"The Good Son" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gruber Michael)

11

M ahmoud has waited in the lee of the wall outside the building, squatting, patient as a hound. When Sonia crawls out the door, he lets out a startled cry, picks her up in his arms, and carries her into the hujra, but not to the room she once shared with Annette Cosgrove. Instead she is taken to a somewhat larger room, which had once been the eating hall of the village inn. It seems to Sonia that all the captives have been assembled there and there is a stir among them as the guard brings her in and lays her carefully on a charpoy. When he leaves they all gather around her, all talking at once. Annette Cosgrove reaches her first, sees the condition of her feet, and cries out for water and cloths. She shouts at the others in a firm nurse’s voice that Sonia has not heard her use before, telling them to go away and let Sonia breathe.

Annette bathes Sonia’s feet, her touch professionally gentle, her movements efficient. She smears an ointment on the torn soles, and says, “I’m sorry, that must hurt.”

“What is it?”

“Neosporin. We always travel with a medical kit, and I asked for it when they brought me in here. I said I would take care of their people too. Look at me, please. Have you had a concussion?”

“No. I fainted when they whipped my back.”

“Let’s take a look at it,” says Annette. She helps Sonia off with her kameez, and peels back the bandages, after which she gives a small cry. “Oh, Jesus!”

“That bad?”

“Well, it may look worse than it is. You lost a lot of skin, but there doesn’t seem to be any suppuration. Let me ban dage you up again.”

When she is done with this and Sonia’s shirt is back in place, Annette says, “I don’t know, I’d be howling if I had a back like that. Either you’re incredibly stoic or… you’re sure they didn’t hit your head?”

“I’m fine, Annette. I had a religious experience. The pain is still there but it’s not… engaging? It’s hard to describe.”

She looks around the little room. The group members are keeping their distance, but they are all watching her. She asks, “Is everyone here all right? Dr. Schildkraut?”

“He’s fine, except for his bronchitis. The others… physically, they’re all fine. A little smelly, maybe, but all healthy so far.” A pause. Sonia is conscious of all the eyes on her and knows why. She’s been outside, she’s seen other faces, heard other voices, they are all dying for news of the rest of the world, even news from a village street. Well, she has news.

At last, Annette blurts out their desire. “What’s happening? Did they tell you anything?”

“Yes, and we all need to hear this.” She lifts herself up and gestures to the others and immediately the eight prisoners surround her, pressing close, kneeling or standing, or sitting on another charpoy hastily dragged over. Sonia is reminded of a baroque altarpiece: disciples surrounding a dying saint, their attention rapt.

She gives it to them straight. She has spoken to the man in charge. He has expressed interest in the conference and insists that they proceed here, but the threat made on the video is literal. On any day when there are civilian casualties in the so-called war on terror, Alakazai will execute one hostage. And Sonia herself is to choose each victim.

There is a silence, broken by Schildkraut. “Sonia, that is monstrous. You cannot possibly do such a thing, selecting the victims-”

“I don’t think any of it is voluntary, Professor,” says Ashton, and they all begin talking at once until Amin shouts for everyone to be quiet and enforces his demand by banging on the brass breakfast tray with a metal spoon.

“Thank you,” he says, when they have settled down. “There is no need to lose our heads-in the figurative sense at least. Now, as to our situation. Obviously, we are at the mercy of this man, Alakazai, who clearly has no mercy at all. But we are not entirely helpless. We can at least relieve Sonia of this impossible responsibility by selecting the order of execution ourselves, in advance. We can draw straws-”

“I have a deck of cards,” says Sonia.

“A deck of cards will do as well. Are we agreed on that score at least?”

“As if we had a choice,” says Ashton.

Amin gives the Englishman a stern look. “No, we don’t have a choice as to whether we will die, but we can choose if we will die like human beings. Our captor wishes to reduce us to a squabbling herd of animals and wishes to degrade Sonia by making her the mistress of our fate. He would like to see us begging her for another day of life, offering her money, favors, I don’t know what. We can choose not to do that. We can choose to leave the order of our dying in the hands of fate-or God, if you will.” He pauses to look each of them in the eye, then asks, “Are we agreed, then?”

Murmurs of assent, nods. Porter Cosgrove clears his throat. “But it’s not certain that anyone will be killed, is it? I mean, it depends on whether any innocent Muslims are killed. Maybe they’ll call some sort of truce while we’re being held.”

An incredulous laugh from Harold Ashton, and Amin says gently, “Porter, of course we all hope that, but I am afraid there is little chance that the various wars will cease just because nine people are being held hostage. Innocent Muslims are being killed every day by various armies, and the fact that most of them are dying at the hands of fellow Muslims can’t affect our situation. The deaths will not stop-if not in Pakistan, then Kashmir, Afghan i stan, Iraq, Chechnya. We can always hope for rescue, but there is no point in clutching at false hopes.”

