THE CURE

A NOVEL BY DAVID LAWRENCE CADE

CHAPTER EIGHT

Saturday morning December 27^th began with weather in the mid-40’s, with a forecast of cloudy skies and temperatures in the 50’s in northern Virginia and the capital.

“Tomorrow should be even warmer,” Larry said as he and Louis went out into their front yard around ten a.m. to do some routine landscaping, picking up small branches that had fallen on the lawn, trimming the 'Violacea Plena' wisteria with reddish violet flowers, discussing whether to add a brick border around the Berberis x gladwynensis ‘William Penn’ barberry, pruning a few small limbs from the Cornus alba ‘Tatarian’ dogwood, and cutting samples of the Ilex cornuta ‘Chinese’ holly to bring inside and set in a glass bowl with water which was a holiday tradition of the McIntires.

“The red berries bring luck and the green leaves are a sign of the coming spring,” Larry said as they went back inside around eleven, their blue jeans and sweat shirts rather soiled but having enjoyed themselves and having greeted several neighbors and passersby during their hour of activity.

Also around eleven a.m., in the day care center in the converted bank building, Deidre was confiding to Todd that she was having doubts about the direction the partners were taking with the emphasis on the dollar.

“But Todd,” she said, “you’re on the verge, no, you’ve passed the verge of creating a new religion here that, well, how else can I say it…?”

Todd interrupted politely, the center filling up for a special holiday get-together of the children and many of their parents.

“Say it, Deidre. Don’t be afraid. We don’t try to hide our faith here. We worship money. It’s been like a revelation this year, starting with the almost laughable at the time rumors, speculation that the economic and mortgage crisis would get worse. ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ I’d tell myself when I read about an IMF or EU report suggesting the worst was yet to come. ‘Come on, not in this day and age. This is the era of personal computers, cell phones, wireless, the Internet. A recession? No way.’

“But now we know. So we’ve looked inward and seen, like a bright green light from inside the mind of the dollar itself, that we were led astray some time, years back, who knows when. Now we’ve been led back to the dollar and we want the children to know of our faith as well.”

“I see,” she said. “And you say that Nicholas III has been in contact with you and agreed to set up a satellite …. I’m not sure I can say it.”

“Church,” Todd say.

“A dollar church in Manhattan.”

“Not just in Manhattan,” Todd said. “He’s planning to lease space overlooking the shrine…”

“Why do you refer to the New York Stock Exchange as a shrine?”

“Oh, Deidre, if only you’d been inside it as I was last month and felt the power of the dollar lifting me up, just thinking of all the money, the bid and ask, the spreads, the men and women less than polite at times shrieking for dollars, pounding their chests like flagellants in a procession in Najaf or Seville, heaving a sigh at the sound of money being made, pouting, down-trodden as the markets fell, elated as the markets rose, dollar upon dollar adding up to my conclusion which our partners in faith here at the school now share, my conclusion that the dollar is the absolute, the dollar is the creator of…”

“The creator?” Diedre said. “But think what you’re saying. Are you all right?”

“The creator of all we know to be good on planet earth comes from the dollar. Yes, Deidre, I believe that now. I feel it now more than ever as I speak in confidence with you. We already have counselors who have advised me on how to deal with those who are veering away from the faith in money, like you, and if you wish they can meet with you after the party.”

“I’m all for having money, Todd, but I’m not veering away from faith in it like in a religion, because I’ve never believed in it like that. What is this? A month ago, we were so happy to get this building and set it up for the kids. It was a lark. Then after Thanksgiving, with the bad news from all corners of the earth, it’s like something snapped in your mind. In all our minds. I just want the kids to have a happy holiday party, and I don’t want to ruin anything.”

“So you’ll give away the dollar party favors?”

“Yes, and the leather bound book of THE WEALTH OF NATIONS for the door prize. You call that a door prize for kids?”

“Ah, I’m sure it will be treasured as long as the lucky child lives. Could even set them on the path to right riches for the dollar’s sake.”

“If you say so. I need to go get some fresh air.”

“Nice weather. The only thing money can’t buy; good weather. At least not so far, but we’re praying, and money makes men do strange things.”

“See you in a bit.” She then went outside and smoked a cigarette.

