Nadeem Aslam - The Wasted Vigil

The building next to the school was their original target, a warehouse belonging to their great enemy, but they would be delighted to see the school reduced to rubble as well.

Someone from inside the school has informed them, Casa told Bihzad, that the school’s American owner is visiting, staying in the building for a few days. That is why they are keen to go ahead with this operation, unable to wait for the proper equipment to arrive. To kill an American would send out a big message.

Every American who dies here, said Casa, dies with a look of disbelief on his face, disbelief that this faraway and insignificant place had given rise to a people capable of affecting the destiny of someone from a nation as great as his.

The Americans too had blindfolded Bihzad when they took him to their detention centre at the Bagram military base, one of the many prisons they have established here to hold suspected al-Qaeda members. Someone had betrayed him to them in exchange for reward money. Night and day every prisoner cursed those Muslims — the munafikeen! — who had sold them to the Americans for $5,000 each. Though at one level everyone in there was happy because Allah had especially chosen him to suffer for Islam. There wasn’t a speck of dust in that place that didn’t make Bihzad want to scream — apart from anything else there was the constant fear that he might be transferred to Guantanamo Bay — but he had felt very close to Allah during those months, everyone spending every spare minute in prayer, the environment there much more spiritual than anything he has been able to find on the outside. Every day, his life shifting its centre, he slips into worldly longings and wants instead. May Allah forgive him but, the reward so alluring, he has even fantasised once or twice about approaching the Americans and telling them someone innocent in his neighbourhood is a member of al-Qaeda.

His main reason for agreeing to carry out today’s task is the money these people will pay him afterwards.

The smell of disturbed earth is intense around him, this airless sunken chamber.

‘Don’t forget that not only did the Americans imprison you, they caused your sister to die. This is how you’ll repay them,’ says the man. ‘She wasn’t your real sister though, right?’

‘No.’ They had met in an orphanage when they were children and he began calling her sister. He had always treated her as though she was.

From his pocket the man takes a folded piece of paper and hands it to Casa. ‘It’s a statement I have prepared,’ he says. ‘The statement that will be issued to television and radio after the blast. And, you’ll notice, I have decided to give our organisation the same name as the school. Building the New Afghanistan — I approve of what it conveys.’

He invites Bihzad to sit beside him and, taking his hand in his, begins to read aloud verses from the Koran — not always accurately, Bihzad notices. Muhammad, peace be upon him, had appeared in the dreams of many at the Bagram prison. And one night Christ had visited Bihzad, carrying the Koran in his right hand, the Bible in the left. When Bihzad made to kiss his forehead, Christ asked someone, ‘Who is he?’ Upon learning that Bihzad was a prisoner of the Americans, the great prophet came forward and kissed his brow. He apologised for the Christians who had incarcerated Muslims in various locations around the world. Bihzad was shaken awake at that point by the other prisoners: they had been brought out of their sleep by the concentrated fragrance issuing from Bihzad’s forehead. He told them that that was where Christ had placed his lips, and they wiped the scented sweat from his brow and ran it over their own clothes.

‘The desire to rid my country of infidels and traitors,’ the man says upon coming to the end of his recital and releasing Bihzad’s hand, ‘has made a fugitive of me. I would have loved to have carried out this task myself, but I cannot even step outside without fear of being apprehended, cannot even use a phone because the Americans are listening in and could send down a missile.’

Back at ground level, Casa says of him, ‘He skinned alive a Soviet soldier with his own hands before you and I were probably even born. It was done slowly to increase the suffering. They say it took four hours and he was alive for the first two. Apparently some parts are simple like skinning a fruit, others tricky. Around that time he had had his photograph taken whilst shaking Ronald Reagan’s hand, in whose infidel heart Allah in His wisdom had planted a deep hatred of the Soviet Union.’

As they walk out of the building Casa produces a set of keys. Bihzad understands they are for the truck, suddenly terrified more than ever, no strength in any of his muscles. He has to go through with this, he tells himself. Later he’ll go and talk to the Englishman, continue to pretend to be his missing grandson. Nodding sometimes vigorously, sometimes uncertainly, when the old man attempts to jog his memory. I do remember that. No, I have no recollection of that. The aged man must be rich — a doctor. He’d heard about the Englishman a while ago, and sent a message out to him saying he was his grandson Bihzad. He had been told that the missing child had a small scar due to an accident with a candle, and he had duplicated the burn on himself, the flesh taking a month to heal. The name is the only real thing he shares with the lost grandson.

Maybe he’ll get to go to England. A chance at last to make something of his life. Even find love: become someone’s, have someone become his. There was once a girl he had loved, a girl he still thinks about, but because he had no means and no prospects, her family had humiliated him when he brought them his proposal.

The truck is parked, as docile-looking as a cow, against a nearby wall. Bihzad and Casa walk towards it, going past two figures sitting on stationary motorbikes under a mulberry tree. A black pickup van arrives through the entrance gate and Casa raises his hand to stay Bihzad. Men appear from all corners of the building now, the vehicle coming to a stop, and from the back seat an old man is pulled out by the chain around his neck, a look of absolute horror on his face. His hair, beard and clothes dusty, he is led away like a reluctant performing bear, held by that chain, and Casa tells Bihzad that he was an employee with the organisation until his sudden disappearance some years before. A dollar note was found stitched in the lining of the coat he had forgotten to take with him. ‘There is a chance he is an informer, obliging the group to relocate to this farm,’ Casa says as they continue towards the truck. Bihzad knows the punishment for betrayal. With a funnel and a length of tubing they’ll pour acid or boiling water into the man’s rectum. That and much more, and then they’ll slit his throat. Nor would a confession mean freedom — it would just mean they’ll kill him sooner, it would mean less torture.

The motorbikes wake to noisy life, the smell of fumes recognisable in the air within moments. The two riders will guide Bihzad towards the city. And Bihzad understands now — as though the pungent scent has brought the knowledge with it — that he will be followed into the city as well by these armed men, right up to the school, in case he changes his mind and tries to abandon the truck or inform the police.

The men bring the motorbikes over to the truck. They use the trailing ends of their turbans to cover the lower halves of their faces, just the eyes showing, as riders must to avoid the exhaust and dust of traffic. Bihzad climbs in behind the steering wheel, trying to control the rhythm of his breathing. He has been shown how the cushion of the passenger seat can be easily detached and lifted: underneath is the pair of insulated wires leading to the switch he has to throw upon parking the truck outside the school. There is a button he must press after the switch, and then he must walk away from the vehicle.