Godsend

by John Wray

  —Please Decker. I can’t. I’ve just told you.

  —You promised. He brought himself so close to her that his face began to blur. One hand was braced against her rib cage and the other held her wrist. —You promised me. You said you’d find a way to make this right.

  She held her breath and made her thoughts go still and asked herself if she could do it. A line from that morning’s recitation made the circuit of her mind: It is God who created you from dust, then from a sperm, then from a clot of blood. She took slow and careful stock of the act itself and held it up against the sin of mortal failure. She had done it before, after all: she’d agreed each time he’d asked her and had shared in his pleasure. It was only afterward that she’d felt shame. And in the judgment of the righteous she was already a sinner in her every word and deed. She looked up at Decker. He was weak, perhaps, and covetous, but he was not unkind. He was faithful to her. How mild was his desire against the sin that she embodied.

  —I will, she said. —I will, okay? But not tonight. Not now.

  —You listen to me, he hissed at her, straddling her hips. —I’ve had enough—

  She brought her palm up hard beneath his chin the way her father had once taught her. How strange that he should come to mind just then. Her father of all people. She caught Decker’s sleeve as he reared back and pulled him to the right with all her strength. His body tensed as it fell. Footsteps carried down the hallway as he cursed and groaned and struggled to his feet. It was likely a student on his way to the latrine but the noise froze both of them in place until the echoes faded. It was good to see Decker so frightened. His arm had been raised to strike her but he dropped it now and staggered to the door.

  —Did I hurt you?

  He winced at that and coughed into his sleeve. So graceless. So boyish. He stood in the middle of that small bare room with his arms half extended, as though the fall had affected his balance. Then he nodded once and stepped into the hall.

  * * *

  When she went to Hayat the next morning she found him sitting with a rumpled and water-stained magazine beside him on the floor. Coming nearer she saw that it was a copy of Scientific American from the previous year, one she’d seen on the kitchen table in her father’s new house, opened to an article entitled “Staying Sane in Space—Is the Right Stuff Enough?” and in her surprise forgot even to greet him.

  —Pressurization, Hayat pronounced slowly.

  —Pardon me, mu’allim?

  —Pressurization, he said again. —It seems to pose a problem. The weight of the air.

  —I wouldn’t know about that, mu’allim.

  —Did you not feel this yourself, in your passage on the plane?

  —I didn’t, mu’allim. She sat down beside him. —I think I was too excited to feel anything.

  —Of course. He smiled. —And it appears that you’re excited still.

  —I’m worried.

  His smile faded. —What regarding, Suleyman?

  —My friend Ali.

  He waited. —Yes?

  —We had a kind of fight.

  —A fight. I see.

  —But it’s not our fight that worries me. Not really.

  —No, child? What then?

  —I guess I can’t tell whether he was right.

  He sat forward. —You’ll have to explain. What was the issue over which you disagreed?

  —Sin, mu’allim.

  —A worthy topic of discussion. He regarded her a moment. —Which sin?

  The air seemed to clot in her lungs. —The sin of falsehood, mu’allim.

  —What manner of falsehood?

  —Bearing false witness, she managed to answer. —Coming to a consecrated place—to a mosque, for example, or a school—

  —Yes?

  —Under circumstances that might not be fully honest.

  —I see. Hayat made a gesture she couldn’t interpret. —And is Ali himself guilty of a sin of this nature? Has he told a lie to gain admission here?

  —No, mu’allim, she said hoarsely. —Not so far as I know.

  She saw that he didn’t believe her. —What was it that Ali said to you, my child?

  —Anyone can come here to study, can’t they? She hesitated. —Anyone at all, if their desire is sincere? No matter who they are, or who they were before?

  —Anyone of sincere faith is welcome in this house.

  He would ask her now. She was sure of it. He would ask and she would answer him and that would be the end.

  —The weight of the air, he said, taking up the magazine.

  —Yes, mu’allim?

  He frowned slightly. —Was there something further?

