—with a smile when Jemila first met them, and with anger or tears when, inevitably, she dumped them.

Iman came from Khafji, an oil town on the Gulf coast. She was studying to be a documentary filmmaker. Iman was also a “ninja”: Outside the dorm and the women’s gym where she took her exercise, she wore a black abaya with a niqab veil that left only her eyes visible. “Ninja,” like “modern,” was a term with multiple connotations, but anyone who assumed from her style of dress that Iman was a sheltered hick soon learned otherwise.

When Amal professed her ambition to become a cop like her dad, it was Iman who suggested she apply to the Bureau. “The ABI is more open to women than most local police forces,” she said. “It still won’t be easy, but you’ll at least have a chance. And you’ll get to chase bank robbers.”

“It’s not bank robbers I want to go after,” Amal said. But the idea was a good one.

Iman took self-defense courses at the gym on Sunday afternoons. Amal began going with her. Then she heard about a West Beirut gun range offering an introductory women’s pistol-shooting class, and on a whim decided to check it out. She turned out to be a natural with firearms.

Jemila meanwhile got the lead in a campus production of
Hair.
She convinced Amal to try out for a bit part in the play, that of an overzealous Halal agent. Amal wore a fake mustache and beard, and ran around stage during one of the musical numbers trying unsuccessfully to slip a burqa over Jemila’s head.

On Friday nights when her mother called, Amal said nothing about these extracurricular activities. She felt a little guilty, but she also knew her mother wasn’t telling her everything either. According to the national news, Baghdad was in an uproar: Thanks to the testimony of Hussein Kamel, Khairallah Talfah had been convicted on all counts, and the Attorney General was now talking openly about bringing charges against Saddam. This in turn led to a rash of Hussein Kamel jokes, like “What do Hussein Kamel and a migrating goose have in common? They’re both found floating in the Tigris!”

Opening night of
Hair
, a student member of the Lebanese POG threw a smoke bomb onstage during the first act, and the theater had to be evacuated. As Amal stood outside with the rest of the cast waiting for the fire marshal to give the all clear, she noticed a handsome boy watching her from the edge of the crowd. He was laughing, and at first she thought he might be a friend of the smoke-bomber, but then he drew a finger across his upper lip and she realized the source of his amusement was her costume-mustache, which she still wore. Then she laughed too and he came over and introduced himself.

His name was Anwar. He was a senior, majoring in government. His family was originally from Iraq, but his father was a diplomat, so he’d spent most of his youth in Riyadh or abroad in Persia. It was while living in Tehran that he’d discovered a passion for the arts, not just theater and music but poetry. In fact he and some of his friends had an informal poetry club that met at a café on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Perhaps Amal would like to drop by sometime and hear some of their verses?

She accepted his invitation, dragging Jemila to the café with her for moral support. She tried to get Iman to come along as well, but Iman declined, saying she didn’t go on dates. When Amal insisted that it wasn’t a date, just a “social gathering,” Iman said, “I especially don’t go on dates that aren’t acknowledged as dates.”

The poetry, most of which was in Farsi, wasn’t very good—or if it was, Anwar’s whispered Arabic translations didn’t do it justice. Soon enough Jemila pronounced herself bored and left, but Amal stayed, enjoying the tickle of Anwar’s breath in her ear, even though the words he spoke weren’t that interesting. Afterwards he walked her to her next class and asked if he could see her again. She said yes.

They began meeting regularly, going on dates that weren’t acknowledged as dates: picnics on the seawall that bordered the university; long walks through the city center, which after a decade-and-a-half-long recession was finally undergoing an economic revival, new buildings springing up daily. Amal met more of Anwar’s friends, including a number of Americans—funny, good-natured people with hilarious accents. Years later, in the buildup to the invasion, she’d remember them and wonder if they were OK.

Anwar told her about his adventures as a diplomat’s son and Amal shared some of Aunt Nida’s political war stories. About her parents she was more circumspect, but she did eventually let on that her father was a Baghdad cop. Partly as a test, she told Anwar about her intention to become an ABI agent. She could tell from his reaction that he thought this was an odd career choice, but he didn’t dismiss it. “Perhaps you’ll visit me at the State Department when you come to Riyadh,” he said smiling.