About the same time that Saturday morning, in their well-appointed adjoining offices in NSA headquarters at Fort George Meade Maryland, Lyeforth and Beltmann were on a speaker phone talking with Richard Allison of Homeland Security at his office in Washington DC.

“Had a good Christmas with the folks?” Beltmann asked, his feet up on the credenza in back of his desk while Lyeforth sat in a leather chair across the room sipping some hot coffee. Both officials were in dress slacks, dark brown walking shoes, and knit shirts.

“The best yet,” Allison said. “My parents are well, thank God, taking it easy. The kids loved the presents and we all had so much to eat for Christmas that my mom, who still loves to cook, couldn’t have been happier.”

“Glad to hear it,” Beltmann said.

Lyeforth nodded, sipping some coffee. “I’m here too,” he said.

“I could just hear you,” Allison said. “Turn up the speaker phone or pull your chair closer, Tony.”

“So this Dimitrije character isn’t cooperating?” Beltmann said.

“We did just like you said,” Allison said. “He was scheduled for a meeting at the Bureau of Immigration yesterday as it turned out, and it was so short-staffed with all the people taking vacations it was a long wait for the foreigners who showed up asking for help.

“So anyway, I was there, and after the official finished taking care of the interview with Dimitrije to see how he’s doing, they asked him if he could wait a moment, that there was a matter the government wanted his help on. They said he looked surprised and asked a lot of questions and then I finally came out of the office on the same floor and asked him if he’d speak with me in private. He kept asking what it was about, if he’d done something wrong, and I kept saying no, he wasn’t in trouble, but that we needed to speak with him in private, and my case handler was there and we recorded it all without him knowing.

“So he sat down and I began saying that we need help from immigrants not just to share their knowledge of Serbian or wherever but that he had by chance landed on the street just outside a gay couple of interest to the NSA and Homeland Security and he asked me why.”

“And what did you tell him?” Lyeforth asked.

“I told him about you two, that you’ve been on the case of Louis anti-war O’Connor for some time now.”

“You didn’t call him ‘Louis anti-war O’Connor’ did you?” Lyeforth asked.

“No. Come on. All right. I told him you two are onto the case of O’Connor, that there’s a big file on him, that his father is suspected of inciting anti-American sentiment in Iraq, that O’Connor has radical friends in the peace movement, and that we wanted him to continue building a relationship with McIntire and to learn all he can about his husband, partner Louis. I can never call another man another man’s husband, you know?”

“Why not?” Beltmann said. “There’s nothing wrong with homosexuals.”

“I know that,” Allison said.

“And are we going to get an info feed from Dimitrije including video from his cell phone and deluxe surveillance the like of which we’ve sought for so long?” Beltmann asked.

“Doubt it,” Allison said. “He said he respected the two and that they had helped him in need and that no, flat out, the guy didn’t even give it time or say he’d think about it. Didn’t even give it a chance to sort itself out, just said ‘no‘. Then I began with the threats.”

“I want to hear that part on the recording,” Lyeforth said.

“I’ll send it as an attachment via email,” Allison said.

“I told Dimitrije that we might have to review his immigration status if he refused to cooperate.”

“And?” Beltmann said.

“He asked if he were free to leave right then and there and I said ‘yes’ and by golly he up and left right then and there.”

“Sounds like a winner who will take more persuading,” Beltmann said.

“They don’t have anything on him at Immigration to kick him out of the country, not yet, but I told them to start searching for skeletons in his closet so we can pressure him that way.”

“Brilliant,” Lyeforth said. “And so?”

“And so you don’t get your Christmas present from Allison and company like I promised you would,” Allison said. “Now I have to eat crow. I tried.”

“Yes, you did try,” Beltmann said. “Happy New Year then and thanks for calling on this nice Saturday when we’d all rather be out enjoying the season.”

“Until next time,” Allison said. “Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year,” the NSA men said.

Beltmann took his feet from off the credenza and began untying the shoelaces.

“Paul, don’t,” Lyeforth said. “Hey, I didn’t do anything.”

“Would you stop that?” Beltmann said. “My feet are just aching from all the walking we did at the mall yesterday looking for after-Christmas bargains.”

“Find any?”

“Yes, these shoes that are too tight.”