  —No, mu’allim.

  —Then I bless you, child. You may return to your studies.

  * * *

  Two days later she took sick and was excused from recitation. She passed the vacant hours sequestered in the mullah’s sunlit office, listening to the sounds of barter and gossip in the square outside and studying the play of light and dust across the ceiling. No one visited her there, not even Decker. By evening she’d begun to recover and she slipped in her bare feet out into the corridor. Her fever seemed to have broken and the floor felt delightfully cool. The others were still in the courtyard and the house was more quiet than it ever was by daylight. She felt steadier now but she had to see Decker. To see him and ask his forgiveness. She had a memory or a vision of him kneeling on the floor beside her bed.

  The door to the dormitory hung open but the space beyond was cluttered and obscure. She stood for a time with her toes at the threshold, gauging the depth of the darkness before her, listening for evidence of life. The room smelled of paint and the bodies of men and something else she tried and failed to name. She had never set foot in that place and its maleness resisted her entry now as though the air inside were at a higher pressure. What light there was seeped dimly through the heavy vinyl blinds and she imagined herself swimming forward through that twilight like a diver. Of all the floors in all the rooms of the madrasa this alone was carpeted and her footsteps made no sound that she could hear. Some comforters lay fastidiously folded; some lay crumpled where they’d fallen when the call to prayer had sounded. The sour musk of unwashed clothes assailed her. She moved cautiously forward, taking shuffling steps, searching the rows to either side for Decker’s duffel. On the far wall a banner in English read

  GUIDE US TO THE STRAIGHT PATH

  THE PATH OF THOSE ON WHOM

  YOUR GRACE ABOUNDS

  NOT THOSE UPON WHOM ANGER FALLS

  NOR THOSE WHO ARE LOST

  She found Decker’s bedroll and his duffel in the farthest left-hand corner. Beside it a small boy lay sleeping under a fleece Superman blanket and she held her breath and got down on all fours. The boy did not stir. She slipped a hand inside Decker’s bedroll and felt or imagined that it was still warm and fought the urge to hide herself inside it. The boy was whistling softly in his sleep. Decker’s duffel sat open and a coverless book lay half hidden under his clothes. Defense of the Muslim Lands by Sheikh Abdullah Azzam. She leafed through it slowly, noting the passages he’d underlined in pencil.

  She sat for a time with the book in her hands listening to the boy’s steady breathing and when she was sure he was asleep she pulled the duffel closer. Decker’s clean and dirty clothes were bunched indifferently together with his notebooks, damp and curling at their edges from neglect. A dated Fodor’s guide to Pakistan. A copy of Vibe magazine from the airport in Dubai. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. The sleeping boy whimpered. She brought out a notebook and opened it at random, straining to decipher Decker’s effortful Arabic scrawl. She remembered him on the airport bus, mouthing conjugations with a pen between his teeth. Then she thought of him in the courtyard with Altaf and Yaqub, sitting sullenly and slackly on his heels.

  A commotion sounded in the corridor and she slid the notebook hurriedly back into the duffel as the first men returned to the room. They watched her as she passed but made no comment. She res
olved to look for Decker outside and was nearly to the courtyard steps when she heard Hayat behind her. He asked in his soft contented voice where she was going.

  —To talk to Brother Ali, mu’allim. Is that permitted?

  —You are not a prisoner in this house, Suleyman. After last prayer we are all of us at liberty.

  She waited for him to go on. —Is there something else, mu’allim?

  —Night is coming, child, and you are without your shoes. He put a hand on her arm. —Your skin is hot to the touch. Even through the cloth of your kameez.

  —I feel much better, mu’allim. Honestly.

  —It delights me to hear it. He let go of her arm. —But you should be in your quarters. I’ll have a pot of tea brought to you. Perhaps some bread as well.

  She kept silent, wavering on the balls of her bare feet. The evening sky shone redly through the doorframe.

  —In any case, Brother Ali is not outside. He is making a family visit with his cousins.

