The Tyrant's Daughter (16 page)

But the day my father died, the guards began to vanish. One by one they slipped away from their posts. Cowards or
traitors, we’ll never know. The end result was the same: We were unprotected. We were alone.

There were gunshots. Far more than usual, and closer than ever before. There was shouting and breaking glass, cars turned over and fires lit. It was unbearably loud and unbearably smoky, and the lone saucer-eyed guard in our living quarters was already inching toward the exit.

I was paralyzed with fear. We all were.

And then came Darren Gansler. Not a knight in shining armor exactly, but the closest we could have hoped for at that moment. I still don’t know what he said to my mother. She was shaking, as pale as the paper she signed, and my father’s blood had soaked a gruesome rose pattern into her blouse. I’m sure she didn’t read anything he gave her. Her movements were jerky, robotic, and she didn’t speak. She kept mouthing something, some silent plea that terrified Bastien and sent him clinging to me.

I don’t like to think about that day.

I don’t like to be reminded of it. By crowds or by smoke or by any of the hundred things that reignite the panic in my gut. So my uncle’s voice is the last thing I want to hear.

“It’s in your best interest to hear what I have to say.”

My mother is having a conversation with the devil. I listen from the hallway, willing my heart to slow down before my rapid breathing gives me away. The voice on the other end makes my stomach roil—the only thing that keeps me from vomiting on the spot is the need to hear what she could possibly be discussing with
him
.

She hates him as much as I do. More, even. She had to tolerate him far longer than I did, starting when he urged my father not to marry her. He claimed she wasn’t pure enough—her mother was French, and she was not devout in her faith. She was
unsuitable
, he maintained. My father ignored him, so my uncle took it upon himself to torment her. He threatened, he bullied, and he spied. She tolerated his cruelty for years and forced me to do the same.

“I’d be a fool to trust you, Yasmin. This conversation is
a waste of time.” He is every bit as dismissive and harsh as I remember. My fingernails search for holds in the plaster of the wall.

“I’m not asking you to
trust
me. I’m sure it will come as no surprise that I don’t trust
you
, either. I’m only saying that we might be able to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.” My mother doesn’t sound like my mother. This version of her is firm, businesslike. She knows that this devil won’t be charmed.

My uncle laughs, and then his laugh turns into a cough. It sounds like he’s choking, but that’s probably just me wishing. “I’ve already taken the only thing you had to give, and I’m not about to let your
child
challenge my position. Neither of you will ever set foot here again.”

“You need money.”

What is she doing?
I slide down to the floor, dizzy with hurt and confusion.

“I know the international community has cut you off,” she continues. “There’s no more aid money for you to steal. And you can’t line your pockets with the money you skim off everyone else’s profits anymore. Not since your war destroyed the economy.”

Still no response.

“No money means no weapons, Ali. Do you think your enemies don’t know that? They’re plotting against you as we speak—I’ve heard it with my own ears. You won’t hold that precious position of yours for long if you can’t defend it.”

A grunt. He’s listening. “You have no money, Yasmin. You’re bluffing.”

“I don’t. But the Americans do. This isn’t a secure line, so I don’t want to say any more right now. But I’m working with someone who can get you whatever you need. That’s all you need to know.”

Who is this woman speaking? I don’t know this person
. I hug my knees to my chest and let the tears escape silently, but I’m shaking so hard my teeth rattle. Just as I start to think that maybe this is all too crazy to possibly be true, the stranger’s voice in the next room transforms back into my mother’s.

“We just want to come home, Ali. I can’t live here. I can’t raise my children this way. We’re no threat to you. Please let us come home.” She’s groveling. Begging. My face burns for her humiliation.

“I need to think about this. Next time we talk, you’d better have specifics.” I jump as my uncle slams down the phone.

There is a long silence. And then my mother begins to sob—a terrible noise no daughter should hear. She sounds broken. She sounds inhuman.

On my side of the wall, I bite my lip to keep from letting any noise slip out.

My mother and I cry like this for a long time, separately, inches and worlds apart.

I sit outside her room until she comes out.