Sonia observes that Cosgrove has a lock on the prize for most demoralized captive. He seems to have lost two sizes since his expansive performance at the dinner party, was it four days ago? A lifetime ago, at any rate. His face has fallen into itself like a rotted white grape, and his eyes are a hurt child’s: How can this be happening to wonderful charitable me? He sags against his wife’s sturdy youth. Sonia catches Annette’s troubled look but pulls her eyes away, feeling embarrassment, guilt.

Amin speaks again. He’s also transformed himself, Sonia observes, from a slick, even oily, foundation professional into a death-camp leader. He’s physically shrunken, like the others, but this has only exposed an unexpected core of moral steel.

“The other decision we must make is whether to hold our conference now. Sonia tells us it is our tyrant’s desire. We must not suppose that he is really interested in what we have to say. It is most probable that he wishes to mock us. Nevertheless, I believe we should do it.”

There is some outburst at this, but he holds his hand up until they are quiet again. “This is why,” he continues. “We all stand for something and, if I may say it, different versions of the same thing. We stand for peace. We think it is possible in this world. We think intelligence, fair dealing, and moral clarity can help bring about peace, even in places where war is the only thing anyone remembers. Some of us have actually done this, so we understand that it is not merely a pious illusion. Some of us are inspired by religion. We think a compassionate God desires all His children to live in peace. Others of us are not religious, but believe that war is a crime against reason and humanity. None of us expected to be in this situation, with death hanging over all our heads. But consider our choices now. We can refuse to perform for this evil man, that is one way to look at it, or we can speak our truth, even in the face of death. This is what is meant by the word martyr, as I’m sure you know. Martyr means witness. And speaking only for myself, this is how I would prefer to die, with my truth on my lips to the last breath.”

In the silence after this, Sonia begins to clap, and the others join in with enthusiasm, all except Porter Cosgrove, who sits stunned on the edge of a charpoy, like a stuffed doll. But Annette claps, as does Ashton, although Sonia notices he is looking at Annette as he does.

Schildkraut now rises as the applause fades and says, “Let me add, if I may, one observation to my colleague’s remarks. I am the oldest person here, by a good measure. I was looking forward to my seventy-sixth birthday next month, and I suppose that in the normal course of things I would have volunteered to be the first to go to death. It would not be much of a sacrifice, I think, not of very much time anyway. But as it is, I will submit to the hand of fate, as Amin has suggested. I say fate and not God, you notice; I am one of Amin’s atheists. And as the oldest of you, I suppose I have been to more conferences over the years than anyone else. That is what we intelligentsia do in the modern world, we travel and talk and confer, all paid for by people like Mr. Craig there. It is one of the perks of such a life, quite pleasant-the nice hotels, the beautiful conference centers-yes, and I agree with Amin that we must do this thing now, to speak our truth, and I would like to add that, should any of us survive, we should propose this arrangement as a general principle for conferences. At every conference there should be a card drawing and executions. Everyone should speak as if their speech were their last words on earth. I submit that this would make for shorter meetings and a good deal less bullshit.”

He sits. After a frozen instant, Amin bursts into laughter and the rest of them join in, all except, again, Porter Cosgrove. He seems about to cry. Then he does cry, deep, almost soundless sobs. Annette talks to him softly, urges him to stand, moves him shuffling away from the others, and lays him down on a charpoy near the far wall.

Nobody comments on this. Instead they crowd around Sonia and Amin, seemingly reluctant to move away, as if these two have some powerful mana that will lift the curse of death, Amin because he is now the leader, and Sonia because… she doesn’t quite understand it, but it has to do, she thinks, with the experience she had in the cellar stable. Maybe they sense it, the shadow of God; maybe they think, even the rationalists, the atheists, that she can work miracles as a result.

Sonia says, “There’s something else you should know. I guess you’ve heard that I’m interpreting dreams for some of the locals, yes? Well, as Amin said, I’m not sure we can impress Alakazai with anything we do, but I have the sense that Bahram Alakazai is not well loved as a leader, and neither is his field commander, Idris Ghulam. It’s hard to lead Pashtuns, even if they respect you, and respect ordinarily goes through khel and tribe. They’ll take orders from people they don’t know if they believe it’s for a higher cause, like the jihad, but they don’t like it. If the jihad for some reason proves illegitimate, the whole arrangement breaks down. If their violence is not authorized, they accrue blood guilt for the people they kill. And they need not take orders from someone not in their clan hierarchy, which I suspect is the case here. Alakazai is a half-breed, and Idris has the look of a malang, a man of one of the menial tribes.”

“But even if this is true, Sonia,” says Manjit Nara, “how is this to our advantage?”

“I’m not sure yet, but dreams are very important to these people. I think I’ve almost won over the guard Mahmoud. I mean he’ll still torture me, but his heart’s not in it. And Alakazai doesn’t seem to want to go the full legal route to have me put to death under sharia law. Instead he’s whipped up this supposed psychological torture for me. That’s not Muslim, that’s simple sadism, and people won’t like it when they find out about it, and Alakazai will lose face when we foil that by putting the choice in God’s hands. Meanwhile, we can expect a big audience for the conference because Pashtuns love talk fests, and I intend to simultaneously translate the presentations into Pashto as you all speak. Among other things, we can make the case that murdering hostages is a violation of sharia law. Which it is.”

