Man of the Hour Read online

  “We’ll talk,” Renee said anxiously, watching Arthur get to his feet and put his sneakers on.

  “We’ll have to,” said David.

  “Nothing is etched in stone.”

  David looked over her shoulder and saw the sun had gone behind the neighboring buildings, bringing long shadows into the living room. “Oh, look,” he said. “The light is going.”

  5

  NASSER AND ELIZABETH HAMDY lived in what their father, George, called “the best-maintained home in Brooklyn”—a plain redbrick three-story house on Avenue Z with a postage stamp–sized lawn and a concrete driveway. Every weekend he spent hours on that lawn: mowing, weeding, trying to raise tomatoes in the tiny garden, and clearing away empty bottles crackheads had tossed on the grass. All in the name of convincing his old Italian neighbors that he was just like them, and not some dirty Arab. Completely unaware of how much he was actually irritating them.

  Just before seven o’clock in the evening, Elizabeth sat cross-legged and barefoot on her bed in her second-floor bedroom, writing in her paisley-covered diary.

  “I saw you.”

  Nasser stood in the doorway, wrapping his tie around his finger and then unwrapping it.

  “You saw me what?”

  “I saw you today at school, without your hijab.”

  “And I saw you too.” She pushed the diary off her lap. “What were you doing there?”

  “I was talking to someone.”

  “Yes, I know. You were talking to Mr. Fitzgerald, my teacher. Why were you bothering him?”

  He leaned against the door frame, pulling on his lip. “I don’t like these things they do there.”

  “Nasser, I thought we talked about this already!” She threw down her pen and stood up. “You are not my father and you are not my mother. We are not living on the West Bank. You can’t control me like that!”

  “I am only trying to protect you. People might not think you’re a proper Muslim girl.”

  “I don’t care what people think. This is America!”

  “But what if you dishonor the family?” He turned away from her and looked down at the floor.

  “Don’t put all that weight on me! I’m just a regular girl!”

  By now, Father had come upstairs, drawn by the sound of his children’s voices. He was a thick-waisted man just starting the long march down into the valley of true old age. His eyes were tired and his hands were callused from unloading crates at his grocery store.

  “So what is the big problem here?” he said. “Why are my children at war with each other?”

  Nasser ducked his head and moved farther into the room. Elizabeth stared after him, with her hands on her hips.

  “It’s nothing. Just Nasser being stupid again.”

  Father tried to smile, but it looked as if he was in mild discomfort. Yes, he was getting old. He’d carried his brother and sister across the Jordan when he was sixteen and had carried the rest of the family ever since. Back across the river when he was twenty-one and the relatives in Jordan got tired of having them in the house, and then on to the terrible refugee camp where he met Mother and struggled for years to save enough money to bring the family to America. And then once he got everyone here, he’d spent seventeen years of eighteen-hour days running the little shop on Stillwell Avenue. Scraping and saving. The newest shoes he owned were three years old. He meant well, but every word out of his mouth made Nasser stiffen his spine.

  “Be kind to your big brother. He’s still trying to find his way.”

  He came over and kissed Elizabeth on the top of the head. Then he tried to pat Nasser on the shoulder, but the boy moved away.

  Father pretended not to notice. “We should be happy,” he said, leaving the room. “Come downstairs soon. Dinner will be ready and I want to pray.”

  Elizabeth stared at the doorway, thinking: yes, we should be happy. But somehow they hadn’t been these last few years. Not since her crazy brother had moved back from the Middle East.

  She tried to tell herself it was not at all Nasser’s fault. That some of the changes he’d brought with him were good. Religion, for instance. Before he’d come back, the five of them had been living like a regular little American family—her father, herself, her stepmother, Anne, and the two young girls, Leslie and Nadia. Beer in the fridge, hot dogs on Saturday night, and no one cared if she wore a miniskirt to school. But as soon as Nasser showed up, their home turned into a little outpost of Islam. Out went the beer, down came the miniskirts, and forget the Saturday-night hot dogs—this was not halal. Everyone except her stepmother was expected to start praying five times a day.

