Ouroboros, Part 10 – A Western Sky

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

Previous chapters of this story: Ouroboros Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Parts 8 and 9

March 2012 (almost two years later)
Northern California’s Banana Coast

I think I might be in the grave. It’s as dark here as a prison cell without windows or lights. It’s almost suffocating at times, but it’s also comforting, because when I’m here, especially when I’m deep down in the pitch silence, I don’t have to think. I don’t have to be hurt by the memory of the people I’ve lost. I don’t have to feel guilty for not protecting them, and worse, for putting them in harm’s way. I don’t have to think about how much better off the world would be without me.

Am I drifting in circles? Does time pass? Or does something pass for time? Can pure thought, or even the primitive awareness that exists below thought – the slow passage of electrons from one hemisphere of the brain to another – be used to measure time? I’m sure I have been here for several nights at least, but it might just as easily be several years. I cannot tell.

Language has become an alien thing. Instead I see images. Perhaps I am sleeping, because these images are what, in life, I would have called dreams. Only in these dreams am I able speak. The rest of the time I am mute – in fact, my throat feels as if a snake has crawled into it and died.

My dreams take me around the world, from the city of Beirut as it burns and stumbles toward an untimely death, to the snowy Syrian countryside, to the sprawling capital of the ancient world – Istanbul. In the beginning – if there ever was one – I never knew that I was dreaming, and that was terrifying. More and more often, however, I do.

This time I dream that I am a small boy again, sitting cross-legged in front of my aquarium, gazing up in fascination at the blue streak wrasse as it zips through the hole in the coral, around the plants at the back, then beneath the filter, looping the tank as if training for a race. In contrast, the mandarin dragonet, with its round fins and stunning patterns of aqua and maroon, drifts slowly through the tank like a king.

It’s a fifty gallon tank, large and beautiful, and I have fifteen fish in all. Each is as unique and beautiful as a gem. Then I hear my mother’s voice calling me, saying, “Your gun… your gun is your only friend… your gun is your life.” I look away, and when I return my gaze to the tank, all the fish are dead, bloated and floating on their backs.

I used to flee from such dreams in terror. I used to run wildly down a circular staircase that spiraled deep into the ground. All around me was the silence of stone and a million tons of earth. The staircase would grow dark, but I went deeper and deeper. I did not stop until all thought ceased to exist, and even my anima was extinguished.

This time I retreat, but not in panic. A tiny light has entered the darkness of my grave, and it lessens my fear. I cannot identify the light or even see it, but I feel it. It gives me a miniscule measure of strength, so that I only step back into shadow, where the dream cannot hurt me, and I can find a measure of rest.

***

The Death of Abu Talib

When Abu Talib became ill and was near death, the nobles of Quraysh were worried. They feared that now that Hamza and ‘Umar had accepted Islam and Muhammad’s reputation was known among all the Quraysh clans, they would be robbed of their authority altogether. They decided that they had better go to Abu Talib before he died, and convince him to bring his nephew to to a compromise.

Several nobles of Quraysh – including ‘Utba and Shayba (sons of Rabi’a), Abu Jahl, Umayya bin Khalaf and Abu Sufyan – went to Abu Talib and said: “You are highly ranked among us; now that you are at the point of death we are deeply concerned. You know that trouble exists between us and your nephew, so call him and let us make an agreement that he will leave us alone and we will leave him alone. Let him have his religion and we will have ours.”

When the Apostle came, Abu Talib said, “Nephew, these notables have come to you that they may give you something and take something from you.” (In other words, they would give him wealth or power, and he would in return promise to stop preaching Islam).

“Yes,” the Apostle answered, “You may give me one word (i.e. you may speak one phrase) by which you can rule the Arabs and subject the Persians to you.”

“Yes,” Abu Jahl said, “and ten words!” (I.e. we will say whatever words are necessary for such an achievement).

The Apostle said: “You must say, ‘There is no God but Allah’, and you must repudiate what you worship beside Him.”