  —He went with them? she stammered. —With Yaqub and Altaf?

  —If that is how they are called.

  She let the mullah guide her down the corridor. —Altaf studied here, mu’allim. Six or seven years past. Weren’t you here at that time?

  —Dear child! This school began with me. He smiled. —On occasion I permit myself to believe, in my vanity, that it will vanish with me also.

  —Pardon me, mu’allim. You can’t be expected to remember the names of all the boys who’ve come and gone. I’m sorry.

  Her legs were buckling underneath her and she braced herself against the wall as she moved forward. Hayat said nothing more.

  —Why are you smiling, mu’allim?

  —Ah! Suleyman. You are young and strong in faith. And also somewhat foolish.

  —What do you mean?

  —Those men were never students at this school.

  * * *

  The next day as she stepped into the recitation hall she caught sight of Decker by himself in the last row. A seasick feeling gripped her. He waved to her sweetly and gestured to the empty place beside him. The hall was less than half full and the declaimer was chatting idly with Hayat. Decker yawned when she reached him and asked how she was feeling, for all the world as if he’d never been away.

  —I’ve had a fever for days. Since the morning you left.

  He nodded and glanced toward the door. —You seem pretty good now.

  She opened her Qur’an and started reading.

  —Don’t sulk on me, Sawyer. I wanted to tell you but Altaf said I couldn’t. These homeboys do not fuck around.

  —Just go if you’re planning to go. Never mind about me.

  —I was worried about you, Sawyer. I still am.

  She said nothing to that.

  —Anyway, I had to come back.

  —What for?

  —To tell you about the crazy shit I saw.

  The declaimer shut the door to the corridor and took his place under the great colored window. She watched for any sign that he was aware of her absence from the foremost row of students but as usual he seemed to notice nothing. Decker arched his back and eased his body forward.

  —They took me across the border, Sawyer. What do you think of that?

  She faced the declaimer and gave no reply.

  —It wasn’t even dark when we went. It was like going on a hike. Might as well have been no border there at all.

  The room fell silent as the declaimer inclined toward the Book. The bare-walled space she sat in could not have been more different from her high school homeroom back in Santa Rosa but the creaking of the forty-odd bookrests was the same reluctant sound that she remembered. Let us begin. The declaimer laid the Book down flat and turned a single page.

  —The fifty-sixth sura, he intoned. —That Which Is Coming.

  —That Which Is Coming, they answered.

  * * *

  When that which is coming arrives—and no soul shall then deny its coming—some shall be abased. Others shall be exalted.

  When the earth shakes and quivers and the mountains crumble away and scatter abroad into dust, you shall be divided into three multitudes. Those on the right—blessed shall be those on the right. Those on the left—damned shall be those on the left. And those to the fore—foremost of all shall be those. Such are they that shall be brought near to their Lord in the gardens of delight: a whole multitude from the men of old, but only a handful from those who came after.

  They shall recline on jeweled couches face-to-face, and there shall wait upon them immortal youths with bowls and ewers and a cup of purest wine, that will neither pain their heads nor take away their reason; with fruits of their own choice and flesh of fowls they relish. And theirs shall be the dark-eyed maidens, chaste as virgin pearls: a reward for the deeds they have done.

  There they shall hear no idle talk, no sinful speech, but only the greeting: Peace! Peace!

  * * *

  —Sawyer, Decker whispered. —Sawyer. Listen.

  She shook her head and brought her voice to bear more fully on the Recitation. His left hand found the hollow of her back.

  —Listen to me. Are you listening? I’m going there again.

  * * *

  As for those of the left hand—wretched shall be those of the left hand!—they shall dwell amidst scorching winds and seething water, in the shade of black smoke, neither cool nor refreshing. For they have lived in comfort and persisted in heinous sin, saying: When we are once dead and turned to dust and bones, shall we be raised to life?