  And the funny thing was, her father went along with it. Her father, who drove a Chevy and smoked Marlboro Lights, started going to the mosque all of a sudden. At first, Elizabeth thought it might have just been guilt over being separated from Nasser for so long. But lately, she was starting to think there was more to it than that. A certain wistfulness came over her father when he prayed, as though he was yearning for a connection with something he’d had before. And what was even stranger was that sometimes she felt herself yearning too.

  “You know, you’re starting to drive me crazy with all this tradition,” she said. “What were you doing outside my room at four-thirty this morning?”

  “I was calling the morning prayer. I thought you wouldn’t want to miss it.”

  “I need my sleep.” She picked up a pillow and thought of throwing it at him. “Did that ever occur to you? I’m still in school.”

  “I am sorry.” Nasser started fumbling with that rusty key he kept on the chain around his neck. “I am thinking you are right. Maybe I’m being too strict with you. I should trust that you are being good and true.”

  “Well, yeah. Right.” She stood before him, braiding her hair.

  “It’s just—how do you say it?—it’s worrying me to see how the children grow up around here. With all the licentiousness and danger. I look at you and I think of our mother sometimes, God be merciful and rest her soul.” He pressed the key to his lips. “I think how she is not around to help you know the right things and so this is my job instead.”

  “You think she would have been so worried about whether I was wearing a head scarf?” Her fingers kneaded strands of her hair together.

  “This I cannot tell you.” He smiled and then dropped the key again, letting it dangle in front of his tie.

  A mystery. The whole family was a mystery to her. Especially Nasser. There were so many things he never talked about—his friends, his time in Ashkelon prison, their mother. Even after five years under the same roof, she sensed there was a side of him that she had never quite seen.

  “You’re too much, Nasser. Really you are.”

  “I know.” He picked up one of her Rollerblades and ran a finger along its wheels. “But this is not what I want. For you to be so mad at me. How can I make it better?”

  Elizabeth tried to keep scowling, but it was no good. He could be so sweet and bewildered at times. And there was too much she wanted to know from him.

  “You promise me you won’t show up at school like that again?”

  “Yes, this is a promise.”

  “God, I don’t know what I’m going to say to Mr. Fitzgerald.” She decided to hold on to her irritation for just another second, to make him squirm a little.

  “Don’t say nothing. He’s not in your family.”

  “Yes, but he’s my teacher. He’s helping me apply to colleges.”

  Nasser narrowed his eyes as if he were about to object to this too, but then he caught himself and put the Rollerblade down on the floor. She could tell he was thinking about something serious. She recognized the expression from looking in her own bathroom mirror, and seeing the resemblance again made her feel warm and protective toward her brother.

  “Hey,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Soon is your birthday. Is this right?”

  “Yes, the week after next.”

  “So I am thinking I want to
get you something. I like to take you shopping. Next Tuesday.”

  “I can’t do it Tuesday.” She sat down on her bed. “I have a field trip to the museum.”

  He looked down at her knees, with his face pinched in concern. “But this is the only day for me,” he said. “The rest of the time I am working, working, working, like a crazy man. On Tuesday, I can buy you anything you want.”

  “Anything?”

  He sucked in his cheeks and looked down at the Rollerblade on the floor. “How about the pads and helmet? I see you skating sometimes without a helmet. You need protection.”

  She crossed her arms. “Nasser, a good set of pads and a helmet from Canal Skates can cost you a hundred fifty dollars. You know that, right?”

  He swallowed. “Whatever,” he said.

  One of those unconscious Americanisms he’d picked up without realizing it. He always ridiculed her for being too Western, but slowly it was happening to him too. He just didn’t know it. Sometimes she’d catch him humming a song from the radio or strutting around in the pair of Timberland work boots their father had bought him for his last birthday. These little moments embarrassed him terribly, but secretly they made her feel closer to him.

