Disclaimer: I tried to stay as canon as possible, sticking to the TV show and the tie-in book "[Spooks]- The Personnel files", from which I got the information about Zaf´s family and religious background. Because this is a sensitive subject, I quoted some phrases verbatim. This story does not mean to disrespect Islam in any way
Like every Thursday night, three attractive, well-groomed women in their fifties sat at the corner table of "Brioche", a lovely French bakery in Croydon. Sarah Younis, Amina Ahmadi and Lilian Foster had met at their yoga-class and bonded quickly over everyday (and sometimes not quite so everyday) issues. They never ordered anything with more calories than a salad and a coffee, which was driving the staff insane. But a customer was a customer, no matter what they ordered.
Amina sighed and massaged her neck. "The warm-up today was particularly intense, wasn´t it? I miss Rita. The new girl is a drill-sergeant." Sarah nodded in agreement. "How is she so flexible?" The women moaned over their various, yoga-induced injuries until the waiter brought their salads. "By the way, did I tell you that my baby is finally back in the country, living with us again?" Amina remarked. Her "baby" was her twenty-eight-year old daughter Rashida, who had spent the previous three years working for the British embassy in Riyadh. Lilian looked at her. "You don´t seem overly thrilled. Don´t worry, I am sure she will find her own place soon, now that she is back for good. She´s back for good, isn´t she?" Lilian knew that she was violating the unspoken "Don´t pry" - agreement, but she couldn´t help it. Amina nodded. "Yes, she is. I love that she is living in her old room again. I know I shouldn´t say this out loud, but I do. No, I am worried about her. Since she came back, she is... She prays. She hasn´t touched a drop of alcohol. And she has an Arabic Quran. Which she hid at the back of her drawer, by the way. Why would she hide it?" With a hasty glance to Sarah she added "I don´t mean that being a Muslim is something to worry about. God, no. I mean, technically Bassem and I still are... kind of. But..." She was looking for the right words that wouldn´t offend her friend. Sarah was married to a first-generation Pakistani lawyer, who was a lapsed Muslim. Sarah raised her hand to shut her up. "Don´t worry, you can speak freely." She thought for a moment. "I´d prefer this to be between us, okay?" Her friends nodded in agreement. "When my Zaf was in secondary school, he went through a... phase. He fell in with the wrong crowd, started to go to a really conservative mosque... Thank God it didn´t last long. His brothers pulled him out of it. And then he went away to University and... well, it was a 180 degree change." She rolled her eyes. "No idea when that boy is ever going to settle down. But I am digressing. What I want to say is, her new behaviour might just be something she adopted to fit in over there. Saudi-Arabia is a conservative country. But here, there are so many things to do for a girl her age. Clubs, bars, men... Life in London is seductive." The three women shuddered. None of them would admit to it, but the idea of children who didn´t drink and didn´t sleep around had a certain appeal. "Really? Zaf?" Lilian asked. Sarah´s youngest son was one of the most unlikely candidates for conservative Islam. One of the best things about Sarah´s parties was that Zaf would occasionally drop by to play the bartender, with everything that entailed, including throwing the bottles around and flirting with the female guests. If only he wasn´t straight. He would make a handsome boyfriend for Greg. "Amen to that." Lilian crossed her arms. "I really wish Greg had gone to Exeter. Right now he seems to do a degree in binge drinking." "So you think all she needs is a good night out?" Amina wasn´t convinced, but she couldn´t think of any other option. Sarah run her fingers through her still luminous, blond hair, a sign that she was thinking. "Rashida is single, I take it?" Amina nodded. She began to see where this was going. "Are you sure?" she asked. "Aren´t you worried that she might get Zaf back into... well, you know." Sarah shook her head laughing and pulled out her mobile phone. "How about dinner on Saturday?" Both women texted their offspring. "Are you free for dinner Saturday night? love you, mum" "You don´t think you should include that they won´t have dinner with you?"Lilian asked.