They clapped their hands (in annoyance or anger) and said, “Do you want to make all the gods into One God, Muhammad? That would be an extraordinary thing.” Then they said to one another, “This fellow is not going to give you anything you want.” So saying they departed.

Abu Talib said, “Nephew, I don’t think that you asked them anything extraordinary.” On hearing this the Apostle had hopes that his uncle would accept Islam, and he said at once, “You say it, uncle, and then I shall be able to intercede for you on Resurrection Day!” Seeing the Apostle’s eagerness he replied, “Were it not that I fear that Quraysh would think that I had only said it in fear of death, I would say it. I should only say it to give you pleasure.”

As his death was near, Al-’Abbas looked at him as he was moving his lips and put his ear close to him and said, “Nephew, by Allah, my brother has spoken the word you gave him to say.” The Apostle replied, “I did not hear it.”

***

Jamilah closed the book and set it on the small, wheeled table. The paper dust jacket was tattered, but the morning sun streamed in through the tall window and illuminated the golden lettering on a black background: The Sealed Nectar: Biography of the Noble Prophet. (Paraphrased and abbreviated here, and combined with excerpts from The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah, by A. Guillaume. – Author).

She took a sip of water to soothe her dry throat. She’d been reading out loud, for Hassan’s sake.

This was her second time reading this book. She was always reading something in between her law studies. She’d developed a taste for Islamic classics – starting with the Quran itself and simple books like 40 Hadith, and moving on to include everything from traditional texts like Riyadh us-Saliheen and the works of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, to twentieth century authors such as Sayyid Qutb and Maudoodi.

Among current thinkers, she loved Imam Zaid Shakir of the Zaytuna Institute, right here in California. He was a classically educated scholar who nevertheless had his pulse on modern trends. He spoke up strongly for justice, both within the U.S. and internationally, yet somehow managed to bring a spiritual perspective to bear. That resonated perfectly with Jamilah’s own desire to work for justice with compassion, not anger.

Most of all, she’d fallen in love with the Prophet – not romantically of course, but in the sense of feeling deep gratitude to him for his tremendous sacrifices in the cause of his mission. She loved his humility, his persistence in the face of seemingly hopeless opposition, and his generosity.

She could almost picture his face when he said, “I did not hear it.” His expression might have held many emotions: sadness at the death of his beloved uncle; disappointment that Abu Talib had refused the guidance of Islam to the end; and hope that perhaps Al-’Abbas had heard correctly, and that Abu Talib truly did say the kalimah before death.

Now, thinking about this, she spoke to Hassan. She often talked out loud to him when no one was around.

“You know, I’m not sure what I used to think about the Prophet when I was young. I guess I imagined this fiery, righteous figure, preaching to the people, condemning their sins. But when you read the seerah you begin to see that yeah, there’s some of that, but he was also a deeply loving person. He cared about humanity to the core of his being. You know that hadith where he compares himself to a man waving his hands at moths, trying to keep them from flying into a fire, while we are the moths, determined to destroy ourselves? That’s a very vulnerable image. It’s like a parent who wants desperately to save his kids from doing something disastrous, but the foolish children won’t listen, and all the parent can do is watch, heartbroken. It’s love, you know? It’s not anger.

“That’s what I see in this story about Abu Talib’s death. This great love and vulnerability, where he’s practically pleading with his uncle to just say this word, this earth-shaking phrase, so that he can intercede for him and save him. It almost makes me want to cry. Is that silly? It reminds me of when I was a child and I used to flush my father’s cigarettes down the toilet because I knew they caused cancer and I wanted to save him, even if I got in trouble for it. I’m just saying that I see now that he didn’t act only out of a sense of duty, or some abstract Prophetic mission. It was a personal thing for him, you know? To save humanity. That’s a very loving motivation.

