Orpheus Lost, page 22
“He’s asked me to send you this letter. He also wants me to send his violin.
“Ms. Bartok…?”
But the line had gone dead.
Dear Devorah Bartok:
I am so sorry to have upset you, but I thought you would want to know. Mishka flew to Beirut six days ago to meet a man he thinks might be his father. He called me from the Holiday Inn when he got there. He promised to call back after his meeting but he never has. Supposedly he checked out, but I don’t believe it. I believe it was someone claiming to be Mishka.
He mailed a letter just before his meeting and it reached me today. I enclose a photocopy of his postcard which gives the phone number of Marwan Rahal Abukir, who might be his father. There are steps we can take and they are urgent. I’m enclosing his letter to you, plus all the information I have, including an audio cassette which is a copy of the calls Mishka left on my answering machine. I’m sending by international courier. I’m hoping you can get a lawyer or your State Department to make inquires with the Australian Embassy in Beirut or with the Beirut police. Foreign nationals can’t just disappear in another country without a trace. Your government can demand an explanation.
My phone number is above. Please call me. However, since I think my phone is tapped, please simply leave the following message and I’ll return your call from a pay phone. Just say: I’m calling about the quandongs. (I have seen your beautiful miniature drawing on the diptych on Mishka’s desk.)
Sincerely,
Leela Moore.
Leela dialed the country code for Lebanon and the area code for Beirut. She dialed the number Mishka had written across the back of a blue harbor on a postcard. She felt as though she were dialing underwater.
A male voice answered and said something guttural in a language Leela did not know.
She said: “Is Marwan Rahal Abukir there?” There was a silence.
Several seconds passed. Leela thought she heard breathing. Then she heard a click and the line went dead.
It was because I failed to respond, Leela thought, because I doubted, because I spied on him. That is why Mishka vanished. It was because I didn’t answer when he begged to be reassured. I turned away from him. I froze him out.
That was clearly Eurydice’s error.
Are you still there? Orpheus must have called over his shoulder.
And why didn’t Eurydice answer?
Was she irritated? (He knows I’m here. What is this incessant need to control? Does he file reports on his absences?)
Was she frightened? (Where the hell is he taking me? Where are these pitch-black tunnels leading? Isn’t that Cerberus ahead?)
For whatever reason, she never answered, and Orpheus, apprehensive, looked back.
Game over.
4.
“I’LL PUT YOU through to Dr. Siddiqi’s office,” the secretary said.
“Siddiqi here.”
Leela studied the Music School from a telephone booth across the street. “Dr. Siddiqi, you don’t know me. My name is Leela Moore and I have a post-doc and a teaching position at MIT, but the reason—”
“Your name is familiar. Mathematics and music? Renaissance violins and lutes, yes? This interests me, because of the Persian connection. I’ve heard something about your work—”
“Yes, that’s…I’m surprised that you’ve heard. I’m flattered. But that’s not why I’m calling. Forgive me for interrupting, but this is urgent. I’m calling about Mishka Bartok.”
“Ah. This is all so terrible, so terrible.”
“You know what’s happened?”
“I am in shock. Yet I cannot say I was totally surprised.”
“Dr. Siddiqi,” Leela said with alarm, “could I come and see you? I’m very close to the Music School. Could I come and see you right now?”
“Nothing in the Qur’an forbids music,” Dr. Siddiqi explained.
“It is only in hadith, the commentary.”
“Hadith?” Leela repeated.
“Something like midrash in the Jewish tradition. Scholarly commentary. Debate. Hadith is used to argue both sides of the case. I explained this in my seminar, I explained it to Jamil Haddad, but fanatics are not interested in facts. They have no interest in history. They do not understand the evolution of beliefs and customs. For them, what is, is, and has always been that way.” Dr. Siddiqi sighed heavily. “A student like Jamil Haddad is poison. He can infect a whole class. When I learned he was the suicide bomber, I felt ill but I was not truly surprised. Do you know what I felt next, after horror and nausea? I am embarrassed to tell you. I felt relief. Now I am rid of him, I thought.”
