Chapter 36
1991
Aaliya awoke as though coming out of a hypnotic trance, and suddenly she was no longer Masuma but herself and it was no longer 1928 but 1991. She had thought Zain was going to train someone to play Doc, but he hadn't, for in front of her was the diminutive man himself - and he had that knowing little smile on his face. Everything had been played out as it had happened, nothing had changed with the passage of time.
On that night in 1928, Masuma had shot Doc and severed his spinal cord, yet for two years he'd managed to keep secret the fact that he was crippled before he told the world that he had been hurt in a car accident. Masuma had taken away his mobility and she'd taken away all the money Half Hand, acting under Doc's orders, had stolen from Scalpini. Doc, already eaten with hatred of Masuma for betraying him, made it his life's quest to kill her and anyone who knew anything about her. In 1964, when he'd seen the photo of Masuma with her granddaughter, apparently happy, he'd nearly gone berserk. His mistake had been in calling her to threaten her. By the time he sent a killer for her, she had already left Louisville.
By 1975, his days of power were on the wane so he'd sent a man to Louisville to find out if Masuma's family knew anything about Half Hand's missing money - his money.
Now, knowing all of this, Aaliya found herself standing in front of the shrunken man sitting in his wheelchair - and there was a gun in her hand. At this range, whether the gun was loaded with blanks or live bullets, if she shot him, she'd kill him. Up until now she'd seen him as an old man, but now she saw the man who had mowed down a nightclub full of people to get to the man who'd impregnated "his" girl. She saw the man who, in order to gain control of illegal liquor sales, had killed his own men, blaming it on another mob boss.
"You killed a man who loved you more than he loved his own life," Aaliya whispered, speaking of Half Hand. "You've murdered anyone who has ever tried to care about you. Has it been worth it? Now you sit here, an unloved old man, alone and lonely, and there isn't a person in the world who cares about you. You were crippled by your own greed. Has all the money been worth the pain?"
Doc laughed at her as though she were a simpleton. "You stupid child. You think everyone is like you. Yes, it's been worth it. I have never been bored a moment in my life. I've taken anything I wanted and I've won every game I've played. There is nothing more to life than that. I have won."
"My mother-" she whispered.
"She was nothing. Half Hand was nothing. Masuma was nothing except that she almost beat me. I had been told she'd taken a lover but I never knew she was pregnant until I heard from your muscle-bound boyfriend. I knew you weren't related to me and I never would have seen you if it hadn't been for the money."
It was difficult for Aaliya to understand reasoning such as his. Maybe he was right and she did believe that everyone was just like her, but she'd always thought that everyone in the world wanted love and friendship. But if that's what all people wanted, there wouldn't be people like this man.
"I hate you," she whispered.
He smiled at her, a soft, smug little smile, as though he knew every thought that was in her head, and it was at that moment that Aaliya knew he wanted her to kill him. Trying to look at him without hatred clouding her vision, she saw an old, frail man, and worst of all, she saw a poor man. Zain had said that, from what they could find out, Doc had no more money, that protecting his own life had taken everything. Who would take care of him if he had no money to buy caretakers? she wondered. Would he spend the rest of his life in a nursing home with overbearing nurses calling him Taha?
Looking again at him, she knew that if she shot him, he'd go to hell thinking he'd won the final round, for he'd made her go to prison for killing a murderer.
Moving her hand slightly to the right, she fired the pistol, all six rounds, into the wall behind him.
* * * * *
The next thing Aaliya knew, Zain was holding a snifter of brandy to her lips. "Drink it," he ordered and she did, but Zain had to hold her hands as she was shaking too badly to hold the glass herself.
"How..." When her voice was trembling too hard to speak, she had to start again. "How did Zain Abdul Kareem survive?"
* * * * *
12 May 1928
When the orderly saw the body of Zain abdul kareem, he knew without a doubt that the man was dead; nobody could lose that much blood and live. There had to be at least twenty bullets in the bottom half of him; his legs looked like ground meat.
