As he stumbled into that fog, it was easy to be the person everybody believed he was. To assume, as they did, that he was not really a Muslim and never had been. Every once in a while, though, he peered into the fog and wondered who he would be back in Salem.
He was still wondering about that when he got off the plane in Boston.
He was wondering about it when he made his way downstairs and sat at his dining-room table and stared at a milk carton that vibrated. He wondered when it would pass, this feeling of wandering through the mist, of not being home yet, of being slightly dead.
45 In Which the Bassist Steps Up
clii. the Bassist
McCartney’s gem – yet another tribute to personal initiative – emerged despite, or because of, one of his bandmates’ all-too-frequent, all-too-predictable funks. Starr had announced he was leaving the band and decamping for Italy. (T to a T!) The drummer’s tantrum followed an eminently fair request for another percussion take worthy of his, McCartney’s, studio time. Genius is everywhere beset with obstacles, and ever in peril of being mislabelled as opportunism … or worse. In such circumstances, one lays down the law or, if necessary, replaces the drummer.
It took some time to rig up the sound system to his satisfaction.
The Bearded Glarers started work on the audio set-up right after fajr, and had the large box speakers in place by noon, but these, according to Abu Islam, produced insufficient clarity. Additional speakers appeared. The Glarers had the microphone ready for him just before one in the afternoon.
At one fifteen on Friday, October 14, 2005, the unseen New Imam, Abu Islam, tapped the mike and began delivering the sermon that preceded a communal prayer taking place in front of the American embassy. He did this from a comfortable, well-appointed hotel room, seated before a bottle of Dewar’s to which he made occasional appeals for inspiration.
By his side sat his stout wife, who scribbled occasional suggestions on the hotel stationery.
The boy was nowhere to be seen. Abu Islam had ceased making inquiries as to his whereabouts.
The dead guy telling you this story has no idea exactly how many people showed up for that prayer, but he believes the estimates that put the crowds at roughly ten times the size of the protest about the flechettes that killed Fatima’s sister Wafa. That would make it about two hundred thousand people. Technically, this wasn’t a protest. It was a religious service that elevated the recent release of the American known as Davis Raymonds to a level of central theological importance in contemporary Islam.
One was obliged from a human standpoint, a moral standpoint, and above all a religious standpoint, Abu Islam insisted, to fight and to kill all of the disbelievers who had launched this insult upon the Muslim people, and to continue the fight until they submitted to his personal authority. His words echoed against five major thoroughfares, into a large public park and through several dozen crooked alleys, all filled to the brim with the White Beast.
Abu Islam continued by pronouncing that any and all members of the government, and any citizens aligned with or supporting the government, whether or not they had direct knowledge of the events leading to the release of the murderer and desecrator of the Koran known as Davis Raymonds, were now to be regarded as infidels. Short of repentance, they were destined for the hellfire. In this world, the world awaiting the Day of Judgement, they were to be killed wherever they were found.
The sound of a bottle of bourbon clinking against a half-full glass echoed through the streets.
(Back in the hotel room, the heavyset woman frowned and indicated silently that she was to do the pouring.)
Abu Islam, calm and even and more voluble with every sip of Dewar’s, pointed out that, as infidels, all employees of the government, even someone claiming to have no role or knowledge of the release of the murderer and desecrator of the Koran known as Davis Raymonds, were to be regarded as identical in status to the occupying Americans. Any Americans remaining in the city were also to be regarded as infidels destined for the hellfire. Killing such a person after confirming his or her refusal to renounce all support for the present government was mandatory, and a blessed deed.
Members of the Islamic Republic’s armed forces, and their police, and their security forces in uniform, were also to be regarded as infidels destined for the hellfire. However, these individuals were likely to be armed. Killing such a person was a blessed deed, to be certain, but precautions were in order.
