American Dervish: A Novel (23 page)

“All well and good, Naveed,” Nathan said, agitated. “But that’s not what I asked you. I asked you if you had any idea something like that might happen?”

This time, Father didn’t reply.

“Answer me, Naveed!” Nathan exploded with a shriek.

Father looked at Nathan, then back at the road. “I didn’t think
this
would happen…but I did cringe when you told him you were Jewish. I thought—”

Nathan cut him off, his voice trembling: “That sermon was not intended for me. He would have delivered it whether I was there or not. Just give me a straight answer. It’s important for me to know: If you’d been there without me, would you have stayed like the rest of them?”

“I think you’re forgetting: I
defended
you.” Father’s reply sounded at once wounded and defiant.

Nathan held Father’s gaze for a long moment before turning away with a nod. He sighed, and all at once, his hard expression broke. He looked exhausted. “I’m not denying that,” he said. “I’m just saying it’s probably not the first time you’ve ever heard things like that, is it?”

“It’s not,” Father said, solemn.

“I’m such an idiot. My father warned me about this. He’s said his whole life that no matter who we try to be, no matter who we become, we’re always Jews.” Nathan’s voice was filled with emotion. He turned to me with a pained, searching look. I forced a smile. I could see the sudden disappointment in his eyes. He looked away.

“What he did was wrong, Nate…but you didn’t have to get up and start yelling at him.”

“I don’t understand how you can say that, Naveed.”

“You don’t understand?”

“Maybe I do,” Nathan said, dismissive. “Maybe I do. And maybe that’s the whole point.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Somebody has to say something!” Nathan barked, his teeth clenched, as if he were trying to hold in the emotion. “If nobody says anything, people think these things are acceptable. You have to speak out. If I didn’t get up and say something—were
you
going to?”

“There’s a time and a place.”

“There’s never a convenient time or place. There just isn’t. If you don’t speak up when it happens, then you’ve
lost
your chance. And if you don’t say anything, you’re no better than anyone else sitting in that room. And neither am I. What is
he
going to think?” Nathan indicated me with a nod. “What’s he going to think if he doesn’t see his father speaking out?”

Father replied after a pause, his tone grave: “Nate. I trust you like no one in my life. I’ve told you things I don’t tell anyone. Why? Because you’re the only one I know who can really listen. Listen and not judge…”

Nathan looked at Father for a long moment, his arm against the silvered dashboard, his eyes still burning.

“So, listen to me now,” Father continued. “I understand you’re getting emotional. But I want to remind you,
I
was the one who warned you about Souhef. I’ve been warning you about this Islam stuff all along—”

Nathan erupted: “Warned me? You told me he would be after my money! You didn’t tell me he was a hatemonger and an anti-Semite!”

Father was silent.

Nathan sat back, disgusted. “The way he has those people beholden to him. It’s revolting and immoral. And it has nothing to do with real Islam. Nothing at all.”

Who does he think he is?
I thought to myself.
He’s not even a Muslim yet.

I sat back and plugged my ears. I looked out the window, humming to myself to drown out any sound of their discussion. I didn’t want to hear anything more they had to say.

Back home, I was the first one out of the car and into the house. Mina was in the kitchen, looking lovely in a brown
shalwar-kameez
and crimson
dupatta
. She was eager and aglow, her eyes brimming with anticipation. “How was it,
behta?
” she asked.

“Fine,” I said.

“Did Nathan talk to the imam?”

I nodded.

“Good,” she said, looking pleased. “And how was the prayer?”

I hesitated for a second, realizing I didn’t want to tell her we hadn’t prayed. “Fine,” I said with a smile.

“That’s nice,
behta.
” She looked over at the front door. “Where is he?”

I shrugged, suddenly elated. I leaned in to touch my lips to Mina’s cheek.

“That’s so sweet,
behta.
”

“I love you, Auntie.”

“I love you, too, Hayat.”

And then I left her there—her smile still brimming—and went up to my room.

