KATHLEEN ANTRIM
With her speculative thriller Capital Offense, Kathleen Antrim leveraged an intimate knowledge of today’s political landscape to send tremors through the Washington beltway and her readers. Unafraid of ruffling feathers attached to some very powerful government arms, Kathleen’s work as an award-winning journalist gave her a firsthand look at the mechanisms of official power, and insight into where they might steer our future.
A dystopian tomorrow is under investigation in “Through a Veil Darkly,” a timely story that taps into our secret fears and hidden biases. Kathleen shows us how a tense political climate can evolve into an environment where even murder can be justified and patriotic.
THROUGH A VEIL DARKLY
It’s time to kill my husband. Izaan Bekkar. The forty-eighth president of the United States.
I suppose assassination is the correct term. No matter. It’s my responsibility. Once done, I’ll be a hero. Go figure. Only in America, where killing for religious reasons is deemed sacrilegious. Hypocrites, every damn one of them.
I’m alone now, sitting in my room. Outside, trees bare as brooms claw at my window, just as Izaan’s deception scrapes at my raw conscience. A winter wind rattles the thick pane of glass. My only comfort comes from thoughts of retribution and the monotonous drip…drip…drip of a leaky faucet. I’ve listened to that torturous sound ever since Izaan locked me up. It’s all I have for entertainment. I’ve noticed that its pitch is different at night—more baritone—than in the afternoon, when the water sings like a soprano.
Interesting what we notice when alone.
A digital clock reads 4:49 a.m.
Eleven minutes before the morning call to prayer. Five hours and eleven minutes before my meeting with Dr. Truman North. Fourteen hours and eleven minutes until lights out and another sleepless night.
There are people, like the self-righteous Dr. North, who want me to accept their version of my predicament. But I silently refuse, and play along. I’ll do anything to guarantee my release from this hell.
The key is the burqa.
My life didn’t start in a burqa.
But it may end in one.
I stood backstage, listening, wearing a navy St. John suit that Izaan bought for me.
“America is on the brink of destruction,” Izaan boomed to a packed auditorium.
Network and cable news cameras focused on his keen blue eyes and crisp, angular features. “Global warming. Oil dependence. Nuclear war. America needs leadership she can believe in.”
Izaan ran his life and his campaign on high-octane fear. Constituents guzzled his message. When he swerved for emphasis, they leaned into his turn. He’d brake for effect, and they’d relax. He’d race his cadence, their hearts seemed to pound.
“That’s why, at your insistence, I’m announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.”
The crowd roared their approval.
He beamed, pausing for effect, his ego swelling from their admiration. Like a snake charmer he wooed them, just as he’d wooed me years before.
After a few moments, the crowd calmed.
“It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to the love of my life. My wife. My partner. Sylvia Bekkar.”
I dutifully walked onto the stage and gripped his hand. Strobes flashed. He raised our clasped fingers high in the air. My heart soared at his touch. Gentle and loving. Together we left the stage and greeted constituents at the rope line. Afterward, as I tumbled over the edge of false impressions into a cold reality, staffers swept me out of the way.
“You ooze charisma,” the campaign manager told Izaan, patting him on the back.
I watched as Izaan pushed past him and headed for the campaign bus. And so it went, stop after stop, month after month. Izaan’s poll numbers rose. My spirits fell. Slowly, Izaan’s mask of confident composure shattered under the pressure. Nervous glances over his shoulder escalated once we were issued Secret Service.
“Get them away from me,” he ordered, pointing at the agents posted outside the campaign bus. “I don’t need government spies watching my every move.”
“They’re here for your protection,” an advisor said.
Izaan leveled him with a glare. “I know their claims. I also know the truth.”
The campaign manager pulled Izaan inside the bus. “Are you all right?”
Izaan held up a document. “You hand me sacrilege like this and call it a speech?” He tore it in two. “Then you ask if I’m all right? Leave, before I fire you.”
Drunk on the prospect of riding their horse into the White House, the staff attributed Izaan’s outbursts to exhaustion.
“I don’t care what the hell you need to do, just get him through the election,” I overheard the campaign manager say to a deputy. “We’ll deal with him after November.”
Fools.
A day later, we were back home for a night. I entered Izaan’s bedroom to check on him, determined to show him that I cared, that I wanted to be a part of his life. Our life.
He emerged from his bathroom wearing only a towel. “What are you doing in here? Snooping around?”
“I—”
He grabbed a handful of my red hair. “Filthy American whore. Tempting me. Is this what you want?” He dropped his towel, revealing his naked muscular frame. “Is it?”
I said nothing.
He yanked my head back, his face inches from mine. “You want to know my secrets.”
I fought against crying. “You’re hurting me.”
“What are you?” he asked in a voice as soft as a caress.
“Please. I love—”
He jerked my hair again.
I grabbed his arm. “I’m a—”
“Say it.”
“Filthy whore.” I spit the words at him. “I’m a filthy whore.”
“This is what happens to whores.”
He shoved me facedown on the bed. I scrambled for safety. He caught my foot, knocked me to the floor, then wrenched my nightgown up over my head, tangling my face and arms in the silk, pinning me down.
A knock on the door. “You all right, sir?”
Secret Service.
Izaan slammed his palm over my mouth.
I writhed for air.
“Leave me be,” Izaan yelled.
Footsteps retreated.
He held me down, thrusting his hatred into me. For days afterward, my body ached and his words replayed in my mind like a stale song. I’d seen his anger before. Felt its wrath. But this was different, raw and exposed.
Drip…drip…drip.
I plotted to leave him. Later. After the campaign. He was under so much pressure. He didn’t mean it. He loved me. Needed me. I couldn’t leave. A continuous loop of rationalization circled around my mind coming back to the same awful conclusion. He was the force that held my world together, and without him, I’d spin out of control.
“‘You may hate a thing although it is good for you, and love a thing although it is bad for you,’” Izaan would say.
I didn’t know from where the quote originated, but it nagged at me, made me wonder.
November loomed.
Izaan won.
Nonstop news coverage of the most recent beheading in the Middle East wound my anxiety into a tangled knot. Forty-eight hours after the election, Izaan’s staff showed up at our home. Izaan jerked me to my feet, his fingers digging into my arm. He turned me to face men I’d never seen before and insisted that I look them in the eye.
“‘Men have status above women.’” Another of those quotes. “‘Good women are obedient.’”
“What are you talking about?”
With forefinger and thumb, he wrenched my chin around to face his all-male staff. I dropped my gaze. He smiled. Then he ordered them to scour our home, to cleanse it of the world of the infidel. Nothing unclean would follow us to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Infidel? I’d never heard him utter this word before.