Amsterdam 2012 (32 page)

Did women march in the streets protesting the lack of job opportunities, or that Muslim schools had no sports for girls, or that women were often harassed if they did not cover their heads outside the home, or that most women no longer drove, or that rape and domestic abuse were no longer prosecuted, or that women could no longer get bank loans, or that their paperwork for starting businesses disappeared?
 
No.
 
In fact they hardly noticed.
 
If there were no jobs for women, well there were hardly any jobs for anyone.
 
If girls wore head scarves to school, well at least they were in school and behaving.
 
If there were no sports for them, well sports programs had been cut back in most schools and everyone knew boys needed sports more than girls.
 
If women were seldom seen behind the steering wheel, well who could afford to drive anyhow?
 
Who could blame banks for turning down women for loans?
 
No one was getting loans.

For the most part, everyone was grateful to be healthy and to have the city finally up and running again, albeit a simplified version of its former self.

A major media conglomerate,
EyeUniverse
, which had been suffering badly from declining advertising revenue and faced bankruptcy, was bought by an international company.
 
Information about the investors—who came from Saudi Arabia and Qatar—was available to the public, but because the
Los Angeles Times
was part of the conglomerate, details of the merger were not reported.
 
Soon after the merger news reporting changed.
 
The weather girl wore a headscarf.
 
Favorite shows were phased out, replaced with “interfaith” panel discussions.
 
The Documentary Channel showed films on Islam.
 
On talk shows women appeared in headscarves to discuss childrearing.
 
A major music video cable station simply disappeared.

A number of widely respected liberal news commentators applauded the integration of cultures.
 
“Whereas in rest of the world, Muslims and Christians are waging a war that threatens to tear their countries apart, here in America, we are integrating our Muslim population and making them part of the American dream.”
 
The woman who said this, an esteemed reporter whose name was synonymous with intelligent, in-depth news reporting, was wearing a head scarf as she reported from Detroit.
 
It matched her eyes and was quite becoming.
 
Several New York designers incorporated hoods, scarves, and body wraps in their spring collections.

If a lone editorial writer or politician or activist voiced concern at the fading rights of free speech, or women’s rights, or gay rights, they were lambasted as racists and found it impossible to get published or to get air time, their names and careers ruined.

People were grateful to the Muslim community for their amazing efforts during and after the flu epidemic.
 
They were generally admired as fabulous savers, proud examples of resourceful immigrants who had thoroughly integrated into the American way.
 
In the midterm elections, Muslim candidates swept into local and national government.
 
Nobody questioned how so many working class Muslims—
Hassan
Ayub
, a mechanic in Toledo,
Fateh
Labsi
, a clothing salesman in Torrance—could manage to donate such large sums to such a wide number of political candidates.
 

None of these changes happened overnight.
 
Slowly, while Los Angeles and the rest of the country were trying to put themselves back together, a green tide drifted into American culture, slowly depleting us of our oxygen—our love, above all else, for freedom.
     

#

The next day I was late for my shift.
 
I was dashing downstairs to fill in for a nurse on the maternity ward, hurrying down the hallway, buttoning up my uniform, my laces, untied, clicking against the linoleum, when I turned a corner and saw two heavyset Middle Eastern-looking men standing outside a room.
 
They leaned against the wall on opposite sides of the doorway, arms crossed, obviously security guards of some kind.
 
I asked Michelle at the desk what was going on.
 
She glanced down the hallway,
then
dragged me into the supply room.
 
She spoke rapidly in a rough whisper, eyes wide, scandalized.

According to Michelle, four men had come in that morning with a very pregnant fourteen-year old girl.
 
She was wearing handcuffs and leg irons, completely shrouded in a
burqa
with only her terrified eyes showing.
 
Two of the men carried arms.
 
The third man was her father, the fourth a Muslim cleric.
 
Lorna Peterson, the hospital administrator, trailed behind, upset and flustered.
 
She nervously told the nurses at the desk to get a room ready.
 

The girl was a prisoner, tried in a
Sharia
court and found guilty of fornication.
 
The usual punishment for fornication under Islamic law was flogging, but in this case the father insisted on a far harsher sentence—to be shut away, “removed from the faithful” in a windowless room for the rest of her life, the only human contact the silent passing of food through a small panel in her door, a life to be lived in utter darkness, without a human voice or even the sounds of the street to distract her.
 
Her father said that in his country, he would have made sure she was stoned to death, but here in LA “there were not enough stones.”
 

I knew the police generally looked the other way when the
Sharia
courts imposed harsh sentences, but this seemed horrible beyond words.
 
She was only fourteen!

I quickly made up a tray of orange juice and some vitamins, and walked past the guards into her room.
 
The guards stopped me and patted me down.
 
They were taking no chances.
 
The handcuffs and leg irons lay in the corner of the room.
 
“Jesus,” I swore under my breath, glancing back at the guards, hoping they hadn’t heard me.

The girl looked no older than eight, her face pale,
her
eyes red from crying.
 