“I never met him,” Leela said. “I know nothing about him. I’d never even heard his name before I learned he was the bomber.”
“Michael Bartok never spoke of him?”
“Unfortunately, no. There was a whole…There were things he could never talk about. It was too confusing for him, too painful.”
“I was distressed by Jamil Haddad’s hold over him, but I saw it begin. I saw the very moment when it began. It was because Jamil knew the Abukir family and he recognized Michael as an Abukir. It was as though he had hit Michael with a stun gun. But I know nothing of his personal details apart from that moment. We always talked music.”
“I knew something had happened. He changed. He was moody. There were absences, more and more of them, always unexplained, so one night I followed him. He went to that mosque in Central Square. I think he must have gone often.”
“Yes. He did. I also go to the mosque in Central Square. It is not only jihadists and suicide bombers who go.”
“It has a very bad reputation.”
“It takes just one rotten fish to make the whole barrel smell. Many people who are proud to be good Americans and good Muslims worship at the mosque in Central Square.”
“You said you knew what had happened to Mishka.”
“I did?”
“On the phone. You said it was terrible but you weren’t surprised.”
“I was talking about Jamil Haddad. He had the jihadist’s obsessive cunning. He would use anyone to further his cause. I’ve been afraid he might have used Michael Bartok. I haven’t seen Michael since then.”
“He’s disappeared in Beirut.”
“Beirut! He fled the country? That is not a good sign.”
“It’s going to look like that, isn’t it? I don’t think that even crossed his mind.”
“You knew he was going?”
“No, not beforehand, but he left me messages. He was going to meet his father. Dr. Siddiqi, do you have any contacts in Beirut?”
“I am Iranian by birth, not Lebanese, but yes, I have some contacts in Beirut.”
“Thank God. Mishka checked into the Beirut Dunes Holiday Inn a week ago. He called me twice from his room. I have his voice on my answering machine. His check-in was recorded on videotape at the hotel. A few hours later, supposedly, he checked out, or someone checked out in his name. The hotel will only give videotape access to the police. Do you think—?”
“I think I could.”
“I’ve made a copy of all the information I have, including the phone number of Marwan Rahal Abukir, the man Mishka thinks is his father. Also transcripts of Mishka’s phone calls. It’s in this envelope.”
“I’ll do what I can, Dr. Moore.”
“Leela.”
“Youssef.”
“Will you call me as soon—?”
“I will.”
“There’s another problem,” Leela said. “My phone’s being tapped so when you call, if you’ll just say the music’s arrived—”
“Your phone’s tapped? I think mine is too.”
“Yours too?”
Dr. Siddiqi shrugged. “I go to the mosque in Central Square. Jamil Haddad was in my class. I’m Iranian, though I had to leave Iran years ago. I’m used to surveillance.”
There was a message on Leela’s answering machine. It was Youssef Siddiqi’s voice. “Your music can be picked up tomorrow morning at 10 a.m.”
In the music library at precisely ten o’clock the next day, Leela could scarcely breathe. “What have you found out?”
“I have a friend who has a friend who is a policeman,” Dr. Siddiqi began. “He has seen the tapes and he’s sending me copies. He says the person who checked out is not the same as the person who checked in.”
“I knew it. When do you think—?”
“The tapes are coming express.”
“Not that we’re going to recognize the person checking out. But it will be something to go on. Some evidence to report to the embassy and the government.”
“Another thing. The policeman friend of a friend traced the Abukir address from the phone number. He put the place under surveillance. Marwan Rahal Abukir has also disappeared. His brother Fadi blames the son. The family believes the so-called son was a scam, a CIA set-up to kidnap Marwan because Marwan recruits suicide bombers.”
“I’m sorry, but Dr. Siddiqi is not in his office today,” the secretary said.
