The Submission - Amy Waldman [60]
He was batting away a sense that he had somehow screwed up, that by fighting to expand the memorial’s size, all he’d won was more space for this Muslim to mock them. He’d failed to get on the jury, let alone gain control of it. By habit he raised and lowered the window, checking for stiffness and warp.
“Here’s the governor.” Jim turned off the radio and turned up the television. She was leaving the National Press Club, where she had given a speech on defense policy. “It’s disturbing that a jury of so-called experts could miss that this is an Islamic garden,” she said.
“You picked the jury!” Sean said. “Does she think we’re stupid?”
“If it turns out to be true, it would be unconstitutional to allow the establishment of any religion on public land,” the governor continued. “I’m going to seek legal advice. Even if the report isn’t true, this may not turn out to be the best design. But I want the public to weigh in on that at the hearing.”
“A hearing won’t stop this,” Ellis said, “not if they’ve let it come this far.”
“It’s too much,” Eileen whispered, “too much.” Frank half stood, leaned toward her slightly, sat back down. Miranda, next to her on the couch, took her left hand, and Lucy came and took her right. Eileen took it back so she could rub her leg again.
“It’s not enough to kill us, they have to humiliate us, too,” Brendan said. He’d led a brief protest at his local subway stop after the name Talib Islam was posted under the smiling face on the “Hello, I am your station manager” sign. “They expect us to look at that name every day?” he’d asked. The Transit Authority had posted cops in the station to protect Islam, which made Brendan apoplectic. Then, one day, the manager was gone. Brendan counted it a victory until he learned that Talib Islam had been promoted.
Now Khan’s name, and his paradise, would torment them in a place far more sacred than a subway. Pity for his mother—stronger than his own anger, stronger than his love for her—overwhelmed Sean. Sometimes he thought she wished he, instead of Patrick, had died. And yet thinking that now only enlarged his compassion for her. To save the memorial was a chance to be vigilant as they hadn’t been the first time. Eileen had been cleaning the attic when the planes flew overhead. Sean wanted to lock Khan in a room with his mother to see if he could withstand her pain.
“Please, Sean, don’t let this come to be,” she said. The look in her gray eyes—what was it? He’d never seen it, not from her. Pleading. His hard mother admitting her need. If, at that moment, she had asked him to strap on a bomb and blow up someone or something, he probably would have. But she hadn’t asked. A plan was up to him.
A file clip of Claire Burwell in dark glasses flashed on the TV.
“Some other blood runs in those veins,” his mother said. Maybe money made you feel less, Sean thought, picturing Claire in her mansion, which was bigger than he’d even imagined (and he’d spent a lot of time imagining it), bigger than any he’d seen. Different, too. So much glass. He hoped she’d been watching him, hoped she’d been scared, wished he’d thrown that rock into her house of light.
12
The threats began soon after Mo’s official anointment. By phone, by letter, by e-mail, his countrymen promised to burn him as the terrorists had incinerated their victims, to stab him in the heart as he was stabbing America. The FBI placed him under watch. Agents much like his interrogators in Los Angeles posed, ineptly, as his assistants. In their presence, Emmanuel Roi wore the look of an ancient Brahman forced to host untouchables.
Next came the picketers. Two, or three, or ten of them, mostly women, foot-darned a circle in the park across from his house. They held signs with by-now familiar slogans—NO MECCA IN MANHATTAN or STOP JI-HIDING