Rotten Gods

by Greg Barron

  Marika stares at the renewed blaze. ‘If this doesn’t work we’re too late — there’s nowhere we can get to in reasonable time. We’re buggered. All I can do is hope that Abdullah bin al-Rhoumi and his merry men found some other way.’

  ‘You mean that perhaps he and the Americans have stormed the centre and shot my husband dead?’

  Marika folds her arms in front of her chest. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘It is the only other way.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it.’

  Sufia’s eyes narrow. ‘Marika, you are just beginning to see the things Ali has lived with for twenty years. The cries of the dispossessed and starving became a cacophony in his heart. The so-called leaders do not care, will do nothing to threaten their own comfort, their positions. Ali was always devout, but over the last five years he became obsessed, reading the Qur’an daily, finding solace there. I knew things had changed when he requested that I begin wearing hijab outside of the house — something I had never done.’

  ‘He became extreme?’

  Sufia nods. ‘If you want to use that word. But it was born of a sickness at what was happening in the world. You can condemn the Almohad and, yes, their methods are vile, but they were born of a sincere belief that Muslims should live in autonomous states, ruled by God’s law.’

  ‘I’ve only been here for a few days but I can’t bear it,’ Marika says, ‘the sight of the refugees, the starving villagers. When this is over, one way or another I’m going to make a difference for them.’

  ‘What will you achieve, just one woman?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I have to try.’

  Sufia offers her hand. ‘I believe you. Count on me to help. It is time for strong women to join across cultures and continents. It is time to reverse the path that progress has taken us down.’

  Marika takes a deep breath and tells her about the acacia hut. The rain. The mud. The impossibility of it all. ‘I dream it almost every night.’

  ‘You were meant to come here. You have a part to play, just as Ali does. He told me many times that he is sick of trying with all his heart to stem the tide, yet remaining unable to do so. Call him extreme if you want, but it is too small and sharp a word to describe the feelings that have built over the years. His deep compassion could not allow him, like the builders in your story, to cave in to exhaustion and frustration.’

  ‘We need more hands,’ Marika whispers.

  ‘Yes. That is all. More hands.’

  ‘You really do love Ali Khalid Abukar, don’t you?’

  Sufia’s eyes burn like coals. ‘Even as they lower my coffin into the earth I will love him.’

  Marika looks down at her knees. Wouldn’t it be nice to be that sure about someone. To love a man like that.

  Sufia’s face changes, eyes narrowing. ‘Wait. I just saw something.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The Somali woman inclines her head towards the crest of a dune some distance to the east. ‘Over there, I saw … a person, I think.’

  Marika turns and studies the area, seeing nothing, hoping that the observation can be dismissed out of hand. Nothing reappears. ‘Are you sure?’

  Sufia shrugs. ‘I wouldn’t say anything if I was not sure.’

  Marika hefts an assault rifle, and looks up at the darkening sky, hoping to see the insect speck and gathering sound of a helicopter. Nothing. ‘I guess I’d better walk over and check it out,’ she says.

  ‘It might have been a couple of curious tribesmen — herdboys even,’ Madoowbe joins in, ‘but I think it would be a mistake for us to separate, and we’d best stay with the vehicle. The machine gun is too heavy to carry far, and that is the only thing that can guarantee our safety.’

  Marika knows he is right. ‘OK, but I don’t like sitting here while someone peeks at us.’

  ‘They cannot shoot us from behind that dune,’ Madoowbe says, ‘it is too far.’

  ‘What if they’re sighting in a mortar?’

  ‘I did not think of that, but a mortar is not a common weapon out here. Only the warlords have such things and they are not very portable.’

  ‘There,’ Sufia cries, ‘did you see him?’

  Marika squints in concentration in case it happens again. A dark shape appears and disappears over the dune. ‘Sorry, guys,’ she says, ‘but I’m not going to sit here and let whoever that is call in his cousins. No way. I’m going across for a look while there’s still enough light to see.’

  Madoowbe frowns. ‘I will come with you.’

