Hassan’s Tale, Part 16 – Guns and Hazelnuts

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See the Story Index for a chronological guide to all the stories.

I began pulling treasures from the safe one by one. There was an envelope that contained loose diamonds – large ones that sparkled brilliantly even in the low light of the cottage. A leather case contained plastic sleeves that held gold coins, including South African Krugerrands, Swiss Francs and Canadian Maple Leaf coins – all pure gold. A separate box contained actual gold ingots in fifty gram weights.

A small cardboard box contained five carved figurines cushioned by foam pellets. Each was about the height of my hand. They were made either from ivory or bone – I couldn’t tell which – and depicted various historical figures that might have been Maronite saints. The only one I recognized was Saint Maron himself. I examined the Saint Maron figurine. On the bottom, in tiny Arabic script, were the words, “Khaleel Haddad. 1502.” It dawned on me that I was looking at an artwork created by one of my own ancestors over six hundred years ago.

I was stunned. These assorted treasures must be worth a small fortune. Where had they come from? Were they my father’s share of the Haddad family fortune? Had he already been wealthy when he left Lebanon? But then why did he live so simply, running a gas station while mom sold purses through the mail? Was he in hiding? Or hiding his assets from the government?

I shook my head, having no answers to these questions.

Aside from the treasures, there were four more things in the safe: a photo album, an envelope containing documents, a blue canvas-bound journal, and at the very bottom, a battered black briefcase with a combination lock. I tried the latches on the briefcase, but it was locked. Great. Yet another combination to figure out.

I examined the photo album. It contained exactly what I had hoped for: family photos of me, Charlie, our parents, and some of our relatives in Lebanon. Gold and diamonds were fine, but this was the true treasure.

There were photos of me and Charlie playing, including one of me, dripping wet, and chasing Charlie in the backyard. I stared at it for a second, then I remembered and smiled. I’d been practicing forms in the backyard when Charlie had sneaked up behind me and dumped a bucket of ice water on my head.

There were photos of my school graduations and belt promotions, and Charlie’s as well; all of us at Swensen’s, eating ice cream; family outings to the beach, and even photos of my aquarium and the beautiful tropical fish I had nurtured so carefully. The funny thing was that we’d had a family photo album. I remembered browsing it on summer afternoons, with Charlie fighting me for control over it. And I remembered seeing many of these scenes, but not these particular photos. Apparently every time we’d developed a roll of photos my father had divided them in two. One group went into the family album, and the rest into this secret album. As if he had known that the other might not survive.

I stared at each photo for long minutes. It had been so long since I had seen my parents’ faces. My father, with the laugh lines around his eyes, always using a cane to walk. My mother, with the serious grooves alongside her mouth, mitigating her movie-star beauty. I felt a combination of wonder and heartbreak. Sitting here, looking at her face in the photos, I wanted so badly to see her again. I would hug her as tightly as I could, and tell her that I was okay, and that I was so sorry about Charlie.

I put the album aside and took a deep breath. I picked up the envelope full of documents and emptied it on the kitchen table. It contained papers that one might expect to find in any homeowner’s safe, with a twist. Interestingly, there were two sets of identity documents for my entire family, one under the name Haddad, and another under our assumed name of Ibrahim. There were birth certificates for myself and Charlie, old passports, and social security cards, though the latter were under the name of Ibrahim only.

Two property ownership deeds were clipped together. The first was the deed of ownership of the house, indicating that the house had been paid for in cash. I’d always assumed that my parents had taken out a mortgage like everyone else, but obviously with the kind of savings my father had possessed, that would not have been necessary. For the first time, it occurred to me to wonder what had become of the house after my parents’ deaths. Who had taken ownership of it? Who had profited? I shrugged. The Porters owned it now, and that was fine with me.

The second property deed bore the name of an entity I had never heard of – Red Day Incorporated. The deed was for a section of land in Riverside County, zoned for industrial use. I puzzled over that for a minute, until I realized that it was the abandoned rail yard where my mother had taught me to shoot. So my father had known about that all along. Or my mother had told him at the end, after they reconciled. But what was Red Day?

That question was solved as I sorted through the papers. I found incorporation documents for Red Day. It was a foundation based in the Cayman Islands. The officers were listed as – to my surprise – my entire family, under our surname Ibrahim.