“I know, I hate it when they’re new and they’re too tight. No one walking down the hall you want to haul off and throw your shoes at?” Lyeforth asked.

“Would you stop? I’m getting so sick and tired of hearing people everywhere joke about throwing their shoes every time I turn around. People at the sales counter at the shoe department at Fairfax Mall were joking about returning the shoes and could they thrown them at the store manager if they didn’t like them. I tell you, it’s more of an obsession these days than money and unemployment and the latest cell phone.”

“I know,” Lyeforth said. “The shoes heard round the world.”

“So, what about O’Connor?”

“Why don’t we give up?”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“You’re not kidding?” Beltmann said.

“We’ve got a new administration coming in and O’Connor supported the mutt and who’s to say this sort of domestic surveillance, albeit sanctified by the previous eight years of guarding America at its own expense, will be, shall we say, less than appropriate in the watchful eyes of the new boy in town?”

“No blot on our record, huh?”

“Not if we close the file, or at least hide it away in the safe the combination to which only you and I and our assistant director know by heart? Why not just set the O’Connor mess on the back burner? If he does anything overtly against the law, the FBI will find out. If not, why risk getting ourselves in trouble looking for trouble for him?”

“No double trouble,” Beltmann said.

“It’s double or nothing. Two anti-war activists make a pair you can throw to the wind, but let’s not throw caution to the wind.”

“I’ll close the file.”

“You do that,” Lyeforth said.

“And let’s get out of here.”

“Get your shoes on. Don’t want to alarm the security guard at the gate.”

“I’m one step ahead of you.”

They left for the day not to return until after the first of the new year.

Around noon that Saturday, after showering together in the master bath and having sex, Louis and Larry had rather healthy appetites and prepared a lunch of sandwiches with whole wheat bread, mayonnaise, roast beef slices, and lettuce; hot clam chowder soup; soft drinks; and potato chips and dip.

“Enjoy,” Larry said as they sat down wearing only knee-length gym shorts in the breakfast nook, the curtains wide open, the heating system keeping the house in the mid-70’s.

The backyard through the picture window looked peaceful, well-tended, a few ruby-crowned kinglets, Carolina wrens, and white-breasted nuthatches landing or taking off from the bird bath that they tried to keep filled with fresh water when it was above freezing outside.

While eating, they talked - but only for a minute as they tended not to talk about political controversies over a meal when alone - about the Israeli air strikes that day.

“What do you think set it off?” Louis asked.

“The end of another truce,” Larry said. “Doesn’t appear it took much to set it off. Hamas was firing some rockets that fell with a dud yesterday.”

“Always the day after Christmas these things sort of just happen,” Louis said.

“Not just sort of happen,” Larry said. “I mean, I think politicians around the world wait for Christmas to end before getting back to the business of tearing up someone else’s world.”

Around one p.m., Louis got a call on his cell phone from Omar, calling from Basrah on his own wireless phone which had free minutes since it was nighttime in Iraq. His voice came across loud and clear.

“Louis, how are you?”

They talked awhile about the weather, how Larry was doing, how Melinda looked, how excited Omar was that the baby was due around January 2^nd.

“Another niece for my American son,” Omar said. “How does it feel?”

“Good,” Louis replied.

Omar mentioned that they had chosen the name Nadirah Huma for the girl, Nadirah meaning rare, precious and Huma meaning bird who brings joy.

Omar asked to speak with Larry for a minute, who got on an extension, wishing him success with the new law firm.

“And how is my Iraqi father-in-law?” Larry asked.

“Older but not much wiser, except that I am happy for Melinda and the baby and for those we can help here in Basrah and Iraq. And they say to be wise, be happy, so perhaps I am a little wiser afterall. And yeah, yeah, yeah, I read about the new changes coming and how the new president must act within one hundred days and that itself could be too long but we will see.”

He went on to say that he almost felt like an outsider in his native country now, what with the regime in Baghdad showing all appearances of being the establishment. “They called me a hero in 2003 when I returned and one plot after another evaporated to use me for this or that faction trying to turn Iraq around on its head, and now I get so little attention that Melinda and I must content ourselves with helping rebuild Basrah one small step at a time.”

