The Submission (9 page)

There was another reason Nasruddin counseled discretion: he didn’t want the community catching on to her newfound wealth or sending word of it back to Bangladesh. Someone could turn her in to the immigration authorities. Relatives back home could be kidnapped and held for ransom. The money had to stay hidden like a new roll of fat beneath her clothes. So even as financial advisers picked by Laila Fathi invested Asma’s million, she still lived like she was poor.

The most incremental increase in her spending attracted Mrs. Mahmoud’s notice. “You bought brinjal?” she sniffed when eggplants had gone up nine cents a pound. Or “Celebrating, are we?” when Asma, trying to return Mrs. Mahmoud’s all-too-frequent hospitality, offered her some chocolates wrapped in purple foil. They had cost $2.20. Asma told the Mahmouds that the subcontractor had given her a little more money and she planned to stay in America. Their evident displeasure soon yielded to pity. Asma needed to make her money last as long as possible, they said. She would stay with them and pay only fifty dollars a month for her room. To accept felt dishonest, when she could pay more, but Asma saw no choice. Maybe listening to Mrs. Mahmoud talk could be a form of payment.

The status of her dead husband remained as provisional as her own. Nasruddin told her there was to be a memorial to the victims, but
that an anti-immigrant group wanted Inam and other illegal immigrants left off it. To include them, the group claimed, would condone their “law-breaking” and make them equivalent to citizens. The prospect of her husband’s exclusion gnawed at Asma. It would be the final repudiation of his existence—as if he had lived only in her imagination. He had to be named, for in that name was a life.

When the anti-immigrant group held a small protest near city hall, she and the Mahmouds watched it on the local news. Mr. Mahmoud translated. The angry man being cheered by the crowd, he explained, was a popular radio talk-show host, Lou Sarge, who had become ever more popular by assailing Islam. He frightened Asma, with his skin too white and hair too black.

“Respect for the law is what makes America, America,” Sarge roared. “If we put illegals on the memorial, we will be spitting in the face of the law-abiding Americans, including legal immigrants, who died. The illegal immigrants who died came here seeking opportunity, but if they had stayed home they would still be alive. Isn’t that the greatest opportunity of all?”

Asma ground her fists into the sofa cushions, furious that there was no one to speak for her husband, for the army of workers who cleaned and cooked and bowed and scraped and when the day came died as if it were just another way to please. But the next day, the mayor said he thought all of the dead, illegal or not, should be listed, and soon the governor and the chairman of the memorial jury agreed. Inam would take his place as a permanent resident on whatever memorial came to be. But she couldn’t shake the sense, like the shudder after a near-accident in a Chittagong bus, that history had only narrowly made room for him.

Mo stood in the lobby of the God Box, a name that reflected both the building’s shape and the dizzying array of religious organizations it housed. The Muslim American Coordinating Council—MACC—was one of three Islamic groups listed on the directory, along with five Jewish committees and a dozen Christian ones that ranged from mainline Protestants to evangelical missionaries. It reminded him of a ribbon shredded into narrower and narrower strands.

He had never heard of MACC and its executive director, Issam Malik, until he had watched that televised debate on Fox with Yuki. At the time, Malik had struck Mo as the slick front man for a special interest, even if that interest happened to be Mo’s own. But in the wake of his meeting with Paul, Mo reconsidered. Perhaps Malik was the man to make the case that Mo had the same right as any other American to win. He had decided, in that French fun house of a restaurant where he’d met Rubin, that he would not give in to pressure to withdraw, nor would he reassure anyone that he was “moderate” or “safe” or Sufi, whatever adjective would allow Americans to sleep without worrying that he had placed a bomb under their pillow. It was exactly because they had nothing to worry about from him that he wanted to let them worry.

The walls of MACC’s third-floor suite were covered with framed posters from the ad campaign that the council had launched in subways
and newspapers right after the attack. “Safeguard us and we’ll safeguard you” had been the motto, its image two giant hands clasping. At the time Mo had considered it misguided—threatening in a way he was sure they hadn’t intended; naïve in proposing to strike a bargain when Americans were in anything but a bargaining mood. As he wandered down the hall, the clasped hands brought to mind Issam Malik, who in photo after photo was shown gripping the hands of governors, mayors, movie stars, even the president, as if locking them all into agreement.

Mo found Malik on the phone behind the prow of a huge V-shaped desk afloat in a vast office. “
Asalamu alaikum
,” he said, hanging up the phone. Three televisions flickered—CNN, MSNBC, Fox News—but all were on mute. Three remotes were lined up neatly on the desk.

“How’s it going,” Mo muttered.

Malik rose and came around the desk to shake hands. His grip was firm. He was as well groomed and well built as he had appeared on television. But shorter.

Mo had cold-called him, feeling like a fugitive wanting to turn himself in. “I’m the Muslim,” he’d said when he finally got Malik on the phone. And, when Malik didn’t get it: “The Mystery Muslim. The memorial.”

“Ohhh,” Malik had said. “Wow.”