I was not about to revive my old identity in order to access the foundation, but I did want to know if the property still belonged to Red Day. If the property taxes had not been paid, the state of California would have repossessed the land and re-sold it. I was thinking about my mother’s guns. If they were discovered it could lead to a police investigation. Or perhaps they’d been discovered long ago and the case was filed away in a cold-case box in a police warehouse. It might be better to leave it alone.

I was tired of examining documents, but there was only one left. It was an account statement from an Austrian bank called Volks Group. No name on the documents. Only a long account number, a series of alphanumerical characters handwritten by my father, and a phrase:  “Share the house.” It was a numbered account. I’d heard of these from a guy I knew in El Reno who’d been sentenced to thirty years for his role in the savings and loan scandal. All you needed was the account number, the access code and the code phrase, and you could access the account and wire money out. Even the bank employees did not know who had opened the account.

The opening balance, according to the documents, was fifty million Austrian schillings. I had no idea how much that equaled in dollars. It could be a thousand dollars or enough to buy a small country, for all I knew.

I’d saved the blue canvas-bound journal for last because I knew what it was. I’d seen my father writing in journals like this many times, and I’d sneaked a peek over his shoulder occasionally. If this was like the others, it was a combination of diary, poetry and philosophical musings.

I opened it randomly. Printed on the page in my father’s neat handwriting was a poem:

Water in the Well

There will always be water
in the well for you,
even when my lips are parched.
There will be an ark
when the troubles rise
and you don’t know where to stand.
There will be strong hands
to lift you, and smiles,
and a heart split wide,
with the sea
rising and falling inside.
There will be rain
from a clear sky.
There will be water in the well
for you, my love.

– Kamal Ibrahim, 1980

I read it three times, soaking up the words. It was written for my mother, no doubt. My father had loved her so much.

With trembling hands, I leafed through the journal. I found diary entries, more poems, and thoughts on non-violence, sincerity, defeating racism, the meaning of justice, and more. As I neared the end I saw something that made me go utterly still. My father had written me a letter. It was dated only a few weeks before his death. I’m paraphrasing, but this is more or less what it said:

My beloved son Simon,

It’s my hope that you have discovered this journal late in life, along with the others that I have yet to write. I hope that I lived a long and fruitful life, and that you and I came to know each other as men.

I am proud of you. Sometimes I watch you when you don’t notice. I observe you teaching a junior student in Hapkido class, playing with Charlie, or tending to your fish, and I see a boy with a huge heart, boy brimming with love and faith in himself and the world. Watching you is like seeing a piece of my soul, grown into a new person. I love you. And I know your mother feels the same.

Your mother and I sometimes disagree, but she is my angel. Everything she does stems from her deep love for her family. I pray that when you grow up, you find a woman as fiercely protective and loyal as she. That’s no easy task.

There are two great challenges in life, Simon. The first is life itself – the blows it deals you, the setbacks, the hurricanes that knock you off your feet, no matter how strong you are. The way people can betray and disappoint you. Lost love. Sickness. Death.

The second great challenge in life is forgiveness.

Simon, I don’t worry about your ability to weather the storms of life. You are a fighter. You’re stronger than me; stronger than your mother, even. You’re a superhero in the making, son. I see it.

Being a descendant of Antoine Haddad, however, carries a burden of guilt, shame and fear. Aside from that, we each carry our regrets like anchor weights on our hearts. We have our private shames, moments of failure, and times when we lost control and said or did something we shouldn’t have.

Whatever anger you harbor against others, let it go. Anger and resentment make us brittle and cynical, and narrow our vision, making our world small. We become bitter and quick to judge. These negative emotions are poisons that kill us day by day, from the inside out.

Forgiveness opens the lungs and lets us breathe. It releases our hearts to beat freely, and lets the weight fall from our backs.

I know this is easy to say and hard to do, but we must search our hearts for every vestige of bitterness and resentment, and forgive.

Ask God Almighty for forgiveness for anything you’ve done that you regret, then let it go. Others have erred against you because they are human; you have harmed others because you are human. Breathe in and out, and let your regrets escape with each breath. Do this as often as you need.

Forgive me Simon, for any way in which I’ve hurt you, embarrassed you or let you down. Forgive your mother. She’s not perfect, but by now you know that no one is. Forgive your brother. Brothers fight sometimes, but you are Charlie’s hero. Forgive your wife, if you have one, and your children. When families forgive each other it creates a safe, peaceful space. That peace ripples out into society, touching everyone we encounter. By that means we change the world.