  “Well,” she said. “I guess I could skip the class trip. It’s not like it’s for credit or anything. Everybody cuts sometimes.”

  “Exactly.” He bowed his head and then looked up. “So this is a deal? I take you shopping Tuesday.”

  “Yes, it’s a deal, Nasser.”

  “Very good, very good.”

  He smiled in relief and came over as if he was going to embrace her. But at the last second, he pulled back and just shook her hand instead. All this for a birthday present. My brother, the alien.

  “I’m glad you don’t go to the museum and see these immoral pictures and statues,” he said. “These are the bad influences.”

  “You’re so weird.” She stood and screwed up one side of her face, ready to go downstairs. “I think you need to get a girlfriend.”

  “This is not appropriate,” he told her.

  6

  THE WONDER WHEEL stood motionless against a crystalline blue sky and the Cyclone roller coaster was silent. Nasser and Youssef sat in the Plymouth, parked some three hundred yards down the street from Coney Island High School.

  “How are you feeling?” said Youssef. “Are you good?”

  “My stomach hurts,” said Nasser, who had a McDonald’s bag in his lap and wore the maroon windbreaker with dark slacks and a white shirt.

  “It’s only natural.” Youssef was fussing with wires and two sticks of dynamite in the book bag at his feet. “I was nervous before every military operation I was ever involved in. This is completely all right. It keeps the mind sharp.” He put the bag up on the seat next to Nasser and took out an alarm clock. “Here. Put your finger there for a second. In the middle of the dial.”

  Gingerly, Nasser put his index finger on the meeting point between the hour and minute hands while Youssef inserted a wire through the back of the clock. Inside his head, he was in a state of narrowly controlled hysteria.

  “There,” said the Great Bear, putting the cover back on the clock and placing it back in the bag, very carefully. “We’re all set. Give me my hamburger.”

  Nasser took out the squarish yellow Styrofoam box and handed it to his friend. It was 1:25. In twenty minutes, the seventh-period buzzer would go off, and hundreds of students would spill out onto the sidewalk in front of the school, where carpenters were building a wooden stage for the governor’s visit in two days.

  “You know, I was asking the imam the other day if this kind of food is halal,” said Youssef, opening the box and taking out his Quarter Pounder.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said it would be better if the beast was blessed before it was slaughtered. But we can make exceptions in the country of infidels. It’s all right if we just say me blessing before we eat the food.”

  “It makes me uncomfortable sometimes, to ask for too many exceptions,” Nasser said earnestly. “Did you ask the imam for his blessing on this operation?”

  “Not too directly, but it will be okay,” said Youssef, muttering a blessing before he took his first bite. “Don’t worry too much. God will protect us. Everything is very strong, very simple. One more time: You go in with the hadduta and your old school pass. No one will stop you, because you used to be a student there and they’ve seen you outside with your sister. And don’t worry about the metal detector either—the timer is made out of plastic. I took out all the screws myself.”

  “Really?”

  “My God, don’t ask. This was a pain.” Youssef chewed with his mouth open. “So then you go downstairs and leave it in the boiler room next to the cafeteria. Put it inside the boiler if you can. You say you know where this is, right?”

  “A thousand times I’ve been by it, sheik.”

  Nasser wrinkled his nose at the memory of the foul-smelling cafeteria food. “Flush hard, it’s a long way to the lunchroom.” The first piece of American bathroom graffiti he’d ever understood.

  “You’ll see. It will be okay.” Youssef washed another nitroglycerin pill down with a sip of Diet Coke. “It would be one thing if we were trying to do this on the day this governor visits, with all the security around. This way we get the same message across without all the risk. You put this dynamite in a contained area like a boiler, it can maybe bring the whole school down into a pile of bricks and rubble. Then they know not even their children are safe. Very big story, on all the news tonight.”

