The women sit cross-legged in the back corner of the Muslim Community Center mosque, near Elston and Kostner, their heads bowed under hajab scarves. “Like they say here in America, there is no free lunch!” says the disembodied voice of the imam, who is hidden from them by a curtain.
In a cloud of swirling fabric, the rows of women rise, then sink to their knees and arch forward, their lips brushing the floor.
The phone rings; it’s Odtallah’s uncle-in-law. Odtallah rubs his temples and mumbles directions to the airport in broken Arabic. The uncle is picking up Odtallah’s sister, Montaha, 18, and his parents, who have just returned from two months in the West Bank village of Sair, near Hebron. There they buried Montaha’s new husband, Ray Hindi, in the ground next to his parents’ house. “Back home we own our own graves,” Odtallah says.
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Aramin called 911 and sped through red lights to get to Hindi. At the store he met police and an ambulance, which rushed Hindi to Illinois Masonic. But Hindi was pronounced dead a few hours later.
“Ray was the smartest and toughest guy in our school back home. He had hair down to his shoulders–this is not common in my country, but all the girls loved it. And he was tall with big muscles. When he was 15 he had to fight seven guys to get his black belt. I always told him if I had his body I’d show it off. But he didn’t show off, so I couldn’t be jealous.” He spoke near perfect English, Jaradat says, had only the slightest trace of an accent. “Every night he would read the newspapers for words he didn’t know and then look those words up in the dictionary. He wanted to learn everything.
But lately, Jaradat admits, he thinks not only about quitting but about going back to Sair because America is too dangerous.