When Zaf showed up on his parents´ doorstep, he wore the "nice shirt" his mother had requested, but Sarah was dressed more casually (for her standards), in silk pyjamas and a matching morning robe. "What do you mean, you set me up? Set me up how?" Sarah shrugged. "Amina´s daughter is back in the UK again and hardly knows anybody. We thought it might be nice if the two of you got together. Don´t get me wrong, sweetie, but it looks to me like you might need a little bit of help in that area." "Mum, I am thirty. I am perfectly capable of getting dates." In the last month, Zaf had been out with two different women. None of the dates had lead somewhere, but he could hardly be blamed for the crazy hours he worked and the lies he had to tell. Lying to loved ones was the price of being a spook. Sarah petted his cheek. "Of course you are, sweetie. But somehow I never get to meet these women." A normal son would have been annoyed at that level of maternal meddling, but Zaf was a skilled spy. He could tell when people withheld information. "And?" he asked. Sarah looked at him. "Yes, sweetie?" "Come on, mum. I know you. What´s the hidden agenda?" Sarah sat down on the sofa and motioned him to join her. "Well... It´s a bit... sensitive. Rashida is... has... Well, she seems to be going through a similar phase as you did back in school. And we thought that you might..." After squirming around for a while, Sarah divulged the details. Zaf stared at her. "An Arabic Qu´ran doesn´t mean that she is going to blow up Heathrow. You of all people should know that." Sarah had the grace to look ashamed. "Please, sweetie. Only one evening. And if you think that Amina has nothing to worry about, you might want to tell her that. Please, do it for me."
Forty minutes later, Zaf was sitting at a table for two in the Little Bay Restaurant, waiting for his date.
He recognized Rashida the moment she entered the restaurant. She looked like a younger, less ostentatiously dressed version of her mother. Apparently Amina hadn´t given her daughter more notice about the date than his own mother had given him. Or Rashida wasn´t crazy about it either. She was dressed in jeans and a loose pullover, and wore neither jewellery nor make-up. She was underdressed for the fancy French restaurant, but Zaf had to admit that she was attractive. The red of her pullover suited her light brown skin, and her jeans were tight enough to guess her well-toned physique. She looked at her phone, then scanned the room. Zaf guessed that his mum had sent her a picture of him. When Rashida spotted him, she showed a polite smile and walked over. Zaf remembered his manners, got up and pulled her chair back. Rashida lifted an eyebrow. "Well, Mr. Younis. Zafar." "Call me Zaf." Zaf grinned. It had taken him less than a minute to read her. She was deeply uncomfortable with the whole situation. If Zaf tried to loosen somebody up, he usually resorted to Tequila and funny anecdotes. But he sensed that he needed a different approach with Rashida. "So, how did your mum rope you into this?" he asked with a conspiratorial glimmer in his eyes. Rashida shrugged. "Sarah and I already set this up, it would be embarrassing to call it off." she mimicked Amina accurately. She gave him a lopsided grin, then became serious again. "Listen, I am sorry that my mother did this. I don´t want to take up too much of your time. So let´s just pretend we spent the evening together and mutually decided that we didn´t connect." Zaf was surprised at the hard tone in her voice. He was annoyed at his mother for meddling as well, but surely it wasn´t that bad? He wondered if she knew her mother´s true intentions. "Just one question, then I will be out of your hair." "Sure." Zaf adopted a more serious manner. Obviously Rashida was mortified about the setup. Being flirty would only irritate her more. "What version did our mothers tell you? Version one, ´she just came back to the UK and can´t take care of her social affairs´, or version two, ´Help, my daughter might be an extremist and you have to shag her back to sanity´?" Had this been an intelligence operation and Rashida an asset he had to recruit, this would be the moment he knew he had her. She was in a state of intense emotional vulnerability. Obviously, she felt betrayed and misunderstood by her mother. She had to be lonely, too. After three years abroad it had to be hard to reconnect with old friends. He´d say "Having faith isn´t a crime. It´s admirable." Then he´d catch her off-guard by reciting a passage from the Quran. But Rashida wasn´t an asset. She was the daughter of his mum´s friend, and she was in pain. "How much did your mother tell you about me?" he asked back. Rashida looked surprised. "That you are notoriously single and have a job at the city planning department. Stable salary, good retirement plan." Before Zaf could stop himself, a smirk escaped him. He shook his head, serious again. "When I was sixteen, I got involved with a strict Muslim group, which alienated me from quite a few of my old friends. I spent a lot of time at the mosque while they were growing up as normal teenagers. Whatever ´normal´ means nowadays." he added. Rashida looked at him like she was only now beginning to truly see him. "Mum still calls it my `phase´." he continued. Both fell silent when the waiter came and handed them the menus. Zaf ordered a beer, Rashida a soda. Rashida continued to look at him. Clearly, she wanted to say something but didn´t know how. "What attracted you about that group?" she finally asked. Had he tried to recruit her, he would have told her something about the rarity and the high value of faith in modern, western societies. But for some reason he felt the need to be honest. "I fell into it out of weakness. It was a crutch. I´d been turned down by a couple of white girls because of my skin-colour, and I had difficulties getting served in some pubs. I started thinking seriously about my upbringing. My dad is something of a part-time Muslim, you see. He gives money to charity, but he also drinks. I began to resent that. I began to resent him. I felt that he had betrayed his roots. Then I fell in with a bad crowd at the mosque. They weren´t extremists, but they were quite radical. I mean, they didn´t believe in jihad and killing non-Muslims, but they were very strict with themselves and others. They felt we - Muslims in the West - had strayed. Gone soft. When they talked among each other, they had a pretty violent rhetoric. Change the world or burn it. It was an intoxicating thought for a while. I felt like I belonged." When the waiter came with their drinks, they fell silent again. To Zaf´s surprise, Rashida ordered the pork. He decided on spaghetti. Mostly because you couldn´t eat them without making a mess. Watching people eat spaghetti did wonders for resolving tension. "What made you stop?" Rashida asked after making sure the waiter was out of earshot. Zaf smiled at the memory. "There was a white girls. Actually, many girls. I started drinking again. Discovered snakebite. Beer with cider." he added. He studied Rashida closely. She had listened attentively, without any trace of judgement. "I am not the first person you told that, right? You sounded very... coherent." Zaf was struck by how perceptive she was. He had told that story before once. During the vetting process for MI-6. Now it was Zaf´s turn to feel vulnerable. For the first time in ages he had told more than he actually wanted. There was something about her deep, dark eyes that made him open up. "So, what about you?" he asked.
