#1. DAR EL-TAWHID MADRASSA, DAMASCUS, SYRIA
Friday May 1, 15:30
THE PICTURES shown on the television were horrific. Limbs torn from bodies. Heads ripped from necks. Weird, indistinguishable organs scooped from bellies. Bones, jagged and glinting. Innards and guts discarded like so many deflated balloons. And blood, puddles and puddles of blood, some bright-red, some darker, some with bits floating in it…. Hisham tried not to retch. He had never known that human blood had so many shades.
Al-Jazeera's cameraman zoomed in on the corpse of an old man lying on his front. A huge wooden splinter stuck out of his back like a spear. A woman lay nearby. Her face was completely smashed in. No features were recognisable in the crimson pulp. Fires burned. Oily smoke poked its fingers accusingly at the sky. The camera caught an American soldier's helmet rolling in the gutter. Hisham felt Moussa Bashir's fingers digging violently into his shoulder. He heard the excitement in the breathing. He sensed the thrill of witnessing death all round him.
''So perish the enemies of Islam,'' said Talal Hafez.
The camera focused on a concrete crescent-moon. It had been blown off a minaret.
''Shi'ites,'' snarled Talal. ''Heretics and traitors deserving of death.''
The Al-Jazeera cameraman panned across the ruined market, found a half-naked boy, covered in blood and smoke, wandering through the wasteland in stained Spiderman underpants. Despite limping heavily, he was still supporting the weight of a smaller boy and making his way out of the carnage. The commentator made some remark about heroism in the midst of heartache.
Talal Hafez hawked and spat. ''A runty Shi'ite bastard who got away, God rot him.''
Hisham felt Moussa Bashir's excited breathing harsh in his ear. He knew that tonight he would earn his board and lodging.
He glanced at Mr Mokhtar. There were tears in his eyes. This new Geography teacher seemed a nice man, a gentle man, one who seemed to care about his charges, even the flinty-eyed Osama and the weasly Yasser who had just died over there in Baghdad.
Yasser had been a withdrawn, sullen, spotty refugee from Ramallah in the Occupied Territories. He had barely spoken to anyone in the month he had been in the school. Hisham had recruited him, like so many others, in Zenobia Park and brought him to Moussa for 'induction'. He had not befriended him. He had not seen the point. He had known the boy was going to die. That was what they did at the Dar El-Tawhid School. They turned street-boys into suicide-bombers. They taught their students how to kill, and how to die. The message of direct entry into Paradise, of seventy-seven virgin girls oiling your bits for all eternity, of everlasting glory as a Martyr for the jihad, was powerful, especially for street-kids with nothing to lose, not in this life anyway, but Yasser had failed to please Moussa Bashir and that was why he had been chosen so quickly. Hisham knew the value of pleasing Moussa Bashir. It kept you alive. Yasser had chosen a different course. Now he was strewn in bloody pieces round a Baghdad market.
Hisham turned his head and smiled up at Moussa Bashir who ran his tongue-tip over his lower lip and winked. Hisham felt sick. He had been hanging out at the Dar El-Tawhid, or House of Unity, for nearly a year. Moussa had found him sniffing glue in an alley and offered him cash for a quick fumble, pressing the boy's thin body up against a parked Hyundai and panting as he had satisfied himself on Hisham's joggers. Since then Hisham had done things he had never imagined a fifteen year old could do, and in places where there was always a risk of discovery, by the police, the public or just passers-by, for Moussa was a man who seemed to get off on the thrill of people's proximity and the possibility of getting caught in the act.
The Call to Prayer that was the ring-tone on Talal Hafez' mobile phone jarred Hisham from his reflections.
''Wa aleikum sala'am,'' said the teacher. ''Peace be upon you.'' The long, bushy black beard which fanned across his broad, powerful breast bristled triumphantly. ''Yes, we are watching the news. All of us. Together.'' There was a pause. ''United in pride. Indeed we are.'' Another pause. ''We try.'' Talal Hafez seemed to swell. ''Yes, the package you ordered will be ready soon. We will find someone to deliver it…yes, in person.'' He fixed his black eyes on a tall, skinny, thin-faced youth whose owl-rimmed spectacles were constantly sliding down his beaky nose. ''Yes, it may be Osama. He's certainly committed to jihad.'' Osama almost smiled. ''Or someone less vital.'' His eyes met Hisham's. ''Hisham might fancy the trip.''
Moussa Bashir slid his arm round the boy's narrow shoulders and squeezed him happily.
''Talal thinks you're ready…'' he said in his strangely strangled voice.
But I'm not, gulped Hisham, not for that.
''You send us the money,'' said Talal briskly, ''And we'll do the job…. Well, thank you...''
The conversation was closed. Attention returned to the images of destruction on the television screen. The light glinted off the hook Talal had in place of a left hand.
''One day, boys,'' he said, ''One day soon, you too will do this. You, like the Martyr Yasser, will destroy the infidel in Holy War and take your places in Heaven.''
Hisham wondered which of the blood-lakes had burst out of Yasser and shivered. He caught Mr Mokhtar's tear-filled eyes. No, you don't, mouthed the Geography teacher. You don't have to do this.
But Hisham knew, in his heart, that one day he would. One day he too would be blasted to bits around some foreign bus station or market. One day some paramedic or soldier would scoop his guts into a bucket, pick his head from the gutter, hose his brains off the pavement and curse his very birth. It was the way of the Dar El-Tawhid, the House of Unity. There was no escape. It was just a matter of time till Moussa Bashir grew bored with him. That was why he had recruited others so enthusiastically. He believed he could make himself indispensable by seeking out and befriending the poor, desperate children of Damascus and delivering them to these evil men. They died so he could stay alive.
Talal Hafez gestured with his hook. ''A small party is in order, I think,'' he declared. ''Mr Mokhtar, be so kind as to fetch us some pizzas and a carton or two of orange juice. Today, after all, is a day to celebrate Yasser's entry into Paradise!''
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