Exiles in America(159)

Daniel leaned back, blinking away his look of alarm. “Don’t be an idiot.

You help lots of people.” He scrambled to his feet. “You scared the shit out

of me. What happened?”

“I got into a fight with one of my patients. About the war.”

“Not your born-again-Christian lady?” He sounded pleased.

“Yes. Her.”

“Poor baby.” He stood over him, shaking his head and smiling. “So what

would you like for dinner? How about fettuccine Alfredo?”

“I can’t think about dinner. I’m not hungry.”

“What? You gonna fast? You wanna punish yourself more? Go ahead. I

don’t care. I’m hungry.” Daniel irritably turned and left.

Zack felt he deserved to be left. He lay on the carpet, despising himself,

hating his stupidity and smugness, wanting to disappear in a black hole of

self-hatred, until Jocko trotted into the room, sloppily licked his ear, and trot-

ted off again. Daniel must’ve let the dog out of the basement. Feeling chas-

tised and corrected, Zack got up, went into the bathroom, and splashed cold

water on his face.

He went out to the kitchen. “Time for the NewsHour, ” he announced. “I’ll

be downstairs.”

Daniel was at the stove. “What? You already feel like shit and you want to

make yourself feel worse?”

“That’s right. It’s my way of working this out of my system.”

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C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m

Daniel frowned. “Look. I’m making dinner for us both. Whether you want

it or not.”

“Good. I think I’m hungry after all. Did you want to eat up here, or should

I set up the TV trays downstairs?”

“Do I have a choice? Oh, sure. We can eat downstairs. I’d like to know

who we bombed today.”

Fifteen minutes later, Daniel came down to the rec room carrying two

plates loaded with fettuccine and salad.

“Thank you,” said Zack. “Smells good.”

“Does it need more salt?”

“Oh no. It’s perfect.”

They sat side by side on the couch, eating pasta and watching war, first on

PBS, then on al-Jazeera.

It was Ross who had told them that BBC America showed a full hour of

the Arab news channel every night. What was censored on U.S. television was

available here, while what one saw in American broadcasts was often missing

on al-Jazeera. There were probably only a handful of people in town who reg-

ularly visited the enemy’s favorite station, but watching Arab TV had become

a private act of protest. And, as Daniel pointed out, al-Jazeera was the only

place where one regularly saw handsome, well-spoken Muslim men.

Tonight was a typical broadcast: There was a tour of a shelled village but

no corpses. The channel was notorious for showing dead bodies, Iraqi and

American, but bodies were actually rare. An old Iraqi woman stood in front

of her flattened house, screaming at the camera while an Englishwoman’s

voice coolly translated her words: “My children and grandchildren are dead.

I call upon God to destroy the people who did this to us.”

“This makes all other troubles look like nothing,” said Daniel.

“Yes and no. It makes other troubles look small. But it doesn’t mean we

don’t have to deal with them.” Zack hesitated. Should they address their

troubles tonight? No, not yet. “But it’s something people like about war. It

simplifies life. They don’t have to ask themselves hard questions anymore. All

they need to do is hate the enemy.”

“Is that what you told your Christian lady?”

“No. But I don’t think I could’ve.”

E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a

3 6 5

A Saudi journalist politely questioned an American official who grew more

and more irritated. The Arabic lettering along the bottom of the screen, an

elaborate pattern of fishhooks and umlauts, reminded Zack of Abbas’s paint-

ings.

Daniel must’ve been thinking something similar because he suddenly said,

“I wonder if they’re watching this.”

Zack didn’t need to ask who. “Ross says al-Jazeera is banned in Iran but

people still get it on satellite dishes.”

“Do you think we’ll ever hear from them again?”

“I don’t know. But I hope so. One day.”

Neither man looked at the other, only at the screen.

In a street in Kuwait, a half dozen women in black chadors stood in front

of a camera and expressed their hatred of both Saddam Hussein and the

United States. They looked as anonymous as penguins, yet Zack knew each

woman had a distinct history and point of view hidden under her uniform

garb.

“Why did she do it?” Zack suddenly said. “That’s what I want to know.