Chapter Seven

Next step? Louis wondered as he glanced out the breakfast alcove bay window to their dark back yard shrouded in early morning fog on Monday, December 31, 2007, Larry having gone out for a quick half-mile jog minutes earlier around 7:30 a.m., the temperature outside a chilly 31 degrees.

Dressed in thick dark gray sweat pants, heavy white socks, jogging shoes bought at a department store in Alexandria by Louis and given to Larry for Christmas, a thick navy blue t-shirt, varsity sweat shirt with the logo of Larry’s law school, winter cap that covered his ears, and a white ski parka that Louis insisted Larry always wear when he ran while it was dark outside during winter, Larry had been talking over breakfast about the virtues of running: “running for your life, ….” a running-related magazine to which he planned to subscribe, running and traffic, locations for running, metrics of his own running – having competed since his senior year in college and up until the previous summer in semi-annual triathlons organized among the D.C. circuit of politically-connected health enthusiasts.

Louis preferred jogging when it was warmer out. “You don’t feel the cold the way I do,” he would say smiling.

Larry would be back from his short excursion within minutes as Louis got out some canned food for Madeline’s and Augustus’s breakfasts: she preferring chunk light tuna: ingredients light tuna (fish), water, vegetable broth (soybeans), salt. Louis glanced at the fine print on the label: an aviso that the product met the American Heart Association food criteria for saturated fat and cholesterol for healthy people over age two. Madeline being close to five years old, Louis looked down at her as she nibbled on the tuna on the china plate he had set out and said, “Good kitty. How about that? This will do your heart good. Cats are people, aren’t you?”

To which the cat murmured while continuing to eat with relish.

Glancing again at the label, he said, “Want me to call to get some of their great recipes? You’re really a lucky kitty. Says here that supportive but not conclusive research shows that consumption of EPA and DHA Omega-3 fatty acids may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease.”

He noticed with approval the miniature picture of a dolphin and the notice: DOLPHIN SAFE. As well as PLEASE RECYCLE – STEEL, and natural source of OMEGA-3.

“Can’t ask for a more environmentally-friendly tuna company, huh? Madeline?” To which the cat meowed, leapt down on the ceramic tile floors, and walked into the hallway.

Augustus had been late coming to breakfast and as Louis was donning his own ski parka to go greet Larry out in the cold, the male cat jumped up on the counter. Louis opened the pop top of a 5.5 ounce can of cat food with recyclable aluminum can and FEED TWICE DAILY and the obligatory DOLPHIN SAFE notice with miniature picture of a dolphin printed on the label. “Guess we can handle this and not risk environmental catastrophe, huh, Augustus?” Louis said.

“Guaranteed Analysis,” Louis said, reading the beginning of the ingredients section. “How about that, kitty, we have a guaranteed analysis that this provides you complete and balanced nutrition, and just think of all the stockholders of this conglomerate who wish you many Happy New Years so you can keep buying their products.”

Augustus meowed, rubbed up against Louis’s right arm as he put some of the ocean whitefish on another china saucer, and began eating.

Louis then put on his own black winter pullover cap, thick brown gloves, walked out the back door, locked it – seeing that he and Larry never left the house alone even to go next door now due to the mail bomb and the stalking that Louis had experienced the day before his mother’s operation - without all exterior doors and windows being locked.

The still foggy air seemed almost like an insulation from the cold. He walked around to the front yard and could see Larry just a few houses down the street jogging in perfect stride, his powerful chest out and looking as if every step were effortless. Larry slowed down and walked up the driveway to where Louis stood beside Louis’s sedan, the two SUV’s having been parked in the garage overnight.

Larry embraced Louis as best he could given their thick jackets.

“Whew!” Larry said. “Brisk!”

“I feel like taking a quick run now,” Louis said.

“Good,” Larry said. “Sure?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll join you then. I feel like going another mile.”

“How about a quarter mile? Just a couple minutes to get my muscles going,” Louis said. “Sure you won’t get chilled?”

“Sure.”

They had been up since around 6:30 a.m., having engaged in intercourse several times during the night and early morning. Louis had prepared a light breakfast for them both: fresh pink grapefruit, oatmeal – thought to reduce LDL blood cholesterol levels (French vanilla variety for Louis and raisin, date, & walnut variety for Larry), grape drink from a frozen concentrate, and scrambled eggs made with: three large eggs, salt and freshly ground black pepper, a tablespoon unsalted butter, and two tablespoons heavy cream – per serving of 300 calories - prepared using whisk and saucepan and a parsley garnish on each plate, “seeing it’s New Year’s Eve day and we might as well do it all,” Louis had said laughing.

When they got back from their jog, both men feeling invigorated and entering through the front entrance with Louis using his door key, Larry went “to change my clothes…” while Louis – after taking off his ski parka – went into the living room and began looking at some of the Christmas gifts he and Larry had received, which included:

An executive golf chipping game, golf ball finder glasses, and deluxe golf distance finder for Larry, from his brother Jacob Ethan, even though Larry rarely played golf, the purpose of the gift being that Larry needed to “play the Washington game…” as Jacob understood it.

Louis had received from his half-brother Daniel a battery-operated marshmallow toaster with sure-grip ergonomic handle (the 4 AA batteries not included - to Louis’s disappointment - since they had almost run out after using up most of their AA batteries taking pictures with their digital cameras at Omar’s wedding and reception the previous Saturday, the rechargeable batteries having lost their power all too frequently and both Louis – using his high-end digital camera with 10x optical zoom, 8.0 megapixel, 4x digital zoom, optical image stabilizer for shake-free shooting, with advanced face detection, face selector button and red-eye correction - and Larry - using his single-lens reflex live view digital camera with interchangeable lens system with 10.1 megapixels - had gone through almost 16 AA batteries and had forgotten to buy more of the alkaline products (the hydrous alkaline solution being used as an electrolyte) while stopping at a national discount pharmacy chain to get some extra personal care items after returning via Reagan International on Sunday afternoon.

From his step-father Danny, Louis had received a battery-operated grill brush for barbecues, a barbecue fan/light, and a griller’s utility belt – seeing that Louis and Larry enjoyed cooking in their backyard on warm spring evenings, Danny also giving Louis a talking digital tire pressure gauge and auto escape hammer/LED flashlight 5-in-1 emergency tool.

Catherine, who had been recovering from her surgery and had been home by December 16^th, had given Louis an ionic pet brush which utilized ozone to neutralize pet odors (even though they did not have a dog as yet, “but if you get one for security, you’ll be prepared,” Catherine had said). Her gifts to Louis also including a light-up pet leash and a battery operated pet massager.

“Mom must think we need to get a dog,” Louis had told Larry.

