The Good Son

7

S onia awakens to the sound of a heavy truck rolling past the inn and up the narrow village street. The room is perfectly dark; her eyes register nothing but their own energy, little points of shifting false light. She hears Annette’s soft sleep noises, snores, whimpers, the creak of charpoy ropes as her fellow captive turns. From the street comes a shout; other voices join-it’s amazing how sound travels on a still night in a village in the mountains-there is a scraping sound and more voices, rhythmic now, as if a group of men are carrying out some heavy task. A door closes, and then silence, except for the hiss of the night wind blowing sand against the walls.

Some time passes. Sonia wishes she still had her watch but laughs secretly to herself. She has no need anymore to tell time; captivity makes time irrelevant and so is curiously liberating for a denizen of the frenetic West. After an uncertain interval a new sound begins, a deep muffled growl, which she recognizes as a diesel engine, a big one. Sonia rises and walks carefully to the wall under one of the windows. There is an irregularity in the masonry there that enables her to boost herself up to look through the shutter slats. She can see the black bulk of an adjoining building and a thin triangle of sky, specked with small chilly stars. Then, for just a moment, she sees a flash of light from the direction of the diesel sound, unmistakable evidence that someone is generating electricity in the village.

She drops lightly from the wall, landing with a little bounce, the early training still in her nerves and muscles so she can never forget the circus, and lies on the charpoy again, waiting, thinking about the boy’s dream and what she will say to him, if he comes.

And about her own dream, the deformed child, the slaughtered little creatures. Is the boy Patang, are the creatures the hostages? It’s possible; she has had clairvoyant dreams before this, but at the same time she knows that everything in a dream relates both to her own personal history and also to the deeper history of her species. That’s the great problem with the Jungian approach: everything can mean anything. It requires colossal discernment to tease meaning out of the tangle of archetypes, memory, synchronicity. The psyche knows, but the psyche is not telling; the psyche is subtle and not entirely of this world.

She’d learned that from Joachim Fluss in Zurich, her therapist, teacher, friend, and tormentor, the last in a series of father figures in the skein that began with the horrible Guido and included B. B. Laghari and Ismail Raza Ali but not her poor actual father. Fluss was gone now; he was in late middle age when she met him, one of Jung’s original students, present at the creation of analytic psychology back in the teens and twenties of the last century, a stalwart of the Burghölzli and still serving there on the day she’d arrived, near catatonic with grief, strapped to a bed so she wouldn’t hurt herself. Her head was bandaged; she had tried unsuccessfully to bash her brains out against a curb on the Bahnhofstrasse.

They had sedated her, and she came up out of the welcome oblivion to find him staring down at her, his appearance so startling she let out a little cry of alarm. They had opened the blinds so the room was full of winter’s pure light, and he was sitting at such an angle that this light reflected off his round gold-rimmed spectacles, so she saw only two glittering disks and a halo of untidy, flossy, gray-tinged wheaten hair. Then he moved slightly and she saw his face: round, red-cheeked, knobby-featured, the brush mustache, modeled on the Master’s, still yellowish, and those deep-set, humorous, penetrating blue eyes.

He introduced himself and asked how she was feeling. She turned away from him, told him to leave her alone. But he did not. Instead he began to talk, in a pleasant baritone, slightly accented. He said she’d been unconscious for two days, during which time the authorities had determined her identity and gathered information on her recent catastrophe. He extended his condolences. He said further that inquiries had been made of her family in Lahore. There seemed to be much confusion in Lahore-understandable in the circumstances. He was obliged to inform her that, regrettably, her husband had also suffered a severe breakdown and was at present himself in hospital in Lahore. Whoever had spoken to the inquiring administrator had been quite adamant that the family wanted nothing whatever to do with Sonia Bailey.

She had not responded at all to this information. She recalled wishing that he would go away. She recalled wishing for more sedation, another plunge into dreamless sleep. But he did not depart. Instead, he told her that he was an admirer of her work. He’d read both her books: a fascinating view of a little-known world-unknown to the average Swiss, at any rate-he himself had always longed to travel, as she had, as Jung had, of course, and immerse himself in different cultures, but aside from the usual conference-going he’d only managed two trips, one to Brazil and the other to China, both too short, and he hadn’t known the languages and was a victim of translation, unlike herself. How remarkable her facility with languages! He had very few himself, alas, just the usual Swiss mix. To what did she attribute this gift?

