From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant: A Novel Read online

  Despite the drama the panini burn had provoked, I found Ahmed’s sandwich to be quite satisfying, though I couldn’t help but notice that the panini contained a good deal of ham. What little I knew then of the Islamic community I had learned through television, watching the conflict between the Philippine army and the Islamic jihadists in the south unfold into mayhem. And so I wasn’t too well versed in Muslim custom. I did know, however, that they prayed facing Mecca a couple of times a day, and that pork and booze were outlawed at some point in their history.

  I watched Ahmed devour his panini. I looked back over to where the frozen pork butt had landed on the floor. Condensation was building on its plastic wrapping. My curiosity over Ahmed’s dietary practices became too much. I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I had to ask about the swine. “This is delicious, Ahmed. Is it ham?”

  “Boar’s Head.”

  “Mmm. Wonderful. Pardon my ignorance, but I thought as a Muslim you weren’t allowed any pork.”

  “Ah, I know how I must appear. But Boy, please, don’t be fooled by my dress. I do not fear Allah. And as for the Qur’an, I can’t say that I’m much of a fan. This garb I am wearing is just my house gown. I’m no Muslim. Maybe once upon a time. Now I’m just a Canadian.”

  I let the last bit float in the air. Even though I had never met an actual Canadian, it was all too obvious that Ahmed was lying. So obvious, in fact, that I thought he was testing me to see if I’d call his bluff. It’s hard to finger what I felt next, but I was suddenly compelled by something juvenile, and the only move that could put my unease at rest was to trap him in his own lie.

  “What part of Canada did you say you were from?” I asked.

  “I didn’t.” Ahmed’s mouth was full, so he politely covered it with his hand. “Why? Are you familiar with the area?”

  “Me? No. I’ve never been to Canada. I don’t even have a proper winter coat.”

  “You won’t need one. Layer. Layering is the key. I’m from a little corner in Nova Scotia. A mountainous region where the sun stays up for six months at a time. At the end of this six months it goes down in a glorious sunset. Everyone comes out of their homes—huts and igloos, what have you—and we all watch it descend. It lasts for forty-five minutes or so. And then we have six months of night. Complete darkness. Crime goes up during this half of the year. Such is Canada.”

  “Fascinating,” I quipped. “Doesn’t sound like Canada at all.”

  “Rest assured. It is.”

  After a while I took to his BO the way one gets used to the aroma of a New York subway car. We collected measurements. Aside from Ahmed’s bulbous gut, which was absolutely disgusting, he was actually in decent shape. I wrapped my tape around his body with haste. Arms, legs, inseam, chest, waist, neck. The figures began to shape the garment in my head. I envisioned the cut and color, then the inklings of a pattern.

  Confident now in what I was doing, I stood behind Ahmed and spoke to him through the mirror that he had propped up against the piano. “I want the suit to be snug,” I said. “Cinched at the waist. That doesn’t mean tight. I want to retain the classical shape of the male torso but work with the contours of your body. I don’t want the suit to look too young. It should be distinguished. I want it to mold with your age. Not work against it. A lot of this will rely on the right pattern and color.”

  “Yes, yes. I think that sounds wonderful. Go on.”

  “I want to try one suit double-breasted. You’ll wear it with a wide tie. A suit for conducting business. Like you were saying last night. The second one will be completely different. Perhaps a one-button with a big opening. What do you think? You have a long torso, so we’ll position the button a little higher than usual, above your navel.” I showed him where. “It’ll normalize your proportions and cover your stomach. You can wear it to a business meeting late in the day, and then go straight out for a fine dinner. It’ll be versatile. Chic yet easy and uncomplicated. After dinner you can take off the tie and go out for a drink. At the bar, a woman brushes her nails against your lapel. ‘Hard day?’ she says. And then she leans her head on your shoulder and whispers something seductive into your ear. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ ”

  “Boy, this is why I picked you. I knew you knew more than you let on. How did I know? I’m no idiot. And even if I were, I would still see that before me stands a fashion genius. Eh? When I saw that beautiful gown up in your room, I thought to myself, a man who can design such a thing of beauty must know a thing or two about everything else in between.”

