The Blind Man's Garden Page 16
He joined the jihad in October and went away towards Kabul, returning only a fortnight ago.
Major Kyra follows him along a corridor, having tied the saluki to a chair leg in the hallway.
The day-to-day affairs of Ardent Spirit’s six houses – Mecca, Baghdad, Cairo, Cordoba, Delhi and Ottoman – are the responsibility of six senior boys, Ahmed being one of them. And they are all gathered in the room when Major Kyra and Ahmed enter.
The candlelight casts oversized shadows on the walls. Kyra lowers himself onto the woollen carpet bought from the smugglers’ market in the North-West Frontier Province. The six boys position themselves before him in a semicircle.
With his flame-scarred hands – they look as though they’ve been put together from scraps of leather – Ahmed holds a piece of paper towards Kyra. On it are the layouts of Heer’s Christian school and church. All sides of the two buildings have their lengths written down next to them, and all the surrounding roads are named.
‘Bombing the church or the Christian school will not achieve anything,’ Kyra says. ‘Such explosions in other places have not deterred the West from continuing with its war, nor forced the Pakistani government to withdraw its support for the Western occupiers.’
‘We are the world’s seventh nuclear power,’ the boy from Ottoman House says quietly, ‘and yet our government does the bidding of the Americans, as though we were nothing but beggars.’ The knowledge of his helplessness is making him angry, he the brother of someone who had gone to Afghanistan in October and is now believed to be in US custody.
‘Twenty or thirty Pakistanis, be they Christian or Muslim, dying in an explosion in Pakistan isn’t going to matter at all,’ Kyra says. ‘Neither our own government nor anyone in the West will care about it.’
The head of Ottoman House says, ‘If we don’t send a message now they will attack other Muslim countries.’
The boy from Delhi House extends a hand towards Ahmed. ‘Tell him.’
‘Tell me what?’ Kyra asks. There is a companionship among the boys that will probably never be bettered in their lives.
‘Why don’t we raid the school and hold everyone hostage? The teachers and the students. Release a list of demands. We should ask for the Americans to leave Afghanistan and free all our brothers who are being held prisoner by them.’
Kyra studies the paper. ‘Do we have enough men for such an operation?’
‘The six of us will form a sufficiently strong core. Beyond that we need a dozen or so others. We can find them.’
‘The siege could last several days,’ Kyra says.
‘Yes,’ Ahmed says. ‘We need to calculate exactly how many weapons we’ll need and of what kind. We’ll have to buy some.’
With Ardent Spirit no longer linked to the Pakistani military and the ISI, the influx of funds has disappeared. Arranged by the ISI, there used to be donation boxes in many cities across Pakistan. Two years ago, during the festival to mark the Sacrifice of Abraham, Ardent Spirit had received contributions of almost $2 million, mostly from the hides of the sacrificed sheep. During the same month millions more were raised from the 675,000 Pakistanis who live in Britain. Money also came from Muslims in India – Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat. But access to all of this is now denied Kyra. He will have to use his own money.
‘It will be hazardous but it is a cause worth dying for,’ Ahmed is saying. ‘And as for the other side, the founder and headmaster of the school, Father Mede, is an infidel. The teachers at the school are Muslim but traitors to Islam, filling the heads of the children with un-Islamic things like music and biology and English literature. And the students too are traitors.’
‘They laugh at us,’ says the boy from Ottoman House. ‘They refer to us who attend schools like Ardent Spirit as “donkeys”. They say we and our like have made Pakistan unlivable.’
‘Father Mede is white,’ Kyra says. ‘An Englishman. It’ll become an international affair.’
‘Exactly,’ says the head of Mecca House, leaning forward. ‘They will pay attention if something happens to a white person. We could kill a few teachers to indicate our seriousness and hold him as the chief bargaining and negotiating asset.’
‘There will be no bargaining or negotiating, brother,’ the head of Cairo House says.
‘Leverage, then.’
‘He is over seventy years old,’ Ahmed says.
‘Do you think they are asking to see birth certificates before dropping bombs in Afghanistan?’
‘Brother,’ Ahmed says, ‘you misunderstand me. I was just thinking that it would make the authorities act with speed. It’s in our favour. How do you feel about capturing him and bringing him here?’
‘It’s not good to have infidels in the house,’ three of the boys say in unison.
The doorbell sounds and Ahmed leaves the room to answer it, making sure his back is never turned towards the Koran and other religious texts on the shelf.
Kyra opens the book of the Prophet’s sayings. Number 813: I was given the following words of the Prophet by Hukm bin Nafa, who was given them by Shoaib, who was given them by Zehri, who was given them by Abu Salma, who was given them by Abu Horaira. The Prophet said, ‘The End of the World won’t be until two armies have gone to war proclaiming an identical goal.’
*
When Ahmed returns he is accompanied by a middle-aged woman wrapped in a shawl, her face marked with the deep lines of resignation and self-control. Maintaining a pointedly respectful distance from the sphere of candlelight in which the men are, she greets everyone and sits down in the far corner.
