Godsend

by John Wray

  Ziar killed the engine. —We’re low on petrol, he said. —I’ll tell you something, little brother.

  —What’s that?

  —We may not have enough for the drive back.

  She glanced at the fuel gauge and saw it was broken. Ziar’s attention was fixed on her now, not on the street. His fingertips drummed on the dashboard. She was ready for the future but the future lay in shadow. Her clarity of foresight was gone and in its place was a shortness of breath and an impatience for the next ordained event. The next sudden turning. She had no idea what would happen and she needed it to happen. She needed the doubt she felt to disappear.

  Ziar took her hand. He looked pleased that she’d given no answer. He seemed to take it as a gesture of good faith.

  —Do you see that house, little brother? The one with the half-open gate?

  She followed his gesture. —I see it.

  —A man lives there alone, with no women or children. An importer from India. A man who calls himself a patron of our cause.

  —A rich man, she said.

  —A man who made pledges. Who promised us money. A man who speaks with one side of his mouth to our people and with the other to the ISI.

  —The ISI?

  He made a gesture of impatience. —The ISI, he repeated. —The intelligence service in this place. The night police.

  She looked across that wide street at the house and the gate and the car parked behind it. A gray sedan without a number plate. A low columned breezeway. A ceiling fan turning behind a bay window. The flicker of a countertop TV.

  —What are we here to do?

  —We’re here to get petrol. That’s all, little brother.

  —All right.

  Her readiness surprised him. —Look behind your seat, he said. —There’s a canister and a length of plastic hose. You’ve taken petrol from a car before?

  She nodded. —Abu Imam showed us the first week.

  —Of course. He turned and reached behind her. His face was closer to hers than it had ever been and she felt his breath against her collarbone and neck. He passed her the hose and the canister. —Get what you can, he said. He pushed the door open.

  She felt lightheaded as she stepped onto the curb. When she reached the gate she stopped short and gripped the ironwork and fought briefly for air. There was rust around its hinges where the yellow paint had buckled and she scratched the flakes away and counted slowly down from twenty. Then she stood up straight and forced her body forward.

  The yard was bare and paved in hexagons of multicolored tile. The sedan was a Mercedes and a child’s plastic wading pool sat empty and inverted just beyond its right front tire. Again it seemed to her that she might be in California. It occurred to her as she knelt beside the car and lifted the tank guard and unthreaded the cap that the owner of the house was supposedly childless and she asked herself what the wading pool was for. She set the cap down on the tiles and fed the hose into the tank. Her head was clear again and she was wide awake. She thought about the flickering light behind the bay window and imagined how she might look from the interior of the house: a hunched form on the tiled ground in an attitude of prayer. She felt the hose touch bottom and brought the near end to her lips. She sucked until she tasted gas and dropped the hose into the can. The taste was vicious, less a taste at all than a sensation of pain, and she pressed her shirtsleeve to her teeth and sucked on it to keep herself from heaving. The light glimmered bluely. The canister rattled. She pulled the hose free and got up to close the tank. A shirtless man was standing in the window. Three shotgun shells lay brightly on the hood of the sedan.

  By the time the house door opened she was running and his features were a blur along the margin of her sight. A heavyset man with a high outraged voice. She looked back and saw that he was barefoot and held something curved and dark in his right hand. Then she was out the gate with the canister in her arms like an infant and stumbling headlong up the street toward Ziar’s truck. It was a different color than she remembered and its windows appeared to be tinted and she was almost there before she saw that it was not his truck at all. She passed it without slowing and understood as she heard voices and footfalls behind her that she was forsaken in that place and that she’d been brought down from the Mountain as some form of sacrifice. Ziar must have driven off while she was busy with the tank. Her confusion made her clumsy and gas was spilling from the canister onto her fingers and her sleeve. As she turned to let it fall a white stone like a hen’s egg struck her just above the ear. The ground met her skull and her right elbow in the same instant and she heard the sound of the canister striking the pavement and the smell of gas grew stronger. She heard what must have been curses in some idiom unknown to her and somehow found her footing and began to run again. Tires screeched in the distance and she asked herself in a measured deliberate voice whether they meant to run her over. She stumbled again and rolled onto her back and the man was above her and she saw now that the object in his right hand was a knife for cleaving meat. A group of young men stood behind him and they looked down at her with expressions of disgust and incredulity. The first man raged and gestured with the cleaver. When he reached for her she kicked upward with all her strength and rolled away from him and staggered to her feet. They caught her in less than a dozen steps and someone seized her by the collar and forced her head back. She’d already sunk to her knees and surrendered to Providence when the tires screeched again and the man hit the pavement beside her with a sound like a sackful of gravel thrown off a roof. A hand pulled her up by the hair and people were running toward or alongside her and suddenly she was in Ziar’s pickup looking back over her shoulder at a body in the street. One boy was still running after them but he was fat and bowlegged and she saw that his heart wasn’t in it. Before long he planted his feet and bent over and waved to the truck as if giving it permission to go on without him. The hand he used to wave with held a Makarov PM.

  * * *

  They were halfway to the Mountain before Ziar looked at her. He was shaking with anger. He reached past her and opened the glove compartment and took out a handkerchief and pressed it to her temple.