  He then called over to his assistant in Arabic.

  Yuksel reappeared with a white envelope. Inside was payment in full. Twenty-five hundred dollars in cash. Ahmed never handled money.

  My memory fails me here. What I did with the rest of the day is one big blank. Funny how we can only remember certain things. It’s what my special agent calls selective significance.

  An addendum to my earlier theory on memory, vis‑à‑vis thought thoughts. To recollect everything in one’s past is to hold oneself to an unreachable standard. It just can’t be done. The sponge that is the mind will gather details that are interesting, odd, pleasant, etc. A new experience will have all sorts of these attributes, and so the mind remembers them with or without a conscious host (the person). We may not be able to recall these memories right away, as was the case in Spyro’s reflection on his incident with the rock from childhood. And we certainly can’t recall the darkest memories without meeting some sort of resistance, like trauma. It occurs to me now that in day‑to‑day existence events simply don’t have much significance, and therefore we forget the majority of our lives.

  My special agent seems to understand all of this. He’s been very patient and accommodating.

  Strange. I think in another life we could have been friends.

  1. Five days, at the very least, according to the math he cites above.

  2. Abu Sayyaf, meaning “bearer of the sword” in Arabic, is a militant organization linked to Osama bin Laden and al‑Qaeda, according to White House officials.

  The Two Suits

  I don’t have to tell my special agent how suits are made. He’s a very well-dressed man, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned. During our first reservation he wore a single-breasted light wool suit, quite breathable during the month of June. Now that it is nearly August he’s switched into a light cotton summer affair. In the left breast pocket he keeps his silk hanky tastefully folded. The sleeves show just enough cuff. The jacket hemline rests perfectly at the top of his thighs. For a man of his size, proportions need to be balanced just right.

  Back in 2002, I knew something about proportions. They were foremost in mind as I sketched out my ideas for Ahmed’s suits. The two designs I settled on were throwbacks to the sixties: thin lapels, snug sleeves, pants cuffed above the ankles. The double-breasted suit would be cut with a light gray wool in a plaid pattern. For the other, the black one-button, I would stitch Ahmed’s initials in gold onto the left breast pocket. It would be a little something extra for my new client, the defining touch of the jacket.

  AQ, it would say.

  Having merely collected ashes in Tito Roño’s shop as a boy, I didn’t quite know what I was doing when it came to menswear. It had been my own leap with the truth to tell Ahmed I’d designed men’s clothing in school. I had made a men’s three-quarter trench in Outerwear as a second-year but never a whole suit! So the task at hand was an exercise in imitation. I was borrowing rather than generating ideas of my own. To be perfectly frank, menswear was boring. I am a dress man, through and through, and it was dresses I kept returning to between fits and starts of composing Ahmed’s suits.

  The dress is a performance—its only responsibility is to the moment. It is elegant and ephemeral. It can’t sustain a woman’s body for very long. Women’s changes are far too radical. In couture, some dresses can be worn for only a few hours, max. What’s the saying? Elegance is a dress too dazzling to dare wear it twice.1

  Whenever I
finished a garment I needed to see it in action, moving around, before I could put it on the rack. This was all part of the creative process. I needed the opinion of a woman’s body before I made my revisions. Each dress was a work in progress, even after the catwalk. Not until a dress landed in the showroom was it truly finished. Here is where I had already formed the habit of deferring to Olya. My darling Olya, who most recently appeared on the cover of Maxim. She was my fit model, coming all the way out to Bushwick to try on my clothes. By the end of September 2002, in addition to my white, fine-layered dress, I had enhanced two or three other looks from my Manila days that I wanted to see on her.

  “I have to tell you, Boy, this is not so nice, this neighborhood,” Olya said, on her third visit to my studio. She was getting undressed.