  ‘No, don’t leave Sufia alone. You are better off here, with the machine gun. Then at least if I have to run back you can cover me.’

  The sun has disappeared below the horizon, and there is just enough light for safe navigation as the SAR inflatable planes back towards Durham. Simon’s hands are clamped around his own chin, eyes gummed together from staring out at the glittering water, a dazzle that even polarised sunglasses can’t eliminate. The setting sun comes as both a relief and an unbridled terror as any hope of finding Hannah alive fades.

  ‘Flotsam off the port bow.’ The shout comes from a man in the bow. The engine dies back in response, then throttles away on a tangent. Simon picks himself up, leaning both hands against the gunwales, hoping against hope, peering out at the water, wondering how the seaman’s eyes were good enough to pick an object out from the darkening sea.

  All day there has been endless blue, the occasional foamy white current lines tinged with reddish orange coral spawn. Once even a dead turtle, floating up high in the water, two or three small sharks worrying at the head and flippers, sharp grey shapes in the ice blue of the sea.

  The outboard clicks back into idle. At first Simon can see nothing, even when he takes off the dark-tinted sunglasses. Then, something small and yellow that at first looks like the dead petal of some enormous flower.

  A boathook, wielded by one of the crew, plucks the item from the water, lifting it, dripping, over the gunwale. A neoprene cap, one of the latest surf/street fashion must-have accessories. Simon lifts it from the boathook with his hand and stretches it out to read the writing on the front, advertising a boy band Hannah has been enamoured of for some months.

  Simon almost staggers and falls, but instead sits back down onto the thwart seat. It is hers. But this is no charm, nothing purposeful, just a remnant; a floating relic. The fairy tale is over. He stares at Matt, who sits next to him on the thwart, with a strange expression in his eyes.

  Simon grips his arm. ‘Start circling the area. She might be here somewhere.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but that’s pretty much final,’ Matt says. ‘It’s too dark now, anyway. The captain’s gonna need me back on the job. We can’t stay here forever.’

  ‘Just for ten minutes. No more. That’s all I ask.’

  Matt cannot meet his eyes. ‘OK. Ten minutes.’ He nods at the helmsman, who shifts the outboard into gear, and sets off at a slow idle, the sea now black and impenetrable. No hope of seeing anything or anyone.

  Simon cannot meet Matt’s eyes, but weeps even as he stares out into the gloom, each sob a chunk torn from his heart.

  Marika sets off with the assault rifle across her chest, eyes fixed not only on the horizon but also the left and right sides, her training compelling her to examine any hollow or ridge that might hide a human being.

  The dune is further than she expects, and with every pace she relaxes, for the figure does not reappear. It could be an animal, she decides, or nothing. Perhaps the jitters are getting the better of us.

  Glancing back at the camp, she sees how the smoke rises in a single, black, unbroken column, before seeming to hang in the stratosphere against the stars. Yes, it is visible, but why would such a thing attract people? The reality of life here is surely such that they have better things to do than chase fires. She sees the dark figure of Sufia beside the technical, and Madoowbe manning the gun.

  Nearing the ridge, despite her rumination on the unlikelihood of
finding anything, her footsteps slow, and her finger tightens on the trigger. Instead of climbing the dune she skirts the sides, soon moving into the dip behind it.

  The animal she sees sniffing through the sand is no taller than her knees, with an elongated nose and pig ears. She can see how the creature might be mistaken for a human head. She stops and draws a deep breath, just as it looks up, sees her, and trots away.

  ‘You’re a little pest,’ she says, ‘but cute. I guess I’ll have to forgive you.’

  The unusual creature disappears behind the next dune and she continues to walk along the dip, thinking how in a moment she will climb the dune and wave to Madoowbe and Sufia to let them know that there is nothing here — that there is no threat, unless a bundle of fur, teeth and claws that weighs about twenty kilos at the outside could be described as a threat.

  Relaxed now, Marika rounds a bend in the valley of sand. Ahead, in a clearing, stand ten or more men in a group, talking urgently, as if discussing a matter of importance. Each carries a rifle or carbine. Tethered to one side are half-a-dozen camels, accompanied by a couple of adolescent boys.

