The Imam
Copyright© 2018 by Harvey Havel
Chapter 5
VASILLA JOURNEYS TO NEW YORK
18th of Sha’baan 1417
(December 29, 1996)
The bavasaab’s bodyguards drove Vasilla to the departures terminal and equipped him with a small book of conversational English. Vasilla had grown accustomed to eating airplane food. He was so hungry that the flight attendant served him two additional trays. The flight lasted ten hours, and he had little urge to sleep. Instead he stared out the small window as the pink sun hovered over scattered clouds. The drone of the plane’s engines eventually put him to sleep for a few hours, and by the time he awoke he was approaching New York City. He filled out several forms, basic information, passport and visa numbers, where he would be staying, and whether he carried any perishable items. The plane soon descended upon the Manhattan skyline. He took out his English phrase book and practiced hailing a taxi and finding a hotel room. As the plane’s wings sliced through the clouds he remembered how he stole the baby Imam from the Lahorian home. The act was simple. He crept out the door and carried him in a blanket. He had done it silently and quickly. He performed the service in the name of Allah and His representative. Yet the act saddened him all the same. The visage of Fatima recurred in his mind, turning and turning over like a dreary vision during the spell of a nervous sleep. His conscience bothered him. He was reminded of what he promised her. But he never questioned Tariq. And the plane plunged. It dipped and ascended at intervals. The plane touched the tarmac moments later.
At the customs counter Vasilla was asked a series of questions in English.
“In Arabic, please,” said Vasilla, thumbing through his phrase book.
“Just go ahead,” replied the customs clerk.
“Excuse?”
“Just go, andelle, move.”
And the customs clerk waved him through.
New York would be unlike any other city. Already he had seen the diversity, many different faces: brown, black, yellow, and white, some in perpetual motion, some waiting impatiently, like a busy Meccan intersection. Indians, Japanese, Africans, and Swedes roamed in distinct packs, waiting for loved ones by a barrier of shabby metal gates. He wondered how so much plurality could exist. These strangers acknowledged their mutual existence under one liberating system whereby packs of Swedes were near to the Africans clad in orange and black garments. These packs moved with speed, darting between baggage carts and crying children. They lived in a tense equality and controlled chaos: acknowledging their equality, smiling upon each other, but underneath that thin surface, beneath the thin disguise, a palpable hatred, the law of the jungle coexisting with laws of conscience and good will.
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