She invited him to come shooting with her. Anwar was
not
a natural with firearms, but he was a good sport, applauding as Amal hit the center of the target repeatedly while he largely failed to hit it at all. On the way back to campus from this outing, they stopped at a magazine shop. While Anwar bought cigarettes at the front counter, Amal wandered back to the shelf where they kept the out-of-state newspapers. That was where she saw the picture of her father, in uniform, on the steps of Baghdad city hall with a dozen other police captains.
STANDING UP AGAINST CORRUPTION
, read the headline on the
Baghdad Gazette.
SADDAM INDICTMENT EMBOLDENS REFORMERS
, added the
Daily News.
The
Post’s
headline was more sinister:
THESE ARE THE ONES
.

“Amal?” Anwar said, coming up beside her. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine!” She pulled him away before he could see what she was looking at. It was the first time she’d ever taken his hand—and she didn’t let go, even after the shop was far behind them.

In the days that followed there were other firsts. And so it happened that not long afterwards, on a morning when they both should have been in class, Amal found herself at their favorite picnic spot on the seawall listening to Anwar read a new poem, a proposal in verse. The key word in the poem—
sigheh
—was not one of the handful of Farsi terms she’d already learned from him, but from the context and the passionate way in which he spoke, she assumed he was asking her to marry him. And he was, sort of.

“Temporary marriage?” The concept, essentially a love affair with God’s blessing, was straight out of a trashy romance novel. It also fell squarely into the category of things no smart or self-respecting girl would even consider.

Amal didn’t know what to make of Anwar’s proposal. It was as though he’d used an epithet whose meaning was ambiguous. Did he take her for a fool? Did he think she was a whore? Or was he really, in his own strange way, trying to be sweet? Anwar meanwhile interpreted Amal’s dismay as a sign that he’d mortally offended her, and tried to take his words back. “Please,” he begged, “forgive me! Forget I said anything!”

But Amal—recalling his breath in her ear, the touch of his hand—wasn’t so sure she wanted to forget it. She needed to think it over some more.

She considered going to the campus Shia mosque for advice, but the place was a POG hangout and thus not exactly welcoming. Instead, she talked to her roommates.

Jemila was dismissive: “Don’t be ridiculous, Amal! If you want to sleep with him, just sleep with him.” At first Amal thought this was just Jemila being modern, but then she realized there was more to it than that. Jemila was Sunni, and Sunnis believed that temporary marriage was forbidden. Of course Sunnis like all Muslims also believed that sex outside of marriage was forbidden, but Jemila apparently made a distinction between sins she liked and sins she found distasteful. “I mean really, it’s kind of gross if you think about it. Like being an actual prostitute.”

“What are you saying, Jemila?”

“Well . . .” Jemila grew defensive, recognizing she was on shaky ground. “It’s just, to make a formal bargain . . . It’s like you’re renting yourself out . . .”

Amal stared pointedly at the gold bracelet on Jemila’s wrist. “So says the girl who expects gifts from all her boyfriends.”

“Those are
gifts
, not contractual obligations!”

Iman wasn’t surprised by Jemila’s attitude towards temporary marriage. What surprised her was that Anwar didn’t share it. “Isn’t he a Sunni, too?”

“He’s Sunni, but his grandmother is Shia.”

“My grandmother is a Jew,” Iman said. “But you don’t see me celebrating Yom Kippur.”

“Anwar knows
I’m
Shia,” Amal said. “And he respects me, so—” She stopped, because Iman was laughing. “Fine. You think he just wants to have sex with me, is that it?”

“If he were Shia, I would definitely think that. And I still think it’s the most likely explanation, but there’s a difference: A Shia boy who proposes temporary marriage to get sex may honestly believe he’s following God’s law. A Sunni boy knows he’s being cynical.”

“I’m glad you think so highly of Anwar.”

“It’s not the only possible explanation. I can think of other reasons why a Sunni might propose temporary marriage, but they’re all worse.”

