Chapter Eight

Tariq was standing next to the door into the church, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. Todd had a flash of uncertainty, then realized that Tariq knew his author shot would make him more than recognizable. He wondered if that checked scarf was always around his neck, or just when he was going to meet strangers, and if it was the same one from the book jacket photo.

"Hello." Todd started to reach out his hand, and hesitated when he saw Tariq's hands weren't moving from his pockets.

"Let's go inside. I often meet people here; they are open most weekdays."

Turning, the burly Pakistani walked through the door, holding it just long enough to be polite but not looking back to see if the American had caught it. Todd did, and turned to close it carefully, hearing behind him a brief greeting to the woman at a low desk near the entryway.

They both walked on into the body of the church, the nave, Todd dimly recalled. Beams overhead like a ship overturned, "navis" came drifting back from high school Latin. The seating was made up of individual chairs, not long benchlike pews he recalled from childhood. Kneelers were scattered about, and the arrangement was less linear than he thought of as normal for churches, as if a crowd had recently left in a hurry.

The walls up to the roofbeams were a bit of a jumble, too. Chunks and hunks of art and statuary, or at least bas-relief figures and shields and coats-of-arms, dotted at irregular intervals, some low, some high. Tariq turned and sat down on a pair of chairs sitting at an angle to the semblances of rows, and finally pulling a hand out of his coat pointed to a chair.

"Sit."

"Thank you for making the time to..."

"Have you been to England before?'

"No."

"To Somalia, or Pakistan, or...?"

"No, nowhere overseas." Todd almost said "I've been to Canada" but thought better of it.

"Ah. Welcome, then. You are in a very old church of, well, your...."

The silence hung in the air a moment, then Tariq went on "You are a Christian of some sort?"

"I guess; I mean, not really. Not a member."

"Oh. A free thinker?"

Todd had to think a moment about that, and said more hesitantly than he wished "Yes, that's probably right."

"You know, there is a monument to William Godwin here, he and Mary Wollstonecraft."

Todd nodded as if that were an obvious connection to him.

Tariq went on: "Of course, they are buried now in Bournemouth, but the marker keeps their memory here, closer to their home. Some say Thomas Paine's remains ended up here, buried under their marker, after Cobbett brought them home. You have read Paine, as an American?'

This was more solid ground, recalling both the name and a section of his writings in a college text. "Yes, I've read 'Common Sense' and..."

"No, no," Tariq answered with a brush of his free hand. "I meant 'Rights of Man' and 'The Age of Reason.'"

"I haven't."

"This you should do. He is part of your inheritance as an American, something of which you can be proud. You wish to meet with Ali Abdul Nazeer?"

"Sorry, I mean, right. Yes. That's the Somali preacher who..."

"Had lived in your state, in Ohio. Not really an important part of his story, I suspect. He spent time there, but his mind was not formed there."

Todd had little enough to say to this, since connecting Nazeer's Ohio years to the global story of Islam and terrorism was what his editor had told him to write up.

"You could meet him. This could be arranged, but you would not learn much. With respect, you would not 'get much out of him' as they say. He is proud, and angry at America, and not given to interviews outside of the Arabic press at any rate. I would suggest a different story for you to pursue, if you are interested."

Todd was nervous, but interested. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a long notepad and a ballpoint pen, flipped it open.

"What are you thinking about, sir?"

Tariq smiled, and began to tell a story.