Gateway to Paradise
by
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I take a deep breath to clear the turmoil in my mind. The air is stifling and the only relief is the scant breeze generated by the tiny sandalwood fan that I clutch in my hand and swing back and forth like a pendulum, hour after hour. Even the most basic amenities are lacking in this so-called safe house that for the moment is my sanctuary. The heat is insufferable for there is no electricity or running water. Outside the compound walls lies a cesspool with a stench so strong that it permeates the barred window and dark curtains kept drawn day and night. Mercifully, there is a private bathroom attached to my bedroom. Twice a day, a burly man delivers a bucket of water so I can perform my ablutions before prayers five times a day. But the supply of water has to be carefully rationed, so a full daily bath is a foregone luxury. For once I appreciate the scarf tied over my head as it helps to keep my greasy, unwashed hair off my face.
Intermittent gunfire, and explosions from roadside or car bombs detonating in the distance break the monotony of my day. To keep myself preoccupied, I perform the daily ritualistic prayers heralded by azaans over a loudspeaker from the minaret of a nearby mosque. At mid-morning, provided the roads are safe and there is no curfew, an elderly Arab lady who speaks English, comes in to teach me to recite from the big green Koran on the shelf.
From my Koran teacher, I hear snippets of local news. She expostulates, “Those American infidels, do you know what they did last night! They broke down the gate of a house down the street, and made everybody come out of the house in the middle of the night. They even woke up the women and the children. Then, they beat up all the men and interrogated them right in front of their family. They did not even spare the elderly grandfather. The children cried. Poor things! But they found nothing, not a thing! Such harassment! May these infidels burn in hell!”
Asma brings in my meager meals on a tray three times a day. The food is rather monotonous. Breakfast consists of a flat bread called khubz eaten with either fig jam or date syrup, a little bit of butter made from buffalo milk, and a glass of sweetened tea. Sometimes, she brings labana, a dish of yogurt cheese balls, very popular breakfast fare among the poor in Iraq. Other meals include the staple Iraqi diet of rice, flat bread and a stew of eggplants or potatoes cooked in a sauce of tomato paste with a few pieces of meat or chickpeas.
Although the door is kept unlocked, it is as though I am a prisoner in my room since I am never invited to join the others for a meal, or encouraged to fraternize with other members of the household. I suppose it is best if inmates of the house are kept isolated so they remain ignorant of what goes on, especially of who comes and who goes. These are dangerous times, and the less one knows, the safer one is.
Time hangs heavily on my hands, so to while it away, my mind wanders through memories of my former, carefree life at Rice University in Houston, until that one fateful moment at the Astrodome when I met my destiny, and the tumultuous events that unfolded changed the course of my life forever.
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About the Book
This is a riveting tale of love and greed set against the backdrop of the War on Terror. Intrigues and conspiracies with clandestine operations by unseen powers that take place in distant lands, combined with satire, makes this a sensational book for politically savvy readers.
The travails of the protagonists focus attention on the war torn region of the Middle East where the plight of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire leaves an indelible impression of horror and recoil.
About the Author
While still a schoolgirl, the author discovered her passion for writing. Her high school teacher encouraged her to pursue a career in creative writing. An essay entitled Islam and Sensuality that she wrote for her rhetoric class in college, and later published in the campus newspaper, caused a sensation among the faculty theologians.
Upon her return to her homeland after graduation from college in the US, she briefly considered writing a novel. However, like most pragmatic young college graduates, she became engaged in the quest to find a career, first in the field of development, followed by a stint in banking. Ever mindful of the biological clock ticking away, she decided to marry and to have a family.
Several years later, after a fulfilling career in journalism, she again seriously began to contemplate writing a novel. In preparation, she attended several writer's workshops, first at The Iowa University in Iowa City, and later at the Jung Center in Houston. The result was an unfinished novel entitled, Bridges Over Continents. The manuscript collected dust on the shelf as the author experienced a long period of writer’s block.
After surviving cancer, and realizing that she did not want to die without fulfilling her lifelong dream, she pulled out her old manuscript that summer and began to rewrite it as necessitated by the tumultuous political events of the post 9/11 era. Her writing culminated in the new novella, Gateway to Paradise.
A phone message left by her niece from half away across the world, gave her the idea to adopt Tia as her nom de plume. Since she was addressed as Tia by her little nieces and sometimes by the son of her friend as well, she resolved to become known to the world as Tia.