Prepared For Rage

On Monday morning he paid the girl the other half of her fee and checked out of the hotel. He took a cab to the airport, a flight to Mexico City, a second to Cartagena, and a third to Miami. It took two days for him to arrive at his destination, but he had never lacked for patience.

In Miami, he took an airport shuttle into town to one of the big box hotels on Miami Beach, took a bus back to the airport, and picked up a

nondescript sedan reserved in the name of Daoud Sadat. He drove south to an anonymous suburb bisected by a major arterial lined with big box stores, did a little shopping at Target, and then consulted a street map purchased at a gas station. He turned right out of the Target parking lot, turned left at the next light, drove down a series of quiet side streets, and parked in front of a shabby, ranch-style home on a large lot festooned with palm trees and a prowling bougainvillea barely restrained by a chain-link fence. The house two doors down had had its trim renewed, and across the street someone had just replanted their yard, brave in poinsettia plants and new grass, but the neighborhood had the air of fighting a hopeless battle, as if a wrecking ball and upscale condominium high-rises were just one developer with a vision and a city councilman in his pocket away.

His knock was answered by a young woman with a grave face. "Yes?"

"Daoud Sadat. I believe I am expected."

She nodded. "You are. Please come in, Mr. Sadat." She reached for his suitcase.

He waved her off. "Thank you. I'll carry it."

"It's no bother." Her eyes were anxious.

"For me, either." He gave her a reassuring smile, and was rewarded by one in return. The change it made in her face was extraordinary, lighting her eyes, lending color to her skin, dimples to her cheeks. Her teeth were white and even.

She looked, he thought with a faint sense of shock, like Adara.

"Please follow me," she said.

She led him through the house to the kitchen, a large room at the back with appliances of varying ages against the walls, the center of the room dominated by a large wooden trestle table with benches on both sides and a captain's chair at either end. "Mama, this is Mr. Sadat."

The kitchen may have been as shabby as the exterior of the house but it was scrupulously clean. The woman at the stove was her daughter again in face and form, with twenty years and twenty pounds added on. Her dark hair was knotted at the back of her head, her dress was buttoned firmly to her throat and wrists with a hem that brushed her ankles. She wiped her hands on the dish towel knotted around her waist and bowed her head in his direction. "Mr. Sadat. I am Mrs. Mansour. This is my daughter, Zahirah."

He nodded to both of them. "Daoud Sadat. I wrote about a room?"

"Of course. I will show you. Peel the eggplants, Zahirah."

"Yes, Mama."

Mrs. Mansour led him to a room past the kitchen. It was clean and pleasant enough, containing a full-sized bed with a firm mattress plentifully supplied with pillows, a small writing table with a straight chair in one corner, in another an easy chair facing a television, and its own bathroom. "There is no tub, only a shower," Mrs. Mansour said.

"It is no matter," AMI said.

"I'm sorry that there is no telephone, Mr. Sadat, but I have the number of the telephone company. The co

He shut the door and smiled at her. "I can see that, Mrs. Mansour, thank you."

"The breakfast things will be on the table in the morning: cereal, rolls, fruit, coffee. I rise very early to go to work."

"Ah. Where do you work?"

"At a dry cleaner's. My daughter, also, will be gone very early, so you will have the house to yourself."

He smiled. "I will be at work early, too."

"You already have a job?"

"I do," he said gravely. "I am a software engineer."

She nodded. "For Lockheed, probably."

"Yes," he said, raising his eyebrows in well-simulated surprise.

She took it as an implied rebuke for curiosity into his affairs and apologized. "It's just that their headquarters are so near, I assumed-"

He patted the air. "It is no matter, Mrs. Mansour, I quite understand. Your daughter works as well?"

"My daughter goes to university," Mrs. Mansour said.

"You must be very proud."

"It is why we moved here. It has been… difficult, but it was her father's dearest wish."

He steered her off further confidences by inquiring as to how she would like the rent, suggesting cash since he had not had time to open an account in a local bank. He paid for a full month in advance, including the deposit, over her protests, and escorted her to the door.

He barely had time to unpack the meager belongings in his suitcase when a soft knock sounded. He opened it to find Zahirah standing behind it with an armful of fresh towels and two bars of Ivory soap still in their wrappers. "For your bathroom," she said.

She hung the towels and the washcloths and unwrapped the soaps, putting one in the dish next to the sink and one in the dish in the shower. "Di

"Nothing, I thank you."

Her eyes went past him to his open suitcase. "But-I thought my mother said you were a software engineer." I am.

"You have no computer?"

He did not. He would never be so imprudent. He carried a flash drive in his left-hand pocket at all times. It was an indulgence, to carry that much information around with him, but it was necessary, and it was small enough to be easily disposed of at need. The information on it, mostly names and contact information, was encrypted and he backed it up to an online server in a name he never used for anything else.

But she was still wondering about his lack of computer, so he said, "I left it at work."

"Oh." She was doubtful but accepting. "Most engineers bring their work home with them." She met his eyes and a delicate flush stained her cheeks. "I'm sorry, Mr. Sadat. It's none of my business."

He smiled to show no offense taken, and changed the subject. "You and your mother don't wear the hijab."

A wary expression crossed her face. "The hijab is traditional, not religious."

"You and your mother are reform, then?"

This time her answer had teeth in it. "There is nothing in the Koran that advocates the hijab."

He surprised them both by laughing.

"What's so fu

The laughter had felt good. It had been a long time since he had laughed out loud. He sighed. "You sounded like my sister," he said simply.

"Oh," she said. She sensed his sorrow, and her hostility drained away. "My father-"

"Yes, I know, your mother told me," he said.

Again she was surprised. "She did?"

"That he wished for you to go to school. It is easy from that to understand the rest. Thank you for the towels and the soap. I will see you at di

"Oh," she repeated. "Of course. Until di

The door closed softly behind her and he stood where he was, listening to her footsteps go down the hall.