Finding Nouf (30 page)

"Is that what you want?" he asked, looking away. "To be a wife and have a career?"

"Yes," she said. "That is what I want."

"What if your husband doesn't want you to work?" he asked.

"I want a husband who respects my work."

He hesitated before asking the next question. "What if he doesn't? What if he tells you he likes it and then, once you're married, he changes his mind? Says he wants you to stay home and take care of the kids?"

She gave him a careful look. "Maybe I'd want the same once I had kids. I want to have the option."

She didn't seem disturbed that he was talking about Othman. Instead she resumed eating, and Nayir fell silent, lost in ugly thoughts. Othman was doing what every groom did: promising his fiancée anything she wanted. A coat. A job. An expensive home. Nayir couldn't count the times the men he knew had described the deceptions they'd contrived for their wives: the little lies, the bribes, the apologies, excuses. It made him nervous the way they talked. "The old cow, she doesn't ever shut her trap." And "I'll just give her another baby, that'll keep her busy." Or "I'll bring home a second wife, see what she says then!" If his friends' version of women was correct, then all they did was complain all day. They felt stuck at home, and it made them boring and frightening. When their husbands came home, the women attacked them with everything: pleas and entreaties, lavish meals, the promise of sexual favors in exchange for a ride, for some money, shopping, picnics, outings. Some wives didn't moan about it, they were happy with their lives, but there were plenty of bad marriages, and sometimes it seemed that his chances of getting into one were impossibly high. Yet he had observed that the men who complained most vehemently were not men he admired. All their lying and maneuvering certainly lowered his opinion of them. He resolved never to act that way with a wife.

It didn't surprise him to think that perhaps he didn't want to get married, that maybe his bachelorhood was a choice after all. What surprised him was the sudden discovery that a look at Miss Hijazi's face dispelled his inner turmoil. She was munching away, animated by some interior reflection. He had the urge to ask her what it was, to pry deeper even as another attack of guilt was starting to dissuade him.
Allah, it would be nice to be able to ask her. Just this once, and not to have to worry about what it means. I want that choice.

"Options," he said, surprising himself by speaking out loud.

"Yes, options," she replied, giving him a grateful smile. "I think that's what Nouf wanted too."

"Did she think that America would give her more options?"

She shrugged. It occurred to Nayir that they could speculate in the quiet corners of their minds until they were dead but never get any closer to the truth. It saddened him to think that perhaps no one knew. What if the father of her child didn't love her, didn't know she was pregnant or didn't care?

"You never told me whether there was any evidence of unwillingness—on the body, I mean."

She paused in her eating. "No, there was no sign of rape."

"Why didn't you say so at the examiner's office?"

"I thought you would judge her," she said, shooting him a nervous glance.

He nodded, amazed that he'd been correct about her intentions. "Is there anything else you haven't told me because you thought I might not approve?"

She hesitated slightly. "Nothing I can think of just now."

The hesitation stung him. She thought he was harsh, but he was a rational man, thoughtful and decent. If he seemed judgmental, it only stemmed from a belief in the virtues of tradition. It stung him too that when she glanced at his face, she seemed to withdraw.

"You think I'm being judgmental," he said, "but don't tell me that you don't have any faith in this system. I think you do. It's designed to
protect
women. All the prescriptions for modesty and wearing the veil, for decent behavior and abstinence before marriage—isn't the goal to prevent this very sort of thing from happening?"

"Yes," she said. "In theory, I agree. But you have to admit that those same prescriptions can sometimes cause the degradation people fear the most." She was nervous now. She couldn't seem to still her hands, so she folded them awkwardly and dropped them on her lap. "That is, I think, what happened to Nouf."

It amazed him to realize that she didn't look down on him, as he'd thought. She feared his judgment. It meant somehow that she cared what he thought. A great rush of guilt coursed through him, and he wanted to apologize, to take back not his words, but the sternness and the coldness with which he'd spoken them.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She looked up.

"You're right," he said. "Nothing is perfect—not the system, not the rules."

