The Good Son

by Michael Gruber

  She followed him to a tiny stall, where he was known and salaamed amid smiles by the host, who served them sweet milky tea and small cakes twice as sweet as the tea.

  Sonia was a little shocked because the man had addressed her in English. In Pashto she asked him why he had spoken thus to a Pashtun boy. He said, laughing, “Because you are not a Pashtun boy but an English girl.”

  “American,” she said. “How did you know?”

  “Wrists. The line of your neck. The way you listened, which is the way a Westerner listens and not the way a Pashtun boy would listen.” Here he produced on his face an expression of dull amazement and laughed when she did. She introduced herself as Sonia Laghari, and he wished her peace and announced himself as Ismail Raza Ali.

  She pointed to his cloak and asked, “And are you really a Sufi sage or are you as fraudulent as I?”

  He answered, “Indeed I am fraudulent or I would long since have overcome my nafs, what you call the ego, and would be conversing with angels instead of fake Pashtun boys. But I am also a sincere Sufi, of the Sufi order Naqshbandiyya. I have been in the south, in Sindh, where the shrines of our saints are thick on the ground and where the Sufi pirs are even more fraudulent than I, being very rich and driving around in limousines while the peasants starve. So I am going north. There are shrines and tombs I must visit, and I especially want to visit the shrine of Hazrat Shah Azar Basmali again. It was there many years ago that God spoke to me and set me on this path I am now upon.”

  “North,” she said. “As far as Pindi?”

  “Farther.”

  “Peshawar?”

  “Farther.”

  “Beyond the passes? Afghanistan?”

  “Beyond Afghanistan.”

  “But there is no going beyond Afghanistan,” she said. “It’s the Iron Curtain.”

  He smiled. “It’s rusty nowadays. People do pass. The guards are ill-paid and lazy. They like tapes and tape players as much as anyone, you know, and the eyes of Moscow are far away. Also, I am a very obscure person, no one notices me. I leave one week from now.”

  She said without thinking, reflexively, like a knee jerk, “Take me with you!”

  Another, thinner smile. “And why would you want that, ‘boy’?”

  She said, “Because the life of a little begum does not suit me. My husband is a fine man whom I do not love. My baby is cared for by many hands, all more skillful than my own. My mother was eaten by a lion. I wish to find God and ask him why. If I don’t get away, I will kill someone, or disgrace myself in some hideous way, which I don’t wish to do, for it would harm people who have been nothing but kind to me. Yet kindness is not enough.”

  “No, it is not. But unfortunately, you would attract notice, even as a boy. Perhaps even more as a boy. You know the Pashtun song that goes, ‘I know a boy with a bottom like a fresh peach, but he is across the river’?”

  “They would not notice me if I was your murid. I would wear my sleeves long and a Pashtun scarf around my neck. And I would make sores on my face with flour paste and rouge. Although I will be ugly and contemptible, I will still be of use, for you must have a disciple like other Sufis do. What if you got sick or hurt? Who would care for you?”

  “And how would you care for me? How would you earn bread? Would you tell stories in languages you cannot speak?”

  “No, I will be mute. But I can do this.” So saying, she tossed some small coins into her empty teacup, covered them with the saucer, shook them to a rattle, and then upended the cup on the saucer. She lifted the cup with a flourish. The coins were gone.

  “A useful trick,” he said, after a short pause. “Although it is more useful to make money out of nothing than to make it vanish, which I can do all too well by myself. But you are right in that it is traditional for someone like me to have a disciple, and I have none. Regrettably, I do not attract the more devout youth, ah… what shall I call you? Not Sonia; but Sahar is a good Pashtun name; we met in the morning, after all, and that name means morning in Pashto. So, Sahar, I have no murid because I am not very holy. I drink, I run my fingers under the buttocks of devout youth, I eat the food of unbelievers-well, many Sufi do that-but I also say disturbing things about Islam.”

  Ismail shoved his stick in the path of a genuine street boy.

