City of Veils Read online

  “Why do you want to know?” Jacob was moving closer again, so she shrugged, although it looked more like a nervous tic. When he saw that she wasn’t going to answer, he said, “We went out to Mabus’s place. Did some camping on the dunes.”

  “Hmm.” Smiling feebly, clutching her purse, she went straight to the front door and pulled it open, but Jacob followed her onto the lawn.

  “Later,” she said, walking briskly away. He stood in the front yard watching her leave, but she didn’t turn around. She walked, trying not to seem hurried, until she was out of sight of the villa. Then she took the cell phone from her purse and called the taxi driver again, relieved to hear that he wasn’t far away. They arranged to meet at the gate.

  She already knew how old the picture was, because the cut on Eric’s chin had happened right before she’d left for the States. The picture had to have been taken within a few days of her leaving. She didn’t mind, really. He had a right to his friends, especially when she was out of town, but they’d spoken on the phone a few times that week and he hadn’t mentioned it once. Normally he told her when he was going somewhere.

  And, she wondered suddenly, who took the picture?

  14

  Faiza sat beside Osama in the front seat, laughing at a comic display of gesticulation between two young boys fighting over a soccer ball on the street. Osama steered carefully around the soccer game, smiling to himself. He enjoyed her laughter and let it wash over him. He had never been bothered by her forwardness, the sloppy way she wore her hijab, or the simple banter that sprang up between them on the rare occasions they went on interviews together. With a different woman these things might have seemed like efforts at seduction, but with Faiza they were as natural as air and sand and stone. She was older, at thirty-seven just reaching the age where immodesty was forgiven, where women passed into the sanctuary of perceived sexlessness. Yet he found her attractive in a simple, old-fashioned way; the flat, broad gestures of her hands, the way her shoulders shook when she laughed, and the plainness of her features, which—on the occasions that he saw them—she wore with unabashed frankness. She was wholesome and comforting precisely because she had no idea of her own sexuality, and he suspected that this had been as much the case with her at sixteen as it would someday be at forty.

  She let out a sigh, the kind that said My, that was satisfying, now back to serious. They were heading to talk to the victim’s brother Abdulrahman Nawar, who owned a lingerie store. If there was even a possibility that they would have to interview a woman, Osama had to bring a female officer along. A lingerie store was strange, tricky territory. He’d brought Faiza on the off chance that this would be one of the 250-odd lingerie boutiques in Jeddah that had actually managed to comply with the Labor Ministry’s new edict enforcing the hiring of women. “Encouraging more women into the workplace,” they called it, but it was really a bid to clamp down on one of the few places where men had access to women, where women could confer with men in whispers about their panty preferences and cup sizes and which of the dazzling variety of erotic “looks” they preferred in the bedroom.

  The religious establishment had been scrutinizing and pressuring the industry for years, but until recently store owners had always managed a successful defense, arguing that they couldn’t hire women because most of their customers were actually men shopping for their wives. Since women had a more difficult time getting out of the house, they sent their husbands to buy for them—hence the need for male clerks. When the Labor Ministry issued its new law—only women should work in lingerie stores—the religious establishment roared. The idea of male employees handling brassieres and thongs sent the imams into a lather, but apparently the threat of women leaving off child-raising and cooking to find outside work was even more depraved.

  Faiza’s hand plunged into her paper bag. They had stopped for coffee and doughnuts, and she ate a cream-filled without any of the delicacy he’d come to expect from someone wearing a burqa—the gentle angling of the sticky pastry beneath the fabric, the careful biting to avoid dropping crumbs in the collar. She simply went at it. He watched surreptitiously for lapses of judgment, but she didn’t so much as smear frosting on her thumb.

  “That was impressive,” he said.

  She chuckled. “Twenty-five years of practice, I’d better be good. Who are you taking me to see today?”

  “The owner of a lingerie store. He’s a man, but we might have to get past some women first.”

  “You’ve never got past a woman by yourself?”

  “I thought I could use your help.”

  “You know I appreciate it.”