No answer, but he plowed along as if she had answered, as if they were having a conversation. He talked knowledgeably about her books, including his favorite passages, and about other travel books he’d loved: Saint-Exupéry, Beryl Markham, Rebecca West, Bruce Chatwin, Gertrude Bell. Intertesting that so many great travel writers were women, especially given the limitations faced until quite recently by women traveling on their own. Why do you think that is?

No answer to this either, or to dozens of other questions over the following week, but he is not put off, every day in the late afternoon he arrives, pulls up a straight chair, and begins again, as if they are old friends, as if she is a willing partner in their conversation. Later she understands that he is using language to bring her back into life; he does the same with people who have not spoken to anyone in years, and sometimes even they respond.

When eventually she spoke it was with anger: How dare he interrupt her grief with this chatter? She told him to go away. He ignored her. He beamed. She speaks! Wonderful!

She shouted, cursed, threw a water glass at his head.

He picked it up, smiling, and she saw he dragged his left leg; he had a built-up shoe. He tapped the cup: plastic, he said, inelegant, but many patients throw cups at my head, and the staff dislikes clearing away the broken glass. How did you come to marry into a Pakistani family?

If I tell you, she answered, will you leave me alone?

Of course, he said. I promise to skip tomorrow.

She told him the story, the murdered family; he listened, asked no question, bid her good day, and left.

He did not come the next day, true to his word. When he arrived again, she told him she wanted to leave. He smiled. Of course you can leave. This is a madhouse, you know, and you are not mad. Anyone would break down under a load of such grief. But now you have recovered yourself. He called an attendant: Bring Madame Bailey’s things, if you please. He shook her hand and turned to go, but paused. He said offhandedly, with that hint of slyness she would come to recognize, You know, it is really a shame.

The attendant entered with her clothes and she sat on the bed, clutching them on her lap. The blouse was stained with her dried blood. She felt a pang of nausea but not because of the blood. She was fine with blood; the nausea was existential, as in Sartre.

She asked him what was a shame?

He said he had reread her books. He said she had a remarkable ability to penetrate foreign cultures; she was a listener; she accepted the concrete existence of the unseen world. All these abilities were desirable in an analytic psychotherapist, for the mad are a different culture, each one a sole member of that culture, each speaking a tongue incomprehensible to others; thus their dreadful isolation and pain. We have drugs and shocks and all that now, but here we also believe that you must enter that world, the culture of the insane, speak to them in their own language, and gently bring them back to our world. I believe this is something you could do.

She was amazed: did he seriously think she could be a therapist? I can barely take care of myself, she said.

Actually, that is an advantage, he said: the wounded healer. He tapped his bad leg. Polio when I was fifteen. I was a football player, a mountain climber. I thought my life was over. I was at zero, you understand, as you are at zero now. The ego is all eroded. There is nothing worse than a therapist full of himself, and we both have avoided that. Besides, you must have work. I expect you are no longer interested in traveling the world and writing, and you are cut off from your family. It is just a suggestion…

Thus she began her therapy, which, if it did not entirely cure her, had at least provided a direction for her life, a vector that had led to this locked room. Thirty years to go from locked room to locked room. Fluss would have been hugely amused.

She hears soft, scraping footsteps outside the door and a liquid sucking noise, hard to identify until she smells the sweet reek of lubricating oil. Smart Patang, to oil the squeaking lock. A soft click and a little breeze on her cheek and the loom of another human presence in the room. Close by, on her charpoy, Annette Cosgrove murmurs and turns in her sleep.

His voice close to her ear. “How did you know about my dream?”

“Never mind that now. Do you want to know what it means and why God, the compassionate One, has sent it to you?”

A considerate pause. “Yes, tell me.”

“Then in the name of God listen! You dreamed that your father asked you to bring him two horses, a black stallion and a white mare. He told you to ride the white and lead the black on a line. You headed up a high mountain along a narrow path with a precipice on one side. The mare was calm under you, but the stallion was unruly and kicked and bit at the mare, so you decided to disobey your father and ride the stallion instead. The path grew steeper and narrower, and then to your horror the stallion bolted and plunged off the edge. You were suspended over the void by the line but did not fall, because the white mare held it. The line stretched and came near to breaking. Then you heard a voice saying, ‘Cling to the line and cut the stallion loose.’ But you were afraid to cut the line because of what your father would say if you lost a valuable horse. Again the voice called, ‘Save yourself, my son, and cut the line!’ When you realized it was your father’s voice you cut the line, the black horse fell screaming into the abyss, and the white mare pulled you up to safety, but as you rose you wounded your heel on a rock. That was your dream.”