  Marika’s appearance has a dramatic effect. The boys run. The men in the group scramble for cover and for clear ground in which to take a shot. She, however, fires first, jerking her finger back from the first joint and emptying the magazine in a sustained burst that does little but disrupt the air above their heads.

  Having wasted her ammunition she turns and runs, ascending the dune in long-legged bounds. The first bullets spit after her before she reaches the top, striking the sand, raising angry powder puffs. Reaching the crest she runs towards the reassuring figure of Madoowbe and the machine gun.

  As she reaches the foot of the dune the men she surprised appear behind her and resume shooting. Again bullets zip through the air around her.

  ‘Shoot them,’ she screams to Madoowbe, seeing the muzzle flash from the gun on the technical before she hears the discharge. The gunfire behind her dries up, and when she turns again, halfway across the plain, the crest is empty.

  The return seems to take much longer than the initial journey, but finally she lopes past the fire, leaning the gun up against the vehicle, hands at her hips to help her lungs find breath.

  Madoowbe jumps down from the tray. ‘Are you hit?’

  Marika shakes her head, fighting for breath to speak. ‘No.’

  ‘Who are they? Who shot at you?’

  The words came in breathless bursts. ‘ … a strange animal … small … with a trunk … then I saw them … men with guns … a dozen of them.’

  ‘Shifta?’

  ‘Yes, the same gang we stole the camels from … I recognised one or two from the camp. God, I’d forgotten about them. If they want their camel back then … surely they can see that we don’t have him any more.’

  ‘It’s gone beyond that. They are angry. Now they’ve seen that we have a machine gun and a vehicle, they will want both, along with revenge. How many did you say there were?’

  ‘A dozen, plus a couple of boys.’

  ‘Then they will have sent a boy back to bring more. They are waiting for reinforcements.’

  Marika’s chest heaves. ‘Just what we need. You were right about the black smoke — it brought trouble, didn’t it? You can say I told you so if you like.’

  Madoowbe looks up at the sky as if contemplating their predicament before uttering a single, seemingly inexplicable word: ‘Kukukifuku.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘The animal you saw. We call it the kukukifuku. Ant bear. The shifta must have disturbed him.’

  ‘Kukuki-what? That’s a silly name for an animal.’

  He frowns back. ‘Silly? Westerners call it an aardvark. That’s not much better.’

  ‘That was an aardvark? Shit. I always wanted to see an aardvark.’ Marika laughs again and, still chuckling, picks up her assault rifle, pops out the magazine and begins reloading it from a box in the technical. She looks at Sufia. ‘There are spares in the technical. Do you know how to fill ’em up?’

  The other woman narrows her eyes and tosses her head, reacting in the same way a Bondi matron might have when asked if she could boil an egg. ‘I learned to reload a rifle when I was three years old.’

  ‘Sorry, just asking.’

  They work together in the shade while Madoowbe procures more scraps for the fire. Marika turns away when Sufia notices her looking at him.

  ‘You and my brother are lovers, aren’t you?’

  Marika finds herself blushing, and her fingers fumble, dropping a golden 7.62mm cartridge to the sand. ‘Yes. But only once.’

  ‘I’m not surprised — you are both attractive human beings.’

  Marika wants to spill her guts to Sufia — wants to tell her how the sandstorm and the tiny cave made the act special. Unforgettable. Instead, as if to hide her thoughts, she slams the magazine home and aims the gun at the distant ridge. ‘Now just let those fuckers come down here.’

  Day 6, 19:00

  Zhyogal calls them to Salat-ul-’isha, the night prayer, with a whispered, haunting voice.

  Allah is most great,

  I bear witness that there is no God but Allah,

  I bear witness that Mohammed is the Messenger of Allah,

  Come to prayer,

  Come to the good,

  Allah is most great …

  After the qa’dah, Zhyogal bades them linger with a commanding gesture. ‘It is apt,’ he says, ‘to consider our souls on this night, on the eve of martyrdom, to reaffirm our faith in God, and in the word of the Prophet, may his name be forever praised. You are fortunate, for to die shahid is to confirm your place in Paradise. Let me remind you of what it will be like for us.’