  “Ho, you, boy! Stop!”

  The boy paused, wary as a fox.

  “Here is ten rupees,” said Ismail. “Take a message for me to the house of Amu the goldsmith on the street of the jewelers, and you will get another ten. Here is the paper. Go!”

  The boy ran off through the crowd.

  “That is a messenger,” said Ismail. “He carries a message to my friend Amu; Amu reads it and carries out my instructions. What he does not do is to treat that ragged, ignorant boy as if he were me, filled with however little wisdom and sagacity I have been able to gather in a long life. Amu would be a fool to do that. Yet the Muslims treat God’s messenger as if he were God Himself; every remark someone heard fall from his lips is sacred, as if it were Qur’an itself. As for the noble Qur’an-I was not there when it was written down, nor was the Prophet, peace be upon him. Who can tell what was slipped in or revised or mistranslated? Arabic is in any case a slippery, allusive tongue. They say, you know, that any word in Arabic can be made to stand for camel. So I believe that God wants us to pray and fast and give to the poor and help those in need and be compassionate, yes? But what interest can the Lord of the Day of Judgment possibly have in eating pork or drinking wine? And did He who created women with the same hand really want their witness to be worth half that of a man? When anyone with eyes can see that the world is full of women more truthful and penetrating than the mass of men? But the Muslims don’t want to hear this, for they much prefer their religion to God. In this, all men are the same: Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Christian; they say, Lord, Lord, here is this little ritual, be content. O God, do not love me out of existence! God, however, is not religious. God is the flame of love. He desires us to love Him as He loves us, but all human things, including Islam itself, stand in the way of this love, for all human things strengthen the nafs. Even fighting to supress the nafs strengthens the nafs. And piety strengthens the nafs more than anything else. I am good, they cry, so God must love me. But there is no ‘because’ with God’s love.”

  “Then why be a Sufi?” Sonia asked. “Why not sink into drunkenness and lechery and forget the whole thing?”

  “I do sink into drunkenness and lechery,” cried Ismail. “I do. But that only makes me remember the more, not to forget.” He gave Sonia a grin that demonstrated the latter vice. “And as my murid will you warm my bedroll in the cold of the hills, as a good murid should? Perhaps you have a bottom like a ripe peach.”

  “If you like,” replied Sonia, and he laughed in delight.

  “But,” he said, “we must first supply you with a thing which, once seen, will establish your identity as a boy beyond question. All boys love to shoot their stream off bridges and down precipices, and so must you. Therefore we must visit the false-penis-wallah and have one made.”

  “Is there such a thing?”

  “In Lahore? City of utter depravity? Of course, and his name is Harun Elahi, and if you let him, he will tell you how his ancestors made such things for Babur Moghul at the beginning of history.”

  “So I conclude that when I have been fitted with this item you will take me as your murid.”

  “I will. It is our fate, just as it was my fate to be at the shrine of Hazrat Shah Azar Basmali with my heart twisted and full of poison, where God was waiting for me like a cobra on a rock and struck me in the heart and filled it with His love. All my life since then I have been trying to recover that moment. I think that at the next shrine He will be waiting again, or the next. In the meanwhile, I struggle to wear down the poisonous nafs with the exercises and devotions of my order. These I will teach you, Sahar, my murid, and, God willing, by the time we arrive at the sacred place, He will have mercy on both of us.”


  “Where is the sacred place?”

  “In Chechnya.”

  “Wa-illa! That is a long way.”

  “Longer than you think, murid, for we must retrace my journey in a great circle and pass through all the Muslim lands now under the Russian boot. Do you still want to go?”

  She did; and she went.

  Her reveries are interrupted by a change in the motion of the truck. They seem to have moved onto a smoother road, they are traveling faster, and there is a wonderful hot dusty breeze coming up through the holes in the truck’s floor.

