Godsend

by John Wray

  —A little cut? He appeared to be smiling.

  —Yes, mu’allim. And a bruise above my ear.

  —We visited you, Suleyman. In the infirmary.

  —You did?

  —Shall I tell you what you said to us there?

  She was quiet a moment. —In the infirmary?

  —He doesn’t recall, said the thicker-set man. The man who’d spoken first looked troubled.

  —He’s made a fine recovery, Ziar put in. —Abu Imam has told you—

  —Yes yes, Brother Khan. Let our mujahid speak for himself.

  She turned from one to the other, still unsteady on her feet, trying as she so often did to guess what was expected. It seemed that Ziar was being taken to task for what had happened in Mansehra but she couldn’t say for certain. In her desperation she looked to Abu Imam in hope of reassurance. He nodded to her subtly.

  —He doesn’t recall, the thickset man repeated.

  —You told us to keep our hands to ourselves, said the first man. —You warned us that you were a soldier of God. You threatened us with damnation if we tried to take your clothes.

  She slid her hands under the table’s edge and gripped the bench beneath her. Their laughter shook her worse than any censure could have done. She found herself bowing and mumbling an apology that went unheeded in the sudden crush of voices. She wondered how close the two of them had come. She wondered where exactly they had touched her. She thought of the night she’d spent in that vaulted room in Peshawar’s refugee quarter and what the yellow-eyed man had told her as he held her hand in his. She willed herself to glance at Ziar and return his easy smile. Then she saw Decker standing behind her.

  —Seems like good times over here, he said in English.

  Already the laughter had fallen away. Ziar said something in Pashto but Decker ignored him.

  —What are we celebrating, Sawyer?

  —Brother Ali, she said. —Brother Khan called me over—

  —Don’t talk to me in Arabic. Talk to me in English.

  —Decker, she hissed at him. —Have you gone crazy? We can talk—

  —I’m wondering what you think you’re doing, Aden Sawyer. I’m wondering if you remember what I told you.

  —Decker for God’s sake sit down.

  In the hush that had fallen her whispering seemed to echo off the walls. Decker gave no reaction. Ziar was leaning past her, squinting intently, as if the bareheaded boy standing at her left shoulder were difficult for him to see.

  —As-salaamu alaikum, Brother Ali.

  Decker nodded absently. —Wa-alaikum as-salaam.

  —Were you sent for, little brother? Do you bring us news?

  He shook his head, looking only at her.

  —Tell us what you’ve come to tell us, then. Don’t dawdle like a child.

  —I didn’t come to tell you anything. I’m talking with my friend.

  The silence was more perfect now. The hall seemed draped in coarse and heavy cloth. A bolt of felt had been thrown over them, smothering their voices and fixing their bodies in place. Only Ziar was moving. He was reaching his right arm toward Decker.

  —Return to your seat, little brother, and keep your own counsel. We have neither the time nor the patience for your sulking. Or do you see your father and your mother here among us at this table?

  —Be seated, fool, someone called out behind him. —Do you hear?

  Decker looked away from her now, past Ziar, past the old men, down the table at Abu Imam. Abu Imam got to his feet and came toward him.

  —I do bring news, said Decker.

  —Hush, little brother, said Abu Imam.

  —I will not, said Decker, his voice going shrill. —You’ll be happy to hear it. What you do afterward is up to you, but I’m going to—

  He’d turned back to Ziar, raising both arms for quiet, so that Abu Imam’s hand when it met his jaw sent him spinning away from the table as if in an attempted pirouette. It seemed to her that there was grace of a kind in the way that he fell, a grace she’d never seen in him before. He fell quickly and smoothly and without a trace of anger or surprise. Abu Imam had already returned to his place at the table. Ziar considered the scene for the briefest of instants, his head half turned, his face expressionless, then reached for the teapot and refilled his cup. Talk resumed at once, while Decker was still on all fours, as if the interruption had not been of the slightest consequence. She sat frozen in place, expecting Decker to speak, to get to his feet and bear witness against her in a voice too righteous to ignore, but he sat where he’d fallen, frowning thoughtfully down at the floor. Sometime later he stood and walked quietly out of the hall.