  Ali closes his eyes, tears of shame and anger boiling below the surface. The sight of death and murder is taking its toll on his faith. He tries to hide his weeping. He wants to shout at Zhyogal that their martyrdom is not yet assured, that there is still time for the West to comply with all demands. Is that not a more important outcome? He looks around at the others. Some have already begun their preparations for martyrdom: shaving body and facial hair and cleaning the skin.

  As Zhyogal speaks, Ali finds himself relaxing, falling under the spell of those words. Drinking them in, shivering with religious fervour that is as potent as any drug, as sweet as love and as beautiful as sunrise.

  ‘In Paradise are rivers of water, whose taste and colour never change, never running turbid after flood, nor rank in drought. The taste is of honey, sweet and wholesome. There, basking in God’s favour, we will recline each to a throne, with shady trees shielding us from sun, bountiful fruit of all kinds hanging low where no effort is required to pluck whatever one requires. Adorned with silken robes we shall drink from goblets of crystal, served by young men of perpetual youth. In Paradise, each tree has a trunk of gold, and there are palaces beyond imagination. There are virgins, yes, for the taking, and we who die shahid will sit beside our God, with jewelled thrones and the choicest fruit of all. Since the death of the first martyr, Sumayyah bint Khabbab, at the hands of the polytheists of Maccah, many thousands of our Muslim brothers have joined God in Jannah, to live a life of ecstasy, remembering always that God has promised pleasures and rewards that are beyond comprehension.’

  Ali tries to visualise such rewards, but all he can imagine is a blinding light and oblivion. Other men weep with longing.

  Zhyogal smiles back at them. ‘Remember the founder of al-Muwahhidun, Ibn Tumart, so long ago, and his vision of an empire of Muslim states across North Africa, Arabia, and Europe. Let it be so. Let us make it so, seeded with our own blood and that of our enemies.’ He glares around the small group, as if daring contradiction or comment. Then: ‘Now, there is more work to be done. The greatest war criminal of all. It is time for him to die.’

  The President of the United States of America has been on the dais for six days. Forced to kneel for much of that time, his knees are rubbed raw from contact with the
carpet. When he has been able to sleep it has been curled up into a foetus-like ball.

  Fear has kept the shrinking line of those around him silent, and he has not had a meaningful conversation for many days. There are bruises on his body where the mujahedin have kicked him as they pass, and one of his ears bled after one such attack.

  All this time he has watched the so-called trials of the leaders of other nations, and has flinched each time the executioner’s bullet found its target. Now, hearing his own name called, he understands that it is his turn to die, that no matter what might befall the world from here, this is his own ending.

  From the time of his election as congressman for Missouri’s District Three fifteen years earlier, he has understood, in an abstract kind of way, that the population of a large proportion of the world does not love America. That they see a brutal military machine, and the cinema world of apple pie, blonde cheerleaders, sorority parties, free sex, and drug dealers. They do not understand how America has improved the quality of life for so many, powering the technological revolution through vast investment in research and development. Organisations devoted to knowledge: the Battelle Institute; the Glenn Research Center; the Carnegie Building; the Jackson Lab; the Enrico Fermi Institute. Purcell could have listed a dozen more off the top of his head. Americans, he knows, have a Grecian zeal for, and belief in, democracy and science.

  Yet even Edward Purcell did not understand until five days earlier just how much he and his country are hated. Pure, consuming hatred. He did not understand that attempts by his country to seek out and destroy threats to world peace are not appreciated by the victims. That somehow belief in democracy can go too far. Combined with religion, it can become an imperialistic fervour that was so effective in building the British Empire a few centuries earlier.

  Hands reach down for his arms and he reacts angrily. ‘Let go of me,’ he shouts. ‘I will stand on my own, damn you.’ The innate political instinct that took him to the highest office in the land tells him that the best thing he can do now is die well.