Upstairs, I sat down at my desk with my Quran, and opened to
Al-Baqara,
the chapter from which Souhef had read to us that day. It began with a series of warnings to those who denied the truth of the Prophet’s message, those he called the deniers and the hypocrites. The footnotes told the story of Muhammad’s flight from Mecca in the year AD 622 and his relocation to the city of Medina, where there was a large and prosperous Jewish community. These Jews were the ones being warned at the outset of
Al-Baqara
, for even though the Prophet created a constitution that guaranteed Jews equal rights, they were not happy. It was bad enough they refused the truth of our Prophet’s teachings, but then they conspired against him, making alliances with his enemies, some even plotting to kill him. It was for this, the footnotes explained, that Muhammad eventually turned against the Jews of Medina.

The verses from
Al-Baqara
that Souhef had quoted in his sermon were originally addressed to these Medina Jews who denied the Quran and believed that they—and not Muslims—were the only ones with true knowledge about the Lord. The verses offered ample proof of Souhef’s contention, chronicling Moses’s own troubles with his followers, a people chosen by Allah, but who would lose His love because of their selfishness. And it was in
Al-Baqara
that I found the curse Chatha shared at the December dinner at his house two years earlier.

At my open window, I heard voices. Then sniffling. I got up to look. Nathan’s loafers poked out from beneath the front porch eaves. I could tell Mina was talking to him, but I couldn’t make out her words. And then I distinctly heard the sound of his sobbing.

I went downstairs into the living room. There, through the window, I saw them. Nathan’s head was buried in Mina’s lap, and he was clutching at her waist, crying. It felt like something I should not be seeing, but I couldn’t look away. I’d never seen a grown man cry, except on television. And as Mina caressed his hair, and as Nathan’s grip on her waist tightened—his thin fingers blanching as he wiggled and pressed and held her close—I wondered what he had to be crying about. If anything, he had only reason to be happy. He was going to be a Muslim. All Souhef had done was to give him reasons—better ones than the one he really had—for becoming one of us. After all, he would no longer be one of Allah’s despised Jews. Which meant he wouldn’t have to suffer under Allah’s curse anymore. It was extraordinary news. But was he happy about it? Of course not. He was ungrateful. Just as Souhef had said Jews were. So ungrateful that it made him blind to the very truth he had heard that afternoon and that could have saved him. What I was seeing before me, I thought, was the very reason that Allah had turned his back on Bani Israel.

The Quran is right
, I thought.
They will never change.

Father, Mother, Imran, and I were gathered in the kitchen for dinner when Mina finally came inside from the front porch. And though she had every appearance of disappointment—downcast eyes, a shuffling step, mumbled replies to Mother’s questions about her wanting dinner—she looked oddly satisfied. She had that same arresting bloom about her I remembered from the first afternoon she met Nathan. She muttered an apology about dinner, avoiding eye contact with all of us, especially—I thought—with Imran. And as she headed for the stairs, Mother asked if she should set a place for Nathan.

Mina stopped, shook her head. And then she was gone.

Mother lingered at the counter for a moment, troubled. She looked at Father.

“Go,” he said. “I’ll take care of dinner.”

Mother nodded, and followed Mina out.

After dinner, Mother left the dishes for me. She and Father stood out on the patio, talking. I was finishing up, wiping down the counter, when they came back inside. Father went downstairs to join Imran for television in the family room. Mother lingered with me in the kitchen. She told me Father had explained to her what had happened that afternoon. But now she wanted to hear my version.

I told her Souhef had read to us from
Al-Baqara
.

She asked me to get the Quran and show her. So I did.

She sat at the dining table, poring over the pages where I pointed out the citations. She shook her head to herself as she read. Finally, she looked up at me, asking: “What did he say in his
khutbah?
What did Souhef say exactly about Bani Israel?”

“He said they love themselves, not Allah. He said they’re selfish. He said we should never be like them.” This was very different than what Mother usually said about Jews. It felt good to correct her.

