The air was frigid, turning their breath into clouds of vapor. Azis’s warning haunted him. He caught himself staring at Beryl. He blushed and forced himself to focus on the ground as they walked in silence to her car. The moody sky threatened snow, and it would be dark by 4:30 p.m. Beryl drew her scarf tight around her neck. Her cheeks, ears, and the tip of her nose had turned red; her beauty made him ache. If her husband were a real man, if he’d stuck by his wife, then Ramzi could never have contemplated using her in this way. The thought that it was Jeff’s fault, not his, comforted him.
Taking a woman would help deepen his cover. Handled correctly, it would make him even more invisible. Beside an American woman, his surveillance wouldn’t draw suspicion. And there were other benefits. He could go to the beach and to the Museum of Natural History and all the other places in New York he wanted to see, but felt too conspicuous to go alone.
Beryl pushed the key into her car door. It was now or never. He cleared his throat.
“Beryl, would you do me the honor of accompanying me to dinner and a movie this Saturday night?”
She looked confused, then slightly amused — he had been too formal, he knew. He had met Fatima on their wedding day; today was the first time in his life he had asked a woman out. He was more nervous than he expected to be and cursed himself for this.
She smiled. “Dinner and a movie. Why not?”
It was all Ramzi could do not to high-five her.
Ramzi swept inside the mosque amid a flurry of coats and scarves and wet umbrellas. Azis stood against the wall surrounded by his followers. Ramzi tried to control his expression. He wanted to appear his usual calm self but his emotions were in turmoil. He raised his eyebrows in inquiry when he caught the imam’s eye. Azis shook his head and lowered his gaze.
Back on the street, Ramzi realized Beryl’s acceptance had left him cranky. A woman her age shouldn’t be dating at all. Azis had not only approved his plan to take a woman, he had encouraged it. But now Ramzi no longer wanted to go through with it.
The wind picked up, and icy needles attacked his exposed cheeks. He moved quickly and almost went flying when his foot hit ice and shot out in front of him. By the time he got to his apartment, he was moving at a steady trot. He paused on his stoop, ripped open his mailbox, and flipped through the contents. He sweated and his legs twitched from the run. What must it feel like? His breathing didn’t slow even though he’d been still for several minutes. To his eternal shame, there was movement in his trousers. He must complete his mission and leave this country. But first, dinner and a movie with Beryl.
Ramzi squeezed Beryl’s hand. To think he’d once dreaded dating her. She had become as familiar to him as his leather recliner. Today she wore her cobalt-blue jacket open, revealing a long-sleeved T-shirt that looked perfect with her jeans and sneakers.
He parked on Utopia Parkway near the off-ramp of the Cross Island Parkway. Behind them was an entrance to Little Bay Park that followed the water’s edge to Fort Totten and then on to the Bayside Marina. On his first visit he had discovered that if you keep walking south, the path leads beneath the Long Island Rail Road and up onto Northern Boulevard.
He got out of the car, opened the trunk, and grabbed a picnic basket and blanket. Beryl scanned for the entrance. Along the road, just inside the park, was a dark wooded area where the spring grass was unkempt, and several ragged trees made it seem unwelcoming.
“Follow me,” Ramzi said. He headed back up toward the off-ramp and waited for her by two rectangular brick piles that marked the entry to the park. “This is the back way, but you get a nice view of the bridge and water.”
“How do you know so many beautiful places? I’ve lived in Queens all my life and I never knew this was here,” Beryl said.
As they entered the park, Ramzi touched his finger to his lip to silence her. A crumbling concrete trail began at the entrance, but petered out within fifty yards of the gate, leaving them to walk through grass. Ramzi breathed in the scent. Fresh cut grass, blossoms, and manure, it all added up to spring. It was barely April, but the forecast said seventy, and already it was warm and sunny. The sky was the richest blue, and the water, though grayish-green, was mirror-still, reflecting the bridge.
“I came from the mountains in what is almost desert, not this lush green and expanse of water,” he said by way of explanation.
Had he made a mistake? Yes, it was a good idea to use this woman for cover, but he should have chosen a more brazen, less likeable one. It was a constant struggle to keep her at a distance. It troubled him. He had to remind himself this was a She-Devil, however kind, and that he was performing his duty to Allah by deceiving her. But he couldn’t banish the thought that she was a good woman trapped in an evil culture. He felt her round hip rub against his, and despite himself he was aroused. The first time they’d slept together he’d been terrified. He had listened to Azis’s warning, and read New York magazine every week. The sexual habits of New Yorkers repelled, yet fascinated him.
He had been content with his wife. In truth, sex wasn’t something he’d given much thought to before coming to live in Queens. Americans seemed obsessed with it, as if it were the most important thing in the world. It was true that he enjoyed sex. When he and Fatima did it, he felt close and safe. No one in Pakistan ever talked about love. That was something for the blasphemers of Bollywood to churn out in their endless stream of movies. Seeing Fatima was often accompanied by a feeling of warmth and longing, and if he’d ever given it any thought, he’d have been happy to call that love.
Beryl turned to him and smiled. He knew she looked forward to these outings. She’d lost fifteen pounds from the exercise and claimed to be fitter than she’d been in years. Even in winter, Ramzi had led her along the water’s edge, although one day in early March he’d had to abandon his plans because the path was slick with ice. Instead, he’d taken her on a luxury water cruise. He felt a twinge of guilt when he remembered Beryl that night — giggling like a schoolgirl, posing for his pictures. She couldn’t have guessed that the true subject of those photos were the bridges and buildings and port facilities in the background. He’d taken enough photos to fill a 256MB memory card. Their expeditions became more frequent as the weather warmed up. They’d explored the whole length of the Long Island waterfront from the Brooklyn Bridge to today’s outing at the Throgs Neck Bridge.
