My prior disclaimer is still in effect except I don't feel like typing it here because my nail is broken and the cat is hungry and it's all getting a bit redundant.
Abaya: an over-garment worn by some Muslim women.
Dhuhr: the 2nd of 5 daily prayers recited by practicing Muslims at true noon.
Fajr: the 1st of 5 daily prayers recited from dawn to sunrise by practicing Muslims.
Keffiyeh: a traditional Muslim headdress for men often held in place by a rope circlet called egal.
Khussa: beaded, flat shoe most commonly associated with India but used throughout the Middle East as well.
Ramadan: the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and the holiest month in Islam.
Thobe: ankle-length garment with long sleeves normally made of cotton and resembling a long robe. The name is often used intechangeably with dishdasha.
SSgt. Silas had been up since the crack of dawn. He had spied on the women of the house setting up for fajr in the central courtyard and seen Jamila running down the stairs adjusting the prayer outfit she'd styled the night before. He counted eleven women and Nadim kneeling toward Mecca at a time when most of the world, some of them even Muslim, were busy with their snooze buttons. Mustafa had waltzed in soon after prayers clean shaven and fresh, unaware of his unconscious performance.
"Two of you will stay behind today," he ordered in way of a greeting looking down on the guest room.
SSgt. Silas, reclined in bed, looked up from a thick leaflet in his hand and put it aside at the sound of Mustafa's voice. He'd found the book wedged between two chairs in the mess hall a week earlier and used it to replace the phrase book he consulted when he wanted those around him to think his attention elsewhere. Unlike before, he really had been engrossed in the UCLA study on the fetal sheep brain, oddly soothed by the obtuse technical language and the appended graphs.
"Like I said," Mustafa repeated, "my car only fits three of you plus the driver so two will stay to make sure the house is safe too."
"What's your day like today General?"
"Sergeant, it's my first day of office so I am not sure what to expect," the man said with false joviality. "A bit odd to turn a new leaf on a Wednesday don't you think?" he asked as if trying to recruit a bit player for his script. "The building is beings swept for explosives as we speak. I have no fear; Al-Hadith is very quiet. This is a figurehead position," he added when SSgt. Silas didn't bite.
Only three of the five uniforms had been returned cleaned and pressed in their canvas bags and Nassiri, Dumphy and King led the way to the walk-through breakfast outside the kitchen. As Mustafa's Mercedes idled in the driveway, all five men downed cups of a strong black tea and bit into gooey, date filled pastries that tasted fresh baked. A maid had bee spooning a steaming, meaty porridge into bread but it never materialized for them and with two hooves peeking out of a basket of trash by the door, no one had bothered to ask why.
Like a mother hen, albeit a bored one, SSgt. Silas watched from the door as the black Benz now to capacity with Mustafa, the driver and three U.S. Army privates made a right turn onto the street and disappeared for the day.
Williams and Silas watched the morning hub in the kitchen through a long screened window. A mountain of potatoes grew taller on a table inside and Nadim began his morning runs taking teapots in and out of the house and later carrying four separate breakfasts each tray more sumptuous than the last. The sun climbed in the cloudless sky until a makeshift dial on the floor, an aluminum pipe sawed off and filled with concrete, placed the time at a little past 8:00 a.m. Droplets of sweat began pooling around the black egal in SSgt. Silas' keffiyeh.
"Seems very safe out here don't you think sergeant?"
"We should check to make sure everything is in order inside," Silas answered.
"Wouldn't wanna neglect that," Williams said wiping his neck with a sleeve.
They hurried into the house and stood under an air conditioning vent fanning themselves until the sweat dried. A phone rang in the distance and Nadim ran into a darkened room where the night before Mustafa had shown them an office. When a minute later he retuned the headset to its cradle a woman's voice called to him from the kitchen. Neither man, now comfortably seated in the living room sofas under the artificial breeze of overhead fans, saw Jamila come down the stairs nor heard her walk in her soft-soled flat khussa.
"Nadim," she called out.
"He went that way," Williams said pointing toward the kitchen as he turned in the direction of the voice. Jamila smiled a tense, tight-lipped smile and lingered inches from the door. The crinkly fabric of her dark, purple abaya swished as she parted the curtains and walked into the living room, back straight and shoulders squared.
She stood before the large flower arrangement on the coffee table between Williams and Silas and pulled a long stemmed white rose from the rest. She pressed the bulbs in her hands and shook the loose petals into the center of the bunch. One by one, Jamila picked out each rose and beheaded the fresh flowers to the growing amusement of her viewers.
"Nadim," she called out again. The boy ran into the room.
"Yes madam," he said after half an Arabic greeting rolled off his tongue.
"Nadim look," she said pointing at the vase. "All dead; you go to market with Hafsa. Bring more." Jamila pressed a single red banknote into his hand. "Do not hurry. Bring only best flowers." She watched the boy run and peeked at the second floor as the curtains parted for him.
"Good morning," she said with an impish smile on her face.
"Good morning," Silas echoed straight-faced.
"I feel sorry I call you ass," she said. Pvt. Williams raised an eyebrow and smiled to himself.
"Sergeant, I think I'm going to go keep an eye on the cameras," he said picking up his weapon from the sofa cushion.
"Should you be here alone Mrs. Al-Shahrani?" Silas asked when Williams' footsteps were no longer audible. Jamila kicked off her shoes and lined them on the edge of the rug in front of her. She took the seat Maurice had vacated and bent her legs close to her chest. Her purple abaya fit like a tent.