This last one is hard. Being a Haddad means having enemies by default. People will hate and fear you because of your name. I’m asking you to forgive the ones who denounce and injure you. Do it not for their sake but for your own heart, and for God.

Simon, be gentle with yourself and others. The world is bursting with hatred, divisions, and suffering. It is torn by war and conflict. Let us change this by starting with ourselves. Go into the world today and be gentle, and forgive, because when you hate, you die inside; but when you forgive, you live.

Love,

Your father,

Kamal Ibrahim

***

Jamilah looked at the floor, feeling ashamed. “People will hate and fear you because of your name,” Hassan’s father had said. That was me. I denounced him because of his name. How could I have been so foolish and callous? She said a silent, secret du’a. “O Allah, soften my heart, and make me not judge people without understanding. I know I can do better with Your help. Ameen.”

***

I was stunned. It was as if my father had been alive all these years, and knew exactly what I had gone through, and was sitting beside me now, speaking to my soul. When he spoke of forgiving Charlie and forgiving my wife, I felt an up-welling of shame. Forgive them? I was the one who had let them down.

Forgive myself, my father had said. I understood his point, but I wasn’t there yet. It would take time. I closed the journal tenderly and began packing the safe contents into one of the two backpacks I owned. I closed the empty safe and with a last burst of effort, I lowered the cement block into place. Then I reinstalled the wooden flooring on that section.

Exhausted, I slept until Fajr. Then I woke up, prayed, and packed my few personal possessions and clothes into the other backpack.

The first backpack – the one that held the safe contents – was tremendously heavy, laden with gold. Fortunately, I was strong. I slipped it on, slung the lighter one over my shoulders, strapped the mysterious black briefcase onto the rear wheel rack of my bicycle, turned off all the lights in the cottage, and wheeled my bike out into the driveway.

I stood in the dawn light, gazing back at the house. One of the Porter children – the instruments, as I thought of them – had left a tricycle on the front lawn, and it was covered in morning dew. Probably Oboe. The house looked so different now, that it was hard to remember it as it had been so many years ago.

If not for my childhood in this house, I might not have known that happiness existed. I might not have believed in love, or in the concept of family. I might have thought the world to be an unrelentingly wicked place. I might have lost myself to the war in Lebanon, becoming as evil as Sarkis.

But that would never happen to me, because I had grown up seeing the love between my mother and father, and understanding that I was a product of that love, and that this was how life was meant to be.

I shrugged my shoulders almost imperceptibly. My parents were long gone… This house held no meaning for me now.

The night sky in Los Angeles is never truly dark. A billion street lamps, home lights, store lights, car dealerships, neon signs, and car headlights illuminate the L.A. basin, making the vast region glow like a tangerine, even on a moonless night. If you peered hard enough, you could get a glimpse of the deep black of space. When dawn came, the approaching sun altered the sky’s glow, transforming it into radioactive orange, until the last trace of darkness was banished.

I was ready to leave this city and never return.

So, Jamilah, to answer your question, as it turned out I was able to find what my father had hidden and get out safely. But what if I’d had to jackhammer the floor and leave it that way? What if I’d been caught digging? What if I’d had to flee? It would have been bad for me if I’d given my real name. I might have the cops looking for me. I might have been sent back to prison. I had to make choices to keep myself safe.

I gave the gold, diamonds and figurines to B, who sold them using some contacts of his. I was right – they were worth a small fortune. I gave B a percentage. He refused at first, but I insisted.

I couldn’t stay in L.A. I had too much painful history there, and even the slim chance of running into someone who recognized me from my childhood was a risk I would not take.

San Francisco called to me. I had never forgotten my happy childhood trip to the City, with my parents and Charlie. More recently, when I’d been arrested I’d first been held in the San Francisco jail, then across the bay in Oakland. Between court appearances I was transported by the U.S. marshals to a maximum security federal penitentiary outside a small town called Lompoc, on the coast. With all the moving around, I saw quite a bit of the region through the windows of the various vans, SUVs and minibuses that the marshals used. True, I was bound in handcuffs, leg irons and waist chains, but that didn’t stop me from being astounded at the beauty of San Francisco.