“Yes,” he replies with a quaver in his voice. “What does it mean?”

“The narrow path is the way of Islam; the white horse is the teachings of the Prophet, on whom be peace. The black horse is the horse of pride and the violence that comes from pride. The abyss is the gate of Hell, to which the prideful are condemned. Your father is your father. He is dead, is he not?”

“Yes. He died in the jihad, when I was a baby.”

“God sent him to you out of Paradise then, as a warning, to keep you safe from Hell, by making you return to the path of Islam and the certain guidance of the Prophet, peace be upon him.”

“But I am on the path of Islam. I am a mujahid.”

“Your father was a mujahid. He fought the Russians, who denied Islam, stabled their troops in mosques, murdered women and children, and defiled the holy books with their filth. But you murder good Muslims, which I saw with my own eyes, and make war on the innocent.”

“Not true! Idris Ghulam says we must do the lesser evil for the greater good.”

“Which is what?”

“Driving the kafiri out of Kashmir and Afghanistan and building Islamic states.”

“If you wish to drive the Indians out of Kashmir, you should be shooting Indian soldiers, not Pakistani Muslims. And Pakistan and Afghanistan are already Muslim states.”

“They are not proper Muslim states. They are allied with America, and they don’t follow sharia law.”

“Tell me, what is the year?”

“What do you mean?”

“The year! What is the year, counting from the hegira?”

“It is 1429.”

“Yes, and why do we count from the hegira?”

“Because it is when the Prophet, peace be upon him, fled with his followers from Mecca to Medina.”

“Yes. Don’t you find it interesting that the birth of Islam is counted from a retreat? Not from a victory, not from the victory at Badr or at Ohod or from the conquest of Mecca, but from a retreat. Why do you suppose we do that, Patang?”

The boy is mute, baffled, and so she continues.

“Because the Prophet, peace be upon him, was reluctant in the highest degree to shed human blood. He did not form a secret society in Mecca to assassinate idolaters and their women and children and burn down their homes. Instead he retreated to a place of safety. And even when the idolaters attacked the Muslims at Badr and God gave the faithful their victory, the Prophet, peace be upon him, released all his prisoners after the battle and warned his followers not to molest the harmless or destroy their dwellings or their means of livelihood. And this was when Islam was a mere handful of families, not a billion people and two dozen nations. No, child, you ride the black horse of pride, you and your Idris Ghulam, and it will lead you to the flaming pit. Your father warns you from Paradise. God warns you. Heed the Prophet, peace be upon him; ride his horse on the narrow path. Thus says the Prophet, peace be upon him: ‘He will not enter Hell who hath faith equal to a single grain of mustard seed in his heart; and he will not enter Paradise, who hath pride equal to a single grain of mustard seed in his heart.’ ”

“That is not true!” the boy shouts. “Why should I believe you? You are a foreign woman and a witch!”

“I am not a witch,” says Sonia. “You asked how I knew of your dream. I could have lied and put fear in you and say I divined it with the help of the djinn, but God hates liars, and so I say now that I heard you tell your dream to the other guard. But my interpretation is true, as you will see, for you will be wounded on your foot and then recall your father’s words and mine.”

The boy utters a frightened curse and leaves, locking the door behind him.

In the dark, from the other charpoy, Sonia hears Annette stir. “Did we disturb you?” she asks.

“No. What was that all about? The guard didn’t seem too happy.”

Sonia summarizes the conversation. Annette gives an astonished whistle. “Wow! Do you think it’s wise to annoy our guards?”

“The truth is often annoying. Besides, just now it’s our only weapon. I’ve penetrated his self-righteousness, just a little. He sees himself as a holy warrior, which is why he can bear to serve in a unit with men from other tribes, and take orders from men from tribes with whom his tribe or khel has a blood feud. This is how Pashtuns are: they can join briefly against a common enemy, but they always tend to pull apart after that enemy is defeated. That’s what happened in Afghanistan after the Russians left. This so-called jihad is all that holds them together now, so we have to break them of the idea that they are fighting in God’s cause, which of course they are not. Let’s see what happens when young Patang hurts his foot.”