“I wonder, did Al-’Abbas really hear Abu Talib say the kalimah? Or did he only say that to spare the feelings of the Prophet, because he saw how much it meant to him? Or did he mishear? I wish that he did truly hear it. What do you think?”

Hassan did not reply, of course. Tomorrow it would be exactly two years since she had heard his voice. Two years since the night she was kidnapped and Hassan rescued her. Two years since she’d seen men killed, and shot a man herself. Two years since Hassan’s brother shot himself, so close to Jamilah that she could still feel the heat of his blood on her face. Two years since Hassan collapsed on the floor of the subway train, never to awaken or speak again. She remembered his last words: “It’s not too late.” She prayed, as she had many times, that his words were prescient, and that they applied to Hassan himself.

How many thousands of hours had she spent watching him lie here unmoving? How many days, weeks and months reading to him, talking to him, encouraging him, and waiting? Not that she was weary of it. Her hope was not nearly exhausted. But Shamsi said that the more time passed, the less likely it was that Hassan would come out of the coma. She said there was no way to know how much brain damage Hassan had suffered from the loss of blood when he was shot. His heart had actually stopped on the subway train, but the doctors at SF General managed to revive him. They’d given him a full four pints, which was a tremendous amount of blood. There was also no way to know how much oxygen deprivation he’d suffered when that miserable assassin tried to smother him.

Shamsi said that even if Hassan did regain consciousness – which was unlikely – his cognitive and motor functions might be severely impaired. He might not recognize anyone, and might even be unable to speak and move.

Jamilah didn’t believe any of it. Hassan was in there. She knew it. Three times, Jamilah thought. Hassan has died three times and come back. He’s a fighter. He’s the toughest man I’ve ever known. He’ll pull through.

His breathing never changed of course – he’d been hooked up to an artificial respirator ever since he stopped breathing on his own three months ago. Still, Jamilah’s eyes flicked regularly to the life signs monitor. There were times when Hassan’s pulse sped up ever so slightly. At these times, Jamilah sensed that he was rising to the surface from a deep, dark place, and that he was close, so close. If she could only reach down and seize him, and pull him up by sheer force, she would. But then his heartbeat would slow, and he was gone again.

She wanted to shake him, or whisper in his ear, “Hassan, we’re here. Don’t forget us. Don’t give up. Come back. We’re waiting. We love you. We’re here, Hassan, we have not abandoned you. Wake up.”

For two years she’d sat beside him, watching his chest rise and fall. Even as his body grew ever thinner and weaker, Jamilah’s feelings for him grew stronger.

Jamilah remembered the night – it seemed like a hundred years ago now – when they’d all sat in Hassan’s apartment, listening to the story of his life. Mo had asked him about love, and he’d talked at length about his soul connection with Lena, as he called it. How he stayed awake at nights thinking about her, how she dominated his inner horizon. That had been a night of such roller coaster emotions for Jamilah: anger at some of Hassan’s deceptions, sympathy for the hardship he’d endured, jealousy over his “monumental” love for Lena.

And then – she remembered the moment with crystal clarity – he’d looked her straight in the eyes and said that Lena was the past, and that maybe he could have another soul connection, and that his heart was ready for it. At the time she had blushed and turned away, wanting to pull her hijab down over her face. But inside she’d been thrilled, in spite of everything.

And now, here it was. The soul connection. Even with Hassan lying there unmoving, a perpetual dreamer lost in some other dimension, she could feel it. She could feel the love between them and the future they would share, Insha’Allah. It was as real as the sunlight beaming through the window.

A worm of doubt wriggled through the rich earth of her optimism. She remembered Sarkis Haddad telling Hassan that Lena was still alive, and her child as well… Could that be true? Could Hassan and Lena still be considered husband and wife, after all this time? Surely Hassan would not abandon Jamilah for a woman he had not seen in half a lifetime.

Jamilah terminated this line of thought. She’d followed it many times, and it went nowhere.

