The Ruins of Us (37 page)

FOR TWO DAYS,
Abdullah rode next to Ghassan in his battered white Datsun truck. During their time together, Abdullah had tried to disabuse Ghassan of his assumption that the situation was a kidnapping or an act of terrorism. “Please, Faisal is a good boy,” he said again and again. Ghassan listened well. He had a way of acknowledging what was being said, in the occasional tilt of his chin and the way he removed his cigarette from his mouth, exhaling slowly, weighing each word in his mind. He had fine features: a small, pointed nose and sharp, dark brows that gave his eyes a serious quality, and his goatee-framed thin lips disappeared completely when he smiled. He had a calm that Abdullah envied. If only Abdullah had summoned a moment of composure before his outburst to Faisal. If only. The knowledge of his lie about Sheikh Ibrahim sat darkly in Abdullah’s heart.

During the search, Abdullah barely slept. They ate ful mudamas and drank Pepsi that Ghassan had packed in a cooler they kept in the truck bed. At night, they stayed with Ghassan’s family, scattered north to south along the coast. They were poor people, their air-conditioning units unreliable, their children barefoot as they played soccer in the salty, soggy flats of dirt that stretched between the houses and the sea. Abdullah told them only that his name was Abdullah, and that he was a friend of Ghassan’s. In turn, they didn’t ask questions beyond what was polite—Where was he from? Would he like coffee? The walls of their houses had large, dirty gashes running floor to ceiling where the water leaked. The children were round-faced and grinning, happy to have a visitor. He patted their heads, showed them his stump, told them the stories of Sadun. At night, alone on his pallet, he thought of their brown eyes like Faisal’s, of their loving mothers who stayed in the kitchen while he was there. A simple life; a simple, wretched life. If Rosalie died, he, too, would have a simple, wretched life. Simple because again he would have one wife, one home. He would not have to tell Rosalie about Isra’s rounding belly. At the thought of her death—it was true—he felt a small bit of relief. He caught his breath at the realization. That he had done such things that could only be simplified through death; the shame of it was too much. In the morning when he woke, his eyes were sealed shut by the salt of his tears. He cried for her life, that she might live. In life, there could be explanation and apology. In death, he would have only his assumptions, his bitterness, his guilt, and a love with no object but ash and salt.

IN THE TRUCK,
Ghassan and Abdullah spent hours rolling slowly through the alleyways of Hofuf; they tracked by foot across Tarut Island; they skimmed the outlying villages asking if any out-of-towners had been by. The Gulf off Dammam was a dizzying blue, the dhows all roped together as the fishermen pulled in their catch and went boat to boat to say good morning, hear the good stories of the day, trade cigarettes. Husbands and wives walked along the Corniche. Children fell from the monkey bars, got back up, and fell again. All this life going on around him as if in a movie—he and Ghassan, lone audience members gliding by, removed from it by steel and glass and purpose.

“When we see them, we’ll tell them that Sheikh Ibrahim has been released and then hopefully, they will let Dan and Umm Faisal go, as they promised to do,” Ghassan said one afternoon. “Until we can get them into our care, we will let the boys believe that their note precipitated his release.”

“But has he been released?”

“Who knows. The way the Family takes and releases political prisoners, it’s impossible to keep track.”

“I should call Abdul Aziz . . .”

“No, sir. For your son’s sake, you cannot. Too much interest in the sheikh could prove dangerous.”

“If there is one shot fired, I promise you . . .”

“Sir, you must trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

“Yes. Sometimes you policemen know too well. I remember what happened to the men who beheaded Johnson.”

“That couldn’t be avoided, Sheikh. But as you’ve said so many times, your son is a good boy. I’m sure he will give us his gun without firing a shot.”

“We’re talking about a boy who’s only fired guns in video games.”

“Come, let’s go to the car. How old did you say your boy was?”

“Sixteen.” Abdullah stood up and for a moment, the blood left his head and swelled his fingertips.

“Hm.”

“Why?”

“It’s just that you speak of him like he’s still a young boy. But then, it is always a little bit shocking. One day they’re men, and it’s as if you weren’t right there in the same house with them.”

“I suppose,” Abdullah said.

