In the Company of Liars

ONE DAY EARLIER
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24

Iam thirteen,” Ram said to his father. “I am old enough to understand whatever it is you are doing.”

His father didn’t respond at first, looked at his son suspiciously.

“I am a carpet merchant,” he insisted.

“You talk about weapons,” Ram said, accusingly. “You talk about the Americans. You talk about bombs and jihad and the Liberation-”

“Enough!” his father exclaimed. And so it went for three weeks. Ram hardly spoke to his father. Ram’s bitterness was not directed at what he was sure his father was doing, but at the fact that he had been shut out. He still missed his mother and Beni desperately, even several years later, and now he was beginning to feel as if he did not know his father, either.

And that, finally-after Ram explained this very thing to Father-was what led to their conversation.

“I will tell you,” Father began. “Because you are right. You are old enough. But I want you to understand one thing, Zulfi.”

Ram recoiled. It was the first time in years that Father had called him by his given name.

“I want you to understand,” he said, “that just because I am doing this does not mean that you should as well.” And then he carefully placed his hand on Ram’s shoulder and sat him down in a chair. When he finished explaining it to Ram hours later, he left him, again, with this same qualification. And then he told him one more thing.

“There are many people who would kill us if they knew,” he warned his son.

Ram Haroon types in the web addresspakistudent@interserver.com and sends off his message:

The work is nearing completion. It should be ready within six weeks. However, transfer cannot be made until the legal proceeding is completed, or the matter is terminated in other ways. Target of mid-May, at the latest.

Ram stretches his neck and decides to go for a run in the cool winter air. Is it late winter or early spring? He doesn’t even know. He pays little attention to such things. Between schoolwork and this mission, he scarcely has had time to enjoy his stay in the United States. He has found the country to be a nice place to live, on the whole. The people are relatively friendly and generous. Yes, there are those who look at him askance based purely on his racial makeup. But that is the small minority of people. The pace is astonishingly quicker here than back home, with considerably more emphasis on material possessions, but Ram has come to the conclusion that the Americans and his people, generally speaking, are not very different at all. He was surprised to learn this upon arriving in the Midwest two years ago. His friends overseas do not see the U.S. as he does, just as the Americans do not see his homeland the way he does. To the Americans, he assumes, his people are camel-riding, gun-toting extremists. The problem with the Americans is that they simply don’t understand the fundamental concept that people-his people and any others-aren’t born to hate. They are bred to hate.

And that is a problem that Ram Haroon simply cannot control. He is just a small part of a greater machine, trying to reconcile competing interests. To some he is evil. To others he is heroic. He will leave the labels to others. He will focus on his task and complete it, like a good soldier. And the only thing he hopes for, after all of this is over, is that he will be alive.

Another thing he cannot control.