The gleam that had been in Malik’s voice then was in his eyes now. He led Mo into a room where MACC’s executive committee had assembled. The council was an umbrella organization for assorted Muslim groups, some political, some theological, others legal. The group was striking in its diversity: South Asians, African Americans, Arabs; bearded men and clean-shaven, in suits and in djellabas; two women in headscarves and one—striking and black-haired in an aubergine suit—without. Mo’s eyes lingered on her dark eyes, full lips, and prominent but appealing nose, and registered a nod that suggested conditional approval.

At Malik’s request, Mo recounted his story. “I sympathize,” an older man, who had introduced himself as Imam Rashid, responded
immediately. “You tried to do the right thing—make a gesture of reconciliation. After the attack, I went to the site. I volunteered. I got other imams to do the same. Then the FBI put an informant in my mosque.”

“Allah will reward you,” said another. “You’ve done something good for the
ummah
, to show that Muslims want to live in peace in America.”

“But does America want to live in peace with Muslims?” a man named Ansar, who ran a foreign-policy lobby, asked in a more challenging tone. “Since we’re talking about memorials, where is the memorial to the half-million Iraqi children killed by U.S. sanctions? To the thousands of innocent Afghans killed in response to this attack, or the Iraqis killed on the pretext of responding to this attack? Or to all the Muslims slaughtered in Chechnya, or Kashmir, or Palestine, while the U.S. stood by? We keep hearing that it takes three hours to read the names of the dead from this attack. Do you know how long it would take to read the names of half a million dead Iraqi children? Twenty-one
days.
”

“We’re far afield,” Malik murmured.

“No, this is the field,” Ansar said. “The attack here becomes no less tragic if we acknowledge these other tragedies and demand equal time, equal care for them. They say that when you watch the movies, you root for the cowboys, but when you read the history, you root for the Indians. Americans are locked in a movie theater watching Westerns right now, and we’ve got to break down the walls.”

“I’m an architect, not a politician,” Mo said, hoping to redirect the conversation. “And I’m an American, so it was the attack on America I was moved to commemorate. The Afghans, the Iraqis, the others you mentioned—they are free to design their own memorials.”

“It’s hard to think about memorials when you’re under occupation or bombardment,” Ansar said.

“We can’t ask Mohammad to carry water for every Muslim cause, or country,” Laila Fathi, the bareheaded woman, said. Her voice had a lilting quality that Mo suspected made people underestimate her.
“Right now, he is the cause. If they take away his victory, which is clearly what they want to do, or if his opponents pressure them into taking it away, the message is that we’re lesser Americans.”

“We are lesser Americans,” a man in a djellaba said. “Eid is not a school holiday.”

Malik turned on him. “Do you have to bring that up at every meeting?”

“As a matter of fact I do, until it changes. I’m guessing Mohammad doesn’t want to speak out on that issue, either.”

“I’m basically secular,” Mo said.

A woman in a tightly wrapped beige headscarf looked at him curiously, then raised her hand. This was Jamilah Maqboul, MACC’s vice president. “I just wonder if we have considered whether Mr. Khan’s battle is productive—or constructive—for the Muslim community. He’s shown no interest, here at least, in taking on issues that matter to Muslims. All he’s done is remind us that he’s not particularly interested in Islam—that he’s not political, that he’s secular.”

“Exactly,” Ansar said. “Do we use our limited capital to fight for his right to design a memorial that, by ignoring the far greater death toll in the Muslim world from American actions, obscures America’s complicity in its own tragedy?”

“All the while picking an unnecessary fight with the families of victims, a constituency we gain nothing from offending,” Jamilah added.

“This is about amassing capital, not squandering it,” Malik said. “We’re just starting to see the polarization from this, and to be blunt that’s when you need to rally your base, do fund-raising, make the apolitical majority of our brothers and sisters realize that their rights are at stake, that they need to organize, and that they need us to defend them. The media attention allows us to talk about other issues that impact Muslims. And how can we ignore the Islamophobia this has touched off?”

“He won,” Laila Fathi said. “And if this organization is just going to sit back and leave him twisting in the wind like some … some
piñata for people to take whacks at, then this isn’t the organization for me.”

Mo saw looks pass among some of the men.

“This is how history works,” Malik picked up. “Cases—battles—emerge from unexpected places. Rosa Parks was tired. Mohammad Khan was inspired.” He paused. “Tired, inspired. Not a bad slogan.”

“But that story’s not true, about her just being tired. She was chosen to be the face of a movement,” said Aisha, an African American woman, also in a headscarf.

“You all can work out the historical verities,” Malik said. Having checked his watch and his BlackBerry, he was all business now. “As you can see, Mohammad, we favor healthy debate here. All in favor of taking on Mohammad’s case, please raise your hand.”

Seven of the twelve hands went up. Jamilah hesitated, then raised hers.

“Excellent,” Malik said. “We have a two-thirds majority. Now we need a strategy. Laila, can you walk us through the options on the legal front?”

