Zeroed was the expression on her face right now. As the tribal man looked at her with congealed, cataract-laden eyes, swimming in tears, Marie-Anne stumbled and stuttered. Her face was blank. She had nothing to say. She was lost.
It was Sajjad who had to step forward to save her. He made a long statement about the regrettable things that happened in wars, offered a brief apology to the old man, and reminded the anchorwoman that using drone technology to hunt terrorists was sparing countless lives and preventing violence from escalating. “I don’t think we want a situation in Insanistan where we have American soldiers in a face-to-face position with our citizens,” he finished.
The newscaster was adamant: “But no one has even determined if such action is even legal. And isn’t it unethical besides that? This man lost his son. ”
The intercession by Sajjad allowed Marie-Anne to recover from the ambush. She took a deep breath and clenched her fists. “There are gray areas in war,” she said. “The question of armed drones is one of them, and people who know law should answer it. But just because its legality is not yet settled doesn’t mean that it is unethical.”
“Aren’t you simply saying that because your technology is ahead of the law you are free to do with it what you like? Even kill this man’s innocent son?”
The argument pressed forward, without balance, without rhythm, like a ping-pong match played on a triptych. Marie-Anne was more or less in agreement with Sajjad who, it was revealed, supported increasing the number of drones even more, “because it will reduce the financial cost of the war.” The old man who came to Doha to have his say tried to piece together a sentence in English, but Sajjad struck him down in another language.
The anchor, left by herself, tried another tactic, arguing that before sending a missile to execute someone, it might be wise to have a trial to prove guilt.
Marie-Anne jumped back in. “We aren’t dealing with people here — we are dealing with terrorists!” she shouted.
The final enunciation was evidently so painful for her that she decided to walk off the set. As she moved away against the protestations of the anchor, she tried to strip the microphone from her body; but it stayed on and continued relaying her muttering. I heard the words “hairy” and “thin-skinned” and “leper” before the wire on the microphone snapped and the camera and the sound connected back to the anchor.
The old man working the deli walked to the TV, his rag-wrapped fingers having intercourse with the glass in his hand. The TV showed a close-up of Marie-Anne. He reached out with the rag hand and touched the pulsating veins in her forehead. “That’s a crazy bitch.”
“Watch your mouth,” I replied. “That’s my wife.”
He looked at me with disbelief. Like he wanted to punch me. Having seen Marie-Anne flayed publicly, even embarrassed, I was already feeling vulnerable, and I was in no mood for a confrontation. I just wanted to get out of the deli, away from this man’s excoriating stare. I got up and leapt to the exit. My sudden move excited the owner and he followed me outside. To avoid any further conversation I ran into the bar next door. He stopped outside the entrance, probably reticent to enter an establishment with alcohol. I could see him through the glass. He was drenched in light from the lamppost above. He cupped his face against the door, dragging his grizzled gray hair on the surface, fogging the glass with his breath. Even though I was just inches from him, because of the darkness that surrounded me, the burning old man was unable to see me.
I walked to a stool and decided to wait him out. I should have never gone into the deli and aimed for camaraderie. Moderate Muslims, who were just playing the part of believers, couldn’t be friends with other Muslims. We could only report on them. The rest of the time we were better off in bars like this, separated from them, maintaining a safe and cautious distance from our marks.
* * *
When I came out of the bar, the deli was closed, the old man was gone, and I was properly drunk. Marie-Anne’s words rang in my mind. Hairy, thin-skinned lepers. I knew that if I turned on Fairmount, keeping the penitentiary on my right, I could follow it all the way to Pennsylvania and make it home in about fifteen minutes. But the other part of me, the vulnerable part, the part that had witnessed Marie-Anne dismiss a man whose son had been obliterated, wanted to go and hide. Without thinking, I started hustling down Broad Street, toward city hall.
That night I roamed around Philly in a much larger circuit. I wanted to see everything in the city. To delve into it. To experience its mysteries and hold its secrets in my heart and find joy in my discoveries. That was, ultimately, what it meant to have a home, to be familiar with everything in the space, familiar to the point of hatred, and yet still be surprised by what you might discover.
I headed farther east on Girard than I had ever gone. Once I reached Northern Liberties I went north toward Fishtown, parallel to I-95, its underside booming and rattling with each vehicle. There were only warehouses here, some stockyards, some parking lots full of bulldozers. I heard a barge creaking in the Delaware River. It carried the stench of trash. I saw in the distance, next to an abandoned warehouse, a dumpster lit on fire. There were maybe five or six people standing near it, rocking on the balls of their feet. A couple were close to the fire; the rest maintained an agreeable distance. I headed in their direction, to see into their eyes, to see their faces behind their hair, to see into their hearts. But they didn’t acknowledge me. They didn’t give me their face for an entry point into their person.
Just as I was about to turn back to make my way home, it occurred to me that I wasn’t too far from where Front Street ran into Cecil B. Moore. I could take Cecil all the way toward the other side of Philadelphia and emerge near Diamond Street, where Ali Ansari lived. I had never before cut through the entirety of Philadelphia horizontally like this, and doing it in a vulnerable state, with the possibility that anything might go wrong, only compelled me more.
The one interesting thing I saw on the way occurred near Temple University. I glimpsed the glow of red light falling upon a wall. There was a long, faded mural here. The picture was of a tree. A simple, faded blue tree. Big, tall, majestic, and otherwise without adornments. But it wasn’t wholly lifeless. Beaming onto the surface of the wall was an entire panoply of red lights. Lasers. It was the same technology Ken Lulu had used to project the Arabic words onto Constitution Hall. Except this time, instead of words, each little light made the shape of a distinct bird. Many of the birds found in Philadelphia were there. A pair of large sandpipers, different types of rails, as well as gulls, warblers, meadowlarks, thrushes, woodpeckers, crows, sparrows, terns, and ducks. They were depicted hopping around on the tree, a little artificially created avian society. I stopped and joined the admiring audience. One of the men standing there told me it was a new urban arts program that the city had started.
I arrived at Ali’s doorstep drenched in sweat. I gazed up at the sky, the clouds reformulating above. I sat on the steps and put my hands on the cement. A sense of connubial stasis passed between me and the city. I gently caressed the cement, trying to locate in its lines and patterns the faces of all the people I knew. The people I loved and the ones I sought escape from.