“Each step is important in itself,” Larry said. He mentioned that he and Louis had learned from Dimitrije, that Lyeforth and Beltmann had been infiltrating the ranks of new immigrants via the Free Language Institute.

“Clever those two sneaks,” Omar said. “Which is why they are with NSA, but they cannot keep a secret from me. Do not trust them if they come singing carols at your door this holiday week.”

“You can be sure we’ll turn off the porch lights and turn on the water sprinklers if they show up,” Larry said, hanging the phone back to Louis with a smile. “I think you’re father’s great.”

Omar went on with Louis to talk about the sad news from America and Europe about the crisis. “The sad thing is that the capitalism that dominates the thinking of these companies is a capitalism that seeks greedy profits and without morals, rather, they destroy the morals of societies in order to reap more profits.”

Omar talked about how the root of the crisis, in his mind, was the war in Iraq. The Federal budget had been depleted for a war that Americans and Iraqis both disliked.

“Billions and billions of dollar spent,” Omar said, “and the result? Dead and wounded Iraqis, prisoners, widows, orphans and the bereaved. A country only now beginning to gain back its health.”

December 2008, Iraq still suffered from lack of electricity and clean water. Cholera had spread during the preceding months, with unemployment worsening.

Omar expressed concern that the American impetus to divide Baghdad into Sunni and Shia sectors had prevailed, with the provinces also divided into Sunni and Shia areas and that with elections drawing near, fighting could well ensue over who gained power. He regretted the scenario of a law coming that would divide Iraq into Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish Federal regions.

As to the truth about Iraq, Louis had heard Omar on numerous occasions blame Bush for deceiving the American people, “…who lived in a closed shell and still do not know what has been happening here since 2003,” Omar said.

He compared the story of Iraq to the stories of from Latin America, Vietnam, and the other countries occupied by America in the previous century, “…inflicting bitterness, humiliation, disgrace, poverty, hunger, and imprisonment on its people? Installing leaderships who have no mercy for their own people? And what was the result? All these became stories of the past. Vietnam is liberated, and so are most of the Latin American countries, and started now to move towards real democracy without foreign intervention. These countries started to shape a new history created for their people, but unfortunately, when America came to occupy Iraq, they pushed us back to the previous century, reviving the memories of the British occupation in the minds of the Iraqis, as if we are back to square zero all over again; back to live and see what our ancestors have seen in the twenties of the previous century.”

He went on to mention the block raids conducted in residential areas throughout Iraq by the American military in the dark of night. “We are a country without dignity. As long as they storm into houses, searching at will, stealing outright from poor Iraqis what little value they have, cash, jewels, and it ends up the pockets of those American soldiers who take it home when their tours end and that is treachery at its worst. They detain whoever their American commanders wish and release whomever they wish; as long as they raid Iraqi towns and villages by planes, and the government doesn't question them nor can they stop them, then where is the country's independence?

“This is a sad thing.”

“Yes it is, father,” Louis said. “This is a shameful thing for this to happen while we live in 2008, and not in 1920.”
“You’re a man of values, Louis,” Omar said.

“And you also.”

“And so you will never change. I mean you will always be a man of values throughout your life, and so is Larry.”

“I try to be honest to my values,” Louis said.

They then talked about the Israeli bombing of Gaza and the prospects for peace.

“I don’t know,” Omar said as he and Louis concluded that the situation was likely to deteriorate. “Positive change must take place one day. Israel and the Palestinian people cannot continue like this forever. Work to achieve peace. Will you do that?”

“Yes,” Louis said.

They promised to stay in touch about the crisis in Gaza with Omar mentioning that he was going to organize a peaceful protest in Basrah against the Israeli bombing.

Over the next two days, Louis kept close watch via the Internet and their cable TV on the appalling development in Gaza, tilting back his head at times to try to absorb the sense of dissonance, cognitive dissonance as one of his professors in linguistics described it: the world at its best celebrating Christmas a few days earlier, the messages of clergy ringing out around the world celebrating the holy day, followed within a matter of hours by the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel and the Israeli response by air attacks.

Like an impulse from within that could not be repressed, was how Louis imagined it all. Then the calls erupting among Hamas for a Third Intifada, the pathetic scenes of Palestinian children injured by the first wave purportedly intended for police installations, children with blood on their faces crying being pulled from ambulances to be taken into hospitals that had also endured damage and in which there were no medical personnel available to help the flood of victims.

