already paid all I can. I’ve played my part.’
The voice on the other end fell silent and Husseini could hear a train passing in the background. Maybe he was calling from a phone booth near the El or was in the lobby of the station.
‘I have to meet you as soon as possible. Now, actually.’
‘Now . . . I can’t. There’s someone here with me,’ improvised Husseini.
‘The secretary, huh? Send her home.’
He even knew that, then. Husseini stammered, ‘No, really, I can’t. I—’
‘Then you come here. In half an hour, at the Shedd Aquarium parking lot. I have a grey Buick La Sabre with Wisconsin plates. I’d advise you to be there.’ He hung up.
Husseini felt his world cave in on him. How was this possible? He’d left the organization after years of fierce battles and furious gunfights. He thought he’d paid his debt to the cause in full. Why this call? He would have given anything not to go. On the other hand he knew very well, from personal experience, that they were not people who fooled around. Least of all Abu Ahmid, the man whose voice he had heard and whom he knew only by his nom-de-guerre .
He sighed, turned off the TV and put on a fur-lined parka and gloves. He switched off the lights and closed the door behind him. His car was parked down the block. He scraped the ice and snow off the windscreen and left for his appointment.
The snow was falling hard and fine, blown by an icy wind from the east. He left the neo-Gothic buildings of the university campus on his left and drove up 57th Street to Lake Shore Drive, which was nearly deserted at that hour.
The spectacular scenery of the city centre loomed up before him: the serried ranks of the glass and steel giants, lights sparkling against the grey sky. The top of the Sears Tower was lost in low cloud and the beacon at its tip throbbed inside the foggy mass like lightning in a storm. The John Hancock stretched its colossal antennae into the clouds like the arms of a Titan condemned to hold up the sky for all eternity. The other towers, some encrusted with gilded ornaments on ribs of black stone, others bright with anodized metal and fluorescent plastic, fanned open at the sides of the street like enormous stage settings in the magic atmosphere of falling snow.
He passed slowly alongside the Field Museum, its Doric columns bathed in a green light that made them look like bronze. On his right was the long peninsula, with the Shedd Aquarium at one end and the stone drum of the planetarium at the other. He drove with care, leaving deep grooves in the white blanket, following tracks already covered by the snow that continued to fall incessantly in the glow of his headlights, in the continuous alternating rhythm of the windscreen wipers.
There was a car pulled over with its side lights on. He stopped, got out and walked towards it through ankle-deep snow. It was him. Husseini opened the passenger door and sat down.
‘Good evening, Abu Ghaj. Salaam alekum .’
‘ Alekum salaam , Abu Ahmid.’
‘I’m sorry to have interrupted your evening.’
‘You did not interrupt my evening, Abu Ahmid. You interrupted my life,’ said Husseini, his head low.
‘You should have expected it. We always find deserters sooner or later, wherever they are.’
‘I’m not a deserter. When I joined the organization, I said that I would leave as soon as I couldn’t take it any more. And you accepted this condition. Don’t you remember?’
‘I remember very well, Abu Ghaj. Otherwise you would not be here now, alive and well and talking with me. The fact remains that you left without a word.’
‘There was nothing to say. It was as we’d agreed.’
‘That’s your story!’ exclaimed Abu Ahmid sharply. ‘I’m the one who decides. And I could have condemned you to death then.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I never act on impulse. I wrote your name in my book. On the you-owe-me side.’
Husseini lowered his head. ‘So now you want me to settle up, is
The voice on the other end fell silent and Husseini could hear a train passing in the background. Maybe he was calling from a phone booth near the El or was in the lobby of the station.
‘I have to meet you as soon as possible. Now, actually.’
‘Now . . . I can’t. There’s someone here with me,’ improvised Husseini.
‘The secretary, huh? Send her home.’
He even knew that, then. Husseini stammered, ‘No, really, I can’t. I—’
‘Then you come here. In half an hour, at the Shedd Aquarium parking lot. I have a grey Buick La Sabre with Wisconsin plates. I’d advise you to be there.’ He hung up.
Husseini felt his world cave in on him. How was this possible? He’d left the organization after years of fierce battles and furious gunfights. He thought he’d paid his debt to the cause in full. Why this call? He would have given anything not to go. On the other hand he knew very well, from personal experience, that they were not people who fooled around. Least of all Abu Ahmid, the man whose voice he had heard and whom he knew only by his nom-de-guerre .
He sighed, turned off the TV and put on a fur-lined parka and gloves. He switched off the lights and closed the door behind him. His car was parked down the block. He scraped the ice and snow off the windscreen and left for his appointment.
The snow was falling hard and fine, blown by an icy wind from the east. He left the neo-Gothic buildings of the university campus on his left and drove up 57th Street to Lake Shore Drive, which was nearly deserted at that hour.
The spectacular scenery of the city centre loomed up before him: the serried ranks of the glass and steel giants, lights sparkling against the grey sky. The top of the Sears Tower was lost in low cloud and the beacon at its tip throbbed inside the foggy mass like lightning in a storm. The John Hancock stretched its colossal antennae into the clouds like the arms of a Titan condemned to hold up the sky for all eternity. The other towers, some encrusted with gilded ornaments on ribs of black stone, others bright with anodized metal and fluorescent plastic, fanned open at the sides of the street like enormous stage settings in the magic atmosphere of falling snow.
He passed slowly alongside the Field Museum, its Doric columns bathed in a green light that made them look like bronze. On his right was the long peninsula, with the Shedd Aquarium at one end and the stone drum of the planetarium at the other. He drove with care, leaving deep grooves in the white blanket, following tracks already covered by the snow that continued to fall incessantly in the glow of his headlights, in the continuous alternating rhythm of the windscreen wipers.
There was a car pulled over with its side lights on. He stopped, got out and walked towards it through ankle-deep snow. It was him. Husseini opened the passenger door and sat down.
‘Good evening, Abu Ghaj. Salaam alekum .’
‘ Alekum salaam , Abu Ahmid.’
‘I’m sorry to have interrupted your evening.’
‘You did not interrupt my evening, Abu Ahmid. You interrupted my life,’ said Husseini, his head low.
‘You should have expected it. We always find deserters sooner or later, wherever they are.’
‘I’m not a deserter. When I joined the organization, I said that I would leave as soon as I couldn’t take it any more. And you accepted this condition. Don’t you remember?’
‘I remember very well, Abu Ghaj. Otherwise you would not be here now, alive and well and talking with me. The fact remains that you left without a word.’
‘There was nothing to say. It was as we’d agreed.’
‘That’s your story!’ exclaimed Abu Ahmid sharply. ‘I’m the one who decides. And I could have condemned you to death then.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I never act on impulse. I wrote your name in my book. On the you-owe-me side.’
Husseini lowered his head. ‘So now you want me to settle up, is
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