But when the orderly bent over him, the man opened his eyes, and instantly, the orderly yelled, "Hey, this one is still-"
With the little bit of strength he had left,zain clutched at the man's arm and said, "If you have any kindness in you, don't let them know I'm alive."
The orderly was sure the man was going into shock and had no idea what he was saying. "You're bleeding to death."
"If they know I'm alive, I'll bleed more."
At that moment some man walked up, a big man with a bulge that could only be a gun under his coat and looked down at zain's mutilated body. "How's this one?"
The orderly knew that this was a gang killing, but this time there were several women dead. In fact, all the women in the chorus had been mowed down. One uninjured man, who had seen everything, said that the women were the first to go, as though the men with the machine guns had been told to kill them first, as though they had a grudge against the women. The man had also said that three machine guns had aimed specially for this man under the sheet who should have been dead but wasn't, and for some odd reason, they'd shot him only below the belt.
The orderly covered Zain's face with the sheet. "He's dead." At that, the big man nodded and walked away, looking as though he were satisfied.
When the man was gone, the orderly leaned over Zain and whispered, "I'll do what I can to keep anyone from knowing you're alive." Later, he felt bad when he had to tell the woman that Zain was dead, but if he'd told her the truth, she would have given the secret away. The minute the orderly had a chance, he went backstage and tried to find her, but she was nowhere to be seen. In what was obviously the women's dressing room the orderly saw a pool of blood, but there was no body.
The orderly had to wait until all the people who were officially alive had been removed until he could get the man under the sheet to the hospital. At the hospital the doctor yelled at him for leaving a bleeding man for last and had even told the orderly it was no use trying to patch him up, that this man was beyond hope and he had others who needed him more. But the orderly had nearly begged and so, with a sigh, the doctor sent Zain to the operating room.
Two days later, it was the orderly who came to Zain's room and told him he had to get out. "They're checking the hospital and I think they're looking for you."
In a haze of drugs and pain, Zain asked the orderly to take him to a telephone, saying that he had to call someone.
Zain called his war buddy, Fayaz Abdullah, a man whose life he'd saved. Afterward, in the hospital, Fayaz had told Zain that if he ever needed anything at all, all he had to do was ask.
Now, Zain asked his friend for help.
Within two hours a barrage of police cars appeared and took Zain away to a waiting plane, and Zain was flown to Chandler, Colorado, to the home of his friend, where he was given the best of medical care. When he was well, his friend's family became his family.
During those years Zain wondered what had happened to Masuma, but he dared not make inquiries for fear of Doc's finding either one of them. Zain liked to think that Masuma and their child were safe somewhere, but it wasn't until 1964, when he saw the picture in the paper that he knew for sure that the woman he loved had not only survived but was happy, as he could see from the picture of her holding her pretty little granddaughter. Our granddaughter, Zain thought, glad that he was going to leave something of himself behind. It was after seeing the news photo that he began work on a book that was going to be titled The Surgeon.
* * * * *
1991
"I think you'd better come now," Banu said softly to Zain, her eyes telling him what he didn't want to hear.
"Aalu," he said softly.
Aaliya took one look at him and knew. "I'm not fragile, zain," she said, standing and smoothing Masuma's red dress. On the front of it was blood, not real blood, but the glycerine-based movie blood that stayed fresh and red forever. H. H. Walden had played Half Hand and it had been his father who had been the little boy hiding in the closet and seen Doc kill his father. It had been Masuma who had paid for H.H.'s education, as well as his siblings', and, after she had found them, had kept his family from starving over the years.
"My grandmother is dying, isn't she?" Aaliya said, looking from Banu to Zain.
Zain wasn't going to lie to her, nor was Banu. "Yes," Banu said.
"Does she know?"
"Yes. She's asked to see you and Zain. She wants to talk to you."
"Yes," Aaliya said, "I need to know about Granddad Zubair." It suddenly seemed important to her to know that the man she'd loved so much had been loved by his wife, that Masuma hadn't just loved Zain abdul kareem.
