THE TROUBLES SHE'S SEEN

By Richard Lacayo

Thirty-two years after Malcolm X was gunned down in a New York City auditorium, his widow would still speak of him at times in the present tense. "Malcolm thinks," Betty Shabazz might say. Or, "Malcolm's advice is..." On May 19 she attended celebrations to mark what would have been his 72nd birthday. "This has been the greatest day of my life," she told friends later. "Everywhere I went, I heard his voice on tapes." But after her husband's death, Shabazz didn't exactly linger in the past. She got a doctorate in education administration, eventually became director of public relations at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, N.Y., and raised the six daughters he left behind. Sometimes she also helped raise the grandson named after her slain husband, because life so often proved too much for his mother. Life was never too much for Betty.

Or almost never. Last week three generations of the Shabazz family were bound into a single knot of misery. In a New York City hospital, Shabazz was in extremely critical condition with third-degree burns over 80% of her body, the result of a fire inside her Yonkers, N.Y., apartment. Police say the blaze was set by her grandson, who had lived with her for most of the past two years and returned in April after a brief, rocky stay with his mother in San Antonio, Texas. Friends and neighbors say Malcolm, 12, wanted to live again with his mother Qubilah, who had been briefly in the news in 1995 when she faced charges for plotting to kill Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Though never as visible as Coretta Scott King, Shabazz, 61, is likewise revered as the widow of a martyred black leader. As news of her condition spread last week, King and the poet Maya Angelou rushed to her hospital room. Jesse Jackson called from London. President Clinton faxed a message. But because of her age and the extent of her burns, doctors were pessimistic about her chances for survival.

Of all the Shabazz children--just before his death, Malcolm X took the name Malik El-Shabazz--it was Qubilah who was marked most deeply by the traumas of her early life. When her father was shot, the four-year-old girl was close by with her three sisters and pregnant mother. A week earlier the family's home in Queens, N.Y., had been fire-bombed. Later Qubilah would say she wished her father had worked in a grocery store. "I was always angry he left me behind," she said. "If he were a simple store clerk, he would still be here."

Though Qubilah attended Princeton University, she dropped out to move to Paris, drifting through small jobs and rooming houses. Her son's father has been described as a Nigerian she met at school. In time she and Malcolm landed in Minneapolis, Minn., where she thought about killing Farrakhan, a man her mother believed had conspired in her father's death. The government's case against Qubilah rested on taped conversations in which she talked about the plan. But the tapes were provided by a dubious witness, Michael Fitzpatrick, a former schoolmate of Qubilah's who was also an FBI informer. Farrakhan himself was among the many who eventually labeled the whole affair a setup, charging that Fitzpatrick had pushed Qubilah into the scheme so he could turn her over in exchange for leniency on drug charges he faced.

One outgrowth of the case was a rapprochement, at least in public, between Betty Shabazz and Farrakhan, who helped raise funds for the family's legal expenses. An arrangement with prosecutors allowed Qubilah to avoid trial but also required her to undergo psychiatric, drug and alcohol treatment. She moved to San Antonio and began working at a radio station partly owned by former Manhattan borough president Percy Sutton, a family friend who was once her father's lawyer.

Qubilah's deal with prosecutors called for all charges to be dropped if she did not commit a crime for two years. Last month she passed that milestone and resigned from the radio job, hoping to open a shop selling the knitted wool clothing she loves to make. But though neighbors and co-workers describe her as pleasant and quiet, her life in San Antonio was still a mess. Five months after she arrived, police were called by neighbors who heard music from her apartment but noticed newspapers piling up untouched outside. A police report says Qubilah came to the door intoxicated, explained that she had been drinking for several days and asked to be returned to the rehabilitation hospital. Last November, in another incident, she called 911 to report being thrown against a wall by a former boyfriend.

While Qubilah tried to make it in Texas, her son stayed with his grandmother in New York. But in December, Qubilah married Theo Turner, who once served time for burglary. Soon after, Malcolm traveled west to join them. At Redeemer Lutheran School, where he entered eighth grade, teachers say he made friends easily. "He didn't wear a big X on his T shirt," says principal Randy Harrison. "He was just Malcolm." He seemed to like his new stepfather, who would come to watch him play basketball.

That may have made it all the more painful for him when his mother's new marriage began dissolving almost immediately. A few weeks after the marriage was annulled, Turner was arrested in connection with a complaint filed by Qubilah in which she claimed he had pushed her out of a car during an argument. Soon after, police were called again when Qubilah reported that her son had attacked her. When the officers arrived, Malcolm told them he was angry about her drinking. She insisted that her son was schizophrenic but had not taken his medication in two years. Police took them both to a psychiatric hospital.

By that time Malcolm was starting to be absent from school for days at a time. His grades were dropping. He transferred to a public school but lasted just a few days. In April, after his mother called police again to calm another of their fights, Malcolm was sent back to New York. People who know them say Qubilah seemed relieved but that Malcolm was homesick for Texas and his friends there. A young friend of his in New York told reporters that Malcolm recently asked him whether, if he made enough trouble, he might be sent back west. Police believe he set the fire, then fled. One officer has said that, after police found him wandering the streets later that night, Malcolm admitted the crime. The boy's lawyers, who are moving to suppress that statement because no parent or attorney was present when he gave it, say Malcolm told one of them a different story.

Mother and son were both in family court last week, where Qubilah often reached over to wipe away Malcolm's tears. Prosecutors say they will press charges "to the fullest." Meanwhile, Betty Shabazz rests precariously in the hospital, where she underwent three painful operations last week to replace her burned flesh with temporary grafts of artificial skin. For much of her life, one of her personal mottoes has been "Find the good and then celebrate it." This time, the good may be too hard to find.

--Reported by Hilary Hilton/Austin and Marguerite Michaels/New York

With reporting by HILARY HILTON/AUSTIN AND MARGUERITE MICHAELS/NEW YORK