Jim tried to disguise his impatience. Chris was a nice guy, but he took too long to get to the point. “Remind me what you did.”
“Not much, really. I could not have done it without my Moslem co-conspirator, Anwar. He was a senior student of mine, very devout, full beard and a long black robe, quite intimidating to some staff, but an excellent student who grasped Biblical allusions before any of our own—”
“And he—?”
“Yes. Sorry. He ran a Friday prayer group session in the ESL room. I persuaded him to move it upstairs, down the hall from the Christian Club’s meeting room, and convinced the Christians to switch their sessions to Friday. Then, when freeloaders who were Moslem showed up at the door, I called their bluff. I directed them to Anwar, who beckoned them to prayer from down the hall. It worked. The freeloading stopped, Anwar gained some believers, and those who wanted neither Jerusalem nor Mecca were revealed as the frauds they were. How does this relate to the WAC?”
“It doesn’t, I guess. But I need to be – what d’you call it? –‘ pro-active’ about ethnic and racial tension…”
“Is that why you have a picture of Mohammed on your desk?”
“Oh, no, that’s a different matter altogether. A kid tore it out of a library book.”
“Who was the kid?”
“I didn’t recognize the girl, but she’s due to see me after school.”
“Why did she tear it out?”
“I don’t know. She wears a headscarf. Perhaps she wanted to frame it.”
“I doubt that. The faithful are commanded not to draw likenesses of their prophet. It would be sacrilege to do so. A picture by someone else of him would be equally abhorrent to some. If it was Batool Fahmy, she might have seen what she did as her religious duty…”
“Vandalism?”
“Yes, of course it is. But our ways are not their ways. Some of them are caught in a time warp between seventh-century tribal customs and twenty-first century secular society. It is not easy for them. If it’s Batool, she’s already engaged to a fat businessman in his forties back home. She showed me his picture.”
Jim’s face showed distaste. “This isn’t Afghanistan, Chris, thank God. I’m not going there.”
“Literally or metaphorically?”
“Both.”
“Of course this isn’t Afghanistan, or Palestine, or Iran, or any of those places. But she is here, and she will have to come to terms with the difference. I don’t envy her.”
“Yes. OK.” He seemed unconvinced. “I’ll talk to the girl after school, whoever she is.”
