"Never mind," he interrupted. The look of wry amusement disappeared. "I can't care because I can't do anything about any of it. What the Americans don't know, though, is that neither can they. The Arab world is a mess… beyond redemption. There is nothing anyone can do to change it. All you can hope for is to escape. That's why I came here. I don't even want to be an Arab anymore."
"You are Arab?" Gabrielle asked. "I would have thought Turkish."
He shook his head. "No, not a Turk. I'm from Egypt."
Ah, well, that was okay. Gabrielle hadn't known many Egyptians but those she had known seemed among the gentlest and most reasonable of people.
"Moslem, though?" she asked, eyeing the beer.
The wry smile returned as Mahmoud put out one hand, palm down and just above the beer, and wagged it. "If so, not much of one," he shrugged.
Egypt… Egypt. There was a beautiful actor from Egypt… very famous. What was that man's name? He looked a little like this one, too.
Which prompted another thought. "I don't even know your name," she said, which was not strictly true. On the other hand, asking was a way to be friendly.
"Mahmoud," the Egyptian answered. "Mahmoud al Beshay. And…?"
"Gabrielle von Minden."
Mahmoud raised an eyebrow. "Ohhh… a 'von.'"
"Not the way you say it. 'Von' hardly means a thing anymore for ninety percent of the people who have it. And for the other ten percent… to hell with them. I'm an artist, not an aristocrat."
Mahmoud shrugged. "I'm just a waiter, but I hope to be something more someday. The problem though, is that while I came here to escape, I think I am still stuck with the Bedouin curse."
Gabi raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Curse?" she asked.
"We flee the desert, but we bring it with us wherever we go. I, and many like me, flee the restraints of Islam, yet we bring it with us, wherever we go."
Chapter Three
Narrated Ibn Abbas:
My mother and I were among the weak and oppressed. I from among the children, and my mother from among the women.
– Imam Muhammad Ibn Ismail Ibn Ibrahim
Ibn al-Mughirah Ibn Bardiziyeh, al-Bukhari
Kitznen, Affrankon, 7 Shawwal,
1530 AH (6 October, 2106)
"Ooo, I almost forgot!" Besma exclaimed. Arms flying, she raced for her burka, lying on a carved wooden trunk on the opposite side of the room from her bed. She'd concealed the book Hans had given her in the burka's folds.
Petra, still clutching her rag doll to her breast, looked on in curiosity until Besma produced the book. "I can't read," she said. "My brother was trying to teach me but we hadn't gotten very far."
"I know. I can teach you. I'd like to teach you."
"You can read?" Petra asked, wonder in her voice. "I thought that Muslim girls were forbidden to learn to read."
Besma nodded. "Some are forbidden, but it's by their families, or sometimes by the local emirs and sheiks, not by the Quran. My father says that that's wrong, that it's 'improper and impious.' But a lot of people-maybe even most-still forbid their daughters an education in anything but managing a home and family. Some do other things to girls and those my father says are worse than impious. He says they're an 'abomination.'"
"What things?" Petra asked
"You don't want to know. Come on," Besma changed the subject, "let's see what new clothes we can put on your dolly."
Besma and Petra leaned against cushions set up against the wall between Besma's bed and her trunk. It was very late and so Besma had a small lamp lit, set into the wall behind them. The flickering flame of the lamp would have made reading the hand-scrawled words in the journal next to impossible except that the writing was so firm and fine. Whoever had written those words must have had very fine motor control of her hands.
"I can't understand any of it," Petra said, her head hanging with shame.
"We'll work on that later. For now, let's just look at the pictures."
"Pictures?"
"Yes. Hand-drawn ones. Whoever wrote this was really good with a pencil. I wish I could draw like that but-"
"-but?"
"A lot of the pictures are of people… and animals. We can't draw those. The mutawa would cut your skilled hand off if you tried. And even for having them… " Besma shuddered.
"What?" Petra asked. "What's wrong? And what are the mutawa?"
"You don't see them out of the Moslem towns and cities. The mutawa are the police for the prevention of vice and the promotion of virtue. Nobody controls them. My father says that they're lunatics who push everything Allah commanded to the point their rules sicken Allah. For having pictures of living things they'll beat you within an inch of your life. For having pictures like some of the ones drawn in this book they might kill us." Besma suddenly looked shamefaced. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I looked in the book on the way back from your family's… house."
"Show me," Petra said.
Private Rodger W. Young Range, Fort Benning, Georgia,
10 November, 2106
"Dressed to kill," Hamilton judged as he inspected Hodge's suit. She, and he, and the other two-hundred-and-ten members of the class, were in full up armor. This meant that, besides the close-fitting helmet and facial armor cum thermal imager, the neck was protected by a circular guard augmented by woven, silica-impregnated aramid cloth. The torso was covered front and back with four-millimeter liquid metal alloy, below which was a bell-shaped hip-and-groin guard, while greaves and thigh protectors curved from the back of the exoskeleton to encompass those appendages. On the back was worn the pack that provided power, filtered air, cooled or heated the suit wearer, and held the computer that maintained life support and controlled the suit based on physical and verbal commands given by the wearer. Over all were attached various packs and pouches, weapons and sensors.
It had been sixty years since the first practical suit had been developed. In the intervening time some improvements had been made, notably to endurance and coordination, without substantially changing the layout and structure of the suit.
Hamilton inspected digitally, visually and physically. "You're getting a subnominal reading on your left femoral forward pluscle, Laurie. Have the armorer check it after the exercise." He checked in part by having Hodge have her suit do certain things-"Eyes left… Eyes right… good… Deep knee bends… good… Left arm pushup… good… Right arm pushup… good… Jump… Jump… Jump… good… Run in place… good… good… hmmm… Have the armorer calibrate the gyro… seems a little off…" Beyond that, he ran an analysis cable from his own suit, already checked by the platoon leader for the exercise, to hers.
"I feel more like I'm dressed for a funeral, and wearing the coffin," Hodge said.
"Coffin" was a pretty apt description, and not your cheap pine coffin, either. No, no; this coffin was the deluxe solid bronze job. All told, between the exoskeleton itself (one hundred and forty-seven pounds, including plastic musculature, or pluscle), the armor (one hundred and twenty-three pounds), power and control pack (sixty- two pounds), weapons, ammunition, communications gear, imaging gear, sensors… all in all, it came to just about a quarter of a ton. Add in the one hundred and fifteen pound woman (from eating upwards of ten-thousand calories a day she'd put back most of the twenty-five pounds she'd lost in Ranger School by this time, and even managed to reinflate her breasts) and it amounted to quite a weight. Fortunately, the suit was modular and no single piece (except for the Exo, itself, which could be moved by attaching oneself to it) was so heavy that two fit women couldn't lift and attach it.
And that was for a size small suit. Hamilton's weighed almost a hundred pounds more, having larger pluscles and power pack, and more, but not thicker, armor.
Hamilton checked one last item on his heads-up display and announced, "You can inflate now, Laurie."