Michael Gruber - The Good Son

“But the Prophet, may he have peace, also said that bad dreams are from Shaitan.”

“But this dream of Patang’s was not a bad dream. It was a warning from God, and the warning in the dream has come to pass. God controls all things.”

At this, the three mujahideen at the side of the room murmur and pass looks.

Sonia has considerable experience with the body language and facial expressions of such men. It seems to her now that Idris is unsure of his position. The three men are all older than he, and age counts for much among the Pashtuns. They talk among themselves. Idris darts quick glances at them after he speaks, as if to confirm that he has spoken properly. She concludes that he may be a tactical leader, in temporary command even, but he is not the sworn chieftain of these men.

He returns to the attack. “But your interpretation was false. You told Patang that the path of jihad was a false path.”

“Untrue. I said his dream told him the truth, that the path he was on was not the true path of Islam. I said nothing about jihad.”

“But Patang is a mujahid.”

“Is he indeed? I wouldn’t know. I have not seen him fight those who seek to oppress the Muslims, but I was taught that such is the task of the mujahideen. I have not seen him shooting Indian soldiers in Kashmir. I have only seen him murder a family of drivers, all good Muslim men. I have only seen him making war on innocent people, guests of a Muslim land.”

“This is not a true Muslim land,” Idris says. “Its leaders are kafiri and puppets of the Americans.”

“How terrible for you, then, to be ruled by kafiri! The Pakistanis are kafiri, the Saudis are kafiri, the Syrians, the Pashtuns who rule Afghanistan are kafiri; undoubtedly the Persians are kafiri. Everyone is kafiri except you. How shrunken is the umma! You have pronouced takfir upon nearly all of it. How sad it must make God and His messenger, peace be upon him, to look down from Paradise and see that His only true believers now are small groups of murderers.”

Idris shoots to his feet and punches Sonia in the face. She sees it coming and manages to turn her head, but the blow strikes the corner of her jaw and knocks her off her feet.

“Blasphemer!” cries Idris. “Whore of a blasphemer! You will die. We will stone you tomorrow and send you to Hell.”

Sonia shakes her head to clear it of ringing. From where she lies she says, “As I said, you are a mere murderer. I have not been convicted of blasphemy before a khazi on the testimony of two witnesses, and therefore you have no right to execute me. Besides, the punishment for blasphemy is not stoning, but the cutting off of a hand and a leg from opposite sides, or banishment. In any case, a woman cannot be executed for blasphemy, according to the Kitab al-Hudud. She must be imprisoned until she repents and shall be beaten at the times of prayer.”

“Be silent, whore!” Idris shouts. “I will judge you.”

“Yes, and if the scales of justice were in your hand, you would count your mule equal to another’s horse.”

At this line from Rahman Baba, the great poet of the Pashtuns, laughter breaks out among the three older men, and now she knows that Idris is not their chief or they would never have laughed at the sally.

She raises herself up and points a steady finger at Idris Ghulam. “You have forgotten the wisdom of Rahman, who says, ‘Do not be fooled by the outer appearance of a man; look at the inside of the nut to see whether it is soft or hard.’ I am not a man, but I am hard as steel inside. And I tell you that if you kill me except by the letter of the fiqh, my blood will be upon you, and my son will avenge that blood according to the law of the Pashtuns, upon you and your brothers and your father and your sons. Be warned, Idris Guhlam. This is not an idle threat, for I have no ordinary son.”

She turns and stares at the man with the hennaed beard.

“Sir, forgive me for addressing you, but I require your witness. You were in the real jihad against the Russians, were you not?”

The man slowly nods his head.

“And when you fought there, did you hear of a certain Kakay Ghazan?”

Again he nods, and says, “Everyone has heard of Kakay Ghazan. He was a famous warrior, although a boy.”

“He is still a famous warrior,” says Sonia, “but now he is a man, and I am his mother.”

Consternation. The three men all begin talking at once, but Sonia’s voice rises above theirs; now she is on her feet, her head aching, but speaking directly to Idris. “And he is a Pashtun of the Barakzai, of the Taraghzai, of the tribe Kakar, and all these he will raise against you, if you kill me outside the law, so beware, Idris Ghulam! You thought you had a load of fat geese, ready for plucking, but one of them is a scorpion.”

For a moment Idris seems mesmerized by her revelation, but then he comes to himself, resumes command, gestures to the guard, and says, “Take her away! Lock her in the stable! Now!”

The guard grabs Sonia roughly. She points again at Idris and says, “Nor will you sleep easily, Idris Ghulam, until the day you repent.”

Sonia is hustled out, but she can hear the sound of violent argument coming through the door. She shakes her head and works her swelling jaw. She thinks it has been a very successful interview and looks forward to one with the real leader of the group.

C ynthia often lost track of time when she worked with sound files, a habit that originated during her language studies in graduate school. In the language lab, eyes closed in concentration, in the little soundproofed cubicle with a big padded Bose headset on her ears, the uncomfortable syllables of a conversation in Arabic or in Dari filling her mind and her foot on the replay pedal so she could hear the same phrase over and over like some kind of rap sample, she would fall into a strangely delicious state, bordering on intoxication, although her auditory senses, at least, were strung to the last notch. She loved it, she supposed, because of the element of control. She had always been a good girl up until then, which is to say she fulfilled the expectations of others-her father, her teachers, her peers, society at large-but in the lab she was the queen of time; with the headset on, the various external pressures on her seemed to dissolve in that universe of perfect feedback, the voices starting, stopping, repeating at the tap of her foot. She spent more time in the lab than she had to-it was a kind of addiction, she supposed later, as was her pursuit of perfection in the shaping of sounds in her own throat. They had a machine that gave you a word or phrase and you had to repeat the phrase perfectly, if you could, and then the machine showed you a sonogram that told you how well you’d done and gave you a score. Cynthia had reached the maximum score in all her languages.

Here was something.

She played the sound file over again. Two men were speaking over cell phones in Urdu. She checked the source notation and found that one cell phone was in Kahuta and the other was in Lahore. They were young voices, and the one in Kahuta was obscured by what sounded like wind and motor traffic; the man was outside, at any rate.

KAHUTA: Hello, is that you, Walid?

LAHORE: Please! No names!

KAHUTA: Sorry. I am told to tell you we have the shipment on board.

LAHORE: Excellent. You can leave immediately?

KAHUTA: Absolutely. I have the directions.

LAHORE: No trouble at all? No alarms from the… the facility?

KAHUTA: Nothing. It went as we planned.

LAHORE: Thank God! Everything is ready at the destination; all the equipment arrived today. They should be setting it up now. How long do you think-

KAHUTA: No more than three days, God willing. I will call in on the way.