Alif the Unseen

by G. Willow Wilson

  A choked, exhausted sound escaped her throat. “No! You don’t understand, you don’t want to understand.”

  “You’re right. I don’t care.” Alif walked out the door and slammed it shut on her heartbroken sobbing.

  * * *

  In the musala, Sheikh Bilal was pouring out cups of tea on a copper tray. Vikram sprawled on his side while the convert sat with her knees tucked beneath her, looking nervous.

  “How is the other sister?” Sheikh Bilal asked as Alif came into the room. There was a note of coolness in his voice. Alif clenched and unclenched one hand.

  “She needs a good night of sleep,” he said curtly.

  “She’s welcome to it. Our sister here can join her on the cot in the storeroom. You will have to sleep here in the musala. And you—” The sheikh looked up at Vikram with an unfriendly expression.

  “Don’t worry,” said Vikram, smiling, “I don’t sleep.”

  “As you like. You all must be gone before the noon prayer tomorrow.”

  Alif knelt on the floor next to the tea tray. “I’m sorry, Sheikh Uncle,” he said in a thin voice, “I didn’t mean to make such a mess of things. Vikram really isn’t all bad. And I didn’t know they were going to show up in the middle of the night. You’ve been so nice to me—I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  The sheikh’s expression softened. “Khalas. It’s all right. I’ll go to my rest—the dawn prayer is in three hours. You’ll hear the call go up.” He tucked his robe about him and walked toward the rear of the musala, throwing a last look at Vikram before disappearing down the corridor toward his office.

  “Why do you always have to make such a scene?” Alif snapped when the sheikh had gone. “Why did he think you were a dog?”

  “In his eyes, I was one.”Vikram lounged on his side, sipping tea.

  “You’re ridiculous.”

  “Could we talk English again?” asked the convert.

  “Okay, fine,” said Alif, rubbing his eyes.

  “Thanks. I’m worried about Dina. I think she’s starting to crack. I mean, she was shot. She might need medicine or something.”

  Vikram lay his head on the convert’s leg. “You’ve hurt me. Do you doubt my abilities as a nursemaid?”

  The convert jerked away. “Yes, frankly. I think there need to be doctors and a game plan in place at this point.”

  Though he agreed, Alif felt a need to change the subject. “Did you hear anything else from your advisor? About the book, I mean?” He cursed himself for flubbing his ‘th’s like a menial.

  The convert flushed. “You didn’t get my first message?”

  Alif ’s hand went to the pocket where he carried his phone. It was warm from the pressure of his body. Strange to think that until very recently he had depended on this little sheath of silicon more than his own limbs.

  “I haven’t been checking my messages,” he said.

  “Oh. Okay. The gist is—the basic thing is—they’ve decided what that awful-smelling resin is made from.”

  Alif waited. The convert seemed unwilling to continue.

  “And what is that?” he prompted.

  She cleared her throat. “Pistacia lentiscus, which is mastic sap. That’s not an uncommon ingredient in ancient resins, though it’s a little weird to see it used to treat paper. But they also found traces of amniotic material. Human amniotic material.”

  “Anioteek?”

  “The birth caul,” supplied Vikram in Arabic.

  Alif made a face. “That’s disgusting. Who would do such a thing? I’ve been carrying that awful book around and touching it and holding it for three days now. I’m going to burn my backpack.”

  “I wouldn’t do that. This book is tremendously valuable. I bet you could sell it to some western research institute for half a million bucks.”

  Alif thought of something horrible. “This anioteek,” he said, “You don’t think it means the babies were—?”

  The convert gave him an exasperated look. “What? Sacrificed? Eaten? No way, not in medieval Persia. They probably just thought the amniotic sac would protect the book the same way it protected the baby.”

  “That is extremely gross.”

  “Don’t be such a presentist.”

  “It was common, back then,” said Vikram, rolling his tea glass between his palms. “Living books. Alchemists were always trying to create them. Here was the Quran, which shattered language and put it back together again in a way no one had been able to replicate, using words whose meanings evolved over time without the alteration of a single dot or brush-stroke. As above, so below, the alchemists reasoned—they thought they could reverse-engineer the Living Word using chemical compounds. If they could create a book that was literally alive, perhaps it would also produce knowledge that transcended time.”

