Zak Ebrahim - The Terrorists Son: A Story of Choice

Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2014 by Zak Ebrahim

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

First TED Books hardcover edition September 2014

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Interior design by MGMT

Jacket design by Chip Kidd

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-4767-8480-9

ISBN 978-1-4767-8481-6(eBook)

A man is but a product of his thoughts.

What he thinks, he becomes.

Gandhi

My mother shakes me awake in my bed: Theres been an accident, she says.

I am seven years old, a chubby kid in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pajamas. Im accustomed to being roused before dawn, but only by my father, and only to pray on my little rug with the minarets. Never by my mother.

Its eleven at night. My father is not home. Lately, he has been staying at the mosque in Jersey City deeper and deeper into the night. But he is still Baba to mefunny, loving, warm. Just this morning he tried to teach me, yet again, how to tie my shoes. Has he been in an accident? What kind of accident? Is he hurt? Is he dead ? I cant get the questions out because Im too scared of the answers.

My mother flings open a white sheetit mushrooms briefly, like a cloudthen leans down to spread it on the floor. Look in my eyes, Z, she says, her face so knotted with worry that I hardly recognize her. You need to get dressed as quick as you can. And then you need to put your things onto this sheet, and wrap it up tight. Okay? Your sister will help you. She moves toward the door. Yulla , Z, yulla . Lets go.

Wait, I say. Its the first word Ive managed to utter since I tumbled out from under my He-Man blanket. What should I put in the sheet? What... things ?

Im a good kid. Shy. Obedient. I want to do as my mother says.

She stops to look at me. Whatever will fit, she says. I dont know if were coming back.

She turns, and shes gone.

Once weve packed, my sister, my brother, and I pad down to the living room. My mother has called my fathers cousin in Brooklynwe call him Uncle Ibrahim, or just Ammuand shes talking to him heatedly now. Her face is flushed. Shes clutching the phone with her left hand and, with her right, nervously adjusting her hijab where its come loose around her ear. The TV plays in the background. Breaking news. We interrupt this program . My mother catches us watching, and hurries to turn it off.

She talks to Ammu Ibrahim awhile longer, her back to us. When she hangs up, the phone begins ringing. Its a jarring sound in the middle of the night: too loud and like it knows something.

My mother answers. It is one of Babas friends from the mosque, a taxi driver named Mahmoud. Everyone calls him Red because of his hair. Red sounds desperate to reach my father. Hes not here, my mother says. She listens for a moment. Okay, she says, and hangs up.

The phone rings again. That terrible noise.

This time, I cant figure out whos calling. My mother says, Really? She says, Asking about us? The police?

A little later, I wake up on a blanket on the living room floor. Somehow, in the midst of the chaos, Ive nodded off. Everything we could possibly carryand moreis piled by the door, threatening to topple at any second. My mother paces around, checking and rechecking her purse. She has all of our birth certificates: proof, if anyone demands it, that she is our mother. My father, El-Sayyid Nosair, was born in Egypt. But my mother was born in Pittsburgh. Before she recited the Shahada in a local mosque and became a Muslimbefore she took the name Khadija Nosairshe went by Karen Mills.

Your Uncle Ibrahim is coming for us, she tells me when she sees me sitting up and rubbing my eyes. The worry in her voice is tinged with impatience now. If he ever gets here.

I do not ask where we are going, and no one tells me. We just wait. We wait far longer than it should take Ammu to drive from Brooklyn to New Jersey. And the longer we wait, the faster my mother paces and the more I feel like something in my chest is going to burst. My sister puts an arm around me. I try to be brave. I put an arm around my brother.

Ya Allah! my mother says. This is making me insane.

I nod like I understand.

Here is what my mother is not saying: Meir Kahane, a militant rabbi and the founder of the Jewish Defense League, has been shot by an Arab gunman after a speech in a ballroom at a Marriott hotel in New York City. The gunman fled the scene, shooting an elderly man in the leg in the process. He rushed into a cab that was waiting in front of the hotel, but then bolted out again and began running down the street, gun in hand. A law enforcement officer from the U.S. Postal Service, who happened to be passing by, exchanged fire with him. The gunman collapsed on the street. The newscasters couldnt help noting a gruesome detail: both Rabbi Kahane and the assassin had been shot in the neck. Neither was expected to live.

Now, the TV stations are updating the story constantly. An hour ago, while my sister, brother, and I slept away the last seconds we had of anything remotely resembling a childhood, my mother overheard the name Meir Kahane and looked up at the screen. The first thing she saw was footage of the Arab gunman, and her heart nearly stopped: it was my father.

Its one in the morning by the time Uncle Ibrahim pulls up in front of our apartment. He has taken so long because he waited for his wife and children to get ready. He insisted they accompany him because, as a devout Muslim, he couldnt risk being alone in a car with a woman who was not his wifemy mother, in other words. There are five people in the car already. And there are four more of us trying to wedge in somehow. I feel my mothers anger rise: Shes just as devout as my uncle, but her children were going to be in the car with the two of them anyway, so what was the point of wasting all that time?

Soon, we are driving through a tunnel, the sickly fluorescent lights rushing over our heads. The car is crazily cramped. Were a giant knot of legs and arms. My mother needs to use the bathroom. Uncle Ibrahim asks if she wants to stop somewhere. She shakes her head. She says, Lets just get the kids to Brooklyn and then lets go to the hospital. Okay? Quick as we can. Yulla .

Its the first time anyone has used the word hospital . My father is in the hospital. Because hes had an accident . That means he is hurt, but it also means he is not dead. The pieces of the puzzle start clicking together in my head.

When we get to BrooklynAmmu Ibrahim lives in a vast brick apartment building near Prospect Parkall nine of us fall out of the car in a tangled lump. Once were in the lobby, the elevator takes forever to come, so my mother, desperate for the bathroom, takes my hand and whisks me toward the staircase.

She takes the steps two at a time. I struggle to keep up. I see the second floor blur by, then the third. Ammus apartment is on the fourth. Were panting as we round the corner to his hallway. Were ecstatic that weve made itweve beaten the elevator! And then we see three men in front of my uncles door. Two are wearing dark suits and walking toward us slowly, their badges held high. The other man is a police officer, and hes gripping his gun in its holster. My mother walks toward them. I have to go to the bathroom, she says, and I will talk to you when Im done.