Shamsi said that Jamilah was wasting her life. “You can’t live your life in this clinic,” she’d say. “You’re young. Find a living man, get married, have kids. Move on!” But Jamilah believed what she believed.

Two nurses entered the room. One was Sandra Dempsey, the senior nurse. She’d been with them almost from the beginning. In fact, she’d been Alice’s choice, because she’d taken such good care of Alice when she was hospitalized after the stabbing. The clinic had offered her twice what she earned at SF General and she’d accepted happily, even though it meant moving to this relatively isolated area up north. This morning her dreadlocked hair swung free, and her rich mahogany skin glowed in the morning sunlight.

Jamilah liked Sandra because she always treated the patients with respect. She spoke to Hassan as if he were awake, addressing him by his first name and making conversation as she cleaned him or changed his bedsheets.

Another thing Jamilah loved about Sandra is that she never seemed to notice the scar on Jamilah’s cheek. She obviously knew it was there, but she had never asked about it and didn’t seem to care. That was perfect.

The other nurse was new.. Jim, or Tim, maybe. He’d been hired a few months ago to replace a female nurse named Kristy who was fired at Jamilah’s request. That nurse – a young white woman fresh out of nursing school – rubbed Jamilah the wrong way with her comments and questions about Hassan: “I wonder what that tattoo means,” and, “How long have you known him?” Jamilah reported her concerns to Mo, and to his credit he had Kristy escorted out of the building the same day.

A strange thing happened about a month later. The police came around, asking about Kristy’s employment record and any friends she might have. Apparently her parents had filed a missing person report. As far as Jamilah knew, the girl was never found. Just one of those weird things.

“Time for PT, Mr. Mirza,” the male nurse said heartily.

“Call him Hassan,” Sandra said, shooting Jamilah a quick smile. Hassan was registered under a fake name as Hassan Mirza, but Jamilah had instructed the nurses to always call him by his first name. The name Mirza would not mean anything to Hassan and would not help his recovery –  though Jamilah hadn’t explained this to the nurses. They did not know Hassan’s true identity.

“I’ll leave you to it.” Jamilah stood and made her way outside. The nurses would give Hassan an hour of physical therapy and massage. They gave him three sessions of PT per day to prevent his muscles and tendons from atrophying. That was an extraordinary level of care – but then, that was part of why they’d set up Salsabil in the first place, and it was what made its care so coveted.

Outside the clinic, Jamilah walked downhill through the naturally landscaped and terraced back garden, much of which she had planted herself. Her mother had always been an avid gardener, and Jamilah had grown up helping her mother in the garden every day after school. It was one of the few activities she and her mother had been able to do without fighting. She still remembered the peaceful feeling of kneeling in the soil beside her mother, broad-brimmed straw hats shielding them from the brutal Central Valley sun, working together to bring life and food out of the earth. She hardly noticed the sweat in the backs of her knees, or the dirt beneath her fingernails.

So here at the clinic she’d claimed a large plot behind the north wing, and gone to work. She planted tomatoes, artichokes, lettuce, and peas, and in the sunniest part of the garden she cultivated culinary herbs. Finally she bordered the area with lovely rhododendrons and sabrina adlers, until the garden became a quilt of bright colors. The herbs attracted bees and butterflies, and the flowers brought hummingbirds, so that the garden was busy with life.

Jamilah noticed that many of the residents – the ones who were ambulatory – liked to sit outside by the garden in the mornings and late afternoons. Not only that, but the vegetables and herbs found their way into the clinic’s cafeteria, where their resident chef – a gifted young Mexican named Samuel – incorporated them into his cooking.

It made Jamilah feel like she was genuinely contributing to the clinic – not just being a drain on resources. In fact, Muhammad had put her on salary as a gardener. He didn’t have to do that, especially since Jamilah only spent two hours a day in the garden. But she was grateful. She had free room and board, but the small salary enabled her to go into town occasionally to buy clothing, books, stamps, gifts for friends, falafel at Hamdi’s place, or – her favorite indulgence – chocolate ice cream.