  * * *

  She awoke before daylight to find Ziar above her with a pistol in his hands. It was of a make she didn’t recognize and it seemed to her that she could smell the cordite from its muzzle, as if it had recently been fired. No one else was awake. She sat up and forced herself to pay attention. Something must have happened. She looked from the gun to Ziar’s face and back again.

  —We leave tomorrow, Suleyman.

  —What did you do?

  —Did you hear me? We leave tomorrow. Tomorrow at this hour.

  —You told me you’d watch out for him. You promised me that he’d be left alone.

  For the first time since Sadda he seemed to return her look without affection. He studied her as if they’d had a delicate and unspoken understanding that the panic in her voice called into question. She felt a surge of hatred toward him as he watched her.

  —Answer me, she said. —Why won’t you answer?

  —I have faith in my judgment, he said slowly, as if to himself. —In the judgment God gave me. I have no great discernment or learning, much to my regret, but I believe myself to be an able judge of men.

  —I don’t understand.

  He drew himself up proudly, much as Decker himself had done the day before. —Your friend Ali is well, Suleyman. As well as our Lord in His wisdom has seen fit to make him. That he is a child in a man’s body, a fool with less sense for his own welfare than a toddler might have, is apparent to you best of all. This too I understand. It must be why you ask such foolish questions.

  —You mean—

  —Though I may come to regret the oath I swore regarding him, I’m not at liberty to break it. I remain a Muslim, Suleyman, by God’s unending mercy and His grace.

  —I’m sorry, she said, getting to her feet. —I shouldn’t have said that. I’m still half asleep.

  To her relief he simply shook his head. —My foster father in Yemen had a saying: Every man is an ass before his first cup of tea. He grinned at her. —Some men, of course, remain so after drinking the whole pot.

  —Thank you, she said, catching hold of his hand.

  He stood as motionless now as when her eyes had first come open. The holding of hands was not uncommon among brothers in the camp but she had never seen Ziar touched in this way. He kept himself at a remove from both the trainees and the teachers. He was a Pashtun, after all, and not a Chechen or an Arab bound for fighting in Kashmir. She had touched him without thinking and now it was too late to reconsider. His hands were dry and warm and seemed to tremble. She felt the smooth skin where his damaged fingers ended. She noticed for the first time that the remaining fingernails were badly bitten. He took in a breath.

  —Come along now, little brother. We mustn’t miss the call to prayer on our last day.

  * * *

  She spent that morning as she’d spent all the previous week, placing and arming and disassembling mines, and after the midday meal she went with Abu Imam’s group to the ravine. Its boulder-choked bed was the only line of shade at that hour and they huddled there and tried to think and speak and breathe despite the heat. It was the last day of the incendiaries course and the trainees’ mood was festive. They were finally going to work with combat-grade explosives, full wartime payloads, blast zones of a hundred feet or more. She sat back in the dwindling shade and listened to their chatter. S
he was treated no differently from the others, not even by Abu Imam, and there were moments when she questioned whether Ziar’s dawn visit had happened at all.

  She hadn’t expected to find Decker among the group, given all that had happened, but he was first in line and boisterous as ever. He showed no abashedness, no humility, not even with Abu Imam. She herself was now the deferential one. As if she and no one else were in disgrace.

  After the five o’clock prayer she caught Decker’s eye and he gave her a bashful smile and waved her closer. He waited to speak until the rest were out of earshot.

  —You’re leaving tomorrow, he said.

  —Who told you that?

  —Those two old beard-pullers. Abu Bakhsh and Abu Hamza. They came to see me after morning prayers.

  —I don’t believe you, she heard herself saying. —Why would they do that, Decker?

  —They liked the guts I showed last night. They liked my initiative. He hummed to himself. —And they don’t seem to have much love for Ziar Khan.

  —That doesn’t make sense. I don’t—

  —They told me to prepare for my departure. That’s a direct quote. And they brought me Ziar’s apologies, if you can believe it. For what happened last night.

  —His apologies? she murmured. All at once it was terribly bright.

  —That’s right, Sawyer. He was grinning again and rocking on his heels. —He wished me safe travels.

