Percussions

PERCUSSIONS

Part One: The Propagandist

The man at her table reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out a badge, and shows it to her. He’s C.I.A. He’s Arab too, so he’s an Arab working for the C.I.A. She didn’t see that coming. Just like that, it shot out, snatched, and swallowed her whole.

She’s in a local coffeehouse in Damascus. She’s the only woman there. She thinks she’s the only woman because it’s too late for women to be out; they should be home with the children at this time of night. She’s wearing a hijab, even though she’s not Muslim. She’s a tourist, and being a tourist means you’re tolerated. She made sure not to smoke, though: she didn’t want to draw stares. In the dimly lit room, men in handkerchief-patterned keffiyehs and white kufis sit at tables in gaggles of six or more, eating porridge and bantering, talking with their mouths full and sputtering with laughter. There’s a melody to the clinks of their spoons against cups and bowls, a high-pitched musical score out of a horror flick.

She makes it back in time to hear the man at her table say she will be in direct conflict with her country if she persists with her activities in Syria. She just returned from removing herself from their conversation—she had a freeze response to him showing her his badge—and in that brief spell, she blanked out the low roar of conversations, the brief titters of guests, and the banjoist strumming in a corner, everything but the sound of crockery, which she imagines to be screechingly and hauntingly musical. She’s not in familiar territory. And her body feels unfamiliar, too, almost as if she’s in a dream state.

A server arrives at their table and relieves his tray with two whumps: a mug of goat’s milk for her date and a glass of punch for her.

She waits for him to leave. “How will I be in ‘direct conflict’ with the United States?”

Her date tells her Zee-Zee, whom he calls by his full name ‘Zubi Zalawi’, is C.I.A. too.

The clinking of crockery changes rhythm.

When her sense of time and place returns, she realizes her mouth is open.

She doesn’t know what to believe. The man introduced himself as ‘Jamal,’ but now he’s revealed he’s a spy, she knows even that can be a lie.

“That man ordered Lester’s murder. Are you saying…?”

Jamal shakes his head. He says ‘Zalawi’ had no hand in her father’s murder. The Group has factions—cabals. He says her Iranian boyfriend heads one such cabal.

She downs her drink and flicks her tongue like a snake. She asked for a glass of punch, what’s this? If they won’t put alcohol in her favourite tipple, why call it ‘punch’? It’s not the drink that bothers her, not particularly: it’s the way it feels like a second sucker punch. She came to the coffeehouse to meet with an insider who promised to give her Zee-Zee’s whereabouts for a price. Not this. She wants to leave, but something tells her he won’t let her.

The year is 2015. Eleven months since US-led airstrikes began a cycle of reprisals. So far, three Americans and two British have been abducted and murdered.

Jamal is a heavy-boned, strong-jawed, caramel-complexioned man. He has thick woolly hair bearding the lower part of his face. Like many locals here, she can’t see his jawline and has to create one for him in her head.

He wants to know if she has met Hisham Ali-Mushkara, Abdel-Raouf Muhammad, or Salaman Da’ar. He drawls through the names and twangs when he runs the first and second names together, trying to say them right. For the first time in her life, she appreciates the mechanics of the American accent, the way high notes are common, and the way making these notes sound like the pitch of a violin with less pressure on the fingerboard. Some young locals she met for directions had slanged like Americans when they replied to her, but they were not nearly as fluent or as cadenced as this man.

He says Zalawi is what they call a propagandist, an Islamic religious leader promoting an American agenda in the Middle East. The US is in a propaganda war with terrorists. With Zalawi at the helm of The Group, they can now crush anti-western propaganda and promote their own. Long story short, they dictate the music. He looks full of himself, the way he’s leaning back in his chair like that. He pauses like he expects her to applaud, but she’s picturing the look on Taffy’s face when he learns he once took instructions from America.

He asks her what’s funny.

“America running terrorist groups.”

He says they’re not—running them; they’re guiding them. And keeping tabs on them from the inside.

“Why did Zee-Zee invite Lester to Syria to interview him?”

He says it wasn’t ‘Zubi Zalawi’ who reached out to her father, but someone pretending it was at his behest. He says they hadn’t known her famous father was in Syria until he was abducted. From what he tells her, Zee-Zee did all he could to get her father released.

“Okay. So maybe it wasn’t Zee-Zee who lured Lester to Syria with the promise of a rare interview. But even if it wasn’t, it doesn’t mean he didn’t order her father’s execution. He could have done it to prove he was no sellout.”

Jamal brings his head forward and lowers his voice. He says some members of The Group aren’t happy with the way Zalawi ran things, and they were the ones who made an example of Lester to gain respect and put their names in the Jihadist Yellow Pages. He says Zalawi forbade Lester’s murder, but they didn’t listen.

“So who killed Lester?”

He says he doesn’t know. But if he were her, he would look carefully at her Iranian boyfriend. He used to be one of Zalawi’s close aides.

She studies his beard, the combed tresses that end in feathery tips.

He makes her an offer: if she helps them, they will help her find Lester’s killers.

“Help you do what?”

He gives a protracted answer to a simple question. Long story short, he wants her to be his mole. He doesn’t ask a question, so she remains silent.

He wants to know what ‘Tafida Mo’ammar Abbas’ is planning next.

She’s tempted to say Taffy’s middle name isn’t ‘mo hammer’; it’s ‘moo armor’.