  The truck stops several times and they hear the voices of men and the sound of other motors and once the unmistakable clanking of an armored vehicle. They are passing through military checkpoints. It grows hot, then roasting, in the narrow space. The road grows rough again and the angle of the truck changes so that they slide against their restraints, first one way, then the other. The heat diminishes and then the light. It is nearly dark again when they stop at last, and they hear the sounds of male voices and movements of the truck’s load. The false floor is lifted and the prisoners are dragged off the truck. None of them can stand but all have survived the journey. They have all pissed themselves, and there is a distinct odor of human waste in the chill air. They are unbound, and armed men half-carry, half-drag them into a building.

  But the two women are not touched at all; they are allowed to support each other and totter down a dark hallway and into a small room. The door is shut behind them and they hear the squeak of an antique lock turning. Sonia is shining a penlight around the room.

  “Where are we?” Annette asks, and then, startled, “Where did you get that light?”

  “I have pockets sewn into my clothing,” she says. “An old traveler’s trick.”

  The thin beam shows them a room about eight feet by ten, with tile floors and roughly plastered stone walls. The ceilings are high and there is a tall window closed with thick wooden shutters. The only furnishings are two wooden rope beds-charpoys-with quilts and, in one corner, a galvanized bucket. On a shelf sit a brass kerosene lamp with no chimney and a brown earthenware basin. A large brass ewer with a long spout squats on the floor nearby.

  Sonia turns off the penlight, retrieves a match case from a pocket, and lights the wick; the lamp yields a dim and smoky flame. Sonia says, “Well, that’s better. We can see where we are.”

  “Where are we?”

  “We’re in a hujra, a village inn, probably somewhere in the Northwest Frontier Province, up by the Afghan border. We certainly were on the road for long enough. My God, you look terrible; your face is all banged up. Come here by the light.”

  Sonia uses a corner of her dupatta and water from the brass ewer to clean the livid bruises on Annette’s face. After this, Annette breaks down and Sonia holds her while she cries. It is a fairly short breakdown, given what has happened to her, and after she has recovered herself she asks, “How come you didn’t get banged up? Your face looks fine.”

  “Because I wasn’t tied up. I could brace myself with my hands.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “My dad was a circus magician. He had an act where he’d get some guy in the crowd to tie him up and he’d get free. It’s not hard if you know how, and if the person who’s tying you up is in a hurry and working in the dark. Excuse me, I’m dying for a pee.”

  Sonia uses the bucket and the ewer, washing in the manner prescribed for Muslims. Annette uses the bucket too, and afterward says, “I hope we don’t have to do everything in that.”

  “No, there’s going to be an earth closet somewhere on the premises, and we’ll be taken to it. These people may kill us, but meanwhile you can expect them to obey all the traditional sanitary laws of Islam to the letter.”

  There is a pause. Then Annette asks, “Do you think they will kill us?”

  “They’re certainly prepared to. That’s why we’re in a hujra and not in someone’s house. The hospitality laws of the Pashtuns would make us guests, and guests are sacred to them.”

  They both start as the lock squeals and the door swings open. They see a dark figure appear for a moment and lay a tin tray on the floor and then the door is shut and locked again.

  “Speaking of which,” says Sonia, “there’s our dinner. By God, I’m starved!”

  They eat ravenously, scooping up clots of dal with chunks ripped off book-sized loaves of naan, topped with yogurt and washed down with milky tea.

  After they finish, Annette laughs and says, “What was that, a hearty meal for the condemned?”

  “No, just what they usually eat in places like this. I don’t think they intend to starve us. We’re probably quite valuable to them in one piece. By the way, don’t eat with your left hand. It’s vile.”

  “I forgot. I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve never worked in a Muslim country before?”

  “No, we’ve only been in Latin America and the Christian parts of Africa. Are you really a Muslim or is that an act?”

  “No, it’s real, although I’m not a very good one, theologically. I try to make up for it by being scrupulous about prayer and the various prohibitions. The Prophet, may he have peace, was very big on prohibitions. It’s an interesting religion, very simple and pure. I enjoy it when I’m feeling that way. I assume you’re a Christian.”