First, it was praiseworthy and preferable to kill such a person in collaboration with another male believer. Women at this point were not to carry out such operations without the guidance and approval of a male believer. Particular stress was laid on this point. The loss of women from a family was to be avoided at all costs. They were to remain in the home.
In addition, Abu Islam ruled, it was praiseworthy and most preferable to kill armed infidels in uniform only after having consulted with one of Abu Islam’s personal representatives. Killing such uniformed, armed supporters was praiseworthy, but had not yet been declared mandatory. It might become mandatory in the weeks to come.
There was more.
Abu Islam ruled next that the murderer and desecrator of the Koran known as Davis Raymonds, whom he had identified in a previous sermon as an infidel destined for the hellfire, was, despite the government’s shameful connivance in his escape from the Republic, still subject to Islamic justice. The believer, male or female, who executed this person, acting independently or in collaboration with another believer, acting within the borders of the Islamic Republic or elsewhere, would be assured of Paradise.
In front of the embassy, Skullface, one bony hand on the boy’s shoulder, shouted TAKBEER into his megaphone.
Two hundred thousand voices responded ALLAHU AKBAR.
Thelonius was now home from the animal shelter, having been released by the police on his own recognizance.
Composed again, he’d asked for Child’s remains before they left. The talkative officer had agreed to fetch them, on the condition that Thelonius stay in the back while he did. Thelonius also had to promise the officer that he wouldn’t operate heavy machinery for a while, that he would stay off the streets and try to get some sleep.
During the cab ride home, the heavy box in his lap to settle him, he had felt Islamic City recede. His knee, which had caused him pain since his interrogation, had hurt less. Now, standing outside the Salem foursquare where Becky had been born, it ached again.
The Raisin had said: ‘Where then are you going?’
Actually the Koran said that.
He placed Child on the railing of the deck, unlocked the door, opened it, retrieved Child, and went in the kitchen.
Chaos surrounded him: puddles of milk from the half-gallon he had smacked around during his argument with Becky, an overflowing garbage pail, a counter full of dirty dishes, debris from breakfast, all of it strewn about, all of it furious. And him, the maddest, biggest mess of all, limping through it, his knee throbbing, the cat’s stone casket swaying in his hands. A placid sycamore waved its leaves from the window overlooking the porch.
Both forearms sore, Thelonius set his heavy load down in the middle of the floor.
He did not have to call out to see whether or not Becky was there. He knew she was gone: this silence was quite different from the silence when she was in and not talking. She’d be back. She always came back here. Odd for her to leave a mess, though.
He tidied up the kitchen.
He retrieved Child with an effort, headed upstairs and groaned: the knee throbbing as he made his way up. He kept on, but felt the slightly dead feeling again. He was pushing it too hard, trying to go too fast.
When he reached the landing, he turned. He looked down the stairwell from where he’d just come, then up into a skylight window whose height and width ratios approximated those of a sheet of paper. He saw the dancing leaves of that great sycamore again, colouring itself with autumn. A bird settled onto one of the leaves, blue and grey, its na
me escaped him. He felt better. He turned, went into the bathroom and placed the heavy box on the floor.
He sat, opened the casket, looked inside it and stared at the rumpled, strangely folded assemblage of fur and limbs that had been his cat.
He began to set Child on the tiled bathroom floor, and then, thinking better of it, laid him with care in the bathtub. There would be less mess if he were washed in there. Child’s eyes were empty and sad and finished.
That dead girl’s open eyes had looked nothing like Dick Unferth’s rat-eyes, nothing.
He wept for a long time.
46 In Which Ringo Starr’s Petulance Is Checked
cliii. Petulance
Listen with care to the vocal mix, and you will hear McCartney – now the band’s drummer – celebrating rock and roll, celebrating himself and celebrating the ensemble he now leads, as he sustains the count on a critical transition: ‘Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eiiiiiiight!’ Thus the take was held together. Thus the band was held together. Thus we will hold the nation together and be acknowledged as its saviours, when we emerge from the Bottomless Pit.