Larry’s gifts to Louis had included: a fog-free shower mirror with LED light and clock, a wet/dry nose and moustache hair trimmer, a micro LED book light/task light, a chamois computer screen cleaner, an auto voice recorder and note pad, a sound activated key finder with microlight, a computer-powered techvac to remove high tech dirt and dust, which Louis was opening and studying and planning to use for the first time that morning, as he walked into the library, where Larry was sitting at his desk in a long floral men’s sarong, white sleeveless t-shirt, and white ankle-length socks, peering at his 19” widescreen flat panel monitor, having upgraded his system the previous week just before they left for Austin to a 2.13 GHz, 2MB LS Cache 1600 MHz FSB Duo Processor, 2 GB Memory, with 320 GB Hard drive and Graphics Media Accelerator.

“Let’s go for a drive once it gets sunny this afternoon,” Larry said as Louis began to undress except for his navy blue 34” waist briefs.

He began to browse through several reference books that Omar had sent him for Christmas, including an Arabic/English – English/Arabic hardcover dictionary, a book on Linguistics Anthropology: Anthologies of Social and Cultural Anthropology, a book of modern Turkish poems in English translation, another of modern Turkish drama in translation, and another of modern Arabic literature in translation.

He then began checking email at his own desktop with new 24” widescreen flat panel monitor given him by Larry that Christmas, glancing over at the bookshelf with more unopened gifts from Larry’s parents for both men, including: a playstation 3, an advanced universal remote, a digital speaker system, and an SLR digital camera with close-up lens, the 42” LCD HDTV that had been shipped and received December 24^th being stored in the guest bedroom, seeing that they already had a 37” HDTV in the family room, “and isn’t that just like my mom and dad, wanting us to have two of everything in case something were to give out or break down.”

That in fact had been a character trait of Derek and Rosemary that impressed Louis: their tendency to want two of everything, and in many cases to buy two of everything, often having bought Larry while he was growing up two each of any shirt, sweater, pair of slacks, or jacket that he liked in case one were torn or needed washing and he wanted to wear the same thing the next day, and two of any toy he craved in case the first were broken.

“This has been quite a year,” Louis said

Louis had spent the afternoon of Tuesday December 11^th through Friday December 14^th with his mother and step-father at their Brooklyn home – where they still kept his bedroom set up as it had been during high school - and at the hospital, where he had spent much time at Catherine’s bedside, along with Daniel Robert and Diane Sarah, going home to Brooklyn late each evening to sleep, shave and shower, returning before 6 a.m. Thursday and again before 6 a.m. Friday to be in her private room in case she needed anything. Her surgeon had given a positive prognosis of the mastectomy, and she had been discharged Saturday. Louis had finished submitting his term papers, research materials, and reports for his doctoral work on Monday of that week before leaving, having only a few meetings with advisers and two professors in linguistics courses in which he was making “high marks” – as they told him - and those meetings having been postponed until the following Monday to accommodate Louis’s family emergency.

Ronald O’Toole had contacted Larry and Louis on Friday the 21^st to inform them that two former F.B.I. agents had been in the SUV that had been side-swiped at the Laurel/Bowie exit, both men having been killed in the wreck and that the pickup truck with the three young Arab men, “…has disappeared from the earth. It was registered to the owner of a pizza business in Rockville who is out of the country ostensibly looking for investment opportunities in Latvia and Estonia and his attorney says they have no idea who was driving it, but that they had reported it stolen on Monday the 10^th. There are witnesses who saw it careen off the main freeway trying to crash those guys, who by the way I helped train when we were all younger and who, although not my favorite students, were loyal Americans and have family who will miss them.”

Louis had mentioned to his uncle that the driver of the attack SUV had been harassing him, but that he had no knowledge of who they were, nor did he know about the Arab men in the truck, holding his breath wondering if he should mention the one he had seen in Mosul back in 2003 at the university seminar.

Christmas celebrations had begun in Brooklyn for Larry and Louis on the 24^th, after a safe drive up from northern Virginia in Larry’s SUV and both men confident – “having our eyes wide-open and digital camcorder ready should anything suspicious occur on the Interstates” – that they had not been stalked, that hypothesis proving correct, in that, as they would later learn through Nabih Hunarfar as an intermediary, that with Larry along “as a bodyguard as much as a husband,” Omar’s contacts in the Muslim world, the academic community, and the peace movement considered Louis more than safe.

“We should all have such a brute for a protector as O’Connor has,” Akbar emailed to Tarek the day before New Years.

Catherine’s progress had been very encouraging, the wig she was wearing looking quite stylish, her expression peaceful most of the time, talking about the chemotherapy and how she was not worried about catching cold due to the radiology treatments: “I haven’t picked up one bug all month,” she told everyone.

Most of the O’Tooles and O’Connors had attended the 1 p.m. Christmas mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, that having been followed around 4 p.m. with Christmas dinner an affair for ten at the O’Toole home in Brooklyn, with Larry asking to pay half the cost of a caterer who had brought an ample traditional meal – seeing that Catherine was too tired to cook and everyone more interested in learning from Louis and Larry about “those jerks – whoever they are – who sent them that box,” as Daniel Robert had said, but the identity of the parties who had mailed the parcel bomb remained a mystery at least in part, Ronald O’Toole - when he and Louise had stopped by Christmas day to see Catherine and the others - having told Louis when they had a rare private moment out the back yard petting Danny’s prize Labrador retriever, “…you know Lou, I never did like those two agents who were killed when that SUV rolled over…. Too…vulgar, too quick to make a cruel joke about using their guns to kill horses when they had nothing else to do with them.”

“How cruel,” Louis had said.

“They would have been asked to leave the agency more than likely before they reached forty,” Ronald had said. “Were making big money, I’m told, working for a private security firm headquartered somewhere in West Virginia.”

A mercenary army right in America’s backyard, Louis had thought. He had speculated to Ronald that the men killed in the SUV could have been involved in sending the mail bomb.

“We see the dark side of human nature too often these days,” Ronald had said in response.

Louis and Larry had slept late at their Manhattan hotel room on the 26^th and then had treated everyone to an early luncheon buffet at a fashionable Fifth Avenue restaurant before heading back to their home in Virginia around three p.m., arriving safely back around seven p.m., happy to find that Madeline and Augustus looked content and well-fed, a reliable pet-sitter who kept a busy holiday schedule and who had worked for over twenty years for a local veterinarian having made two visits a day to see to the cats’ every need while their owners were away.

The flight to Austin on the 27^th had been uneventful, although Larry had been singled out for a not-too-intimate patdown at security at Dulles, Louis looking a touch upset that his partner was being touched along his thighs and chest by someone other than himself.

