They had done their research, clearly. And she looked in their eyes, their light-narrowed eyes, and, as she imagined many other Muslim-named men and women had done throughout history, she channeled every bit of defiance, every bit of holiness she could muster — even if that self of hers was a past self — into a few syllables and snapped: “Absolutely.”
It wasn’t Asiya who called Zal from police headquarters, but the police. “We have your girlfriend — Miss McDonald? Ass-ya?”
They called her “Ass-ya,” awful, was his first thought. His second thought was: Why wasn’t she calling — in movies didn’t they get a single phone call?
“She’s debilitated,” Officer Something said, plainly. But what did he mean by that? “She’s been — she’s having a fit of some sort. We’re having her breathe into a bag. She’s been a crying wreck for the last half hour. She gave us your number. She said she has no real family.” No real family? Zal told him she had a brother and sister in the city, and parents in other states. “Well, I’d take charge, Al, and let them know. She’s probably going to be held for a while.”
Held for a while. Zal was horrified. He recalled vaguely that they had had a fight of some sort, but he couldn’t remember what about. They were fighting all the time those days, it seemed. Or rather, Asiya was. He didn’t have it in him to put up much of a fight in return. He would simply look away, swallow a comment or two, close his eyes, tune out, walk out. On their last evening together, he had walked out on her and imagined, as he did every time he left, that it could be the last time they ever saw each other.
And here it was. The officer had said she had made a threat against “a building.” How do you threaten a building? And then he knew, of course. The World Trade. It had to be. He hadn’t forwarded her letter, and certainly she had taken matters into her own hands. It seemed too crazy even for Asiya.
He realized he had no cell phone number for Willa and of course not for Zachary, either. He had to do it the long way. He took a cab to their home and was met by a scowling Zachary at the front door.
“No, Zachary, there’s no time for that — this is serious,” he said, struggling to get past his arm propped against the doorway. “Let me in now. I have news.”
Zach shook his head, staring at the ground. He had a criminal look about him, Zal thought. He should be the one in jail if they really needed a McDonald.
“Zach, please!” Zal cried. “It’s about Asiya!”
“She’s not here,” he said. “Get the fuck out, before I beat you again.”
“I know she’s not here! That’s why I came to see you guys!”
Zachary’s hands started to ball into fists.
“Your sister is in jail!”
Zach looked at him and laughed, a dry bitter fake laugh. “You’re out of your mind! Get out.”
“I need to see Willa, please! I have to tell her!” And then he remembered, with some shame, how he had been found with Willa. Zal understood anger — he’d done quite a number on Zach’s world — but now was not the time.
Then, just like an angel answering a call for help, he heard Willa’s voice in the background.
Zachary yelled back, “It’s nothing, Willa. Just Asshole here, saying Asiya’s in jail!”
Willa said something else he couldn’t hear.
“Fuck you, Willa!” Zach shouted back, and slowly backed up, letting Zal in.
Zal nodded gratefully at Zach, but quickly got out of his sight by running up to Willa.
There she was on her bed. It had been a while. The last several times he’d been over, Asiya had said Willa was sick or not feeling well, and he hadn’t gone up to say hello. But now he saw evidence that something had indeed been off. Willa did not look well.
Willa had lost weight.
Zal knew it couldn’t be that much that fast, but she really appeared to be half her old size. She was lying on a bed she didn’t seem to require. It was hard to look at her, the woman he had so adored for her abundance somehow whittled away, slowly impoverished of all that made her so much.
His voice immediately softened as he saw her. “Hi, Willa. How are you?”
She smiled weakly and shrugged for a moment, and then a look of alarm darkened her face. “Zal, what is it?”
He had momentarily forgotten. He nodded and said, with urgency once again, “It’s Asiya. They took her away. To jail.”
“What?!”
“Yeah. For threats. Against a building, the World Trade, I’m sure. You know her whole end-of-the-world thing, right?”
Willa nodded, looking embarrassed, as if inheriting her sister’s shame. “I thought it was just the end of New York, but yeah, she’s said some things. How did they arrest her?”
“I have no idea! I thought you might know. They must have come here!”
Willa looked dazed, he realized. “I haven’t been feeling well lately. Sleeping a lot. I must have missed it. I can’t believe she didn’t make a sound, shout up to me, at least, let me know what was happening. Or even call after the fact.”
Zal nodded, also looking embarrassed, as if inheriting her misconduct. Here they were, the two people closest to Asiya, and at a crucial moment like this they could only be embarrassed of her, embarrassed by the association even. “What do we do?”
Willa shrugged. “I’ll call our parents.”
“Good, good,” Zal said. Her hand was already on her cell phone, his eyes on the ground. “I guess I mean, what should I do?”
Willa looked at him with wet eyes. When she lost it, it was always so subtle, so soft, so unlike Asiya, with all her sharp edges; Asiya the rectangle, her sister the cloud. “I think you should probably go home. And wait. What else is there?”
Zal nodded slowly. There was nothing else.
He left, just as Willa called Zachary up to her room. He decided not to take a cab and do the long hard work of waiting by taking long way: walking. He went the same route, that same pleasant zigzag they took the first time they came to her apartment, which Zal had since rejected for a more direct shortcut.
He was shell-shocked. Jail. How had it come to that? Was it the only thing that could stop her? Was she a threat? How had his once beloved photographer girlfriend turned into a criminal? He tried to imagine where she was, but all he got was cartoon images, men in black-and-white-striped jumpsuits, clinking mugs against a row of bars. That was not it, he knew, and this was not funny at all.
And he not only felt sorry for her but also for himself, which he knew was selfish, but still. He was without her again. And who knew for how long? He had lost his girlfriend in a way he never, ever imagined — the police had taken her away, before she could take herself away, before he could walk away, before some great big imminent unknown could close their chapter. And he had lost that thing that had made him one of them, the catalyst, the cause, and then the circumstance, the very thing that made him normal. He had lost his greatest chance at normalcy.