How many times had he been in the same room with Faisal over the last two years? A few times at Iftars and Eids, once for his graduation party, the occasional family wedding. When they found the boy—the stupid, selfish boy, the dear boy—Abdullah would be a father to him. They would walk together down the streets of Al Dawoun, and people would see them and say,
There are the Baylanis. Look how the one grows out of the shadow of the other.

They left the cool dark of the house where they had stayed the night before and stepped into the bright morning. Abdullah felt insulted by the sun’s cheerful blazing.

“I only smoke when I’m nervous,” Ghassan said, placing a cigarette between his lips and lighting it. “That’s why I keep the pack in the car. I’m often nervous when I drive, when I’m going somewhere I shouldn’t be.” The cigarette bobbed up and down as he spoke.

“You’re nervous now?”

“Yes, I’m a little bit worried for these boys.”

“I feel like that’s maybe not the best news for me to hear right now.”

A truck crawled by; the driver dipped his bearded chin to acknowledge them.

“Why not?”

“For one thing, you just told me to trust you.”

“And you can. I think it’s good, and necessary, to be a little bit afraid. It means you respect the situation. I felt this way when we got called to Palm Court. I smoked half a pack on the way there. I didn’t want to shoot my countrymen, even though I knew what they were doing was wrong. I wanted God to come down and solve the problem for us, to just send away the hostage-takers. In the end, that’s what He did, alhamdulillah. A lot of them got away in the confusion. People blamed us afterwards, but it was God’s will.”

They climbed into the cab of the truck, which smelled of old food, cigarette smoke, and sweat.

“That’s not what they wrote in the
Saudi Times
,” Abdullah said.

“The truth is often complicated.”

“I hope God is with us today.”

“You know, I was so surprised the first time my son disagreed with me,” Ghassan said, nosing the truck forward in the direction of the main road. “We were talking about the Intifada, and he spoke with such eloquence that I couldn’t see him as a child anymore. But he talked, and I listened. I suppose that’s what it’s about, once they grow up. It’s human, that need to be heard.”

Abdullah stared out the window. Ghassan’s words tapped a hollow place in his chest, where the memory of conversations with his son should have been. It was a small, egg-sized holding place surrounded by the larger memories of contracts won and degrees earned and dignitaries hosted. His family had been the backdrop to all of the other things. He had become husband and father because that was what men did. A man without family was nothing. He felt the pinch of the egg-sized cavity and scratched at his chest. He would have them back in the car in a day, maybe two. Then, they would go home and let the relief make them giddy and closer than they had been before. When they awoke tomorrow, they would talk and he would listen.

IN HIS EXHAUSTION,
Abdullah started to see strange things. For instance: his mother’s hands, bloodied from plucking and gutting a chicken. These were not dream images. He knew because, over the preceding days, he had not slept long enough to earn dreams. As an escape from the fact of their mission, Abdullah relished the delicate visions that appeared to him fuzzily, as if transmitted through the Kingdom’s early television waves. But then, in his less subdued moments, in a kind of muddy terror, he imagined that his son and wife had conspired to leave him behind—that they weren’t hiding somewhere in the Dahna but instead on a plane to London or Dubai, concerned only with putting distance between them and him. His stump ached. He had removed the prosthesis because it had chafed him badly from being left on too long.

Somehow, amidst the sleeplessness and seeming hopelessness of the search, Ghassan managed to smile. Rather than annoy Abdullah, this habit struck him as being the sign of a man who had found some peace in the world’s tumult; who was unwilling to give up on joy entirely. Given what he had likely seen as a policeman—the worst of people, the blood of people—this fact was remarkable. “Yes, surely, your Faisal is a good boy,” Ghassan said.

But as the third day drew to a close, Abdullah found himself wondering: Who was Faisal? What was he capable of? And aren’t fathers owed some kind of intuition, if only to help with the shock of their children’s individual actions? Eyes smarting, Abdullah rolled down his window so that the dry air off the Dahna could evaporate the wetness on his cheeks. A cluster of small purple blooms growing from a tangle of desert weed along the roadside bent with the wind. The yolky sun cast its cellophane light off the peaks of the low dunes, creating half-circle shadows, a landscape of closing eyes. Blood, it seemed, was not enough to bind men.

IN THE MORNING,
before dawn, he awoke to the incessant buzzing of his phone. He rolled to his side and fumbled for it, pressing it to his ear with his eyes still closed.

“Baba, I know where they are.”

