Jihadi

by Yusuf Toropov

  Five rows of bookshelves, home to five well-ordered rows of scholarly volumes, lined one wall. A Koran sat open in its little wooden stand in the corner.

  Other than that, the room was bare.

  The imam’s wife, or perhaps his daughter, in any event a small young woman, veiled and light on her feet, floated in with a plate of small pastries. She set it down on the mat, next to the teapot, and floated away again. Nobody touched the tea or the pastries.

  ‘It is my understanding,’ the imam said in the native tongue, ‘that something unusual occurred beyond the range of vision of most protesters during yesterday’s gathering at the embassy, but not beyond your range of vision. I should like very much to know what that was.’

  Thelonius looked out the Siena’s window, toward the Salem Abandoned Animals Facility. He didn’t like the look of the place. From street level, you had to descend a staircase if you wanted to enter, and he wasn’t fond of basements anymore.

  He peered down at his bad left leg. Near the accelerator pedal, in the corner, beneath his good right leg, lay a white Walgreen’s receipt he had not noticed. He leaned over, picked it up, and examined it.

  Becky had bought a jug of antifreeze.

  He crumpled the receipt, dropped it, and opened the door of the Siena.

  xlii. door

  From the CD player: The double agent’s plane roars into the endless doorway of an airborne sunset, similar, I suspect, to the exquisite one I witnessed on my way out of Bucharest. Our retreat to the Bottomless Pit. I hear knocking.

  In Fatima’s version of the event, the marine had urinated directly on something, perhaps the pavement, while his back was turned to the two women peering at him through the bars of the embassy gate. He had never shown any awareness that he was being observed. He had simply walked away, in an odd and highly aggressive manner, when finished.

  The imam asked her whether she could recall seeing a Holy Koran. Fatima thought for a moment. She replied that she could not recall that.

  In the heavyset woman’s version of the event, the American had entered the courtyard carrying a large Koran, flung the Koran to the concrete, kicked it open, spat upon it, unhitched his trousers, turned, exposed his genitalia in a most shameful manner to the two young women, making a point to establish eye contact with each in turn as he did so, turned again, and urinated upon the holy book, all the while laughing at the nature of his despicable act.

  He had then expectorated upon the Holy Koran a second time, and attempted to set it aflame with a personal lighter he had brought along, presumably for this express purpose. Failing in this, he had sinfully picked up the defiled book with both filthy hands, cursed it in the vilest terms imaginable, referring to it in vulgar phrases as the work of a devil who had written every word. Finally, he had heaved it into the dumpster. And if the young lady now seated to her right had not observed any of this, how did it happen that at the time, she had begged so eagerly that they not mention the matter to the imam, as was their clear duty?

  xliii. their clear duty

  An obligation to slaughter disbelievers is the primary duty incumbent upon all true practitioners of this ‘faith’. Fatima fulfilled that duty. The officer was polite and apologized for troubling us.

  The dark stairs leading down to the basement were tough to navigate, and Thelonius’s bad left leg throbbed its worst yet as he came to the bottom. He kept walking through the pain, a man in search of any face behind a desk, until the television show playing in the waiting area of the Salem Abandoned Animals Facility stopped him cold, right in the middle of the room. It was One Life to Live, a daytime drama that had been on the air since the summer of 1965.

  One Life to Live was about people who lived in Llanview, Pennsylvania. A lot had changed in Llanview since 1965, but a lot had stayed the same, too. Despite the opening theme’s musical promise of renewal and fresh beginnings, nothing much ever happened in Llanview, and it happened for days on end.

  Thelonius’s mother Irene had watched the very first episode, and Thelonius, all of four years old, had watched it with her. Thelonius checked in on the show from time to time. He had watched One Life to Live for decades now. People in Llanview still had to deal with mysterious kidnappings, and they still had a lot of affairs. These days, the show was mostly about Victoria Lord, Llanview’s wealthy matriarch. Victoria had a problem with split personality disorder. Her husband Clint, an oil tycoon, had bloated a little since Thelonius had seen him last. Clint was confused and uncertain about whether Victoria had ever really loved him.

  Victoria and Clint’s marriage had endured many challenges. This was a running theme of One Life to Live.

  xliv. One Life to Live

  I have no idea whether T’s late mother actually watched this programme. I do know that he did not watch it as an adult in my presence, that the plot details offered here are glaringly at odds with the summaries appearing on the ‘authorized’ tribute website, and that its title, in the present context, is a slur upon those who believe, as I do, in reincarnation, as foretold and sanctioned by the ninth chapter of the Book of Revelation.

  Thelonius shook himself free of One Life to Live, found a pair of eyes not trained on him and shouted ‘I need some help!’ at the prim, fiftyish, elfin-looking crossword-puzzle-peruser who was stationed behind a thick glass wall. That wall bothered him. It made the place look more like the reception area of a cramped mental institution than an animal shelter.

  On the puzzle-peruser’s desk, beyond the green-tinted barrier, was a small television. Like the big television in the waiting room, it was tuned to One Life to Live.

