Kamila Shamsie: Home Fire

Piece by piece the article dismantled yesterday’s principled man of action and remade him: an ambitious son of migrants who married money and class and social contacts in order to transform himself into an influential party donor, which allowed him to be selected ahead of more deserving candidates to run in his first election. He used his identity as a Muslim to win, then jettisoned it when it started to damage him. It remained a mystery how he had had the privilege of running in a by-election for a safe seat after his constituents threw him out following Mosquegate; it had led to resignations within the party. Rather than fully address the questions regarding his connections to known terrorists in the mosque he frequented, he’d taken on a new role as the loudest voice of criticism against the community that had voted him out. Working-class or millionaire, Muslim or ex-Muslim, proud son of migrants or antimigrant, modernizer or traditionalist? Will the real Karamat Lone please stand up? And the final blow, again from Anonymous Cabinet Member: “He would sell out anyone, even his own son, if he thought it would move him closer to number 10.”

It escalated from there. Britain woke up to a chorus of tweets, hastily written online columns, and morning TV interviews all placing the home secretary on trial. “Personal animus” the phrase they all picked up on, which one wit turned into #PersonalEnemas.

A professional, coordinated effort, all in all. Why had it taken him so long to work out who was behind the camera?

“Alice, you’ve never liked me, have you?” he said, when the Halibut deigned to answer her phone on the fifth ring.

“Mr. Lone, your son hired my family’s PR firm,” she said, in a tone of warm honey dripped onto cold fish scales. “This is purely professional. No personal animus.”

He hung up, laughing, and unbuttoned his cuffs. “Hold your nerve, marshal your forces,” he said to James. It wasn’t quite eight a.m. yet. Plenty of day yet to come, and there was only so much the Halibut could spin.

He clicked on the video file on his desktop. A shadow on the desert sand of a man kneeling, a curved sword like a crescent moon above his head. Exceptional production values, the work of people who cared about camera angles and light and — he pressed a key repeatedly to increase the volume of God’s name being sung in praise — sound. This came from the media unit for which Parvaiz Pasha had been working. He didn’t want to release it to the British public — barbaric, nightmare-inducing stuff. He shouldn’t have to. If he had gauged the situation correctly — and he was sure he had — it would take only the sight of Eamonn walking into that most un-British spectacle in the park to switch the conversation from personal animus to Eamonn Lone’s clear lack of judgment. But just in case it didn’t work that way, it was useful to have a backup plan to remind the public that the only story here was that of a British citizen who had turned his back on his nation in favor of a place of crucifixions, beheadings, floggings, heads on spikes, child soldiers, slavery, and rape. And did Karamat Lone take this personally? By god, yes, he did! He thumped his hand on the desk, practicing, wondered if “by god” was a good idea, as a head rolled in the desert sand.

The first time he’d watched the video he had been unable to eat meat the rest of the week. Had barely been able to shave without thinking of that blade on flesh. Now it was his weapon. He looked up from the computer screen to the television, which he’d switched on as soon as he’d entered the office. The girl was cross-legged beside the ice coffin, hair still caked with mud, once white clothes soiled, everything about her older and more tired. Do you even know the man you’re mourning? he wondered.

His phone buzzed with a text message from Terry: Get home now or the next news headline with your name in it will have the story of your wife moving out to a hotel.

He ran his hands through his hair, not knowing whether to be admiring or despairing that she’d written to the politician rather than the father or husband. Not even a video of a beheading would shift the story away from the Asian family drama if Terry Lone, celebrity interior designer, style icon, the most admired of Westminster wives by a mile, according to a recent poll, backed up her son’s story of personal animus.

Checkmated, Teresa. I’m on my way.

Terry’s signature aesthetic was muted colors, sleek-lined furniture, and wooden floors, on display in every room of the house except her husband’s lair and the family room with its red walls, deep carpet and sofas, and white bookshelves filled with the family’s best-loved books. As Karamat approached this room he heard an unexpected voice telling him his footsteps had started to sound more portentous since he’d become home secretary.

He covered the remaining distance in the largest possible strides and held his arms out to his second-born, Emily the Uncomplicated, the son he’d never had.

“I’m here to find out if any of that racist, misogynistic ho-jabi nonsense is coming from your office, and to fire whoever is responsible,” she said, pulling away and beaming at her father. Beautiful Emily, physically her mother’s child, with the light brown hair and hazel eyes, the delicate hands with their quick gestures.

“Oh and here I thought you had come to support your old man,” he said, tugging at her nose.

“My old man will be fine. He always is. But my brother’s turned a little loopy, hasn’t he?” She threw herself down on a sofa and resumed attacking a half-eaten croissant. “Still, he is my brother. And he is your son. I thought I’d come and remind you what parental feeling feels like. And then I can whisk him off to New York until this whole thing goes away.”

He was aware of Terry in her dressing gown with her back toward them, her fingers moving along the spine of the children’s books as though they were piano keys. It was cowardly, but easier, to talk through Emily. He sat down next to his daughter, took a sip from her teacup, and wrinkled his nose at the lack of sugar.

“You know what he’s done, don’t you?”

“Mum just showed me the video. That was stupid of him. How are you going to fix it?”

Astonishingly, the story about Eamonn traveling to Karachi hadn’t yet become public knowledge. Whoever had tweeted the picture of him at the departure gate had since taken it down — whichever branch of the security services was responsible for that, Karamat was grateful. He must remember to thank James, the only one to notice it because he was the only one who had thought to include among his Google Alerts the misspelling #EamonLone. Not that it mattered very much — everyone would know soon enough. But at least he could be the one to tell his wife, who had finally turned around, her expression making it clear what a terrible idea it had been to leave the house this morning without waking her up first. “Get some rest while I talk to your father,” she said.

Emily sat up straight, looked from one parent to the other. “Sorry,” she said, kissing her father’s cheek.

When she had gone Terry walked over to the balcony doors and opened them. Her fresh-air mania undeterred by the early-morning cold. Some irritations dissipate in a marriage, some accumulate.

“Sometimes I forget how much like you she is,” she said.

“Only compared to her brother, who’s nothing like either of us.”

“That’s not true. He’s who I was. Before you. Before I concentrated my life on making myself good enough for you.”

He had to laugh at that. “I think you have that the wrong way round, my blue-blooded East Coast heiress. Remember the first time I took you out for dinner?”