This morning she wanted to be alone with her thoughts, so she passed by the garden and exited through a gate in the outer wall. The gate had a combination lock on the outside that was changed regularly, as well as a security camera. They’d installed the camera six months ago after a strange incident in the woods just east of the clinic. A hiker reported seeing one man choking another to death; however, when the police searched the area, they found nothing.

That incident, and the odd disappearance of nurse Kristy, worried Jamilah. Mo argued that any area, whether urban or rural, would have incidents of unsolved crimes, and that getting paranoid would only cause unnecessary stress. He had a point.

Jamilah winced as she stepped down a foot or so to the path outside. Two years ago, after the Crow – she preferred not to think of him as Charlie – had shot her in that awful warehouse, she’d spent hours in surgery as the doctors repaired the damage to her large intestine and removed the bullet from the muscles of her back. The doctors told her she’d been lucky – the bullet missed her vital organs and failed to exit her body, which would have caused significantly more trauma. They told her she would recover fully.

Yet she continued to experience twinges of pain in her belly. She’d been examined twice more by Shamsi, who concluded that there was nothing physically wrong with her. Shamsi suggested that the pain was a symptom of PTSD. Jamilah didn’t buy it. What did she have to be stressed about? She’d stood up to that psycho and survived. She was fine.

“…a phenomenal view of the Pacific.”

Outside the wall, the path meandered through waving coastal grasses toward a cliff. A metal bench had been placed strategically about ten feet from the cliff edge, with a phenomenal view of the Pacific.

Actually, the entire clinic had astounding views. It was built in the shape of a shallow V that pointed away from the sea. The side that faced the road and the mountains – the point of the V – was painted in pastel colors and was completely non-descript, without even a sign indicating the building’s name or function. The ocean-facing side was all glass, with windows. Every room featured tall windows, sliding glass doors and patios that looked out over the sea.

On the roof was a large terrace that was used for special events such as holiday dinners and memorial services. And at the very tip of the north wing an atrium was being added that would house an indoor pool and jacuzzi, to be used for physical therapy and fitness. Jamilah was looking forward to the day when she could visit the pool late at night, lock the door, strip down to a swimsuit and glide through the water like a fish. She had always loved swimming, and the exercise would be good for her.

She sat on the bench on the headland and closed her eyes, enjoying the morning sunshine and the breeze that swept in off the Pacific. Most of the Northern California coast was foggy and cold, but this stretch was known as the Banana Coast because of the atypically warm ocean currents. The climate here was almost balmy. Hassan had always talked about the California coast as if it were paradise on earth. He would love it here. Correction, she thought: he loves it here.

She recalled a poem by Hassan’s father that Hassan had recited to her once. She wasn’t sure she had it 100% right, but fairly close, she thought:

Shrugging off doubts.
Wishing for a house
I’ve seen in dreams.
A green garden for my child.
A woman with kind eyes.
A western sky, and a bell of brass.
A wall that evil cannot pass,
a patch of sunlight on the grass,
a place to live and laugh.

That poem represented Kamal Haddad’s deepest desire, Jamilah imagined. A peaceful new country where the violence of his homeland could not harm his children, whose inheritance would consist of love, rather than hatred and the shadows of the past.

Instead, his dream had been hammered into pieces. His wife, who should have been his trusted partner, had undermined his dream from the start by secretly teaching his child to kill. Then the past came for them all like a demon.

Now here they were, she and Hassan, beneath the western sky after all – you couldn’t get any more west than this, at the sharp edge of the world with nothing beyond but immeasurable water and sky. Here at Salsabil was the protective wall, the garden, and the sun like the personification of love. But Hassan would not wake up.