Zaf watched Rashida lean back in her chair and frown. "I am not sure if I can explain that properly. But I will try my best." She fell silent again. Zaf could tell that she was doing more than ordering her thoughts. She was censoring them. Whatever story she was going to tell him, it would not be the whole of the matter. "When I left for Riyadh, I knew on an intellectual level what expected me. But there was so much more to it... It was... There was a lot more violence over there. I won´t go into specifics, but I saw quite a bit of violence. You know, I was raised to have faith in people. In their intentions. I was raised in the belief that people would decide to do the right thing because it was the right thing, and not because doing the wrong thing was illegal, if you know what I mean." Zaf nodded. "But over there I saw how many people would do what I´d consider the wrong thing - taking advantage of those who are weaker, more vulnerable - because it was not illegal to do so. Not in a way it would be here. In some respect, it was easier for some people to be immoral. So I... I kind of lost faith in the ability of people to do the right thing just for the sake of it. A while ago a stumbled over a novel, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. In a nutshell, it´s about a Yemeni sheikh who teams up with a British scientist to bring the sport of fishing to the Yemen. There is a quote... Promise you won´t laugh." Zaf nodded again. He couldn´t help but feel angry at Amina Ahmadi. Her daughter had a lot on her mind and needed to share it with someone who´d understand - or at least not judge - her. Clearly, Amina was not that person. "I won´t laugh." he said earnestly. Rashida gave him a quick smile. "Pretty much at the beginning, the sheikh explains his reason for wanting fish in the Yemen. And there´s just something about it. It would be a miracle of God if it happened." she quoted. "If God wills it, the summer rains will fall and fill the wadis, and the salmon will run in the river. And my countrymen - all classes and manner of men - will stand on the banks side by side and fish for the salmon. And their natures, too, will change. They will feel the enchantment of the silvery fish, and the overwhelming love for the fish and the river it swims in. And then, when talk turns to what this tribe said or that tribe did, or what to do with the Israelis or the Americans, and voices grow heated, then someone will say: Let us arise and go fishing." She cleared her throat, embarrassed. "Religion is a question of perspective. And this was the first perspective on religion that... spoke to me. It may sound naive, but after reading Salmon Fishing I read the Quran with that perspective. Yes, there is a lot of violence in it. But what I took from it was that Allah wants us - all of us - to... well, to love each other. Or at least, not bash each other´s heads in." She shrugged and blushed. "Anyway... Are you kidding me?!" Rashida sat opposite Zaf with her back to the door, facing the massive mirror on the rear wall. "What?" Zaf hissed. He instantly fell into spook-mode, scanning the whole room without turning his head, keeping his facial expression relaxed. Rashida rolled her eyes and got out her phone. "Unbelievable." When she dialled, a mobile phone at the other side of the room rang. "Mum, I can see you." Rashida spoke into the phone. Amina Ahmadi and Sarah Younis emerged behind a couple of massive potted plants. "We wanted to see how the two of you are getting along." Amina said breezily. Sarah shot her son an apologetic smile. "Mum, seriously..." Rashida started, but Amina raised her hand. "There is no need for you to get upset, darling. And if you are, we can talk about that at home." Rashida pushed her chair back. "Oh, we will." She turned to Zaf. "Listen, thank you for... for..." "Any time." His grin made Rashida blush. Behind her back, the mums exchanged a knowing look. But Amina didn´t have time to say anything, because a moment later Rashida almost dragged her out of the restaurant.