  —Safe travels? she echoed.

  —What’s the matter with you, Sawyer? You look like you’re about to lose your lunch.

  —Listen to me, Decker. Please listen. You need to go to them, right now, and say you’ll be good. You need to promise them—

  He put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a shake. —Hey there, Sawyer. Aden! Look up here at me.

  She recovered her balance and lifted her head. The slate beneath her was cool but the far side of the creekbed twitched and rippled in the heat. Abu Imam and the others stood arranged there with the sunlit rock behind them like apostles on an icon. He was instructing them in the handling of Semtex and its use as a detonating agent for TNT. He brought out a thimbleful for them to admire, handling it with careful practiced movements. Day was leaving the ravine and it seemed strange that they were staying so late and working with such unprecedented payloads. It confused her.

  —Ziar thinks of me as dead weight, Decker was saying. —But this isn’t his camp. He’s here on a guest pass. Those two old boys run the show, it turns out, and they don’t see things his way. Abu Imam told them how good I am at setting charges. You’ve seen it yourself. I’m the only one in this unit who can calculate a blast zone. I’m the only one who can prime a detonator.

  She felt herself nodding. —That’s probably true.

  —I’m going to Kashmir with the Chechens. Something big’s in the works there. I’m guessing a bridge.

  —A bridge? What do you mean?

  He gave a nervous laugh. —What do you think?

  She sat up straight and forced herself to see him as he was. The matted hair. The restless mouth. A tic above his eyebrow that she hadn’t seen before. His teeth as beautiful and white as she remembered.

  —Please don’t do this, Decker. You’re not ready. It’s too soon.

  He got to his feet. —All right, then. Fuck you, Sawyer.

  She caught at his pant leg but he kicked it free. Abu Imam and the rest paid them no mind.

  —There’s a reason I didn’t tell them last night. About you, I mean. Do you want to know why?

  —Decker, she said. —Please just—

  —You don’t matter to me anymore. I’ve got something that I’m better at than anybody here. If I told them it would only hold me back.

  —Brother Ali, came a voice. —Please advise us in setting the charges.

  He turned without another word and stepped into the sun. She watched as he took his place at Abu Imam’s side and held his hand out proudly for the Semtex. Abu Imam said something too quietly for her to catch, paused very briefly, then placed it like an eggshell into Decker’s upturned palm.

  She reached the circle around Decker just as he was pressing the remote charge into the Semtex. The men held their breath as he worked it with a sure hand into the palm-warmed plastique and attached the Semtex in turn to a twenty-kilo load of TNT. Abu Imam was talking softly in his sepia-colored voice. A landslide had sent a tank-sized boulder into the creekbed, obstructing the current, and the charge must be correctly placed to clear it. Twenty kilograms was more than required, perhaps, but it was time for the group to witness a high-payload detonation. They were rehearsing for warfare, after all, and an RPG might have a blast zone greater than the ravine’s entire width. They would need to grow accustomed to the shock wave and the noise of the report. He instructed the men not to cover their ears.

  Once the charge was laid and the detonator attached, Decker made a leisurely gesture to Abu Imam and a wheel of snarled and corroded-looking cable was brought from a small cave that the group used as a depot. She wondered absently as she watched him attach the free end of the cable to the detonator key whether the cave was a new one or centuries old. A sensation of timelessness stole over her with the weight of a drug and made the scene before her seem arbitrary and unreal. She’d spent less than half a week in the infirmary but in those few days everything had changed. The camp itself had changed. She’d driven down to Mansehra assured of her place in the order of things and now there seemed to be no order. None at all. She barely recognized her brothers’ faces.

  Even in that last hour of daylight the sun was ferocious and she felt its spiteful heat against her neck and through her clothes. The heavy wooden spool that held the cable was being wheeled up the creekbed by the two youngest Arabs and Abu Imam and Decker were walking beside them with considered steps, hands clasped identically behind their backs, like scholars on a contemplative stroll. Abu Imam himself looked unfamiliar to her, a slender dark-skinned man in an immaculate kameez, unrelated to the person she remembered. She felt the group’s excitement as a pulsing in her skull. One of the Pashtuns was known for his terror of thunder and he mumbled to himself and pressed his fists against his sides. She told him in the few words of Pashto she’d learned that there was no cause for fear, that Abu Imam would let no harm come to him, and he groaned and shook his gray face at the ground.