“But what makes you think he’s going to hurt his foot?”

“Because he dreamed it and I interpreted the dream that way.”

“What? That makes no sense.”

“No, not rationally, but we’re not in the rational world here-or in our dreams either. Patang will be thinking about his foot all the time now.

He’ll be extra careful for a while, but it will gnaw at him, he’ll grow clumsy, because, of course, you can’t really do any of the things we normally do with our feet using conscious thought. So he’ll trip and sprain an ankle. Or he’ll become so obsessed with the idea that he’ll unconsciously discharge the tension by ‘accidentally’ dropping a load of bricks on his toes. Then, naturally, he’ll blab the whole thing. Pashtuns are fascinated by this kind of stuff; it’s threaded through all their folk tales-the prophetic dream. We should get some attention after that.”

“My God! Isn’t that incredibly dangerous?”

Sonia laughs softly. “Well, we’re not exactly in the lap of safety as it is. No, first we have to draw their attention to us-to me, actually-as something other than a victim. Once I’m established as that, I’ll have to challenge them from the heart of their religion, which I’ve already started doing with Patang. I told you before, hostage and captive are in a relationship and we have to control the tempo of that relationship, even though we have no power. Think of the Romans and the original Christians. The Romans murdered them for three centuries, and with every murder the Christians grew stronger and the Romans weaker. Why was that? Because their faith allowed Christians to die with nobility, even though they were slaves, and that struck at the heart of the Roman idea of how the world was constituted. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Any belief that allowed a slave to die like a Roman general had to have some underlying reality, so every martyrdom in the arena made a hundred converts.”

“But what if they kill you?”

“Oh, they’re going to kill me. I was doomed from the moment they stopped our convoy. But I’m going to make it hard for them, and maybe that will save some of you.”

Sonia can now make out the shape of her companion across the room. The gaps between the slats in the shutters have gradually become visible as slate-blue strips.

“What do you mean you were doomed?” says Annette. “Why you in particular?”

Sonia laughs again. “Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration for effect. I have a tendency to oversell. It comes from being raised in the circus. Tell me, do you know who Sonia Bailey is?”

“Some kind of explorer, back in the seventies? My roommate in college had her book.”

“Ah, that’s a welcome answer. Let’s hope our friends out there share your ignorance.”

“I don’t understand. What does Sonia Bailey have to do with us? Anyway, isn’t she dead?”

“Not yet. I’m her.”

“You’re Sonia Bailey?”

“Yes. Pleased to meet you. Anyway, it’s not like Superman and Clark Kent, although I try to keep it quiet. Back when I wrote those books I declined the usual celebrity perks: I didn’t give interviews or do book tours, I wasn’t on TV, I didn’t even have an author photograph. The mysterious Sonia Bailey. Obviously, my family knows, and several members of our group here, but for the past thirty years I’ve been Mrs. Laghari, a Pakistani-American therapist, a respectable lady who did not travel the haj to Mecca disguised as a man. If these jokers find out they’ll snuff me like a candle.”

“Jesus!”

“Just so. Crucifixion is one of the traditional punishments for blasphemy, although, for women, chopping them into pieces is more common. On the other hand-”

She stops. A thin wailing has begun outside, hardly distinguishable from the whine of the eternal wind, announcing that the night is ended; it is time for morning prayers. Annette watches Sonia as she washes and performs the ritual gestures and prostrations, so different from her own private, silent, liberal religion.

Sonia finishes the Fajr, the shortest prayer of the day, and becomes aware that the other woman is staring at her. She smiles and says, “It must seem strange to you, this kind of prayer. Primitive?”

Annette blushes. “Yes, frankly, a little. I realize it’s not politically correct, but I tend to be suspicious of highly ritualized religion. It’s too easy to punch in all the rituals and then feel you’re right with God, meanwhile feeling free to be as nasty as you like in daily life.”

“Spoken like a true child of the Reformation,” says Sonia, and they both laugh. “On the other hand, we’re animals, we have bodies, and what our bodies do is important. That’s one reason God gave them to us.”

“Don’t you find it hard to practice back home? I mean in the States.” “Oh, no. Back home I go to church. I’m a Catholic there.”

This knots Annette’s smooth brow. “You mean it’s a pretense?”