The dead guy sharing this story recalls that October 14, 2005, was a Friday notable in the Islamic Republic for the New Imam’s first public declaration of a Caliphate whose capital was Islamic City, whose head was himself. His wife, of course, had been shouting this in the streets for some time.
October 14, 2005 was also the day Fatima concluded, for reasons she could not have explained, that a strange odour her sister claimed to smell connected to something in the real world.
It was the day Mike Mazzoni made his brother decorate his hand with its fifth star. That happened before breakfast.
It was the day Indelible agreed, via email, to have his first Skype discussion with Sullivan Hand.
It was the day Becky confirmed with a home pregnancy test that she was, in fact, carrying her first and only child, though she knew her body well enough to have suspected as much for some time.
October 14, 2005 was the day Becky devoted her life to acting in defence of that pregnancy.
It was the day Thelonius Liddell found himself staring at a milk carton on his kitchen table. The day he figured out that antifreeze was lethal poison when licked up by cats. The day that all of Becky’s past warnings – about cats and toxoplasmosis and foetal deformity and what she would and wouldn’t put up with if there were ever a baby on the way – came back to him with special force.
It was the day Thelonius decided his wife was carrying Dick Unferth’s baby. He was wrong about that.
47 In Which I Recall Barry Goldwater’s Moment of Glory
cliv. Barry Goldwater
Thanks to an exhilarating opening drum fill and various bits of studio trickery, the underlying pace of track eighteen sounds faster, at first, than it actually is. The comparatively moderate tempo is only revealed at the aforementioned percussion break, which cuts in at 0:42 and untangles certain ingenious vocal and guitar effects. Those of us who have been accused of propagating ‘extremist’ philosophies within certain circles of the Directorate will grasp the great Metaphor to which the White Album draws the listener’s attention here. We are not going as fast as you imagine. Only as fast as the defence of liberty demands. BG quote here. My feet hurt.
Contingent upon his orders concerning the infidels (Abu Islam told the persistent reporter who had somehow talked his way past the Bearded Glarers) was a precondition.
Of course, he referred to the precondition of lawful Islamic authority, and this, he knew, most people believed not to exist in the Islamic Republic. Until today, there had been ample reason for scepticism. Despite the country’s name, he assured the reporter, the present government served only to parody an Islamic state. Indeed, its leaders had up to this point imprisoned all those who called in public for a lawful Islamic state with a single Khilafah. Lacking a Khilafah, they knew, there could be no single voice to speak on behalf of Islam. Abu Islam had resolved this difficulty on the afternoon of October 14, 2005 by proclaiming himself the sole rightful leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims, two hundred thousand of whom were now camped out on all four sides of the American embassy on his orders.
Abu Islam confirmed this proclamation, speaking more slowly this time, for the reporter’s benefit. He acknowledged that such a step, extreme and necessary in the face of extremity, carried with it personal danger.
He was willing to go to prison. He was willing to die. He was not willing to betray Islam.
He would, however, be out of the public eye for a while.
The reporter asked about an ayat in the word of Allah mandating moderation in daily life.
Abu Islam answered that this verse implied that there were times when moderation must itself be moderated.
The reporter left. There in Abu Islam’s private quarters (quite comfortable, despite the earlier protestations against living in buildings) his wife prepared two bourbons.
There was a window in the hot, stuffy bathroom, and through it Thelonius could see the big sycamore, framed against a darkening afternoon sky. A wedge of Canadian geese flew by, and above them a bank of grey clouds moving slightly slower than the birds, but in the same direction, the sycamore leaning after them in the wind and losing more of its leaves, everything receding, heading south, away from him.
And now the geese were quite small.
He felt the old dead feeling in his chest again, the one that locked him in. Thelonius spun down the knob on the heater, which rattled and went silent. He opened the window.
