Godsend

by John Wray

  —Chukar, Ziar said, gesturing toward the basket. —The fighting birds of Laghman Province are well-known.

  She bent down for a moment and watched the partridge strut and forage, making gurgling noises, metallic and fluid. —They’re beautiful.

  —They’re expensive, he said without slowing. —And expressly forbidden. In Kandahar these men would be in prison for gambling. Or taken out and beaten in the street.

  Above the village the road narrowed to a cattle trail and climbed in grassy switchbacks to a pass. As they reached the first turning a cry went up below them and she looked back to see two villagers poised like dancers with their arms outstretched and baskets at the ready. A brother whose name she hadn’t learned stood spellbound a few steps ahead of her, neither moving nor blinking, and Ziar struck him good-naturedly on the nape as he passed and cursed him for a profligate and sinner. She could make out nothing of the fight itself but a cloud of silver feathers and the ring of ruthless faces and she was grateful when the sight passed out of view. There seemed little difference between that circle of men and the one that had drawn itself around her ten weeks earlier, at the cemetery gate, when the guide had been dropped hog-tied at her feet.

  For a fortnight they continued northward and westward, eating whatever they could beg or steal or scavenge, sleeping in stables or in ditches and on rare nights in woodstove-heated rooms as honored guests. In each successive valley there were strongmen to be pacified and elders to be attended to and timeworn protocols to be observed. In the third week she was taken by cramps in the stomach, a pain that seemed to sound some vague alarm, but by then many in the company were suffering from malnourishment and her misery drew nobody’s attention. The days seemed continuous, little more than hours in some greater, more pitiless day, with intervals of lightlessness between. Ziar kept them moving from dawn until sunset: if not for the five mandated prayers they’d have had no rest to speak of. The men grew more religious by the day.

  * * *

  At the frontier to Panjshir a company of Kabuli Taliban met them by chance, likewise headed north to Kunduz by the Laghman trail. They were a far larger body of soldiers, self-disciplined and silent, their clothes and guns immaculate and black. They seemed warriors in some different cause entirely. Abu Suhail and the other men regarded them with awe.

  The Kabuli captain wore a camel-hair greatcoat in spite of the heat and chewed on a blade of grass as he conferred with Ziar. The two were in conference for nigh on an hour and it seemed to her as she watched them that some momentous event must have occurred. Some cataclysm. Ziar was excited in a way she’d never seen before: he was playing the part of the statesman, preoccupied and solemn, for the benefit of the soldiers sprawled around him in the grass. She decided that Kunduz had been lost, or that the northern line had broken, or that the Great Emir in Kandahar was dead.

  At last the two men stood and embraced and Ziar gave orders for a meal to be prepared. Someone asked if they should pray first and he roused himself from his reverie and answered that they should. The captain had returned to his men and was directing the assembly of a field radio. The others were unrolling their prayer rugs but she stayed as she was and observed him. With his straggling beard and his preposterous coat he looked less like the bearer of solemn tidings than a beggar costumed in a rich man’s clothes. But his men with their jet-colored vestments and their new and gleaming ordnance looked like martyrs on their way to Paradise.

  —They aren’t praying, someone behind her whispered. —Why aren’t they praying?

  —They must have prayed before we got here.

  —Have you been sleepwalking, brother? We got here at the same time.

  —He’s a warlord, said another. —They’re not Taliban at all.

  —Of course they’re Taliban. Look at their clothes. Look at their weapons.

  —If those are Taliban, then what in hell are we?

  Everyone laughed but Ziar. He had yet to say a word. His expression might have been one of exultation or dismay.

  —I know what that machine is, Abu Suhail said proudly. —It’s a kind of radio.

  —A field transmitter, Ziar said. —For talking to Kabul.

  —He’s using it now, said the second man. —Do you hear?

  —I thought music was forbidden, the man who’d made the joke said sullenly.

  —It’s not that kind of radio, you donkey. It’s for talking to one person.

  —That’s right, Ziar said. —It’s for receiving orders, brothers. And for getting news.