‘How can I be of help, sister-ji?’ Kyra asks.
She smiles. ‘I am the mother of one of the former students at Ardent Spirit. He is about to go abroad to study.’
‘I am delighted to hear that one of our students is prospering.’
‘He was given a good start here by your elder brother, may he rest in peace,’ the woman says to Kyra. ‘My boy was at Ardent Spirit for just the first two years of his education, then we moved to another neighbourhood so I had to take him out.’
‘May Allah grant him continued success so he can make Pakistan and Islam proud. Which country will he be going to? Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt?’
‘He has a scholarship to America. His entire education will be paid for by a university there.’
Kyra considers this. ‘It would have been preferable if he had chosen a Muslim country instead of the West with its blood-stained wealth. Which city in America will he go to?’
The woman gave a nervous laugh. ‘I can’t remember the name. I will send him to you, you can ask him yourself.’
‘Do send him.’
The woman is now leaning towards the candlelight. She appears to be someone who knows she is having one of the most important conversations of her life. ‘I have a favour to ask of you, brother Kyra. On his application form, he has chosen not to mention that he attended Ardent Spirit. You must be aware that schools such as these have developed certain connotations of late. If the Americans discover the truth they could refuse him his university place altogether. Or they could arrest him at the airport.’
Kyra watches the shock of the boys, the glazed smile appearing on Ahmed’s face as he begins to contort the rosary tightly in his hands, his jaw muscles working.
The woman seems not to know where to rest her glance. ‘Also, with the news of his good fortune spreading in the neighbourhood, some envious person could alert the Americans to my boy’s two years at Ardent Spirit. This frightens me.’
With glacial politeness, Kyra says, ‘The aim of Ardent Spirit is to teach decency and love of Islam to the young, sister-ji. That was the case in the past, it is the case in the present, and it shall be the case in the future.’
‘Insha-Allah,’ say the boys in unison.
‘I agree, but still, brother-ji, if someone comes and asks you about it, my request is that you deny my son ever attended your school.’
‘Both. I want the truth to live in my children. I don’t think I have to sacrifice either.’
‘And yet you are asking us to lie for you.’
‘I feel terrible to have come to you with this,’ the woman says, confused and distressed. ‘I am an illiterate woman, so you know better than me what is occurring in the world ever since the Jews carried out the terrorist attacks in America. You know perfectly well that there is a possibility my son could lose this golden opportunity.’ Suddenly she begins to weep, covering her face with her shawl, and is unable to speak for almost half a minute. She says eventually, ‘I have nothing but him. He must become an educated and wealthy man. He has four sisters whose dowry he has to provide for.’
Ahmed stands up and gestures towards the door. ‘Let me show you out, good aunt.’
‘My brother never wanted anything but the best for his students,’ Kyra says. ‘Why can’t your son stay and study right here in Pakistan?’
The head of Ottoman House looks at the woman with an unkillable light in his eyes. ‘Good aunt, a dollar is worth seventy-two Pakistani rupees. Do you know why? Allow me to tell you. It is because each American person loves America seventy-two times more than each Pakistani person loves Pakistan. That is why.’
‘Almost all of us are traitors,’ says the boy from Cordoba House, his head low with anguish. ‘Now, good aunt, please allow brother Ahmed to show you out. It is dark and you should be home.’
The woman wipes her tears on her shawl and gets to her feet and whispers a farewell. As the two of them leave, the other boys sit in a silence that seems more and more like a seeking. Nothing remains in the room but the truth and they see the enormity of their struggle, the light from the candle weak but undeceiving. They are all aware that across the planet words are being said about them in ten languages, sinister ungodly plans being hatched to eliminate them.
‘It’s a test,’ one of them says quietly. ‘We, our very souls, are being attacked by the West from many directions.’
‘We mustn’t lose heart,’ Kyra says. ‘Remember the anvil lasts longer than the hammer.’
Ahmed returns and takes his position in the semicircle. ‘We should begin planning the siege.’ He unfolds the paper with the two drawings and studies it carefully. He turns to the boy from Cairo House. ‘What is the latest news about Father Mede?’
‘He’s not in Heer. He has gone on his annual tour around Punjab, visiting the school’s other branches. And he is inaugurating a new branch in Faisalabad.’
‘It’s provocation,’ the head of Mecca House says. ‘I stopped one of their teachers in the street last month and told her that they need to curtail their activities, not expand the Christian school, or carry out repairs and refurbishments of the building, but she looked at me as if I wasn’t there.’
Ahmed takes a pen from his pocket and draws arrows indicating all the entrances to the school. ‘They’ll notice us,’ he says. ‘We’ll drag his and his teachers’ corpses along the Grand Trunk Road if we have to. They’ll notice us soon enough.’
19
The helicopter, as it brings Mikal to the American prison, is filled with the curses and prayers of the other captives. Some of them were shot as they tried to escape or resisted capture and Mikal can smell the blood, and he can tell that some of them have lost control of their bladders with fear.
