What she’s looking for

Fatima bin Laden was tall like Uncle Osama, and there was a resemblance, but his sharp Arabic features were softened by Filipino genes. From her mother she inherited luscious lips and enticing feminine curves -- which had never been so exposed or decorated as they were now, standing on the tiny stage in a belly dance costume as the opening bars of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" pulsed with what sounded like tabla drum, zither and tambourine, a rising bass beat and more drums.

Fatima was a dancer and lived with The Big Beat of Life, straight from the human heart, and gathered this rhythm to her perfect motordrive and within seconds was slowly moving, snaking arms and rotating hips, then pulling a gauzy hankie from each bra strap with her teeth, blowing into them, making them flutter with the breath of life.

The pace picked up and Fatima pictured herself back in Pakistan with her beloved mentor Basheera Ahd al-Anwar, who had taught her this handkerchief dance. Her name meant bearer of good tidings-knowledge-ray of light, and the Iranian scholar was all of that for Fatima.

Uncle Osama hired the London-educated Basheera to teach her English so that she could fulfill this mission against America, but she had taught her so much more -- that a woman could be an intellectual and follow an inquisitive mind, and that she could defend herself with the secret martial art of She Kat, based on belly dance moves. This dance was not truly Arabic, it was cengi, a Turkish gypsy dance, but it was clever and Basheera would share the dance with other women at bridal parties.

Fatima was into it now, in an instant turning one of the hankies into a male -- twisted between fingers and teeth into a ramrod rope -- while the other was soft and billowy, feminine and flirty in the light pinch of her other hand. With them Fatima pantomimed the lyrics: "I have run, I have crawled, I have scaled these city walls, only to be with you ... "

Mama Hanna, the mama san, didn't like what she was seeing. Nobody was gambling or buying drinks. They'd all stopped to watch Fatima. And she wasn't taking off any clothes! What the hell?!

As music swelled, the male pursued the female, who always fluttered just out of reach, and then with a graceful and skilled toss the hankie was launched and hung alone in air, then began a slow, parachute-like descent, the male bobbing all around her. At last he extended himself and she fell upon him, impaled.

And then she skittered away.

"... But I still haven't found what I'm looking for ... "

The music ended and Fatima bounded off the stage as patrons stood and cheered. That had never happened before. Mama Hanna would make damn sure it didn't happen again. The kid was pau already.