“Not at all. I’m perfectly sincere at the moment of prayer in either tradition. Surely you don’t think God cares how we worship Him? And a mass, with its ritual motions and responses, is very much the same as salat, in the sense that humanity is one family, whether you call it the umma or the Body of Christ, and it’s important for us all to do the same thing with our bodies at the same time. Every believing Muslim in this time zone just did what I just did, and as the earth spins around today so the tide of Fajr will flow with the light of day, and then another prayer at noon, Dhuhr, and then Ashr, Maghrib, and Isha, five in all, today and every day. It’s a pretty neat feeling, being engulfed in prayer and, despite individual differences between people, to be united in that one thing.”

“Yes, well, it doesn’t seem to have helped the Muslims get united any more than it’s helped the Christians.”

“No, it’s a scandal. We’re none of us what God meant us to be. But on the other hand, if you suppress that kind of ritual you atomize the faithful even more. Islam has a small number of divisions, and the Catholics are still hanging in there, but anyone with a Bible and a good speaking voice can start a Protestant church. Recent history suggests that when you cast off all that uncomfortable ritualistic stuff your religion tends to collapse into mere sociability and niceness, and then it fades away. Then some joker comes along and says, Believe in me; we can make Paradise here on earth; we don’t need God. All we have to do is get rid of the capitalists-or the Jews, or make everyone into a capitalist-all we have to do is make everyone rich and have lots of sex, and life will be perfect.”

Annette says, “Surely you’re not saying that religious fanaticism is better for the mass of humanity than civil rights, clean water, health care, and a decent income.”

“No, of course I’m not saying that,” Sonia replies, but any further clarification is interrupted by the sound of the door. In comes a woman carrying the usual food tray with tea, chapatis, and dal. It is not the old woman who has served them before, but a younger one, just a girl. Her shape under the concealing robe is slender, her face is veiled by a fold of her dupatta.

Sonia takes the tray, smiles, and says, “May God be with you,” and the girl answers, “May you live in peace,” in a voice curiously distorted. Sonia says, “My name is Sonia. What is your name?” The girl says, “Rashida,” and immediately turns and leaves the room. A guard, the one with the bushy beard, glares at them for an instant and then closes and locks the door.

The two women sit and eat their breakfast. Annette asks, “Why did she keep her veil on? The other woman didn’t.”

“Oh, I think she was embarrassed. Didn’t you hear her voice? Her nose has probably been cut off.”

“Good God! By who?”

“Probably her father or a brother. It’s less common than it used to be, but it still happens. It’s common enough so that among Pashtun boys it’s a coarse flirt line, like ‘Show us your tits’ among drunk frat boys in the States. You accuse a girl of having her nose cut off, and maybe she’ll flash her face to show it’s not true. Risky, but it does happen.”

“But why would they do that to a girl?”

Sonia shrugs and takes up another chapati. “It could be anything. She was seen talking to a boy; she exposed her leg or her face to a strange man. Or it could have been just suspicion-maybe her family thought she was too seductive-looking.”

“And I’m sure the man who did it thinks he’s right with Allah because he says all his prayers.”

“I’m sure he does, although that kind of thing has absolutely nothing to do with Islam. Every culture has fetishes, and among the Pashtuns it’s on the one hand hospitality and on the other the chastity of their women. Among the Americans it’s on the one hand money and on the other sexual hypocrisy.”

“Surely you can’t compare that to mutilating a girl!”

“I can and do. Businesses and factories are closed down, people are discarded, whole communities are destroyed, with all the catastrophes that follow-crime, suicide, domestic violence-just so a firm can get a bump in the stock market, and we think that’s perfectly okay; that’s how capitalism works. We keep the poor in festering ghettos. If you can’t pay for health care you sicken and die. It’s rational, we say, because return on investment is our highest good. Well, to the Pashtuns honor is the highest good, so it’s rational to cut off the nose of a girl who’s compromised your honor.”

“You can’t possibly believe that.”

Sonia pauses as a loud vehicle grinds up the hill outside the hujra. It soon stops and they hear shouts and clankings from a nearby building. The diesel engine from the night before roars anew.

“It seems to be a busy day in the village of no return,” observes Sonia. “But it’s not a question of what I believe-or, rather, it is but in another sense. If you believe in God, you’re inclined to take the world as it comes, rather than impose a system on it. The problem with both the Pashtun way and the American way is that they each worship something other than God: honor and money. The Pashtuns shouldn’t cut off girls’ noses for honor, and the Americans shouldn’t destroy lives for gain, especially since the Prophet preached extensively against pride, and you’ll recall Jesus had some harsh things to say about loot. But what you seem to be implying is that the Pashtuns are inherently depraved because what they falsely prize is different from what we falsely prize. And that can’t be true.”