  “That’s pretty blasphemous,” said the convert.

  “Oh, very. Heretics, my dear. They made the hashisheen look orthodox.”

  “What do you mean, words whose meanings evolved?” asked Alif. “That doesn’t make sense. The Quran is the Quran.”

  Vikram folded his legs—Alif did not watch this operation closely—and smiled at his audience.

  “The convert will understand. How do they translate ذرة in your English interpretation?”

  “Atom,” said the convert.

  “You don’t find that strange, considering atoms were unknown in the sixth century?”

  The convert chewed her lip. “I never thought of that,” she said. “You’re right. There’s no way ‘atom’ is the original meaning of that word.”

  “Ah.” Vikram held up two fingers in a sign of benediction. He looked, Alif thought, like some demonic caricature of a saint. “But it is. In the twentieth century, ‘atom’ became the original meaning of ذرة, because an atom was the tiniest object known to man. Then man split the atom. Today, the original meaning might be hadron. But why stop there? Tomorrow, it might be quark. In a hundred years, some vanishingly small object so foreign to the human mind that only Adam remembers its name. Each of those will be the original meaning of ذرة.”

  Alif snorted. “That’s impossible. ذرة must refer to some fundamental thing. It is attached to an object.”

  “Yes it is. The smallest indivisible particle. That is the meaning packaged in the word. No part of it lifts out—it does not mean smallest, nor indivisible, nor particle, but all those things at once. Thus, in man’s infancy, ذرة was a grain of sand. Then a mote of dust. Then a cell. Then a molecule. Then an atom. And so on. Man’s knowledge of the universe may grow, but ذرة does not change.”

  “That’s . . .” the convert trailed off, looking lost.

  “Miraculous. Indeed.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Alif. “What does this have to do with the Thousand and One Days? It’s not a holy book. Not even to the jinn. It’s a bunch of fairytales with double meanings that we can’t figure out.”

  “How dense and literal it is. I thought it had a much more sophisticated brain.”

  “Your mother’s dense,” Alif said wearily.

  “My mother was an errant crest of sea foam. But that’s neither here nor there. Stories are words, Alif, and words, like ذرة, sometimes represent much grander things. The humans who originally obtained the Alf Yeom thought they could derive immense power from it—thus, it was in their best interests to preserve these manuscripts the best way they knew how. That way, even if they never cracked the code themselves, the books would be vital and healthy for the future generations who might have more success.”

  The convert yawned into the hem of her scarf.

  “I can’t function anymore,” she said. “I’m going to sleep. Is the spare room through there?”

  “Yes,” said Alif, distracted. A verging, half-formed thought stood on the edge of his mind, plaguing him. Vikram faded from his vision. He curled up on the floor, pulling his knees to his chest and closing his eyes. The thought could wait; he was still exhausted. If he slept now he c
ould get another hour or two of rest before the dawn prayer. The convert’s footsteps ended with a door creaking shut and a murmured goodnight. He didn’t answer.

  A doe leapt across his eyelids, pursued by a stag; the landscape they traversed was a Linux platform. He knew there was a snare waiting for the doe—the Days said so—and watched passively as the creature stumbled, its leg crushed in a hidden vise of slash commands. A Trojan, thought Alif, a cleverly hidden trap. In all probability the doe had invited it in without knowing; perhaps it had executed some kind of dubious content from a foreign land. The stag ran on obliviously. It was a utility program, incapable of responding to the doe’s anguished cries, built for more basic purposes than empathy.

  Alif cursed it. Idiotic animal. Little packet of ones and zeroes— it was all he was; this was his problem. Dina needed help with her little hoof shattered in the trap. It was his fault. Why couldn’t he turn around? A doctor, a doctor—

  “Alif.”

  Vikram’s voice seemed to come from inside his own head.