The introductions between Louis and Larry, and Melinda’s family, had gone “splendidly” – as she would say – with the wedding on Saturday the 29^th at the Al-Mahdi Center mosque in northwest Austin, the only Shi’a mosque in Austin and chosen because Omar had been raised among the Shi’a in the marshlands, the ceremony conducted by the imam according to traditional Muslim customs.

Seeing that Omar and Melinda had ambitious plans for aiding the poor in Iraq once they returned there soon after the New Year, and in that they had vowed to enjoy a honeymoon in the most exotic locale they could imagine, they had flown out – shortly before Louis and Larry left Austin on Sunday the 30^th as it turned out – on a long flight to New Zealand where they knew several individuals involved in the environmental and anti-globalization movements who had promised them tours of Milford Sound and as much of the summer-time landscapes as would be possible in five days, before they were to fly on to the Middle East and back to Iraq.

New Year’s Eve day, and as Larry and Louis sat at their computers talking about the emails they had been receiving, including “…two more invitations from friends of mine at the State Department”, Larry said, to what promised to be lavish, semi-formal dress New Year’s Eve parties in Georgetown.

“That makes seven so far, or have I lost count?” Louis said. “I thought we were just going to relax and stay home tonight.”

“It’s up to you,” Larry said, loading a new 2008 tax software CD into his computer. “I’d love to just do it with all day, you know that.”

“Then let’s do that – except for an hour’s drive to get away from the house, and how about going to my fitness center for an hour or so?”

“Good, a workout and then a relaxing drive,” Larry said.

“And we’ll go to Palmer and Bond’s New Years buffet at the Bright Star Theatre tomorrow,” Louis said. “You still want to go to that, don’t you?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Larry said, standing up and rearranging his desk, seeing that his recent purchase of tax software had come with nine other free software, and an additional nine software at only $9.99 each from a national discount office supply store in Fairfax, such that his desk was crowded with unopened boxes of CD’s related to Internet security, Spyware, artist, greeting card, anti-virus, etc.

As he began loading the new software into his own PC, Louis began reading emails he had received, starting with one from Omar.

It read:

“Unbelievable, the landscapes. Hard to find words to describe New Zealand. You must visit it someday soon.

“Happy New Year to you and Larry.”

To which Louis sent an immediate reply: “Happy New Year to you and Melinda and I’ll check her message right away.”

He found her email – which had five photo attachments – and opened it:

“Dear Lou,

“Happy New Year – Melinda.”

Louis glanced over at Larry, who had been studying the manual for his new tax software and making entries, and said, “Melinda loves New Zealand.”

“No doubt about it,” Larry said. “My parents have been there and I want to see it this year if we can get away.”

“We can take the camcorder my father gave me.”

“Did you finally get that set up and figure out all the controls?” Larry asked.

“It’s in the master bedroom.”

“It is?”

Omar had given Louis a high end DVD camcorder with a 1920 x 1080 resolution, 8GB of internal flash memory and a Memory Stick PRO Duo card slot, both of which could store HD video, and 40 GB hard drive for Christmas.

“I just sent dad an email saying how we’re going to first use it.”

“You did?” Larry asked, looking over with his thick shaved brown beard looking dark and his tanned face exhibiting an intensity as he stared at Louis’s shaved bare chest and legs.

“I told him we’re going to use it to record us having sex.”

“Did you really?” Louis remained silent a moment. “Are you trying to get me horny?”

“I don’t have to try hard, do I?”

“And it’s set up by our bed?” Larry said.

And both Louis and Larry got up quickly and raced into their master bedroom, turned on the new camcorder, and engaged in intercourse.

At that moment, in NSA headquarters at Ft. George Meade, Lyeforth and Beltmann were in Lyeforth’s well-appointed office with mahogany desk, burgundy leather chairs, credenza with limited edition bronze bald eagle in flight by a Colorado artist that belonged to the NSA, staring at Lyeforth’s widescreen computer monitor reading the email that Louis had just sent to Omar.

“Can you believe this?” Lyeforth said. “Telling his father he’s going to use that camcorder Christmas gift to make videos of them having sex.”

“Not a national security threat, but what do you expect from radicals?” Beltmann said. “Proves we should keep the surveillance going on O’Connor’s international emails. I would never have written something like that to my dad.”

“But everyone uses those camcorders to record sex acts these days,” Lyeforth. “I doubt Aboudi will be shocked.”

“No doubt he knew his gay son would have alternative uses for it when he bought it at that Austin office supply store last month.”

“Well,” Lyeforth said, “we’re not getting anything on O’Connor from all this sifting through emails. Are you going to apply with the assistant director to have the authorization extended another six months into 2008? Glad you keep on top of all those things. Our authority to read his emails expires at midnight.”

“Did I send it through? I didn’t send it through last June. I thought you did.”

“No,” Lyeforth said, looking rather surprised. “I asked you if you had put in the paperwork and you said ‘No, but it wouldn’t take much time…’ and that you’d ‘…been so busy on all the surveillance of the Democratic presidential candidates and their Arab staff volunteers’.”

“Yeah, but I meant it wouldn’t take much time and so I thought you would do it,” Beltmann said.

“You mean we’ve been reading O’Connor’s emails the last six months and it’s illegal?”

“Nothing’s illegal we do these days, bro,” Beltmann said. “There are so many anti-terrorism laws and rulings and secret courts and Presidential memos we can do anything we please.”

“But our friendly assistant director down the hall has ambitions of being the next director and doesn’t want anything, and you remember him saying it, don’t you, doesn’t want ‘anything’ to cloud his record?”

Beltmann nodded.

Lyeforth continued. “He doesn’t want anything done without his authority if it involves domestic surveillance.”

“Then what do we do with all these emails we have stored since last June?” Beltmann said.

“Erase them, I suppose,” Lyeforth said. “Darn, do you suppose O’Connor will send the sex video as an attachment to his father and we’ll miss it?”

“You’ve been into this too long, Tony. Remember, we need to think like a terrorist in order to unearth their un-American plots. We don’t want to think like a voyeur.”

“Oh boy,” Lyeforth said, “that was a long time coming and from you of all people.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Look, we’re not voyeurs,” Lyeforth said, beginning to delete all the emails since July 1, 2007 from the O’Connor folders. “Come on, bro. Let’s forget it.”

“Sure, no hard feelings?”

“No hard feelings. We’ll trash the files and clean out the recycle bin and no one will know we were illegally or legally - and who cares anymore - intruding on O’Connor’s privacy rights.”

“That’s what I say,” Beltmann said. “So what if Americans lose privacy rights if we keep them safe from suicide bombers and plots to blow up water supplies and natural gas pipelines or diabolical terrorists taking pictures of skyscrapers that go poof in the night. Okay. Now, we’re stuck here with no imprint, no carte blanche, no fiat or secret executive order protected by Presidential privilege and the Washington gossip mill, and so what do we do until we meet with the code-breakers still having zero luck tracing the whereabouts of Kamel Mumtaz Hunarfar and his less-than-discreet partner in global shenanigans like unto which only bin Laden’s hairdresser knows for sure?”