  He pulled into a gas station and got out to refill. As he was finishing up, a patrol car drove by, triggering a small worry when the officers glanced his way. He checked to see if they recognized him, if they noticed Faiza. Being with her wasn’t wrong, it was just that he had been with her more and more often in the past few weeks. For her sake, he dreaded the day that people started putting them together in their minds. The rumor mill, always efficient, would begin churning out lies, and the first career to get pulverized would be hers.

  He had often wondered why she had chosen to become an officer. The few times he’d asked, she’d answered vaguely (a shrug: “I don’t know. I was interested”) without any of the impassioned rhetoric that the department’s other women tended to use. With Faiza there was something mysteriously apt about the choice, as if she’d been drawn to this career not by logic or careful planning, but by some deep, inarticulate suitability.

  He got back in the car and drove off, grateful when the patrol car slipped out of view. Normally, he would have been sitting in her seat, and Rafiq, his partner, would have been driving. If Faiza was along, she would be in the back. But three months ago, Rafiq and Osama had walked into an abortion clinic and one of the clients’ boyfriends had pulled out a gun and shot Rafiq in the chest. They’d been looking for a suspect in the murder of a young girl, and their investigation had led them inexorably back to the small clinic, which passed itself off as a fertility center but which, Osama thought with a wave of disgust even now, turned out to be a place where children were killed every day. Rafiq had survived the wounds but had taken a six-month health leave anyway.

  In the greater picture, it was probably good that this break had been forced on them. Rafiq, the older and more experienced of the two, had always been the alpha male, boldly and proudly leading Osama from crime scene to interrogation room, from courtroom to prison, schooling him in the nuances of policing a city as vast and lawless and recklessly impious as this one. This relationship had gone on long after Osama had become a competent officer in his own right because Osama—his father-figure complex brought to a majestic, swelling blossom—had turned to Rafiq like a frail flower tropes to the sun.

  The accusations had started slowly. First, that Rafiq had taken bribes on a case involving a battered housemaid. Then that he had beat a young Somali man who’d been begging at a bus station for ticket fare back to Riyadh. About six months ago, like flocking birds, the charges began sailing in, coming from different places but all resembling one another and all heading south. Osama defended his partner with fierce conviction, feeling certain that Rafiq was being maligned. It was going to take a sledgehammer to break his faith, but in fact it took only a whisper, something Osama’s wife, Nuha, told him about Rafiq’s marriage. After that, strangely, he began to have doubts. Then they entered the abortion clinic and everything changed.

  For the past three months Osama had been on his own, and he still felt slightly awkward about the isolation and the independence. He could have partnered up with Abdullatif or Abu-Haitham, but he had never liked the former’s tactlessness and the latter’s cold silences, and if he’d had a choice at all, he would have picked Faiza above any of the men in the department. God willing, he thought, some day this country will be modern enough to accept that every homicide investigator needed a woman, and that male-female partnerships should in fact be enforced,
because what homicide investigation involved only men?

  The lingerie store was a brash affair, the stucco façade painted bright pink and gold. Six enormous front windows displayed manikins in corsets and garters, one female manikin holding a whip above a second one who wore a burqa (but nothing else) and who was kneeling abjectly on the floor. There was a residue of black around the window’s edges, where no doubt some religious policeman had spray-painted the glass to cover the atrocity and where the owners had removed the paint incompletely. Osama touched the black spots with his finger and noticed they were somewhat fresh.

  The next window showed three manikins standing in a row. Behind them a neon green poster announced Latest Syrian Thrills! The manikins were wearing technology treats: a bra made of power cords, a cell phone covering each breast, a BlackBerry thong. It wasn’t the ridiculousness of it that made him laugh, it was the knowledge that Faiza was standing beside him, staring at two computer mice strapped to the manikin’s firm butt cheeks beneath a sign that read Click Me, Baby!

  She turned away, looking unimpressed, and followed him into the store.

