He said, "It was a demon. Momentary weakness. Please. It was not my fault."
Adem turned to the driver. "What…why? What did they do?"
The driver crossed his arms, leaned down and spoke low. "The girl, she accuses this man of raping her. He is a friend of her father. But the court says she allowed the situation to occur. She was alone with him in a car."
"How is that possible? She caused her own rape? Was she not dressed?"
That got Adem the stink eye from the driver. "Does not matter."
"Sure, it matters. How can it not matter?"
Jibriil nudged Adem. "It's just how it is. That's the law."
The driver nodded. "The law."
The driver pointed to a young man in the crowd. Grim-looking. Hard grip on a stone. "That is one of her brothers. Her father is here too."
Adem was about to say more, but Jibriil nudged him again, eyebrows knotted. Like, what are you doing? Stop asking questions.
The driver said, "God's law. We can't question it. We just have to fulfill it."
Another man on the edge of the crowd stood out. Wearing a white koofiyad on his head, with dark sunglasses, and a shawl over the shoulders of his western suit. Gray. White button-up shirt, no tie. Men stared at him with outright love. Crowded close. The man had a peaceful look on his face.
The driver nodded in his direction. Wouldn't point. Told Adem, "The Imam. He was the judge who ruled on this case."
His hands together, fingers clasped. He wouldn't get them dirty with a stone. That wasn't his place. But everything happened on his schedule, his word. The man with the bullhorn was paying close attention to the soft-spoken man, whose voice was lost in the rustling.
Adem looked at the girl in the ground. She was looking right at him. He blinked. Looked away. Then back. Still staring. Lips tight. No signs of tears, wet or dried. No fear at all. Anger, more like it. Adem thought he could read her mind: This? My life for you, Allah, and I'm being killed for this? What he did to me?
What could he say? Anything? He mouthed I'm sorry. Then felt foolish. Couldn't dare look at her anymore. He hoped no one saw what he'd done.
When it began, Adem was surprised. He wasn't standing in a blood-thirsty mob. These weren't hooligans flinging stones for fun. They took it seriously. They aimed. The man's screams, then the girl's, finally breaking down as the stones rained. Dull thuds. Stone on bone. Adem wondered if he could drop his and no one would notice. But there was the driver behind him, shoving him on the shoulder. "Go on! Now!"
More and more stones. Where were they all coming from? Arcing from the back of the crowd or fastballing in from closer. Larger than Adem's. Huge, jagged white things the size of footballs. Adem wrenched his arm back. The man. Aiming for the man. That made it better. The man was a rapist. He deserved it. Deserved to die. Horribly. Back in the States, they'd send him to prison. Back in the States the girl would be a victim, not a conspirator. Shit. What would his ethics professor think of him right about now?
Ready to let loose.
All for the cause, remember. Like Jibriil had said-if we don't win, then our homeland descends further into hell. It needs peace. It needs justice. It needs God.
Adem flung the rock. It sailed past the man and kept going. A good toss in baseball, a terrible one for a stoning.
Someone handed him another stone. They were pressing tight from all around. He flung that one, too, and missed again. The noise in the crowd was bubbling up. Each rock that connected unleashed another howl from the damned until they had no strength left in their lungs. Bloody. Bruised. Arms broken, fingers gnarled, heads starting to swell, shiny welts as the skin tightened. Adem watched the crowd instead. Barely noticed Jibriil had already thrown a few. He told Adem, "Watch how I do it." Much closer than when they had started. The girl, a rag doll. Jibriil lifted the stone over his head and brought it down, cracking her shoulder.
Adem closed his eyes before impact, but the sound. Louder than he had expected. Then he blinked, adjusted to the blinding sun, and saw that the man must have already been dead, as he was slumped over with half his skull caved in, thin blood spilling onto the ground below like a leaky faucet. Eyes still open.
The rain of stones ceased. Adem squinted, found the Imam. He had held up his hands. He ordered a couple of men to check the bodies. They wore stethoscopes. Doctors? Really? They did their duty, kneeling and checking the obviously dead man's vital signs, pulse, even a breath test with a small mirror. The doctors stood and nodded. On to the girl. They knelt, placed the stethoscope on her back. One shook his head.
"She's still alive."
Adem thought, so, does that mean she can go free? Or at least a little jail time? Did they even have prisons for women? Take her to the hospital?
He got his answer when the doctors backed out of the way and several of the boys in red scarves around their heads crowded closer. Adem grabbed Jibriil by the collar, got him to meet his eyes. Unsaid: This is wrong. As loudly as Adem could say it through his eyes alone.
Jibriil adjusted his neck, reached for Adem's hand and plucked it off his shirt like a bug. A hard look, lips on the verge of curling. Adem pushed away, forced his way through the maze of solider boys, so many of them tall and thin, towering over him like trees, to the back of the crowd. Broke free into the pitch. Open air. Hands on his hips, taking deep breaths like he'd run a marathon. What he hadn't counted on was how much louder the stones sounded back here, echoing across the empty stadium time and time again like the worst deja vu. He wanted to cover his ears. He couldn't do that in front of this crowd. The men with shovels were still on standby. Adem didn't want to be next.
FOUR
The woman in charge of the International Student Program at the University had tired eyes. She sat forward in her chair, tense. But so tired. Ray Bleeker wondered if she had slept last night. God knew he sure as hell hadn't. Maybe sometime around four or five he'd dozed off, because that's when he saw Cindy alive and pregnant and happy. Not like the body he'd seen the night before-dead and cold and one eye blown clear out of her skull.
He seen Poulson, too. His chest and gut like a water balloon popped by several pins. Too cold to bleed. The doc said he was probably still alive when the bastards killed Cindy, listening but unable to do a damned thing, his lungs already half full of blood.
The ISP woman, Eileen Gromen, had short red hair and if she wasn't sitting like so, her feet wouldn't touch the floor. She also cursed a lot more than you'd expect from a college administrator.
"Fucking nerve, that's all. I've got enough problems with the Nepalese. They heard they can come over here, get visas, driver's licenses, get a bank account, and then move to the goddamned Cities. We take them in like, shit, like they're going to stay four years. All our efforts, all the recruiting, then they get here and screw us. Never had any problems with the Kenyans, the Somalis. Hell, none of our Somalis are even internationals anymore. All from Minneapolis. One's local, his family's been here, shit, like five, six years."
"How many Somali students attend the school?"
She shrugged. "Last I counted, maybe five."
He had to remember to stay on track, not wander off, not get preoccupied with thoughts of the funeral. Talking to her parents. Having to explain. "So, with Adem, you had no clue. Nothing to indicate that he had problems?"
"He was an angel. A fucking angel. Unless it was all an act. Isn't that the way it usually happens? They gain your trust, then bomb your ass. I would've sworn Adem wasn't like that."