As for the Crow, his attempted suicide – according to an article Jamilah had read in the Chronicle last year – had left him brain damaged. He was ambulatory, but mute. Whether he would regain his wits was unknown. He had to be fed, changed, bathed, and led from one place to another. It served him right. At one time he’d been sought by multiple law enforcement agencies, but now that he was a walking zucchini – and yes, she knew it was cruel to think of him that way, but she didn’t care – now that he was a mental salad, no one wanted him. He was being held at the Butner Federal Medical Center on an immigration hold that allowed him to be detained indefinitely. Jamilah could not care less what happened to him.

How could Kamal Haddad’s dream have gone so awry? Didn’t sincerity count for anything? Didn’t the human heart contain the secrets of power, inasmuch as was given to man by Allah?

Yes, she thought. Yes it does, and I will not surrender to entropy and decay. She would see to it that Kamal Haddad’s dream came true one day – at least for Hassan. Sitting here now, above the vast and living sea, with the steady wind bringing the scents of driftwood and salt, she felt a sense of peace fill her chest. It would work out, Insha’Allah. Hassan would come back to her, and the future would be bright.

“Jams, we need to talk.”

Jamilah let out a small shriek and almost leaped off the bench. Mo sat on the bench beside her. She punched him in the shoulder, hard. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Ow!” Mo rubbed his shoulder. “You’re kiling me, Smalls.”

“Hey! You want another? Call me that again.”

“Sorry!” Mo looked as professional as always in a charcoal gray suit, red tie and professional haircut. And he was professional. Jamilah had to hand it to him. He’d been the driving force behind the creation and success of the Salsabil Clinic.

From the beginning, they had agreed that all decisions regarding Hassan’s care would decided by the triumvirate of Shamsi, Mo and Jamilah herself. Shamsi hadn’t liked that – “highly irregular” she called it – but she’d gone along in the end. After all, much about the clinic was irregular. Mo had paid someone to set it up as a subsidiary of a holding company, which in turn was owned by a trust…or something  like that. The bottom line was that anyone searching through employment or hospitalization records to try to locate Mo, Jamilah or Hassan, would run into a dead end.

It had been Mo’s vision again that opened the clinic to other patients. He pointed out that Hassan’s money was not endless, and that if the clinic didn’t turn a profit it would bankrupt them. So they sent out feelers, using some of Shamsi’s contacts. Their selling point was the highest level of care possible, and total anonymity.

Salsabil had eighteen patients now, three doctors including Shamsi, and a dedicated nurse for every patient. Seven of the patients were long-term coma or brain-injury cases and occupied the south wing. The rest were either Alzheimer’s or hospice patients. All came from extremely wealthy families who valued their privacy. The result was that Salsabil turned a tidy profit.

None of it would have happened without Mo’s shrewdness and management abilities. I shouldn’t have been surprised, Jamilah thought. He was the dispatch wizard, after all. Running Salsabil is probably a piece of cake compared to that.

“Earth to Triple Nine?”

Jamilah rolled her eyes and looked at Mo. After all this time he still insisted on calling her by her messenger number. Or this “Smalls” moniker, which was even worse. Jamilah had the vague idea that it was a movie reference.

Overall, though, Mo seemed much more mature in his new role, though he still kept a few toys on his desk. The only thing that marred his aura of professionalism was his mashed nose. It had not healed properly after being broken by the assassin in black. In profile, Mo looked like a retired boxer.

We all have our scars, Jamilah thought. Mo, at least, seems to have come out better for it.

Now, however, he seemed worried.

“How’s Alice?” Jamilah asked. “Everything okay with the baby?”

Mo rolled his eyes. “Do you know the three stages of pregnancy?”

“You mean trimesters?”

“No. The first stage is ‘Yay, Alhamdulillah!’, the second stage is, ‘barf,’ and the third stage is, ‘make me some onion rings right now or I’ll cut you.’ Seriously, the woman eats chocolate and cheese sandwiches at 3 am. Yesterday she made horseradish ice cream. Her breath is like a collision between a pickle truck and a fish factory.”

“That’s your wife you’re talking about!”