His arms and legs zip-locked, a hood covering his head, he is carried out of the Chinook and the place they bring him to has the scent of the inside of a balloon. When they remove the hood he sees that he is in a tent that has white sheets of rubber insulation buttoned onto its green canvas. There are a dozen hospital beds but he is the only one here. One of the two Americans in attendance writes the number 121 on his shirt in black felt-tip pen. I am the one hundred and twenty-first prisoner here? But it is altered to 120 when a third white man comes and says something in English to the others. They had miscounted or perhaps one of the other prisoners has just died.
Getting him to open his mouth they shine beams of light into his throat and then his ears and eyes, a pair of surgical scissors cutting away the old bloodstained strips of cloth that serve as bandages for his hands. He hears the barking of dogs. Perhaps the prisoner who has just died was trying to escape. Quickly but expertly, they clean the wounds and dress them, the new bandages overlapping each other like a basket being woven, a brilliant clean white that is painful on his eye, reminding him of the snow out of which he was plucked, and then they look at the bullet wound on his neck and expose his chest to examine the blade and bullet lesions on his torso, and the medicines they apply bring an astounding reduction of the pain. He wishes to cry out at the relief.
In another room where the dogs are louder they overpower him when he refuses to accept the removal of trousers and they cut off all his clothes and as he stands there naked they bring a circular electric saw and slice the manacles off his feet, throwing jets of soft sparks along the floor and into his leg hair. He struggles in terror when they must perform a cavity search and he snarls, roaring, and they have to pin him down and afterwards they put him in a jumpsuit and lock his ankles in their own manacles, shiny and complicated as puzzles, his wrists also in chains. Where is this place? Is he still in Afghanistan? They photograph him against a height chart and then they shave his beard and hair off and photograph him again.
His head disappearing into a hood again they leave him somewhere for a short while, just a few minutes during which he falls into dead-weighted sleep, the exhaustion making each bone feel as though wrung tight as the horn of a ram, and then they come and lead him to another place. When the black hood is removed he sees that he is in a small room, no bigger than ten feet by twelve. A cabin or a booth. A large white man sits in the left corner under a poster of the Twin Towers, the moment the second plane hit, the fireball attached to the side of the building.
There is a table with two chairs on opposite sides, facing each other, one of which Mikal is made to sit in. Another white man – equally bulky and over six foot tall – comes in with a man whose skin is the same colour as Mikal’s own. The brown-skinned man says in Pashto that he is the interpreter, and then – when Mikal does not react – says the same thing in Urdu, Punjabi and Hindko. Mikal does not alter his blank expression and he tells Mikal in all four languages that at no point must he attempt to get out of his chair. That the man in the corner under the poster is Military Police and this other white man is here to ask some questions.
‘My name is David Town,’ says the new white man through the interpreter. ‘From the US government. The doctor said you were well enough to speak to me. What is your name? I want to notify your family that you are here.’
Mikal does not answer.
‘Tell me your name and how to reach your family.’
The white man has very pale skin. Mikal has never seen a real white person at close proximity before today. The paleness is actually astonishing.
What will they do to make him talk? Hold a pistol to his head, pull out his fingernails, like the Pakistani jailers did to his father.
‘We know you can speak. You spoke in your sleep. Sometimes in the language of an Afghan, sometimes in the language of a Pakistani. Are you a Pakistani, an Afghan, or an Afghan born and raised in Pakistan?’
Mikal does not answer, his shackled hands resting on the table. Was he asleep long enough to have spoken?
The man puts a book of photographs on the table. ‘Tell me if you recognise anyone in here.’ Slowly he begins to turn the pages, Mikal staring down at the men in Arab headdress, Palestinian scarves, clean-shaven with neckties, young and old, beards long and short.
Just then another white man comes in and motions for David to step out.
When David returns a few minutes later he is an altered man. He begins to shout at Mikal even before sitting down.
‘You were found in
a mosque from whose basement we recovered drums of white powder. What is that powder?’
Mikal does not answer.
‘Is it anthrax or ricin?’
Recipes for ricin were found in an al-Qaeda safe house back in November, Mikal has heard, and there are videotapes of al-Qaeda’s experiments on dogs with sarin and cyanide gas.
The man goes on shouting questions at him, his face inches from Mikal’s at times.
‘Or is it something else?’ As the man speaks Mikal keeps his eyes on his mouth, listening to the sounds coming out of it, and not looking at the interpreter beside him who turns those sounds into words. It is as though a disembodied voice in the air is making him comprehend what the white man is saying. ‘What is that substance, and where did you people get it? What were you doing at the mosque?’
Every man at the mosque was picked up. The women and children had been left behind. The man takes out a silver digital camera and shows Mikal shots of women on its flatscreen monitor. ‘These were the women at the mosque. Which one is your wife? Your sister or mother?’
All the women carry an identical expression. Afraid of the gun but contemptuous of the hand that wields it.
‘Maybe we should bring them here. Maybe they can tell me what your name is and who brought the powder to the mosque.’