Asymmetry - Lisa Halliday Page 0,82

I’d removed the cap on my first bottle of beer in six years someone drew an All Play. The timer was upended and everyone leaned in, shouting guesses that became predictably louder and more urgent as the sand trickled down: Person. People. People holding hands. People dancing. Angry person. Mean person. Mean person holding a letter. Parking ticket. Manifesto. Mein Kampf. Karl Marx. Bag. Sack. Money. Robber. Bank robber. Heist. Bandits. Butch Cassidy. Bonnie and Clyde. Dog Day Afternoon. Heist. Somebody already said that. No grunting! Sounds like . . . Eyelashes. Hair. Beautiful. Handsome. Sounds like handsome! Bandsome, candsome, dandsome, fandsome, gandsome . . .

At one point, Farrah looked up and gave me a meaningfully exasperated look. Then she drew a car.

Then she drew two stick figures holding hands next to the car.

Then she drew an arrow between one of the figures and the front seat of the car. Then she x-ed out the trunk.

Oh, I said. Kidnap.

Widening her eyes, Farrah nodded, and stabbed her pencil at what looked like a scrunched-up paper bag with a dollar sign on it. She was a pretty good drawer.

Ransom! shrieked the girl on my other side.

Ransom note! someone else shouted, on the other side of the table. He wasn’t on our team. Anyway, the sand in the little imitation hourglass had already run down. And when the drawings were passed around for inspection more than one noble stickler for rules pointed out that symbols, including dollar signs, aren’t allowed. I don’t remember who won. It tends to be the regrettable things, the details that in retrospect seem to reflect your own pettiness and a certain incurable myopia, that you remember most clearly of the prelude to a shock. The next day my father called to tell me that even though Alia had wired the forty thousand dollars agreed for her husband’s release Zaid’s body had been left in a plastic bag under the porch, a bullet in his head.

MR. JAAFARI? WOULD YOU come here, please?

Slowly, I backed away from Imam Usman’s contact details and went to meet Duncan by the door.

I’m afraid it’s not good news, he said, carrot-colored eyebrows straining empathetically. You are going to be refused entry to the UK today.

I waited.

I’m sorry. I’m afraid my chief is not satisfied that you are not here for reasons you have not disclosed to us.

I’m here on a layover to Istanbul!

And we have no reason to disbelieve that claim. I’m sorry. I did try to find a loophole for you. I did. But unfortunately the burden of proof is on the passenger to convince us he’s not going to take advantage of the system—

Why would I—

—or pose a threat.

I closed my mouth.

I’m sorry, he repeated. You just don’t qualify today. If you can satisfy another clearance officer in future that you qualify for entry on another day, then your case will be viewed on its merits. This does not automatically exclude you from coming back to the UK in future.

What about tomorrow?

What about tomorrow?

Is there a chance I’ll qualify tomorrow?

No.

So what happens now?

Well, we’ve spoken with BA, and they have a flight going back to Los Angeles that leaves in one hour, which is a bit tight, but if we can get you and your luggage screened and checked in right away we might be able to get you on that.

Why can’t I just stay here?

Duncan smirked.

I’m serious, I said. If I’m trying to get to Iraq and I’m booked on a flight to Istanbul that leaves here on Sunday morning, is there any reason I can’t just stay here, in your detention room, until then? Why would I want to go all the way back to Los Angeles?

. . . I’d have to ask.

I wish you would.

You might have to sleep in here.

That’s fine.

He was gone another hour. Another hour of not knowing. Another 1/24th of a rotation. Another sixty minutes of trying not to think about what I might be doing and what I should have done before. Four years earlier, when we were hiking up Goizha on the afternoon of his daughter and my brother’s engagement, Hassan had told me that during the good old days male Ba’ath party members secretly identified themselves with mustaches that were slightly shorter on one side than the other, like the hands of a clock. Specifically, the left side would be shorter than the right, like a timepiece at 8:20, and as the one on the wall opposite me now crept steadily through