She was listless, her mouth parched.
 
It seemed cruel not to even allow a female relative to sit beside her.
 
I helped her sit up and made her drink the orange juice.
 
She took the vitamins,
then
began to mumble through her tears.
 
I put my ear next to her mouth, and she gripped my hand.
 
“If it’s a girl, please say she’s stillborn.
 
Find a home for her.
 
Please.”

Later I learned the rest of her story.
   

The girl had been raped by her brother’s friends while her parents were out dining.
 
She had wandered downstairs into the kitchen for something to snack on when the boys came into the house after a party.
 
When they saw her in her nightgown, they began to tease her.
 
When she resisted, they raped her.
 
Shamed and frightened, she didn’t tell anyone until it became obvious she was pregnant.
 
The boys claimed that she had lewdly seduced
them,
and that she was a “little whore” and had slept with all of the boys in the neighborhood.
 
The
Sharia
court believed the boys.
 
She was a disgrace to her family honor.
 
As soon as the baby was born, she would be locked up in a padded room for the rest of her life.
 

I looked on her chart.
 
Dr. Deerfield.
 
I didn’t know if she would break hospital rules and stretch medical ethics, but I aimed to try.

I recognized Dr. Deerfield in the ward for premature babies, a tall bony woman with short dark hair.
 
I had never spoken to her before.
 
I explained the situation to her.
 
Couldn’t she claim the girl had complications and insist on keeping her in the hospital? I asked.
 
Couldn’t we rush her into an emergency ward, prevent the guards from following,
then
whisk her away to another hospital?
 
Couldn’t we at least contact family services?
 
No, Dr. Deerfield explained.
 
The hospital administration had instructed doctors not to interfere with Muslim customs, offend their sensibilities, or anything that might be construed as religious or racial intolerance.
 
But, but, but...I protested.
 
No, Dr. Deerfield warned.
 
No interference.
 
No undue compassion.
 
Muslims had the right to rule their families according to their consciences.
 
Even if it meant punishing a girl for getting raped, locked in a room for the rest of her life? I asked.
 
Yes, she said.

As I prepped the girl for labor, I saw she had been circumcised.
 
I had heard rumors that some American doctors had begun performing female circumcision on young Muslim girls, an operation that carved out the clitoris and labia, then sewed up the area, creating a thick band of scar tissue.
 
This made sex painful for the women for the rest of their lives.
 
Those handsomely compensated American doctors who performed the operation justified it as a “cultural tradition” and an expression of the families’ “freedom of religion.”
 

Her father refused to allow an epidural or N20-gas or any narcotic.
 
He went home, and asked his security guards to call him after the birth.

The girl was in labor for hours.
 
Her cervix was fully dilated, but the baby didn’t want to come out.
 
Perhaps it knew it wasn’t wanted.
 
She wouldn’t let go of my hand.
 
She didn’t cry out or scream.
 
As if she knew no one would come to help.
 
I had to pry off her fingers to attend to other patients.
 
I raced back as soon as I could.
 
She pushed for three full hours before a baby girl inched out.

I knew the faces of women giving birth, mouths and necks contorted in agony, but with eyes fierce with courage and determination.
 
They know something wonderful is on the other side of the pain.
 
This girl’s face was different.
 
She gave into the pain as no expectant mother would—as if she deserved it.
 
A dog beaten to the point beyond caring.
 
There was nothing on the other side of the pain for her but isolation and more pain.
 
When she expelled the placenta, her face relaxed into a mask of despair.
 

When Dr. Deerfield laid the baby on her breast, she paid no attention.
 
After I took the baby to recovery, I went back to check on her.
 
She lay there, inert, as if waiting for the next round of torture.

Her father refused to let her recover for even a few hours after the birth.
 
As soon as the girl returned to her room, she was dressed, shackled and handcuffed, and taken home.
 
The men left the hospital without the baby girl.
 

None of the medical staff stopped them.

#

Saturday night’s shift was crazy.
 
I got home around breakfast time, totally exhausted and emotionally drained.
 
I made myself a sandwich, and turned on the news.
 
I didn’t know where my parents were.
 
There was no note.
  

For the first time there seemed to be positive news coming out of Europe.
 
Germany’s military had entered Belgium and decimated fighters from the Islamic Republic of Holland.
 
Allied troops had beaten back the UNI army in Turkey, pushing it back into Syria and Iraq, where
Shia
and Sunni were fighting, throwing the UNI troops into chaos.
     

India had bombed Pakistan’s nuclear facilities, followed by the invasion of troops.
 
Jihadists
were struggling to maintain territorial gains east of Islamabad.

I heard someone banging excitedly on the door while leaning on the doorbell.
 
I opened the door and saw Cynthia’s friend Seth Cohen hopping from one foot to the other.
 

“Ann, come quickly.
 
Someone threw a Molotov cocktail into our synagogue and started a fire.
 
Dad’s gone nuts.
 
He and some other men are going to the Mosque.
 
They’re going to burn it down.
 
You’ve got to stop them.”