  “What do you mean? It’s not so horrible. It’s close to Williamsburg,” I said.

  I gathered the layered dress as Olya held out her arms. Together we put it on over her head. I zipped her up in front of the mirror and made some adjustments to the skirt so that it assumed its intended shape. This would become my inside-out dress, a hallmark of the (B)oy Fall Collection ’04, though the resemblance would be apparent only to the most trained of eyes.2

  “I saw a drug peddler outside,” she said. “A hideous man with an eye patch. He was distributing pills from a prescription bottle. People formed a line, holding out their hands like it was holy communion.”

  “Oh that’s just Roddy, he’s harmless. It’s methadone he’s selling. It’s prescription.” It made me uneasy, imagining her prancing around Bushwick, but I was trying to make the best of it.

  “Addicts make my skin crawl,” said Olya.

  “Try walking,” I told her.

  She paced the room in heels.

  “You have any blow?” she asked.

  “I’m out.”

  “We should get some if we go out tonight. There’s a party at Spa. Steven Meisel will be there.”

  “How does it feel?”

  Olya stopped in the mirror and looked at herself. “It’s beautiful. I love it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. It’s totally elegant, you know? Not like slut.”

  “How does it feel in the waist? Is it too snug?”

  “No, it’s perfect.”

  I felt so happy at that moment I started to weep, something I did whenever a real friend complimented my work. “I’m so glad you like it. Take it off and let’s try on something else.”

  “Look at you, darling,” she said. “You’re such a bitch. Don’t cry.”

  “I’m just so happy. I can’t help it.”

  Someone knocked. There was only one person it could be. Ahmed had a way of interrupting the purest moments of my ambition.

  “Oh shit,” I said under my breath.

  “Who is that?”

  “Guess. It’s probably Ahmed.”

  “Who’s Ahmed?”

  “He’s a client. I’ll get rid of him.”

  As soon as I opened up, Ahmed said, “You’ve been crying. What’s the matter?”

  “Sorry, I have a friend over. We’re doing a fitting.” I stepped back so that Ahmed could see Olya in the white dress.

  “My dear,” Ahmed said to Olya, “my most sincere apologies. Allow me to introduce myself, and then I will be on my way. I am Ahmed Qureshi, garment salesman.”

  “Olya, international model.”

  It was like they were speaking the same language. Olya held out her hand and Ahmed took it and bowed his head. With Olya so elegantly dressed and Ahmed in his same soiled dishdasha, the moment gave me an impression of a child’s fairy tale. Ahmed, the foreign king, bowing down to Olya, the Polack princess.

  “Enchanté, my dear,” he said. “Allow me, if you would, to get a look at you in this most appealing gown.”

  “It’s a dress,” I said.

  “Same difference,” he said.

  Olya did a 360, putting on a pouty face. She liked the attention.

  “Careful, my dear. At this age my heart can’t take such stimuli from a beautiful gel.”

  “Oy, you’re big talker,” she said.

  This made him laugh. “Boy, this dress looks familiar.” He snapped his fingers in rapid succession. “This is the one from the other night. I remember the open back. I see you took my advice and gave it a little more umpff in the chest. Pardon me, Olya. I don’t mean to speak as if you weren’t in the room.”

  “It’s okay. I’m a professional.”

  “My dear, you’re too much for me. May I borrow this man for one minute.”

  Ahmed and I stepped out into the hallway.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to you,” I said, “but I really don’t have time right now. I have Olya here—”

  “Two seconds,” he said, nonchalantly.

  “Okay.”

  “She is your gel?”

  “My what?”

  “Your gel. She’s not your gelfriend?”

  “Oh, my girlfriend. No, no, she’s just a friend.”