  Almost at once, his forearms bristled with goose bumps. The air-conditioning was overzealous, a nice deterrent to getting naked, but it made the place feel hostile. Inside, they found an enormous, warehouselike space split into themed sections: Romantic, Flashy, Barely There, and Hard Core. In the center of the room was an island cashier staffed by three young men, each looking as if he were fresh out of business school, with trim little mustaches and neat button-down shirts. Osama went to the cashier, Faiza walking beside him and scanning the room. At this time of day the store wasn’t very crowded, but a lone man was wandering through the aisles on one side, and a young couple was heading into the Hard Core section but promptly stopped when Osama flashed his badge.

  “I need to speak to Abdulrahman Nawar,” he said.

  “He’s in the back,” one of the cashiers replied, glancing at his cohorts, who were frozen in aspects of silent panic. Osama gave them each a good once-over, enough to make them nervous. It was something Rafiq had taught him: always intimidate men in a lingerie store. They needed to be reminded that cops didn’t always wear uniforms, that any customer could be an officer, and that everybody had better be on their guard. “There is too much sexuality around them all the time,” Rafiq had said. “Don’t think they don’t get ideas just as often.” Osama couldn’t imagine them not getting ideas.

  “Uh… I’ll go get him for you,” the boy said.

  “No need,” Osama replied, practically scowling at the three of them. “We can find it ourselves.”

  The three men glanced at Faiza with looks that ranged from incomprehension to amazement. One of them ventured, “May I ask what this is about?”

  “No,” Osama said, motioning Faiza around the island to the back of the store, where a pair of double doors were held open by manikins, each one wearing a brown leather getup that looked like something you’d use to capture a falcon. An immense workshop was visible through the doors. They saw men, but no women.

  Faiza didn’t complain or back down. It was one of the things he liked about her, this steadfast resolve. As they went into the studio, he saw himself suddenly as if from a distance, saw an investigator leading his protégée into a room, only this protégée was bold enough to pause at the door and lift her burqa without even glancing his way for approval. She was ready to face them, literally, while Osama wanted to turn around and walk away. He hated breaking the bad news to families.

  One of the men inside saw him coming and approached. The man’s movements were careful, and when he spoke, he had the crisp tones of someone used to dealing with idiots. “How can I help you?”

  “Are you Abdulrahman Nawar?”

  “No, I’m his assistant. Who are you?” the man asked. Osama flashed his badge, but before he could introduce himself, the man said, “What is this about?”

  “His sister.”

  The man’s face seemed to open with concern. “Oh,” he said. “Please come in.”

  The room was brightly lit and cool, with distinct currents of smell drifting through the air—stale coffee, body odor, the sour stench of industrial fabrics unwound from their bolts. There were large white tables where patterns were laid out, where scissors and pincushions waited patiently for their masters, and between the tables, headless manikins stood in poses of defiance, hands on hips or arms held in a pugilist’s stance. Men were standing around or bent over tables of fabrics. They were young, probably in their twenties. One was sitting on a stool, winding a ball of stringed sequins. The older man in the room—whom Osama presumed to be the victim’s brother—was fussing over a manikin with one arm outstretched so that it looked, from the side, as if it were slapping his face. Each of the manikins wore a lavishly sexy piece of lingerie.

  “Abdulrahman.” Something in the way the assistant said the name made Osama think that he already knew what was happening, that Leila was dead and that they’d come here to break the news. He glanced at Faiza, who seemed to notice it, too, for she met his eyes with a silent look of concern.

  Abdulrahman responded to the strange intimacy of the tone. He immediately stopped his fussing and turned with a hostile expression.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Mr. Nawar,” Osama said. “I’m Detective Inspector Osama Ibrahim and this is Officer Shanbari. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  Abdulrahman stood frozen by the slapping manikin. His “Yes” was more like a gasp for air. He attempted to lead Osama and Faiza to the small, glass-walled office across the room, but he’d gone only two steps before he stumbled, and his assistant and Osama lurched to his rescue.

  Abdulrahman knocked the assistant’s hand away. “I’m fine,” he growled. “What happened?” But he already knew, Osama could see it on his face.