  Thirty paces up the wash was the next heavy rockslide and Abu Imam announced that they would place the hellbox there. The slide would serve to shelter them, he explained, from volatile debris. A car battery was unwrapped from a frayed square of oilcloth and eased into the hellbox and attached to the cable with extravagant care. It was Decker, not Abu Imam, who oversaw the assembly of the triggering mechanism by the two Arab boys. She could hardly believe it. She heard Abu Imam’s voice behind her, murmuring assurances to the terrified Pashtun. The payload was three times the weight of any charge she’d seen a trainee lay before. She moved back until she could see the entire group clustered around Decker where he squatted on the ground. This is an entertainment to them, she thought. A fireworks display. The sense of unreality intensified and now she seemed to understand its meaning.

  Abu Imam held up a hand and stepped clear of the group to scan the ground between them and the payload. When he was satisfied that all was in order he nodded to Decker and gave the command. The rubble sheltering them was in shadow but the boulder sat high and massive in the sunlight. The older of the boys at Decker’s feet murmured an entreaty to God and began to turn the crank of the hellbox to muster the charge. The smaller boy held his friend by the collar and whispered encouragements into his ear. She could see the boy’s lips form the words and hear the quavering of his eager high-pitched voice. He was saying that their endeavor was blessed and their cause even more so and that God would either annihilate the obstruction or preserve it as He saw fit in His boundless providence. The older boy mumbled a prayer, looked skyward for a moment, then arched his back and rammed the handle home. The gray-faced Pashtun fell
flat on the ground and the men to each side of him clapped their hands over their ears as if the walls of the ravine had already been sundered by the fist of the Almighty but the boulder remained exactly as it was. The only sound aside from the shouting and clapping and crying to Heaven was a delicate toylike clicking as the hellbox spring unwound.

  —Well, brothers, Abu Imam said after a time. —Who among you is ready to be called home to God?

  —It must be the crank, the older boy stammered, tipping the box on its side.

  —Leave it, said Decker. —It isn’t the crank.

  —How could you know that, brother?

  Abu Imam stepped forward. —Perhaps there is a problem with the detonation key.

  —There must be, said Decker.

  —Not necessarily. It may have been improperly assembled.

  —I assembled it myself. There was nothing improper.

  —Only the Unseen is infallible, Brother Ali. We are all of us subject to error.

  Decker squinted at the hellbox and said nothing.

  —What did you mean, Abu Imam? the younger boy asked.

  —About what, little brother?

  He looked down at his feet. —About going to God.

  Abu Imam nodded to himself for a time before he answered. —We shall need to disassemble the relay in the order in which it was assembled. We’ll begin at the payload and work in reverse.

  —Of course, the boy said. —But then we’d have to—

  —I’ll do it, said Decker.

  She watched the understanding ripple outward through the circle to the Pashtun lying huddled on the ground. He pushed himself up, shook his head for a moment, then managed to stand. —Abu Imam, he called. —Make use of me. I’m ready.

  Abu Imam glanced at Decker, who seemed to hesitate. But even as she called his name he raised his voice so everyone could hear.

  —You don’t know what you’re doing, he said to the Pashtun. —You wouldn’t be of any use at all.

  —Brother Ali, murmured Abu Imam.

  She took his reply as a caution to Decker, a plea to reconsider, but by the time she reached the circle she could see how wrong she was. The crowd drew back as Decker stood and brushed the sand from his kameez, the one he’d bought in Peshawar in some spectral former life. She saw him as he’d been on that faraway morning, moving from stall to stall in his tangerine tracksuit, blustering and haggling in his cheerful anxious voice. Abu Imam and the others receded and she and Decker were alone in all that wilderness of dust and splintered slate. She moved clumsily toward him. She heard him clear his throat and ask the brothers for their blessing. She spoke his name again but he ignored her. He seemed not to care for any blessing she could give.