Larry would come into the library that Saturday and Sunday and notice Louis’s absorption with the unfolding trauma, express his concerns, but appeared far less interested than Omar’s son.

Louis wondered if Larry were to buy another home, if they could allow refugees from the crisis to use their current home, but thought it best not to mention that to Larry. Perhaps Larry could buy an older grand estate for less than market value, one in need of much updating, and they could hire refugees from Gaza and Iraq, even pay for the men to fly to America.

They had ample plans to enjoy another holiday week, with Louis having completed virtually all his doctoral work other than completion of his dissertation on psycholinguistics, and not having another class to teach until mid-January. Larry was to begin at the law firm the following Monday after the New Year began.

Thus, they had an array of plans in mind for the week ahead, detailed on their computer scheduling software, including a trip to Colonial Williamsburg to see it set up for a pre-revolutionary holiday, a drive along the Atlantic coast photographing wildlife, visiting a bird sanctuary, visits with Larry’s’ parents, even a drive to New York Friday with an overnight stay in a Manhattan hotel so Louis could spend time with the O’Connors and O’Tooles before driving back to Virginia Saturday evening.

“We’ve got quite a week ahead of us,” Larry said that Monday morning as the two got out of bed around the same time and prepared for the day.

“Let’s enjoy every minute of it,” Louis said, hugging Larry’s naked six foot four inch tall body which he kept almost entirely shaved - other than the hair on his head - with Louis’s help in the more sensitive areas. Louis, at just over six feet tall, also shaved most of his body, also with Larry’s help.

After breakfast and stepping out in the back yard to enjoy some brisk fresh air, Louis went back to his computer and read more of the reports from activists who supported the Palestinians and who were on site in Gaza observing the attacks and their aftermath.

He read one from Eyad, a young man in an apartment in Gaza that faced the sea with a panoramic view, describing the scene out toward the Mediterranean: “…that’s always done wonders for my mood, often challenged by all the misery that a life under siege can bring. That is, before this morning, when all hell broke loose at my window.”

That Saturday morning in Gaza, they had awakened to the sound of bombs dropping, many of which had fallen a few hundred meters from the reporter’s home. Some of his friends had fallen under them. “So far the death toll is at 210,” he wrote in his online report, “but it’s bound to rise dramatically.”

It was an unprecedented bloodshed. The Israelis had razed the port facing his home to the ground and pulverized the police stations. It was widely believed among those in Gaza that the Western media had assimilated and were repeating the press releases issued by the Israeli military off by heart, according to which the attacks targeted Hamas’s terrorist dens only, with surgical precision.

In actual fact, according to Eyad, who had visited the city’s main hospital, Al Shifa, staring at a chaotic gathering of bodies laid out in its courtyard, “…we mostly saw civilians among those awaiting medication, lying alongside others awaiting rightful burial. Can you picture Gaza? Every house rests onto another, every building rises over the next one.”

Gaza at the time was reported to have the highest population density in the world, which means that when bombs dropped from a height of ten thousand meters from aircraft sold to Israel by the United States, they inevitably slaughtered many civilians. “You’re aware of it,” Eyad wrote. “You’re guilty as charged; it’s no error, no case of collateral damage.”

Due to the Israeli bombing of the central police station in Al Abbas in the city center, the neighboring elementary school had also been seriously damaged by the explosion. It was the end of the school day and the children were already in the street. Most of their flapping sky-blue aprons were splashed with blood. When bombing the Dair Al Balah police academy, some dead and wounded were also recorded from the market nearby, Gaza’s central market. “We’ve seen the bodies of animals and humans mixing their blood in rivulets trickling down the asphalt roads,” Eyad wrote.

It was being described on the Internet as a Guernica transfigured into reality.

“I saw many corpses in police uniforms in the various hospitals I visited,” he continued. “I knew many of those boys. I greeted them every day when I met them in the street on my way to the port, or walked to the central café of an evening. I knew several of them by name.”

A name, a history, a mutilated family.

