The Submission - Amy Waldman [116]
Remembering Laila’s admonition to avoid contact with the police, Asma’s mouth went dry. But Nasruddin showed no nervousness. “We are family members,” he huffed, producing Asma’s documents from the Red Cross. “I am her interpreter.”
“Right,” said the officer. He surveyed the rows and motioned to two spectators to give up their seats. The thrill of being, for once, at the center of things, came over Asma. She saw all the cameras, remembered watching the Circle Line cruise on television. Now she was in the circle, inside the television, acknowledged as a family member. She blinked back tears.
The proceedings began, the speakers traipsing one by one to the stage, reminding Asma of occasions in her town when, as a high-school student, she had had to sit, passing notes to friends, legs bobbing in impatience, through the endless felicitations of some visiting government official.
Nasruddin translated for her as best he could, dropping whole chunks of speeches. She knew this; the talk was too quick for him to do anything else. People turned around to shush them, and she shot dark looks back, telling them with her eyes that she had as much right to understand as they did. Go on, go on: she prodded Nasruddin.
Mohammad Khan looked stiff, wooden, when he took the stage. He scowled against the bright light. She wished for him to soften himself. But she liked what he said, at least as Nasruddin translated it, liked less when audience members interrupted to shout things Nasruddin claimed he could not hear. Khan looked nervous to her.
“Ssss,” Nasruddin said at one point, making a disapproving noise. “What is he saying? That the Quran was written by man? Is he mad?” She didn’t know what he was speaking of.
Then came a parade of speakers—a brown-haired man with glasses, a blond lady dressed elegantly, a white-haired lady, a father and son, and so on. For two hours Asma listened. She had not felt so angry since the conspiracy to deny her husband’s existence. Those who spoke in defense of the design were outnumbered by those against it. Some of them said anything associated with Islam was “painful” to them, that the Garden was a paradise for the killers, that the name Mohammad was connected to a religion of violence, of the sword. The chairman allowed all of these comments, as if Muslims were second-class citizens—or worse, as if they deserved no respect.
Fury rocked her. For the name of the Prophet, peace be upon him, to be taken so. For Mohammad Khan to be so abused.
“I want to speak,” she whispered to Nasruddin, and raised her hand.
He pulled her arm down. “You cannot.”
“I must.” Arm back up.
Arm down. “Think about Abdul.”
“What kind of country is this for him?” Arm up.
Down. “You’ll get yourself deported!”
“Let me speak,” she hissed at him. “Help me speak.”
People had turned to watch their tussle. Heat rose to her face; her bones seemed emptied by her Ramadan fast. Never before had she addressed a crowd. If she didn’t move now, she would be paralyzed. Scraps of a poem by Kazi Nazrul Islam that she had memorized in school came to her—“I am the burning volcano in the bosom of the earth, / I am the wild fire of the woods, / I am Hell’s mad terrific sea of wrath! … I am the rebel eternal, / I raise my head beyond this world, / High, ever erect and alone!”—and even before she had finished running the lines in her head she had wrenched her arm free, whispered “I’m begging you,” stood, and shouted “Me!” Face aflame, she walked down the aisle toward the stage, willing Nasruddin to follow so he could translate. She berated herself for being too lazy to learn better English, despite watching so many hours of American television.
Hundreds of eyes bored into her, each pair seeming to claim a tiny piece of her. On she marched, fighting her physical weakness, the fear, all of it with a prayer: God, help me, for You are the best of helpers, and