Amir Sharif sat at the kitchen table staring at Nida as she rocked with Nadjia in the living room by the radiator. He finished pulling his socks and, and started with his boots.
Amir was angry. Not only angry, he was disgusted. He was disgusted with the complacency of his American counterparts, though he too was now a citizen, and their simultaneous ability to be lazy and work just hard enough to get by. He saw it everyday at the quarry; men like him going to a job they hated - as he did - running out the clock in their mundane tasks as they crushed rock with their heavy machines, and hauled it off to Allah knew where in their loud, poisonous trucks.
He hated the quarry at Bishop's Gully, he hated the mines, and he hated not knowing why they were quarrying, and what they were mining... and again, why.
His official title was foreman, but all he did was sit in an office and sign off on shipments. He had no hand in the actual duties, and every time he asked what they were quarrying, someone gave him a different answer: gypsum, marble, chalk, granite, ore (of no specific kind), gritstone, limestone, or sandstone. When he asked what they were mining, he was told they were looking for gold, silver, tin, copper, and sometimes they told him they were not mining for anything in particular at all.
Clayton Walker even advised him during a site inspection ot was better not to ask questions.
Better not to ask questions!
Why someone of Clayton's station was performing an inspection, Amir would never know... but at least Clayton was more direct with him than his superiors.
Even his own employees ignored him, often telling him to just sit back and enjoy the paycheck. It was not a handout Amir wanted; he wanted purpose. He wanted to do his job, and contribute to the operation.
Every day he grew to hate the quarry a little more. Every day he responded less, and less when greeted by the miners, the laborers, and the equipment operators. There were never injuries, not that he would wish injury or death on another, but there were no injuries or deaths. There were no accidents, or incidents. His employees were never disrespectful, his superiors never demanding, or micromanaging.
The Judge of their order even suggested on more than one occasion it was not necessary for him to come to work. The terrifying old man insisted if he were needed, someone from the quarry would send for him.
Love them, or hate them, Amir was no one's whore in any way. Perhaps the men of the west we're happy to collect a paycheck for doing nothing, but he would at least try to put in the effort of his station. He had a family. He had Nida, whose respect meant something to him, even if he never acknowledged it, and he had Nadjia - at least until the pigs from The Order came to claim her - and whatever memories of her true father she may have, they would be memories of a man who worked by the sweat of his brow. She would know Amir Sharif as a man without any outward complaint, who rose each working day to do his duty at a job he hated so that he may provide for his family.
Of course he would never voice his disgust for the quarry, but they would see it in his grim expression in the morning, and hear it in his bitter voice when he arrived home.
Amir felt heat rising up in his body, the slow embers of outrage beginning in his heart, and spreading into his veins.
Nida rocked with their infant daughter, unequivocal in her contentment, happy in their halfway house, rocking Nadjia by a radiator older than either of their parents. Nida, who seemed to forget Islam; Nida, who all too easily slid I to the comforts of Western lifestyles.
Nida, who wanted to celebrate anything, and everything for the sake of celebration. Surely, he had the money. They had the money... but to entertain guests in this home was a terrible shame on their names. The worn carpets, the dull and shabby wood floors; it was a reminder to them - to Amir, at least - that no matter the income her drew, the absurd sum of money compiling in a bank, their bank, he had to live in that safe house, that worn, and unworthy home for his family.
Nida opined, perhaps too often, they should be grateful for their lives in the new world. Their new world. That Mecca was still north, and she promised (or was it mockery?) That The Order had not stolen the mountain from them yet.
He still prayed five times a day. Nida used to. Then she prayed when she could. Then she prayed when it was convenient.
Yes, he was angry. Yes, he was disgusted... and yes, he could see how his brothers and sisters in Islam back home could so strongly despise the west. His brothers, and sisters in Islam for whom he would never see again.
Amir was after all an American, too... and worse for it, under the protection of the very church who brought upon his people the crusades.
"I am leaving now, for work." Amir kept his voice even, and steady. He was glad to hear his own language in his ears, even if it was his voice. He swallowed his anger down, and buried his unhappiness, standing from the kitchen table. He wore his best expression of misery as he approached Nida, and Nadjia.
"I will make you lamb tonight." The sound of Nida's smile in her voice made him want to smile, himself.
Amir felt sick in his stomach, and cleared his throat from the foul taste rising up in it. "...would you invite Clayton, and his family?"
"Are you certain? It is Thursday, and on the eve of the new year,."
Amir exaggerated his scowl, and motioned a flat line through the air with his hand. "Then we will show them our hospitality. Where do they celebrate their new year?"
"I think the mountain park? The twin mountains park?"
Amir spoke in English. "The Twin Knolls park."
