Girls of Yellow Read online

  “But something is different this time, isn’t it?”

  “Nonsense.”

  “No. It’s not nonsense. I can tell. A wife can always tell.”

  Ali regarded her with amazement. It had taken her only a minute to realize that something was bothering him.

  “Don’t be so surprised,” Sabida said. “You telegraph your emotions, in the living room and the bedroom.”

  Ali let go of his wife’s hand. “I thought you stopped listening at the door a long time ago.”

  “That’s my point. I didn’t need to. The neighbors called and asked if you could turn down the volume a bit.”

  “They did?”

  Sabida rolled her eyes. “No, my beloved. But you do understand what I’m telling you, don’t you?”

  Ali blushed, realizing he’d been a fool. He hated when she reminded him how much smarter she was, but realized that he was to blame for constantly blundering into her verbal traps. Now he understood what she was saying. He’d been noisy and self-indulgent. In fact, he’d pounded their poor slave without any regard for her welfare.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Sabida said, reading his mind. “She’s a slave. She’ll be fine.”

  “And you, eyes to my soul. You’re not fine?”

  “I am what you are. I stand behind you, in front of you, and above all else, beside you with every choice you make, every action you take. I live for us, Sami. Not for myself, and not for you. For you, our daughter and me, and you know that.”

  He did know that. These were not merely words. They were the truth. But what he didn’t know was what she was really talking about. And he was too damn tired, hungry and frustrated with his case to speak in code.

  “If something is bothering you, wife, speak or go get me my dinner.”

  A commotion at the front door interrupted them, and a moment later their daughter bounded into the living room. Her uncle—Sabida’s brother—also popped his head in. He exchanged quick pleasantries, reminded Ali that it was his turn to pick up the children after school tomorrow, and left as quickly as he arrived.

  “Papa!”

  Ali’s daughter, Kinza, tossed her knapsack to the ground and jumped onto Ali’s lap.

  “Ya Baba,” Ali said, a typical endearment used by fathers to their daughters, as though to say ‘your father is talking—listen to him.’

  He hugged Kinza tightly. The smell of her hair made him forget his troubles. It was a mix of sweat and her jasmine, sandalwood and aloe shampoo. For Ali, it was the scent of joy.

  “What did you learn to cook today?” Sabida said.

  “Manakeesh,” Kinza said.

  Ali moaned.

  “Ah,” Sabida said. “Papa love him some manakeesh.” Arabia’s pizza consisted of a round bread sprinkled with cheese, ground meat or herbs.

  Ali grinned and nodded, and all three of them laughed.

  Then Ali pulled back, looked into his daughter’s eyes and said, “But what did you really learn?”

  Kinza answered with a glint of pride in her eyes. “I learned the Pythagorean Theorem. The square of the hypotenuse—the side opposite the right angle—is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides of a right triangle.”

  Sabida clapped.

  “Good news,” Ali said. “You have your mother’s brain.”

  “And I learned about gene theory.”

  “There is a theory on blue jeans?” Ali said.

  Kinza punched him playfully in the chest. “No, not blue jean theory. Gene therapy.”

  “Really?” Ali said. “And what is gene theory?”

  “It says that genes are located on chromosomes and consist of DNA. It says that traits are inherited through gene transmission from parents and grandparents.”

  “Bad news,” Ali said. “You’re smarter than your father.”

  “Is genetics the reason you share a bed with a slave, Papa?” Kinza said. “Is that what your father and his father used to do? Is that why you like it?”

  “Okay,” Ali said, blood rushing to his face. “It’s time for you to wash up, prepare for prayers …” He glanced at Sabida for help. “ … or do something, isn’t it?”

  Sabida whisked Kinza to her room. As his daughter skipped away, Ali wondered what future awaited her. Arabian parents coveted education for their daughters, but most expected them to shun careers to become wives, mothers and homemakers. Women who insisted on pursuing careers had to get permission from their husbands before they could apply for a job. Although Islam frowned on a woman working outside the home, it tolerated her occupying jobs that were seen as less desirable for men, such as cleaning homes, assisting in health care facilities, and serving food at restaurants.

  But some women insisted on greater opportunities. In big cities such as Budapest, it was now possible for a woman to become an architect, a lawyer or a member of the diplomatic corps. It took perseverance, thick skin, and relentless ambition. Ali and Sabida were raising their daughter with the expectation that she would be one of those exceptions, a woman who would fulfill her potential regardless of the obstacles created by the men who controlled society.

  Kinza’s science lesson distracted Ali from whatever it was that Sabida had been trying to tell him. When his wife reappeared he hoped she’d walk right past him to the kitchen, but that was wishful thinking. Instead, she marched straight into the living room, stood before him and put her hands on her hips.

  “Our social standing in the community doesn’t matter to me,” she said.

  Ali still had no idea what she was talking about.

  “And luxury doesn’t matter to me either. I don’t need to drive a Tesla. I don’t need vacations in Morocco, and I don’t need a slave. I can clean my own home. But we need a minimum of income to maintain a decent standard of living.”

  Ali continued to stare at her dumbfounded.