  Something in his manner hushed them. The wind carried the sound of the radio to them in soft unintelligible rushes. Ziar ate his flatbread and sipped at his tea, nodding to himself as if he were alone. When she couldn’t stand it any longer she asked what the captain had told him.

  —It’s America.

  —America?

  He looked toward her now. —A strike, he said. —An attack. In the capital and in another city.

  She slumped slightly forward. —What kind of a strike?

  —A plane, they say. Two planes. He shook his head. —Some sort of conflagration.

  No one spoke for a time. She felt them all watching. The radio’s chatter paled and brightened in the wind.

  —What does this matter to us? came a voice from behind her. She turned and saw the man who’d been enraptured by the cockfight. The confusion in his eyes made her want to embrace him. —It wasn’t Pashtuns that did it. I’m sure of that much.

  —How can you be sure? she asked.

  —Because of this, he answered, holding up his rifle. —This old blunderbuss could never shoot so far.

  A few brothers laughed. Ziar gave no reaction.

  —Our guns don’t shoot so far, he said at last. —But their guns do.

  A man with burn marks along his jawline raised his right hand like a student in a classroom. —There was a nation which passed away, he recited. —They have earned their reward, and you have earned yours. You will not be held responsible for what they did.

  —Well and truly spoken, said another. —What happens in America is no concern of ours. No nation is exempted from God’s judgment, my brothers. And surely that one least of all.

  —What do you think, Suleyman? said the man who’d spoken first.

  She shook her head stiffly. She was thinking back to Nazir’s office and the bargain she had made. Her clothes and hair on fire. She asked Ziar who had carried out the strike.

  —I can’t say, little brother.

  —Not us, said the man who’d made the joke about the rifle. —It was no Pashtun, brothers. No Afghan at all.

  —Why can’t you say, Brother Ziar? Because you don’t know?

  —Suleyman—

  —Or is there some other reason?

  The others turned as one to look at her. She ignored them all and waited for his answer. The radio fell sharply into focus. A young man’s voice, speaking Arabic with an unfamiliar accent. When no answer came she stepped out of the circle and walked through the grass to where the captain sat hunched over his crackling apparatus like an alchemist transmuting dung to gold. Two boys sprang up to block her approach, their hands already at the knives in their belts, but the captain waved her forward. He’d taken off his coat and rolled up his sleeves and his fingertips and palms were dark with grease. She waited for him to address her. The young man on the radio was reporting on the weather in Kunduz.

  —Khe chare, sahib, she said in her impatience. The boys shook their heads at her lack of decorum. The captain set his tools aside.

  —The American, he said in English. —The American pays us a visit.

  —Yes, sir.

  He beckoned her closer, flaring his nostrils as though the smell of her were difficult to bear. —I would ask you the reason, he said. —But on this day I imagine I can guess.

  —I’d be thankful for whatever you can tell me.

  —The city of Manhattan? You know of this city? The great financial district at its center?

&nbs
p; —What happened?

  —There is no financial district any longer. There is no trade tower. There is no stock exchange. These things have passed away.

  The smallest sigh of disbelief escaped her. The air seemed to thicken. She saw herself in faded video, her image degrading, her outline blurred by violence. In spite of all her subterfuge America had found her. She closed her eyes and saw a grid of streets subsiding into history. No escape was permitted. She was on the ground and she was in the planes. She had gone to the opposite end of the earth, to the void zone on the map, and America had found her. It had found her so quickly. She thought of her small drab life in Santa Rosa, of the mosque in the strip mall, of Decker asleep beside her on her narrow childhood bed. She opened her eyes. These things have passed away.

  The captain stood just as before, observing her reaction, making no attempt to camouflage his hatred. She knew what he was looking for and knew also that if he found it she would not have long to live. She remembered what Ziar had said to her the day they crossed the border: You must take pains to be one thing to them only.

  She spat ostentatiously into the grass. —Were many sinners killed?

  —Oh yes, brother. Everyone was killed.

  —That’s not possible.

  He smiled. —As to the unbelievers, the doubters and the sleepers, they shall have their wage in time.

