Still crouching, she looks around her. The building where they had been held has collapsed into a mound of broken cement, stone, plaster, and fractured steel. This appears to be an empty lot, all cracked cement and ragged weeds. They are outside the center of the city, in what looks like a warehouse district. The remains of several other large cement buildings with roofs of corrugated metal strew the streets on either side. She can see figures moving in the darkness, finding their way out of the debris, shouting to each other. A car drives by, its lone headlight sweeping the lot, but Miranda and Luloah are crouched in the shadows. She listens for the sound of nearby voices. Nothing. Yet. Praying for Luloah’s continued silence, Miranda searches around her for something she might use to defend herself, sweating with the agony of moving. Nothing. She needs to get away from here. Find someone to help them. Inching around the collapsed prison, she listens for footsteps. Nothing. Hadn’t there been guards outside? Something catches her right foot, and she stumbles, nearly falling. When she looks down, it takes her a moment to make out what has tripped her. It is a hand. A human hand. A hand still attached to an arm that disappears under a pile of wreckage. A few inches from the curled fingers, she sees something of more immediate interest. A gun.
It’s an AK-47, exactly like the one Tucker and Mukhtar taught her to shoot. She bends over it, her stomach attempting to turn itself inside out. The metal is cool under her fingers. “Habibti, I need you to be good for a minute,” says Miranda. It is against every instinct in her body to pick up a gun while holding a child. Not to mention the fact that her left hand is more or less useless. Walking back a few steps, she tucks a calmer Luloah underneath a slab of cement slanted to the ground like a lean-to. “Don’t move, habibti,” she says. “And no talking.” Quickly, she returns to the gun and gingerly picks it up. She wonders if it is loaded. It’s heavy. There is no way she could possibly carry both the gun and the child. Besides, if she has a gun, there is a possibility she could shoot someone. Which, despite her circumstances, is still not something with which she feels comfortable. And yet. She isn’t in a hurry to be recaptured. She checks the safety, which, predictably, is not on. She slides it on and starts back to Luloah. As she nears the child, she hears the crunch of boots pivoting on gravel, sees a dark figure rise from a pile of rubble. Has he been watching them? Quickly, she sets the gun down just outside of the makeshift cave and rolls in next to Luloah. The man calls out something she cannot understand to someone she cannot see. But the voice is familiar. Cradling Luloah in her arms, she tilts her head to peer out from their shelter. His back is to her, but even in this dim light she can make out that he is missing an ear.
FEBRUARY 14, 2011
Tazkia
When her cell phone wakes her in the middle of the night, vibrating in the pocket of her nightgown, Tazkia bolts upright, her heart racing. She can’t stop thinking of the paintings, can’t stop waiting to be punished. She crawls over her two sleeping sisters and tiptoes to the hallway. Crouching on the stone floor in her long, pink polyester nightgown, she looks at the caller ID. Madina. Exhaling, she answers.
“I am sorry to be calling you so late,” says Madina. “But did you hear the planes?”
“The planes?”
“Government bombers. Heading north.”
“Madina, that happens all the time,” she says, sighing. The sound of government planes heading north to bomb the heck out of the rebel tribes has become so familiar over the years that Tazkia doesn’t even hear them anymore.
“No, no, but this is major, this is huge. They wiped out most of Qishriya city last night. Apparently one of the training camps is nearby.”
“That’s terrible. About the city, I mean, not the camp. But is there a reason I need to know this now?”
“Yes! Think, Tazkia. Make yourself a cup of tea or something. Wake up, I need you to listen.” Obediently, Tazkia pads into their tiny kitchen and takes a glass jar of Nescafé down from a shelf, spoons the fortifying granules into a mug. “I’m listening,” she says.
“Taz, isn’t that where they might be holding her? If there is a camp there, maybe that’s where they took her when they moved. It’s the same tribe, no? The same people who were holding her in the other place?”
“Miranda?”
“Yes, Miranda! Add another tea bag to that cup. Who else do we know who is being held hostage up north?”
Tazkia’s exhausted brain struggles to keep up. “Wait. So—Do you think she could have died in the bombing?”
“It’s possible. But with all the chaos up there right now, this is the time to go.”
“To go?”
“Yes, go! Up north. To look for her. I have a car. I only have it for forty-eight hours. We’ve got to move!”
“A car?” Tazkia’s stomach, apparently comprehending more quickly than her mind, seizes with anxiety.
“Yes, a car.” Madina is impatient. “Tazkia, we know what direction she was taken, do you want to go look for her? Now?”
“Now?” Tazkia seems capable only of repeating words.
“Because I don’t have the car for long. I got it from this Syrian guy who—never mind about the Syrian guy. I have a car. And Nadia thinks she knows what direction we need to go.”
“Wait. Wait. How do you know about the bombing, if it just happened? Is it on TV?”
“I know a guy at the government radio station. Who knows a guy in the army.”
“And they told you?”
“My radio guy rang me. He knows about Miranda, and he’s not a bad guy, took me to Suwaida Island once and was a total gentleman. Plus, he owes me a favor. But never mind about the radio guy. I trust his information. So, are you in?”