“I don’t prize money,” says Annette.

“No, you fly into dangerous places and try to make peace. It’s very noble.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“Not at all. But you know, people devoted to good works are in exactly the same danger of spiritual pride as people who concentrate on doing the rituals properly. There is absolutely nothing more dangerous in the world than self-righteousness tied to power. Those idiots out there are one example, and the recent foreign policy of the United States is another. The world is beyond fixing. That’s why we pray.”

“But surely, faith without works is sterile-” Annette begins, and then is stopped by a shrill scream, followed by shouts and more screams. A door slams and all becomes silent again, except for the wind and the diesel.

“I wonder what that was all about,” says Sonia. “I’m sorry… you were saying?”

But Annette has dropped her theological point, as though the cry from outside has pressed upon her with renewed force her present dire circumstances. She says, “Excuse me. I’m very tired right now; I need to rest,” and she lies down on her charpoy and pulls the quilt over her head.

Sonia observes this and understands. She herself slept a good deal after her mother was killed, twelve or even sixteen hours a day, for weeks. There are life events that can destroy the personality, which is a lot more fragile than most people imagine, constructed as it is from bits provided by others in the most haphazard way. People can be torn down to the core, “shattered,” as the expression goes, and then they seek sleep. And dreams, which provide the ground for the construction of a new and more integrated self. Providing there’s a core, and providing they’re willing to do the work.

Nor does insight help much. Fluss was always calling insight “baby steps.” During her first year in therapy, she had balked; she was tired of going over the sad stories, she thought she was done, and he’d said, You aren’t even started, my dear. Yes, now we have the dynamics, the demanding mother, the ineffective father, the shattering accidents, the insecurity, the rejection of offered security, the purposeful disruptions, the running off, the guilt and what results-all fine. Write it on an index card and stick it in your wallet. But now we must start on the work. Now we must get you to awaken!

Yes, work and awakening. That was the hard part, and Sonia is not sure that even now she has achieved it. More than Annette, perhaps. She can handle the Jungian jargon, she can do the dream work, but there is a blockage, a drag, a secret standing in the way. Perhaps that dream with the horrible boy is a clue. She wonders if she will figure it all out before she dies.

Annette has fallen asleep. Sonia feels a certain sympathy for the collapsed, naturally, but at the moment Annette’s collapse means there are more chapatis for her. She eats them all greedily and drinks the rest of the tea.

She spends the next hours writing in her notebook with a tiny pen. She is writing to her son, an apology, not just in the commonplace sense of a petition for forgiveness but also, mainly, in the older definition, an apology for her life, an explanation of why she has lived it as she has. She hopes it will somehow survive her death and that he will read it. She is a fluent writer, but this is a hard thing to do. It is easier to tell the truth to the world than to people you love.

There comes a point when she can’t write anymore. She puts the notebook and pen away in their small pocket and from another one takes a deck of cards. She shuffles, does fans-the peel-away, the reverse, the onehand-then fancy shuffles-the waterfall, the hindu-then deals out the four cards from the top of the deck, all aces: snap, snap, snap, snap. She wishes she had a mirror to check her passes and lifts, for she has not practiced in a while and feels rusty. On the other hand, now she has nothing but time.

The hours pass; the light from the window becomes rosy, then white. She wonders about the others, especially Karl-Heinz, who is so frail. She knows him from the Zurich days, he and his wife, Elsa. She had met Elsa before she met Karl-Heinz; Elsa was an almoner at the Burghölzli. Fluss had sent her in because of the blood on Sonia’s clothes, and Elsa had taken the clothes away and brought fresh ones, a characteristic act of kindness. Afterward, when Sonia had become Fluss’s student, she had taken Sonia into her social circle along with Fluss, who was divorced, and a changing circus of other lost souls: the formerly mad and their keepers and a good portion of the psycho-industrial complex of Zurich. A salon, but cozy in the Swiss manner; it was probably this kindness more than the precepts of Jung that had saved Sonia in those first months. She had a cozy deficit of vast proportions and drank it in like water in the desert.

Elsa was dead too. Karl-Heinz was the only one from those days with whom Sonia had retained contact, and she was determined that he would survive.

