The Submission - Amy Waldman [98]
The mayor had decided, as he put it, “to stand with my Muslim friends,” telling anyone who would listen that he could afford to, since he was being term-limited out. “So if he were running again, would you no longer be his friend?” Thomas, who had become Mo’s sole source of levity, asked wryly.
Mo was invited, along with various Muslim leaders, notables, and activists, to an Iftar at Gracie Mansion—a dinner to break the day’s Ramadan fast. He invited his parents to come up from Virginia, figuring it might mean more to them than to him, and also hoping that they would buffer him against the MACC members, who were sure to be there. Mo hadn’t seen any of them since he’d pulled out of the ad campaign, which had gone ahead with taxi drivers, teachers, and a stand-up comic in his place.
His parents knew he was not living at home; he had arranged a hotel room for them. Now he wished they had planned to meet there. Their footfalls echoed in the empty space. Their faces were full of horror.
“My goodness, Mo,” his mother said. “This is …” She walked into the bedroom and back, then perched on the edge of Mo’s suitcase, which was in a corner. “Can’t you stay with a friend? With Thomas?” She loved Thomas, Alice, and their children, not least because they reassured her that an architect could have a family, too.
“He has three kids, remember? Besides, they were caught a little off guard by this whole thing.”
“You didn’t tell him you were entering?”
“Can we talk about something else?” Mo didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “I like living on my own—it’s what I’m used to.” This was what his mother feared. He pivoted to avoid her expression.
“Maybe too used to it,” Salman said. Eager for sunset and food, he had opened Mo’s refrigerator and spotled the telltale white cartons: the Chinese, Indian, and Thai food with which Mo had been ending his fast each day. “Breaking the fast is meant to be communal,” his father said. “Not a man at home alone with his takeout.”
Mo stiffened, disliking this image of himself. “Then it’s good we’re going to the mayor’s,” he said curtly.
“Mo, you know we are proud of you, but we are even more worried.” Salman had made many similar comments by phone, but the vehemence in his face spoke much louder. “The costs of pursuing this—they are too high.”
Mo wasn’t entirely surprised. His father had made brave moves: coming to America for his engineering degree; marrying the woman of his choice—an artist, no less—rather than that of his parents; choosing modernity over tradition. But then, as Mo saw it, he had settled into conventionality. Mo’s deciding on architecture as a career choice had worried Salman. For an Indian son, the preferred professions were business, academia, medicine, not necessarily in that order. Or engineering. Architecture was a low-paying field in which success, unless extravagant, was hard to measure. As Mo’s talent became evident, as buildings he worked on came to be, Salman’s skepticism morphed to pride. He praised his son’s work to everyone. But Mo hadn’t forgotten his initial doubt.
“The costs of not pursuing it are high, too. I can’t just give in.”
“You are drawing attention to yourself, to us—all of us, all Muslims in America—in a way that could be dangerous,” Salman said. He was pacing with his hands behind his back. “My mosque has hired a security guard because of the threats it has been getting, and I almost feel like I should pay for it. Think of the community.”
Salman’s newfound attachment to his mosque was a sore point with Mo. Sometime after the attack, Salman, indifferent if not antagonistic to religion his whole adult life, had begun to pray, first alone, then at the mosque. “Curiosity,” he said when Mo asked why, “or maybe solidarity.” When he asked again a few months later, Salman said, “Because I believe.” Mo hadn’t known what to say to