Kamila Shamsie - Home Fire

“Do I look nervous?”

“You’ve been looking nervous throughout this conversation. Son, she’s your girlfriend. I’ll be on my best behavior, as always. What I might say when you break up is another matter.”

“There’s one other thing. There’s a boy she was close to at school. He’s gone to Syria — I don’t mean on humanitarian work.”

“Parvaiz Pasha.”

“How do you know?”

“I know all their names. Where they come from. Who they were before they went. There’s only one from Preston Road. It’s the last place in England I’d expect to find that kind of thing happening. But that one, he had exceptional circumstances. Terrorism as family trade. Illustrative of how much you need to do to root out this kind of thing. I mean, literally, grab by the very roots, and pull. Pull the children out of those environments before they’re old enough for the poison to seep in.”

“No, it’s not like that.”

“What’s not like what?”

Eamonn stood up; it was warm in here, oppressive. Already the script he’d plotted in his head was beginning to unravel by the sheer fact of his being in his father’s presence. He knows he was wrong. He was brainwashed but now he understands, and he wants to come back. He didn’t take part in the fighting, never actively recruited anyone. He’s only nineteen. No reason to ruin his life over this. His name has never been in the papers, you can make it stay that way. He just needs a new passport, and to slip quietly back into the country without any charges against him. His friends all think he’s been in Pakistan this whole time; no one will ever know. It’s best for everyone — imagine the media storm if anyone finds out your son is planning to marry the sister of a boy who went to Raqqa. You’d never survive it.

Trust me, he’d said to Aneeka. I know my father. I know how to spin it so he’ll agree. But that wasn’t spin, it was a threat. How could he possibly do that to this man who had always offered him the most unconditional of loves? And why was his father looking at him so strangely, as if he knew his son had come here with betrayal in his heart?

“Orphaned at the age of twelve, and raised by her sister?”

“Yes.”

“Just like Parvaiz Pasha.”

“All right, yes. She’s his twin.”

“Eamonn!” His father caught hold of him around the neck, half headlock, half embrace. “You stupid, stupid boy. My stupid boy.”

Jaan, she had called him, kissing his eyes, his mouth, his cheeks, his nose, when he’d said he would speak to his father. Jaan, my life. A word his father was now saying as he held his son. And just as suddenly, Karamat Lone disengaged, stepped back, and wiped a hand across his face. Where there’d been a father, now there was a home secretary.

“You will have no more contact with this girl. I’m setting up a security detail for you.”

“Dad! Look, just, meet her. All right? I’ll bring her over. Tonight, this evening, and… what’s so funny?”

“All this security around the house, and the nexus of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State is just going to waltz in on the arm of my son.”

“Don’t you ever refer to her in that way again. She’s the woman I’m going to marry.”

Nothing moved in his father’s face. “Stay here.”

“Or what, you’ll arrest me?” But the home secretary was gone before the end of the sentence, door slamming behind him.

Eamonn sat down in his father’s chair, looked at the computer screen, which asked for a password. Riffled through the file of news clippings from this morning’s papers. Wished he hadn’t left his phone in his jacket — Aneeka was at his flat, waiting for him to call and tell her what had happened. She’d finally given him her number, but he hadn’t thought to memorize it. If only he hadn’t laughed off the suggestion when his mother said he should have a landline.

I could just leave, he kept telling himself. I could at least go up and eat something.

He had a small moment of satisfaction when he realized he could use his father’s phone to call directory assistance and ask for the Rahimis’ number.

“It’s Eamonn,” he said, his voice fissured, when Mrs. Rahimi answered. “Could you please do me a vast favor? There’s a friend of mine upstairs, in my flat. Would you call her down. I really have to speak to her.”

“The beautiful one in the hijab, you mean? I’m sorry, she just left. Almost knocked me over as I was taking the rubbish out. She seemed in a great hurry. Are you all right?”

He walked over to the sofa and lay down on it, curled up like an animal protecting its soft parts. A few minutes later, his mother entered the study and sat down beside him. No, she wouldn’t bring him his phone. No, he really should just stay in here until his father said otherwise. She told him to close his eyes, and stroked his back until he fell asleep. When he woke up, feeling he’d slept a long time, his father was sitting at his desk, watching him.

“My fault,” his father said. Eamonn sat up, rubbed his hands across his eyes, tried to understand what that meant.

“My fault,” his father repeated sadly. “I say it’s your mother’s doing, but I’m the one who never wanted you to know what it feels like to have doors closed in your face. To have to fight your way in. I didn’t think it would make you so sure of yourself, so entitled, that you wouldn’t stop to ask why a girl like that would have time for a public-school boy who lives off his mother because he can and has no ambition beyond beating his own high score in computer games.”

“What have you done?”

“I haven’t done anything. The officers who were called in when her brother left were concerned about her. They said she was clearly shocked by what he had done, but seemed more upset about being kept in the dark than the fact of his going. They thought she might be at risk of trying to join him. So there’ve been some people keeping an eye on her, for her own safety. But apparently there’ve been no phone calls, no texts, no communication of any kind that could be intercepted to suggest she was in touch with my son. Nothing to set off alarm bells. Which sets off alarm bells. And now, this.” He placed Eamonn’s phone on the desk. “Twenty-three missed calls from Aneeka Pasha.”

Eamonn stood up. “Something’s wrong.”

“On that, at least, we agree.”

THE TWO MEN WALKED into the electronics store in Istanbul with near-identical attitudes of ownership, though their South Asian features marked them as foreign. Their white robes, shoulder-length hair, and long beards further distinguished them as men whose attitude of ownership you don’t contest. The younger of the two walked over to the wall of mics and scanned the empty display boxes. His companion leaned against the counter behind which the shopkeeper was standing and flipped his phone from hand to hand while looking at the other customers. They filed out quickly in response, leaving the two men and the shopkeeper alone in the cavernous store.

“Look at all this!” the younger man said. “The RØDE SVMX. The Sennheiser MKH 8040. The Neumann U 87.”

“Uh-huh. Just get what Abu Raees asked for, and let’s go. I’m starving.”

The shopkeeper reached beneath the counter and pulled out a box. “The Sound Devices 788T. Didn’t Abu Raees receive my message? I’ve had it for over two weeks.”