“I’m puzzled,” Leela said. “I’ve been expecting a call for a week now. He should have a package for me. It’s rather urgent.”
“We’re puzzled too, Dr. Moore. He hasn’t called in sick and he hasn’t even collected his mail. We’ve called his home and no one answers, and he doesn’t answer his cell phone either. We think there must be a death in the family.”
Leela stood in the phone booth across from the Music School. It felt familiar.
She dialed the number of the house in the rainforest in Australia and let the phone ring ten times. There was no answer.
5.
THE WEEKS MOVED heavily and slowly.
There was a note from Berg to say they had got the grant. Leela should have felt pleasure. She felt nothing.
There was a note from Berg to say they needed to meet.
She sent an answer back through campus mail:
Dr. Berg: Am working on something interesting: the years at the dawn of the thirteenth century when the oud was becoming the lute. Investigating the density of the wood and the curvature of the ribs in construction. The math’s provocative. May seem like I’m off on a tangent, but I believe it’s related to the structure of the early violins. Too involved to be interrupted at this point. Will get back to you when I’ve got more data. Leela.
For the Nth time, she called the Music School.
“We still haven’t heard from Dr. Siddiqi,” the secretary said.
“We can’t understand it. I’m afraid you can’t leave a message because his voicemail’s full.”
Leela felt drugged. She wanted to sleep all the time. She felt as though she were living in somebody’s dream.
The forsythia had long ago turned from gold to green and the oaks were in dense full leaf when she came home, late one night, to the fast red blinking of the signal on her answering machine.
She hit PLAY.
She heard a female voice with a strange accent. She had to replay the message to catch the words.
I’m calling about the quandongs, she heard.
6.
FROM THE PHONE booth in Harvard Square, by the subway entrance, Leela could see the beginning again: a couple, indifferent to crowds, kissing passionately; a street musician or two. She watched the couple, book bags pressed awkwardly between them, heedless of trucks careering close and of the buffeting of students as they passed. Just so had she so brashly, so recklessly kissed Mishka. That was a lifetime ago. On all sides, time fell away steeply. She felt dizzy and leaned against the wall of the booth. When someone answered the phone, she could not speak.
“Hello?”
“It’s Leela,” she said, she rehearsed saying, she intended to say. “I got your message.”
“Hello?”
“Your message about the quandongs,” Leela said.
She heard static. She heard underground rivers, she heard the wash and shush of the Pacific, she heard the Daintree in full cyclonic flood. She was stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere with crevasses on every side. How would any message get through?
“Is anyone there? Is that Leela?”
“Yes. It’s Leela. Is that Devorah?”
“Leela?”
“I got your message, Devorah. Can you hear me?”
“Leela, it is you. I’ve got good news.”
Leela closed her eyes. She could feel the overspill of the Daintree on her cheeks. She could feel floodwater rising. I’ve been stranded, she wanted to explain. Siddiqi’s vanished. The air is humid with menace. I can’t reach Cobb, he won’t contact me, and he’s the only one who might know what’s happened, who might help. When I called you weeks ago, no one answered. I’m lost. I’m flotsam. I’d given up even dreaming of rescue.
She could not speak.
“I’ve been in Sydney,” Devorah said. “My publisher has a friend who’s a lawyer. She’s with Human Rights Watch.”
Leela could hear music. On the sidewalk, there was a man with a guitar.
“I gave her everything you sent me,” Devorah said. She spoke of tapes, the Holiday Inn tapes, the Beirut tapes, which the lawyer had managed…and the man who checked out of the hotel, who had claimed to be Mishka but wasn’t, who had been identified…She spoke of the American ambassador in Australia, who had been deeply embarrassed, Devorah said. He had promised to intervene.
Leela listened but all she could hear was Gluck. The phone booth was full of Gluck and there was good news. She was watching the man with the guitar. He sat cross-legged on the sidewalk. There was a felt hat in front of him and pedestrians were dropping notes and coins as they passed by. A dollar bill fluttered and drifted away. The man did not notice. He looked blue. Everything looked blue. Leela could not see the blue man’s face.