“You know a lot of guys.”
“Yeah. You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I’m getting married this spring!” Though even as she says this, Tazkia wonders if it is still true.
“So, sadly for you, you’ll never know more than one. But we can talk in the car, okay?”
Miranda. They can go look for Miranda. Among the many reasons they haven’t gone to look for her before—none of the girls could leave their families without permission, they didn’t know where to go, they had no escort—was the lack of a car. But now Madina has one. Still, while Madina has no parent or guardian in the country, the rest of the girls do. Madina never quite understands their restrictions; she is an odd hybrid, a Muslim woman with the freedoms of a Westerner.
“I can’t,” says Tazkia hopelessly. “My family.”
“Tell them you’re with me,” says Madina. “And Mosi.”
“Is Mosi coming?”
“He can’t, he’s in Kenya. But your parents still think we’re married, right?”
Tazkia nods into the phone before realizing Madina cannot see her and says, “Yes.” She had told her parents that Mosi was Madina’s husband so that she would be allowed to go to their home, Miranda’s former home. The other girls had done the same, and they had been able to meet there to share information from relatives in the North. These were less formal than their meetings with Finn, which they saved for when they had concrete information, like the drawing. Her mind whirls. Well, she couldn’t really be in more trouble than she already is, could she? And if she were away when her parents heard about the paintings from someone, so much the better.
“Can you wait until after prayers? I can ask my parents then.”
“Great. Nadia’s doing the same. Tell them there’s a women’s overnight spiritual retreat in Tasreen. It’s on our way anyway. Got it? We’ll be spending forty-eight hours in prayer. Meet me at my house at five?”
“I’ll see if I can get my brother to drive me.”
“Never mind—I’ll pick you up. Remind me where you are?”
Tazkia whispers her address into the phone, already looking around for things she needs to take with her. “Wait, Madina?”
“Yes?”
“The bombing, it has stopped?”
“For the moment.
I think for the next forty-eight hours we should be okay. Say my sources. Look, do you want to find Miranda or what?”
“More than anything. How can you even ask? I will see you soon.” After hanging up the phone Tazkia stuffs an extra abaya and niqab, bottles of water and Coke, her faux alligator-skin wallet, and packets of cookies into her largest purse. What else? Just before the muezzins announce morning prayers, she has one more idea. In stocking feet, she creeps into her parents’ room and stops for a moment. No sound but their quiet breathing. Heart pounding, she opens her father’s wardrobe and feels around the bottom until her fingers touch a slim metal box. Quickly, she tucks it into her sleeve and returns to the hallway. Funny, she thinks. While I am nervous about being blown to bits by a government bomb or accidentally shot by a rebel, I am far more nervous about getting into trouble with my parents.
When the muezzins wake them, Tazkia’s parents, sleepy and cross, forbid her to leave.
“I’ll be with Nadia,” she pleads. “And Madina and Mosi are driving us.”
Her mother frowns at her. “Well, I have heard of this retreat,” she says. “But I thought it was for longer.”
“This is just a special short one. Preparation for Ramadan.” It’s still many months away, but it’s never too soon to spiritually prepare.
“Why is it so last minute?”
“Madina couldn’t get a car until now.” That much is true.
“We can trust Nadia’s family,” says her father finally. “And Tazkia is a happily engaged woman. It’s not like she is running off with a man, is it?”
“No!” Tazkia smiles with relief.
“Go,” says her mother. “Be careful, habibti. Come home soon to us.” She kisses Tazkia, who kisses her father and flies to the door, the heavy metal box in her purse banging painfully against her thigh.
FEBRUARY 14, 2011
Finn
Finn lies awake, listening to the planes. He hadn’t known there was another wave of government bombings, but he recognizes the noise of the engines. There had been a rash of bombings in his first couple of years, but they had stopped—or at least paused—during his most recent negotiations with the sheikhs, just before Miranda was taken. Now, he hears the sound of his years of work collapsing into nothing. Despite her best efforts, Celia had failed to convince the sheikhs to continue their talks—not with a woman at the head of the table. That roar overhead is the sound of failure. Heading north. Shit. North. Sitting up, he grabs his mobile from the floor next to the bed and dials Dax, who answers on the first ring.
“Sir?” he says brightly, accustomed to late-night calls.
“They’re bombing the buggery out of the rebels again, Dax.” Finn walks into the hall to avoid waking Cressida.
“Yes. We heard yesterday evening.”
“We need to talk.”
“Be there in ten.”
Finn dresses quickly in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. The nights are cold. By the time he gets downstairs, Dax is waiting at the gate, not a hair out of place. Does he ever sleep? “Care for a stroll?”
“I can’t. Cressie.”
“Right.”
“Can we talk in the garden?”
Dax comes through the gate and looks around, as if expecting to find spies huddled in the corner of their scrubby patch of dirt. “Sure. Got a radio?”
