Michael Benzehabe

The dean put a finger to his chin as he studied this great and troubling mystery. The applicant__ response reeked of insincerity, like, __ave a nice day!_ with all the friendly burned off. __kay, Mr. Darlington. I__l just be a minute.

Diplomacy is so weak and prosaic. Diplomacy must never become an end, itself. Facts are so much more important in science. Yet, I'm beginning to appreciate the value of a soft word and a smile. --Unassimilated pg 294

Zoe leaned closer to Ruth, nearly nose to nose. __f they were made from better stuff, they would have pretended the fault was theirs. They would have made a moment of it--a pretty moment.

Zoe stopped one last time in front of the mirror, adjusting her new American dress. She didn__ see the dress, however. She saw what the big Russian did to her. She saw what al-Qaeda did to her. She saw a person shunned by her Persian village. She saw ugliness. Every time she looked in the mirror she saw deficiency.

No._ The smile had left Sarah__ voice. __e still works for the Basij. Beware of weak men, little sister. He never returned to help, not even to express condolences for Father. Find a strong man. Get a man who will stand up for you, even if it means he has to fight the whole world. There is nothing more dangerous than a weak man.

Zoe did what civilized people do when they freak out: she drank tea. She had walked from her little bungalow to Coffee & Tea. It was always filled with the well-educated, the complicated, the people who read books with captivating titles. A perfect place to ignore and be ignored. She found the anonymity delicious.

Being articulate is no guarantee of intelligence,_ Zoe said. ____ not doubting the value of education. I__ doubting its reach. Highly educated politicians still do stupid things. Anthony Weiner was educated; Mugabi was educated; Assad was educated; Mussolini was educated. For all their education, look at them.

Some people want you to call them rabbi; some people want you to call them American; some people want you to admire their tats. We__e all got our facades. At least the dean__ self-qualifier is based on merit. Can you say the same about your tattoos? Come on, he__ a sad man. Leave him alone.

People, like buildings, have facades. Tom created his. His walk was a feat. It had taken him twenty years of killing bad guys and a pair of Tony Lama boots to perfect the illusion. He made sure that everyone felt it by the third clunk of his boot heel. When he entered a crime scene there was a hush, and no one ever quite knew why they were holding their breath. But he did. A crime scene was theater and the stage was his.

She doesn__ shake hands._ Saul smiled at the reverend and shrugged. She had other odd behaviors. Saul never viewed her idiosyncrasies as a problem. Rather, he enjoyed her ongoing revelations. She was a piñata of surprises every time they went out. __ichael Benzehabe, from the novel Unassimilated

Li, a willowy manboy with a shock of black hair atop a mouthful of bad teeth was the brother-in-law he had introduced to industrial espionage several years back. Rong often regretted that.

Saul stared at his Whisky Sour. He hadn__ heard from Zoe in about a week. Maybe she had lost interest. All at once, the room was filled with people laughing, talking about how wonderful it was to be a couple. He was mildly amused at how disconcerting being alone felt. He had met Zoe about a month ago, when he helped her cross a busy boulevard. Yet, it seemed like he had known her for years. He stepped outside to call and leave another message.

Pleading for forgiveness was always on the tip of her tongue. She had tried doing a good thing, but because of one thoughtless act, his two beautiful daughters were brutally raped, and running to the other side of the world hadn__ helped. Because of her, two innocent ADP employees were dead. She was older but not a shekel wiser, still opening the wrong doors.

All the way, Zoe kept her chin up and pretended she wasn__ mortified, but his sour expression stayed with her. She wasn__ good at making American friends. She changed her language, conduct, and clothing, but it didn__ seem to matter. Whether she wore modest Middle-Eastern clothing or cute Western fashions, everyone knew she didn__ belong.

Civil order mattered. Zoe didn__ know why Farah continued to wear the headscarf, but most Middle-Eastern women wore modest clothing to anchor themselves to a moral order, in an upside-down world. Zoe wore the chador as a protective shell, to erase herself, to avoid thinking, to envelop herself in the complete custody of her adopted Muslim sisters. In their care she would come out healed, able to process the bigotry that caused the murder of her Jewish parents. Then, when she was whole again, she would reclaim her place in the world. Though others couldn__ see it, behind the nameless, shapeless, Middle-Eastern garb, she was healing. The chador cocooned and nurtured her. Dour exteriors meant blossoming interiors . . . to Zoe. Judaism centered her, but Islam shielded her. Both served their purpose . . . for now.

She closed the distance between them and gave him a tentative hug. He was liberally cologned, with a scent that incited bewildering memories. She circled him, not knowing why. She had only met him a few weeks back, yet tonight, something about him triggered old memories, of a time, a person. Maybe not. What she did know, he lacked that special ingredient that moved her. Dull as ditch water. He was sufficiently polite, but that was about all she could say. __ichael Benzehabe, from the novel Unassimilated

In the privacy of her century-worn house she donned an old burka to stay warm. Years earlier, the ragged garment had been discarded by her eldest sister, Sarah. Zoe secretly retrieved it so she could wrap herself in its fond memories. Those memories, good and bad, quickened her weary heart. Only one person could help when she got nerved-up.

Saul had gained his six-foot frame at sixteen, but his muscles didn__ arrive until his early twenties. Between those lost years, he was a gangly, uncoordinated klutz. He was told that he could improve his dancing by watching himself in the mirror. He tried. What he saw was so repulsive that he resolved never to inflict himself on a dance partner. These days, Saul hid those memories behind weight lifting and jogging. His new athletic physique hid his aimless decade as an outsider, an odd and lonely kid--as he remembered it.