She was speechless. She nodded. He felt that she understood the apology. But a moment later she looked at him. "What about you? Is there anything else you haven't told me about the case?"

Instantly he thought about Othman's coat, and he hesitated, not certain he could say it without making Othman seem guilty or without upsetting her.

"There is something," he began, hearing the nervousness in his voice already. "It could be important." Fighting his discomfort, he told her about the wadi and about Othman's missing coat. Miss Hijazi listened with a calm expression on her face, but when he finished, she frowned.

"How long have you known this?"

"Ah," he said, flustered, "a few days? I don't remember exactly."

She eyed him and looked away, obviously hurt. He felt terrible.

"You don't have to hide things from me," she said. "I'm doing this because I believe I can handle the truth. It's important to me."

Nayir realized she was right. She was ambitious in this pursuit, and not for herself. She was going against Othman's wishes, possibly jeopardizing her job, and making commitments of time and energy for which there was no compensation except the truth. He felt impossibly dumb and flashed on the idea that people this stupid shouldn't be investigators.

They finished eating in silence. She seemed preoccupied with her thoughts, and he wanted to know what they were even as he begged Allah's mercy for the sin.
Forgive me for this. I am allowed my sins, am I not? But these are dangerous sins. Forgive me.

After paying for lunch, he walked her to the coroner's building, where they said an awkward goodbye. Only after he'd left her did he realize that they hadn't talked about what they would say to Othman.

J
UST AS SOON AS
Ahmad pulled onto the island, Katya felt the exhaustion of the day overtake her. Ahmad stopped at the entrance to the house, but she didn't move.

"Would you like me to take you home instead?" he asked her.

It wasn't just the day, she realized, it was the past two weeks. Ever since Nouf had disappeared, she'd been frantic, trying to go about her daily life as if nothing had changed, although everything had. Her feelings for the family had grown into a dark knot of suspicion, generating a constant stream of doubt and worry that was, she saw now, a source of distraction. If Nouf had not been a runaway bride, then someone in the family knew exactly what had happened. Katya's mind circled back to the one person she knew well enough to judge: Othman, who apparently had known his sister best. The spectrum of possibilities sprawled across her mind: he had kidnapped Nouf, seduced her into the desert, and engaged
in an elaborate cover-up. He had hired someone to kidnap her. He had discovered she was pregnant and conspired with her to make her disappear for a while. Evidence? Any of it could have been planted—the mud, the missing jacket, the shoe. If Othman had orchestrated the kidnapping, he had thought of everything. But the one piece of evidence that couldn't lie was just within her reach.

"Kati?"

"I'm sorry. No, I don't want to go home yet. I need to get something, but it shouldn't take long." She opened the door and got out. Ahmad got out too, to retrieve her toolbox from the trunk and give her one of his impossibly sympathetic looks. "Thanks, Ahmad." She took a few baggies and swabs from the toolbox and left the rest in the trunk. "I'll be right back."

Nouf's younger sister Jannah met her at the door. She smiled demurely and led Katya to the women's sitting room, where Nusra was having tea with a group of women. Katya recognized a few as Othman's aunts, but Zahra and Fadilah were not present.

"Katya." Nusra smiled and stood to greet her. Slightly unsettled by Nusra's instant recognition and by her glassy eyes, Katya greeted her awkwardly and struggled to find a place for her hands. The women were staring indulgently at her, no doubt imagining what a fool Othman was for marrying a woman as old as she. Twenty-eight, and she was only a few years away from the youngest of them, but she didn't look nearly as ruined as they did. They were gray and wrinkled, obese, most of them, sitting idly on the sofas. Their fat hung in layers from their waists and arms; they looked like sofas themselves. Katya lowered her eyes, embarrassed by her thoughts.

Nusra led her into the circle and offered her tea, which she couldn't refuse. She sat quietly on the edge of a sofa until one of the women turned to her. "So, Katya, are you excited about the wedding?"