This produces an unpleasant snort from Ashton. “But surely you don’t imagine that nice legalities are going to stop these people from doing whatever they want. Mujahideen murder civilians all the time.”

“People who call themselves mujahideen commit all kinds of atrocities, true, but they need some corrupt mullah to give them leave to behave like that. The kind of criticism that the liberal press in Western countries generates has no effect on them, they think it’s hypocrisy. It follows that the only attack that might have some effect is from the right, so to speak, from real religion and not from what they consider Godless liberalism. These jihad mullahs are never challenged openly from within Islam, which is what I’ve done here and what I’ll continue to do. These people can’t stand to think of themselves as bandits, they can’t stand to think that if they die they won’t go to Paradise, and they won’t if they’re not in a real jihad.”

Schildkraut turns to Father Shea. “What do you think of that, Mark?”

“You’re asking me?”

“You’re our expert on comparative religion.”

The priest scratched at his newly bristling beard. “Yes, and as a Catholic I suppose you think I’m expert in both fanaticism and the furthest reaches of the right wing,” which produces a scholarly chuckle among the group. “Well, I don’t know that it’s a religious issue at all. I believe it was a countryman of yours, Schildkraut, who said, ‘Terrorism is the rage of the literati in its final stages.’ Al-Qaeda and its offshoots are a disease of modernism, however much they dress themselves in traditional clothing. It’s a kind of toxic nostalgia, which is something the Catholic Church only took about five hundred years to deal with, and we’re still not past it yet. They see the modern world of technology and mass media and libertinism and consumerism, and they both desire and despise it. I mean, that’s why we all came here, to talk about the diseased mental states that generate terrorism and violence in this part of the world. So I think it’s something of a stretch to believe that what you call real religion can have an effect. In fact, whatever they say, they’re not at all religious. Thou shall not commit murder is a pretty basic rule for the genuinely religious.”

Manjit Nara laughs and says, “Ah, at last we are having our conference.”

“Yes, and I believe, all things considered,” says Amin, “that we would have been better off holding it at the hotel in Lahore. But I think Sonia has another arrow to her bow. I find it interesting about the dream work you are doing with our hosts. Have you ever done this for traditional Muslims?”

“No, but my practice in America includes a number of American Indians and Chicanos, and those are both highly traditional cultures. I’m assuming the same techniques apply.”

“Perhaps,” Amin says, frowning. “It’s a risky enterprise. They already accuse you of witchcraft. What’s your purpose?”

“To promote harmony and help those astray to return to the true path,” says Sonia blandly.

Ashton says, “You mean you’re manipulating them to serve your purposes, which, since I assume we all have the common purpose of staying alive here, I must heartily approve.”

“No, I’m absolutely sincere. But I’m convinced the outcome will be the same.”

“Oh, spare us! You sincerely believe that these maniacs, and I use the term literally, will respond to your messing about with their oedipal complexes?”

“Not at all. Psychotherapy is culture-bound. In Western society the psyche is considered to be individual, and the therapist works toward individuation. Even Jung, who understood that this was an illusion, worked this way in his practice. The basic stance of the Western therapist is to resolve interior conflicts within the different segments of the individual psyche. We observe, for example, a dominant father figure who limits the freedom of the client. If you’re Freudian you try to bring the oedipal tension to consciousness; if you’re a Jungian, you try to integrate the paternal introject, and other brands of therapies try to do the same thing under different names, but the goal is always the same: the freedom of the individual to fulfill his or her potential without neurotic limitations. This is not the case with traditional Muslims.”

“It’s not?” says Ashton. “You’re suggesting they like being mad?”

“No, I’m saying it’s a Western delusion that all psychological problems are reducible to restrictions on individual freedom. In other cultures, including the one we’re talking about, the highest value is not freedom at all. It’s harmony within the family and the tribe and the sense that the person is doing the right thing with respect to tradition.”

“Are you serious? What if the family or the tribe or whatever is oppressive? Surely you wouldn’t justify the way our hosts treat women.”

“That’s quite besides the point, Harold. My job is not to justify a culture or to encourage rebellion from it, but to enable a client to live as successfully as possible within it, without neurotic symptoms. In the West, that means reducing interior conflict. In the Muslim world, it means reducing exterior conflicts.”

“If I may interpolate here, Harold,” says Nara, “Sonia is quite correct. Among my own patients, both Hindu and Muslim, any attempt to strengthen the supposed ego at the expense of traditional structures of authority inevitably results in the failure of the therapy. The patients either leave or they sink into a paralyzing depression. In fact, the symptoms we commonly see in practice are the result of conflict between the patient’s cultural expectations and his current situation. He has, for example, feelings of worthlessness because he tries to be a good Muslim and yet God does not favor him with success. Or a daughter feels she is being unjustly treated by her father or her mother-in-law. In such cases there is no point in trying to strengthen the autonomous ego because there is no autonomous ego, except of course in those who have been culturally Westernized, and they have a completely different set of issues. No, what we must do is to treat the situation, not the psyche as such.”

