Michael Gruber - The Good Son

“I’ll have to avoid sausage buns. Good advice, Sonia.”

“See, you’re making jokes already,” Sonia says.

“Oh, shut up!” Annette replies and now it seems she does cry, not screaming or sobbing, but only a gentle liquid, snuffling sound, like a small defective pump. Sonia sacrifices the last of her precious tissue packs and waits.

“What’s the other thing?” Annette asked. “You said the world going on despite poor you was the second worst thing.”

“Yes. The worst thing is that at some level you welcome the loved one’s death. A child dies, the most horrible thing that can happen, right? And some part of you is thinking, Well, no more dirty diapers or Now I’ll have more money or I can travel freely. It’s part of what we call the Shadow, all the dark parts of us we can’t face. It’s the thing that, if we don’t deal with it, eventually poisons our lives. And no one is allowed to talk about that part of death. It’s considered insensitive. But actually it’s the height of sensitivity; you’re sensing something even the bereaved is unconscious of feeling. So your husband is cruelly taken from you, and you’re a good-looking, competent, talented woman of thirty, suddenly free of a much older man that most people found a little boring, whom even you were starting to find a little boring-”

“Stop it! God, you’re horrible!” This in a voice loud enough to attract the attention of the others, Ashton in particular, who rises from his charpoy and seems about to come over to them.

“Yes, I am,” says Sonia, “I’m horrible and you’re horrible and the mujahideen are horrible; we’re all horrible together, the only difference being I’m awake and you’re all asleep in your various dreams of goodness, them as holy warriors and you as innocent victim. Ah, I see Mr. Ashton has decided to join his comforting to mine. He’ll be the first of a long line anxious to brighten your new life.”

“Maybe I won’t have a new life. I might pick the next low card.”

“You won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Just the instincts of an old Jungian. Look, honestly, try not to worry. We’ll be all right, don’t ask me how, but we will. Now, here comes Harold with his consolations; take care. I’m going to check in with Schildkraut. I don’t like the sound of that cough.”

“It’s the dust, I’m afraid,” Schildkraut explains, when Sonia is by his side. “Where I come from, the mountain air is pure, but here not, it’s filled with fine particles and the wind never stops blowing it about. And there is this peculiar metallic powder over everything. What do you suppose they are doing to produce it?”

“It’s that grinding noise we hear all the time. Rashida says they’re making weapons in the village. She says it’s bombs that can blow up tanks, so I’m thinking some type of shaped penetrator. They use them in Iraq against American vehicles. Will you be all right? No, of course you won’t, but I meant as far as your next breath goes.”

“The next is fine,” he says, smiling. “The one after that, not as certain. I am so unfortunate as to have a slight bronchial problem and I am saving the last vapors of my inhaler for a true emergency. With any luck, I swill draw the low card next time and bronchitis will be the least of my problems.” In a more serious tone, he adds, “I could not help but overhear your conversation with Annette. You took a hard line.”

“Because we’re in a hard place. We can’t have her dissolve into guilty tears.”

“Why guilty? Perhaps she loved the man sincerely.”

“Perhaps, but if so I would’ve said the same things. Doesn’t the American sentimentality about death’s tragedy and the cult of victim-hood appall you? The whole sacredness of 9/11 and all the teddy bears and impromptu shrines whenever some act of violence occurs? It drives me nuts, frankly. It’s the denial of death and the dark elements and it pollutes and trivializes the whole culture.”

“Well, I’m a European, so it doesn’t annoy me as much, and as an unbeliever I am not as bothered by these outbreaks of petty paganism. There is something of the ayatollah in you, Sonia, I believe.”

“Yes, but one who draws the line at coercion. I say preposterous things to shake people up and bully a young woman who’s just lost her surrogate daddy. Disgraceful, really, and worse to justify it under the name of group discipline. I should have let her cry on my shoulder as Harold is apparently doing right now.”

The pair look across at Annette’s charpoy, where the young woman is in close conversation with Ashton, their two pale heads separated by inches. “Speaking of group discipline,” observes Schildkraut, “I expect our Harold is not so much comforting the widow as discussing plans for his escape scheme.”

Sonia stared at him in surprise. “What escape scheme?”

“He brought it to me, strangely enough, the last person one would’ve thought interested, and I told him I would take my chances with the cards. I wondered why he would have thought that a coughing old man was the best escape companion, especially when he had a bull like Amin or an athlete like Shea to choose from, and then it came to me that I am the only other one among us who is not religious. Harold is outraged that we are being killed in the name of-what did he call it? The psychosis of an illiterate camel driver fifteen centuries ago. I think he would not mind so much if they were killing him in the name of moderate socialism.”

“But Annette is a Christian.”

“Oh, I suppose her vague do-good Quakerism is acceptable.”

“Not to mention her more physical qualities. How does he intend to escape?”

“Well, he has noticed that Mahmoud comes to you in the night and takes you out for some hours to interpret dreams for people and then brings you back, escorting you into the room, when he checks to see everything is in order. Ashton has made a kind of cosh out of stones knotted into a sock, and with this he will lie in wait, and when you return he will lay out Mahmoud with a blow to the head, exchange clothes with him, and of course take his weapons. Annette will be in the burqa they gave her for the conference. They will slip out in the night, steal a vehicle, make their escape, and drive until they reach an army outpost or a patrol. He doesn’t think anyone will notice they are gone until dawn prayers the following day. The perpetual roar of the diesel will cover the sound of his stolen truck. He thinks.”

“Does he? Does he know that these people habitually disable their vehicles at night, just like they locked up their horses in the old days? Does he know that the area we’re in is completely controlled by Taliban and mujahideen groups? We haven’t even heard a helicopter since we’ve been here. And any military or police they may find might just as easily sell them back to the mujahideen. Does he have any idea what would happen to Annette, an unprotected woman and an American? They’d stake her down in a shed someplace and invite every man in the district to use her.”

The old man shrugged. “Apparently he has high-level contacts in the security services here. He hinted rather broadly that he was some kind of agent and that as soon as he got free and made contact, all would be well. Do you think he was fabricating?”

“I don’t know. Manjit thinks he’s a spook, and Manjit’s no fool.”

“What will you do, Sonia, now that you have this information?”

“I don’t know,” she answers. “But Annette can’t go with him.”

In the night, Sonia awakens to movement, the creak of a charpoy, a rustle of clothing. She does not sleep deeply now; sleep seems less necessary since Ismail came to her, there in the pit. She lies still and waits. Before long she hears the door open and feels moving air on her cheek, then a hand on her arm. It is Mahmoud. She rises, throws her dupatta over her head, and leaves with him. He takes her through the inn, but not to the same room. It is one closer to the sound of the diesel. There are rugs and cushions there and a dim oil lamp burning on a small table. He tells her to sit and wait, then leaves. He has an odd expression on his face, she thinks, frightened but also excited.