“In Baghdad,” Devorah said.
“In Baghdad?” Leela tried to concentrate.
The man with the blue guitar was no longer playing Gluck. Leela could not quite hear what he played. She pushed the door of the booth open a few inches and mostly heard the hubbub of traffic interlaced with a thin thread of song. The tune sounded vaguely Middle Eastern. Baghdad Blues, Leela thought. The Baghdad Rag.
“Apparently procedural errors,” Devorah said, and Leela was conscious of a lack of mathematical diligence on her part. If she could calculate the angles of divergence, if she could measure precisely the gap between the dastgah system and the Western tonic scale…
“Major embarrassment to the Americans at this point,” Devorah said. Extradition proceedings, she explained. Extradition proceedings were under way. “Though this will take time,” Devorah said.
The man with the guitar stood up. He was saying something. He made exaggerated words with his lips as he moved toward Leela. He rapped on the glass door of the telephone booth. He was mouthing a message through the glass.
“Still under heavy suspicion,” Devorah said. She said something about conditions…extradited on certain conditions…
“What?” Leela asked the man who was rapping on the door.
“He will be kept in detention,” Devorah said. “The Australian Government has to guarantee…”
Taking far too long, mouthed the man with the guitar.
“Going to take time,” Devorah said. “We don’t know how long. But the main thing is, he’s alive and they’re sending him home.”
“He’s alive!” Leela called through the glass. “They’re sending him home.”
She felt laughter descend like a great bird that sank its talons in her shoulders and shook her. The man with the guitar looked alarmed.
“Leela?” Devorah said.
“How long…?” Leela asked. The words choked her. Another bird, the sobbing bird, had come.
“We don’t really know. Two weeks, the ambassador thinks. He’s promised to take a personal—”
The man rapped on the door with a coin.
“Two weeks,” Leela told him. She shouted. “Only two weeks!”
The man with the guitar shook his head. He tapped his finger against his skull. Crazy, he mouthed. He made a sweeping gesture with one arm, an ironic and elaborate bow.
“Leela?” Devorah said.
“I’m coming,” Leela said urgently. “I’ll fly out. I want to be there when he arrives. I’ll bring his violin.”
“I’ll meet you,” Devorah promised. “Call me as soon as you have your flight.”
The man with the guitar was writing something with his finger on the glass. He turned. He was walking away, but he had left his hat full of money by the curb.
“Wait!” Leela called. She felt panic.
She hung up and raced after the musician. “Wait!” she called.
The musician looked over his shoulder. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” he shouted, startled. “Quit following me!”
7.
LEELA’S EYES WATERED. She was jetlagged. She could remember the sequence—the flight to Sydney, the meeting with Devorah, the flight on to Adelaide together, the interminable drive through scrub and desert—but she could not remember what day it was. She felt groggy. She had never seen such a sun-bleached landscape, so full of nothing.
“This is the place,” the lawyer said.
“This is nowhere.”
“That’s the idea. This is Camp Noir.”
“Camp Noir?”
“That’s what I call it.”
Devorah touched Leela’s arm. “Mishka’s in there,” she said. “We’re going to see him.”
“I have to warn you,” the lawyer cautioned. “This is going to take time. We have several levels of security to clear.”
Sharp lines of light—the sun striking the razor wire—buffeted Leela like a shower of bright arrows. She shaded her eyes. The light crisscrossed the steel mesh and threw motley on the five of them. They were in something resembling a cage of chain-link steel.
“Second level,” the lawyer explained, as the steel gate behind them rolled shut. There were closed gates ahead. On all sides, they were wrapped in steel mesh. Above, the sky was cloudless blue. The blinding disk of the sun burned Leela’s skin. “Don’t touch the wire,” the lawyer warned.
