Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 6

“Will you be back for the Parim event?” Perry asked.

“You go. Make sure everything goes off perfectly.” Lewis smiled. “You’re ready for this. Use the speech you prepared.” Then Lewis was gone.

Perry flustered with papers and then hurried to the carpool. The driver stood by the Bronco. The flesh around one eye was swollen. Dried blood crusted the neat stitches on his jaw. The driver opened the door. Perry sat in the air-conditioned shade. The driver closed the door.

He didn’t deserve to be treated like Lewis. Or maybe he did. A diplomat needed to focus to represent his country. There would be a speech. Local and national press. Photos.

The driver pulled out of the parking lot. Perry practiced Lewis’s speech, but anticipation kept the words on the paper. He glanced at the driver and then pulled out his camera to freeze the moving scenery distorted through the fish bowl window.

After two hours, they turned into the driveway of Mr. Abdullah’s house. Wind-scoured Ladas and a few shiny Toyota trucks clogged the way and filled the holes. The driver veered off the lane and bounced over the field, stopping in front of a crowd. The Bronco rocked as the driver closed his heavy door, leaving Perry in his cool shell. Then, his door opened, pulling in hot air.

Perry squinted. Fifty or sixty faces watched him. Some serious and wrinkled. Others smooth and festive. A camera with a telephoto lens clicked. Many hands clutched stones.

He watched them. They watched him. The noise died. He didn’t see Mr. Abdullah. The silence dragged and the speaking notes he’d written seemed suddenly trite. Brown, self-sufficient faces waited to measure the words of a white man barely out of university, here to change their country. A shrivelled man in a traditional keffyeh emerged from the crowd and smiled. He shook Perry’s hand and faced the crowd.

“Mr. John Lewis wishes to say a few words,” the old man said in Arabic.

Perry’s stomach dropped. He hesitated.

“Mr. Lewis wanted to be here. He asked me to say a few words. I am Francis Perry.” The faces were stony. The cameras lowered. Perry swallowed around a dry mouth and delivered his speech without using his notes. He stumbled over his vision of a world without shame. People looked away and started kicking at the dust when he spoke about his commitment to helping the world. One man lit a cigarette and talked with his neighbour while Perry faltered over responsibility. More conversation sprang up in the middle of the crowd. Perry ended with a call to action and a thank-you. No one clapped.

The old man nodded. “Very nice,” he said. He cupped Perry’s elbow and steered him through the crowd. They had formed a circle about twenty feet wide, centered in front of Mr. Abdullah’s house. They turned to Perry. An oppressive silence bloomed.

A surprised shriek broke it. The door opened. A man in his twenties, wearing a yellow button-down dress shirt, dragged a struggling girl out by her wrist. Amirra tugged with her whole body and clutched the doorframe with her other hand. Mr. Abdullah’s wife hesitated behind them before clawing Amirra’s hand free. Amirra fell onto the dirt. The hem of her abaya rose, showing white socks, running shoes and jeans. Her mother slammed the door. Amirra turned towards her house, but the man in the yellow shirt was there. She retreated to the middle of the circle. Her hijab was askew, showing fine black hair.

The crowd looked at her. The old man held something out to Perry. He focused on it with difficulty. The picture of the girl in the middle of the circle disturbed him. She was pretty. The old man held a stone in his palm, the size of a fist. Perry accepted it. Heavy.

Perry looked up, to see what would happen next. Everyone had a stone hefted. They watched him. The old man leaned in, close enough to smell of cigarettes. He extended his hand towards Amirra. “We would be honoured, Mr. Perry,” he said.

Perry’s stomach lurched. Amirra’s sobs warbled into low moans. “I’m sorry,” she said over and over. Perry looked away. Faces looked back, losing their patience. Perry’s hand shook. He lifted the stone.

Amirra stared back, pleading. Fear eroded her words. Amirra flinched as Perry threw.