  She pointed back up the slope. —Some of the brothers say America will come here to make war. Up into these mountains. Here to us.

  —What do you yourself say, little brother?

  She shook her head. —Only if they think that we’re to blame.

  —And are we to blame? What do you say, as an American?

  The urge to shriek gripped her. —Those who suppress what God has revealed of the Book: Those shall eat only fire. God shall not speak to them—

  —I did not ask your opinion on theological matters, said the captain. —In any case, your country knows it was no Talib who did this. The entire world knows, or will learn it soon. He held out his hand, keeping his eyes fixed on hers, and one of the boys placed a pair of jeweler’s pliers into his palm. —As for you, little brother: the truth will be disclosed to you in time. Go back now to your protectors and petition God for patience.

  —I already know who it was, she said. —I didn’t come for that. I just wanted you to tell me what he’d done.

  He turned back to the radio. —You know nothing. Go back to your company.

  —It was a Saudi. A wealthy Helper. Benefactor to the Orchard and the Mountain.

  For a moment the captain kept still. Then he gestured with the pliers and his adjutants began to disassemble the radio and pack its components into leather cases lined with pale blue silk. She had spoken impulsively, with no thought of consequences, and it was clear that she had caught him by surprise. The disgust he felt toward her or toward his notion of her was even more explicit than before.

  —You think you know a secret, he said. —By now the whole world knows this Saudi’s name.

  She took a step forward. —What was the reason?

  —The reason?

  —I’m asking you to tell me, if you know. I’m begging you, sir. So I can understand.

  The captain knelt and ran his hands through the grass until he was satisfied his fingertips were clean. —Are you asking me the reason for his actions, little mujahid? Truly? I do not believe that you are. He took up his camel-hair coat and shook the grass from it and draped it regally about his narrow shoulders. —It is impossible that you should be here, in this valley, and not understand the reason. Did you not come here yourself, in good faith, to take up your sworn jihad?

  —I’ve been trained for this fight, she heard herself answer. —Not any other. To protect a Muslim state against its enemies. The warlords of the north.

  —And who are you to decide who our enemies are? He brought his face so close to hers that she could see the silver crowns on his back teeth. —Are you the Emir of the Faithful, perhaps? Are you a general? Are you a prophet? Were you such a fool as to imagine that if you traveled far enough into these mountains, in the company of peasants, the country of your birth need not concern you?

  —This war has nothing to do with America, she managed to stammer.

  —There is no such war anywhere on earth, Suleyman, the captain said quietly. —America itself has seen to that.

  * * *

  The village they reached the next day at midmorning was the most beautiful she’d seen in all that country. It sat high and exposed on a ridge, like a notch cut in a tree branch, and matched the dun-colored landscape so perfectly that she heard the shouts of children before her eyes could tell the houses from the hillside. Its buildings were made of straw-battened earth, like virtually all those she’d seen, but here the doorframes and rafters and eaves were embellished with carved florets and twisting vines and figures that looked to have been cut before God’s word had ever reached those pagan mountains.

  The valley had only recently been retaken and the brother with the burn marks, whose name was Sahar Gul, told her that its women had gone about bareheaded a few brief weeks before, without even the pretense of modesty. He cautioned her that the village was a wicked place, depraved and impious, but somehow she couldn’t make herself believe him. Of all the settlements they’d seen, this one looked most like the country she’d kept in her mind’s eye through the long months of training, the country she’d imagined herself fighting to defend. She prayed that they might stay there for a year.

  They pitched camp in a grove of birches just outside the granite columns that marked the southern boundary of the village. The columns were warmed by the early sun and encircled by mulberry bushes, sweet-smelling and heavy with fruit. Sahar Gul and a few others set about gathering the ripe white berries, humming tunelessly to themselves as they worked, their beards and their fingertips glistening with juice. Two men were sent with goatskins to fetch water. Ziar lay down in the sunlight and shaded his eyes.

