The Circle

excerpt

Always remember that, no matter what happens. Give my warmest wishes and
appreciation to William, who has stood by your side all these years. He has
disagreed, as have you, with the way my path has led me, but he has never uttered
one word of criticism, one word of scolding.
Dear Evelyn, you have been right all along; I just didn’t want to allow such a
thought to enter my world for all this time. One simply cannot keep on killing people
with the hope of eradicating the enemy, when it’s we who have created that enemy
all along. War never solves world problems; war creates a lot more. You have been
right all along. I love you dearly. Bevan.”
He folds the letter and writes his sister’s address on the envelope. He will mail it
fromhis office at the agency. Bevan Longhornmuch feels lighter and happier now.

---

The following morning, after breakfast with Ibrahim and Mara, Emily and Talal
get ready to visit his family. Rassan comes with the car and Mara gives Emily two
headscarves.
“Thank you very much,” Emily responds.
They climb into the car and start on their way to Falluza; it’s a beautiful day.
Since it is Sunday, with less traffic on the roads, they should arrive in under an
hour, Rassan tells them. Outside the city of Baghdad, they can see to the horizon,
as the sunshine gives them unlimited views. They see dunes of sand hills and
small desert shrubbery here and there, but mostly sun and sand. Since they are
on the main road connecting Baghdad with Falluza, they pass a few cars. Before
the war, there were more than half a million inhabitants in Falluza, but now they
estimate that number to be around three hundred thousand; yet, a lot of people
still return in droves as the rebuilding continues.
They pass through a couple of small villages, and although they’re on the
highway and a certain distance from the houses, they can still see the scars of war
throughout the area. Many homes still have holes in the walls and a lot of damage.
They also see groups of workers here and there rebuilding and cleaning.
Emily is so absorbed in all these new sights that she doesn’t notice Talal’s
teary eyes as he thinks of his family.
They arrive in Falluza about an hour after leaving Baghdad. This city is
located on the Euphrates River, about seventy kilometers to the west of the Iraqi
capital, and is the capital city of the province of Al Anbar. Historically, it goes
back to the Babylonian era, and because it has more than 200 mosques, it’s called
the City of Mosques. In Arabic the name Falluza means “arable land”. In the old
days, Falluza hosted one of the most important Jewish Academies called
Pulbedita Academy. During the years of Saddam Hussein, it was one of the…

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The Circle

excerpt

Look after him as you would a younger brother; keep him out of this affair with
Bevan. I don’t want any implications for him, or you, or any of my boys,” Ibrahim
stresses once more.
“I know, my uncle; he has been always looked after, since day one. Haven’t I
done well in that respect, so far?”
“Yes, you have, Talal. I appreciate that very much. That boy is my dearest
son; if anything happened to him it would be devastating for Mara and me,”
Ibrahim’s eyes get teary.
Talal notices this and tries to assure him that nothing will ever happen to
Hakim as long as he’s around. After all, he thinks of him as his younger brother
in the same way that he thinks of his little brother in Falluza. Talal promises
nothing will ever happen to Hakim. Then his mind turns to Falluza and he asks if
there’s any news from his sister and brother. He asks Ibrahim what has happened
with his old house.
“As far as I know, nothing has been done with the house, but your brother
and sister are well and they live with your grandfather. Life there is slowly getting
back to normal; don’t forget Falluza is the place where the most serious
resistance to the Americans started and that’s why it’s the last place to be rebuilt.
That is how things work here; nobody cares to start rebuilding Falluza when
there’re so many other places that have priority. In any case, things are slowly
getting back to normal, even in Falluza.”
“I would like to go visit my siblings, tomorrow, or the next day perhaps.”
“Don’t forget, you don’t go anywhere without Rassan or Abdul or both of them.
Security is still a problem here. When you are in the market-place please advise Emily
to wear a headscarf and be presentable to our customs.” Ibrahim cautions him.
“I know, my uncle, thank you for your concern. Is security a big problem
still? After all these years, is there still a lot of infighting and disagreement?”
“Yes, so many years have gone by since the war ended, yet we still have
problems with security; on the other hand, don’t forget we have always had
problems and sectarianism in this country. Saddam with his iron fist controlled
the people for years, but he used fear. This is the price of democracy, my dear
boy. When you let people be free, it means you allow them to tell you how they
feel; they’re allowed to do as they like within the boundaries of the law, of course.
Yet, that is freedom, and it is as hard to deal with as it was to deal with the whims
and tyranny of Saddam Hussein.”
At about 11 Emily and Talal go upstairs to sleep for the night.

