The Towers Still Stand by Rosenberg Daniel

Author:Rosenberg, Daniel [Rosenberg, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2016-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

Flight to Chicago

Alev sat in her coach seat on the Lufthansa jet, looking out the window somewhere over the Atlantic. Her face, which she had made up carefully, looked tan and healthy. Her smartly-ironed light blue shirt made her bright blue eyes look even bluer than ever under their dark brows, and she wore her dark hair smooth and long over her shoulders. The sun shone brightly into the cabin, and she could see tiny white waves far below in the endless ocean. She’d brought several books on the flight, including the newest Jane Smiley novel. She loved American literature and was fascinated with the country, which she’d only visited twice. But she couldn’t concentrate on reading. Even now, her mind raced, and she wondered why she’d agreed to go in the first place. Part of her wanted to stay at the airport after landing and look up the next flight back. But she knew she wouldn’t do that.

What future could there be with this man, who had left her without warning five years ago and disappeared into another country? A man she knew had contacts and friends who may have been involved in terrorist plots?

But something she couldn’t fight drew her toward him at the same time. There was something so different about Jarrah. They’d had such good times together in Germany. He wasn’t like other Muslim men from the Middle East whom she had met; he had a fun-loving side, and he enjoyed a good beer and a good meal. He never acted fanatical about religion, which was good because she felt no interest in the subject whatsoever, and he knew it. She had never been able to understand why he hung around with religious fanatics, or his habit of mysteriously disappearing for months at a time without warning. Her friends teased her about her infatuation with the “dark stranger,” and she supposed they had a point. It just wasn’t in her nature to fall in love with someone conventional.

Besides her very real attraction to him, she wondered if her decision to take the trip reflected cultural baggage she’d absorbed from growing up in her immigrant Turkish community. Although her own parents had been rather liberal, there was a lot of pressure in the community for women to assume old-fashioned gender roles and find men to take care of them. She was one of many educated Turkish women who moved comfortably in the modern world and took on a professional career. But it’s hard to escape old traditions, and lately, her mom and dad had made it pretty clear that they were disappointed she was still single.

Her parents had liked Jarrah back in the old days, and had joined her that fateful afternoon in the Berlin coffeehouse when they’d begged him to stay in Germany and make a new life with her instead of going back to his friends in America. She could still remember the look on his face at that moment in August 2001. She’d

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