She jumps when she sees me, hand to her chest.

“What have you done?” I’m looking up at her, ugly with snot and tears, praying she’ll have an answer that makes sense. One that can take away this crushing dread.

Her face is dry. She’s already composed herself, her lipstick fresh and her hair in place. “Laila, you have no business listening to my conversations.” She steps over me and stalks into the living room.

“Don’t walk away from me!”

She turns, and for a moment I think I see fear on her face. If it was ever there, though, it vanishes quickly, replaced by stone. “This does not concern you, Laila. I’m doing what I have to do.”

She turns her back on me again, but I won’t be dismissed. Not this time. I jump to my feet and shout at her back, “Where
are you going in such a hurry? To get yourself a drink, maybe? No wonder you drink so much! Is it easier to betray everyone around you when you’re drunk?”

She freezes, then pivots. She covers the distance between us in three quick steps and slaps me across the face. Hard. I collapse to the floor, as much from shock as from the blow. She pulls her hand back to do it again but lets it hover over me, threatening, while she speaks. “Don’t question me again.” Her voice is whispered fury and her face a twisted snarl. “Ever.”

I don’t say another word as she walks away. I hear ice cubes rattling in a glass, and I know I was right about her drinking. But nothing else—
nothing
—makes any sense to me.

Now I’m angry.

I’m angry with my new shoes. They’re cheap and ugly, and they make annoying clicks as I walk through the hallways.

I’m angry with school lunches—every item on my tray date-stamped as edible for weeks or even months into the future. I had my first fruit cup today, all syrup and vacuum-sealed packaging. Is there nothing fresh in this country? Have they taken the farmers somewhere and shot them?

I’m angry that I have a visual to go with this thought. An image of bodies stacked and wrapped like the burritos on today’s menu. These thoughts are not healthy. I know that, but I can’t shake them. I can’t escape the bloodstained context that has been draped over my life. I can’t escape my memories.

I’m angry with Amir, who I saw today at school for the first time. He lifted his hand in greeting and then disappeared
into the crowd of students jostling toward their classes before the bell. He was an apparition that my wretched mood turned into an accusation. I owe him, several times over, and yet I am a silent witness to his betrayal. He’s haunting me for it already.

And now I’m trying not to be angry with Emmy for dragging me to this football game.

“Ugh. I give up. I can’t tell them apart when they’re jumbled together like that. Who can even see the ball from here?” I’m not doing well at hiding my irritation. She’s been trying to explain the rules all evening, but I can’t focus.

“Laila, you’re not even looking—” She starts to protest, then stops. There are dark circles under her eyes and her cuticles are raw. She has no energy to cheer me up, and I have no will to cheer her on. We’re a sad, slumped couple of spectators here on the bleachers.

I force myself to try harder; I fumble for small talk. “I’m sorry. I make a lousy American teenager. At least it’s nice to be outside, isn’t it? Even if I’ll never understand this game.… What number is Jackson, anyway?” I hope I’ve remembered his name correctly. He’s the most recent addition to the satellite version of Emmy’s photo collage; his face grins from inside her locker door. Emmy hasn’t mentioned him all week.

“Sixty-one.” She sighs. “You know what? I don’t like this game, either. It’s boring. And it’s not like he even knows I’m here. Besides, I think I might be kind of over him. Do you want to leave?”

I do, but I lie for her. “No! Let’s stay. How can you be over him? He’s all you talked about last week. Don’t tell
me his picture is getting an
X
already!” I finally cracked her code—the
X
’s on her pictures are the marks of unrequited love. They’re the tattoos of disappointing crushes past.

She scrunches up her face and stabs at her hair with a clip. “Who knows. I don’t even care, really. I’m just in a weird mood. My parents are at it again. Oh, crap. They’re starting the stupid crowd chant.”

I don’t know what that is, but I can feel it. The metal bleachers underneath me begin to vibrate. All around us people join in, stomping their feet and clapping rhythmically.

The crowd’s voice is surprisingly deep. They’re growling the lyrics, and at the base of the stands an ambiguous animal mascot raises his fist in the air to punctuate. The crowd gets louder. And louder.