I will never forget the first time I was transported back to San Francisco from Oakland. Coming across the Bay Bridge, the City rises up in front of you like a dream of the future. Tall buildings reach for the sky, and hills covered in trees and mist climb behind them. Blue water surrounds the City like a shimmering veil, with untouched Angel Island on your right like a green gem, and Alcatraz behind it. And then the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, standing watch over the City, guarding the exit to the sea.

I quit the job at Slim’s and rented a room at another motel. I called the County Office of the Assessor and inquired about the ownership of the old rail yard in the desert, and I was informed that it was owned by Red Day Corp. So after all those years, the property still belonged to my mother, and now to me, it seemed. My mother must have set up a trust fund that kept the property taxes paid.

I had already passed my driving exam and received my license in the name Hassan Amir. I bought a used van and drove to the rail yard, using a map to find my way. It had been a long time and many of the landmarks had changed, but in the end I found it.

In the old days my mother had installed a secure metal gate on the dirt road that led to the rail yard. She’d, hung a large “No Trespassing” sign, and locked the gate with a combination padlock. When I arrived I stopped for a moment to take in an odd sight.

The gate stood wide open. On it hung a large wooden sign entirely painted in rainbow colors and featuring various symbols such as a sleepy sun, a smiling moon, and a tao symbol with flowers where the circles would be. At the top was the word, “PAZ”, painted in large white letters. I knew that “paz” meant “peace” in Spanish. Was this some kind of immigrant community?

One side of the dirt road had been planted with poppy flowers, and the other with date palms that stood twenty feet tall. It looked like a road to someplace magical.

I drove in slowly, not knowing what to expect. I found, to my amazement, a thriving community of hippies.

The dilapidated buildings of the rail yard had been renovated and painted in bright colors. Wherever there was dirt, flowers and food crops grew. I saw tomatoes, melons and prickly pears.

Up the hill from the rail yard, three large wind turbines spun steadily.

Dozens of people walked in the same direction, passing through what had once been a switching station and now looked like a town square. The train tracks were still there, but they now ran through cobblestones and among palm trees.

The women wore billowy dresses or long skirts with sandals or boots. The men were mostly in jeans and African dashikis or tie-dyed t-shirts. The scent of burning sage filled the air, and I heard the sound of instrumental music.

I parked on the edge of the square and got out.

An Asian girl walked by, wearing a long dress with a peacock pattern. Her hair was matted into dreadlocks.

“Excuse me,” I said. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s lunch time,” she responded cheerfully. Tipping her head, she indicated a large building that, I remembered, had once been a warehouse for old train parts.

“I need to speak to the person in charge,” I said.

She laughed heartily, belying her small frame. “Good one,” she said. “Be here now.” She gave me the Southeast Asian gesture of peace, lifting her hands to her forehead, palms together. Then she walked off.

The warehouse had been completely renovated and outfitted like a school cafeteria, with long rows of wooden tables and a serving area. There must have been a hundred people packed inside, eating vegetable stew and cornbread. It smelled good, actually.

At one table by the far wall I saw a thirtyish woman with long brown hair and yellow macramé bracelets on her wrists. I noticed her because other people kept approaching her, speaking to her briefly, then walking away.

I sat down across from her and she looked up inquiringly.

“Are you in charge?” I asked.

“Ah,” she said. “You must be new. I’m Bernadette.”

“I’m Simon,” I said. “Are you in charge?” I used my old name because that was the name on the Red Day foundation documents. I’d brought those documents and my old I.D.s, but the I.D. papers were old and I did not intend to show them except as a last resort.

She smiled and shook her head slightly. “No one’s in charge here, friend. This is the Progressive Anarchy Zone. We live without government or judgment.”

A commune. This was a hippie commune, or something like that. Well, that was fine. But where were my mother’s guns? In the old days there had been a smaller building that had once been used as a dining hall for the rail workers. Next to it had been a small kitchen. My mother had kept her gun cases inside the disused walk-in freezer, secured with a thick padlock.

I’d seen that old dining hall on the edge of the town square. It was painted yellow with a large mural on the front depicting a rainbow rising from a sea of upstretched arms.

The guns had almost certainly been found, in which case these people might have notified the police. It might be better to forget about the guns and walk away. After all, what did I need them for? I’d made a vow never to kill again. All those heavy weapons could only attract attention.

But they were my mother’s. They were all I had left of her. And what if… what if Boulos found me one day and sent someone after me? What if Sarkis or Mr. Black found me? Wouldn’t I need a way to defend myself, vow or no vow?