“So you just tell them to knuckle under?”

“No,” says Nara, “we try to restore harmony. We work with the family. We use quotations from the traditional scriptures. We don’t probe the intimate details of family life because these patients think it’s shameful to discuss such things. Instead, we use the unusually rich metaphoric life we find among such people and make suggestions that will result in real change and the alleviation of symptoms.”

Ashton is not convinced; he shakes his head like a bull. “But the end result is that the woman remains a second-class citizen and the man slogs away in a corrupt and impoverished society. I can’t believe you’re really defending this sort of thing. Good Lord, you’re all educated people! Surely you can’t want the perpetuation of Muslim or Indian society as it now stands. It’s the worst kind of patronization. It’s like saying only white people have the right to democratic governance, honest administration, civil rights, a prosperous society, the lot.”

Sonia, Nara, and Amin exchange looks. After a pause, Amin says, “This is the problem with cultural imperialism-”

“I beg your pardon! I am the furthest thing from a cultural imperialist.”

“Please, let me finish! The problem, as I say, with cultural imperialism is that it can be completely unconscious, which I believe is the case here. For example, you used the phrase knuckle under. By that you mean it is wrong or unseemly for people to submit their will-their whim, even-to a traditional authority. Yet all of Muslim society is based on submission to the will of God, and everything follows from that. You look at us and you see oppression; we see stability and harmony. You see corruption; we see ties of family, friendship, and mutual support. You see feudalism, we see mutual responsibility. You see the oppression of women, we see the defense of modesty. But then you say, but look at you! See how poor and weak you are and how rich and strong we are, because of our culture, which prizes freedom above every other human value-no, that destroys every other human value to secure absolute freedom. In response to that, sir, I ask you to look at two things. First, yes, we are poor, but until sixty years ago, you Europeans owned all of us, we worked for you and not for ourselves. So of course we are poor-it took Europe eight centuries to recover from the yoke of Rome and its collapse. I say to you, sir, have a little patience! And the second thing is, for all but the last two and a half centuries, the traditional society you condemn was quite successful. A thousand years ago London was a wooden village occupied by starving barbarians and Baghdad was the greatest and richest city in the world. So perhaps it will be that way again; who can tell what God has planned?”

Ashton is about to launch into a rejoinder, a scarlet blotch stands out on his cheeks and his mouth gapes, but at that moment there is a clatter at the door. It opens and in comes Mahmoud and Rashida and an older woman, carrying trays of steaming naan bread and cans of tea.

Amin claps his hands, beaming. “Thank God! It is breakfast at last. I tell you, my doctor has told me these many years, ‘Amin, you must drop ten kilos,’ although I am almost sure he did not mean decapitation. If we survive this he will be most pleased.”

Everyone except Manjit Nara and Sonia gathers around the trays, sits, and starts eating and drinking, as at a school picnic. Nara sits carefully on the edge of Sonia’s charpoy and says, “I will bring you your breakfast and we will chat, yes?”

He does so. The naan is soaked in clarified butter and is warm, greasy, and delicious. The tea is thick, sweet, milky.

“You have a different look,” he says. “At first I thought it was mere shock after what has been done to you, but now I don’t believe so.”

“No. They shut me in a dark stable and I thought I was going to die. Then I had a certain experience. It’s hard to explain. I did spiritual exercises that I had been taught long ago, in despair, you understand, and it was as if I dissolved, and what was left didn’t care about the pain and the fear. It was almost amusing. And now, sitting here, eating bread, talking about professional subjects, I feel I’m being drawn back into the world, and something in me doesn’t want to return. Does that make any sense?”

“Indeed it does. Some people are broken by suffering and others transcend it and become more than they were before. The Christian martyrs are examples, but we also see it in daily life, especially in places like India, where we are among the world leaders in suffering. If there were an Olympics in suffering, India would take all the gold.” He laughs nervously. “I must say, although it shames me, that I am glad we are to be chosen for death at random.”

“Are you? Why is that?”

“Because otherwise I would have been the first, idolator that I am, and representative of the most hated nation.”

“After the United States.”

He smiled at that and coughed politely. “Yes, but al-Faran is a Kashmiri insurgent organization. Rest assured, they would have picked me. And I have been trying to prepare myself for death, to meet it with dignity, but I find I cannot. My insides turn to water when I think of the moment, having my head cut off. When they hold up the severed head, will there still be thoughts in it, even for a few seconds? What horror to imagine it!”

Sonia says, “The self slays not, neither is it slain.”

“Yes, but I find the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita is of little comfort to me now, knowing it is all a dream of Vishnu and I will be reborn, and so on. I have been poisoned by my education as a modern physician. The Brahmins are perhaps wise to avoid contact with the dead. Corpses are so undeniably real, it is hard to have lofty thoughts around corpses.”

He shuddered and drank the rest of his tea greedily, as if it were an elixir of amnesia.

“But I didn’t seek a private conversation with you only to expose my pathetic cowardice. I ask you to observe Mr. Ashton, over my right shoulder.”