Nida nodded.
Amir sighed, maintaining his expression of displeasure. Such an accommodating man, he was. Selfless. A man who made the effort to show his thanks to the pigs who brought him I to his misery. "Prepare a feast for us all. We will arrive at the Twin Knolls park this evening, and feed Clayton and Emily Walker. A proper thanks for their service to us, and my apology for being such a stubborn man."
Nida flashed a bright smile, and immediately Amir felt a seldom experienced emotion; he felt guilt. Nida leaned her head back, and with her free arm, reached for her husband. "Come."
Amir obeyed, feigning some small degree of begrudging. He leaned in, and kissed Nida on her forehead. Nadjia stared at him through wide almond shaped eyes, the intense and unusual ice blue of her eyes startling, every time. He gave his infant daughter a quick kiss on her small round face. "I have to get to work."
He hurried for the door.
"Do well today, Amir. Make us proud."
✟ ☧ ✟
Nida and Amir arrived early to Twin Knolls park. Amir found someone to watch Nadjia for them, someone Amir insisted they could trust.
Nida preferred Granny D the midwife, but Amir insisted his friend Ramsey Plow would do fine.
Amir helped Nida unload the dinner, and they carted it over the uneven grassy terrain until they were atop one of the two largest hills in the park.
Emily, and Clayton greeted them with warmth, surprised by their company, but not inhospitable. Nida spread a large blanket over the grass, and Amir helped her set up plates.
"This is such an unexpected surprise, Nida!" Emily Walker's friendly smile was inviting, and Nida returned it in kind.
"Amir, before work today insisted we should have you over for dinner. I told him today was a celebratory day, and so he decided we should surprise you here."
Amir made a noncommittal grunt as he hauled the last of the food from the cart to their blanket. "I think perhaps good food, and good company is good for us."
Clayton and Emily offered to help them art up, and serve the food, but Nida insisted they stay comfortable and let her do the work.
"We bring you kabsa laham, tonight. It is a favored dish in my home, from where I came. The flavor is rich, and a little spicy. I chose to use lamb's meat off the bone, I hope you do not mind."
"I'm am sure it is delicious." Clayton took a seat next to Emily as Nida began to serve them.
"Normally I precede the meal with a flat bread, hummus, soup, and a salad. There was not so much room for this."
"It's fine, Nida. This is plenty enough for us each."
"Very good." Amir clapped his hands together. "Then let us eat."
✟ ☧ ✟
The sated couples sat at the top of the knoll in good spirits as the evening wore on.
Though exhausted by the countdown for the new year, Amir stayed alert, and aware. Though he felt there was little room to let down his guard, it was harder as he shared his time experiencing his new life with Clayton, and Emily.
Voices echoed from Twin Knolls park, from high and low, all around him. They counted backward in unison, and when they reached zero the sky exploded in thunderous lights, explosions of spectacular color, and sound. Clayton and Emily sang a strange song in a choir with the other celebrants in the park, a song named Auld Lang Syne.
It was a new year in Driftwood California, as much theirs as any. As Clayton and Emily sang in the reverie of the new year, and beneath the spectacle of firelights in the sky, Amir let go his guard. Beside Nida, he placed an arm around his wife and hummed the tune the best he could for a song he was so unfamiliar.
Nineteen Sixty-Four was the year everything happened, and Amir realized it did not happen only in Egypt, or Jiddah; it did not happen only to he or Nida. The world in it's darkest moments collectively entered a new year with a clean slate. Amir was no fool; he was not so gullible, or naive to presume nineteen sixty-five would bring any more peace than the year of it's predecessor, but the new time brought with it at least the opportunity for change, and the opportunity for the madness of men and their destruction to draw an accord of peace.
At least abroad.
At home - in Driftwood - there were many secrets afoot, a darkness that hid behind the darkness, and what seemed as a war fought in silence, through subterfuge, and at great costs to everyone involved.
It was in that moment he realized there were sides, and if he had no choice to join, at least the side he chose was winning.
The sky exploded in a final display of bright red, white, and blue. Loud cheering rose.up from every place in the park, the thundering sky fires almost deafening. As the cheering, and the singing died down, the aftermath of celebration brought silence, Amir felt a dim, and hopeful comfort blossoming in his heart.
Whatever he knew before Driftwood was gone, and it was not coming back. Not for Egypt, not for Jiddah, not for he, Nida or Nadjia.
It was a new world, and he had a place in it. The great struggle was finally over, and his faith rewarded. He would never have to wonder if he would come home to see Nida dead just before some revolutionary pseudo religious political zealot put a bullet in his heart, and his head.
The past was behind him, and a bright future ahead.
He was finally home.