“I think you need some time off, bro,” Lyeforth said. “Really, Paul, I think you’re always thinking about our work, night and day.”

“I think about it,” Beltmann said.

“I think it’s always on your mind. I thought you were doing volunteer work or something each weekend so you wouldn’t get obsessed about the business?”

“I have,” Beltmann said. “I went to the Fairfax SPCA again Saturday and helped out for two hours volunteering at the counter and in the kennels, petting some of those precious pups and kittens scared they’ll never find a home.”

“There you go,” Lyeforth said. “Did Shelby go with you?”

“Not this time,” Beltmann said. “She’s so involved in volunteering at that art museum and says she’d love to come with me next time but gets to feeling so sad for all the animals they have to put down.”

“I know. That’s hard,” Lyeforth said. “I’ll come out there some Saturday next month if you’d like and help out. Cleaning kennels, that sort of thing?” Lyeforth took a deep breath and sighed.

“They need us,” Beltmann said.

“I know; I know. Well, let’s check the latest translations of Arabic newspapers from Iraq to see what the journalists there can find to write about when they’re not dodging suicide bombers.”

“They’re all set out in the conference room,” Beltmann said. “After you.”

At that moment, seated on their two distinctive rosewood design damask recliners with fabric reinterpretive of the Art Deco era in the two-story living room with vaulted ceiling in their Burlington townhouse, Akbar and Ramesh were viewing data over their laptops with wireless Internet cards.

“Those jerks!” Ramesh said. “They’re still spying on O’Connor.”

“Spam the bastards,” Akbar said, looking over at Ramesh who was dressed in dark brown slacks, brown walking shoes, and cream jacket. “But hurry, we don’t want to be late for the rehearsal.”

A new play by Calvin Benderman entitled SIGNALS AND MESSAGES was to premiere at a popular Burlington repertory theatre on Wednesday. Akbar and Ramesh, who had donated over $100 each to the theatre during the past month, had been invited to see the dress rehearsal that morning, owing in small part to their generosity and in large part to their being among the few Arabic language experts among the theatre patrons, seeing that the cast included two men with less than perfect English – refugees from Yemen who had been tortured by the authorities there in 2006 due to allegations (which the two actors firmly denied to all their new acquaintances in the states and Canada) that they were members of an al-Qaeda cell operating in south Yemen. They had been released after three days interrogation, allowed to emigrate to Canada, and were currently living secretly in Orleans County in northeast Vermont outside of Troy with a family who had been patients during the 1990’s of a Burlington physician currently involved in national politics, the family having changed to a holistic practitioner living within sight of Mount Washington in Maine and who among other things charged less than half what their Burlington doctor had charged and who also advocated homeopathic medicine and Kohala Natural Healing Arts - their Maine practitioner having been introduced to Kohala under the direction of Men Tsee Khang of the College of Tibetan Medicine - their former Burlington doctor (“and we would have stuck with him despite his abrasive attitude if he’d ever had time for us what with all his political ambitions….” the father would say) on their final visit to his office, having casually advised them to try walking and, “if it makes you feel better, yoga.”

The two Yemeni men were cousins of Ramesh, a fact of which he was aware having read on the Internet through several Middle Eastern chat rooms frequented by Yemeni expatriates about his second cousin Hamas Ra’id (meaning “enthusiastic leader”) but who preferred to use - (since entering the American drama world after auditioning for the male lead, head chef Stephane of a French-Canadian restaurant – that being the setting of the new play – his “dynamism” – as the artistic director described it, and his “magnetism”, as the gay literary manager described it – having won him the part, with both directors noticing that at 6’ 4”, age forty-seven, powerfully-built and quite articulate in Arabic and Greek (that having been his major in college in Egypt) Hamas Ra’id looked as if he would not have been easily intimidated, even by the Yemeni secret police) - the soubriquet Alonso, seeing that he and his fellow refugee Mansur Shamim had chosen aliases from off the bottom of the list of American men’s names from the previous census, hoping that would lend their new life a certain anonymity.

Almost as tall as Hamas Ra’id and five years younger, Mansur Shamim (meaning “divinely aided, fragrant”) had chosen the soubriquet Broderick, and he had heard rumors since 2003 circulating in the Yemeni gay underground, of which he had been a member since turning age 21, about his younger first cousin Ramesh and his international odyssey in search of an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – “by means not mentioned at most UN Security Council sessions as condoned by either Israel or the U.S.”

Thus, Akbar was eager to meet both of Ramesh’s cousins, “and what a shame we cannot tell them who you are, so hurry so we don’t miss the first lines.”

“I knew those were my cousins as soon as I saw the play notice,” Ramesh said. “I doubt they have any idea that I live in Vermont now.”

“But won’t they recognize you?” Akbar asked.

“You know, I was just a boy when I last saw them, and I’m not sure they would recognize me. Hamas was over… fifteen years older than me, and Mansur about ten years older. And it must have been when I was ten that I last saw them, before me moved to Lebanon. If we start talking with them they’ll know who I am before long. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes,” Akbar said. “Actually, I do. So why risk it? Why don’t we just go and sit near the back and enjoy the rehearsal and leave without meeting them face to face. Tarek would have a fit if he thought we were getting careless with such a perfect cover as we’ve built up.”

“They’re my cousins, you know,” Ramesh said.

“I know that.”

“They wouldn’t betray me.”

“Not unless the Homeland Security goons pick them up for chasing snowflakes up near the Canadian border and try those impolite interrogations methods and name-dropping like, ‘know where Kamel Mumtaz Hunarfar is by the way and how’d you like you dick massaged by this brute here for an hour to see if it still works?’ and all the other un-American nasty sub-pornographic goings-on of our overly-paid national security team, now numbering in the thousands and if brain waves could destroy there’d be hundreds of thousands dead in and around Washington.”

“Bravo,” Ramesh said, typing manically at his keyboard and only half-noticing what Akbar was saying. “Bravo. We should be in that cast today; you know?”

“Can’t do it all, can we?”

Ramesh looked over to Akbar, who was dressed in light blue sweater with dark blue and white trim and black slacks and said, “I’m into the NSA supercomputer again and with some extra processing power, I think I can ram some RAM up their hard drive and put Lyeforth and Beltmann out of commission. Boy, in two or three more years with RAM and hard drives doubling in size a couple more times, I can shut down the NSA and Pentagon and have time for bird-watching before dawn.”

“For how long?” Akbar asked, his eyes widening.

“What?”

“How long can you shut down Lyeforth and Beltmann?”

