Michael Gruber - The Good Son

“Yes. You seem like a completely different person.”

“I feel like a different person. I find it hard to concentrate on my classes; I can no longer participate in university politics and all that rubbish. I ask myself why, and I can only arrive at one answer. At last the call has come! She needs my help. I feel that this is what I was meant for, my purpose on earth. You know, sometimes I feel as if I am one of those insect species where the male is tiny and the female gigantic. He lives for one single act, and when it is over he dies. But who knows what he feels in his brief moment of importance? Perhaps it is a concentrated ecstasy that, if translated into human terms, would rival the satisfactions of an unusually long and extraordinarily sensual life.”

He stared at me, trying to read what was in my eyes. He asked, “You don’t think this is perverse? To risk everything, perhaps even prison, for this?”

“No, I feel exactly the same way,” I answered, “and I’ve spent a lot less time with her than you have. It’s just Sonia. Also, sometimes you have to do crazy things for love.”

He smiled then, a kind of smile I don’t recall ever seeing on my father’s face. He said, “Yes, at long last we’re both turning into Sufis. I expect your mother will be quite pleased.”

And then, after a second or so, we both laughed like maniacs for a good long time.

M ahmoud has waited in the lee of the wall outside the building, squatting, patient as a hound. When Sonia crawls out the door, he lets out a startled cry, picks her up in his arms, and carries her into the hujra, but not to the room she once shared with Annette Cosgrove. Instead she is taken to a somewhat larger room, which had once been the eating hall of the village inn. It seems to Sonia that all the captives have been assembled there and there is a stir among them as the guard brings her in and lays her carefully on a charpoy. When he leaves they all gather around her, all talking at once. Annette Cosgrove reaches her first, sees the condition of her feet, and cries out for water and cloths. She shouts at the others in a firm nurse’s voice that Sonia has not heard her use before, telling them to go away and let Sonia breathe.

Annette bathes Sonia’s feet, her touch professionally gentle, her movements efficient. She smears an ointment on the torn soles, and says, “I’m sorry, that must hurt.”

“What is it?”

“Neosporin. We always travel with a medical kit, and I asked for it when they brought me in here. I said I would take care of their people too. Look at me, please. Have you had a concussion?”

“No. I fainted when they whipped my back.”

“Let’s take a look at it,” says Annette. She helps Sonia off with her kameez, and peels back the bandages, after which she gives a small cry. “Oh, Jesus!”

“That bad?”

“Well, it may look worse than it is. You lost a lot of skin, but there doesn’t seem to be any suppuration. Let me ban dage you up again.”

When she is done with this and Sonia’s shirt is back in place, Annette says, “I don’t know, I’d be howling if I had a back like that. Either you’re incredibly stoic or… you’re sure they didn’t hit your head?”

“I’m fine, Annette. I had a religious experience. The pain is still there but it’s not… engaging? It’s hard to describe.”

She looks around the little room. The group members are keeping their distance, but they are all watching her. She asks, “Is everyone here all right? Dr. Schildkraut?”

“He’s fine, except for his bronchitis. The others… physically, they’re all fine. A little smelly, maybe, but all healthy so far.” A pause. Sonia is conscious of all the eyes on her and knows why. She’s been outside, she’s seen other faces, heard other voices, they are all dying for news of the rest of the world, even news from a village street. Well, she has news.

At last, Annette blurts out their desire. “What’s happening? Did they tell you anything?”

“Yes, and we all need to hear this.” She lifts herself up and gestures to the others and immediately the eight prisoners surround her, pressing close, kneeling or standing, or sitting on another charpoy hastily dragged over. Sonia is reminded of a baroque altarpiece: disciples surrounding a dying saint, their attention rapt.

She gives it to them straight. She has spoken to the man in charge. He has expressed interest in the conference and insists that they proceed here, but the threat made on the video is literal. On any day when there are civilian casualties in the so-called war on terror, Alakazai will execute one hostage. And Sonia herself is to choose each victim.

There is a silence, broken by Schildkraut. “Sonia, that is monstrous. You cannot possibly do such a thing, selecting the victims-”

“I don’t think any of it is voluntary, Professor,” says Ashton, and they all begin talking at once until Amin shouts for everyone to be quiet and enforces his demand by banging on the brass breakfast tray with a metal spoon.

“Thank you,” he says, when they have settled down. “There is no need to lose our heads-in the figurative sense at least. Now, as to our situation. Obviously, we are at the mercy of this man, Alakazai, who clearly has no mercy at all. But we are not entirely helpless. We can at least relieve Sonia of this impossible responsibility by selecting the order of execution ourselves, in advance. We can draw straws-”

“I have a deck of cards,” says Sonia.

“A deck of cards will do as well. Are we agreed on that score at least?”

“As if we had a choice,” says Ashton.

Amin gives the Englishman a stern look. “No, we don’t have a choice as to whether we will die, but we can choose if we will die like human beings. Our captor wishes to reduce us to a squabbling herd of animals and wishes to degrade Sonia by making her the mistress of our fate. He would like to see us begging her for another day of life, offering her money, favors, I don’t know what. We can choose not to do that. We can choose to leave the order of our dying in the hands of fate-or God, if you will.” He pauses to look each of them in the eye, then asks, “Are we agreed, then?”

Murmurs of assent, nods. Porter Cosgrove clears his throat. “But it’s not certain that anyone will be killed, is it? I mean, it depends on whether any innocent Muslims are killed. Maybe they’ll call some sort of truce while we’re being held.”

An incredulous laugh from Harold Ashton, and Amin says gently, “Porter, of course we all hope that, but I am afraid there is little chance that the various wars will cease just because nine people are being held hostage. Innocent Muslims are being killed every day by various armies, and the fact that most of them are dying at the hands of fellow Muslims can’t affect our situation. The deaths will not stop-if not in Pakistan, then Kashmir, Afghan i stan, Iraq, Chechnya. We can always hope for rescue, but there is no point in clutching at false hopes.”

Sonia observes that Cosgrove has a lock on the prize for most demoralized captive. He seems to have lost two sizes since his expansive performance at the dinner party, was it four days ago? A lifetime ago, at any rate. His face has fallen into itself like a rotted white grape, and his eyes are a hurt child’s: How can this be happening to wonderful charitable me? He sags against his wife’s sturdy youth. Sonia catches Annette’s troubled look but pulls her eyes away, feeling embarrassment, guilt.

Amin speaks again. He’s also transformed himself, Sonia observes, from a slick, even oily, foundation professional into a death-camp leader. He’s physically shrunken, like the others, but this has only exposed an unexpected core of moral steel.