The Submission - Amy Waldman [91]
“I was just thinking of talking to her,” he said.
“Don’t you dare apologize,” she said.
“That’s how she treats us,” Trisha snickered.
“We’re dhimmi,” Alison sighed.
“No harm in talking,” Sean said.
“No harm,” said Debbie, with a musing, canny look.
The SAFIs were waiting for him when he arrived at the Muslim American Coordinating Council office the next morning. “No Apology! No Submission!” they screamed, with Debbie in the lead. A scrum of reporters and camera crews shouted questions at him. Feminists held signs that said NO AMNESTY FOR WIFE BEATERS.
His instinct was to flee. He clenched his fists and pushed through.
Alyssa Spier adhered to him. “Take me inside,” she whispered. “You need a witness to make sure they don’t spin it differently than it happens.” But at the MACC office, Issam Malik gave Alyssa a look of recognition and said, “No, no, no. We’re going to meet privately first. And when we open the doors to the press, she gets no access.”
“Did you call the press?” Sean asked after Alyssa had sulked off. “I thought this was a private meeting.”
“You can’t teach to an empty classroom,” Malik said. Sean disliked him instantly. They filed into a conference room. It was filled with men, mostly, along with a few women in headscarves. All shades of brown. He missed pasty Alyssa. For the first time in his life, he was the only Christian and, it appeared, the only white, in the room. Unsettled by this, he was scanning for danger when he heard, from an alarmed voice in the corner, “What’s in the bag?” All eyes went to Sean’s gym bag, which was over his shoulder. When he left Debbie’s that morning, he had packed up all his things except for his suit, which he wore so it wouldn’t crumple. He knew he wouldn’t be welcomed back after going to the council.
“What?” Sean said.
“What. Is. In. The. Bag,” Malik said slowly, as if Sean didn’t speak English. Two men stood.
“Fuck!” Sean said. He ran his hands through his hair. He bent down, unzipped the bag, and began dumping its contents on the floor. Jeans, sneakers, T-shirts, sweatshirt, shaving kit, Sports Illustrated, boxer shorts, and, mixed in with the dirty socks, a pair of pink cotton underwear—Trisha’s. He’d lifted it. Excuses crossed his mind. It had gotten mixed up with his clothes in the dryer. She’s legal. Nothing happened anyway. Forget it: they didn’t know anything about where he’d been.
There was silence. The men were looking at one another. The women were looking down. No one wanted to look at Sean or his stuff.
He turned his gaze up to the ceiling. “I’m carrying my clothes because I had to leave where I’ve been staying,” he said. His eyes stung. “I left because I was coming here today, and they thought I shouldn’t. I am homeless because I came here today,” he added, exaggerating a bit. “And you think I came in here with a bomb?”
“A gun,” someone said in a low voice. “I thought you might have a gun.”
“People—we—are on edge,” Malik said. “The mood is very tense right now. There’s violence in the air, and you bear some responsibility for that. We don’t know you from Adam. You organized a rally where people were making death threats. You yanked a woman’s headscarf. How are we to know what else you’re capable of?”
I’m not capable, not capable of anything, Sean thought. He pulled his wallet from his pocket, sending a few stray receipts drifting to the floor, and extracted a small photo of Patrick in his dress uniform. He held it up. Everyone peered to see. “This was my brother. My brother who died. Was killed. By Muslims. Jesus! Why is it so hard to do the right thing?”
“I’m sorry,” a woman said. Sean looked at her. He couldn’t have picked her face out of a lineup, but he knew the red scarf. He had seen, too many times, his hand reaching for it. It couldn’t be an accident she was wearing it today.
“You only have one