  “I think you’d better sit down,” the assistant said.

  Abdulrahman glared at him. “Just get me some water.” Then he went into the office, sat heavily on the room’s plump yellow sofa, and promptly turned white.

  His assistant returned with a glass of water, and Abdulrahman took it with shaking hands. The workers outside had stopped their activity and were gathering a few feet away from the office door. Osama didn’t want to tell them to leave, but thankfully the assistant went out to meet them. “All right,” he said, “you all have a break. Go on.”

  They dispersed obediently, but one man remained behind, moving into step beside the assistant as he came back into the office. Nobody protested, and Osama judged that the young man was a member of the family. He looked frightened.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” Abdulrahman asked, his expression a mixture of fury and woe. The assistant and the young man hovered beside the sofa.

  “Is she dead?” he demanded again, impatient for the news.

  “Mr. Nawar, we’d like to speak to you alone, if you don’t mind,” Osama said.

  “This is my nephew Ra’id, and my assistant Fuad.” Abdulrahman motioned to each man in turn. “I say they can stay. Now tell me what happened.”

  “I’m sorry,” Osama said. “We found a body at the beach yesterday, and we think it’s your sister, Leila.”

  Abdulrahman remained rigid, but the young nephew let out his breath as if he’d been stabbed. He began shaking, and tears plunged down his cheeks.

  “Where is she?” Fuad asked briskly. “Can we see her?”

  Osama thought of the body and inwardly cringed. “She’s with our doctors,” he said quietly, then added, “female doctors.”

  “But you’re not sure it’s her,” Fuad snapped. “You only think it’s her?”

  “Fuad, shut up.” Abdulrahman was glaring at the floor.

  Osama was starting to feel awkward standing next to the sofa, so he pulled up a roller chair from the desk for Faiza, and perched himself on a folding metal chair that was sitting in a corner. Ra’id didn’t move to wipe the tears from his face. His eyes were locked on the center of Osa
ma’s shirt, but Fuad gave him a nudge and he sat himself on the first thing he could reach, the arm of the sofa. Fuad continued to hover.

  Osama took out his notepad and pen. He noticed that Faiza was relaxed, hands crossed on her lap, staring at Leila’s brother in a disconcerting way. Abdulrahman ignored her completely.

  “We’ve identified your sister based on the photograph you submitted to Missing Persons,” Osama said. He didn’t want to tell them what had happened to her face. “We matched it to a picture we found… in her burqa.”

  Apparently, Ra’id knew just what he meant; the uniqueness of the burqa was enough to convince him, because a knowing look stole over his face. “But how could she have—how could…” When Abdulrahman and Fuad gave him quizzical looks, Ra’id said, “She had a Bluetooth in her burqa. But I thought it only showed a picture of her veiled face.” He emphasized these last words, looking at his uncle with a fearful expression. “It was sort of a joke.… I thought no one could see her face.”

  “We did,” Osama said. Fuad looked disgusted.

  Abdulrahman shut his eyes, clasped a hand to his mouth, and raised his face to the ceiling, although Osama couldn’t tell if his expression was one of suffering or fury.

  Osama forced himself to study the men as objectively as possible. Abdulrahman had a large, round face that was dominated by a black mustache and the bushiest pair of eyebrows Osama had ever seen. He might have been old enough to be Leila’s father; his hair was rough like Brillo, graying at the temples, and his voice was an earthshaking baritone that was growing gritty with age.

  His nephew Ra’id was short and scrawny, probably in his teens; his pointed face had a scurrilous look. Right now he was bent forward, shaking slightly, hands gripping his knees. A lock of greasy hair fell onto his face. The assistant, Fuad, was probably in his late twenties, tall and well built with sharp edges on his jaw, cheekbones, shoulders. He looked like the sort of man who paid attention to detail. His suit was crisp, his cufflinks shiny, and every time someone moved, he glanced automatically in their direction with a look that indicated he was prepared to come to their aid, or tell them what they were doing wrong, or otherwise assist in perfecting the universe.