The Good Son

by Michael Gruber

  I said I would keep this to myself at any cost, and then he closed his eyes and said, “Good. I hope you save her. God willing I will see you again, but if not, farewell. Come here so I can bless you.”

  So I leaned over and he took my head in his two hands and said a verse from the Qur’an,

  “Surely those who say, ‘Our Lord is God,’ and then live righteously, no fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow. Those dwell in Paradise, dwelling forever as a recompense for their deeds.”

  Then he blessed me and I kissed him and said, “O my Lord, dispose me that I may be thankful for Thy blessing wherewith Thou hast blessed me and my father and mother, and that I may do righteousness well-pleasing to Thee, and am among those that surrender.”

  Sura 46, the Sand Dunes. Until the words came out of my mouth I had no idea I could recall them from when they had first been beaten into me in that dusty madrasa outside Peshawar long ago, when Gul Muhammed had been a mighty warrior and me a boy. I stayed with him until he fell asleep, and then got my gear and left the house, where I was mobbed by the clan notables wanting to know what was happening and whether I was going to make a claim for Gul Muhammed’s land and status, and they were clearly relieved when I said it could all go to cousins and uncles for all I cared. That made me more pop u lar immediately, and when I said I wanted to go back to Kabul, they arranged for a truck and a driver and six heavily armed clansmen.

  To get around the roadblocks we went by tracks through the hills, some of which I recalled from the jihad. It took us about ten hours to reach Chaharbagh, and from there I took a bus for the rest of the trip, about seventy miles. It only took five hours and we weren’t stopped once, perhaps by prior arrangement with the Afghan army. It’s how the suicide bombers get in but it worked for me too.

  I called my Uncle Nisar from Chaharbagh on his special cell phone and told him where I was, and he said he’d have a plane waiting for me when I got to Kabul, and he did, a neat little Bombardier turboprop, so by dawn the next day I was landing in Lahore, and there was a company car to meet me. The driver was holding a sign that said MR. T. LAGHARI so I walked up and told him who I was, but he ignored me and made a shooing motion with his hands, because people who looked and smelled like me were literally beneath the notice of N. B. Laghari’s driver. But I was tired and pissed off so I used my command voice and called him a rude name in Panjabi, after which he looked at me again, with terror on his face this time, and almost tripped over himself ushering me into the Mercedes. A man unfamiliar with Kim and the Great Game, obviously.

  Javed, my uncle Nisar’s valet, didn’t show by his expression that I was anything but an honored guest and a son of the house as he led me to the library. Javed was famous for not displaying any astonishment whatever, but Nisar was nearly as surprised as his driver when I walked through the door. He looked up from some papers on his desk and I could see his face change: first the contemptuous snarl, with which he was about to dismiss the ignorant sweeper who had stumbled into his room, and then the dawning surprise, tinged a little with fear, and finally the usual smiling mask snapped into place.

  He rose to greet me-he even hugged me, which I considered pretty classy considering what I probably smelled like-and said, “My God, Theo, you gave me a shock. I thought I was being assaulted by terrorists from the Frontier. I would never have believed it. You look just like a Pashtun warrior-not just the fancy dress, mind you, but the stance, the expression… however do you do it?”

  “The same way you manage to look like a Punjabi mogul. I am a Pashtun warrior.”

  He laughed, a little nervously, I thought, and said, “Yes, of course. Your famous adventure. Well, you have safely returned to civilization in any case. I suppose you’d like a bath and a change of clothes.”

  “Food first, if you don’t mind, Uncle. I haven’t eaten anything solid since I left Gul Muhammed in Kunar.”

  “Oh, of course, how stupid of me! Sit down at once, and I’ll ring for a tray.” He did, Javed entered, received his orders, and floated out. My uncle resumed his place behind what I kept thinking of as B.B.’s desk, and I recalled the last time I’d sat in front of it, when he’d chewed me out for that stupid thing with the pistol, just before he was murdered. Shit happens, as we say in the army, and I thought of that, and I also thought of what Rahman Baba has to say on the subject, which is:

  How long will the horse of the sky keep galloping,

  How long will it race across the roof peak?