  “She’s beautiful. You should think about it. For you. Anyway, I’m not here to breathe down your back. The artist must work.” Ahmed was always remarking on how great an artist I was, when really he didn’t know a thing about me. He’d seen one dress. “I only have a small favor to ask. I have an engagement approaching. It requires my vital presence. Meaning to say, I’m expected to show my mug, and I have to RSVP by tomorrow and decide if I want the chicken or salmon plate. You know how these things go. The fish at these functions, what can you do? Anyway, it’s a business-casual affair, tie optional, but I’d very much like to show up in one of your anticipated designs. It would mean a lot to me, Boy. And it would certainly make an impression on a few others in attendance. Some very important people will be in the room. So, what I mean to say is, I need a suit by Friday. Can you produce?”

  It didn’t seem possible with Friday only three days away. Although back at FIM I had squeezed out an entire thesis collection in three days’ time. I pulled all-nighters dyeing fabric and sewing two looks a night. But this was a suit we were talking about. Suits took time. They had more layers, more structure, lining, pockets, padding. Not to mention I hadn’t ever made one.

  “No, I can’t do it,” I told him.

  “I know what you’re feeling, Boy. This is not what you signed up for. I know. I didn’t intend to put you in such a position. But look, what is Friday? Friday is only a day. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Am I right?”

  “I’m just not sure you’ll get the quality you’d otherwise get if I had more time. For the money you’re paying me it should be perfect. Two weeks. I can commit to two weeks.”

  “Beby, look at you. You’re all flustered. Listen, two weeks from now is what? A Tuesday. I need a suit by Friday. This Friday. Something dressy. Yes? Friday would be essential. So how much?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s not about money.”

  “Name your price, eh? Friday delivery. How much? Two hundred?”

  I shook my head. “You’re not hearing me. It’s time I need.”

  “Three hundred? That’s twenty-eight total, Boy. That’s a fair price. Twenty-eight and I take a bath on the fabric. A twelve percent markup. You just have to deliver one by Friday, remember. Take your two weeks on the other. Hell, take more, what do I care?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Let’s get creative. Three thousand for the whole caboodle. There. You just made five hundred, and I’m still considering it a favor to me.”

  He was a persuasive salesman. An extra five hundred dollars would basically cover another month’s expenses in Bushwick. And the rest could go toward a deposit on a new apartment. I was desperate to move into Williamsburg, where I knew I truly belonged.

  So there I was, looking after my own interests. But isn’t that why we do anything? As citizens of modernity we’re always trying to better our social status, right down to the smallest detail. Luxury, comfort, it’s all a part of getting ahead. If that’s a
crime, then I’m guilty as charged.

  “I’ll need an overlock machine,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a kind of sewing machine. And I’ll need a button puncher and a new cutting board.”

  “Done. Expense it. I’ll reimburse you.”

  “Fine. Three thousand plus the new equipment. I’ll keep receipts.”

  “Receipts reeshmeets. Just tell me. We have trust, no?”

  “Yes. We have trust.”

  “So just tell me, beby. We won’t let money come between us. This is a special thing we have. It’s casual. Don’t worry about nickels and dimes. Change is for tolls.”

  Ahmed was beginning to grow on me. Perhaps this is more evidence of my naïveté, but he made it his goal to banish all the usual formalities that came with a business deal. With him it was your word, and nothing else mattered. No signatures. No contracts. He made you believe that a trust had been established from the very start. And from time to time he would check in on that trust by asking about its general welfare. He never wanted our thing to feel stiff or formal.

  “All it takes is the right incentive, Boy. You’ll get the extra five hundred plus damages when you deliver on our arrangement.”

  Back inside I found Olya wearing a black organza dress. She was putting on lipstick in the mirror. Tangerine. Whenever she was bored she would always put on more makeup.

  “I liked your uncle,” she said.

  “He’s not my uncle. Oh God, Olya, what have I done?”

  “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be. You’re so anxious, Boy. Just like my mother. The bitch. Always worrying.”

  “I’m so fucked. Where are my cigarettes?”

  “You don’t smoke.”

  “I do when I’m stressed.”