  Nasser found himself starting to eat french fries out of the bag, methodically, compulsively. Hating the idea of them, but loving their salty taste. Trying to find a way to calm himself. The dashboard clock said it was nearly half past one.

  “I am still noticing you look sad.” The Great Bear was looking at him closely, as if probing for momentary weaknesses. “Are you thinking again if maybe you don’t want to do this?”

  “No, sheik, my heart is strong.” Nasser tried to make himself very still, aware that any small movement could set off a disastrous tremor through the rest of his body.

  “Then what’s the problem?” Youssef said, his voice turning sharp. “Is it your sister you’re worried about?”

  “No.” Nasser put down the french fries and wiped his hands with a napkin. “I’ve made arrangements so she won’t be here.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Nasser looked at himself in the rearview mirror, wondering. Trying to imagine how the next few minutes would unfold. He wanted to picture himself being cool, ruthless, and efficient, like a figure in an American action movie, leaving destruction in his wake. But instead he felt the sharp corner of his belt buckle digging into his navel.

  “I have so many things in my mind,” he said softly. “My mother. My father. Everything I want to do for the faith.”

  Dread. Why did he have such a feeling of dread? For three years, he’d wandered the hallways of this school, thinking he’d like to machine-gun everyone there. Now he had a chance to do it, and for a greater cause, something bigger than himself. And yet his nerve was leaving him again.

  “You know, you can get up and walk away this very minute.” Youssef put the burger down and stared at him. “No problem.” He reached for the bag at his feet. “I can just stop the timer where it is. We still have almost seventeen minutes.”

  Nasser looked at the remaining french fries in his bag and felt the rusty key resting against his chest. He was afraid to say anything.

  “Just let me ask you one thing, though,” said Youssef. “How long were you in the Ashkelon prison?”

  “Almost two hundred days.”

  “And how did you like it there? Didn’t you tell me how they tortured you to get you to confess and name your friends? Didn’t they give you the freezing water?”

  “Yes.”

  “And didn’t they put you in the banana position?”

  “Of course.” Nasser
still could feel his spine threatening to break from the unrelenting pressure.

  “And what about the bag?” Youssef asked. “Didn’t they put the bag on you?”

  Nasser nodded, experiencing that flush of nausea all over again. The bag. It was made of brown sack material and smelled strongly of feces. He was in an outdoor prison yard shackled and rear-cuffed in a backless chair when the Israeli guards stuck it over his head. For two or three hours, he sat there baking in the Jewish sun, breathing in the vile fumes, sweating and getting sicker and sicker. His joints aching. Wondering how he would survive this. At one point, he turned a little in his seat and one of the guards hit him so hard on top of the head that he saw a flash of light. That was when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore, that he would throw up and die right there in the chair surrounded by concrete walls and barbed wire. But he didn’t die. And after a while, all the pain and discomfort became relative and he willed himself into a state of numbness. That was how he got through it. By promising himself he would never feel anything ever again.

  “Just remember, my friend,” Youssef was saying. “The Book said it best: sometimes you must fight when it is the thing you least want to do.”

  Outside, ocean breezes stirred the banners of the closed-up amusement arcades, and the sounds of carpenters’ hammers echoed down the boardwalk. Nasser slowly turned and looked at the Great Bear. The scars. Youssef was covered in scars. The one under his eye and the other one up and down his chest. And then the knuckles, which were like painfully swollen bulbs. His entire body was a record of the things he’d done. Nasser’s own father had no scars like this, because he’d never fought for anything. He’d been too busy running away, crossing rivers.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m ready.”

  He decided he was going to have to stop feeling again, to stop thinking. This must be how all the brave men got from one side of an experience to the other. You had to turn yourself into a machine. Wasn’t it all for a higher purpose anyway? You were but a tool in the hand of God, and if God wanted to stop you, He would.