The Submission - Amy Waldman [123]
“The death penalty?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. It sounds dramatic and gets them tons of press, but only a state would have the power to carry it out, and you don’t live under Sharia. The big beards make hay from what they can. Besides, you didn’t do it on purpose, did you?”
“I didn’t even know I’d said it. You saw what I was dealing with up there.” Fishing for sympathy, or simply proof that she had watched, he got neither.
“Of course it’s always possible some crazy gets the wrong idea, so be careful.” The words were kind enough; the withholding of true tenderness killing.
“How do I make it all go away?”
“You issue a statement saying you did not mean to imply that the Quran was not the word of God.”
He kept silent.
“I thought so,” Laila said at last, and the simple words drew on such deep intimacy that she couldn’t help but let some affection creep into her voice. “Then you’re just going to have to wait for it to die down.”
He wanted to keep her on the phone. “You okay?” he asked.
“Let’s keep things professional, Mo,” she finally said, not sounding professional at all.
21
“And who is Oprah?”
Nasruddin could not tell if Asma meant to be imperious or just sounded that way because she looked, in posture and attitude, like Bangladesh’s female prime minister receiving supplicants. Ladies, so many ladies-in-waiting, surrounded her, since seemingly every wife and a good many daughters of the neighborhood had crowded into Mrs. Mahmoud’s apartment. Trills and squawks flew back and forth across the room, which steamed tropical from all the bodies crammed inside.
Nasruddin squeezed in, pushing away the glass of water and sweets thrust at him. It was still Ramadan. Why were they offering food? “Oprah Winfrey called,” he had told Asma in Bengali. “Or she didn’t but a lady working for her. She wants you on her show.”
“Oprah!” squealed his daughter, Tasleen, after Asma asked who she was. “She’s the black lady. Very famous, very famous. She gives away cars. I will drive you. I am learning to drive …”
She was? This was news to Nasruddin.
“Did you say something about Oprah Winfrey? Does she want Asma on her show?” Amid the chatter and colors and chaos he had not noticed the white woman, pen poised above her notebook, curled at Asma’s feet, since Mrs. Mahmoud and Mrs. Ahmed had filled the rest of the couch. A journalist, he thought, a guest, which explained the sweets, but how was she conducting an interview with a woman who spoke almost no English?
“I’m translating, Baba,” Tasleen brightly volunteered before he could ask. “And yes”—turning to the white woman, switching seamlessly from Bengali to English—“he said Oprah Winfrey called.”
They had left the hearing quickly, Nasruddin dragging Asma past staring family members and clamoring reporters and the police officer, who tipped his cap. The clattering smelly crowded subway was, for once, a reprieve, and they sat without speaking all the way home. Too many thoughts turned in his head for words. She had spoken, and he was proud of her and maybe ashamed of himself. Having always believed leadership should be quiet, today he wondered if this approach suggested a lack of courage. What better served his people: his devotion to bureaucratic details and cultivated relationships, or Asma’s demand to be heard?
He dropped her at home with an awkward bow and a compliment: “Now I know what Inam meant.”
Asma looked puzzled.
“Once he told me: ‘Asma cannot speak English, but she has a very good mind.’”
However impressed he was, Nasruddin had no idea of the impact of her words, of how many times, over the succeeding hours and days, they would be rebroadcast. America thirsted for heroes, the commentators said. Here was one.
A few hours after he left her at home came a frantic call: some white people (and a black man, she whispered) were at her door, Mrs. Mahmoud was out, and Asma didn’t understand what they wanted. Some had cameras. He raced over to find a small press pack calling out “We just want to have a few words with you.” A few words—“Mrs. Anwar said everything