  “Wake up, you silly meat puppet. Something is wrong. Stop thinking about forest animals and move your feet.”

  His eyelids were slow to open. He felt hot breath on his cheek. With great effort, he moved his fingers, batting at whatever was breathing down his neck. He encountered fur.

  “Fuck!” Alif sat upright, staring: a large dog—or jackal, or ghastly thing—crouched in front of him with an intent look in its yellow eyes.

  “For God’s sake, don’t be such a baby.” The figure shimmered like a mirage, resolving into Vikram. “You were dreaming.”

  “Don’t do that,” Alif croaked, rubbing his eyes. “Please, I’m serious. Don’t ever do that again.”

  “I haven’t done anything. You need to pay attention. There is a woman here to see you. You’ve got to send her away.”

  “What?”

  “She’s being followed by something terrible. If she leads it here we can all put our beards in our asses. I can’t protect you from everything, Alif, or the girls for that matter. Do you understand?”

  Alif struggled to his feet. The look on Vikram’s face alarmed him. He shuffled toward the great copper doors, willing himself awake. He undid the lock and heaved the crossbar upward, pushing on the left door with his shoulder. It slid open without a sound. Outside on the steps of the mosque stood a woman with her back turned, wearing a black veil. Night air floated past her to touch Alif ’s face; it was damp, smelling of the sea and the oncoming dawn. Little lights were visible in the windows of the villas and shops down the street.

  “Hello?” called Alif tentatively.

  The woman turned and looked at him from behind familiar ink-black eyes. Alif stopped breathing.

  It was Intisar.

  Chapter Nine

  “Peace be upon you,” she whispered.

  Alif could not speak. He didn’t return her greeting. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked finally. “I can’t stay,” said Intisar, ignoring his question. “I got your message. I was going to meet you at the university, like you wanted, but Abbas—Abbas found out. He finds out everything. All the things I write in emails or say on the phone. You shouldn’t try to contact me again.”

  “I wasn’t going to,” said Alif. His voice cracked. “I tried to leave you alone. But the book—”

  Intisar’s eyes flickered, unable to hold his gaze. “I should have just given it to him. I took all the notes I need for my thesis—I didn’t understand why he was so interested in it. But I was angry, so angry, at him, at my father—I thought if I gave it to you, you might be able to figure out why he wanted it so badly. You’re clever about these things. I wanted to punish him.”

  “Do you know?” he asked her. “Do you know what it is? Do you know who—what—wrote this book, Intisar?”

  The eyes peering out from above her veil were very black.

  “I don’t know what I believe,” she whispered. “I only found out about the Alf Yeom by accident—it was mentioned in an article I read about French orientalist translators. I wanted to see if I could find a copy in its original language. But as soon as I began to search for it, things got—strange.”

  Alif held his breath.

  “I was contacted by a bookseller in Syria who said he had a copy to sell for fifty thousand dinars. I was skeptical—that’s a lot of money. I asked him if the book had been out of print for long, thinking I could find another copy and get a different price. He just laughed at me. He said it had never been in print to begin with. He said the original wasn’t even written by human hands. I thought he was crazy. But I was so intrigued that in the end I agreed to pay his price.”

  “And you read it.” In spite of himself, Alif ’s eyes lingered on her slim shoulder. The fabric of her gown was so fine that he could detect a hint of collarbone beneath it, and ached, longing for permission to kiss the enrobed skin.

  “I read it,” she said. “It became clear to me that this was not an ordinary collection of stories. When I got to the last chapter I almost panicked, it was so disturbing. And then one night I woke up all of a sudden and saw a man sitting in the desk chair near my bed. Just sitting, looking at me. He had yellow eyes. And I realized he wasn’t quite a man at all. He was something else. When I turned on the light, he was gone. The next day, Abbas came to ask my father for me.”

  “A spy,” said Alif. His heart rattled in his chest. “Sakina was right. He’s got allies. That’s how he found you. Intisar—” he seized one of her hands. “He doesn’t need you anymore. You got rid of the thing he really wanted. You could leave him. I’ll give the Alf Yeom back to the people who know what to do with it, and you and I will go somewhere, anywhere, together. Screw the City. We could see Istanbul or Paris or fucking Timbuktu. I’d live in a hut if it meant I could see you every day.”