The majority of the police in Gaza, who were among the publicized targets of the Israeli strikes, were young, around eighteen or twenty, mostly without political leanings, not with Fatah nor Hamas, simply enrolled into the police force once they had finished university in order to have a secure job in Gaza, which under Israel’s criminal siege saw more than 60% unemployment among its population.

“I have no interest in propaganda,” Eyad wrote, “and let my eyes speak, my ears stay in tune with the screaming sirens and the rumbling of TNT.

“I haven’t seen any terrorists among the victims today, only civilians and policemen. Exactly like our own local police agents, the Palestinian policemen massacred by the Israeli bombings could be found every day of the year pacing the same city square, supervising the same street corner or road. Just last night, I poked fun at a couple of them for the way they were cloaked up against the cold in front of my house. I want the truth to redeem some of these dead. They’d never fired a single shot against Israel, nor would they have ever done so – it wasn’t in their job description to do so. They acted as traffic wardens, took care of internal security.

“The port of Gaza is quite a distance from the Israeli border anyway. I own a video camera, but today I discovered what a terrible cameraman I am. I can’t bring myself to film mangled bodies or faces drenched in tears. I just can’t. I start crying myself.”

Tears began forming in Louis’s eyes as he read how the reporter had gone with some other international volunteers to the Al Shifa hospital to give blood, where they had received a call informing them that a dear friend of theirs had been killed by a piece of shrapnel near her home in the refugee camp of Jabalya. “A sweet person, a sunny soul. She had gone out to buy bread for her family. She leaves thirteen children behind.”

Louis recalled that even before the Israeli blitzkrieg of December 27, 2008, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), had been quoted as saying that, "Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and - some would say - encouragement of the international community."

From Israel on the first day had come the warning that it was merely the beginning.

Monday had seen large demonstrations through much of the Muslim world, with Hezbollah in Lebanon joining in the call of Hamas for a Third Intifada. In Jordan, protestors numbering around 15,000 had sought out the prime minister demanding in a letter that Jordan abrogate its 1994 peace treaty with Israel. Members of the left in Israel had demonstrated outside Hebrew University in support of the Palestinians and denouncing the invasion. Black chador clad women in Tehran holding up shoes, by now a symbol of defiance in the Arab world, had protested en masse.

In Iraq, hundreds of supporters of Al-Sadr had marched crying, “No, no to Israel. No, no to America.”

On Monday, the Islamic University in Gaza had been bombed. A mosque in the refugee camp of Jabalya had been destroyed.

There was growing outrage in the Arab world at the perceived indifference from the West. Eyad had written further that: …“the ‘civilized world’s’ silence is more deafening than the explosions covering the city like a shroud of death and terror.”

Louis read accounts by other activists of the chaos, how ambulances, trucks, cars, anything that could move was bringing injured to the hospitals which were having to evacuate sick patients to make room for the injured. From one account, there was not enough room in the morgues for the bodies and a great lack of blood in the blood banks.

An Israeli missile had torn through a children’s playground and busy market in Diere Balah, with many injured and some reportedly killed. Every hospital in the Gaza strip was already overwhelmed and did not have the medicine of capacity to treat the injured.

He read a call for action by one group: “Israel is committing crimes against humanity, it is violating international and human rights law, ignoring the United Nations and planning even bigger attacks. The world must act now and intensify the calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel; governments need to move beyond words of condemnation into an active and immediate restraint of Israel and a lifting of the siege of Gaza.”

Reports continued across the Internet.

The morgue at the Shifa hospital had no more room for dead bodies, so bodies and body parts are strewn all over the hospital.

In one neighborhood, the bombs had begun to fall just as the children were on the streets walking back from school. “I went out onto the stairs and a terrified five year old girl ran sobbing into my arms,” a journalist wrote.

Another observer was quoted as saying, “This is incredibly sad. This massacre is not going to bring security for the State of Israel or allow it to be part of the Middle East. Now calls of revenge are everywhere.”

Louis noticed an email from Omar and read it. It was a forward of a message Omar had received earlier on Monday from Alicia, a member of the aid group which had originally brought Melinda to Iraq in the latter part of 2003. The forwarded email read:

“The home I am staying in is across from the preventive security compound. All the glass of the house shattered. The home has been severely damaged. Due to the siege there is no glass or building materials to repair this damage. One little boy in our house fainted. An eight year little boy was trembling on the ground for an hour. In front of our house we found the bodies of two little girls under a car, completely burnt. They were coming home from school. This is more than just collective punishment. We are being treated like laboratory animals. I have lived through the Israeli bombardment of Beirut and the Israel's message is the same in Gaza as it was in Beirut: The killing of civilians. There was just another explosion outside!”