For a weird moment the question presented ominous possibilities: What if she said no? What did she mean, excited? About the promise of money? Sex? Or did she mean the wedding itself, the food, the pomp? They would be scandalized if she told them the truth: that the excitement had been muffled by Nouf's death and Othman's reaction to it. She was beginning to doubt that the marriage should happen anytime in the next few months. Othman needed time to grieve; he shouldn't be forced to celebrate now. But she couldn't say it; they would think she was crazy. A woman her age should take whatever she could get.

"Yes," Katya replied. "Yes, I'm very excited."

"It must be hard for you, having it now, after the tragedy?"

"Well..." Katya looked at the women's faces, skeptical all. "Yes, Nouf's death has put a weight on things. It's been difficult for everyone."

"Don't think about that," Nusra said. "It's over now. There will be plenty of time to grieve when you are older. Now your life is opening." She spread her hands like a flower. "Be happy for that."

Katya smiled and found herself blushing. "Thank you."

Slowly the women's gazes shifted away, back to the invisible center of the circle, and they continued their previous conversations about their children and grandchildren and the unending stream of trifles and problems that seemed to plague every group of mothers. Katya sat back on the sofa, feeling as if she'd survived something. As the women chattered on, her mind returned to its sequence of unanswerable questions, and she began to realize that the things that concerned her—evidence, crime scenes, difficult motives—would possibly never concern these women, and what interested them might never interest her.

She thought back on her lunch with Nayir and the careful way he'd dealt with her, and she marveled at how her opinion of him had undergone a shift. Instead of an imposing, overly righteous ayatollah, he now seemed like one of those men who, aware of their own physical power, develop a kind of masculine grace which, in Nayir's case at least, had become a grace of personality as well. She could see now why Othman liked him. He wasn't overbearing; he was kind, thoughtful, smart, and reliable. And right now he was the only person she trusted with information about Nouf's case.

A servant came in with a tray of date cookies, and, tasting them, one of the aunts laughed with delight. "You amaze me, Nusra—these are delicious!" she crooned.

There'd been a time when Katya had found this family's lifestyle
appealing, but the more she got to know the women, the more she realized that she didn't want to become like them: insular and boring, consumed by the ridiculous minutiae of their easy lives. So far they seemed to accept that she worked, and one of the aunts had even asked about her job, although she'd lost interest and quickly changed the subject back to her children. Katya tried to think of Othman; he nurtured and supported her choices. She imagined that he liked her precisely because she was nothing like the women of his family.

"You don't look well," said one of the elderly aunts.

"No, I'm fine." Katya sat up. "I'm just tired."

"I hope it's not nerves," someone else said.

"No, not at all." She set her teacup on the table and turned to Nusra. "I'm sorry to have come when I have no energy. I just wanted to see how you were doing."

Nusra, typically so adept at polite repartee, pressed her lips together and nodded sternly.

"I'm so sorry," Katya said, feeling the weight of a terrible gaffe, even if she wasn't sure what it was.

"I take no offense that you should stay so briefly," Nusra said, "but I don't want to send you back out into the world as exhausted as you seem. Why don't you rest here for a while? I can have one of the servants take you to a spare bedroom."

"Oh no, that's too much trouble."

"Not at all." Nusra rose to her feet and snapped her fingers at the maid who was waiting by the door.

"Please, don't trouble yourself," Katya said.

"Nonsense. Aaliyah, take Katya here to one of the spare bedrooms and make sure she has everything she needs."

"Yes,
sayeeda.
"

Katya sighed. "Thank you, Um Tahsin."

"Of course." Nusra clasped her hand and motioned her toward the door.

Gratefully, Katya followed the maid into the hall and shut the door behind her. "Listen," she said. "I'd like to hang my cloak, if that's possible."

"Yes, I'll take it." The maid held out her hand.

"No, no. Let me do it. That way I'll know where it is when I want to leave."

"Yes, it's right this way."

The maid led her down the corridor toward the entrance. Just off the foyer, a small door led to a cloakroom. The maid switched on the light, revealing dozens of cloaks and scarves arranged on hangers. She turned to help Katya out of her cloak.

"Actually," Katya said, "I can do this myself. What I'd really like you to do is fetch me a glass of water." She leaned closer to the maid and whispered, "I have to take an aspirin."