  She sat with her back against the silvery trunk of a sapling, listening to the wind in the crowns of the birches, feeling the light on her skin and the quivering of the wood against her spine. America seemed distant and unlikely. The only image she could call to mind was of her mother in the bedroom, slump-shouldered and sullen, staring out the window with her dogs arrayed around her. She thought about the captain and what little he had told her. The entire world knows, or will learn it soon. She wondered whether there had truly been some kind of an attack. It was easy enough to doubt it as the wind drew through the trees.

  The men with the goatskins were gone a long time, long enough that Ziar grew impatient, and they returned with two young Talibs dressed entirely in black. She recognized them as soldiers of the Kabuli company and she tried to imagine them picking mulberries, or lying in the sun with the ends of their headscarves draped over their eyes, but she couldn’t imagine them doing anything but standing at attention. They stood shoulder to shoulder with their rifles at three-quarters and requested Ziar’s presence at a hearing on a matter of law. He asked them who would be presiding and was told that he himself would be, along with the captain and a mullah from the village. The sooner he could come the better, as the hearing was already underway.

  Ziar told the soldiers that he would happily discharge his duty to them and to God and yawned and passed a hand across his mouth. Birch leaves clung to his kameez and he brushed them away with no great urgency.

  —I believe this grove may be enchanted, he said to the men. —It’s a lucky thing you came to fetch me, brothers. Another hour and we might have lost our discipline.

  The Talibs exchanged glances and nodded to him gravely and withdrew.

  —You still have leaves on your back, she said once they were gone.

  —Do I? He yawned again and slipped into his sandals. —Where, little brother?

  —Here on your right side. She brushed them away. —The side you were lying on when you were sleeping.

  —You know me
better than that, Suleyman Al-Na’ama. I never sleep. He gave her a tired smile. —Will you accompany me on this errand? You understand the Recitation better than all these bumpkins and fanatics put together. Perhaps you’ll shine a light into their darkness.

  * * *

  At close quarters the village’s squalor was more evident but still it seemed a place uniquely favored. Even the reek of its ditches was less severe, it seemed to her, though perhaps this was due to the cold. Ziar’s breath rose thinly as she followed him up those winding alleys and she watched it catch what little light there was. A cat darted ahead of them, keeping always the same token distance, looking back aloofly at each turning. Fair-haired children peered down from porticoes and high unshuttered windows. No one on the street returned her greeting.

  At the highest point in the village a cobbled square fronted a small wooden mosque and they arrived to find soldiers from the Kabuli company holding a throng of stone-faced villagers at bay. The men and women in the crowd spoke in thick toneless murmurs and it was impossible to guess their intention. The soldiers kept their rifles raised as high as they could manage, at the tips of outstretched fingers, and this posture made the scene seem somehow pious. The murmurings of the villagers might almost have been prayers.

  Ziar stopped short as they drew near the mosque, as though a sudden thought had struck him, and just then the crowd surged forward. Some of the women held their palms upturned like beggars. She told herself that the company had most likely brought medicine from Kabul, or sweets for the children, or tablets to make the water safe to drink. She took a step and Ziar caught her by the arm.

  —What is this hearing about?

  —Nothing, he said to her. —Not anymore.

  —What do you mean?

  —It’s done, that’s what I mean. They have their verdict.

  He said this in a careless voice, already turning back, but she slipped free of his grasp and pushed ahead. The women before her stood buzzing together like bees in a hive and she was able to pass them without any trouble. She recognized one of the captain’s adjutants among the line of soldiers and he saw her as well and widened his eyes at her and bared his teeth. She was trying to guess what his wild look might mean when he fired his Kalashnikov into the air and the crowd fell back in a series of spasms and the object of its interest lay plain to see before her on the ground. She knelt down beside it. From the rings on its fingers she understood it to be the body of a woman or a girl of marriageable age, crumpled and inanimate and steaming in the cold. The burqa she wore was open at the crown and the linen beneath it was heavy with blood. Scattered around her lay chips of slate and cobblestones and fist-sized chunks of brick. A man’s voice was shouting. The crowd pushed forward again to the edge of the blood, indifferent to the Talibs and their rifles. She stared down at the body. So slight and so shapeless. A shroud of black hair hung across what might have been a face.