  “What is wrong with my income?” he said. “Since I was promoted, we’re saving money every month.”

  “Exactly. Since you were promoted. And if you were demoted …”

  “Why would I get demoted?”

  “Or if you … if you were dismissed from the national police …”

  “Dismissed?” Ali detected the shock in his own voice.

  “How would we get by then?”

  “Why would I be dismissed?”

  Sabida’s eyes welled. “I love you with all heart, my beloved, but I don’t want to end up living in the countryside with uneducated people. And I don’t want our daughter to end up marrying one of them and living a life beneath her potential. I draw the line there.”

  Ali took a moment to digest what she’d said.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “Why would I be dismissed?”

  Sabida’s gaze fell to the floor. “You know why.”

  Ali let his voice rise. “No. I don’t. You seem to know more about my career than I do. Why don’t you tell me?”

  Sabida took a deep breath. He could sense she was searching for the courage to speak with him about matters that didn’t concern her, namely his profession and his obligation to provide for his family.

  “You’re a good man,” she said. “Such a good man. When you saw the dead dhimmi girl you thought of your own daughter. I know you did. And you decided that you’d do the right thing, the noble thing, and find her killer. Because you’d want someone to do the same for you if the killer had taken your own daughter’s life. But Father says that’s not your job …”

  Ali stood up. “You spoke with your father about my job?”

  “I didn’t call him. He called me. He asked if we were having marital problems. If I was treating you properly. If you were feeling ill. He said he didn’t believe you were capable of showing such disrespect toward him after all that he’d done for us so there had to be a reason, and that as your wife I should know the reason —”

  “How dare you humiliate me this way?” Ali said.

  His wife should have terminated the conversation the min
ute her father broached the topic of her husband’s job. That she continued conversing about him, the man of the house, was a massive insult to Ali’s masculinity. She might as well have shown up at headquarters and laughed in his face.

  “Father said you must cease and desist, or the next call won’t be from him.”

  “Oh, no? Who will it be from?”

  “No one,” Sabida said. Her voice trembled. “If you don’t cease and desist looking into the dhimmi girl’s murder, there won’t be another phone call.”

  Ali grabbed his car keys and wallet and stormed out of the house. He drove to a place that he loathed with his entire being, except for those times when fury or hopelessness consumed him, which seemed to be happening more frequently as he aged. While sex with his slave was his favorite form of therapy, smoking cannabis was the most effective one. Smoking tobacco from a hookah was haram, but the police turned a blind eye to the few bars that had popped up in Dhimmi Town. No one cared if the dhimmis ruined their health. Nor did they care if the dhimmis reduced their brainpower by smoking cannabis from the same device in the same places.

  After his emasculation at his wife’s hands, Ali craved the cannabis high even more than he’d wanted his slave’s body earlier. He needed to shut his brain down and get some relief. It didn’t take much for him to feel stressed out, he realized. Maybe that was why he’d never cared if he actually worked his cases until now. Perhaps deep down he knew that not only was he not smartest detective in the room, he wasn’t the mentally toughest one, either. This thought, in turn, filled him with self-loathing and even more anxiety.

  As the dhimmi hostess escorted him to the men’s lounge, a man in a robe crossed his path in the lobby and brushed his shoulder. Ali glared at him, and when the person responded in kind Ali was shocked to see that she was a woman in a niqab. Only her eyes were visible.

  They radiated such ferocity that Ali did a double take to see them again but by then the woman was gone.

  CHAPTER 6

  The next day, Elise labored through the morning session of the Intertheocratic Conference with a debilitating case of cottonmouth. She couldn’t remember much about the prior night. The stress of her dual agenda had finally gotten to her, and she’d succumbed to the temptations of the hookah. She’d cursed herself upon waking up this morning, as she always did after straying from her sobriety.

  She’d also developed a terrible toothache, at least in her imagination. Elise found that she performed her best work when she truly convinced herself that her fiction was reality. So when she arrived at the dentist’s office, she would have passed a polygraph test if asked if her tooth was really killing her. In fact, she was there to see the dentist for personal and professional reasons, neither of which had anything to do with her teeth.

  The dentist was also the local agent who controlled all of Christendom’s assets in Central Eurabia.

  Three of the six patients in the waiting room were Arabians even though the dentist who owned the establishment was a foreigner. This meant the dentist was no dhimmi, because the patients would have considered his hands too filthy for their mouths, even if it was covered by a sanitary glove.

  “I need to see the dentist,” Elise said to a grumpy Arabian receptionist. “I’m having unbearable pain. I think I need a root canal.”

  The receptionist offered no sympathy. “Are you a patient here?”

  “No.”

  “Then we can’t help you.”

  Elise flashed her ID. “It’s difficult to promote virtue and prevent vice when one’s tooth hurts.”

  The receptionist looked nervous and conflicted, as though she didn’t relish disappointing her bosses or the morality police.

  “Tell Doctor Darby I’m here,” Elise said, “and that a friend of mine in the Caliph’s office recommended him.”