A name, a history, a mutilated family

Louis thought for a time, as he looked out at Larry in the yard with his fearless strong looks, his powerful body easily handling the yard work, creating a beautiful secluded outdoor space at least for the birds, squirrels, and their cats.

He thought how lucky they were to be free in America. Larry - a name, the man he loved. The McIntires and the O’Connors, a family history united through the love of two men for each other in an era when tolerance was on the ascendant in America. There the allusion veered off with the Palestinians and their families: mutilated. Thank you God for the peace we have here today and for our safety. At least our families have not been humiliated by war or terrorism.

Then he thought of his half-brother Habib who had endured the invasion and its tragic aftermath and their father Omar who had given up security in Ann Arbor to return to his homeland to try to rebuild only to be spied on from all quarters by opportunists and government agents and resisters of the occupation who so far had spared Omar personal bereavement and whose work in Basrah echoed a personal search to help his countrymen in their time of need.

Then he wondered at the reasoning of thanking God for peace, if God were indeed blessing, selecting, him and Larry for security while allowing Palestinians or victims of mass murder in California or helpless children abused by their own parents to suffer. There were children working in slavery in America that few knew about or could save, brought from poverty in foreign countries to work, thousands literally working as slaves for wealthy families from foreign lands living in America. Why would God allow that if God could stop it?

He thought of the success Larry had achieved as a lawyer, and his own hopes for success in academics. But surely the good they had was of God, as all good things came from God. But why the continual agony of the innocent in the world, if it were God who gave him and Larry their youth, their futures, their safe homes. Why would God not give all his creations the same blessings, if it were God’s doing?

He thought of the Bible verse in the King James version: God is no respecter of persons. Also translated as: God shows no partiality.

So were he and Larry merely among the fortunate in the world who could look on objectively via cyberspace at the turmoil in Gaza, or the attacks in Bombay, and elsewhere, and wonder at the misfortunes of others and hope for peace and work for peace?

A name, a history, a mutilated family.

How many ages had come and gone with untold names lost forever, no trace to be found on gravestones or church records, names with a history, a complete human life however long or short, lives, human beings who had sought food and shelter in societies far less tolerant than most modern states, many of which are known to practice torture in 2008 with no signs of forgoing the practice if considered politically expedient; through the ages of human evolution, countless individuals had confronted all the questions of the eternal and love and how many had ended with mutilated families that the world could not help, and the entire saga vanishing without a record.

Who are we then? Louis wondered as he saw Larry coming back inside, looking in through the library window from the side yard and nodding with an intense hungry look that Louis knew meant he wanted sex right away.

That evening, after eating out at a popular French restaurant in the fashionable downtown area of the suburb where they lived, Louis and Larry returned home to relax. Larry was lying down to digest the dinner, again complaining of mild indigestion which Louis felt a sign Larry should have a visit to their family physician given Larry’s unusual strength at 260 pounds which he kept in peak condition through a regimen of weight-lifting, jogging, and refraining from smoking or drinking.

Louis sat down in the recliner in the living room, put on his stereo headphones, and tuned the FM receiver to the Monday broadcast of Pembroke, which had been delayed according to the station due to technical difficulties.

Louis thought a moment of the optimism of Pembroke’s Christmas Day appeal about peace. What would he say now?

The commentator’s voice sounded deeper than usual, confident, rather rehearsed to Louis’ s ear.

Why would Israel bomb a university? Many around the world have been wondering how that could be justified as a target in a war more than one-sided up to this point.

The sponsor of the national broadcasts then came on with a sixty-second commercial about its latest innovations and how consumers should act quickly.

Louis took off the headphones as Larry came into the living room naked, the drapes closed, and asked Louis to come to bed now.

“Now?”

“I need you now,” Larry said. “I’m feeling better. No more upset stomach.”

“All right,” Louis said, getting up and going into the bedroom with his husband.