  —Take this, he said. —Hold it firm. Sit up now and keep your eyes open.

  She did as she was told. Her thoughts refused to come to order. —I’m sorry, she said.

  —What are you sorry for?

  —I don’t know. She felt herself tipping sideways. —For dropping the canister.

  The laugh he gave sounded angrier still. —Dropping the canister, brother? It’s under your feet.

  She looked down and saw it resting on its side between her shins. Somehow she hadn’t smelled the gas. The pain was worse and sweat was beading on her nape and on her forehead. Suleyman, came a voice.

  —Suleyman? Do you hear me?

  She noticed that her forehead was now pressed against the dash. Ideas came and went. She was certain that they hadn’t stopped to fill the pickup’s tank.

  —Do we need to pull over?

  —Why?

  —To fill up the tank.

  —Open your eyes, Ziar said. His voice was oddly muffled. —Open your eyes and sit up straight. We’ll soon be at camp.

  —No, she said, pushing back from the dash.

  She felt the truck slowing. —What did you say?

  —I want to know why you’re angry. I want to know what I did wrong.

  —You’ve done nothing, Suleyman. You’ve shown courage. He laughed again. —If I’m angry then I’m angry at myself.

  —What for?

  —For my weakness, he said. —For placing the opinion of a clutch of old men with dye in their beards above my own judgment. Do you understand?

  She nodded. —You’re telling me that we weren’t out of gas.

  Instead of answering he pulled over to the shoulder and reached between her knees for the canister and went out and filled the tank. As he poured he kept his back against the truck and scanned the road in both directions. There was nothing to s
ee. She watched him and knew that his caution was a reflex, conditioned behavior, the consequence of experience no training camp or manual could give. He spoke to her now in the voice she knew best, certain and impersonal and calm.

  —We’ll take you to the infirmary. You can have the bed that Ali slept in. You’ll like that, I think.

  —You hate him, she murmured. —I wish I knew why.

  —Listen to what I tell you now, he said. —In Mansehra or in Sadda it is no great offense to claim to be a thing that you are not. Even at the Mountain, or in the recruitment office of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, it is no mortal crime. But across the border this is not the case. Brothers die there if you cannot do a thing that you have said. They die, little brother. Does this answer your question?

  —But you saw him every day at the madrasa. You must have known he wasn’t any fighter. You couldn’t have believed what he was saying.

  He stared at her a moment. —Of course I believed him, he said. —Ali is a Muslim. He knows it’s a sin to deceive.

  When she gave him no answer he climbed back in and drove her slowly up the rutted valley road. The Mountain’s gate was opening before he spoke again.

  —Pay attention now, Suleyman. I have no feelings against Brother Ali. I’ll see that no harm comes to him.

  She leaned back against the headrest. —Thank you for that.

  —But I’ll tell you something further, little brother. Your friendship with Ali will do you no credit. Not where you’ll be going.

  —Where will that be?

  Ziar didn’t answer.

  —But he has enemies there? Her teeth seemed to be chattering. —Why is that, Ziar? Did he do something bad?

  —What Ali did makes no difference. He eased the truck forward. —I tell you this as a caution. Nothing more.

  As she looked at him her vision became clouded. It was true about Decker. He was no credit to her. He was a risk and an embarrassment. No one else in all that country knew the girl she’d been before.

  —No, she said. —I’m not taking him anywhere he’ll get in trouble. I’d rather not go.

  He blinked at her. —Have you not understood me, Suleyman? It seems that you haven’t. Ali will not be coming.

  —He won’t? Her voice sounded petulant, almost wheedling. —What will happen to him, then? Where will he go?

  Ziar shook his head. —Your friend has no future, he said gently. —Not with us.

  * * *

  Decker came to see her in the infirmary that same afternoon. —The last will become first, he said, grinning. —Or something like that.

  She lay back in the dark. —How was your day?

  —My day? My day was badass, thanks. She felt him lower himself gingerly onto the cot. —My day was radical.

  —What did Abu Imam have you doing? Did you lay some more mines?

  —Laid ’em down. Dug ’em up. Stuck ’em back in again. Not sure what the percentage is in that, but maybe that’s just me.

  —The percentage is you don’t die. That’s the percentage.

  —If that’s the point then why lay mines at all?

  —You don’t have to.

  —I know that. He smiled down at her. —I can head back to the States any old time I want. Then you can finally kick back and relax.

  —I heard something happened, she said. —When you were in the mountains with Ziar.

  —I’ll bet you heard that. I’ll just bet. And I don’t have to think too hard who told you.

  He sat framed by the doorway and she saw him for a moment as a cut-paper cameo, the kind travelers carried with them in lockets in centuries past. As if she’d already left him behind.

  —What happened, Decker?

  —Lots of things happened. He shifted on the cot. —I already told you how they did Altaf.

  —That’s true, she said. —You told me that.

  —I fucked up, that’s all. You need particulars?

  —I need to know what we might be getting into.

  —We’re not getting into anything. I’m not exactly top of the roster around here, in case you forgot. I’m a half notch up from licking the latrines.