Sonia looks. Ashton has brought breakfast loaves and cups to where the Cosgroves are sitting. Annette seems to be urging her husband to eat but he has turned his face away from her. His shoulders are shaking. Ashton is sitting next to her, his hand lightly on her shoulder.

“See? A comforting gesture, perhaps, or something more? Mr. A is a bit of a ladies’ man, yes? And the beautiful Mrs. Cosgrove may require a strong man to lean on in this time of trouble, with her husband having completely collapsed. I tell you, it was a surprise to me, this collapse, one would have thought that Cosgrove, with all of his oft-told adventures and dangers escaped, would have been the last to do so, but see, again, one can never tell.”

“Perhaps he exaggerated,” she suggests. “Perhaps the angel has never come quite this close.”

“The angel! That is good. Or maybe it is being a prisoner, having no control of one’s fate. It is the case that people who do all sorts of dangerous things on their own are terrified to fly in airplanes, and this may be an allied syndrome. And neither is Mr. A what he seems.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, just persistent rumors among the community of subcontinental scholars. That Mr. Ashton has, let us say, official connections. That he is not unknown to MI-6.”

“You think he’s a spook?”

“Is that what you call them? Yes, a spook.”

“Well, they said that about me too, you know,” says Sonia. “After my trip through Soviet Central Asia. Perhaps we’re all spooks, including Father Shea.”

“Yes, but not the Cosgroves. Annette is as clear as water and Porter is a wreck.”

“True, but perhaps that’s part of their act. And whatever the actual case is, I suggest it would be better not to descend into that sort of paranoia. But now, Manjit, I believe Rashida would like to talk to me privately, or at least as privately as these conditions allow. Thank you for breakfast.”

With a shrug and a smile Nara goes off, and Rashida, who has been hovering for some minutes, swoops in to sit at the edge of the pallet.

“So, Rashida, any more dreams?”

“No, but my father has had one and he will come to you tonight.”

“How will he do that?”

“Tonight, Mahmoud will take you to an empty room. He has had a dream too, as you foretold him, and wants to know its meaning. Soon you will die and there are many who wish to have their dreams told before you are dead. They have given money to Mahmoud and so it will be done.”

It is done. In the night Mahmoud slips into the prison room, light-footed for such a large man, awakens Sonia, and leads her to an empty room of the hujra. It is dark except for starlight coming through a window and silent except for the sound of the diesel generator and a fainter high-pitched grinding noise, like the squeal of a rusty gate that never closes.

Sonia feels the faint breeze of an opening door on her cheek and then the loom of another person in the room. In a low voice he announces himself as Baryal Rostai, the father of Rashida.

“I have had a dream,” he says and tells it, with many halts. Sonia considers it for a while, then speaks. “The well you fell into is the entrance to Hell; the rope you held on to is the Holy Qu’ran, that frees men from everlasting torment. As we read in the sura al-Imran, Hold firmly to the rope of God and do not become divided. This much is easy. But then you reached the top of the well and there was an angel there who handed you a string of pearls and pointed to the right side. The pearl indicates a young man, for it is written in the sura al-Insaan, There will be young men of perpetual youth serving them; if you saw the youths you would think they were scattered pearls. The right side indicates an escape from harm, as the Prophet, peace be upon him, interpreted it in a dream of his disciple, Ibn Umar. This is what it means. As you walk from this village there is a path that leads to the right and to another village. In this village there is a young man. To him you must marry your daughter.”

“But I have already promised my daughter to Khaliq Sumro.”

“I cannot help that. You have dreamed what you have dreamed. God in His mercy has given you this warning, and you are free to disregard it.”

Baryal waits but she says nothing more and will not answer his questions. He leaves and before long there is another man in the room. Sonia interprets his dream according to the book of Muhammed ibn Sirin, who compiled an account by the Companion Abu Huraira of the dream interpretations of the Apostle of God. And then there is another and another, and this one is Idris Ghulam.

His voice is hoarse, exhausted. “Every night I have the same dream,” he says. “I am in the mountains, fighting against the idolators. I am on jihad. I am pursued down a narrow canyon by five Indian soldiers. I set an ambush, and I kill all five of them with my rifle. Then I come out of hiding and look at their bodies, and I see that they are not Indian soldiers at all but my three brothers, my mother, and one other who is dear to me. Then I seem to wake from the dream with a cry. I am in my bed at home, with my brothers sleeping beside me and I am relieved. Then my mother comes into the room and says, ‘What is wrong, my son? I heard you cry out,’ and I tell her about the dream, and she reaches out to touch my face and I see and feel that her hand is a withered skeleton. I look at her face and I see a black corpse face, and I leap from the bed and I see my brothers are corpses too, blackened and rotting. And then I wake truly.”

Sonia says, “God is sending you a warning. He is saying that you are not doing as you should, which is fighting the Indian soldiers. Instead, you are slaughtering Muslims, which is the same thing as murdering your family.”

“What must I do to make it stop, then?”