  The business of the world is like a shadow,

  Which has no value to the sun.

  Nisar got a phone call just then, and he picked it up and looked at me apologetically and said he had to take it, and I volunteered to leave and he motioned me to keep my seat; it was just some fools in Karachi who had to bother him about every little thing. It was something to do with export licenses for rayon, and although the word bribery was not mentioned I got the impression from his half of the conversation that someone paid to expedite these licenses had gotten greedy; Nisar closed the conversation by saying he would deal directly with the ministry involved. By the time he’d sorted this out, a servant had rolled in a tray laden with tea and steaming parathas and a covered dish of kedgeree and hot buttered chapatis.

  I ate gratefully, and while I ate I told Nisar what I had learned in Kunar Province, without mentioning Gul Muhammed.

  When I had finished, he said, “Well, that is an achievement. You know where your mother is being held. What will you do now?”

  “Obviously, the first thing is to associate the village of Paidara with the nuclear theft we’ve concocted. I can do that with some cell calls, I think, and it’d be better if one of the calling parties was in Kahuta.”

  “You’re thinking of going yourself?”

  “I was thinking of sending Iqbal. My face is probably pinned up in every ISI office in the country, and it’d be annoying to get picked up and maybe disappeared. They tried once and they’ll try again.”

  “Yes, very wise. In fact, I think you should stay here for the time being. I’ll have someone go to Rukhsana’s and get your things. If Iqbal is to go to Kahuta I can make a plane available to him. And the same for you. I don’t want you flying commercial back to the States, it’s too easy to be picked up out of an airport line, they ask you to step into a little room and you’re never seen again. And, of course, any other way that I can be of service-”

  “Hassan needs a new motorcycle.”

  He nodded and made a note on his desk pad. “Not a problem. I’ll have someone see to it. Anything else?”

  “Yes. Why are you doing this?”

  An expression of innocent inquiry appeared on his face. It was well done, very nearly convincing. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Just curious, is all. My mother’s not exactly the family favorite, is she? And you don’t know me from Adam, you were away at school for most of the time I was here as a kid, and then I show up and you open the wallet of Laghari Enterprises Ltd.: flights, money, and the breakage of any number of laws. I was wondering why. You didn’t get to where you are now in Pakistani politics and business by being a sweetheart. No offense, Uncle.”

  “None taken. As to your question, your mother is the wife of the head of this family. I’m obliged to do everything in my power to secure her safety.”

  He looked at me to see how this was going over, and I guess my expression didn’t quite close out the issue, so he continued, “That would be the official explanation. But in our Pakistan there is always an unofficial or actual explanation, and it is this. If the guests of Nisar Laghari are kidnapped by terrorists working under the aegis of the ISI, at least in part, then it becomes a significant signal in my world. It tells this world, among other things, that my brother Seyd, who owes everything to my patronage, has broken with me and has another patron, someone within the warmongering wing of ISI. I don’t know who this person is yet-but I do assure you that I will find out-and let him beware! The same goes for Seyd himself, a
lthough I will continue to invite him to my house and to any family events, and no one will be able to tell that he is my enemy. Whatever feelings I may have about your mother or you-and I assure you that I do have genuine feelings for you both-are of no account in this business. It is an intolerable affront. If I were to let it pass, if my guests can be kidnapped with impunity, nothing I have would be safe; my children, my nieces and nephews, my own person and property would be, as you say, up for grabs. So you come along with this scheme, and I say to myself, Why not? And I may say now that you have not disappointed me. In fact, there is no one in my circle who could have brought it off. So you see, it is really I who owe you. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

  “Yes, it does,” I said. “Thank you, Uncle. And thank you for not saying if it works.”