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Poodie James

Excerpt

once in a while. We worked it out.”
Poodie, nodded, smiled and settled back.
“Home. That’s good,” he grunted. It took Fred a few seconds to
piece together the distorted syllables
“Learned that,” Engine Fred said. “Home is good.”
They fell into the comfort of a long silence.
“It’s so transparent, so obvious,” Sonny Stone told his mother.
“Torgerson is trying to drum up an issue, bring attention to himself
with this hobo thing. That’s plain enough. What I don’t understand
is what he hopes to gain by going after Poodie James. If
Poodie has other enemies, who could they be?”
Winifred Stone stood at her office window in The Dispatch
watching cars go in and out of the hotel garage on the corner. She
thought of her conversation with Angie Karn.
“He seems to have friends all over town, all kinds,” she said. “The
mayor thinks he can tar Poodie with the hobo brush. In a funny way,
Poodie’s joining the hobo in that rescue might helpTorgerson’s cause.
It’s hard for me to believe that people think much about hobos one
way or the other around here, but it wouldn’t be the first time a politician
was able to get the populace stirred up about an imaginary
threat. Demagoguery works.”
She turned to Sonny.
“The question is, what is our responsibility in this situation? We
said we’d keep an eye on it. So far we have covered a meeting in
which the mayor urged the council to take action. The council
called for a hearing, but didn’t set a date. The mayor is drumming
up support. Nothing illegal, or even untoward, there, but I can’t
avoid the suspicion that Torgerson is doing more, doing something
sleazy. What are we looking into? Who’s on the story?”
“Ned Pease and Earl Potter are trying to pick up what they can
on their rounds at city hall and the courthouse,” the managing editor
said. “So far, there’s not much. Earl says he saw Chief Spanger
and the D.A. huddling in front of the courthouse this afternoon.
He asked Paul Williams what it was about. The D.A. told him…

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In the Quiet After Slaughter

excerpt

Momacted up in public she crossed one of these invisible demarcations.
We’d find her suicide notes magnetized to the fridge door
like shopping lists. Rough drafts, she called them. At the end of one
such letter, as though the deed had been accomplished, shewrote, I
was bored.
Asked what was stopping her from carrying out the threat, she
replied, Have you seen the price of natural gas lately?
The procedure was always the same: as soon as she began behaving
strangely, the cops were notified; an ambulance followed. A caring
social worker wrote a lengthy report.
We knew when it was time. Mom hid behind the curtains and
spied on passersby. School kids jeered. Eventually she would do
something deemed a danger to herself or others — the line. Cops
were alerted; an ambulance followed. A caring social worker wrote
a lengthy report.
Doctors began with pills. None worked. Electric shock therapy—
Edison medicine — did. A psychiatrist at the bughouse called us in
for a chat after the first session. He directed us to the patients’
lounge. We found Mom playing Scrabble.
– I haven’t felt this good in years! she beamed. She was unrecognizably
radiant. We gathered her things.
My father wanted to believe his wife had been cured; we all did.
The doctor did nothing to dissuade us. But the electrical charge had
the lasting power of a flashlight battery. My mother’s sanity waned
like the trailing notes of an orchestra. Follow-up drugs gave her the
shakes. She soon stopped taking them.
– I’m fine now, she declared. A-okay.
But she wasn’t A-okay. There was a look . . . that look. She slipped
away from us incrementally. In time, she was gone for good.
Exhausted from their shopping spree, Mr. and Mrs. Cameron turn in
early. Lenore stays up with us, bravely trading a tent shaking with
snores for the certain terror of being left alone with her brother.
Larry pelts his sister with marshmallows.
– Stop it! she cries.
– Make me, he challenges.
– I’m telling!
– You’ll die.

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Poodie James

excerpt

He studied the chief’s face. “You’re not joking.”
“He came right next door to ordering me to arrest Poodie and
this guy called Engine Fred on suspicion of vandalism or sabotage
or something, anything to get them in jail.”
“Oh,” Williams said, “oh, of course. I mean, I figured it was just
a piece of Torgerson craziness, that business about rounding up all
the hobos and running them out of town. Does this have something
to do with that?”
“Looks that way to me.”
They watched two old men arrive at a table three trees away and
set up their checker game.
“The law,” Spanger said.” is that a police officer can make an
arrest without a warrant if he has probable cause to believe that
someone has committed a felony. I’m no lawyer, but I don’t think
the mayor telling me ‘do it’ is probable cause.”
“I don’t think so either, Darwin. Unless there is hard evidence,
this arrest wouldn’t stand up. I’m certainly not going to file an
information without evidence, and it doesn’t look to me like grand
jury material. But maybe Torgerson’s onto something, knows
something you don’t. Maybe he has the goods on these crooks.”
“Now who’s joking? I don’t think it matters to him whether the
charges stick. He wants to harass the hobos and Poodie, and he
probably thinks that if an arrest makes it into the newspaper and
onto the radio, folks will wonder if maybe there isn’t something to
this hobo threat after all.”
They looked at the checker players. One of the old men was
cackling in glee as the other kinged him.
“Pretty early in the game for that,” Williams said. “He’s not up
for reelection for a year. It doesn’t look to me like an issue, but it
may be a mistake to underestimate peoples’ willingness to be scared
by what they don’t understand. Back to the train wreck. Is there
anything to suggest that it wasn’t an accident?”
“The Great Northern guys are down there now. They brought
an inspector over from Spokane. I’m going to see them at three
o’clock. Torgerson wants an arrest today.”

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