“What other reasons?”

“He might be an idiot,” Iman said. “Or mentally ill.”

“Oh, wonderful. Anything else?”

“The worst reason of all: He might be in love with you. Maybe what he’s really after is a permanent marriage, but he’s afraid you’re not ready, so this is his way of easing up to it.”

“You call that the
worst
reason?” Amal said. “How could Anwar loving me be a bad thing?”

“Because you don’t love him,” said Iman. “I’ve listened to you talk about him, Amal. You
like
Anwar. You enjoy his company and the attention he pays you. He distracts you from worrying about your family. But you don’t love him, and I don’t think a temporary marriage—or an affair—is going to change that.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” Amal said. “I mean, it’s not as if I were going to say yes to Anwar’s proposal.”

“You haven’t told him no yet, though.”

“No, but I’m going to.” And then, as if to demonstrate that there was an idiot here, but it wasn’t Anwar, she added: “Don’t worry, Iman. I know what I’m doing.”

The number on Umm Dabir’s message slip had a Baghdad area code rather than the Riyadh code Amal would have expected, and as she dialed she entertained the notion that this really was just a prank of some sort. But the voice that answered said “Al Rasheed Hotel,” and when she asked to speak to Abu Salim bin Amjad she was put straight through. The next voice she heard was Anwar’s.

He told her he was in town for a conference. He told her he needed to see her. He wouldn’t tell her why, but he also wouldn’t take no for an answer, and any impulse Amal might have had to hang up on him was checked by the thought that he’d just call Farouk’s office again, or perhaps show up in person.

She named a restaurant a few blocks from the hotel and agreed to meet him that evening at half past six. She arrived early, and like a Bureau agent setting up a sting, parked her car across the street, facing the direction of his most likely approach.

She’d run his name on the office computer. Sure enough he was a federal employee, though not with the State Department as he’d always planned—his posting was in Commerce, in the Patent and Trademark Office. His wife, Nasrin, was Persian, the fourth daughter of a former trade delegate. They had two daughters of their own . . . and one son.

Abu Salim. Salim’s dad. Of course it was the most natural thing in the world for a father to take the name of his firstborn son. But when the son is the product of a marriage that should never have happened and a woman who rejected you . . . Who does that? What does it mean? What do you want from me, Anwar?

Amal had been in the fifth month of her sigheh when Aunt Nida found out. Amal never learned who tipped Nida off, though she suspected Iman, in an act of kindness, had made a phone call.

That day she’d gone to the seawall to walk and think about drowning herself. Even in her worst despair, suicide wasn’t really in Amal, but another idea—of fleeing across the sea to some country where no one knew her—appealed more strongly, and if she’d come upon an unguarded boat she might have taken it.

Instead she went back to the dorm. A girl sitting in the lobby stared at her as she came in, and Amal walked by swiftly, drawing her abaya around her. To conceal her weight gain she’d been dressing more and more conservatively, but not even a burqa would hide her belly-bump much longer. Already there were whispers.

Anwar wanted to do more than whisper. “Let’s declare our marriage openly and move in together,” he said. “We’re in love, what’s the problem?” The problem? The problem was a future in which Amal ended up living in Riyadh, not as an ABI agent but as a suburban housewife. A future in which instead of helping her father chase Baath out of Iraq, she went shopping at the Hayat Mall. Oh, and they weren’t in love. Anwar was insane, and Amal was stupid.

She opened the door to her room and Aunt Nida was inside, sitting on her bed and smoking a cigarette. Amal stopped short, in panic trying to come up with some lie to tell, but it was pointless; she could see on Aunt Nida’s face that Nida already knew everything.

“Amal,” she said. “I’m very disappointed in you.” This mild rebuke, the only one Nida would offer, struck Amal like a blow to the head. She didn’t pass out, not exactly, but the terror she’d just barely been holding in check rose up and cloaked the world in a haze.

When the haze lifted, Amal was sitting down and Nida was interrogating her.

“How many months?”

“One more,” Amal said numbly. “The sigheh ends in thirty-four days.”