The stone bounced off the ground, spinning into someone’s shin on the other side of the circle.

Laughter burst out. Deep, howling laughter. Men, women, and children.

Amirra trembled, stony-faced, tears running down her cheeks.

The old man held Perry’s arm, laughing and patting him on the back. Perry felt his face warm. Extended hands offered other stones. Perry took one. The crowd leaned to watch him like he was about to burst a piñata. He aimed carefully.

Amirra moaned. The sound touched the bottom of his stomach. The sight of white running shoes and jeans emerging from her long black dress unsettled him.

The stone made a sharp thud against her forehead. The sound throbbed in his hand, as if he still held the stone. A wet, surprised sob burst from Amirra’s lips. She fell onto one elbow. Gulped for air.

The air filled with stones. The pitch of Amirra’s cries changed sharply as stones thumped her head, her arms, her ribs. Perry’s stomach turned. He’d never seen a stoning before.

Amirra shrieked, shielding her head. Her lips and nose shone slick with blood. Stones snapped and thudded until blood sucked her abaya to her body. Her face became unrecognizable.

Perry looked away. He swallowed viscous saliva. He couldn’t throw up. The old man looked at him strangely. Perry breathed deeply.

“Mr. Abdullah,” Perry said.

The old man shepherded Perry through the crowd. He banged on Mr. Abdullah’s door, and yelled an order in thick Arabic. Mr. Abdullah’s wife opened the door. Perry stepped into the gloom. Marched to Mr. Abdullah. He knelt gracelessly and yanked away the blanket.

The bandaged stump of Abdullah’s left arm was still there, but the right arm was hairy and muscled, ending in five short, stubby fingers. Perry clutched the hot hand. Abdullah would not look at him. His tears dripped on his lap, mixing with Perry’s.

The room darkened. The crowd pressed at the doorway, peering in. Perry put his arm around Abdullah as he’d seen Lewis do and wiped his cheeks in embarrassment.

The next morning, Perry took down the picture of his mother. In the parking lot, the driver scrubbed the tires of the Bronco with a soapy brush. Lewis appeared at the door. His shoes glowed.

“So how did it go?” Lewis asked.

“We got some good press,” Perry said, holding up a newspaper clipping. “I bought you a copy.”

“I’ve already got a copy,” Lewis smiled.

Perry nodded, unsure of what to say.

“Would you like to sit down, Mr. Lewis?” Perry asked into the silence.

Lewis shook his head. “I just came to say good job.” He smiled. “How do you feel?”

Coiling feelings bit at one another in his stomach. He hadn’t been able to eat that morning. “Fine, Mr. Lewis.”

“Missing the first throw was genius,” Lewis said. “Was it on purpose?”

Perry’s cheeks warmed. He winced. “Nerves,” he said.

“It’s hard to fake that kind of honesty until later in your career. Your instincts were dead on with Mr. Abdullah. Bringing up tears at just the right time makes you look warm and sympathetic.”

“Thank you.”

Lewis vanished.

Perry put the newspaper clipping under glass and hung it on the wall where the picture of his mother had been.

I didn’t answer the phone when my brother, Toby, called. His name appeared on the screen of my cell like a bad biopsy result, and instead of answering, I threw back another slug of beer and returned my attention to the television set. The sitcom wasn’t particularly interesting, nor was the company of my wife, who’d already decided our marriage was unsalvageable, though it would be another month before she let me in on the fact. She sat on the sofa, frowning. I didn’t bother to ask what was wrong. By that point, unhappy had become a default setting her face hit whenever we shared space, so I barely acknowledged it. What are you going to do? Shit happens, and when enough shit happens, you go Pavlovian. Talking to my wife hurt, so I stopped talking to her. I treated my brother with a similar, perhaps greater, level of avoidance. His phone calls invariably included an ample portion of four-alarm crazy and a request for cash. Since I had the routing information for his bank account, I could send him money. Why not cut out the miserable attempts at conversation and the grief?