Deek shops for a house, and has a strange experience in a local gym.

Previous Chapters: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13| Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24

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“He who loses himself to gain the world is the poorest of all.” — Saadi Shirazi

Chats And Bad Jokes

He spent the afternoon meeting with other real estate agents. A sweet but soft-hearted mom, then a surfer type with blonde dreads puffing on a vape.

The fourth was the worst. During a meeting with a broad-shouldered, bald broker in khakis, the man asked Deek about his ethnicity. When Deek said he was Arab, the broker joked that, “Anything’s better than a mud hut in the desert, right?” Deek felt his jaw tighten. He wanted to pick up the man’s laptop and throw it against the wall. Instead, he rose, smoothing his blazer. “Go dunk your head in the river.”

He walked out before his temper snapped and he personally drowned the man in the aforementioned river.

Discouraged, he called off the home search for the day. This was the moment when, before last week, he would have gone to a diner and buried his sorrows with a tuna melt and fries along with an ice-cold soda, followed by a slice of apple pie and a scoop of ice cream, or maybe a chocolate malt.

Food And Fortune

And in fact, now that the Namer’s potion had completely dissipated from his system, his desire for junk food, especially sweets, had returned. But the cravings were not as strong as before, and he was able to resist them. And he was motivated to resist them, because he’d noticed that since he’d quit eating junk food, he had more energy, his skin was clearer, and most importantly of all, the humiliating bowel urgency he used to experience was gone.

This brought to mind how he’d soiled himself in the Porsche, and he waved a hand to dismiss the unpleasant memory.

He went to his favorite Chinese restaurant, Imperial Garden on Blackstone near Herndon, and had a plate of grilled fish with braised green beans.

He would have liked to invite Marco for dinner, but his friend was putting him in an impossible position. Marco himself couldn’t afford to eat out, and he wouldn’t let Deek pay. What option did that leave?

As he ate, he kept thinking of that poor girl, Sanaya, lying in a hospital bed in that dim room, half-starved, dying of a rare disease. And here he was, eating a good meal and thinking nothing of it.

Wait – why had he called her Sanaya? The girl’s name was Maryam! Astaghfirullah. La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah.

Appetite gone, he pushed aside the last of the food and broke open the cookie to extract the so-called fortune, which read, “Customer service is like taking a bath: you have to do it again.”

The ridiculousness of it hit Deek like laughing gas, and he burst into a fit of laughter, which halfway through turned into something else. He braced his elbow on the table and covered his face with his hand.

A hand patted his shoulder, and he looked up to see the elderly Chinese waiter, medium height and as skinny as a stalk of bamboo, with thick black hair above a high forehead. “Gonna be okay, mister.”

“What are you talking about?” Deek looked at the man through bleary eyes. “I’m laughing.”

“I know, I know. Food on the house. No charge.”

“What do you mean? I can pay.”

The waiter waggled his hand. “No charge. Everything gonna be okay.”

In the car, Deek wiped his eyes, embarrassed by the emotion that had overtaken him in public. The waiter’s words echoed, simple and absurdly comforting: Everything gonna be okay. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t. But he was discovering that there was one place he could always retreat, one practice that he could hold on to like a lifeline – salat. He’d been praying a lot more lately, and it was becoming a refuge. Which was something he very much needed.

Help Wanted

Back at the hotel, he prayed, then sat at his computer and transferred two hundred thousand dollars to Dr. Rana’s account. Checking his email, he saw that the man had already sent him scans of medical bills totaling over a million dollars. He didn’t feel comfortable paying such huge sums online or over the phone. He decided that he would see an accountant the next day. He texted Imam Saleh, asking him if he knew a good Muslim accountant.

It occurred to him for the first time that he needed an assistant. He had a lot of money to manage, and letting it sit in cash was not good, as it would be eaten up over time by inflation, taxes, and zakat. He didn’t have time to manage his money, handle these various philanthropic ventures he was getting into, shop for a house, cook healthy meals, and all the other daily necessities of life. In fact, he might need more than one assistant. How did rich people handle this stuff?

A wave of weariness swept over him. He thought that his body, on some inner level, might still be recuperating from the various physical injuries he’d incurred. He took the time to change into pajamas, then lay on his right side on the huge bed, hugged the pillow tightly to his chest, and fell asleep.