“Hold fast to God and the true faith! Reform your life! You have been led astray by hypocrites who pervert religion. As it is written in the sura an-Nisa of the Holy Qu’ran: And whoever kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell to abide therein, and the wrath and the curse of God are upon him and a great punishment is prepared for him. Does God speak falsely? And have I not seen you kill believers intentionally with my own eyes? God has cast you out, you have such dreams as a foretaste of Hell.”

“That is a lie! I kill only those who oppose the jihad, and they cannot be true believers if they oppose the jihad.”

“If it is a true jihad,” she replies mildly.

“Of course it is a true jihad. All the mullahs have given their judgment.”

“Well, perhaps you are right, Idris. What do I know? I am only a woman, although I am the mother of a hero in a jihad that everyone in the entire umma recognizes as being virtuous, and whose dead are surely in Paradise. And my son has told me that in the Russian jihad they did not murder innocent Muslims nor send women with bombs to blow up children. Perhaps the martyrs of the true jihad will welcome you as comrades. Perhaps they will ignore the blood of innocent children on your hands, and perhaps God will allow you to refresh yourself by the lake of Kausar and consort with the hura promised to true martyrs. No man knows these things, least of all ignorant village mullahs. But I was also for years the murid of a holy man, a true Sufi pir-”

“Impossible! No murshid would have a woman as a murid.”

“True, but he prayed and God turned me into a boy for a space of time. Yes, even in the dark I can see you don’t believe me, but it’s true. I traveled with him through all the Muslim lands that were in former years oppressed by the godless Russians, and no man bothered us. He could make us invisible. Once we slept in Tashkent and in the morning awoke in Osh, where we prayed at the tomb of Solomon there. He had summoned a djinn, who carried us in the night.”

Idris laughed. “You must think I am an ignorant peasant to believe such tales.”

“No, but you believe mullahs who are just as ignorant, and about matters that affect your fate in the next world. Do you imagine that Mullah Latif has ever read the Holy Qur’an with understanding? Yes, he can mumble through the suras, but do you imagine he can understand classical Arabic? No, and neither can you, for which reason you are far from God’s word and so do evil and dishonor the Pashtuns.”

“You are a woman and an apostate. What do you know of honor?”

“Women know everything about honor, since you men kill us if you even suspect we have harmed it. But we can argue about who is right until the sun rises and never agree. The only fact here is that because of your dream you cannot sleep. Now I will bless you and you will sleep. You want to kill me, but I bless you all the same, and tell you that tonight you will have a good dream. And you will come tomorrow and tell it to me, and then I will interpret, God willing. Now, go and sleep, and let the others come.”

For a moment the man is still, and then he says something she doesn’t hear and she feels the wind of his movement on her face. The door slams. She hears angry voices from the corridor outside.

The door opens. Mahmoud enters silently and sits by her side; she can hear his heavy nervous breathing. After a moment, he clears his throat and begins.

“Idris has ordered that you interpret no more, but I have had a dream and you will interpret it for me. I was in the hills and my water bottle was empty and I was thirsty. A boy came down the path and I asked him if he had any water, and he laughed and leaned against a rock wall and his body become a flowing spring, and I drank from it.”

She says, “The hills mean you will achieve the power you desire, for in the sura Saad we read, Our servant David, that mighty man, was penitent. With him we subjected the mountain to give glory at dusk and at sunrise. So you will have glory, but only if you reject your sins. A flowing spring means a reward for a good deed. So said God’s Apostle, peace be upon him, when interpreting a flowing spring in a dream about a good man who had died. This good deed will concern a boy who is not a boy, as in your dream.”

“I don’t understand. How can a boy not be a boy?”

“Don’t ask me that, Mahmoud. Only God sees the future, not God’s Messenger, peace be upon him, as he attested many times as recorded in the Sunna, and certainly not me. But the dream says it is connected with such a thing. God will reveal it in His own time.”

Rashida brings news of the village along with the noon meal. Her father has suspended the marriage negotiations with the one-eyed Khaliq, so she regards Sonia with something close to worship. The following day is the seventh day of their captivity, and there is something even more astounding. Some Arab mujahideen are due to arrive that night, and they are bringing a very important person. He is the one they call the Engineer, who is in charge of building bombs for the jihad, but this is a great secret and musn’t be told to anyone. Idris is so excited he is yelling at everyone.

Sonia asks, “It that what they are building all night in the house with the generator? Bombs?”

“Yes, so I hear, but they don’t let any of us in there. That is what makes all this gray dust that falls everywhere. It gets in the food and the women complain. It is from the metal grinding, for the bombs.”

“Who is making them?”

“They are all men from Dara who were brought here, and some others, foreigners.”

“Not Pashtuns, you mean.”

“Yes, but Muslims. These are big bombs that can even blow up American tanks, so it is very important. And we hear there will be beheadings. I would like to see them behead an infidel. They say that women cannot see it, but we will watch from the houses anyway.”

“What if they behead me, Rashida? Will you still watch?”

Rashida laughed. “Oh, no, you they will not behead, only the infidel men. You they will only cut off one arm and one leg. They have talked to the Internet, and he has said you are guilty of great crimes against Islam so it will be done.”