Sonia is still practicing a changing-card trick, deceptively difficult because it has to be done very slowly to be convincing, when the door opens again and the bearded guard sticks his head in. Sonia wishes him peace in Pashtun, and he seems startled to hear his language on her tongue. She wonders what the troops have been told about their captives. He mumbles something and withdraws, allowing the girl Rashida to enter with another tray of chapatis, dal, and tea.

“Peace be with you,” says Sonia, as the girl sets down the tin tray and picks up the old one.

The girl responds, “May God be with you.”

Sonia flicks the cards into a fancy double fan, catching the girl’s eye. “Would you like to see something magical?”

Without waiting for a reply, Sonia performs a card change. She cuts the deck and holds it up, the long side parallel to the ground, exposing the queen of hearts. Slowly, she moves her free hand over the card face and away. Still the queen of hearts. Again she caresses the queen but when she draws her hand away again, the card showing is the ace of spades. Rashida gasps behind her veil.

“Do it again!”

Sonia does, and then asks casually, “We heard someone scream this morning. I hope no one has been hurt.”

“Only Patang,” says Rashida. “The men were unloading from a truck, and a heavy box fell on his foot.” She hesitated. “He was crying out that this was foretold from a dream he had. And you foretold it.”

“That’s true.”

“Can you really?”

“I can. I am an interpreter of dreams, with God’s help.”

“Ya-Allah! We had such a man here in Paidara once, but he died. I must leave, I am not supposed to talk to the foreigners.”

She leaves. Sonia returns to her charpoy and plays solitaire for a while. She dozes, waiting for what will happen next. The azan sounds distantly, and she washes and prays the Ashr. The bars of light from the shutters glide across the floor and the walls, turn red, and fade. She has just lit the kerosene lamp when the door opens and the bearded guard comes in. She greets him politely but he does not answer her greeting. He says, “You come with me!”

She is led through the courtyard of the hujra and out a wooden gate, then down a narrow street to a large house surrounded by a mud-brick wall. She is taken through a gate into a small courtyard, where armed men give her hostile looks and mutter as she passes. Inside the house, in a room at the back, she finds the man in the black turban, Idris Ghulam, reclining on cushions with three other men, all of them dressed in dusty shalwar kameez, Pashtun waistcoats, and green or black turbans. They all wear full beards, black on two of them and, on the other one, white, dyed orange with henna. Weapons lean against a wall. The room is lit with a single lightbulb suspended from the ceiling by a wire. Close by she can hear the diesel generator rumbling. There is a whiff of its exhaust in the air.

Sonia looks the leader in the eye. He doesn’t like this, she can see, and also sees something else, a redness in the rims, bags beneath them, bloodshot, unhealthy-looking whites. She says, “May you not be weary, Idris Ghulam.”

He scowls. “How do you know my name?”

“All the world knows Idris Ghulam, and all believers praise his many feats of courage and daring.”

He ignores this and demands, “Do you know why you are here?”

“Yes. I was driving on the highway with a group of scholars who wished to find ways to peace, in accordance with the will of God, the compassionate One, when I was kidnapped by a group of armed men.”

“No, I mean why you are here now, standing in this room.”

“Because you wanted to talk with me,” she says. “It is one of the unpleasant things about being a prisoner, you can no longer choose with whom you must converse.”

“You are here because you have bewitched one of my men.”

“Witchcraft is forbidden to believers. I bewitched no one.”

“You prophesied he would hurt his foot, and he hurt his foot today.”

“I interpreted a dream and told him that, if he did not keep on the true path of Islam, his foot would be injured as a sign from God. And so it has happened.”

“This is sorcery,” says Idris, “and the penalty for sorcery is death.”

“The interpretation of dreams is not sorcery, as you must know. Yusuf, may he rest in peace, interpreted dreams for Pharaoh. The Prophet himself, peace be upon him, interpreted dreams for his Companions. And did he not say, as the Hadith of Sahih al-Bukhari reports, that true dreams are from God?”

“But the Prophet, may he have peace, also said that bad dreams are from Shaitan.”

“But this dream of Patang’s was not a bad dream. It was a warning from God, and the warning in the dream has come to pass. God controls all things.”

At this, the three mujahideen at the side of the room murmur and pass looks.

