Part 10 (1/2)
For the first time, she spoke. ”So what do we do? Renounce our Judaism, become Muslim converts? Is that the way?” Her voice was a flat, inflectionless mirror of hopelessness.
”No!” The word came out sharper than he intended. ”Sepi,” he went on in a gentler tone, ”there are three possible responses to what is happening to us right now. And it's very important that we choose carefully, and not simply allow the choice to be made by default.”
She said nothing, but her eyes indicated her willingness to listen.
”First, we can despair. Give up, quit. Drift along pa.s.sively and allow events to knock us about however they may. That's the worst choice of all, I think. It means they've already beaten us. It means we've admitted that they really do have the right to do whatever they want, since we're unwilling to help ourselves.”
She would no longer meet his eyes, but her dead expression of moments ago was s.h.i.+fting to one of indignation and perhaps a little anger. Good, Moosa thought. She's still got some fight left, down in there somewhere. ”The second choice is to change to fit the circ.u.mstances,” he went on. ”To make plans, to figure out a way around difficulties-how to get away, perhaps. That's what Father is doing, Sepi. He has felt all the same pain, all the same fear, all the same persecution you've felt-only more. And his answer is to adapt. But at least he's moving, he's doing something. He hasn't quit, not for a second. It means he's still alive, still fighting in his own way.”
There was a long silence. Despite her unwillingness, she found herself unable to resist asking the question, ”And the third way? You said there were three possibilities.”
Moosa turned his head away. Several more silent moments pa.s.sed before he again looked at her. ”You can get angry,” he said quietly. ”You can push back.”
The speed of her reply surprised him. ”And which have you chosen?”
He stared at her for the s.p.a.ce of ten heartbeats. Then, without a word, he got up and left the room.
Ezra consulted the address he had written on the envelope, then looked again at the numbers painted on the dingy plastered wall beside the gate. The house stood on Avenue Ismaili, a small street in a slightly rundown neighborhood, and Ezra looked about him nervously as he knocked at the gate. He had not seen anyone following him or observing his movements, but he could not help feeling exposed. Again he knocked, anxious to get inside, away from pa.s.sing eyes.
Finally he heard the slap of leather-soled feet on the hard-packed dirt of the courtyard inside the wall. As the steps approached the gate, a low, cautious male voice asked, ”Who's there?”
”I am Ezra Solaiman. Are Jahan and Maheen Ibrahim here?”
”Why are you here?” Suspicion hardened the tone of the voice inside the gate.
”I bring a message from Reuben, Jahan's husband.”
”Reuben isn't here. For all we know, he's dead. Go away.” Ezra heard the grinding sound the man's foot made as he turned to leave.
”Wait!” Ezra called. ”Yes, you are right. Reuben is dead. We were cell mates in Evin Prison. Just before we went in to the mullahs, he gave me a message for Jahan. He gave me an envelope-here, let me put it under the gate.”
He heard no more footsteps. Looking a last time at the envelope, he placed it on the ground, and scooted it under the gate with his toe. For five or six heartbeats there was no sound. Then he heard the man take two paces. His clothing rustled as he bent down to pick up the envelope. Then came a long silence. ”Wait here,” the man said at last, and he walked quickly back to the house.
Several minutes later, Ezra heard two sets of returning footsteps. He could discern the soft, m.u.f.fled sobs of a woman, even as the man demanded roughly, ”Why have you come?” Ezra decided to appeal directly to the widow of Reuben Ibrahim.
”Jahan khanom,” Ezra said earnestly, ”for me, your Reuben was a blessing sent by the Eternal. His advice was of great help to me in prison. He made me promise to bring this message to you if I got out alive. And I have brought something else for you and little Maheen. Please let me in. I won't be able to fulfill my promise to your martyred husband if you don't.”
A moment more she sobbed quietly. Then a key rattled in the lock, and the latch clicked back. Slowly the gate swung outward, and Ezra stepped into the courtyard of the father-in-law of Reuben Ibrahim.
Jahan was short and slightly overweight. Her round, pretty face was ringed by jet-black curls. She wore a somber gray dress and daubed grief-reddened eyes with a wrinkled handkerchief. Just behind her stood her father, a round, balding man with a thick, wiry gray mustache. This man now gestured toward the house.
”I am your humble servant, Ismail Menachim,” he said. ”Come in, Aga Solaiman,” he said. ”I apologize for being rude to you. These days, one can't be too careful.”
”Please. I, of all people, understand your caution,” Ezra a.s.sured.
”When I saw Reuben's handwriting on the envelope ...” Jahan began. Her voice caught. After taking several deep breaths, she went on. ”... I knew for certain he was dead. In my heart I have been trying to prepare for this moment, but ...” She leaned against the door frame of her house and covered her face with one hand.
Tenderly, Ezra patted her shoulder. ”I am so very sorry, Jahan khanom. Your husband was a brave man, a true hero. He didn't deserve the treatment he got from the mullahs.” He felt sympathetic tears burning the corners of his eyes.
Presently, Jahan's father pushed the door open. ”Please, come in. Our house is humble, but you are welcome here.”
A few moments later, Ezra perched uneasily on one of the two chairs in the spa.r.s.ely furnished parlor of Ismail Menachim's home. The room was small, but very clean. Floral drapes covered the windows, and a.s.sorted rugs, the stock and trade of Reuben Ibrahim, covered the linoleum floors. Seated across from Ezra, Jahan trembled with silent sobs as she held her face in her hands. The sorrow in her parents' faces, as they stood silently on either side of her, was a faint echo of the anguish that covered the grieving young widow like a shroud.