Current Of Dreams

He awoke for Maghreb. There was a response from Imam Saleh, with the contact info for a Pakistani accountant named Zakariyya. The man had graduated from Stanford but was still building his customer base. “Might be good to get in on the ground floor with him,” Saleh wrote.

He’d just finished praying when Dr. Rana called.

“Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah, Janab-e-Deek Sahib. I received the money you transferred. I only wanted to say shukriya from the depth of my heart. Your generosity is beyond expectation.”

Deek winced in embarrassment. “You’re welcome, Doctor. I need to see an accountant tomorrow to figure out what method I will use to pay the larger bills, but it will get done soon inshaAllah.”

“You must call me Sajid, please, Mr. Saghir sir.”

“And you should call me Deek. Our daughters are friends.”

“No, I cannot do that, sir. You have lifted a mountain from my shoulders. My daughter, my family, we will make dua’ for you day and night, inshaAllah. Please forgive me for what happened before. I did not know what test I was under. Khuda ap ko salamat rakhe.”

The call with Dr. Rana left Deek feeling sour. He’d chatted with the man a few times in the past, but Rana had never shown him this level of respect, nor displayed any real interest in his life. Suddenly, Deek was worthy of deference bordering on reverence? Why? Because he was rich now? Because he’d given Rana money? Wasn’t he the same man he’d been before? Well – that was life, he supposed. He’d better get used to it.

He paced the suite like a caged tiger. He knew that he had to do something. There was so much going on inside him. Since the Namer’s potion had worn off, loneliness had been rising inside him like flood waters, and now threatened to break the levees that protected his ability to think and work. A tornado of thoughts raged: Rania’s anger and pain, Sanaya’s coldness toward him, the frightening experiences of the last week, Faraz’s tears, the brothers in the masjid surrounding him as if he were a great tree and they were loggers trying to cut him down and pull out his pithy heart.

He remembered his visit to the river recently, and how it had calmed him. Those deep, beautiful waters called to him again. But even he was not crazy enough to go there alone at night.

Rania wasn’t answering his texts. Marco… Deek couldn’t bring himself to call. He pictured his old friend, sitting in that tiny apartment, and felt a wall between them that hadn’t been there before—the thick, invisible wall of Deek’s money.

So he decided to sweat.

Fluid Fitness

He pulled on gym clothes—new ones, tags barely off—and drove a mile down the road to Fluid Fitness, a slick little place he’d noticed in passing, its windows glowing with neon and posters of polished bodies in motion. Their slogan, plastered in chrome letters across the front, read: For People Like Us.

Inside, everything was spotless white and violet, like the interior of a spaceship. The sound system was playing music he didn’t recognize, all synthesized sounds and generic autotuned singing. He walked up to the front desk and asked if he could pay for the day only. The girl at the desk looked about nineteen, all eyeliner and indifference. She looked up from her phone reluctantly and gave Deek a slow up-and-down, lips twitching with something close to pity.

“Are you a bodybuilder?”

“No. I’m just naturally big.”

“We allow walk-ins,” she said, her voice flat as drywall. “Twenty bucks for the day. But…” She tilted her head. “This for reals isn’t the right fit for you. You might prefer Gold’s. They do heavy lifting there.”

Deek leaned on the counter. “I’m not a bodybuilder. And even if I was, so what? This is a gym, right?”

“This is a holistic, inclusive self-improvement environment.” This was a memorized response, Deek was sure.

He put twenty dollars on the counter. “Do I need to sign in?”

She sighed. “Fine. But there are rules.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “No heavy lifting. No grunting. No asking people how many sets they have left. No dropping weights. No, like, dripping. If you sweat, you need to wipe down. Also—no eye contact longer than three seconds. People find that aggressive.”

“I wouldn’t dream of sweating.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed. “And no sarcasm.”

Deek raised an eyebrow. “Anything else?”

“No protein shakes on the studio floor.”

“I’ll manage,” Deek said, sliding over the twenty.

Pleasure In Pain

It was a small gym, and sparsely populated. The weight rack was lined with pastel dumbbells—three, five, and ten pounds—like Easter eggs in neat rows. The heaviest were twenty, glowing neon yellow. Deek picked them up, feeling like he was curling two bananas.