I didn’t know what the right thing was. I cast a thought to Allah, praising Him within my mind. Allah, You have wisdom and I have none. You have power and I have none.

A middle-aged man with a long beard approached and offered that same palms-together salute. “Bernie, the USGS wants an appointment to test for contaminants.”

Bernadette nodded, “That’s fine.”

“It seems like you’re in charge,” I said.

She shook her head. “We have an elected cooperative council, and I’m the head. But I own nothing. Everyone sweats. I clean toilets like any flower.”

“Bernadette,” I said, “I own this property. Or, to be accurate, I own Red Day Corp, which owns the property.” I opened a file folder and showed her the deed of ownership.

Bernadette’s mouth became a flat line. “Walk with me, Simon,” she said.

I followed her out of the building. She walked me around the property, pointing out the work the commune had done. Aside from renovating, painting and planting, they had built a food packing plant, dormitories, the three wind turbines up the hill, a small dairy operation with about twenty cows, and a small school. When Bernadette and I glanced in the window of the schoolhouse, I was bemused to see the children taking science notes on Apple computers. It seemed incongruous, somehow.

“The flowers here – the people, I mean – were homeless, or drug addicts, or ex-cons. They were people with nowhere left to go. Here they’ve found a home.”

“That’s great,” I said. “But why are you telling me this?”

“Because I don’t know your intentions,” Bernadette said, rounding on me. Her brown eyes flashed and she jabbed me in the chest with an index finger. “We’ve been here eight years. We’ve built and invested. We’re willing to pay you a reasonable rent. But if you try to evict us we’ll fight tooth and nail. California recognizes squatter’s rights.”

I raised my eyebrows, “I thought you were about peace and love.”

“What do you want?” Bernadette demanded, “Lay it on me straight.”

“Once upon a time,” I said, “there were several large aluminum cases locked in the walk-in freezer in that building over there,” I pointed to the yellow building with the rainbow mural.

I saw Bernadette’s expression instantly change, becoming wary and guarded. She gazed at the yellow building, then glanced at me sidelong, saying nothing.

I waited. Finally she puffed up her cheeks and let out her breath in a huff.

“Why do you need all those weapons?” she asked. “Are you a gangster? A terrorist?”

“No,” I said, “They belonged to my mother. She had a dealer’s license. I might dump them in the sea, I don’t know.”

“How do I know they’re yours?”

“You know they’re mine. Who else would know about them? I know the lock combinations on the cases, and I know exactly what each case holds.”

I’d fired each of those guns so many times that I remembered them like old friends, and I proceeded to detail for her the contents of the handgun case, itemizing them from memory.

“I don’t need this land,” I said, changing tactics to keep her off balance, “Your commune can stay. Just give me the cases.”

“Right on,” she said, looking at me searchingly, “I want to show you one more thing.”

Bernadette led me to the rear of the property, where the commune had constructed three spacious greenhouses. We entered one. The air inside was warm and moist. Orderly rows of leafy round bushes reached almost to the ceiling.

“Do you know what these are?”

“Hazelnuts,” I answered promptly.

She gave me a surprised look, “Most Americans wouldn’t know a hazelnut from a halibut. They’re mostly grown in Turkey.”

I didn’t tell her that I’d lived in Turkey, and that Mehmet had cultivated several hazelnut bushes in the small backyard at the Western Door. Hazelnut roast had been our best-selling coffee.

“You might also know,” Bernadette said, “that researchers and growers have found it difficult to grow hazelnuts in the United States because of Eastern Filbert Blight. These plants,” she waved her hand to indicate the lush hazelnut bushes all around us, “were specially developed by the University of Seattle to be resistant to EFB. We were able to obtain cuttings at great difficulty, and at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars. Still, the first crop failed. It took us four years of trying and a total of a half million dollars to get this operation running. Now that we’re harvesting, these three greenhouses are funding our entire community. Hazelnuts are a lucrative crop. This is our lifeblood.”

“So you’ve got wealthy supporters.”

“No, we don’t,” She glanced at me nervously, “Come.”

I followed her to a field behind the dairy barn where a mountain of cow manure ten feet tall and twenty feet in diameter steamed in the sun. The ripe smell halted me in my tracks.

“Your gun cases are buried in a hole at the bottom of that pile,” Bernadette said.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered.

“Don’t worry,” she said, grinning mischievously. “I’ll have a team dig them up. You won’t have to muss your pretty hair. Now follow me.”

