Blacklist

CHAPTER 42

Lotty couldn’t give me as much comfort as I wanted. Over a bowl of lentil soup, I recounted the details of my last several days, trying to puzzle out the complicated relations of New Solway.

When I finished, she asked, “Where does that Egyptian boy fit in?” “He doesn’t. Except I think he could tell me how Whitby got into the pond.” I described the layout of the Larchmont attic to her and my imagined picture of Benjamin Sadawi standing on a chair, watching for Catherine.

Lotty pushed her reading glasses up into her hair. “So you do know where he is, Victoria.”

I flushed, but nodded.

“And is that why you’re concealing his whereabouts? Because you want to get information out of him? If he’s a terrorist, you should turn him over to the authorities.”

“If I knew he was a terrorist, I’d turn him over in a heartbeat.” “And you’re the best judge of whether he is?”

I got up from the couch and walked over to the window, where I could see the lake glistening when car lights hit it. “It’s the trouble with these times, Lotty. We don’t know who to trust. But an attorney general who

thinks that calico cats are a sign of the devil doesn’t inspire me with greater confidence than I have in my own judgment.”

“Your judgment on this isn’t backed up by any experience or expertise. You’ve never worked with Arab militants, so you don’t know how or what to look for to say whether he is one or not. You certainly don’t speak Arabic, so you can’t even talk to him.”

I turned to look at her. “Lotty, do you think every Arab in this country should be interned?”

“Of course not. You know I loathe stereotyping of any kind. But this morning’s paper ran a story about the mosque this youth attends. The antiJewish rhetoric there runs high.” She sighed and looked down at her hands. “It seems to run high these days in London and Paris as well. Nothing has changed since my childhood. All over Europe and the Middle East, instead of blaming terrorists for our current woes, people are blaming the Jews. Even some poet in New Jersey is chanting that tired old litany. So I’d like to make sure this particular Arab boy doesn’t want to see me dead before I applaud you for hiding him.”

I pulled savagely on the cord for her blinds. “I understand: it’s what makes everything so difficult these days. What if I cut Benjamin loose and he kills someone like you-someone beloved, who’s saving lives, not a party to his quarrel with the universe? What if I turn him over to the authorities and they send him to a prison, remote from anyone he knows, where he can be gang-raped by the adult male population? If he’s not already a terrorist, that seems guaranteed to turn him into one.”

She nodded, her face pinched with worry. “So what are you doing to resolve this dilemma?”

“I’ve left him with Father Lou. He’s sorted out a lot of gangbangers in his day, maybe he can sort this kid out, too.”

“I hope for everyone’s sake you’re right about this, Victoria. I’m worried about, oh, everything, but also your own safety. You could get badly hurt yourself, you know. Not even necessarily by this boy, but by some gunhappy policeman like the ones who shot the Bayard child. Is this Egyptian boy’s health and safety really worth the risk to your own life?” Her mouth twisted in an ironic smile. “Why am I even asking that question?

You’re like your own dogs-once you have a bone in your teeth, you won’t let it go.”

We talked of easier matters for a time, but at ten she told me she was due in the OR at six, and that I should go home. And try to be careful. She smiled at me, but her eyes were sad.

Lotty’s somber words haunted my sleep, filling it with dreams where I caused disasters in which she died and Morrell stood in the entrance to a cave, shaking his head at me before turning his back and disappearing from sight. A little after four-thirty, I picked myself out of bed. It was better to stumble gritty-eyed through the day than get another hour of such tormented sleep.

I drove over to St. Remigio’s for early Mass, taking a roundabout route through the early morning streets until I was sure that no one was on my tail. I slipped into the Lady Chapel about halfway through the lessons, read in Spanish by a stocky woman who was the school nurse. A handful of neighborhood women were there, and a sleepy boy, a student at the school, was serving.

After the service, Father Lou beckoned me into his study. Benji was doing all right, a bit nervous about being in Christian hands, but he’d loved going to the gym yesterday afternoon and had started a workout on the equipment. And still had nothing to say about what, if anything, he’d seen from his attic window the night Marcus Whitby was killed.

“Don’t know how well this is going to work. I put him in the fourth grade, he can read enough English for that, he’ll improve fast if he stays. Told the kids he was African-the truth, and keeps them from thinking he’s an enemy. But they’re teasing him for being in the kiddie class, so his pride is hurt. Explained to him and them what real strength is: not beating someone in the ring, beating your own devils at their game. Only weak people take part in mobs. Never know how much of a lecture like that gets through to them.”

I nodded. “The mosque he goes to, yesterday’s papers said they carry literature on how Zionism is responsible for the World Trade Center, and Jews make Purim cakes out of Muslim children’s blood. I hate to think I’m protecting someone who wants to kill my friends.”

He grunted. “Best I can tell you is, I grew up in the Catholic Church

hearing same kinds of stories. Jews killed Jesus, made matzo out of Christian babies’ blood. Grew up, learned different, learned better, hope this kid can do the same. How’s the girl?”

“Healing nicely. She’ll come home from the hospital today. To a showdown between her father and her grandmother. The father has the legal rights, but my money is on Granny… Can I talk to Benji for a minute?”

Father Lou looked at his clock. “Should be in the kitchen. Seems able to look after himself. I think he’s a good boy. Shy, but eager to respond to people.”

I walked down the unlit hallways to the kitchen, where Benji was washing dishes in the old zinc sink. He looked up nervously at my entrance, but relaxed when he recognized me.

I put a piece of bread in the toaster. “I saw Catherine yesterday. She’s doing well: she got hit in the upper arm but not badly, and they’re sending her home from the hospital today.”

“That is very well, that news. You telling her where I am?”

I nodded. “She’ll be in touch when she knows it won’t put you in any danger for her to visit you. Benji-what do you want to do in the long run, if we can sort out your problems? Do you want to stay in Chicago, or go back to Cairo?”

He started drying the plates he’d washed, carefully, as if they were Sevres china instead of industrial pottery. “Sort out my problems? You are saying what? End my problems?”

“Yes. Solve them.”

“For my family, is good I am here. I send money and my sisters and my littlest brother, they go to school, they study. For me, always hiding is no good. Is unhealthy, is-” He made an expressive gesture, comprehending humiliation and anger. “And also when I hiding I cannot working. Cannot work. I cannot work when I am hiding always. This Christian priest is what you saying, he is good man, and he is helping with learning English, but still I cannot work, I cannot go mosque, I cannot see my people.”

“So I need to figure out how to let you stay here but keep you out of the FBI’s clutches.” I spread butter on the toast. “Benji, last Sunday a man died in the pond behind Larchmont Hall-the house where Catherine hid you, you know its name is `Larchmont Hall,’ right? I think someone put

this man in the pond; I think someone killed this man. When you were watching for Catherine, what did you see?”

“Nothing. I seeing nothing.” He dropped the plate he was holding. It landed with a bang on the tiles, breaking into large jagged chunks.

I knelt to gather up the pieces, but squatted on my haunches to look up at him. “Why are you afraid to tell me what you saw? I got you away from the police. You saw how much trouble I took to keep you safe. Why do you think I would hurt you now?”

“I seeing nothing. I poor, I not a-a professor, but I know what be happening. I seeing someone, you telling police, they saying, ah, Egyptian boy, he terrorist, he killer. I seeing someone, and they killing me next. No, I seeing no person.” He flung the dish towel onto the kitchen table and fled into the interior of the rectory.