Only Emmy and I seem to be immune from this mass hysteria.
Why do they sound so angry? So primal?
The bleachers are shaking hard enough that I curl my fingers around the edge of my seat to hold on, but this just gives the pounding shock waves yet another pathway to my spine. I’m breathing fast without really understanding why, and I know that it’s ridiculous, they aren’t stomping
that
hard, but I’m starting to feel as if I’m going to fall through the seats and plunge to the ground below. The edges of my vision turn watery, and I can’t decide whether it’s more important to hang on or to cover my ears.
It’s just so damned loud
.

“Laila? Laila? Are you okay?” Emmy’s tugging on my arm and shouting in my ear. “You look like you’re going to be sick. Come on, I’ll help you. Let’s go.”

I allow her to pull me to my feet, grateful that she doesn’t let go since the steps feel like they’re swaying and shimmying and trying to topple me. We’re halfway down when the crowd gets distracted by something on the field and everyone jumps to their feet, screaming, “Go! Go!”

We go. We clamber down the bleachers and away from the din. I focus on one step at a time, one breath at a time, until the noise around me starts to fade with distance, but my heart keeps thumping long after the chanting has died down and there’s a vaguely electrical humming in my ears. We’re past the concession stand, almost to the overflow parking lot, when I can finally take a full breath. My legs are still wobbly, but I make them move until I cross some invisible boundary—an arbitrary line that exists only in my head—and only when I’m over it do I finally feel safe.

Emmy’s eyes are wide.

“Thank you,” I tell her. My voice sounds far away, like someone else is speaking my words. “I think I’m okay now.” I can’t explain what happened back there in the crowd, but it was definitely worse than the dance. Much worse. This was an earthquake of panic. It has left me feeling sick, but not the way Emmy thinks.

I’m sick in my heart. I’m sick in my head.

I can’t live like this
.

Maybe my mother was right—a thought that terrifies me worse than the chanting crowd. Maybe we
can’t
live here.
Maybe I’ll never feel at peace, free from my past. Would it be any different if I went home, though?

I don’t know. All I have right now is here, and the thought of giving up any more than I already have is unfathomable.

I take a deep breath.
I can do this
. “Let’s go back. I’m fine now.”

Emmy is looking at me like I’m crazy. Which maybe I am. “No. I don’t want to. But I don’t want to go home, either.…” She chews on the inside of her cheek while she thinks. “We could go get ice cream. My treat?”

“You’ve read my mind.” I link my arm through hers, as much to hold myself up as from affection. It sounds normal and wonderful, but running through my brain is a staccato chant thumping in time with my heartbeat:
I don’t. Deserve this. I don’t. Deserve this
.

“But this time it’s my treat,” I tell her. “I insist.”

This time it’s me who waits.

Mr. Gansler is upstairs. Mother shooed me away when he arrived, so I’m out here leaning against the building in the exact spot where he once waited for me. The longer he’s up there, the worse the stories my mind concocts.

I’ve torn apart the telephone conversation I overheard a thousand times, and still I waver hopelessly. One minute I persuade myself that I misunderstood the whole thing, that there’s some sort of reasonable explanation. The next minute bloody, worst-case scenarios flash through my mind—paranoid plots and ridiculous conspiracy theories involving my mother and my uncle. And the CIA, of course. These are the moments that convince me that my thoughts are poisoned, that there is something profoundly broken in me. To think such things about my own mother, even fleetingly, cannot be healthy.

I’ve taken Amir’s word for Mr. Gansler being a CIA
officer. He’s
something
sneaky, no doubt. And right now he’s in my home turning my mother into his mole. That’s what I’ve worked out, anyway—it’s the theory that lies at the halfway point between my denial and my paranoia. I believe that Mr. Gansler has convinced my mother to spy on Amir’s family. She’s reporting everything that goes on in their meetings. For all I know, he’s bugged our apartment—maybe even with her consent—and he sits outside listening in real time. Perhaps he’s changing the batteries in the microphones right now. Do bugs run off batteries?