  “Yes, but not a very good one, theologically.” Here a nervous laugh. “I come from an evangelical background. I was saved when I was fourteen but I drifted away in college, not that I lost my faith, really, but I got turned off by the way the evangelical kids on campus behaved, a lot of looking for the mote in their brother’s eye, and of course politically they were all to the right of Attila the Hun. Then I went to South Africa with a do-good operation, teaching in these unbelievably poor townships, kids sharing pencils and so on, and that’s where I met Porter.”

  “And fell in love.”

  Annette bobbed her head and let out a surprised giggle. “Yes, you could say that, although he’s not very romantic and, you know, he’s quite a bit older. I was impressed by his devotion to helping all the suffering, trying to stop people fighting, and I guess I wanted to share that life. And also… well, he really needs my help. I mean he’s a wonderful speaker and much better with people than I am, you have no idea, he just looks for the best in people and most of the time they respond. But he can’t cross a street without getting lost and he forgets things and his papers would be a mare’s nest if someone didn’t keep them in order. He’s a Friend, you know, what you call Quakers, and I suppose I’m a Friend now too. Also a very simple religion, which consists mainly of being quiet a lot and working for peace.” She sighs and chews on her lip. “I’m so worried about him. He must be devastated that this happened, and those nice boys shot down in front of his eyes. Do you think they’ll let me see him?”

  “Well, they’ll certainly assemble all of us for the video.”

  “The what?”

  “The video they’re going to make to show the world that they have us and to announce their demands. It’ll be all over the Internet by midday tomorrow.”

  “Oh, God, I can’t believe this is happening. My mother will die!”

  “I hope not,” says Sonia. “Mothers are often tougher than you think.”

  “But what will they demand?”

  “Hard to tell. Probably something like the release of prisoners held by the Pakistanis and Americans.”

  “Will they do that? I mean, trade us for the prisoners?”

  “They might get some of their people released by the Pakistanis, but meanwhile they have the whole world watching. Terror is essentially public relations. Also, they’ve got one of the richest men in America; that might be the reason we were lifted in the first place. Craig is worth a lot of money alive, so I suppose that’s a consideration.”

  “If they just want him for ransom, why don’t they let the rest of us go?”

  “Because we’re all useful as hostages. They can make a threat-we’ll k
ill one of the infidels every day until you do what we want-and they get to make videos of the executions. There’s a vast audience out there for videos of Muslims murdering Westerners; it’s a recruiting tool for them.”

  “So they are going to kill us!”

  “Possibly, but we’re not dead yet. A lot depends on who these people are. Islam is a very decentralized religion. Anyone can call himself a mujahid, a holy warrior. The movement attracts lots of people, from the sincerely religious to the insane or just bored kids looking for action. In the West they race cars drunk or knock off convenience stores. Here they become mujahideen. At the edges they blend into simple bandits, which this part of the world has always been famous for, but I don’t get the message that our guys are like that.”

  “Why not? They certainly seemed brutal enough when they shot down Hamid and his boys.”

  “Oh, well, brutal is the base coat in these parts. They kill very easily. What I meant was, are they sincerely religious? Are they moved by some kind of moral impulse?”

  “I don’t see how you can put moral impulse together with murder.”

  “That’s because you’re not from around here. The fact is that we’re being kept in what to them are quite comfortable quarters, we’ve been fed decent food, we haven’t been molested. I think they’re trying to make a point: Americans and Pakistanis torture people, but real Muslims don’t. That’s a hopeful sign. It means they may be looking forward to releasing us, so we can tell the world how well we’ve been treated, in contrast, for example, to Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. On the other hand, a prize like Craig is going to draw attention from every mujahideen group in the Northwest Frontier, from the Taliban, and from al-Qaeda itself. Our fate may not be in the hands of the group that captured us.”

  “But what do we do?”

  “We could wash your hair,” says Sonia with a grin. She reaches into her garments and flourishes a tiny tube of green gel.