  ‘I’m here for my cat,’ he said, louder still, having failed to rouse her. ‘Charcoal. Fluffy. Probably confused.’

  The woman behind the glass, her grey hair wound tight, looked up from her puzzle, creased her page corner, and sized up Thelonius. She made a little, noiseless exhalation as she straightened in her seat, placed her magazine in the topmost desk drawer without the aid of her eyes and stowed a well-sharpened pencil above her left ear. Then nothing happened.

  Glass Woman seemed in no discernible hurry to do anything.

  ‘My wife,’ Thelonius explained, ‘brought him in here by mistake. She believed we did not want him in the house. In fact we do. The last name is Liddell, L-I-D-D-E-L-L. Could I ask you to look him up for me, please, and bring him out? I’m a little worried about him.’

  Her nameplate read, ‘MELANIE DEL REY, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, SALEM ABANDONED ANIMALS FACILITY’. She leaned forward, toward a circular opening with a dark-green rim.

  ‘Did you just kill that cat?’

  Thelonius’s heart stalled. Anyway something in his chest fluttered, and his mouth ran dry. Things were not going at all according to plan today.

  Stress breath.

  And again.

  ‘Would you mind repeating that?’

  ‘Your wife. Did she just call about the cat?’

  ‘Did my wife. Just call about…?’

  ‘A Becky Liddell called us about five minutes ago. Your wife, I am assuming? She didn’t state any family relationship.’

  ‘Yes. My wife.’

  ‘I see. So you would want Child?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She sniffed, rubbed her nose.

  ‘I see. Not doing very well, I am afraid,’ she said, biting the side of her lower lip. ‘Is Becky aware of the Plum?’

  It became difficult to breathe.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Has Becky shared the problem?’

  ‘The problem?’

  Melanie Del Rey pursed her lips, knitted her fine dark eyebrows, and cast a sad gaze. ‘I see. May I ask a personal question?’

  Thelonius had no response, which must have counted as a yes, because Melanie Del Rey continued: ‘Is a domestic dispute currently under way within your home?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You and
your wife were in the midst of a disagreement about Child, correct? I mean, there was a conflict, correct? Please don’t beg my pardon again.’

  For a long moment, Thelonius stared at her through the glass from a broad expanse of bewilderment that pervaded space and time.

  ‘These are simple questions,’ she continued. ‘Let’s try a different one. Does? She? Want? You? Here?’

  A deep silence. Within it, Thelonius gathered his resources, resolved to speak, and did. ‘You don’t have to try to make this difficult, and I hardly see what my wife has to do with this discussion. I had a feeling I needed to come here and get my cat. That’s all.’

  ‘I see. You had a feeling.’

  She was not challenging him, merely repeating in an encouraging way, as though eager for him to continue.

  No matter what he did, it seemed to be his turn to talk.

  ‘I did not want him brought here.’

  She appeared unpersuaded.

  ‘And you two discussed that before sending him?’

  ‘No. I recently got back from overseas.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Why do you keep repeating that? It’s rude, you know.’

  ‘Back from overseas. I see,’ she mused, exactly as though the last remark had not been made. ‘Complicated world we live in. Are you by any chance … a religious person? Some are. Some aren’t.’

  The dryness in his mouth reached the back of Thelonius’s throat, where it suggested that it might want to be an ache.

  He looked down and scanned the office floor behind the thick pane of glass. She was, impossibly, barefoot. Black pumps stood guard nearby. Her long, graceful toes, not unlike Becky’s, but not the Toes, calmed him a bit.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Thelonius said.

  ‘I see. Well. You should probably know this: We were just about to put him down.’

  The throat went forward, on its own authority, to a complete ache, culminating in a little choke that Thelonius couldn’t quite contain, and the room began to spin. The counter was graspable, barely, and Thelonius was able to use it to slow the rotation down.

  His eyes closed without him meaning them to. He opened them and leaned toward the spot where he had last presumed her to be. She was still there behind the glass. She was consulting a chart.

  ‘We did run tests. We do prefer not to put the animals down. Some people do feel quite strongly that there is a plan. Some people don’t. People do have beliefs about these things.’

  xlv. that there is a plan

  Among the more irritating elements of the religion my husband assumed at the cost of his marriage and his nation: its insistence on predestination. This is the polar opposite of the American ideal of self-reliance: to craft one’s own plan.

  , and the drums alone are worth the price of admission. Those five insistent, stuttering thuds at 2:15, from the sticks of the unaided, ever-goal-oriented McCartney, instantly commandeering the drum kit following Starr’s petulant departure from the studio, propel the song’s massive jet through the grey snow clouds – and toward disaster. This stunning opening track of the White Album thus predicts the 2001 attack upon the World Trade Center. When properly understood. None of the terrorists on either of the fatal flights that destroyed the Twin Towers had slept for at least forty-eight hours before undertaking their final mission. Recall that the song’s protagonist complains of insomnia! With this much foretold with such chilling accuracy, how dare we ignore the other great Lesson of this aptly named album? That the white race itself is under attack? What was the deleted transition above? An earlier reference to note xlv suggests that this does in fact belong here.