“Long enough to get to the theatre and back before they cause O’Connor more mischief.”

“Then do it,” Akbar said.

“Done,” Ramesh said, and they went out to their 2006 silvery blue gleaming luxury car with 4.6 liters V 8 front engine with 91.4 mm bore, 91.4 mm stroke, 9.4 compression ratio, overhead cam and two valves per cylinder, fuel economy EPA highway (mpg): 25 and EPA city (mpg): 18, multi-point injection fuel system, 　19 gallon main unleaded fuel tank, and power: 178 kW, 239 HP SAE @ 4,900 rpm; 287 ft lb , 389 Nm @ 4,100 rpm and with just over 31,000 miles purchased with a bank draft from a national car rental chain the previous month – seeing that they both had doctoral teaching positions at the university and impeccable credit - and headed toward the theatre, which was located on Pearl Street.

While en route, Akbar mentioned what Tarek had said in his New Year email greeting. “Where’d he find that animated New Year’s terrorist in a turban swinging his sword around his head singing ‘Happy New Year’ in Arabic?” Akbar asked.

“What did we ever do without the Internet?” Ramesh asked.

“Tarek wants to know if we’d like to try marketing the latest bin Laden CD at craft fairs once spring arrives in Vermont,” Akbar said.

“No,” Ramesh said, his eyes on the road.

“That’s what I replied, that no, we’re too busy with teaching and finishing our dissertations.”

“Another bin Laden CD?” Ramesh said.

“Reading the entire Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in Arabic. Even comes with graphics of roses or blossoms or whatever floating about the screen when he gets to that part in the lyrics.”

“Tarek must have been joking,” Ramesh said.

“They’re trying so hard to be socially respectable,” Akbar said. “Those two are so insecure. They’ll end up giving them away to madrassas in Pakistan no doubt and picking up dust on some sloppy library shelf.”

“No doubt,” Ramesh said.

“And don’t you just love the new online al-Qaeda survey, the one at al-Sahab?”

“Utter simplicity,” Ramesh said. “Let the public tell us how we’re doing and what they want.”

“Tarek sent a sample of questions submitted up to this point and wants us to prepare written answers for al-Zawahri to some of these.”

“Now we’re speech writers for the top men,” Ramesh said. “What next? What questions?”

“Here’s one. Does al-Qaida have a long-term strategy?” Akbar said.

“Sure. If you can’t blow it up, throw it up, or show it up, grow it up to be a jihadist,” Ramesh said.

“Utterly brilliant,” Akbar said. “I’m sure they’ll use that one for the online interview next month. And then there’s: how do we answer the complaint of the former Arab al-Qaida fighter in Iraq…?”

“Allegedly a former Arab al-Qaeda fighter in Iraq,” Ramesh said. “We never know if it’s someone with the intelligence services searching for answers.”

“True… Anyway, whoever sent it, it’s a complaint about Iraqi fighters discriminating against non-Iraqi mujahedeen. How does Zawahri respond to that in words destined to be recorded in the annals of history along with ‘Ich bin ein Berliner…..’?”

“Of course,” Ramesh said. And then in Arabic he said, “I’m a non-Iraqi al-Qaeda.”

“You’re inspired today, bro. And then the questions about focus,” Akbar said.

“Oh, Allah save us, focus. They all need a focus group these days.”

“Should followers and sympathizers of Osama the Lion be focusing on their jihad, or holy war, against Arab regimes, or against Americans?” Akbar asked.

“It’s all going to be scripted,” Ramesh said. “But let’s have a dramatic pause before al-Zawahri replies to this one. Then he’ll say, his voice tense with emotion, ‘Your jihad is my jihad; your focus is my focus; your holy war is my holy war’.”

“God, Ramesh, you’ll have half the Arab world swooning trying to apply online to get into their local terrorist cell before the memberships are all taken. And how does he answer the many who appear frustrated that al-Qaeda is not doing more?”

“Utterly genuine and relevant and they must be answered sincerely,” Ramesh said. “Frustrations. How I know that feeling. Is it all the money? Let’s face it, Osama is a cash cow and we’re living on the upper crust instead of planting bombs inside those dingy Manhattan bus terminals like we thought we’d be doing all the time back in 2002.”

“But how does he answer them all?” Akbar asked.

“How about, ‘I’m okay; you’re okay.’?”

“Oh come on, Ramesh. It’s a tough one, isn’t it?”

“How does number two answer for all the incompetence without admitting to all the incompetence of Sheik Osama and his forty thieves?” He was silent a moment as they approached the theatre. “Here. Be sure you write all this down.” He cleared his throat. “‘Seek the path, and the path will find more seekers after al-Qaeda. Revive Jihad, and Jihad will revive us all. Open a new front in Egypt, and Egypt will open it’s doors to Osama. Draw in the mujahedeen, and the mujahedeen will draw more knights of Islam’.”

“You’re one of the few terrorists I know who tempts me to use superlatives, Ramesh,” Akbar said.

“Thanks. Did you get all that down?”

“No really, I mean it. I got it all down. I’ll email it right away.”

“Thanks.”

“Tarek will love it all,” Akbar said.

“He should.”

“He is such a pill,” Akbar said.

It was nearing 10:15 a.m. New Years Eve day when they arrived at the repertory theatre.

The theme of Benderman’s new play, which was to premiere simultaneously at the Bright Star Theatre Wednesday evening, was acceptance. It was set in the indoor garden room of a four-star Montreal restaurant located on Rue Makay. The stage design included cozy banquettes, yellow dining chairs, tables with white cloths, and buttercup-colored walls.

Hamas Ra’id (playing Stephane, the head chef), wearing a tall white hat, and Mansur Shamim (playing Laurent, an job applicant), dressed in black winter jacket and dark brown slacks, entered. They sat down at two of the chairs on opposite sides of a table, and the dress rehearsal began.

STEPHANE: Can I get you some coffee?

LAURENT: Thank you, yes.

STEPHANE: Cream?

LAURENT: Cream, no sugar…..

STEPHANE: Where are you living now?

L In a tiny apartment above a pizza store in Montreal. My wife Claire is pregnant with our third child.

STEPHANE: When is she expecting?

LAURENT: She’s about eight, nine months pregnant.

STEPHANE: And you had no idea you were a suspect when you crossed over into New York last month and were detained?

LAURENT: No

STEPHANE: That must have been difficult for your wife. And you’re sure it is because of your last name, Salah.

LAURENT: My name matched a name on a list, and it was not so much being held for three weeks before they released me, and no lawyer. The most difficult part was for Claire trying to explain to our two sons what happened to their father.

STEPHANE: They missed you.

LAURENT: The oldest one, he asked me when I returned, “What does September 11 have to do with us? Those people died, but daddy didn’t do it.”