She was brief and to the point. Their best bet, she said, was to create the fear of a lawsuit without actually filing one. Mo, she said, should publicly identify himself as the winner, which would force the jury’s hand. “You have a press conference, introduce me to imply the legal threat, or maybe have me take the questions—”

“I don’t think that’s the right approach,” Ansar said.

“We should have the committee leadership—Issam, Jamilah—up there, or people will mistake Ms. Fathi for the face of MACC,” Imam Rashid said.

An awkward, even unpleasant, mood had taken hold in the room. Mo looked at Laila. She was studying, too intently, her notes.

“I think it’s an excellent idea,” he said. “Ms. Fathi will answer all the questions for me.” She compressed her lips. Mo couldn’t tell if she was pleased.

“The committee should be up there,” Imam Rashid said. “Issam?”

The meeting broke up soon after, and Mo managed to walk out
with Laila. “What was going on in there between you and them?” His much longer legs had to work to keep pace with hers.

“Which of these things is not like the other.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You didn’t notice I was the only uncovered woman in there? It’s a big deal for me to even be in that room. Those other women fought for seats on the council, and they couldn’t have won if they weren’t wearing the hijab. I’m new. Malik got me in there because I’ve been getting high-profile cases involving Muslims. Because I’m good. But it’s tense, as you noticed.”

“So why bother with them? They don’t seem focused—that guy droning on about the Iraqis.”

“I’m a solo practitioner. They can send cases my way. They publicize what I do. They lobby for my issues. The law is political, especially right now. If the government wants to find a way to forget the Constitution and detain people without charges, it will. Just as they will deny your memorial if they want.”

“Not with you on my side.”

She ignored this. “As for Ansar, he’s annoying but he’s not wrong. Not about the history of our foreign policy, not about how many Muslim civilians we’ve killed since the attack because of what was done to us or what
might
be done to us. We barely even pretend anymore that we’re trying to spread good in the world; it’s only about protecting us because we
are
good.”

“I guess I’ve stumbled into something bigger than I realized.”

“You don’t strike me as a stumbler,” Laila said.

Maybe it was a coincidence, but the week the jury learned Mohammad Khan’s name, Claire’s son, William, dreamed that his father couldn’t find his way home. The nightmare came night after night, in black harmony with Claire’s tension over the memorial. After soothing William to sleep yet again, she poured a glass of wine and tried to think how Cal would have comforted him.

The air was sharp, the grass dew-beaded, when she took the children outside early the next morning. Collect the stones, she told them, pointing to the dozens that bordered the flower beds, spiraled in the close-cropped grass, edged the paths to the pool and tennis court. She and Cal had scavenged them on trips to beaches, woods, mountains. Lavender, pale mint, coal black, veined, smooth, striated, glitter-traced, dull as mud. River-polished, sandpaper-rough, dagger-sharp.

“Do you remember what Daddy showed you when you went hiking?” she asked William. “About how to find your way home when you were lost?”

William shook his head no, and she nearly screamed at the speed of his forgetting. But he hadn’t even been four when Cal took him to the Catskills. She crouched and stacked some stones into a little pile. “You put a pile on the trail so you remember which way you came. Then, a little farther on, you put another one, then another. Just like the bread crumbs in Hansel and Gretel, but no animals will eat them.”

William nodded and repeated the explanation to Penelope. “Animals don’t like stones,” he said. “They don’t taste good.”

Penelope put one in her mouth.

“No school today!” Claire announced. “We’re going to make a trail for Daddy.”

The idea was pure Cal—impulsive, creative. Before they set out, the word for the piles came to her, and she double-checked the dictionary. “Cairn: a heap of stones piled up as a memorial or as a landmark.” The memorial part she didn’t tell William. Let him pretend he was bringing his father home, just as she was pretending the whole city wasn’t consumed with his father’s real memorial.

She checked the news briefly before they left. On NY1 a reporter was interviewing, yet again, Sean Gallagher, founder of the Memorial Support Committee. His chin jutted out like an Indian arrowhead. “It’s like being stabbed in the heart to hear that a Muslim could build this, stabbed in the heart,” he said. “We want that message to go out to the jury loud and clear.”

He thought he should have been on that jury, Claire knew—he
had argued so to the governor herself. But he was volatile, even aggressive, and so it had been constituted without him. The families stood behind him because he promised to yell on their behalf. Yet for the same reason he would never reach the precincts of real power, whose denizens knew to whisper. They hadn’t spoken since the news of the Muslim winning. This made her nervous, but Paul had told her to hold off calling family members, Sean or others, until he came up with a plan.

She and the children drove into the city and had the nanny wait nearby with the car. Their first stop was near the attack site but not within sight of it. The children she took there only on the anniversary, when people and pomp camouflaged the barrenness. Now, especially, William’s vividly imagined garden needed safeguarding.

They placed three stones at the base of a lamppost and stepped back. William began to cry. Without knowing why, Penelope joined him.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Claire stooped to their level.

“It’s too small,” William wept. “He won’t see it.”