  The receptionist called someone on the phone. Another employee came out, this one in aqua-colored scrubs. Elise repeated her story. The employee escorted Elise to the treatment area, where the dentists were tending to patients in a row of open bays. The employee told Elise to remove her niqab, take a seat in the dentist’s chair, and wait for Darby. Elise did as the woman requested, letting her mahogany-colored hair fall to her shoulders. She’d dyed her blonde locks to attract less attention before arriving in Budapest—BP, as it was known locally in the English language.

  A fit man with thinning salt and pepper hair and a gray beard walked in a few minutes later. He stood a head taller than Elise, moved deliberately and began measuring her immediately.

  “I’m Doctor Darby,” he said, as he lowered her seatback to a prone position. Darby spoke Arabic but with a hideous English accent. “I understand you’re experiencing some discomfort.”

  “That’s a gross understatement,” Elise said.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that. Which tooth?”

  Elise met his eyes and held them for a long beat. Then she pressed her right index finger firmly to her nose.

  “This one,” she said.

  Darby’s eyes flickered. “I see.” He lowered the headlight attached to a metallic crown around his head. “Let’s have a closer look. Open wide, please.”

  Elise played along and let Darby examine her teeth. An employee popped her head in and asked him a question. Their verbal exchange allowed Elise to focus on the sounds beyond her seat. The chatter of dentists, hygienists and patients could be heard from adjacent bays. This left no doubt in Elise’s mind that her voice would carry, too, unless she was careful.

  Darby poked her teeth with his instrument. “Does this hurt?”

  “No.”

  He poked again. “How about this?”

  “No,” Elise said.

  He examined another tooth.

  “And this?”

  Elise gave a sharp yelp even though she’d felt no pain. Or had she? That was the tooth she’d convinced herself was hurting, but now she wasn’t sure if she’d made it up or if it was true.

  “I can see why that hurts,” Darby said. “One of your teeth has cracked. We’re going to have to take an X-ray to see what’s going on underneath.”

  A man’s voice sounded from the entry to the room—Elise hadn’t even realized someone was standing there. “Shall I, Doctor?”

  “No, thank you,” Darby said. “I’ll do it myself. This is a new patient and it’ll give us a chance to get better acquainted.”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  Darby left and returned with a lead apron. He raised Elise’s seatback and placed the apron on her chest. Then he leaned in, made the sign of the cross with his right hand and whispered in English.

  “In this sign …” His voice trailed off in a manner that suggested he was waiting for Elise to finish the sentence.

  Elise rolled her eyes but kept her voice low. “Oh, for God’s sake. You know who I am. I’m with the delegation from Christendom. On special assignment for the Cardinal, here to establish the authenticity of a priceless treasure and acquire it if it checks out. You’ve been expecting me. You knew what I’d look like before I got here.”

  “Protocol,” Darby said, with a strong note of disapproval. He repeated the sign of the cross. “In this sign …”

  Elise sighed. “Thou shall conquer.”

  Darby gave her a quick nod and grunted with satisfaction.

  “When do I meet the man in the wheelchair?” she said.

  “Tonight. At his apartment.”

  “His apartment?” The cliché that a spy conducted her business in dark alleys had its origins in reality for obvious reasons.

  “He hasn’t left his home for twelve years,” Darby said. “You’ll understand when you meet him.”

  Darby brought his lips to within an inch of Elise’s ear and whispered the address to her.

  Elise committed it to memory.

  “What do you know about him?” Elise said.

  “He buys and sells. Mostly arts and antiquities.”

  “Can he be trusted?”

  “Of cours
e not. No one in Nazi Germany could be trusted, no one in the Soviet Union could be trusted, and no one in Eurabia can be trusted. We live in a land of fear and paranoia.”

  “You say that with such authority. As though you have no doubt.”

  Darby shrugged. “That’s because I have none. I’m an Englishman. I am an authority. I hail from a society superior to the Islamic state, and that is the Western one. Where all human beings had inalienable rights, regardless of religion, race, or gender.”

  “So says the former colonialist.”

  “Notice I didn’t say the Islamic religion. Muhammad preached for thirteen years in Mecca and converted a grand total of one hundred fifty Arabs to Islam. The part of the Quran that corresponds to that time period reads like religion. Then he moved to Medina, became a warlord, embraced violence, and converted ten thousand Arabs a year for nine years. The part of the Quran that corresponds to that time period reads like politics. Did you know that fifty-one percent of the sacred Islamic texts consist of instruction on how to deal with non-believers?”

  “Last I looked, all the major religions became political movements … ”

  “A pity Muslims never got their house in order. A pity we succumbed to political correctness and didn’t admit that ours was a better way of life. One third of all Arab men and half of all Arab women are illiterate. In two generations, the same will be said of us. That’s the thing about the leaders of Arabia—they love their subjects ignorant. If only Western liberals could have seen past their self-loathing and understood what needed to be done back when they had the power to do it.”

  “And what was that?”

  “‘Slay the idolators wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush.’”

  Elise recognized the words. They weren’t from the Bible.

  “When did you renounce your prior religion?” she said.

  The local spymaster could only function effectively if he was fully integrated into society, hiding in plain sight. In Eurabia, that meant submitting to Islam. That’s why he had Muslim patients in his waiting room.