STEPHANE: Yes. And you got your old job back right away.

LAURENT: Yes. The owner said he couldn’t believe what the American security personnel had done to me.

STEPHANE: Neither can I. So you have much experience with French menus. Why do you want to leave your current position?

LAURENT: The restaurant is too far from my home; a luxurious place, and I like working there, and I get along with everyone.

STEPHANE: I’m sure you do.

LAURENT: Forty-five minutes each way, longer when the Montreal streets are clogged, which can be a nightmare as you know. I have spent over an hour some nights when I was so tired making it back home, and the public transportation routes would take even longer than by car.

STEPHANE: And we’re only ten minutes from your apartment.

At that moment, Louis and Larry – who had just finished showering together in the master bath as was their custom after engaging in rather athletic mid-morning sex – were seated clothed in sweat pants and t-shirts (Louis wearing one with the name of an international group devoted to protecting the environment several of whose founders had been arrested since 1980 over incidents related to their mission, and Larry in one with NEVER GIVE UP in bright blue letters on the back) at their computers again, with Louis opening an email from Habib.

It read in part: “Thank you for telling me about REALITY TODAY. Pembroke sends the right signal to America. You can be sure we’ll be listening to him over the Internet when the broadband lines are not down.”

Louis opened a new textbook about semantics for a course that spring and began browsing…. “then the trait – c – of the message in question becomes pertinent, which follows the trait – b – which also becomes… but the reciprocal is not true…” “….. as to the difference then of the code – b – the code c does not permit in all cases being adapted exactly to the circumstances in which the semantic action has produced the quantity of indication signifying what was intended…..” “…. Upon encountering the signal and the message, which are concrete entities, the signifier and the signified, such that the speech form of which they are composed are abstract entities….” Louis shook his head a moment and set down the book. He turned to Larry and said, “Law school was tough, wasn’t it?”

“Very tough where I went, and I had a couple of professors who didn’t like gay men who were hard for me to deal with.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve been thinking again about what to do about the class action lawsuit against that priest.”

“The attorneys sent you the papers. You need to sign them if you want to be included by the deadline.”

“I know. I plan to do that Wednesday,” Louis said. “You know; I saw him at St. Patrick’s Christmas Day and I’m sure he recognized me.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Yes. I imagine we’ll get a photograph of him some day. Danny said that Catherine cannot believe I never told them. But I had blocked it out until last summer. I simply had no memory of even thinking of that priest except as a priest who was with the Manhattan diocese. Why do they let him continue with the church when he’s the subject of so much controversy?”

“I would think he’ll be suspended before long. Was he at the altar?” Larry asked.

“No, but he was in his priest’s robe and seated near the front. He looked back and looked me in the eye like so what about what he did to me as a boy. How could people be so cruel acting as if what they do that hurts a child doesn’t matter once the child becomes a man, as if the man isn’t even the same person. I’m the same person I was when I was that boy he molested.”

“You’ll put it behind you some day, Louis.”

“I hope so. I don’t like the feeling.”

“You were feeling good earlier.”

“Real good,” Louis said. “Would you care to listen to REALITY TODAY? I think it’s near the end of the first segment.”

“Go ahead and turn on the speakers if you’d like. Be careful though Louis. He’s opinionated.”

“I know he’s opinionated. He’s a smart man and entitled to his opinions. And so are we.”

Louis turned on the speakers of their sound station and the voice of Pembroke came over the air:

“And so the year ends with no end in sight for the war in Iraq. I fielded questions the last three hundred sixty-five days (and surely another three hundred sixty-six will not pass and still no troop withdrawal in sight) from pro-war and anti-war asking how do you shut down something so complex as the war in Iraq.

“America does not have a proscribed religion. You do not have to go to church on Sunday. Yet every candidate – including at least one a member of the clergy of an established faith and I respect everyone’s freedom of religion – must pass a litmus test of professing belief in God, woe to him or her who cannot recall the name of their second grade Sunday school teacher, assuming they would not lie about having read the Bible (but never the Koran even in translation) – or the Book of Mormon or the complete tracts of the last Beverly Hills Church of Scientology get rich quick seminar in superiority.

Larry got up at this moment to go fix himself a fruit snack, motioning to Louis that he was not offended by the broadcast and leaving Louis listening attentively and letting the back of his executive chair recline.

And the broadcast continued: “…to stop the military before they can process another recruit. How? We send out brochures to every high school graduate offering them free career counseling if they’re so naïve even to contemplate entering the U.S. military – at this time.

“I resolve to ask the Canadian governors – ‘open up your pearly provincial gates, heaven knows we have deserters who merit mention in the annals of modern and not so virtual history as doing the right thing for the right reason’ – meaning you can’t wage an illegal war if the troops disappear into the neighborly glacier mists to the north. Like looking for a needle in a haystack if they try to find a deserter in our huge backyard above the 49th parallel.

“And so, what do you give to the deserter who has everything? A one-way ticket across the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence into paradise found, a country without a Bush, a man or woman without an army, a fledgling in the war against war hoisted from the nest of global affairs by the will to have a conscience, and who can live with a conscience when they have participated in that illegal war?

“Imagine pure peace - worldwide. REALITY TODAY is concerned about the random reality of that war in Iraq which was created out of nothing but the nothingness of Bush and his veiled shrouded advisers. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised about the reality of the war. For what is peace? The war in Iraq has even created the sensation of security, but that is not peace. The war in Iraq leaves America with a sense of incompleteness, and that is not peace. So take a random walk with peace with anti-war. And remember that one of the most important startling features of the universe is that there is anything peaceful here at all. That concludes today’s broadcast. Thank you for listening.

Louis walked into the family room, which looked out to a glassed-in patio at the back of the house, where Larry was on his cell phone talking with his parents.

“Mom, we’re doing great, having a relaxing New Year’s Eve Day, planning to go out if the weather turns sunny for a drive, luncheon buffet tomorrow at the Bright Star Theatre,” Larry was saying. He looked up to Louis and motioned for him to come sit beside him on the sofa, which Louis did, and began holding Louis’s right hand and leaning toward him so that their shoulders rested upon each other. “Louis feels like the future is in our hands, loves the University, speaks so many languages he’s his own UN some days.”

Louis looked up at the ceiling and smiled knowingly, whispering, “Oh boy.”

“That would be great. Omar and Melinda will be grateful for anything you can do to help Iraq. Their honeymoon lasts until Thursday or Friday – but who’s to say they won’t stay on in New Zealand a while longer it’s so beautiful.” Larry continued listening to his mother while putting his arm around Louis’s t-shirt and rubbing Louis’s shoulder. “Sure, he’s right here.” To Louis he then said, “She’d like to wish you Happy New Year.”

