Chapter 8 THE AUTUMN FESTIVAL

(Author's note: the description of Islam that I gave Professor Begh is based on book- and Internet- research. If any Muslim readers write in and tell me that I have gotten things wrong, I will correct the chapter)

"Hullo. My name is Maggie Begh, and I'm your hostess this afternoon."

Grace thought that a little stiff, probably borrowed from her English primer, but none of the guests seemed to mind. After all, this hostess was going to be the source of free rides. Some of the girls looked eagerly at the horses in the corral.

"There are more guests than horses, so we'll have to take turns. Instead of just queuing up, I propose a little game. I have a number in mind, between 1 and 1000, and the two in front of the line must guess. Winner gets a horse for fifteen minutes; loser gets to compete again until she wins."

Luke's idea, from his research into Game Theory. The idea was that all the guests would have to "interact" with Maggie on some level, not just regard her as the source of horses.

"If you're a beginner, you can ask Selma there to lead you around the corral. But you'll have to go one at a time in there."

Grace herself stayed back in line; after all, she would have other opportunities to ride. She listened as the girls proposed numbers. A really brainy girl, like Glynis, might have been able to reason out Maggie's number from the wins and losses, but Glynis wasn't here. Apparently her encounter with Friedmann on Tuesday had gone badly. She wouldn't answer phone calls or Emails, even from Joan. She had pulled out of AP Biology, though Joan said she was still in the AP Law class. Grace was glad that Glynis was Joan's assignment and not hers.

On finally getting to the front of the line, Grace impishly bid "666", which she knew to be the devil's ID number in Christian tradition. Maggie probably did not know that significance, but it was close enough to her number to win a mount.

For a couple of minutes, she got used to the reactions of a horse that wasn't her summer steed, Pegasus. Then she urged it into a gallop, not stopping until she had reached the bounds of the farm. Turning her horse's head back toward the corral, Grace realized that she had made a mistake.

Most of the equestriennes were riding in pairs or groups, talking, paying more attention to each other than to their animals. They weren't excluding Grace; she had excluded them. And while they were conversing with each other, enjoying human contact, she was sitting outside the pale, on a strange animal that probably wanted her ass off its back.

Grace had always thought of herself as the eternal rebel, frozen out because she was always ready to voice unpopular ideas. But here was at least one sign that part of her isolation was self-imposed. Once more Luke's loving rebuke came to mind: you don't care what people think, and push them away.

This has gotta stop.

Riding back, she tried to attach herself to a group of riders. But she saw no way of joining their conversation, and found herself staring at their horses' rumps rather than human faces. Somehow that seemed rather symbolic. In the end, dejected, she rode back to the corral to surrender her steed.

Maggie fortunately didn't notice her mood; she was addressing a small girl who was sitting on the corral fence, wearing an overly-large coat. "What about you, miss? Nearly everybody has ridden at least once, except you."

"It's all right; I've not interested in horses," said the girl. Grace started; it was Bonnie. "I just came because I wanted to make an announcement."

"Very well," said Maggie, though she was obviously puzzled. "Ladies! Please gather around. This girl wishes to make an announcement."

There was a bit of giggling over being addressed as "ladies", but the group was in a good mood, and complied.

Bonnie raised her voice. "You guys probably don't know who I am. But I'm going to get a lot of attention in the next few months, so I thought I'd take the bull by the horns." She opened her coat to reveal a slightly rounded stomach. "My name is Bonnie McLean, and I'm going to have a baby!"

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Joan looked out of the large window in the Professor's study. Out on the large grassland, a stable hand was leading a horse up to a group of girls. Two students that Joan did not know, one white and the other black, seemed to be dickering with Maggie. Maggie pointed to the black girl, who hoisted herself into the saddle and rode off. The loser didn't seem too upset. It looked like everybody was enjoying themselves though, Joan thought sourly, that might end if somebody should happen to step in a pile of horse droppings out there.

Joan was sour because she felt left out. Not because of the horses; the last animal she had ridden had been a pony led by a grown-up when she was eight years old. But she wished that she could mingle with the other girls. The big problem was that stables attracted tics, and she was terrified of catching Lyme Disease again, so that she was careful to stay inside.

Professor Begh was standing at her side, watching through the window as well. Maybe he didn't want to interfere with the girls' fun, or thought it would be improper for a Muslim man to be surrounded by a lot of girls, many of them in tight jeans and shirts that made the shape of their bodies rather obvious. Morgiana was wearing trousers too, but they were much looser. Joan recalled reading somewhere that Turkish women had worn "pantaloons" long before women in the West did.

To be sure, there were advantages in being stuck in here with the Professor. Over the past two years, Joan had tried to make sense of her unusual calling by talking with religious professionals: Father Ken, Rabbi Polonski, her own sister-in-law Lily. She had never talked to a Muslim before, so she asked tentatively, "Professor, can you tell me about Islam?"

He laughed. "I teach entire courses in it, so it is difficult to summarize in a few sentences, though I'll try. Islam is Arabic for Submission or Obedience. That is Obedience to the will of Allah, as expressed in the Quran."

"Allah is God, right? Aren't there other ways of finding out God's will?"

"Other religions, such as Judaism and Christianity, have sacred books of their own. The Prophet called them the People of the Book, ahl al-kitab, and said that their beliefs should be respected, though he insisted that only the Quran was infallible."

"What if God speaks to somebody directly?"

"Only a few people have been so honored, according to the Quran. Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and of course Mohammed himself. The Great Prophets. Some Muslims believe that there is a future prophet to come, the Mahdi. Others believe that the record that Mohammed left in the Quran is sufficient, and no future prophets are necessary."

Either way, it didn't seem as if he would believe that a gawky American girl received visits from God every few days. As usual, Joan would have to keep that extremely secret from him. Which made him no different from any other grownup she knew.

"May I ask something awkward?"

"You may try."

"What is it with Arabs and Jews? You talked about People of the Book, and you don't resent Grace's religion at all, but when I pick up the newspaper--"

"It's very complicated. First of all, Turks are not Arabs. We share the same religion, but our ancestry and even our languages are fundamentally different. We even fought a war a century ago. Secondly, many Muslims divide the governments of the world into two types. Those that explicitly follow Shariah , or the principles of the Quran, and those that don't. Many are distressed at having holy territory under a non-Islamic government. Europe went through a similar stage centuries earlier, called the Crusades."

"Yeah. G--, I mean a good friend once told me that the Crusades were more political than religious."

"In Islam it is hard to distinguish between the two, but in Turkey, we have tried to imitate the Western concept of separating church and state. There is nothing fundamentally anti-Semitic in Islam. Legend says that the first person to whom the Prophet told his story was his wife, and the second was a Jewish neighbor. Five centuries ago, when the Spanish Inquisition was persecuting Jews, the Ottoman Empire gave them refuge. My reaction to Grace is admiration for her defending my daughter in school, and some puzzlement. She does not seem to have many friends."

"I know. She'll never be Homecoming Queen, but she seems content with the friends she's got."

"Homecoming Queen?" repeated the Professor, puzzled.

"Oh, an American custom. Pretty silly."

"I wish to learn about American customs. Tell me."

She did, never dreaming of the odd events that the explanation was destined to set in motion.

TBC