A kid next to him, crop-top and man-bun, was filming himself with a ring light. “Day twenty of my biceps journey,” he whispered into the phone, curling pink five-pounders. He spotted Deek. “Bro. You’re, like, dominating the space.”

“I’m just lifting,” Deek said.

“Yeah, but your energy is alpha.” The kid winced like it was a slur.

A half hour later, he was on the shoulder press machine. Rules or no rules, he was working hard, moving from one station to the next without pause, and setting the machines on the highest weight settings. Pushing the weights felt good. The dumbbells were obstacles he could move. Concrete goals that he could achieve. His muscles were sore, but he took pleasure in the pain, for the soreness made him feel alive, and humbled him at the same time.

The Wrong Tone

As he completed a heavy bench press set, a slender, thirty-ish man with a clipboard appeared, polo shirt tucked in tight. His name tag identified him as Andrew.

“Sir?” Andrew’s smile was as thin as dental floss. “I’m the manager. You’ll have to leave. You’re setting the wrong tone.”

Deek sat up slowly, breathing hard. “The wrong tone?”

“You’re… intense,” the man said delicately. “Some of our members feel judged.”

Deek laughed. He couldn’t help it. “For lifting weights in a gym?”

“Not a gym. A holistic self-improvement environment.”

“You forgot to mention inclusive.”

The manager’s face reddened. “Yes, of course.”

Deek rested an elbow on his knee, studying the man. Andrew’s appearance was masculine, but there was definitely something effeminate about him. The way he curled his wrists, perhaps.

They really wanted to kick him out. Deek felt a rush of anger. Wanting to mess with the manager, Deek said, “My family came to America as refugees, and now you’re kicking me out of here as well?” Yet even though he’d said the words as a joke, there was truth in them, and the manager picked up on it, because his face went white.

“Oh! You are refugees?”

“From Iraq. My family fled in the middle of the night, one step ahead of the secret police. We hid in a truck with a false wall. We didn’t all – “ Deek paused, his throat tight. “We didn’t all make it.” He cleared his throat, embarrassed. What had started as a joke had turned into a confession.

Andrew put a hand to his chest. “Bless your heart.” Looking around, he clapped his hands and called out, “Gather round, everyone! Group huddle.”

“You don’t have to -” Deek began, but Andrew cut him off with a single finger to Deek’s chest.

The dozen or so patrons, all young men and women, gathered around.

“This is Deek,” Andrew said gravely. “He and his family are refugees. They went through the most awful experiences to get to this country. He might not know how things are done here, but we will make him welcome.”

The young people all nodded. One girl applauded lightly. Mortified beyond belief, Deek stood and said, “I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable. I’ll tone it down.”

The youth making the video offered his hand for a high five and said, “Your English is awesome. Let’s do a collab sometime.”

Deek had been ready to wrap up his workout, but now felt obliged to continue. He did a handful of slow, easy sets. As he was heading out, the girl at the desk handed him a laminated card. “One month free,” she said. “I think you’re so brave.”

In the car, Deek tipped his head back and laughed out loud. Americans would never cease to amaze him. They didn’t seem to know if they wanted to save the world or burn it to the ground. Both, he supposed.

In his hotel room that night, he texted Rania one last time: “We don’t have to be enemies.”

No reply came.

Realtor And Shark

The first thing he did the next morning was to check for messages from Rania or the girls. To his dismay, there were none. He texted the girls, inviting them to lunch tomorrow, which was a Sunday. Amira replied that she was attending her friend Salima’s birthday party. Sanaya simply responded, “No thanks.”

Checking his bank accounts, he saw that Rania had returned $70K of the last $100K he had sent her. He sat back in the desk chair, hands limp in his lap. What did this mean? Was she done with him? He felt like a car that had been drained of gasoline and now sat without spark or impetus.

He moped, then ordered an omelette from room service and ate it as he surveyed the crypto market on his computer. Prices were beginning to decline, though just a little. He knew the decline would accelerate. Many investors would hold firm, thinking it was just a dip. A lot of people would get hammered into poverty.

He needed to move, to do something productive. It was all he knew how to do. Specifically, he still needed to find a house. Like a knight donning his armor, he put on one of his fine suits, stood up straight, and went out.

In the course of his travels that morning, he stepped into an open house almost by accident — a modest property he knew wasn’t right, but it was on the riverfront and worth a look.