Louis took the cell phone and spoke with Rosemary for a few minutes before handing it back to Larry.

Before long the phone call was coming to an end and Larry said, “It was great talking with you and dad. Glad to know you’ve decided upon that home on the Potomac.”

Louis’s eyes lit up.

“Bye mom. And Happy New Year to you too. Love you.”

The two men began kissing. After a minute, Larry said, “They’re going to buy that house they liked, the one with the dock, near Dumfries, even has the little quarter acre island you can almost wade to.”

“Glad to hear it. They must be excited.”

“They’re coming down next weekend. I’ll handle the legal work for them. The broker has an exclusive listing so we’ll go through him.”

“Of course.”

“So, it could be an exciting start to the new year for all of us.”

Larry’s cell phone rang. It was the Congressman calling from Manhattan to wish him Happy New Year. Louis got up, motioning that he would be back soon, and went to the front entry and outside to check the mailbox, having heard the mailman a few minutes earlier.

He noticed an unusual number of greeting cards and personal letters, addressed either to him or Larry individually, from colleagues at the university and in the anti-globalization movement, or from the Washington political scene for Larry, set them all inside the front door on a rosewood marble top Victorian étagère with hooded canopy and carved crest given him by Omar from his own collection the previous Christmas. Louis looked out, noticing that the skies were beginning to clear as it was late morning now, and saw Jessica outside her parents’ house going to the curb to get a morning edition of a Washington newspaper. She was wearing white active knit sports pants and a light blue anti-static fleece jacket with zipper.

Louis, watching her through the glass storm door, noticed her stop and stare at him a moment. He began to have an erection and decided to step outside and waved at her. She waved back. He went over to the curb and she called out, “Louis, hi. Happy New Year!”

He called back, “And Happy New Year to you, Jessica.”

She looked unsure if he wanted to continue speaking and looked him in the eye with a look he immediately recognized having seen the same look in the face of the first of two young woman with whom he had had sex at age twenty.
She wants me, he thought.

“I want you,” she said softly, looking around as if concerned someone else had heard her, but no one else was visible outside.

He went over to her and they began talking about the drive to New York City. “I saw you,” he said.

“I had a chance to see a show with some friends that night,” she said. “You looked like you were enjoying your SUV.”

“I was,” he said. “Oh, it drives great.”

And then she stepped a little closer to him, both of them standing on the lawn on Louis’s side of the street, and she told him, “My mother said it’s all right if I tell you this, Louis. And seeing you just now, I know you’ll understand. If you ever want to be with a woman, you can call me.”

Louis took a deep breath and he told her that he wanted to have a child some day, that he and Larry had discussed it. That they each wanted to have a child.

“When?” she asked.

“When?”

“Yes.”

He stood still a moment and felt his erection growing harder. “Larry said he wants to watch.”

“Larry can watch if he wants, but I only want you touching me.”

She said she would be having her period that weekend and was going back to college the next week.

They set up a time to get together Friday evening – at Louis’s house. “No doubt about it, Jessica. I want us to have a child.”

“Then we’ll try it on Friday.”

“Do you want to go in and talk with Larry about it?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “You take care of all that. Just call me to tell me when to be ready, and I’ll come over. You’ll call me, won’t you?”

“Yes. I’m sure. If this is the time you want, I’ll call.”

“I’m sure,” she said. “Happy New Year again.”

“And to you too, Happy New Year,” he said.

He went back into their house and found Larry still in the family room finishing up speaking with the Congressman. When he had hung up, he looked at Louis and noticed the big semen stain on his sweat pants near the crotch. Louis then told him what he and Jessica had arranged and he waited for Larry’s response.

“If that’s what the two of you want, then I want you to go ahead. And she doesn’t mind if I watch?”

“She said you can watch. I don’t think we’ll want to use the camcorder.”

“Not this time anyway,” Larry said.

At that moment, in the office of the chief of police in the Detroit suburb, the chief and Detective Cross were waiting for a visitor.

“She said she no longer feels right about being an informant and that this will be her last interview,” Cross said.

The chief took a bite from a chocolate covered donut bought that morning from a national grocery with bakery inside the store and said, “Been crying in the lane that we were exploiting her, no doubt,” the chief said. “Oh the devils we have to deal with these days.”

“She’s hardly a devil, sir,” Cross said.

“Not her, my good man. I mean the elephants and donkeys alias pretenders to the throne in the White House once our current leader makes his January 2009 exit stage ranch. Well, we’ll seal this one up and ask messieurs Lyeforth and Beltmann to depart, go away, if they show up a la prima impromptu asking what and where has buddy Aboudi been doing after classes in the way of unlicensed anti-war agitation.”

Jamme, wearing a long winter jacket, cream-colored pantsuit, and woolen cap, entered.

“This is her,” Cross said.

The chief stood up, smiled, looked her in the eye, and asked, “Would you like to have a seat, ma’am?” He shook her hand, introducing himself, and said, “Sorry to hear we won’t be learning more from you about possible threats to security.”

“The main reason I came was to try to reassure you so you will tell the officials who are aware of all this, that I’ve been confiding in Detective Cross here, is that I’m certain Professor Aboudi and my friends Rafae and Abdul-Salam could not possibly be involved in anything illegal,” Jamme said as she sat down across the desk from the chief.

“As safe from doing any harm to our peaceful hamlet with more millionaires than any other Detroit suburb as if they were on a desert island?” the chief said.

“As sure as that,” Jamme said. “Professor Aboudi is a fine man, loyal American, who loves our country and only wants to see his native land saved from the evil spirits that possess it.”

“I see,” the chief said, looking warily at Cross. “Evil spirits?”

“Literally,” Jamme said. “I don’t mean the U.S. military.”

“I would hope not,” the chief said. “My neighbor’s son who was trying to get established as a car salesman was one of those called up and he’s out to Iraq next month for at least a year, and he’s the nicest young father with a three year old boy such nice people and his mother is doing everything to get her grandson situated to be without his father for so long.”

“What did you mean by evil spirits?” Cross asked.

“The armed militias,” Jamme said. “The demons torturing innocent bodies of which we read, beheading corpses.”

“From my contacts in Washington, young woman,” the chief said, “those beheadings are being done when the victims are still alive.”

“Ghastly,” Jamme said. “So you see. I’m glad I could help. You know now that Mr. Aboudi is not where the FBI or the others need to look if they’re concerned about threats to America.”

“From what I’ve heard of Aboudi,” the chief said, “and two of my staff have students at the university who took some of his Middle Eastern courses, he’s a credit to us all.”

There was dead silence for about ten seconds while the chief nibbled more on his donut, Jamme sneezed and took out a tissue, and Cross blinked as if something were in his right eye.

“So something must be done to keep off the witches,” Jamme said.

