“We have just received a report from our reporter in D.C., Ms. Miranda Schwinsky, about the situation that has just occurred two hours ago. Ms. Miranda Shwinsky, live from D.C.”
“I am standing here at General Snyder’s house, where we have received news of Mrs. Snyder’s death. While the General refuses to speak of the matter, it is rumoured that Mrs. Charlotte Snyder’s body was found outside the house, at 7:15 pm. The guards spotted a black, unmarked sedan without a license plate just minutes before the body was discovered. Her body was found with a note stuck on her forehead saying, “You will repent, America. You will regret it.” It is reported as a case of kidnapping and homicide, and the police are investigating in the matter and will reveal information once they have received any evidence. The identity of the murderer is still unknown. This is the third reported murder of this week, after Senator Monroe and Minister Wolfe’s loved ones passing away, and the country is in mourning. This is Miranda Schwinsky, reporting live from Star News...”
I turned off the TV. This news did not interest me. People were murdered every day. Today, it was the General’s wife. Tomorrow, it might be the President’s wife. As long as it wasn’t the General or President themselves, none of it mattered.
I walked to the bathroom. It was as most motel bathrooms are – clean, bare, stocked with cheap soap and flimsy toilet paper. I took off my shoes, mortified suddenly by the stench emanating from them. They were new shoes, still squeaky and stiff. I held them in the tub, pouring water on them, watching as streams of yellow and red and brown flowed from them. I should be more careful next time; cleaner, more precise. Her blood was splattered all over me, caked on my protective shell, like miserable remnants of a job poorly done.
I stared at that man; the man with short, crisp black hair and yesterday’s stubble. I looked into his eyes; piercing black eyes that would look straight through your eyes, to your brain, and into your soul. The man looked straight into my soul, through the blood covered clothes, the flexible, trained body, as if he understood me and my reasons. The mirror seemed to tremble with the intensity of my glare, and was just about to burst when the phone rang.
“Salaam,” I said to the phone, standing still.
“Salaam, Zhora. I saw the news today,” said the man on the other side of the wires, in another continent. “Was it of any use?”
“Nahi, Baba. She didn’t know anything. Her life was lost in vain. We must be more careful now, since they will be on alert now,” I said.
“You know what you must do next, Zhora. Tell me when you are ready. Khuda Hafiz,” said the deep voice on the other end, hanging up abruptly.
“Yes, uncle,” I whispered into the dial tone. “I know what I must do next.”
A sick feeling was slowly spreading into my stomach, with the constant beep of the dial tone. I could hear a clock ticking, and it felt like I stood there for ages, phone still held to my ear, sickness spreading in my stomach. It spread like a hurricane, twisting and destructive, destroying anything that came in its path. Me, I was the hurricane.
But then I remembered; I remembered why I was here, why I must do what I had to do. I thought of my brother, laughing as Amma scolded him for not eating lunch. I shot back through time, to the little yellow kitchen in my house in Tajikistan; to the fading, mustard walls, the big steel glasses, covered with dents and scratches, with a matching set of dented silver bowls and the huge, bent thalis, laid out on an old, beautiful rug embroidered by my mother. I remembered her sweet voice calling my brother and me to have hot, delicious kehwa that we greedily drank, sighing with pleasure as we felt it making its meandering way down our throats, into our bellies. That sweet tea, made with so much happiness, was something my brother always missed and wrote to me about when he went away to work for his secret government job. The last letter I received from him was a small world of nostalgia, filled with tears and smiles. My little brother. Aseem.
I thought of him, of the Americans taking him away, and the hurricane in my stomach stopped. It stopped, slowly changing to flaming balls of fury, balls of anger. Yes, I would do what I had to do. Yes, it was the right thing to do and they deserved it.
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