Read Online Zealot by Donna Lettow - Free Book Online

he and Maral were seated. He pulled a chair out
     from under one table, grabbed Assad by the shoulders and directed him to the chair. “You, Beavis, sit.” He pulled a chair
     out from under the second table and indicated it to Assad’s partner. “And you, Butthead, over here.” The partner was about
     to protest, but one glance at the look on MacLeod’s face and he sat where ordered. MacLeod sat back down in his own seat.
     “Better?”
    “Much better,” Maral agreed. “Thank you.”
    MacLeod reached for the wine list, then stopped. “Would you be offended if I had a drink?”
    “Offended? Why would I be offended?”
    “Islam. You said at lunch yesterday you didn’t drink, and I thought…”
    Maral shook her head. “I’m afraid the last devout Muslim in my family was my grandfather. I don’t drink, but it’s not a religious
     obligation. You should help yourself.” MacLeod called the owner over and ordered a glass of wine.
    “Would Monsieur like to see a dinner menu?” the owner asked.
    “No…” MacLeod looked over at Maral with a twinkle in his eye. “Surprise us.” The owner hurried off to confer with the chef.
     “Now,” he said to Maral, “tell me more about your family.”
    “My father was raised in Islam, but he was always full of doubt, even as a child. He grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp
     in Jordan, and he always had trouble understanding why my grandfather believed it was written that peasants from Russia should
     take away the farm that had been in our family for nearly three hundred years. My mother was a Christian, from Bethlehem.
     My uncles, who still raise sheep there, like to claim that it was our ancestors who saw the great star over Bethlehem and
     found the baby Jesus. That’s how long they say my mother’s family have herded sheep in that area.”
    MacLeod could remember many sunny afternoons as a boy spent off adventuring with his cousin Robert, even though they’d both
     been warned to mind the sheep. And many’s the cold, lonely night spent helping a ewe bring new life into the world. “I come
     from a long line of shepherds, myself.”
    The owner brought MacLeod’s wine to the table, but MacLeod, fascinated by this glimpse into the complex layers that made up
     his dinner companion, didn’t touch it. “So, your mother was an Arab Christian, your father an apostate Muslim. How about you?”
    She shrugged. “I guess you could say my brothers and I are interested spectators. Respectful of both traditions and practicing
     none. That’s why my father wanted to move to America, where race and religion wouldn’t matter so much anymore.”
    MacLeod knew better than that and could tell she did, too. “And did it?” he prompted.
    “Of course it still mattered. “Dirty Arab’ hurts a child as much in English as it does in Hebrew. And we could never truly
     get away from everything that was happening back home.” She stopped talking for a moment, as if unwilling to peel back a deeper
     layer on such short acquaintance, then continued on with her story. “My father managed to drink himself to death by the time
     I was nineteen. So much for that American dream, huh?” Her little laugh was mirth-free. “I’ve seen alcohol. I saw it promise
     my father the peace he was looking for, then strip it all away from him. And, since I’m told I’m very much like the stubborn
     old fool in other ways, I’ve decided it’s best I stay away from it.”
    MacLeod touched her hand across the table. “I suspect you are neither old nor a fool.”
    “Ah, but don’t forget stubborn.” She turned her hand over so that his palm rested in hers, then held his hand. “So, now I
     have bared my soul to you, it’s your turn.” Her purring voice, her chocolate eyes flecked with gold, the way she stroked the
     back of his hand, she was certainly persuasive, and even the sudden arrival of the first course would not deter her from her
     request. As the owner left the table, she