The Jewish Neighbor by A.M. Khalifa Read Free Book Online

memory card, which meant she could record for many
hours, while the battery lasted. Umayma rehearsed the steps in front of him
until she was certain she had the hang of it. She thanked him and rushed back
home.
    Kamal and his parents were taking a nap when she tiptoed
back in the house. Umayma slipped into the study where the band of warmongers
would convene later that night after they stuffed their faces with the delicious
food she had cooked. She scanned the room to figure out a place she could plant
her phone, but couldn’t think of one. Kamal had
banned her from coming in the study alone. He only allowed her to clean it in
his presence and locked it when he left home.
    The
home phone erupted like a siren. Depending on the nature of the call, Kamal sometimes took it in his bedroom. But on other
occasions he took it in the privacy of the study. Which meant
there was a fifty percent chance he could storm in any second now. She
broke out in a cold sweat and her stomach started to rumble. With every ring,
Umayma felt Kamal breathing down her neck.
    It
was now or never, she decided. Umayma grabbed a chair and stood on it in front
of the bookshelf. She clicked on the audio record button then tucked the phone
between the thick, bounded books on the top-most shelf. She returned the chair
to its place and fled the study, every part of her body trembling with fear. And the phone still ringing.
    §
 
    They
came in the middle of the night, as they usually do. They were civil and
compassionate. Female officers attended to Umayma and Layal, and Kamal’s parents were handled with care like glass objects.
Even Kamal himself was
spoken to cordially like a suspect who could potentially still be innocent,
rather than the terrorist bankroller he really was. But with recorded evidence
in their possession and Umayma’s testimony, neither Kamal nor any of his rotten accomplices were going to get
away with what they had done, and what they were sill plotting to do.
    Kamal shuffled out of the house in handcuffs, his head
stooping. He turned back and looked at Umayma and whispered, “Forgive me. Look
after Layal and my parents.”
    She
saw something in Kamal’s eyes for the first time
since she had laid eyes on him. Humility. Umayma
feigned distress and rushed to him like a loving wife. She looked at one of the
female officers with broken eyes, appealing to their shared womanhood.
    “May
I? Just one last time?” The officer hesitated briefly,
then nodded and granted Umayman permission to embrace
her husband.
    With
a tight hug she pulled him closer to her and kissed him on the temple. The
smell of tobacco smoke on his skin nauseated her. Everything about him was
sickening. She held his hands firmly and squeezed them. Kamal seemed bewildered. Before she let him go, she moved her lips close to his ears
and whispered, “Beware the wrath of the meek.”
    Kamal and his fellow defendants were convicted of
conspiracy to commit terrorist attacks on British soil. The family court deemed Layal’s brothers too young, and her grandparents too
old to care for her. Umayma became her sole custodian and the guardian of Kamal’s legitimate business interests and massive financial
assets. The informed opinion of social workers, psychologists, and numerous
interviews with the young girl deemed it in the best interest of Layal to be
under the care of her stepmother. To acknowledge her valor and service to her
adopted homeland, Umayma was naturalized as a British Citizen by the Home
Office a few months after Kamal’s conviction. Was it
stupid to reveal to Kamal she was the one who turned
him over? Perhaps. But with Layal in her custody, Kamal would never risk conspiring to harm her because Layal
would end up in foster care.
    §
 
    When
the ‘for sale’ sign went up on the front lawn of Felix’s house, Umayma began to
think of him again every day. Throughout Kamal’s trial and the ensuing process of taking over, Umayma hardly had any time to
dwell upon