  Thelonius’s nose was touching the glass. He shouted: ‘What the hell is wrong with him?’

  Melanie Del Rey looked up, calm, and eased her chair back a few inches, away from the barrier that stood between them, which somehow made Thelonius feel closer to her.

  On One Life to Live, still playing in the next room and on the little TV screen in Melanie’s workspace, Victoria berated her bitter rival, Dorian Cramer. Victoria was defending her daughter, Jessica. Shouting something about revenge. Jessica, like her mother, had a split personality problem. Both of her daughter’s identities, Dorian whispered, had been born for trouble.

  Thelonius grasped his head with both hands.

  Some people (the dead guy telling this story among them) do feel quite strongly that there is a plan.

  ‘Well, whatever your beliefs, I don’t think it would be prudent of me to speculate about the cause of Child’s problems,’ Melanie Del Rey said with exquisite politeness. ‘Now back away from the glass, please.’

  xlvi. prudent

  With an equally accurate, equally awe-inspiring foretelling of T’s manuscript, the White Album’s second track emerges, its gentle acoustic guitar cycles chiming seamlessly, surrealistically, from the fading roar of jet engines. Cue track two.

  Thelonius did move away from the glass, but he also took his hands away from his head and made them into fists, which did not sit well with seated Melanie Del Rey.

  14 In Which Liddell Fabricates an Interview

  The youthful imam set down his teacup. He looked toward Fatima, then toward the heavyset woman, and back toward Fatima again.

  He thanked Fatima once again for accepting his invitation, as though beginning the conversation afresh. He had been so bold as to conduct a minimal amount of research in order to make a responsible decision about the present matter. Her name, place of employment, that kind of thing. He hoped she would not take offence at this. Fatima assured the imam that she took none.

  The imam understood that she had recently lost a relative in the attack that had spurred the protest at the embassy. He extended his condolences. He understood also that she had been hired by the BII, and suspected she wished to keep her position for the sake of her mother and sister, an aim he considered praiseworthy. He appreciated the desire to avoid controversy. He wished to inform Fatima, however, that the matter under discussion was extremely serious, serious enough for him to cancel a meeting he had scheduled today at the refugee camp where he served as a member of the board of directors.

  Quite important, their discussion today, he repeated. A great deal depended upon the question of whether or not both of them had witnessed the same behaviour from the same man. Her accounting of events, he insisted, was critical, for her, for her family, and perhaps for the country as a whole. He wished to be sure she grasped this.

  Fatima assured the imam that she did.

  He inquired as to whether Fatima was absolutely certain that the uniformed American she had observed inside the compound was the same man her friend had observed.

  Fatima supposed he was. (She suppressed the instinct to correct the imam by pointing out that the heavyset woman was far from being a friend, and that she, Fatima, did not even know her name.)

  The imam was curious as to whether Fatima was certain the man had actually been urinating.

  Fatima was not. It was possible he had been pouring some substance or other on the ground from a container that she had not seen and that he then hid away.

  The imam wished to know if she had seen the man’s face at any time.

  Fatima had not.

  The imam asked whether she had noticed anything about the man’s height. Was he particularly short or tall?

  Fatima had not recalled anything in particular about this. She supposed him to be of average height.

  His race?

  Fatima was certain he was a white man. She remembered his hands. They were white.

  The imam wondered if perhaps she had noticed any identifying characteristics on the man’s hands or forearms. Tattoos, for instance. Many Americans were fond of those.

  Fatima had not.

  The imam was curious as to how Fatima explained the differences between her recollection of the event and that of her companion.

  Fatima declined to speculate about this. The heavyset woman looked at her scornfully.

 
Would Fatima permit the imam to remain in contact with her if he made a commitment to her to keep all of their communications confidential?

  She would.

  Would she be willing to give the imam her family’s phone number? He knew she did not want this issue discussed at her place of work.

  She would, and she thanked the imam for his understanding. She wrote her mobile number on the slip of paper he provided, using the fine pen he lent her for the purpose. She folded the paper in a way that prevented the heavyset woman seeing the number, and returned both the pen and the sheet to the imam.

  Did she have any questions for the imam or for her friend?

  Fatima had one.

  And what was that?

  Fatima asked the imam to inquire of the heavyset woman whether she spoke any English. He glanced over at the other woman, who curtly informed him that she did not speak English.

  Fatima asked whether the heavyset woman had heard the American soldier speaking in their own native tongue.

  She had not.

  How then, Fatima asked the imam calmly, had the heavyset woman understood the nature of the curse that she said she heard the man utter against the Koran? In what language had he expressed his opinion that it was authored by a devil?

  xlvii. nature

  Track two. The second composition in the White Album’s immortal sequence – Lennon’s masterpiece this time – culminates in an unforgettable appeal to nature, to reviving grace, and to my MotherDaughter. Dawn up, blue skies strengthened, beauty everywhere in the firmament.

  In 1966, when you were five years old, a campaign took hold in the southeastern United States to declare a certain British rock band’s recordings to be the work of Satan.