“Taffy’s a mere spear carrier,” she says. “I’m the mastermind and sponsor. If I tell him to stop, he will.”

Jamal laughs. He apologizes for the situation he’s put her in, says he’s touched by her readiness to take the fall for Taffy, and insinuates Taffy is using her—she’s already admitted to being his sponsor, so that makes her a terrorist sponsor.

She wrinkles her forehead. Taffy’s not a terrorist. He’s a freedom fighter, a mercenary fighting on the side of the oppressed, whether it’s against Americans, Israelis, or Turks. People like Jamal think all soldiers from Islamic countries who aren’t fighting on America’s side are terrorists. She can’t tell if he’s being conciliatory or condescending. She concludes it depends on how they leave things: if they shake hands and go their separate ways, it’s conciliatory.

“I’m the one using him. I’m using him to catch my father’s killers.”

He gives her her bio: She’s from Wisconsin. She majored in music and currently teaches music and dance at a school she owns in Madison, he forgets the name. She exercises regularly and loves photography and is here in Syria to shoot a documentary about her father’s last days. So that makes her an amateur filmmaker too. Her mother is worried about her: she left home without her meds.

She’s surprised by the last part: he couldn’t have gotten that from the internet. Her father’s murder shook her up pretty badly. Her doctor said she had developed early-stage Depersonalization-Derealization disorder (DPDR).

He asks how she’s doing.

“I’m fine.”

He hands her a black bag and says it’s from her mother.

It’s a pack of Sertraline: her prescription pills.

The whole thing feels like a violation of her private medical records. A good thing he isn’t prying or acting like he knows about her medical condition. She doesn’t want to make it a talking point. Maybe if she thanks him instead of expressing how she feels, he’ll leave it alone.

“Thank you.” She stuffs the drug in her bag.

He says he’s had depression too.

She stays calm. “I’m sorry,” she says. “But where is this leading?”

He ignores her question. Apparently, he’s not done showing he knows her personal life. He says she fell for an Iranian chemist trained in Turkey while shooting her documentary. His tone is friendly even though it feels like the verbal equivalent of showing her a holstered gun: we know where you live, so don’t try to run. He says he’s part Lebanese, part Delawarean. So what? She doesn’t give a rat’s ass if he’s an actor preparing for his next starring role as a Taliban cleric or a redneck with an unusual suntan.

He reaches into his thobe, pulls out a brown envelope, and slides it across.

“What’s this?”

He wants her to look inside. She opens it and pulls out three photographs. Taffy is in each one. He has his arm around an Arab woman in the first; is throwing a child in the air and grinning in the second; and is at the wheel of an old model Mercedes-Benz in the third, a covered woman by his side and two youngsters in the back.

He says Taffy has two wives and five children in Tehran.

She flips through the pictures, shuffling back and forth between them, becoming more aware of his eyes. Satisfied, she puts them back in the envelope and slides them across. She keeps a straight face, more embarrassed than shocked because Taffy said his wife was killed in an Israeli shelling at the West Bank.

“I know about his wives, he told me.”

Jamal smirks. Bantering, he asks if Taffy said something about leaving his wives for her. She doesn’t like his attitude. Wipe off that stupid smile.

She lashes out. She questions his timing: Why surface now? For one year, they said nothing to her or her mother. They didn’t think they deserved the truth.

He tells her to keep her voice down.

“Is it because I’m getting close to the truth that you now deem it necessary to tell me my father was collateral damage in your fight with terrorists?”

She says many things; she can’t remember what exactly. She buries her face in her hands and cries. The throbbing of her heart echoes in her ear. She feels hollow inside. Hollow like a percussion instrument. As a student of dance, she has learned to trust what she hears and trust it enough to guide her on what foot to put forward.

He mutters her name, Marion Ursula Ashcroft, and says the US government regrets her loss. He says it like an official statement. She jerks her head back, indignant. What the…? Her passionate speech wasn’t a plea for pity. Or an apology. Her nerves would be grateful if he could just fuck off.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to leave.”

He amuses her with the role he expects her to play for her country. He wants her to report anything she learns about Taffy and his splinter group to him. He will find her, he adds. Taffy’s location is not their main concern; they want to know his operations, his sponsors, his accomplices—that kind of stuff. Or if he knows anything about the other Americans still being held. He walks her through what he expects her to say to Taffy when Taffy asks about their meeting. He warns her not to say she met with an American spy because if she does, Taffy may doubt her loyalty and her life could be in danger. It’s in her best interest not to appear to have softened on Zee-Zee. She can learn who killed her father by snooping around Taffy’s video library. Terrorists always keep copies of their executions, all the scalps they’ve collected.

He pulls his chair back and rises. Watching as he slinks away, her lungs resume working. She had feared the night would end with him bundling her into a waiting chopper that would airlift her to an American military base, from where she would be held until she was deported. And she’d never see Taffy again.

He thinks she’ll switch allegiance because she carries the same passport as him. Americans. So smug. She’s trapped. Strapped against her will, the worm at the end of his fishhook. He’ll be on alert for any tensions.

How can she betray Taffy? After all he’s done for her? When making her film was proving to be the hardest thing she’d ever tried, he’d come along and set up interviews for her. God knows she couldn’t have done all those interviews if it weren’t for him, like the ones she did with the people who worked at the local supermarket where Lester bought groceries. Even Lester’s neighbors, initially unwilling to speak with her, granted her interviews. A pity he’s married because they’re expecting. She’s six weeks along.