The Submission

Free The Submission by Amy Waldman Page A

Book: The Submission by Amy Waldman Read Free Book Online
Authors: Amy Waldman
Tags: General Fiction
banker, not a wordsmith. Could they say Khan was not “fitting”? As a jury behind closed doors they could say whatever they wanted, so the answer was to eliminate Khan as unsuitable before his name became public. There was the Claire problem, of course, but Paul suspected that she could be brought around by considering the outraged sentiments of the families she was meant to represent. Not that he shared those sentiments. For him, Khan was a problem to solve.
    As required, the architect had provided a photograph with his entry. He appeared a handsome young man, his skin pale brown, his hair black, curly, and short, his brows dark and paintbrush thick over a wide, strong nose. His eyes, pale, greenish, were masked somewhat by the reflection in his glasses, which, unobtrusive and rimless, raised his estimation by Paul, who couldn’t stand the primary-colored rectangles so many prominent architects favored. Khan wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t look unhappy. Seeing the face made it plain how much Khan was about to lose, what Paul was about to take. He turned the page over on his desk.
    “The
Post
, have you seen it?”
    It was 6:00 a.m., and Paul had seen nothing beyond the blinking light of his cell phone. He struggled to place the voice. Lanny, the jury’s chief assistant.
    “The
Post
?” Paul warbled.
    “Yes, the
New York Post.
They’re saying a Muslim has won the memorial competition. You told me—”
    “The
Post
?”
    “You told me there wasn’t a winner yet, Paul.” He sounded wounded. “I told the whole press corps that. I look completely out of the loop.”
    “How you look is fairly low on my list of priorities right now, Lanny. Let me call you back.”
    How had the
Post
gotten it? he wondered as he threw an overcoat over his pajamas. Didn’t that reporter—Spier—work for the
News
? Someone else must have leaked, or the original leaker had gone to another paper … he was trying to piece together a jigsaw puzzle on its back. Edith replied only with a drowsy grunt when asked if she had seen his glasses, his misplacing and her recovering of them a forty-year routine she was disinclined to enact at this hour. He gave up, pulled on his shoes, and speed-walked to the nearest newsstand, seeing Khan’s face before him. Halfway there it occurred to him he could have just switched on the computer. Old habits die hard, hardly die, but more than that: he needed to hold his calamity in his hands.
    He reached the newsstand. There it was and going fast—the paper the
Post
, the author Alyssa Spier, and the photo of an unidentifiable man in a balaclava, scary as a terrorist. The headline: mystery MUSLIM MEMORIAL MESS.
    As usual, the Pakistani news vendor at Mo’s corner was framed by the plush bosoms of a dozen white women and the buttocks of a few black women, all of them blooming from the fronts of glossy magazines. Today the vendor had his feather duster out and was sweeping the city grit from his candy rows. As Mo smiled, half in appreciation, half in amusement, his glance chanced on the stack of
New York Post
s below. His heart began hammering so audibly, or so he imagined, that he put his hand on his chest to muffle it. The vendor, thinking it a greeting, put his hand on his chest in return and said,
“Asalamu alaikum.”
    “
Alaikum asalam
,” Mo replied, the words foreign and rubbery on his lips. He snatched up the paper. Inside, the words adding islam to injury ? blared over a picture of the rubbled attack site. His trembling hand ransacked his pocket for change, then foisted a five-dollar bill on the vendor. Mo read as he walked, heedless of the sidewalk’s jostle and cuss. An outsider might have wondered what news of the day could be so smiting to render him blind, deaf, mute, and stupid enough to wander into a New York crosswalk, then pause to read, letting the crowd flow around him like water around a boulder.
    A Muslim had won. But no one knew who—
    A taxi’s blaring horn pitched him from

Similar Books

The Practical Navigator

Stephen Metcalfe

Lieberman's Law

Stuart M. Kaminsky

His Perfect Game

Jenn Langston

Accomplice

Kristi Lea

Steel and Sorrow

Joshua P. Simon

The Thirteenth Coffin

Nigel McCrery