She led me back to the center of the camp, then to a row of small bungalows on the far side of the square. Each bungalow was a different color. Bernadette took me into the blue one, which was unlocked.

“These are my quarters,” she said, making a gesture with her hand that took in the entire one-room living space. A small bed covered in a lovely handmade quilt stood against the wall. A door let to what I assumed was the bathroom.

Bernadette opened the bathroom door and indicated the cabinet beneath the sink. “Your other case is there,” she said, “In back.”

Other case? What was she talking about? I got on my hands and knees and removed bottles of cleaning solution, a toilet plunger and a package of toilet paper. Behind them was another silver case, smaller than the others. I had never seen this case before in my life.

“I changed the combination,” Bernadette said, “The new one is 81569. Woodstock, you know.”

I didn’t know what Woodstock was, but I opened the case and stared in shock at stacks of shrink-wrapped fifty and hundred dollar bills. I gave Bernadette a look of surprised confusion.

“Please understand,” Bernadette said with a tremor in her voice, “We thought these cases had been abandoned. We’re honest people. But we were desperate. Before the hazelnuts, we were on the verge of bankruptcy. Some of us were actually going hungry. We’re all outcasts here, at the end of the line. We only spent what we needed to survive and to get the greenhouses going.”

I realized that Bernadette had mistaken my surprised look for anger. In spite of my denial, she was convinced that I was a gangster of some kind, and that I might harm her for spending my money. I decided to let her continue believing that.

“How much have you spent?” I said sternly.

“Tww pah two mihhhh,” Bernadette mumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“Two point two million,” she said more clearly. “There’s still ten million left. We haven’t taken any money in over two years. We kept a strict accounting, as you’ll see from the logbook in the case lining. We’re not thieves. We’ll pay you back.”

Ten million dollars? SubhanAllah! Was this my mother’s money? Or my father’s? He obviously knew about the rail yard. Had he anticipated a day when I would be here, in this place, retrieving these cases? Had he known that he was in danger? My breath caught. Of course he had. That’s why he reunited with my mom.

“Friend Simon?”

I turned to Bernadette, “Socialism funded by someone else’s capital?”

She brushed her hair back from her face and looked away, “Our hazelnut operation is profitable now. We’ll start paying you back, I promise.”

“You’ve kept this money in the bathroom all this time?”

She shrugged, “No one knows about it but me and Frost – the old man you saw talking to me in the dining hall. People don’t steal here. Anyway, hiding in plain sight and all that.”

I nodded. “Your discretion is the price for the missing money and for remaining on this land.”

She closed her eyes for a moment in relief, “I knew I could trust you, friend Simon. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay? You have the look of a man who could use some love and harmony.”

Lena would have loved this place, I was sure. It provided instant friendship and community. Maybe my parents would have liked it as well. It was funny that a place that my mother had brought me to every week to learn to shoot and kill, had become a peace-loving hippie commune. The irony made me smile.

But I didn’t think it would be good for me. I needed to be around other Muslims. Also, though I doubted that Boulos knew about this place, there was no sense taking chances.

“I can’t,” I said regretfully, “And I was never here. That’s my price.”

By sunset, the gun cases had been excavated, hosed off and loaded into my van. All the guns and heavy weapons were in place, resting in their foam molds.

It would have been nice to stay. If only there were a community of Muslims like that, where everyone was accepted regardless of their background. Where everyone was treated equally, no matter their race or religion; where Arab and South Asian immigrants mixed with African-American and other converts without reservation; where women could be community leaders as well as men; where everyone worked together for the good of the community. A new Madinah. Why does that not exist? Why are the non-Muslims – or at least some of them – trying to live in harmony with each other and the earth, while the Muslims are fighting each other, living under dictatorship, and immigrating for the sake of worldly wealth? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

That’s my story. B helped me set up an offshore corporation and advised me to use it to invest in real estate, which I did. My property investments here in San Francisco have tripled and quadrupled in value.

It turned out that the 50 million schillings in the numbered Austrian account equaled several million dollars. I left most of it in place, but transferred a portion to a bank in Indonesia and used it to found an orphanage there.

***

“You started an orphanage in Indonesia?” Muhammad said, “That’s awesome.”

Hassan smiled. “It’s called Bait As-Salam. It houses twenty five children now. I get case reports on all of them.”