  * * *

  At the next pause in the Recitation she rose from her place and pushed past the men and the children alike. Decker made no move to follow. With each step the mass of bodies tightened and it took all her strength to keep from shouting at them to get out of her way. The memory of Altaf’s half-closed eyes as he praised her Arabic ran together with the face of the man in Karachi and with Decker’s own expression as he pressed against her in the bookshop in Dubai. Why those three images assailed her now was beyond her understanding but she knew enough to take it as a warning. Each one of them had wanted something from her.

  The declaimer’s precise and girlish voice carried out into the courtyard:

  * * *

  We it was who apportioned death among you. And we shall not be forestalled from replacing you by others like yourselves. Or re-creating you in a form you do not recognize.

  * * *

  That afternoon she was lying on her bedroll with the door shut and bolted when a tapping sounded on its lacquered frame. She drew back the bolt and found Hayat outside with the little harelipped boy. She started to beg his forgiveness for her truancy and for locking him out of his study but the mullah took her hands in his and shook his head. The boy eased his feral body past them both and set about sorting her possessions and moving them into the corner farthest from the mullah’s desk. Her first thought was that she was being expelled from the madrasa and for an instant she felt something akin to relief. But Hayat simply gestured toward her shawl where it lay in a heap beside her duffel and asked her whether she felt well enough to join him on a stroll.

  Ibrahim Shah was waiting at the gate of the compound with the mullah’s own shawl and ashplant in his hands. He nodded to her in his wry and courtly manner, touching a finger lightly to his lips, and she guessed that the idea to invite her had not been Hayat’s. He arranged the shawl fussily about the mullah’s shoulders and led the way across the rutted empty square. In the sunlight Hayat seemed older than he had inside the compound: his slippers dragged across the ground like runners on a sleigh, leaving tracings in the dust, and his ashplant knocked against his knee with every halting step. She drew alongside him and asked where they were going and he muttered something through his teeth that she couldn’t decipher. It dawned on her at last that he was cursing.

  —We’re going to a farm, said Ibrahim Shah. —The family have a son who is ill. A simple family but pious. They are patrons and supporters of our school.
/>   She resisted the urge to ask how a family of simple farmers could be patrons of anything and took the mullah’s arm in hers instead. There was little traffic on the road at that hour but what few men they met murmured greetings to the mullah as they passed. For his part he seemed too short of breath to answer. When they reached the western gate of the village she asked if they might rest briefly, on account of her recent fever, and Ibrahim Shah smiled at her from behind the old man’s line of sight and said that they certainly had time for a respite from the sun.

  They sat facing north toward the mountains in the shade of the arch with the tilework cool as water underneath them. Ibrahim Shah said that many people took their ease there and watched their friends and rivals and relations bustling past. He said that it was like television for them and she smiled in acknowledgment of his joke. He asked in his considered English which television programs were her favorites and showed great surprise when she replied that she couldn’t think of any that she liked. Hayat sat grimly between them, gray-faced and wheezing, grudgingly acknowledging the salutations of the passersby. After the gloom of the madrasa the blue plain rising toward the border seemed electrically lit. She supposed that every house she could see must be as dark as their own, with few if any windows to the godless world outside, and that darkness was the price of safety in that ravaged country. Ibrahim Shah sighed in answer when she asked if this was true.

  When Hayat had recovered he leaned stiffly forward and asked how she felt. She thanked him and said she was greatly improved. They got to their feet and picked their way along a footpath that followed what had once been a sewage or an irrigation ditch but was nothing now but an incision in the fractured yellow earth. They were forced to proceed in single file and when Ibrahim Shah attempted to support the mullah’s elbow the old man drew himself up with great dignity and announced that he was not yet a cadaver. Soon perhaps but not yet. She walked a few steps ahead of them, pointing out uneven ground, and Hayat said happily that each step was easier than the one before, since the farmer’s wife’s cooking was drawing him on. He claimed to smell sheep’s milk simmering in a cast-iron pot, and to hear a kettle boiling, and to taste the oil of their hostess’s pilau upon his tongue.