Sonia has considerable experience with the body language and facial expressions of such men. It seems to her now that Idris is unsure of his position. The three men are all older than he, and age counts for much among the Pashtuns. They talk among themselves. Idris darts quick glances at them after he speaks, as if to confirm that he has spoken properly. She concludes that he may be a tactical leader, in temporary command even, but he is not the sworn chieftain of these men.

He returns to the attack. “But your interpretation was false. You told Patang that the path of jihad was a false path.”

“Untrue. I said his dream told him the truth, that the path he was on was not the true path of Islam. I said nothing about jihad.”

“But Patang is a mujahid.”

“Is he indeed? I wouldn’t know. I have not seen him fight those who seek to oppress the Muslims, but I was taught that such is the task of the mujahideen. I have not seen him shooting Indian soldiers in Kashmir. I have only seen him murder a family of drivers, all good Muslim men. I have only seen him making war on innocent people, guests of a Muslim land.”

“This is not a true Muslim land,” Idris says. “Its leaders are kafiri and puppets of the Americans.”

“How terrible for you, then, to be ruled by kafiri! The Pakistanis are kafiri, the Saudis are kafiri, the Syrians, the Pashtuns who rule Afghanistan are kafiri; undoubtedly the Persians are kafiri. Everyone is kafiri except you. How shrunken is the umma! You have pronouced takfir upon nearly all of it. How sad it must make God and His messenger, peace be upon him, to look down from Paradise and see that His only true believers now are small groups of murderers.”

Idris shoots to his feet and punches Sonia in the face. She sees it coming and manages to turn her head, but the blow strikes the corner of her jaw and knocks her off her feet.

“Blasphemer!” cries Idris. “Whore of a blasphemer! You will die. We will stone you tomorrow and send you to Hell.”

Sonia shakes her head to clear it of ringing. From where she lies she says, “As I said, you are a mere murderer. I have not been convicted of blasphemy before a khazi on the testimony of two witnesses, and therefore you have no right to execute me. Besides, the punishment for blasphemy is not stoning, but the cutting off of a hand and a leg from opposite sides, or banishment. In any case, a woman cannot be executed for blasphemy, according to the Kitab al-Hudud. She must be imprisoned until she repents and shall be beaten at the times of prayer.”

“Be silent, whore!” Idris shouts. “I will judge you.”

“Yes, and if the scales of justice were in your hand, you would count your mule equal to another’s horse.”

At this line from Rahman Baba, the great poet of the Pashtuns, laughter breaks out among the three older men, and now she knows that Idris is not their chief or they would never have laughed at the sally.

She raises herself up and points a steady finger at Idris Ghulam. “You have forgotten the wisdom of Rahman, who says, ‘Do not be fooled by the outer appearance of a man; look at the inside of the nut to see whether it is soft or hard.’ I am not a man, but I am hard as steel inside. And I tell you that if you kill me except by the letter of the fiqh, my blood will be upon you, and my son will avenge that blood according to the law of the Pashtuns, upon you and your brothers and your father and your sons. Be warned, Idris Guhlam. This is not an idle threat, for I have no ordinary son.”

She turns and stares at the man with the hennaed beard.

“Sir, forgive me for addressing you, but I require your witness. You were in the real jihad against the Russians, were you not?”

The man slowly nods his head.

“And when you fought there, did you hear of a certain Kakay Ghazan?”

Again he nods, and says, “Everyone has heard of Kakay Ghazan. He was a famous warrior, although a boy.”

“He is still a famous warrior,” says Sonia, “but now he is a man, and I am his mother.”

Consternation. The three men all begin talking at once, but Sonia’s voice rises above theirs; now she is on her feet, her head aching, but speaking directly to Idris. “And he is a Pashtun of the Barakzai, of the Taraghzai, of the tribe Kakar, and all these he will raise against you, if you kill me outside the law, so beware, Idris Ghulam! You thought you had a load of fat geese, ready for plucking, but one of them is a scorpion.”

For a moment Idris seems mesmerized by her revelation, but then he comes to himself, resumes command, gestures to the guard, and says, “Take her away! Lock her in the stable! Now!”

The guard grabs Sonia roughly. She points again at Idris and says, “Nor will you sleep easily, Idris Ghulam, until the day you repent.”

Sonia is hustled out, but she can hear the sound of violent argument coming through the door. She shakes her head and works her swelling jaw. She thinks it has been a very successful interview and looks forward to one with the real leader of the group.