Ezra longed to comfort her, to a.s.suage the pain of Reuben's unjust death, but the only words he could summon to his mind seemed so shallow, so empty. What could he say, after all? That he was sorry? That her husband's death was senseless? How could such inanities heal the raw, gaping wound in Jahan Ibrahim's heart?
He stirred and heard the rustling of the paper sack in his coat pocket. He had stopped by a candy store on his way here, to get a treat for the child. Now he produced the bag of gaz-i-Isfahan.
”Where is Maheen?” he asked. ”I brought her a present.”
Jahan dabbed at her eyes with a saturated kerchief, struggling gamely to smile. ”How kind of you, Aga Solaiman! Maheen, come in here, darling. Aga Solaiman has brought you a gift!”
The child timidly peeked around the frame of the doorway from the hall. Eyes downcast, she remained where she was, one thumb in her mouth. She appeared to Ezra to be no more than three years old. Her face was a heartbreakingly familiar version of her father's, and her mother's dark ringlets circled the shy, pudgy face. Clearly Maheen was uncertain of Ezra and, though intrigued by the notion of a present, was unwilling to enter the room with a stranger.
”Come here, Maheen,” her mother urged. ”come meet Aga Solaiman.”
Maheen glanced worriedly from Ezra to her grandparents and mother, the thumb still lodged in her mouth.
”Please, Maheen, come here,” said Jahan. Then, to Ezra, she explained, ”The pasdars came here looking for Reuben. She was very badly frightened. Even now, when we must go out, she hides her face in my shoulder when we encounter any man she does not know. And sometimes in the night, she awakens screaming....” Jahan's voice faltered.
Ezra felt his heart breaking with pity for this child, this innocent one rendered fatherless by the ruthless ambitions of men. Maheen, hugging the wall, edged into the room, her eyes fixed warily on Ezra. Reaching her mother, Maheen climbed onto her lap. Only from that sanctuary did she extend a hand toward the bag Ezra held on his knee.
Slowly, with what he hoped was a kind smile on his face, Ezra handed the bag of candy to the child. Maheen peered inside, her fear overcome at last by curiosity. Taking a piece of the white crunchy confection, she at last withdrew her thumb from her mouth, popping the gaz-i-Isfahan inside and chewing noisily.
Jahan smiled down at her daughter, then at Ezra. ”Pistachio nut candies are her favorites,” she said. Placing her mouth close beside Maheen's ear, she admonished, ”What do you say to Aga Solaiman, little one?”
”Thank you,” the child said quietly, with the briefest of glances in his direction. Then she ducked her head, studiously inspecting the sack of candy ”Reuben ...” Ezra began, and stopped. The name was big in the room, made huge by the absence of its owner. He could not say it without feeling a vast draft of sorrow blowing through his heart. His mouth struggled dryly for a way to continue. He realized Jahan was looking at him strangely.
”I'm sorry, Jahan khanom,” he managed. ”I hardly know how to begin. Your suffering ... it must be unbearable.”
”No, Aga Solaiman,” she said quietly, a look of saddened calm on her features. ”It is not unbearable, not quite. I know Reuben is beyond all pain, all suffering. And that is of much comfort to me, even now.” She drew a deep, quivering breath, then continued. ”And ... as for Maheen and me, well ... we will be protected by the same grace which s.h.i.+elded Reuben.”
Ezra puzzled the meaning of this enigmatic a.s.surance. Reuben ... s.h.i.+elded? ”I'm sorry, Jahan khanom, but I ... fail to comprehend.”
”Death is not the end of the story, Aga Solaiman,” she said in a quiet voice, husky with conviction. Her eyes blazed with dark fire into his. ”Reuben lives, because his Lord lives, and is faithful to His promises.”
Ezra felt his face slackening with surprise. He had come here expecting to give comfort, to share the sorrow of a bereaved wife and child. And there was sorrow here, to be sure; anxiety, pain, and longing were evident in the manner and bearing of Jahan Ibrahim. But this ... this ardent undertone of a.s.surance, this foundation of confidence? So unlike the woeful, resigned fatalism Ezra remembered from the funerals of his parents and friends. Or the vengeful protestations of the s.h.i.+te martyrs' families. This was a faith that had nothing to prove to itself, nor to anyone else. For Jahan Ibrahim, it seemed a sufficiency, even in the midst of heartbreak.
”I ... heard Reuben speak-or, rather, pray ... about a Yeshua,” he began.
”Yes,” said Jahan, smiling through the tears coursing down her cheeks. ”We have placed our trust in Yeshua, and He will be with us, no matter what may come.”
Seeing Ezra's confused look, she continued softly, ”Surely you have heard of Him, Aga Solaiman. Yeshua ... some call Him Jesus.”
A look of astonishment burst across Ezra's features. ”Jesus! But Reuben said he was a Jew!”
”Yes, we are Jews,” interjected Jahan. ”We are Jews who believe that G.o.d came to earth in the person of Yeshua Hamas.h.i.+ach. That doesn't make us any less Jewish. There is a difference between this belief and the Western Christian heritage which has persecuted and despised our people for so long. That heritage has much in which Yeshua has no part, things which we cannot accept. But we have placed our lives-and our eternal souls-in the hands of Yeshua, the Son of G.o.d, the Savior.”