We decide to follow Sabera’s approach of embedding lowercase letters that combine to spell out key words.It’s what she used to communicate about Zahra—“i am her sword”—so it seems fitting to repeat.Except we’re trying to determine a meet place and time, which leaves us with how to share the right numbers in a jumble of digits, and oh, yeah, where to meet?
Sabera’s apartment is too dangerous.Aliah’s home and business feel similarly vulnerable.We could do the compound, but what if someone else sees the message and discovers Zahra hiding here?At the moment, this feels like our one safe place, and we’re loathe to give it up.
“Dance studio,” Daryl offers up abruptly.“Where Roberta and I meet for ballroom.It’s part of a busy strip mall.Public.Plenty of people, plus the parking lot is well lit and heavily surveilled.”
“In other words, lots of witnesses to deter any overt acts of violence.”
“In theory.”
Aliah looks up the address and determines it’s part of a major bus line.She nods her agreement.
Setting a meet time for today seems too early—we’re not sure when, how, if Sabera will see our poster.Tomorrow’s a safer bet, except for the same issues—when, how, if Sabera gets our message.
“Daily,” Daryl determines.“One of us will show up every evening at sevenP.M.until she appears.Covers the most bases.”
Aliah and I agree.We get busy with a fine collection of gibberish that includes the right mix of lowercase letters.I can’t help myself; I include the phraseCHIN UPseveral times.It’s what Sabera wrote the most, almost obsessively.I don’t know what it means, but clearly it’s significant to her.I want her to know that we heard.Whatever story she has to tell, we’re ready to listen.
In the end, Aliah copies our notes onto the poster board in a beautiful, flowing script, with touches of embellishment.
“To make it more artistic,” she provides.“It will be, after all, hanging in a business window.”
Makes sense to me.
Our attempts have taken a solid hour, but stepping back and studying, the finished result seems worth it.
Zahra leaves her collection of glittery scribbles to check our work.
She climbs onto the chair in front of the poster, examines it for a full minute.I can practically see her eyes scanning across each line, copying each letter and word, filing them away in the great vault of her mind.Her face wears a nearly blank expression.The world’s most adorable database, computing away.
In the end, she picks up the black Sharpie and before any of us think to stop her, she leans over the poster and adds a line.Then another and another.She builds a box in the lower corner of the poster, her movements slow and studied, the tip of her tongue pursed between her lips in concentration.
The box gets split into many little boxes, until she has created a five-by-five matrix.Then, she places a number in the middle of each square.Slow and focused again.She’s not simply re-creating something she remembers; this is an image she’s clearly practiced.
Directed by her father, or mother?Someone else?
When she’s done, she moves to the next corner and laboriously builds a new box.Then creates a third at the top of the poster, dead center.Three five-by-five matrixes, arranged like points of a triangle, each bearing a different collection of numbers.
None of us says a word.
When she’s done, she sets down the Sharpie, sits back in her chair, and nods once, as if satisfied.
“Zahra, did your father teach you that?”Aliah asks softly.
Zahra regards her with her too old, too serious gray eyes: “Two halves of one whole,” she announces.
Then she dismounts from the chair and heads around the table for more glitter.
CHAPTER 30
AFTER MUCH STUDYING OFZAHRA’Sposter additions, we all agree they’re clearly a puzzle of some kind.Mathematical puzzle, I further define, in an attempt to be smart.
Unfortunately, there’s not a mathematician among us, so no matter how many ways we turn the squares, study the numbers, we got nothing.Daryl snaps a photo and attempts an image search.Still nada.He texts Roberta next.
She’ll be right over.
But of course.
After that, the division of labor is simple.Daryl and Roberta will take over Zahra duty at the compound, with the stipulation Genni can borrow the youngster later to bake cookies.Aliah and I will return to her deli so she can make a living, while I hang up the poster and basically hang around for whatever might happen next.