He shrugged. “And I love her. But this pregnancy stuff is a trip.”

“Is she still running the shop?” Alice owned a gift shop in town, selling homemade soap,  local art, handmade jewelry, stuff like that. The shop had some phenomenal driftwood sculptures that Jamilah loved, but there was no space in her room for such things.

“Yup. She’s only at seven months. Dude, you should come for dinner tonight.”

In the early days of the clinic, Jamilah used to see Alice often. The tall redhead would drop by after closing the shop and they’d hang out in Hassan’s room and talk, or play cards with a few of the hospice patients.

As Alice’s pregnancy advanced, however, she didn’t drop by the clinic anymore, and Mo went straight home after work. Jamilah had no one to talk to. Oh, Mo and Alice sometimes invited Jamilah for dinner, but she didn’t like to be away from Hassan.

While most of the staff lived in homes nearby or rented apartments in town, Jamilah had converted one of the clinic’s storage rooms into quarters for herself. The room was small, with little more than a bed, a desk, and a bathroom. She hung her bicycle from a hook in the ceiling. Jamilah didn’t mind the small space, but sometimes at night the loneliness felt like a heavy blanket weighing her down.

Jamilah’s mother and brother came to visit every few months, but she and her mother inevitably reverted to arguing about how Jamilah was wasting her life, while her brother spent his time on the beach, pretending to be a surfer.

“No,” she said. “Thanks, but not tonight. How’s your dad?” Jamilah knew that Mo’s father had been moved to a low security mental facility. Now that he was properly medicated and cared for, his mental problems had ebbed, though not disappeared.

“Dad’s fine. I’m going to visit him next week. Would you listen, please? I have two things to tell you. Sort of a good news, bad news thing.”

Jamilah frowned. “Give me the good news.”

“Okay.” Mo nodded slowly. “Kadija’s coming tomorrow.”

Jamilah sat upright. “Kadija? She’s not in Indonesia anymore?” After Layth’s death, Kadija needed time away. She went to visit Hassan’s Bait As-Salam orphanage in Indonesia and fell in love with the kids. She took a job teaching English, her salary paid by the trust that Hassan had endowed. She had not stayed in touch, nor replied to Jamilah’s occasional emails. The little that Jamilah knew she got from Mo.

Kadija had never said so outright, but Jamilah had the impression that she blamed Hassan for her husband’s death. Now, although Jamilah was tremendously excited at the thought of seeing her again, she felt anxious. The last thing she needed was Kadija’s judgment. Judgments of herself she could handle. She didn’t react to things the way she used to. She felt calmer inside, as if the fire that previously burned in her soul had diminished to a single burning coal. A coal was okay with her. A person needed a little anger in this world.

Judgments of Hassan, though – that was off limits.

“I don’t want her seeing Hassan.”

“Come on, Jams.” Mo’s voice was gentle. “This is Kadija. She’s our sister. Give her a chance.”

Out in the ocean a pair of massive humpback whales surfaced. One spouted, blowing a stream of water high in the air. Jamilah pointed.

“SubhanAllah!” Mo exclaimed. He grinned. “You see? That’s a sign.”

Jamilah snorted. “Of what? That I need to lose weight? But yeah, okay. Point taken. Still, I want to see her before she sees Hassan. What’s the bad news?” As she spoke, her gaze followed the whales. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen humpbacks out here, and she’d learned to recognize the magnificent creatures, with their knobby heads and long pectoral fins. Suddenly they disappeared, diving beneath the water.

Mo’s face became solemn. “You know what tomorrow is, right?”

“Two years.” She said it quietly, almost to herself.

“The whales breached.”

The whales breached. They came up together, breaking the surface of the water and soaring into the air, each creature bigger than a schoolbus but more elegant than a ballet dancer. Water streamed from their gigantic bodies in sheets as they spun in synchrony then crashed onto their backs, disappearing again beneath the surface. Jamilah found herself on her feet with tears in her eyes. It was the most spectacular thing she had ever seen in her life.