“What’s that?” Ramzi asked, pointing to a chicken-wire enclosure about the size of a residential building block.
The park was crowded with people, some lone walkers, some in groups, and some on bicycles. The slope down to the water was dotted with sunbathers who had dragged fold-up chairs to the park and sprawled in their swimsuits. Two women in leotards power-walked, while another couple glided by on rollerblades. Inside the enclosure he’d pointed at, the grass had been worn to dirt. It was mobbed with people and dogs, and the stench of animal excrement, fur, dog breath, and urine wafted from it.
“It’s a dog run.”
“A what?”
“A dog run. In New York City you have to keep your dog leashed most of the time. Inside that, you can let it run free.”
“Really?” Ramzi was appalled: In his country, dogs were rabid curs. Here they were more pampered than children.
They made their way down the gentle, sloping lawn toward the path, and met up with it under the bridge’s pylons. The tide was low and the air had a decidedly fishy tinge to it.
“Look at this bridge,” he said. “What a magnificent achievement. Look at the pylons, they’re solid. And the cables could hold it up on their own.”
“I suppose I should be grateful we’re not discussing piston engines,” Beryl said.
Ramzi turned his attention from the bridge to his companion. He glared at her. “You know how much I admire these bridges, not just the engineering either, they are magnificent.” He slid his arm around her. They passed under the bridge and beside some soccer fields where elementary and middle school children battled it out. The shouts from the parents fought with the noise of the traffic on the bridge overhead.
Ramzi’s mission loomed before him, and the thought of it filled him with dread. The longer he stayed here, the harder it was to maintain his rage. Jihad had saved him from shiftlessness and had given him direction. Of course, he despised Beryl, but until he started to date her he hadn’t realized how much he missed a woman’s touch. Then, despite himself, Beryl had begun to mean something to him. In time, he began to know the infidel, and had developed a liking for many of them.
Beryl’s hand crept around his waist and she kissed his cheek as they strolled along. At the same time, he was fully cognizant that a war was being fought and he had chosen a side. Beryl was a weapon the Great Satan had abandoned in the field. He had merely picked it up where it lay and was putting it to good use.
They rounded a bend. “Let’s look for a place to eat,” Beryl said. There was a hilly section where man-made mounds of earth had long since become part of the landscape; grass and trees grew on them.
“Let’s eat up there on the plateau,” he suggested. “That way you can watch the view and I can watch the soccer.” Ramzi laid out the blanket and Beryl spread the food on it. She’d made sandwiches, brought sodas, and packed grapes into Ziploc bags. She’d gotten used to Ramzi not drinking alcohol, and had given it up herself. For dessert, she’d bought a pie at The Stork in College Point.
After they ate, Ramzi lay his head on her lap and stared at the sky. Several trees were just coming into blossom and filled the air with a heady but pleasant scent. Immediately, an image of Beryl on her knees before him, her mouth clamped firmly around his penis, came to mind. He remembered the fear he felt when she did it the first time. Ramzi had never hit a woman, but looking down on Beryl’s soft, shiny hair, her head bobbing at his crotch, he wanted to knock her across the room and scream, Have you no pride, woman? No fear of God?
Azis had given Ramzi absolution when he first warned him this would happen. They had prayed together. In the end, Ramzi grew too ashamed to face Azis. Perhaps God would forgive him. After all, he had submitted to serve Allah. But Beryl would go to Hell.
He feared telling Azis the worst. This abomination had given him the most intense pleasure of his life, while the shame crushed him. How could he ever speak with a decent Muslim woman again? Azis’s dispensation meant nothing. He was tainted, dirty, and the shame of it would never leave him.
“It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?” Beryl said.
He turned his face toward hers and hoped his anguish didn’t show. “Not compared to you.”
“Flatterer.”
“Truthteller.”
“You are free next Sunday, right? There’s no reason to miss my mother’s party. You’ll enjoy it, it’s a fundraiser for the Jewish orphans of Kazakhstan. That’s your part of the world.”
Ramzi didn’t bother to hide his annoyance. “Oh yes, Pakistani Muslims and Kazakh Jews, we are almost brothers. And clearly we all look the same to the Jews of Scarsdale, New York.” He had bolted upright, his muscles tense and his neck throbbing.
“Oh Ramzi, this is America, that sort of thing doesn’t matter. Besides, the only religion I’ve seen you practice is the same one I do — lapsed. Lapsed Jew, lapsed Muslim, what’s the difference?”
Ramzi had no retort. In truth, he could not be bothered to find one.
“She wants to raise money to bring the orphans here for six months to get the medical help they need and to learn English, math, and Hebrew so they might get a better start in Israel. My mother’s getting on. She thought maybe you could teach them. We both could. Maybe we could move in with her and look after her and teach the Kazakh children. You speak Aramaic.”
“How do you know I speak Aramaic?”
“You told me, remember? The first day at school when you were lost and I told you some of our students were from central Asia.”
He’d forgotten. What other lapses was he guilty of? It was all too much for him. Great levivot and off tapuzim to die for was one thing, but no amount of knish was sufficient to entice him to embrace the Jews, except for Beryl, of course. Then Ramzi had the merest glimmer of a thought.
“All right already,” he said, taking pride in his mastery of New York speak, “I’ll come to the party. But only if you let me take your picture.”
Beryl laughed good-naturedly.
“Stand here,” he said, positioning her so that his shots would take in the undercarriage of the bridge.
While she fussed and clucked over her hair, he took a dozen photos, from all angles. Beryl wasn’t in half of them.