Inside, he paused to watch a debate between two real estate agents. The showing agent was a tall, sun-weathered guy in snakeskin boots and a cowboy hat. In front of him, a petite Latina with long black hair in a ponytail, and wearing an expensive-looking gray pantsuit and low heels, was ticking off points in rapid-fire, accented English.

“Your numbers are fantasy, Mister Dorian. The vacancy rate for properties in this price range is double what you claim. Do not insult me.” She snapped her fingers and waved at the house. “You take the deal now, or you’ll sit on this property another year while the weeds grow to your nose hairs.”

The cowboy sputtered, but the woman held up a hand. “Hold on.” She took out her phone, spoke in fast Spanish for a minute, then turned back to the cowboy. “We will increase our bid by three percent. You have twenty-four hours.” She began a rapid exit, heels clicking on the hardwood floor.

This was the agent Deek wanted.

He intercepted her, saying, “Excuse me.”

The woman stopped to look Deek up and down with sharp brown eyes. “I am not the showing agent. I am a buyer’s agent.” She resumed walking.

Deek ran after her. “That’s what I want! I’m a buyer.”

She stopped again and broke into a dazzling smile. “Bueno.” She extended her hand. “Marcela Gómez. Realtor, economist, shark when necessary.”

Fast And Fierce

Standing in the circular driveway, Deek told her what he wanted: privacy, land, something along the San Joaquin River, with actual river access. Something solidly built. The size of the house didn’t matter much, as he could expand it as needed.

“What you ask for is not cheap, Señor Saghir.” She rubbed her fingers together.

“I can pay.”

Marcela nodded briskly. “Leave it with me. I have cousins up and down this valley. In our country, Colombia, you have to be fast and fierce. If there’s a property to be had, they’ll, how do you say, smell it up?”

“Sniff it out.”

“Exacto. And I will get you the best price, even if I have to fight like a gehriyya to do it.”

“What’s a gehriyya?”

“You know. A fighter.”

“Oh. A guerrilla?”

“Gorilla is an animal, no?”

Deek smiled, restraining a laugh. “Don’t worry about the price. I just want a property that meets my needs, quickly.”

Marcela tilted her head. “Oh, money is not an object? Are you authorized to make that call?”

“It’s for me. I’m the buyer.”

Family Office

“Ah, bueno. Just that high net worth individuals usually leave such things to the family office.”

“What’s a family office?”

Marcela pulled back, looking him up and down. “You are only recently wealthy?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Marcela checked her phone, then looked up at Deek as if surprised he was still there. “I am a real estate agent,” she said. “Not a finance instructor. Are you serious about buying a house or no?”

“Yes, I am. But could you please explain the family office thing? Humor me.”

She sighed. “Very wealthy families do not personally manage their finances. They have a family office, which is basically their own company, run by experts who work only for them.”

Deek considered this, rubbing his chin. “You’ve seen this before?”

“Claro que sí. I have a degree in international finance, and I worked in such an office for one of the flower families. You think the sugar dynasties in Cali or the oil families in Medellín run around calling realtors and accountants one by one? You, Señor Saghir, are operating like a man with one hundred thousand dollars, not however many of the millions you have.” She waved her hand up and down to indicate Deek and his fine suit.

Deek nodded slowly. “What kind of people would run an office like that?”

“The Chief Investment Officer. An office manager, real estate director, security officer, a personal CFO to handle family matters, and so on. A lawyer, unless you hire an outside firm. Sometimes a, how do you say, filantropia director.”

“Philanthropy. Wow. That’s a lot of people. I would want people who know how to invest according to Islamic guidelines. No interest, no stocks related to gambling, alcohol, and so on.”

“Pues, I’m sure you can find such people in your countries, like Dubai. And that’s the end of the finance lesson. D – Y – O – R.” She punctuated each letter with a snap of her fingers.

He didn’t bother telling her that Dubai was not a country. They parted ways with the understanding that Marcela would call him when she found a house.

***

Come back next week for Part 26 inshaAllah

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See the Story Index for Wael Abdelgawad’s other stories on this website.

Wael Abdelgawad’s novels – including Pieces of a Dream, The Repeaters and Zaid Karim Private Investigator – are available in ebook and print form on his author page at Amazon.com.

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