The chief looked at Cross with a puzzled expression.

“The witches?” the chief asked.

“Not the sort who circle about midnight fires and search for herbs for secret spells,” Jamme said.

“Then what sort of witches?” the chief said, groping in the pastry box for another donut and to his surprise finding it empty. “There were a half dozen in here just an hour ago,” he murmured, looking puzzled again.

“I mean the lies and suspicions that arise when innocent people of Arab – in the current political era – or during the Nazi period, Jews, are targeted because of fear, irrational but overpowering human fear,” Jamme said.

“I mean by witches the hoods that too many Americans put over their heads – mental hoods, refusal to listen to reason, refusal to accept Muslims because they are different.

“I mean the state of mind that leads the American public to shun an entire ethnic group – afraid whenever anyone with an Arabic name begins to board their jet.”

“I see,” the chief said. “Those are matters that society as a whole must deal with.”

“I know,” Jamme said, standing up to leave. “But somehow I think you in your own part see what I mean, and that I am right.”

“I’ll give it some thought,” the chief said.

Jamme left.

“Darn good informant,” Cross said. “Answered our questions. Indeed, the other detectives have gone over the material she provided us and we’re convinced Aboudi should not be considered a person of interest.”

The chief nodded. “Glad to hear it. We’re going to have some broken heads at the NSA.”

“What?” Cross said.

“A few bloody noses too.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Cross said.

“I swear those power-obsessed, power-accessed, power-bidders at the NSA and Homeland Security are grotesquely-disguised incense-burning druids or what have you from the days of paganism,” the chief said, pouring some hot coffee from a percolator on his credenza. “They quarrel with us, they fight with us, they jostle us when we meet them; they want their way, always their way. I’d swear some of them have their faces painted half white, half black, right out of a pantomime and the skit is all about finding a scapegoat for the sins of the modern era.”

“I didn’t know you feel that way, chief,” Cross said, looking as if he were giving the matter serious thought.

“We don’t have the luxury to ruin innocent lives by spying on our fellow citizens because it makes Washington hum,” the chief said. “We’ve got the orators again coming to Michigan after Iowa and New Hampshire and it’s almost like they need to procure some beads to placate the backward voters, the wild savages of America who are ready to shout, ‘It is a sin,’ if the man or woman highest in the polls says, ‘It’s a sin,’ whatever it is.

“Our friend there Jamme said beware the evil spirits and the witches. And I say, friend Cross, beware the devils. Because come the next great emergency, and God save us from the next great emergency…”

“Yes, and God save America,” Cross said.

“I hear you now,” the chief said. “Because too many of these national security moves are moves by devilishly clever criminals crouched waiting for anything to move, and believe me we do not need any vicarious suffering.”

“Vicarious suffering?”

“We do not want to be paranoid, so the people in Washington can get a good night’s sleep knowing they’ve conned the entire country from Maine to Hawaii that the food at the local cafeteria could have been contaminated by a terrorist. I won’t be back after lunch, not until Wednesday, so Happy New Year.” The chief began to put some papers and personal items in his briefcase.

“And Happy New Year to you too,” Cross said.

“We’ll see you next year then,” the chief said.

“See ya,” Cross said, and got up and left the room.

About that time, Louis and Larry – dressed in sweat pants and sleeveless t-shirts - were in the kitchen of their home preparing their lunches.

“So what is the answer?” Louis asked.

“The answer?” Larry said. “The answer to what?”

“The answer,” Louis said, as if the answer were obvious. “The answer to the riddle.”

“Oh,” Larry said, taking some wheat bread out of the refrigerator. “If you consider life itself is the riddle, then you mean the answer to life itself?”

“Yes, I do.”

“The answer.”

“Not just the answer,” Louis said, looking rather disappointed. “I mean, The answer, with a capital T.”

“Ah,” Larry said. “The answer,” emphasizing the word The.

“What do you think it is?”

“How much time do we have before we go to the gym?”

“A couple hours at least,” Louis said, rubbing Larry’s shoulders for a moment. “I want to know what you think is the answer to the riddle, The Riddle in Muhammed’s play.”

“The riddle is life itself,” Larry said.

“That’s what I was thinking also, life itself, not just a perfect mood.”

“But the answer, Louis, that will take some time.”

“All right. We’ve got time. La respuesta, as our friends trying to avoid being deported south of the border would say.”

“Poor people,” Larry said. “For them, the riddle is, why is America turning its back on us?”

“Por que? Why indeed? And then there’s svaret, as theater-lovers in Norway would say after another performance of Peer Gynt,” Louis said.

“Love in a cold climate with all that oil wealth,” Larry said. “The answer there must be, what are we going to do with all this money?”

“That’s a question,” Louis said, getting out some mayonnaise for their sandwiches. “Det er et spørsmål. Norweigian for: that is a question.”

“And you want an answer,” Larry said, taking a deep breath and embracing Louis. “How about this answer, the answer to all our problems.”

“You got it. But what about the world’s problems?”

“Wat over de problemen van de wereld? As my Dutch ancestors would have said, looking calmly up the pristine waters of the Hudson river and how could any of them have imagined what New York City would look like today. The world’s problems.”

“You’ve been studying Dutch?”

“Enough to follow what you’re saying when you lean over me in bed half asleep asking if we can do it again before dawn. How many ways to you know how to say, ‘let’s do it’?”

“Let’s do it the Greek way, Lou,” Larry said.

“The answer in Greek?”

“You’ve been at the computer playing with the online translators again.”

“How’d you guess?” Louis asked, pouring himself a soft drink.

“Try Arabic,” Larry said.

“What? What in Arabic?”

“Try ‘What is the answer?’ in Russian.”

“I think I know it,” Louis said.

“In Russian?” Larry asked, pouring himself some chilled tomato juice and adding some ice cube.

“So in any language,” Larry said, setting his sandwich plate on the breakfast nook table and going back to the counter for his soft drink, “what is the answer to the riddle of life?”

“I thought you were going to tell me,” Louis said.

“All right, young fellow.”

“Four years younger than you and I’m the young fellow, sure.”

“Life is the riddle. Can you say that in Swedish?”

“Yes,” Louis said, also setting his lunch plate on the table. “I think I can. Liv är gåtan.”

“And can you say, in French, the living of the riddle is its own answer?”

“That’s easy,” Louis said. “L'énigme de la vie est sa propre réponse.”

“That’s not it exactly.”

“Then how about vivre l'énigme est sa propre réponse.”

“Then we’re almost there,” Larry said. “Your life is a riddle to you and to everyone else. Mine also. Everyone has to answer the riddle of life themselves, and to do so, we must live it. Now let’s have our lunch.”

Copyright 2008 by David Lawrence Cade

All rights reserved