Becky wouldn’t approve, heating the outdoors with all this expensive warm air. But now he could hear the faint calls of the geese as they stretched away towards Florida or wherever.
Cold air streamed through the window. He breathed it in deep, closing his eyes, enjoying the clean feel of it, enjoying the expectation that it was about to rain outside.
He stroked Child once, a slow stroke. The fur was soft and matted in spots. The bathtub’s old porcelain surface was cold and white.
He arranged Child as though he were sleeping. Yet his eyes remained open.
Thelonius said out loud, ‘He has succeeded who purifies her and he has failed who corrupts her.’
Now what?
He turned the four-pronged COLD handle, nearly as old as the house, then lifted the lever that made water flow through that fake-art deco showerhead Becky had installed last year. When the water hit Child it reduced him in size, but it drew all the filth out of him and straightened the wayward tufts of fur into waves. After enough time, Thelonius shut off the tap and all the water drained away and it was okay.
A HIS towel or a HERS towel: he picked the HIS towel from the rack and dried Child’s fur with it, set the towel on the sink vanity, gathered him up, held him in his arms and took a breath.
Should he place the towel in the laundry hamper or throw it away?
He didn’t want her touching Child or any part of him. He would come back up and throw the towel away after he had buried Child.
A gentle rain started to fall outside. Just Get Started.
He left the window open. Strong and ready, as though things were behind him, Thelonius walked back down the stairs with the damp corpse along his forearms. The leg slowed him down, and that was fine now.
Favouring the leg, he made his way outside with great care.
With a shovel he procured from the shed, he buried the cat deep in the backyard. The air was cool and open and rainy as he dug. There was a lot of space to work with. The autumn earth smelled damp and alive, and the leaves were shaking with the rain, and when he was done, he looked off toward a hillside that he had always liked, and it looked clean in the rain, cleaner than he could ever recall it looking.
48 In Which a Brutal Edit Evokes a Critical Passage from the Gospel of John
clv. the Gospel
Our new world, our vibrating shimmer within the earbud-pierced CD player, track nineteen, spins. Dark cloud, azure haze: The Great Threat foretold and ove
rcome.
She is on her way. Her Return is prophesied at 3:16 of this piece. Immediately after Harrison’s solo, the predictable four-in-the-bar falls apart, and an abrupt edit signals a new phase of consciousness, a new deliverance, a new phase of history. This astonishing pivot-point, 3:16 – whose ‘coincidental’(!) timing-mark so clearly evokes the Gospel of John – conveys to the West a message of great comfort: For God so loved the earth that he sent forth his Only Begotten Daughter, that whoever believed in her might not perish, but have eternal life.
Oops. A twinge amidst the kicks. But that’s not labour, Dad. That’s Braxton-Hicks.
By late afternoon Thelonius, who had been staring at the cat’s grave for some time, was wet and a little woozy. It was still raining. His clothes, soaked, stuck to him. It occurred to him that he ought to go inside and pray.
Once inside, though, his leg gave him trouble again, and he thought about trying to sleep that off. But the distance to the couch was intimidating, and anyway he was dripping. He opted to dry his hands and look for some instructions. Must be something about praying in that Koran.
He spent twenty minutes paging through it at the dining-room table, but didn’t find any praying instructions. He decided to call up someone. At least he ought to know. So he found a number and called it and asked about how to pray for forgiveness after killing somebody.
The ebullient imam at the Islamic Center of Greater Marblehead spoke with no accent and great enthusiasm, and pretended not to understand what Thelonius had asked. He provided clear, patient and ardent instructions on how to pray: how to find the direction, make an intention, purify oneself with water. All that had to happen before praying. Thelonius wrote it all down. The imam mentioned casually – as though arranging a complex, exciting social event with Thelonius – that if one happened to have committed a major sin, one was supposed to do the purification step and the prayer itself, in an attitude of accountability and repentance. And pray slowly. Would Thelonius come to the mosque that afternoon?
Jihadi Page 25