"I am twenty," she said crossly. SSgt. Silas sat up and adjusted the stiff neck of his thobe by unbuttoning the collar. His discomfort had more to do with the lack of body armor than the starched lapels but it didn't fit underneath and proved cumbersome otherwise.
"Don't go," she pled with a note of desperation in her voice when he stood. "You are most exciting thing in two years. I go mad knitting upstairs. Even this is prison when you have to stay in every day," she added twisting a ring in her hand. The light caught the diamond and reflected it on the vase making Chris blink.
"Williams needs to see that," he said pointing in the direction of the glare.
"It is called the Lesotho," Jamila said looking at the ring as if it had appeared on her finger by magic. "It was bigger; 600 carats. They cut in three to make flawless stone." She turned the ring until only the platinum band faced the outside. In her small hand, the 71.73 carat diamond looked grotesque.
Silas stood in the middle of the room plagued by hesitation that was never there and questions he never would have normally asked. As if switching gears, Jamila stretched to reach behind the sofa and retrieved a laundry bag.
"Yours."
"My uniform!" He took out the clothes and smelled the shirt. "How come you had this?"
"Are you farmer?" She asked ignoring his question.
"A farmer?"
"You read about sheep," she shrugged.
"How do you know that?"
"I think maybe you stay behind without uniform," Jamila interjected. "I take second uniform so driver goes with Mustafa. During breakfast, I see guest room and Nadim keep watch. I see sheep book and I think he is farmer, he has farm in America."
"Why…"
"You are like baby. Why, how, when, what? Everything is boring here! You are like satellite; like big uncensored American movie."
"You are crazy."
"I know," Jamila said smiling. Delight reached her green eyes shaking the sadness in them and Chris Silas found himself laughing along unable to stop looking at a face that on any other day would have been veiled.
"Will it be better for you now that Mustafa will be so important?" He asked sitting down again, wracking his brain for anything that might make her smile again.
"He has whole police to follow me around now. I can trick Yusef at market. He is lazy but not all the police. This is bore. Tell me something fun like what you do in America."
"I'm a soldier."
"You go home sometime right. You have first amendment and Marilyn Monroe."
"Yeah but she's dead."
"Ah, I should have kept tall one's uniform," Jamila teased.
"He would quote Shakespeare a lot." Jamila pinched her nose in mock disgust.
"No, no Shakespeare with dumb Romeo. I like Milton and Donne. Come!"
She got up as if on a spring and grabbed Silas's hand. They were in the den off the living room before he could hear anything over his own heartbeat and that long before Jamila noticed she was standing too close. Her bearing changed slightly, more reserved, as she used a long, wrought iron rod to push back a red curtain on the wall. The bookcase behind it was as tall as the room and divided into four locked hutches with Tiffany style stained glass doors. Jamila reached under the linen shawl around her head and retrieved a bobby pin she cut in half. It was clear from her skill as she jimmied the lock that reading was a favorite pastime.
"Look," she said in awe caressing the leather-bound spines of a very good selection of literary classics. "Nadim teach me English to read this," she said pulling a copy of Paradise Lost from the shelf.
"I had to read this in high school," Chris said taking the book.
"Did you like it?"
"Yes," he lied.
"I had to start with Quran. That was Mustafa's idea. He thought it make me more obedient but it was bad idea."
"It didn't make you more obedient?"
"What you think?" She teased again taking the Milton from his hands and replacing it on the shelf. Jamila cursed under her breath as she strained to grab a book on the highest shelf. "I read Count of Montecristo now. It is favorite more than Divine Comedy but Hafsa puts on high shelf always." Chris looked up at the books and spotted the faded spine of the book Jamila wanted. He reached for the tome with ease but then at 6' he had a good six inches on her.
"Look, page 300," she said proudly opening the book. "It is faster because I don't need dictionary so much. With the other books I write words down for Nadim and then I wait until he looks in dictionary with tutor and tells me."
"You don't have your own dictionary?"
"Mustafa promise he will get for me after Ramadan. Maybe he will because chief of police job makes him happy. Insha'Allah."
"What's that?"
"What?" She asked scanning the words on the book in her hands.
"What you said."
"Insha'Allah? It means like God willing but Allah willing," she said without looking up.
"I'll be right back," SSgt. Silas said thinking about the phrase book he carried everywhere.
He walked to the guest room making a conscious effort not to run. His pocket dictionary had over 17,000 common words in both languages with phonetics mapped out to boot. Williams was dozing off on Dumbphy's bed and he noticed, at least facing the direction of the monitors on the wall. He took the pocket dictionary from where he kept it in his helmet and slipped it into the thobe's front pocket then retraced his steps carefully. On the bed, Williams opened an eye and then the other. He smiled a smug Cheshire cat grin and sat on the bed again.
"Here." SSgt. Silas held out the soft paperback book in his right hand. "You can keep it." Jamila looked at the peeling orange cover and traced the bilingual title with her index finger. She smiled.
"Thank you," she said throwing her arms around his neck. He stood still, caught off guard like a mousing cat being petted. He heard his heartbeat buzz in his ears and felt her breath on his neck as she whispered thank yous over and over. He closed his eyes heady, unsure of whether there was enough oxygen in the room to sustain life. Jamila's scarf slipped on her head and Silas bent down until the unruly black curls brushed his face. He put his arms around her as she held him even closer and then just as impulsively as the embrace had started, Jamila pulled away. Her cheeks reddened.
"I'm sorry," she whispered rearranging her headscarf. "It's almost Dhuhr." The subtle, flowery scent of her perfume lingered in the room long after Jamila had gone.
In my best Porky Pig voice: That's all (for today) folks.