Finn takes the stairs two at a time and returns with a portable. He switches it on to an Arabic music station, turns up the volume, and sets it on the ground in front of them. He and Dax sit down side by side against the stone wall dividing them from the neighbors. Leaning close to Dax so he doesn’t have to raise his voice, Finn says, “Miranda is somewhere up there, no? Isn’t that where we think she is?”
“It’s likely. Though we don’t have a hell of a lot to go on.”
“We’ve got to get up there. What are they thinking, bombing somewhere she might be? What the fuck, Dax?”
“I’m sorry, we didn’t have enough notice to warn them…”
“Don’t they know? They must have at least as good an idea as we have.”
“Oddly, I don’t think they share our priorities.”
“Do we have anyone who can go up?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“For god’s sake, Dax, if no one else will go up I am going to walk right out of here and get a taxi.”
“With all due respect, Finn, how far do you think you’ll get without travel papers? Besides, you’ll get killed. You’re still right up there on the top ten list of preferred targets. Actually, top five. Any number of groups might take you on your way up.”
“She could be dead, Dax. She could be injured. We’ve got to get up there. Is the pass open?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll talk to Celia. We’ll find a way.”
“Now, Dax, please. Before the next attack. Before she…Just, now.”
“I’m on it. Ring you in the morning.” Dax stands, brushes off his trousers, and shakes Finn’s hand before slipping out of the gate.
Finn cannot go back to bed. Instead, he paces his hallway, thinking. What else can he do? His passivity is killing him. He should be out there, he should be finding his own wife, not begging others to do it for him. If it weren’t for Cressida, he would be up there by now. He would find a way.
FEBRUARY 14, 2011
Miranda
Miranda scrambles to her feet. “Mukhtar!” The relief she feels at seeing his familiar form is so strong she reacts without thinking. Mukhtar, her protector, is alive. Has he too been held prisoner? Was he the one tortured? They are saved, she thinks. Mukhtar can help them find their way home. “You’re alive! Oh, I’m so glad—” But her voice staggers as he turns awkwardly around. She cannot quite make out the details of his features in the dark night, but something about his face is rigid, cold. He doesn’t move toward her, doesn’t call out. “Mukhtar?” she says.
Only then does she notice the AK-47. He holds it with both hands, low across his abdomen. Prisoners don’t carry guns. He’s dressed smartly in camouflage and heavy boots. Could he have picked up the gun after the bombings? But why won’t he speak? Her mind races to make sense of his presence, coming at last to the only conclusion possible. Christ, Mukhtar? Their own Mukhtar? Mukhtar, who had taught her how to hold a gun, helped her into the car, helped her with her Arabic homework? Mukhtar, who lost an ear defending her?
“Turn around,” he says. “Slowly. Get the child.”
She stares at him, shock evolving into grief and rage. Blood beats faster through her punctured palm. The motherfucker. She had loved him. Behind her, the small girl, cold and confused, begins to wail—loud, agonized cries that carry in the relatively still night. Miranda takes a step backward, toward her.
“It was you,” she says softly. Mukhtar stands absolutely still, staring at her with an inscrutable expression. “Why?” Miranda says. “Why?”
“You,” he says, his voice trembling with emotion. “You are haram.” Miranda waits for him to say more. “You lie with women. You lie with the ambassador before marriage. He was a good man.”
Miranda takes another few steps backward, feels with her left foot for the gun on the ground. How had he heard about Vícenta? Who in their right mind would have told him? True, much of the diplomatic community knew, but they would never share that kind of information with Mazrooqis. They knew the consequences.
“And this is how you treat him? You arrange to have his wife kidnapped?”
“You ruined him. You did some kind of magic on him. He let you be too free.”
Too free? Here?
It is too dark for her to read the expression on Mukhtar’s face.
“You took me to protect Finn?”
“We took you to send a message to your country.”
She can feel her heartbeat shuddering in her neck. He hasn’t yet lifted the gun. How long does she have? There’s something odd about his posture; his left leg is bent almost balletically behind him. She squints in the darkness. His foot
is caught on something. He cannot run.
“How many wives has your country killed, how many children? How else can we get their attention, how can we stop the drones?”
The drones. Those fucking drones. Her own country was killing her.
“Has it worked? Have you got their attention?” Her left foot nudges the gun, making sure of it.
“Of course not. They still think you are alive.”
Miranda falls silent.
“The child is the only reason you have stayed alive this long. But I think now she no longer needs you.”
Fear nearly paralyzes her. But she sees a sudden movement as his hands slide along the gun. There is no time for thought. There is no time for her to try to remember how to shoot a fucking AK-47. Crouching, she swiftly grabs the gun on the ground with both hands and sprints toward her former bodyguard. His arm is rising, metal glinting in the starlight, but his trapped foot throws him off balance. Miranda never shone at the range, but she was a pretty decent softball player. Raising the AK-47, she swings it like a bat, taking Mukhtar by surprise and knocking his gun to the ground. When Mukhtar reaches for it, she swings again, catching his rib cage. He lies on the dirt now, panting, making no effort to rise. “Why didn’t you just shoot me?” he says.
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