“Dude! That’s beautiful, Hassan. I’d love to help you with that in some way.”

“Hold on!” Jamilah exclaimed, “The orphanage is wonderful, ma-sha-Allah. But what do you mean, ‘that’s my story’? You haven’t told us anything.”

Hassan bugged his eyes out in surprise, “I haven’t?”

Jamilah shook her head, “Before we get to the bigger and very obvious question of what’s going on, why are you working as a bike messenger?”

“That’s confidential between me and Adel.”

“I think it would be best,” Kadija said, “to be upfront about everything at this point. There’s no need for any more more secrets.”

Hassan sighed, “I moved to San Francisco and didn’t know what to do with myself. Managing my investments took a fraction of my time. I helped to get the Islamic Society off the ground, and I started my martial arts class. I was training four, five hours a day, and spending the rest of my time at the masjid. But I had no structure.

I was drinking coffee one day at Steps of Rome in North Beach and I met a Palestinian brother. We got to talking and he told me he had an idea for a business, but that he needed an investor. He’d run a successful medical courier company in Kuwait, and was thinking of starting a bike messenger company in San Francisco. He’d noticed that the City was expanding down the southern waterfront and the Third Street corridor, as well as along Bayshore. Software companies, multimedia firms, print shops, reprographics, music studios and more were all moving south, but the existing messenger companies were based in SOMA or downtown. He’d done some market research, and the opportunity was there.”

“You’re talking about Adel,” Muhammad said.

“Yes. He was just making conversation, but his ideas seemed well-researched. Plus, I liked him. He had a certain gravitas that spoke of hardships overcome.

I stunned him when I told him that I could be his investor. So we got Hammerhead Courier going. We had the zone maps from all the existing messenger companies, but we realized that we needed something different. The competitors all mark the Financial District as their zone one, and typically Civic Center as zone two. Third Street and Bayshore are zones three or even four, which makes messengering documents expensive for companies down there. But we wanted to make Third Street zone one, and we needed to map it out.

I missed riding a bike, so I said I would do it. I began cycling all over town with a map, noting the concentrations of businesses and sketching out zones. It was fun. It was a relief, actually. I had a specific job to do every day. Something to wake up for. And when I was riding, I forgot about everything else.

It’s still like that. On a busy day, when I’m holding half a dozen tags and hustling, it’s just me, the bike, the road, the wind, and nothing else. I don’t think about the past. I just move my body, and I’m like a fish in the sea. I’m happy.

When we were done mapping zones, leasing a building, hiring staff and securing clients, and the company had work coming in, I told Adel that I wanted to ride. I needed it. It was like food for me, and still is. I still manage my investments, teach my class, and serve on the board at the Islamic Society, but riding keeps me sane.”

***

“Hassan,” Kadija said, “If I understand you correctly, you actually own Hammerhead Courier.”

“Well… Yes, technically,” Hassan said, “But Adel is the president and is in charge of operational decisions. That was our deal.”

“So that’s why Sahar thought you could influence Adel to let her marry me!” Muhammad exclaimed.

“What?” Jamilah said incredulously, “Sahar marry you?”

“Long story,” Hassan said.

Jamilah had a sudden and very unpleasant thought, “Ohhhhh. That’s why I got my job back. Not because Adel realized he made a mistake. You forced him.”

“Absolutely not,” Hassan said, “Adel makes operational decisions. He knew it was the right thing to do.”

“Hassan…” Jamilah shook her head. “This isn’t right.”

“Why?”

“You’ve been lying to us, playing bike messenger, acting like life is a game and we’re pawns. You think being a messenger is a dream job? I do it because I have to. I hustle to pay my bills. You think I want to end my days tired and bruised? You think I want to ride in the rain and cold, soaked from hijab to toe, and no one cares as long as the package is dry? And you’re doing it as, what, a hobby? Therapy? That offends me. You’re a millionaire. You could be doing anything you want.”

“Maybe he is doing what he wants,” Kadija said, “If a cat wants to chew on a fish head, who are you to tell him otherwise?”

“I know,” Jamilah said, “But Hassan, you talked about a new Madinah, and how we need that, and why doesn’t it exist? You could work to make that happen. You have the resources, the knowledge, the understanding. You could do so much more than ride a bike. You could make a real difference in the world.”

“And would you do it with me?”

“I… What do you mean?”

Next: Introduction to Ouroboros, the exciting conclusion to Hassan’s Tale.