“Do you know what the Internet is?”

“Of course!” says Rashida in an offended tone. “I am not an ignorant girl. I have been to Mingaora. It is like the television but it shows beheadings and messages from the jihad.”

“Yes, that is the Internet,” says Sonia. “Well, I am happy that you will not be given to Khaliq. But tell me, what has happened to Patang? I have not seen him among the men when they let us walk out.”

“Oh, that is a secret too, but everyone knows. He hurt his foot as you foretold, by dropping a heavy crate on it, so he can’t be a mujahid anymore. He has gone off to Afghanistan to be shahid. First he goes to training and then boom! among the crusaders.”

“I see. Well, God bless him. Did he desire this, do you know?”

“Yes, of course. It is an honor. And he did not want them to kill his mother. Instead she will get one hundred dollars. So of course he went.”

In the hujra the following day the mood of the group is subdued, their minds concentrated-perhaps one of them will not live out the next day-but almost all are preparing for the strange conference they expect will soon commence. They speak quietly in small groups. The priest and the Hindu each pray more often in their separate ways. Sonia and Amin pray the required five times.

William Craig asks to borrow Sonia’s deck of cards and with them he plays endless games of solitaire on his charpoy, not just the usual Klondike but a whole library of different games. Sonia thinks that this is as close as he can now get to having a computer. He seems perfectly calm, perhaps the calmest of all the prisoners, save Sonia herself. She tries to engage him in conversation, but he refuses to be drawn. He seems to have relapsed into a kind of nerd nirvana, re-creating the days of his youth, when he wrote the software that he would later turn into a business empire.

Porter Cosgrove neither plays nor prays, nor does he scribble notes. Instead, he suffers what appears to be a pronounced deterioration in his already shaky morale. He cries and moans almost continually. Sonia has heard the expression shattered used before this, most often ironically, but this is the thing itself. Annette tries her best but the man will not be comforted, nor have they calming drugs to give him, and it seems the therapeutic skills available to the group can not salve his terror.

That night Idris does not come. Perhaps he did not dream, or is afraid to come, or perhaps it was foolish to try to get inside his head in that way. God controls all things, she finds herself thinking, and laughs at herself. She has become acculturated again; the Sonia of Georgetown, of cocktails parties and seminars, the Sonia of the therapist’s office, has quite faded. Again she is a Sufi murid, although her teacher is not visible to anyone else at present.

She is sleeping after interpreting a dozen dreams, herself deep in a dream of Mecca, circling the holy place with a vast crowd in white garments, a dream that supposedly indicates security and peace, from which she awakens to find a face hovering over hers; perhaps the sound of weeping has penetrated her sleep.

“Please, I’m going crazy,” says Annette Cosgrove. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Your husband-”

“That’s not my husband,” says Annette, a fierce look appearing out of a face crumpled in misery. “I don’t know who that is.”

“Do you want me to try to talk to him?” Sonia asks.

“No, Father Shea is with him, although it doesn’t seem to be doing any good.” She shivers like a wet cat and, after a brief silence, says, “Did you ever read a book by Arthur Koestler, The Call Girls? It’s about the international do-good community, the title says it all. I thought Porter was different, he really got his hands dirty, I thought. But what did I know? I didn’t go to the important meetings, only the dinners and on the wives’ tours, and once in a while they let me hold the sick babies for the cameras. It was a dream or something. Why is he acting like this? Everyone else is being so brave. It’s killing me.”

“I don’t know, dear. Sometimes when a false self cracks, we find there’s nothing inside. One of the sad things you learn in therapy is that there are some people who are beyond help, I mean direct help. They’re like black holes. They can suck the life out of anyone who tries to help them. So you need to take care of yourself, yes?”

Annette cries some more and Sonia holds her and for a moment thinks of her dead daughters; Aisha would have been about Annette’s age now, and she cries as well, but inwardly.

Now they hear the noise of trucks arriving and, briefly, the sound of many voices outside the hujra.

“What’s that?” Annette whispers.

“Visitors,” Sonia answers. “It’s something to do with weapons. Maybe they’ll attend the conference. That will be a change.”

She hugs Annette and pats her back. “Sleep now, my dear. You know this can’t go on. It’ll be over in a few days.”

“You think we’ll be rescued?”

“Or dead. But in any case, over.”

Annette has no response to this; she slumps away to her bed of misery. Sonia is at that stage of exhaustion when sleep will not come. She lies on the charpoy and listens to the night. The trucks outside depart; the generator stops its roar. Cosgrove’s snuffling and weeping go on for a longer time, but even this eventually fades, and there is silence but for the coughs and snores of sleeping humans and the eternal wind of the hills. Or no: her ears pick up another sound, a deep, almost rhythmic voice in low register. It is Father Shea, praying.

Sonia moves now without significant thought, onto her feet and silently across the dark hall, following the sound, drawn to it as if by a fiber woven long ago. She finds the priest on his knees and waits quietly until he is finished. She moves then, attracting his attention. He does not seem surprised to see her in this wolf hour; it must be close to three by now. They sit on his charpoy and speak briefly about Porter and Annette, comparing notes, finding that they agree about the origin of the man’s collapse, and then Sonia says abruptly, “I want to confess.”