  He could see the interest draining from her eyes. The first ripples of despair began somewhere in his gut.

  “It’s not that simple,” she murmured. “He’s already paid part of the dowry—a very generous dowry. I think he’s serious, Alif—it isn’t just about the book. If it was he could have thrown everything back in my face after I betrayed him by sending it to you. But he didn’t. If anything, he’s been nicer to me since then. Just today he came and sat next to me and told me how beautiful our children would be, because I was so beautiful, and asked me about my thesis and told me how happy he was to have an educated wife. He cares about my mind. None of the other men my father has suggested have given a damn what I think, or whether I think at all.”

  “He’s trying to bribe you.” Alif attempted to quell the searing sensation that was burning up his veins, the onset of a rage that would be the end of his self-control. “He thinks if he pampers you you’ll hand me over to him and he’ll get everything he wants—the book, the girl, and the hacker he’s been trying to squash for years.”

  Intisar said nothing.

  “Tell me,” said Alif, breathing hard, “Tell me you still want me and not him. Tell me you meant it when you said you loved me all those times.”

  “Of course I meant it,” snapped Intisar. “But love isn’t everything, Alif. Where would we live? What would we live on? I can’t spend the rest of my days in a two-room apartment in Baqara District, doing my own laundry.”

  Her words fell on Alif like stones, leaving bruises.

  “Is that what you were thinking about when we were together?” he asked. “When we were lying in my bed and counting streetlights out the window like they were stars, is that what was going through your head? That you couldn’t believe you’d agreed to slum it with an imported Rafiq from Baqara District?”

  She jerked away, her pretty brows knitting together above her veil.

  “Of course not. I wanted to be with you. I fought my father when he told me he was marrying me off to Abbas. I hid the Alf Yeom from him, remember? I sent it to you. To hurt Abbas. It’s just that—” she trailed off, looking restlessly out into the deserted square.

 
; “It’s just that I’ve been thinking about things since then,” she continued in a more moderate voice. “And talking with my father, and with Abbas. They’re not going to force me to do anything I don’t want to do. But they’ve convinced me that marrying outside your own people can only lead to trouble. You know that better than anybody. Look at your parents.”

  Her reasoning sounded stilted, rehearsed. Though he could not refute her logic, the insult was too great to bear. It was one thing for him to criticize his parents—which he had done on more than one occasion, while Intisar listened in what he had assumed was sympathy—but quite another to have that criticism thrown back in his face. He felt her betrayal of his confidence more keenly than he had her betrayal of his body.

  “What about me?”

  Intisar dropped her eyes entirely. Her face was unreadable behind the black drape of her veil.

  “What about me?” Alif asked again, more agitated now. “You get engaged to this monster behind my back, you saddle me with this awful-smelling old book, and while I’m running around like a criminal in my own city, you’re doing what exactly? Do you know what I’ve been through in the last few days?”

  “I’m sorry,” Intisar whispered. “I thought—but it doesn’t matter now. I’m frightened for you. I don’t know what he’s planning. He told me that even without the Alf Yeom he had enough evidence of your illegal activities to put you behind the sun for the rest of your life. What’s Tin Sari, Alif ?”

  Alif swallowed. “A program,” he said hoarsely.

  Intisar looked at him. “He says you were involved with criminals, real criminals. Is it true?”

  “No.” Indignation began to override his anger. “That’s a lie. My clients aren’t criminals. They’re just trying to escape from this gold-covered shit we live in, like everybody else. The only difference is that they have the balls to stand by what they believe.”

  “You said you loved me,” Intisar said softly. “How could you get mixed up with these people when you knew I would get dragged in too?”

  He found the question bizarre. The strangeness of this meeting—the late hour, the steps of the mosque, the absence of Intisar’s car and driver anywhere he could see—crept up on Alif like nausea.