What he felt for her? Well, he'd never plainly said. His upbringing wouldn't permit it yet. Yet in his every action he proclaimed love. He was putting up with posing for her, after all, even though he hated it.
"I still feel ridiculous," he said, even while putting up with the pose for the sake of love.
"It's for art," she insisted. "You'll be famous."
"I don't want to be famous. And my mother will have a stroke if she sees."
"Your mother is kept in purdah, veiled and without a television," Gabrielle countered. "She buys no books; she can't even read. She'll never see."
Mahmoud sighed. When an argument was lost, it was lost. "At least turn on the television so I can keep my mind busy."
That seemed fair. Gabrielle walked over and turned on the TV. When the screen cleared, she and Mahmoud saw what appeared to be a major protest in Paris. It soon became clear that the protest was over a recent French decision to ban the wear of hijab in schools. There were at least two German states, or Länder, that were considering similar measures.
"That's just so wrong," Gabrielle said.
Mahmoud disagreed. Shaking his head firmly, he said, "It's not wrong, though it might be pointless and it might turn out to be a mistake. Trust me; I know my people. Any toe in the door you give them they will exploit ruthlessly. Any concession you make will convince them you are weak and lead only to demands for ever greater concessions. Which you'll give because making the concession in the first place showed that you were weak; that, or stupid, which amounts to the same thing.
"That said, the only thing worse than making a concession is first making a show of strength and defiance and then backing down. That will convince my people that you are both stupid and weak. And I'm not sure the French will understand that . . . or understand that, once having taken their stand, they can't ever back off from it. You're making some of the same mistakes here, with your publicly funded mosques."
"Oh, hell, Mahmoud, that's ridiculous!" Gabrielle exclaimed. "To think that a few little headscarves are going to bring about the collapse of the Republic of France. To think that treating Turks here with some decency is going to ruin Germany."
"It's not the symbols, Gabi, it's what the symbols do to the minds of men, how they affect the cost-benefit calculus, and where they indicate the direction of movement is."
"I still think it's ridiculous to think that a minority population— what is it in France? Five percent? Ten?—is going to overthrow the country."
"Probably closer to ten percent," Mahmoud said, "Eight, at least. But it's a population that's young and growing." He stopped for a moment and asked, "Gabrielle, how many brothers and sisters do you have?"
"None, as you well know."
"First cousins?"
"Two."
"And the typical French artiste has but few more. The same for the Italians, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Belgians, the Dutch, the Scandinavians, the—"
"What's your point? The world can't support more."
Mahmoud gestured with his chin at the television, the screen of which showed thousands upon thousands of young women and girls, each wearing at least hijab, and many in burkas. "Tell them that. Those girls will be married by the time they're eighteen, sixteen or seventeen for some of them. They will pump out four or even five children each. The half of those children who are girls will do the same. In a hundred years, if things don't change, one Moslem women will have increased her gene pool—more importantly, her religious and cultural pool—at least thirty-two times over. Still more girls come in illegally from overseas and are entered into arranged, often polygamous marriages. Maybe they'll have fewer children, sharing a husband; maybe they won't, either. But from the point of view of the imams, it's all good, all free increase in the numbers of the faithful, here, on the battlefield they believe matters."
"You can't know that that will happen," she countered.
Mahmoud shook his head, sadly. "No, I can't know. But that's the way to bet it."
He thought about it for a minute and then announced, "Tell you what, Gabi. This Friday, we're going to drape you in a burka—don't worry, I'll buy it; they're already very easy to find here now. Then you and I are going to a mosque, one that preaches in German. I want you to hear what the people you're defending say about you."
Chapter Four
"These Germans, these atheists, these Europeans don't shave under their arms and their sweat collects under their hair with a revolting smell and they stink. Hell lives for the infidels! Down with all democracies and all democrats!"
—Imam Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah Al-Amari,
Preaching the Friday sermon in a Berlin Mosque, 2006
Kitznen, Province of Affrankon, 25 Jumahdi I, 1531 AH
(18 May, 2107)
It wasn't all, nor even mostly, fun and games and learning to read and shopping. Petra was still a slave, and as such, she had work to do.
The work was easy, not least because Besma, though not at all a slave, was required to do as much or, because she was older, more. Indeed, much of Besma's work involved teaching Petra how to perform domestic duties.
Often, even the work was fun and games. Two girls, who truly care for each other, can turn a broom and dustbin into tools for a game of an odd kind of catch.
"Enough silliness!" Petra felt the switch of Abdul Mohsem's current wife, Al Khalifa, across her back as she lined up the dustbin for Besma to slide a pile of dirt towards. "You're a slave, Nazrani slut; act like it."
"Bitch!" Besma whispered after her stepmother had left the room. She had to whisper it. While she was pretty sure the mutaween would not molest the daughter of Abdul Mohsem, she knew for a fact that al Khalifa could punish her slave with impunity. She ran and knelt by Petra, who was crying with her face in the dirt. Besma lifted the slave girl's head, pressing it in to the juncture of her own neck and shoulder. "Bitch!" she repeated. "If she's cut you, I swear I'll kill her."
"She . . . didn't," Petra sniffled. "I'm all right."
"Her father had a Nazrani slave girl he preferred to her mother," Besma said. "That's why she hates the Nazrani. But I think she hates almost everyone. She surely hates me but can't do anything about it."
Besma had a horrible thought. Except she can get to me through you. She kept the thought to herself for now.
"What happened to your mother?" Petra asked.
Besma sighed. "She died, giving birth to me. My father said she didn't have to, that if the American devils weren't so cheap with their medicine she could have lived. It's why I hate them; because I never knew my mother. And instead got stuck with that bitch—already with a son from a prior marriage to a man who divorced her and wanted nothing to do with their rotter of a child—because my father wanted me to have a mother."
USAF TCA (Troop Carrier Airship) Retaliation, over the ruins of central Kansas City, Missouri, 19 May, 2107