She cannot see his face in the dark, but his tone is mildly surprised. “Yes? What do you want to confess? An extra chapati filched?”

“No, I mean I want to confess. The sacrament.”

“Oh, my, forgive me! I thought you were… and in any case I suppose I had forgotten you were so-what shall I say?-so flexible a worshipper. Okay, fine. I haven’t got a stole, but perhaps God won’t mind this once. Whenever you’re ready.”

Sonia kneels and composes her thoughts. She says, “The sin of pride. I get it from my mother, I think, the Polish aristocrat-I mean my special brand of it, not the kind from original sin. The idea that because I’m wonderful me I can get away with stuff, that I can manipulate the lives of people, that it won’t all come back to bite me on the butt. I think you know my story, the public part of it anyway. I wanted to go on haj in the traditional way, by dhow across the Arabian Sea and then by caravan to Mecca, and of course I couldn’t do that as an unaccompanied woman, so I went as a boy and wrote about it and the umma blew up in my face. I got kicked out of the family and the country, put on the first plane out of Lahore with the fanatics screaming for my blood. Farid-my sad, faithful man; oh, God, let me confess the misery I put him through, the uncharity of it!-Farid stayed with the children. I ended up in Zurich, but that’s not what I want to talk about-”

“Excuse me,” the priest said. “Why Zurich, of all places?”

“That’s where the first plane out of Lahore stopped: British Air to Zurich direct and then change planes for London, where Farid had arranged with some friends to put me up, but when I got to the airport I didn’t get on the connecting flight, I could not bear the thought of being with Pakistanis, however sympathetic, and I could not bear dealing with what I’d done, dealing with the press, with the publicity. I took a cab into the city and holed up. Zurich turned out to be a good place for someone like me to hide. The Swiss are incurious, and the umma was not well represented on its streets. And then my children were killed, my girls for real and my son as far as I knew, and I went crazy and that qualified me to be a shrink. No, I’m still avoiding.” After a moment, she resumes. “This was something that began in Lahore, when my son was a baby. I fell in love.”

“Yes?” says Father Shea in a certain tone, when the pause she made after this remark had gone on for a while.

“Oh, no, nothing like that!” she says quickly. “It was a child I fell in love with, not a man. A little boy; he was four at the time. He was the son of my father-in-law’s bodyguard and his wife, who was the only real friend I had in my father-in-law’s house. It’s hard to explain. I had Theo, I had my own baby, but he wasn’t really mine, he was the heir of the Lagharis, somehow alien and a reminder to me that I had done exactly the same thing as my mother had. I had married a man I didn’t really love in gratitude for saving my life. Every time I looked at Theo I felt trapped, and it made me a terrible mother. I abandoned him twice-though I told myself it wasn’t really abandonment because he had that gigantic, overwhelming family-and I used him. I tried to make him into an ally, or at least someone who wouldn’t be smothered by the family as his father was, or almost was. I mean he married me, poor soul. But my real attention was focused on Wazir.”

“The bodyguard’s son,” Shea says. “What was the attraction?”

“Oh, he was beautiful, first of all, just a knockout. And strong, athletic too, and very, very smart. When he was seven or so I found him in the courtyard with little piles of pebbles. He’d discovered prime numbers and he was scratching with a stick in the dirt trying to generate number theory. But more than that, there was this air about him, even as a little boy, that he was going to be something special, something really grand. And Theo, I have to admit, is a sweet enough man but nothing special; and I wanted to be part of something great. Pride, again, the ghosts of ten generations of impoverished aristocrats howling in my blood.”

“What happened to him?”

So she tells him the story. Afterward he says, “I’m afraid I don’t understand you when you say you sold Wazir to the CIA.”

“In return for their help in getting Theo out of the war and bringing him back to the States. They were recruiting Pashtun mujahideen. They found out where Wazir was and brought me in there, and I convinced him and they took him away, back to America, and sent him to college, as I said. I made it sound like it was a great opportunity, and he went along with it. We were very close. His mother had died while he was on jihad and I was more than a mother to him. I don’t know what they’ve done to or with him, but at the time that didn’t bother me. I just wanted Theo out. Mother love? Or guilt. You tell me.”

“I’m afraid that’s not part of my job, Sonia. But I will say that in Guatemala I heard confessions from rebels and soldiers and paramilitary police officers during the dirty war there, and as a monster you don’t stack up. What are you guilty of? Lack of singleminded devotion? Excessive interest in another woman’s child? Betrayal? Yes, you meddle too much in the affairs of others. Cut it out. Trust in God more. Be easier on yourself. That’s your penance, although being in this place would seem to be penance enough for worse sins than you’ve just told me about. Do you want a formal absolution?”

She did.

Father Shea said the magic words and made the motions, and Sonia thanked him and went back to her own cot. She did feel better. She had made a good act of contrition in her heart and wondered whether that would be sufficient for God. Because she hadn’t told the priest anything near the whole truth.