  His face turned grave. “Yes, that is the issue. And things are not as well as they could be. I assume you were not following the news on your journey.”

  “No. What happened?”

  “I’m afraid it’s not good news. First, Craig has been released. It was all over the news, although of course without details of the ransom. I have sources that tell me the funds have already fled the country, to various financial havens. This means the other hostages will be of no further interest to the authorities, if they ever were. In fact, it would benefit the people who set this damn thing up if they did not emerge from their captivity. Next, the terrorists have already executed one of the hostages-an American, I forget his name-in retaliation for one of your bombings. The video is all over the Internet and copies are for sale in every bazaar. There is therefore no doubt that they are serious in their threats. Finally, yesterday, a missile strike near Quetta killed the head of al-Qaeda operations in Pakistan, Khalid al-Zaydun, and about twenty other people. We can expect our terrorists to demonstrate their revenge. I’m sorry.”

  I was sorry too. I said, “So if this is going to work, it’s going to have to launch right now. I should get over to Iqbal and Hassan and send the location out to where NSA can intercept it.”

  “I’ll get my driver to take you, and may I suggest putting a note of urgency into it. You might say that the bomb is ready and about to be shipped to a target. The suicide plane is all prepared and so on.”

  I thought that was a good idea and got up to go.

  “No bath?” my uncle asked.

  “No time,” I said, and thanked him, and went to call Hassan, and for the rest of the day we did all the necessary things. As it turned out, I didn’t get a chance to change my clothes and clean up until late that night. I was particularly pleased with what Iqbal had done. Framing people on corruption charges is one of the minor arts in Pakistan, and I almost felt sorry for what we were doing to the woman at NSA. Collateral damage, as they say; shit happens.

  Then I waited, which anyone who has been in combat will tell you is the hardest part, the death fantasies, the wound fantasies run nonstop on the interior TV, and here it was worse, because in combat you have to think that you’re special, that you’re the best trooper, with that special edge of survival, and you tell yourself that though ten thousand fall at your right hand it will not come nigh thee, this was worse because it was someone else: my mother. I couldn’t sleep. I kept getting up and putting on clothes with crazy thoughts in my head-I was going to take a car and drive to Paidara and bust her out myself, like in the movies-and then undressing again and lying there in a sweat.

  The next morning, unrested but at least clean and dressed for the West, I told my uncle that I couldn’t stay in Lahore anymore, I’d done all I could and it would be best if I returned to my unit, because if the disinformation flew, and if Iqbal’s operation to discredit Cynthia Lam worked, it was likely that we would be tasked to go in there and get the fictitious bomb. I wanted to be on the scene to control things to the extent I could, so the hostages didn’t end up being collateral damage themselves.

  A couple of hours later I was on a Laghari corporate jet flying to Dubai, where I’d pick up a commercial flight back to Washington, D.C. While I was on the plane I decided that this would be my last stunt as a soldier in the United States Army. I had betrayed America, there was no way around that, and I’d proved to myself that I was really a warrior and not a soldier, that tribe and family came before the chain of command, and wearing the uniform wasn’t honorable anymore. That was one reason, and the other, which I didn’t want to think about, was that if the bastards killed my mother I was going to have to go back into the hills and arm myself, and gather my clan, and go kill a really large number of people in revenge.

  17

  W hen Cynthia went to visit Borden she almost went right past his door. It was clean. All the nerd spoor had been removed, exposing an ordinary NSA slab. She paused outside with her hand on the knob and sniffed. No smell. A knock and Borden’s voice answered; that hadn’t changed. Borden was in.

  Inside, she paused and let out a whistle. “What happened, Borden? Have you been born again?”

  The tiny office had been stripped like the door-no junk, no decorations, no trash. Borden himself had obtained what appeared to be an expensive haircut, and he was wearing a cotton sports jacket over a striped button-down shirt and flannel trousers.

  “No,” he said, “the new me is nondenominational. I assume you approve, being fairly tight-assed yourself. So to speak.”

