Death In Oslo

IV

It was half past two in the morning in Farmington, Maine.

Al Muffet had been woken by a dream he couldn’t remember. It was impossible to get back to sleep. His sheets were sweaty against his skin and his quilt had bunched into a nest at his feet. He changed position. It didn’t help.

He had watched the news on TV all day. The disappearance of the President had shaken him as much as it had shocked the rest of the nation, but he also felt an inexplicable twinge of alarm.

His brother had phoned.

The last time his brother had called was three years ago, when their mother was dying. A stroke had stopped the industrious woman in her tracks, and she only had a matter of hours left. He had caught the first flight back to Chicago, but got there too late. His mother was already laid out in an open coffin, beautifully made up and dressed in her finest.

Even though she, like her husband, had maintained the Muslim faith of her childhood, the Muffasa family religion was flexible and well adapted to life in a suburb where there were few, if any, other Arabs. Mrs Muffasa was a highly appreciated asset to the Episcopal church that lay only a block away from the house. The best cakes at the harvest fete always came from her oven. She ran a youth club for young people from less fortunate backgrounds. No one could do flowers like Mrs Muffasa, and she looked after the reverend’s numerous children whenever his wife gave birth to another and was out of action for a couple of weeks.

But the Muffasa family never went to church.

In their own quiet way, they tried to keep Ramadan. They celebrated Eid with relatives from Los Angeles, who always took the time to come. And if Mr Muffasa didn’t actually face Mecca and pray five times a day, he often found time to pray when the garage was empty and quiet before closing time.

Mr and Mrs Muffasa read the Koran in the most user-friendly way. They honoured the prophet Muhammad and prayed that peace be with him, without that preventing them from decorating a Christmas tree so that the children wouldn’t feel left out.

When she died, Mrs Muffasa’s children found a kind of will in the drawer of her bedside table. Her memorial service was to be held in the Church of the Epiphany, and was to be organised by the reverend’s wife.

This caused rumblings in the family ranks, and their mother’s eldest sister threw herself in hysterical tears over the washed and dressed body that lay with folded hands in the coffin, with a cross on either side. But Mr Muffasa insisted. His wife had been of sound mind when she decided on how she wanted to be remembered. No one could dissuade him from fulfilling her final wish, and so Mrs Muffasa was buried in consecrated ground in front of a full Christian congregation.

The funeral was the last time Al Muffet had seen his older brother.

Three years of silence. And then he rang last night.

Al Muffet got out of bed and dressed himself with swift, silent movements. He had some paperwork he could do to pass the time. Anything was better than lying in bed not being able to sleep, plagued by this anxiety that he could not explain.

He and Fayed had never been friends. They put up with each other, as brothers do, but they had never understood each other. While little Ali hid behind his mother’s skirt and was adored by all her Episcopalian friends, Fayed wandered the streets alone and yearned to be with the extended family in Los Angeles, where he could go to the mosque with his uncle every day. There he could eat traditional food and learn more Arabic than the few words he managed to grasp from his father’s mumbled prayers. As an adult, he didn’t deserve to be called a practising Muslim, but on the whole, he upheld the traditions and married a Muslim woman. And when Ali Shaeed Muffasa became Al Muffet in the seventies, his brother Fayed accused him of being an Arab Uncle Tom. The brothers had barely spoken since.

Al Muffet had no idea what Fayed wanted. He had asked outright, but had avoided being positively rude. After all, they were brothers, and as their father was still alive, he didn’t want any dramatic bust-ups in the family, as that would kill the old man.

Fayed was coming to visit.

Fayed, who was a middle manager for a gigantic electronics company based in Atlanta, and who barely had time to see his own children, had phoned to say that he would drop by on the 18th of May. A curt comment that it wasn’t so strange that he wanted to know how Al and the girls were getting on out in the sticks was the closest he came to an explanation.

‘I’ll drop by,’ he had said.

Al Muffet crept past his daughters’ bedrooms. He knew the old house well enough now to step carefully over all the boards that creaked. At the top of the stairs he stood listening for a moment. Catherine’s steady breathing and Louise’s snoring made him smile. He felt calmer. It was his house and his life. Fayed could drop by as much as he liked. No one could harm Al Muffet or his daughters.

He went quietly downstairs and turned on the lights in the kitchen. He put on the kettle and took the cafetière out of the dishwasher, before getting the file he had brought home from the office from his bag.

‘Dad?’ Louise looked at him in surprise from the doorway.

He jumped and dropped the cafetière on the floor.

‘Is anything the matter?’ his daughter asked. Her hair was tangled and her pyjamas were too big.

‘No, sweetpea. I just woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.’

He found the dustpan and brush in the scullery.

‘But why are you dressed, Dad?’ Louise sounded quite anxious now, and came closer.

‘Watch out for the glass,’ he warned. ‘Nothing’s wrong, nothing at all. I just thought that I could use my sleepless night to do some work. Shall I make some warm milk for us both? Then we can have a natter before you go back to bed. Would you like that?’

She gave a big smile and sat down at the table.

‘What fun,’ she said and grabbed an apple. ‘Just like when I was little. I must tell you what happened when Jody and I got…’

Al Muffet half listened as he swept up the broken glass. At least Louise had been reassured. He only wished he could say the same about himself.