She held my gaze, her expression dark. Then she looked away. From the family room downstairs, the computerized melody of the
CHiPs
opening theme drifted up into the kitchen. “The man is already having second thoughts about converting,” she said quietly. “He’s already asked the poor woman if she’ll still have him if he
doesn’t
become a Muslim.” She brought her hand to her forehead to run it along the deep ridges there. “I have worked
so hard
for this…and if it doesn’t happen—” She stopped herself, looking completely helpless. “Why today, Hayat?” she asked, pleading. “Why today of all days?”

I waited before replying. “It was Allah’s will,” I finally said, quietly.

The response surprised her. She held my gaze for a long moment, then offered a gentle, reluctant nod.

Downstairs, Father was sitting on the couch, Imran straddled on his knee. He turned to me, patting at the place beside him. “C’mon,
behta.
It just started.”

I didn’t move.

“You don’t want to watch?” he asked.

“No.”

“I thought you liked
CHiPs.
”

“I love
CHiPs,
Dad!” Imran interjected. I’d never heard him call my father that. It was jarring.

“I’m going to build a castle keep,” I replied. “Up in my room.” I knew this would get Imran’s attention.

“Can I come, too?” he asked, turning to me.

“Why don’t we see a little
CHiPs?
” Father said, rubbing him tenderly on the back. “Then you go up to play with Hayat, okay?”

Imran nodded, eager, melting into Father’s chest as the commercial ended and the show resumed.

On my way to my room, I slowed as I approached Mina’s door. Behind it, Mother’s voice came through clearly: “What does it matter?! It doesn’t matter! Let him stay like he is…You stay like you are! These things don’t matter!” Mother’s impassioned pleas were followed by a long silence.

I moved on.

At the end of the hall, I opened the linen closet, pulling out sheets. I went into my room and draped them over my desk chair and desk, then used stacks of books to fix the corners in place. I turned out the lights and climbed inside. The tent’s space was small, but it comforted me. Like the graves of the
hafiz,
I thought, which Mina had once explained to me were kept warm and comfortable through the long string of centuries until—on that last day of creation—everyone would rise from the dead to face the Final Judgment.

“Can I come inside, too?” I heard.

It was Imran. He was holding up the ends of one of the sheets as he peered in. I’d fallen asleep.

“Sure,” I mumbled, turning over.

He crawled in alongside me. We lay side by side, staring up at the canopy of sheets, brushed by the moonlight coming through the windows. After a long silence, I spoke: “My dad is
my
dad, Imran. Not yours.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Did you hear me?” I asked.

Imran turned onto his side to face me. “He’s my dad, too… ,” he said softly.

“No he’s not. Maybe he’s
like
a dad to you. But he’s not your
real
dad. He’s
my
dad.”

“He said it.”

“He said
what?
”

“He’s my dad, too.”

“No, he didn’t. Maybe he said he loves you just like he was your dad …”

I paused.

“And that’s nice for you. But he didn’t say he
was
your dad. He wouldn’t do that, because it’s not true. And he’s not a liar.”

Imran’s eyes glistened with worry. “Share him with me,” he whispered.

“I already share him with you. But he’s not your real dad.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s not married to your mom.”

“She can marry him.”

“No she can’t. My dad’s
already
married. To
my
mom.”

“He can marry her, too.”

“Who?”

“Your mom.”

“No. I said he’s already married to my mom. So he can’t marry yours.”

“My mom can marry him,” he said, “and your mom, too. And then he can be my dad and your dad. He’s a Muslim.”

I was surprised. The boy’s mind was quick.

“You can’t do that in America. And we live in America.
This
is your home. In America, if you have more than one wife, they put you in jail.”

“Why?”

“For polygamy.”

“What’s that?”

“When you marry more than one woman. You can’t do that here, except in Utah.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s one of the states.”

He looked confused.

“It’s a place in America,” I explained. “It’s just not here.”

“You-taa?” he repeated.

“Yeah. You can do polygamy in Utah, because that’s where Mormons are.”

“What are Mormons?”