Aaliya didn't have to force herself to smile when she saw her grandmother lying on the bed covered with pretty pink sheets. Banu had had her moved to Jubilee's Place early in the day so she could watch everything, but after Aaliya as Masuma had walked out the back door, Banu had moved her patient to a private room - the room that had once been Zain Abdul Kareem's dressing room.
As she always did, Aaliya climbed in bed with her grandmother, but now Masuma was too weak to clutch her in return.
"Tell me what happened," Aaliya said, smoothing Masuma's hair from her forehead, feeling that her body was already growing cooler. Both she and Zain had to lean forward to hear her.
"I walked out," Masuma whispered, her voice raspy. "I had no luggage, just what I had on, my purse, and the cloth bag Joe had given me. I went to the train station and bought a ticket, using all the money I had in my purse. I could go to Louisville, Kentucky, and no further. When I got to the depot in Louisville, I sat down on a bench. I was hungry - I hadn't eaten in two days - the man I loved was dead, I had wounded, possibly mortally, a man who would want revenge, I was three months' pregnant, and I had no home, nothing. All I thought I had was ten thousand dollars in a cloth bag, marked money, money that would cost me my life if I spent a penny of it, and some jewelry that could be traced if I pawned it."
As she took a breath, Aaliya and Zain waited for her to continue, knowing that she had to tell what she knew.
"It was in Louisville, when I went to the restroom to try to wash the blood out of my dress, that I looked in the bag and saw a little pouch in the bottom of it. It was a pouch full of large diamonds, three million dollars' worth to be exact, all of Doc's take. Half Hand must have converted the money to diamonds to make it portable. After I saw those stones I knew for sure that if Doc or any of his men found me my life would be over. I went back to the waiting room to debate whether to end my life or not."
A smile came over Masuma's face. "A young man sat beside me and said, You look like I feel. You want to get something to eat and talk about it?' I looked into his kind brown eyes and said, Yes,' and that was how I met Zubair Haider He took me to a cafe, we drank coffee and ate, and I told him everything, while he listened completely, listened without judging me. When I'd finished he told me about himself. He'd just been discharged from the army and two years before both his parents had died of heart failure, and four months ago the girl he'd loved since elementary school had eloped with a man she'd known for six days. And three days ago the army had told him that a bout of mumps two years before had left him sterile."
For a moment Masuma had to fight for breath, while Aaliya resisted the urge to tell her to rest, to be quiet, but both of them knew that now no amount of rest was going to save Masuma.
When she continued, Masuma's voice was just a whisper. "Zubair and I sat there and looked at each other, neither of us knowing what to say next, when Zubair said we ought to get married. He said it made sense, that he was never going to have kids of his own and it would be a shame if I had a child who had to grow up without a father. He said we didn't love each other now and we might never love each other, but we'd love the child and that would be enough."
"And you said yes," Aaliya said, holding Masuma's rapidly weakening body.
"Not right away. I told him how dangerous it would be if Doc's men found me. But Zubair said we'd create a new identity for me, and they'd never find me. I tried to talk him out of it. I told him there was nothing in it for him, but Zubair laughed and said I hadn't looked in a mirror lately."
"So you married him."
"Three days later," Masuma said, closing her eyes for a moment. "And Doc didn't find me until he saw the photo in the paper, so I left, but even that didn't save your mother."
"And you did come to love him." Aaliya's words were too loud as she changed the subject, as though her grandmother's closed eyes frightened her. She wanted to pray for God not to take her, but Aaliya wasn't that selfish. Maxie had never said a word, but Aaliya knew that she was in constant pain that intensified daily; the doctor said that since Aaliya had come into her life Masuma wouldn't take her pain pills because she didn't want to be groggy and miss a moment with her dear granddaughter.
"Yes," Masuma continued, her eyes fluttering open. "Loving Zubair was very easy. He wasn't exciting like Zain, and he was never one for surprises, but he was always there when I needed him."
She looked up at her granddaughter with love in her eyes. "Zubair always loved me, just as I loved him."
And that's how Masuma died, with a look of love on her face.
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