“My God!” Mo exclaimed. “That was… whoa!”

Jamilah sat back down, still stunned, wiping her tears and reminding herself to breathe. “The bad news,” she said finally.

Mo nodded. “Yeah… Thing is… Shamsi wants a meeting. She wants to talk about turning off Hassan’s respirator. She says it’s time to let him die in peace.”

Jamilah felt the old anger stir, but she controlled it. She could not afford to alienate Mo. She needed him on her side. She kept her eyes on the ocean, thinking of the whales, imagining the cool water filling her, making her as resolute and invulnerable as the sea itself. “She can’t take Hassan off life support,” she said firmly. “She doesn’t have the authority.”

“She wants to discuss it.”

“And you? Where do you stand?”

“I’m not a doctor. That’s why we should hear Shamsi’s opinion. The meeting is tomorrow at one in the conference room.” He rose stiffly – too much time in an office chair, Jamilah thought – and walked up the path to the clinic.

Jamilah felt betrayed. It hadn’t been her choice to bring Shamsi into this affair – the two of them had never been that close, in spite of being roommates, and Jamilah never felt that Shamsi respected her decisions. But it had been a logical move.

Lately, however, Shamsi – and even Mo to some degree – seemed to have lost sight of the intention behind this facility, which was to care for Hassan and protect him. All this other stuff – caring for dying tech wizards and robber barons – was beside the point. And now – pull the plug? The idea was insane.

Jamilah’s earlier feelings of inner certitude and peacefulness were gone, dashed like the waves on the rocks below. She went back to her room, triple-locked the door – she’d had a key lock, a latch and a deadbolt installed, as well as a peephole, not because of any specific threat but because she felt safer that way – and snatched a glass from her single small table.

She was about to fling the glass against the wall when she stopped mid-motion and set it down. This isn’t me anymore, she thought. When her breathing stilled, she performed wudu’ and prayed. In the deepest part of her prayer, with her forehead pressed to the ground, she recited a dua’ that she’d learned from Hassan a long time ago:

‘O Allah, I am Your servant, daughter of Your servant, daughter of Your maidservant; my forelock is in Your hand, Your command over me is forever executed and Your decree over me is just…”

After her prayer she sat on her musalla, thinking. Since the events of two years ago, she had done some research into her family’s history. The Al-Husayni clan were descendants of Hussain, grandson of the Prophet, sal-Allahu alayhi wa sallam. They had migrated to Al-Quds – Jerusalem – in the twelfth century, after Salahuddin liberated it from the crusaders. Later, they sided with the Ottoman khilafah against the nationalist movements that opposed it, and in the 1920’s and 30’s they led opposition to the British Mandate government and the Zionists. Posts such as mayor of Al-Quds, grand mufti of Al-Quds, director of Muslim Waqf, and president of Al-Quds University were all held by Al-Husaynis.

During the 1948 war, the Al-Husaynis formed their own militia and fought ferociously against the Israelis. They died in combat by the scores. After the war, the fortunate members of the clan migrated to the Gulf states, while the less fortunate ended up in refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. Daoud Al-Husayni co-founded the PLO, while others founded charitable organizations or schools. Today, Al-Husaynis held important posts in the diaspora and in the Palestinian territories.

I come from a nation of mujahideen, Jamilah thought. I come from a tribe of scholars and leaders, and from the Prophet himself. I come from a people who do not surrender to despair.

She thought again of the whales. Mo had asked her if she knew what tomorrow was, and she said two years, and right at that moment, as if her words had called them into existence, the two whales came soaring into the air like magic, defying gravity, celebrating life. What was that if not a sign?

She would find a way to help Hassan, Insha’Allah. She would find the key to his soul. She would speak the word he needed to hear, whatever it might be. She would find a way.

Next: Ouroboros, Part 11 – The Year of Sorrow