  “I’m amazed,” she said. “You realize that you’ll be barred for life from Star Trek conventions if this gets out. What happened?”

  He looked at her, and she noticed that he had traded his greasy horn-rims for stylish aviators. He said, “Oh, you know, it was time. I turned thirty-five last week.”

  “I didn’t know. Happy birthday.”

  “Thank you. No one knew. I say I have no life, but it’s not just a throw-away line or a disguised boast, like I’m so busy and important that I have no time for trivia like relationships. It’s simply the case. So it’s my birthday and I go to Chicago Pizza and, like I always do to celebrate, I order a giant deep-dish pepperoni-mushroom, anchovy, and olive-and I’m scarfing it down when I see two girls at a table nearby sort of watching me, and I can tell they’re grossed out; it’s a classic, a fat, stringy-haired nerd pigging on pizza, nothing new about that; but just then I happen to notice that I’m sitting just where I can see my reflection in one of those mirrors they have on the columns and all of a sudden I’m grossed out too. It was like a revelation. Half my life is over and I’m alone on my birthday grossing out a couple of girls, and I realized that this was going to be it into the indefinite future: no life, no girls, nothing but video games and porn. No child porn, not yet, but I could see it was only a matter of time. It was like I’d been hit on the head and woke up a different person. And strangely enough I thought about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. The way you come down here and get me to do you favors, and I pretend to sexually harass you and you flirt in a nonserious way, like an instinct, like one of the lower animals, and you let me look down your dress and get close enough for me to smell your perfume, and suddenly I could see myself from outside myself, like you probably see me, and it was, like, appalling. I stopped eating and practically ran out of there and I was thinking, What crime did I commit to be sentenced to this life? Was it just a matter of being overweight and interested in computers? Was it Asperger’s? It’s like in middle school we all lined up in the hallway and got issued a life: you got exotic beauty destined for world domination and I got pathetic fat nerd; it was like Brave New World, where all the Deltas are programmed to love their menial existence. I’m glad I’m a Delta, Deltas wear lovely brown uniforms, or whatever.

  “I got into my car to drive home and the car was filthy, sticky from spilled drinks and full of wrappers, the foot well on the passenger side up to the seat rim in trash, because, what the hell, I never have a passenger, so why clean it? My skin was crawling, you know? And the same in my apartment: the junk, the filth, the spilled food, pizza boxes with roaches, no light or any
thing alive, except my tarantula. The banality of it! Ha ha, he’s a nerd so of course he has a tarantula. Why the fuck do I have a tarantula in my home?

  “There was this smell too, and I was, like, how can I have lived all my life with this smell? So I got a roll of thirty-gallon plastic bags and started to clean up, and once I started I couldn’t stop. I took a couple of Adderall and worked all night. Not only did I clean out the junk, I threw everything away; clothes, towels, posters, everything but my comic book collection, and I put that in cartons and ran an ad on Craigslist to sell the whole thing. I’m fucking thirty-five and I’m still reading comic books?”

  “The tarantula went too?”

  “George? Get rid of George? I couldn’t do that. If I got rid of George, I’d be alone. The next day I called in sick and took all the shit down to the Dumpster and went to Tyson’s and got a haircut and shopped for regular grown-up-type clothes-not too many because I don’t plan to be this shape forever-and then I went to Rock Creek Park and walked for hours, until my feet hurt, and looked at, you know, normal people, until it got dark and then I went and joined a gym near my house and went to an exercise class, twenty fat women and me, and bought a lot of fruit and salad stuff at the organic market and went to sleep early, and today I came in and cleaned this place up. And here you are but still the same.”

  “Not really. I’m scheduled for astronaut training right after I have the sex change operation.”

  Borden flashed an impatient smile, so unlike his usual ironic grin it startled her. “Still the same. I relate the most remarkable experience of my life, and you crack a joke. So, on to business: what’s the favor?”