It was Mariam.

“What?” He sat up, clutching the phone with both hands.

“They’re at Qut al-Wisoum. On the bay.”

“How do you know? Are you sure?”

“I just got an anonymous comment on my blog. He said he was a friend of Zizi’s, even gave me his birthday as proof. He knew about Umma. Said it was awful and sad. He asked me to delete the comment as soon as I read it.”

“Did he say anything else?”

He heard her breathe in, then exhale loudly through her nose.

“He thanked me for my blog. He said he tries to read every post.”

He heard the pride in her voice.

“I did it, Baba. I found them. Can I go with you and Ghassan?”

He wouldn’t believe it until he had them all piled in Ghassan’s truck. They would leave immediately. Wisoum Bay was an hour and a half away. He felt a supreme sense of urgency. He had to hold Rose again. They had not let go completely. Not yet.

“You’ve done so much already, habibti. Keep A’m Nadia company, and I’ll call you as soon as we have them. No, better, I’ll have your mother call you.”

So they were at the old customs building where he’d taken Faisal as a boy, back when he had still tried to make an effort at fatherhood. Did Faisal remember that trip? Did he think of it now, and did it make him hesitate?

Abdullah prayed that what little he had given his son would be enough to keep him connected to this world, to their family.

Chapter Twelve

MEMORY GATHERING: VACATION.
The summer at the château near the Pyrenees. The cold, freshwater pool fed by the springs beneath the ancient farm. She’s making a tomato salad for a late lunch. Abdullah has gone to town for a baguette. She looks out the small, old window, peering through the mottled glass to see where the kids are. Mariam has her porcelain doll, the one she’s carried all summer. Faisal’s waving at her. No, he’s falling backward into the pool, his thin arms flapping like bird wings. Mariam screams, drops the doll. Its face cracks in two as if it’s been built to shatter all along. Slamming open the shuttered door to the patio, Rosalie slaps barefooted toward the pool. Plunging beneath the bitter cold water, she feels her heart come into her throat. She fumbles in the murk, her toes slipping on the moss. That moment of blind reaching. In the water, his eight-year-old body is light as a wafer. His limbs are caught in the creeping vines that spill into the pool. After she gets his head into the air, she pushes him out into the dirt and climbs out after him, scraping her knees on the rough concrete ledge. When he spits up into her mouth, it tastes like bread spread with sour butter. She clutches him close, thumps his back as if to pound the memory out of him. Umma, I need to learn to swim, he says, choking. He is still so small, she thinks. And for all of my careful watching, darkness found its way to him.

ROSALIE LAY BACK
in the dirt and stared at the ceiling of the customs building, where yellow circles of water damage expanded outward from a concentration of mold like rings around a small, rotten planet. She’d been late to Biltagi Brothers’ because she was contemplating whether to go. At last, and out of a sense of obligation to Dan, she’d gotten in the car with Raja. These decisions we make in a moment, trying to achieve a desired outcome. Didn’t she know better by now? That control is elusive and, almost always, accidental?

When she’d made her escape attempt, she hadn’t hesitated. She’d started for the car, turned over the engine, and taken off in the direction of the road. It had taken a great deal of resolve to move at all, given her dizziness and the fact of the gun. But what, in the end, was she struggling toward? The road, yes. But beyond that, what kind of freedom was available to her anymore? She had made the choice to stay in the Kingdom, and choosing required a certain freedom, but once she made the difficult choice, the selfless choice, after the momentary heroism, she realized that the self-sacrifice had only just begun—that more would be required.

The sand was cool at her neck. She listened to the wind moving through the doors. After giving Dan a brief grace period to eat, Faisal had taped Dan’s mouth to get him to be quiet, and she could hear him breathing through his nose, a slight whistle with each exhalation. When she looked over at him, she saw he was asleep. She thought of the times she’d gone camping with Zainab and Dr. Salawi when she was a little girl living on the compound. She remembered the dead baby and the khat-chewing village girl, and the moment she had first experienced the fear of being deep in the desert with nothing but Dr. Salawi’s jeep linking them to the world. She did not want her time in Arabia to end with that fear. It did not represent the country, or her life there. She needed to know that Saudi Arabia was what she had been searching for those years in Texas. To admit anything else was to reveal the soul’s caprice in choosing its direction.