  He seemed to expect a reply but she felt too weak to answer. Finally he gave a sort of cough. —What did he say?

  —Who?

  —Don’t fuck with me, Sawyer.

  She rolled onto her side. —He said I’m leaving soon.

  —He can’t decide that. He can ask you, that’s all. And you can tell him no.

  She stared at the wall. There were cracks in it she hadn’t seen before. Faint hairline cracks. One ran up to the rafters.

  —You can’t just ditch me, Sawyer. Not like this.

  —Not like what exactly, Decker? Like how you ditched me?

  —That’s right, he said slowly. —Like how I ditched you.

  He lay down next to her and she made room as best she could. His body was tense and his eyes were wide open. It was too much to look at.

  —This is my fault, she whispered. —I think that this is maybe all my fault.

  —It doesn’t matter whose damn fault it is. We’re here.

  —Oh God, she said.

  —Maybe it’s not a bad thing. We fucked up but we’ve made it this far. We just have to keep going.

  —Why?

  —Are you dumb enough to think they’ll let us leave?

  —Listen, she told him. Her mouth was dry as sawdust. —Decker, listen. I think you should try.

  He went silent again.

  —Did you hear what I said? I think—

  —So you can be with him? Is that why? Just the two of you together?

  —Decker, don’t—

  —I think that’s why, Sawyer. I wish I didn’t but I think that’s fucking why. So you can be alone with him and no one here to tell.

  She pushed herself upright or as near as she could manage and stared back at him. It was easier now. Under her grief was a new feeling, a coldness or a hollowness, a numbness where her trust in him had been. It was almost a relief to find it gone.

  —I never thought of it that way, she said.

  —Whatever you say, Sawyer.

  —I never thought of it that way because I knew you wouldn’t tell.

  —Well I’ve got news for you, Brother Suleyman Al-Na’ama. I’ll tell every last secret you’ve got.

  The pain in her temples was worse than before but she held herself steady. —What happened to you, Decker?

  —Nothing happened, he said evenly. —I’ve always been the same. I’m not going to be dicked around by Ziar Khan or the rest of these toothless old bastards or Hayat or you or anybody else. I’m done with all that. I’m not going to sit around here shoveling donkey shit while you grandstand like God’s gift to the faithful. You’re a sinner and a liar and if I keep quiet I’m a liar too.

  —I don’t believe you, she said. —You wouldn’t do that.

  —Is that right, Sawyer? Why the hell not?

  —Because we take care of each other.

  He went still for a time. —Try me, he said finally. —Run away with Ziar Khan and see.

  She reached toward him and he put up no resistance. He refused to look at her but he let her take his hand in both of hers and bring it to her chest. She realized as his shoulders began heaving that she’d always thought of him as younger than she was. Even when they’d lain together naked on his narrow single bed. Even when he’d made her laugh and gasp and curse in shock and pleasure.

  * * *

  By the end of the week she was recovered enough to walk without dizziness and Abu Imam permitted her to accompany the group as an observer. They were practicing with large-scale explosives now, placing ordnance such as dynamite and plastique in a slate-walled ravine an hour north of camp. It was cool in the mornings and the blue sky above them looked just out of reach, like the roof of a tent. From time to time an airplane passed over. She sat swaddled in a kaftan there and watched the others working.

  She hadn’t forgotten what Ziar had told her
about Decker and she looked for some sign that he was held back, set apart from the rest—but if anything he seemed exceptionally favored. He’d ingratiated himself with Abu Imam in the time she’d been gone, that much was evident, and he was proving to have a talent for explosives: he was often asked to run the wires now and set the charges. She had no idea what to hope for as far as Decker was concerned. Not if he chose to stay. She decided for the moment not to hope or think at all.

  She was sitting with the Arabs at the evening meal when Abu Intiqam came and stood expectantly beside her. They had spoken many times since their encounter behind the munitions shed but something in his manner put her on her guard at once. He was looking at her thoughtfully, rubbing his small palms together. She was still thinking how to address him when he touched her sleeve and spoke in a high formal voice.

  —Brother Khan wishes to speak with you, Brother Suleyman. Come back to the instructors’ table.

  She nodded and got to her feet. Her unease would not leave her. Decker was sitting with Abu Suhail at a table of Pashtuns and he set his cup down and watched her as she crossed the room. She had never seen him in Abu Suhail’s company before. He muttered something as she passed their table and a number of them laughed.

  —Brother Suleyman! said Ziar when she reached him. —You remember Abu Bakhsh and Abu Hamza.

  She nodded and told him she did.

  —Sit with us, said Abu Imam, making room for her.

  —No, brother, Ziar said fondly. —Let our little mujahid sit next to me.

  Abu Imam smiled and inclined his head politely. The old men ran their prunelike fingers through their beards in perfect concert. She rounded the table and sat across from them, at Ziar’s right hand.

  —How is your injury, Suleyman Al-Na’ama? said the older of the two. She tried to remember whether he was Abu Bakhsh or Abu Hamza. The one who hadn’t spoken cupped his left hand to his ear.

  —I feel well, father, she said. —It was just a little cut.