Читать книгу Godsend - John Wray - Страница 9

1

The day her visa arrived she came home to find the pictures on the mantelpiece turned to face the wall. She felt no urge to touch them. They’d looked fine from the front, catching the light in their brushed-nickel bevels, but from the back their inexpensiveness was plain. Puckered gray cardboard, no stronger than paper. These were no sacred relics. They held meaning for three people only, of all the untold billions, believer and unbeliever alike. And not even for those three people anymore.

She found her mother in the bedroom with the ridgebacks and the pit. The room smelled of old smoke and Lysol and beer. The dogs raised their heads when she opened the door but her mother kept still, both hands slack in her lap, staring out the window at the cul-de-sac. The T-shirt she wore said SANTA ROSA ROUND-UP and she sat upright and prim on the high queen-sized mattress with her bare feet planted squarely on the floor. The girl studied that proud ruined profile from the foot of the bed, trying as she often did to find her likeness there. For the first time in her life, in all their eighteen years together, she had no need to guess what her mother was waiting to hear.

—It came, she said.

—What did?

—You know what did. My visa.

Her mother made a gesture of dismissal.

—I thought maybe it wasn’t going to get here in time. I really thought it wouldn’t. If it hadn’t got here—

—You told me you’d be home by five. Five o’clock at the latest. That’s what you told me and I fixed my day around it.

The girl looked down at the pit. —I know I’m back late. I went for a drive.

—Don’t think I don’t know where you’ve been, Aden Grace. Don’t mix me up with somebody who can’t tell shit from taffy.

—I’m sorry. She reached down to scratch the pit between the ears. —I’m not trying to keep anything from you, Mom. I guess I’m just excited or whatever. Maybe even—

—I’ve asked you not to lie to me. You owe me that kindness. Don’t you owe me that kindness? I’ve asked you not to complicate my life.

—I’ll be gone this time tomorrow, said the girl. —I guess that should uncomplicate some things.

Her mother turned toward her. —You think I’m just counting the minutes till you’re up in that plane? Look over here, Aden. Is that what you think?

—No. I don’t think that.

—All right, then.

—I think you’re waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

Her mother gave a clipped laugh. —Your old dad said the same thing to me once. You know what your trouble is, Claire? he told me. You’re always expecting some failure. The failure of a person or the failure of a given situation. She laughed again. —The failure of a given situation. Those were his words exactly.

—You’re drunk.

—Right again, girl. Pat yourself on the ass.

—I didn’t even have to tell you. I’m old enough now. I could have packed up my stuff and just walked out the door.

—That’s exactly what you’re doing, far as I can see. Walking right out the door. Or am I missing something?

The light above the cul-de-sac lay thick against the hillside and glimmered down through air gone dim with pollen. The same air she’d moved through and breathed all her life. A hummingbird circled the feeder by the pool and found it empty. It had been empty for days. She asked herself how long that small bright bird would keep on coming.

—Try to remember to fill up the feeder, she said.

Her mother dragged three fingers through her hair. —You going to see him before you jet off? Is that part of your plan?

—I don’t know.

—You don’t know much, do you?

—I might go and see him.

—I never asked where you got the money for the ticket. I guess I must already know the answer.

—You’re wrong. I asked him for money at Christmas. He told me it was out of his purview.

—His what?

—That’s what I said. He told me to go home and look it up.

—Well doesn’t that just sound like our professor. She coughed into her fist. —I tell you what, though. I bet it gooses him in all the right places, this life plan of yours. I bet he feels fulfilled and justified.

—He’s got no reason to feel one way or the other about it. None of this is on account of him.

—Who do you think you’re talking to here, Aden? Who do you think you’re fooling?

—I’m telling it to you as clear as I can. I can’t help it if you don’t want to listen.

—For those with ears to hear, let them hear, said her mother.

—That’s about right.

—That comes from a different book, though. Not the one in your pocket. She curled her toes into the carpet. —I should have made you learn that book by heart.

—You tried to, said the girl.

—Noticed that, did you? I guess that counts for something.

—It’s not your fault I turned out like this. She bit down on her thumbnail. —You did what you could.

Her mother turned back to the window. —I’m tired. Go on out and leave me alone.

—I will if you promise to sleep.

—I’ll sleep when I’m ready. She arched her back and lit a cigarette. —I can’t say I’m going to miss your goddamn fussing.

A jet passed overhead as the girl turned to leave. The house was on the flight path up from SFO and she’d always loved to hear the planes go by. It was a carelessly built house, cheap as the frames on the mantel, but when it shook she felt less separate from the world.

—I’m going for a walk, she said. —I’ll be back in an hour. I’ll make us some dinner.

—Whatever you say.

—He never paid a cent for it. I saved up from work. The church got me a discount on the ticket.

—Don’t you call it a church. There’s a word for that place you go to, Aden. Even I know the word.

—You can forget it as soon as I’m gone, said the girl.

Her mother’s face caught the light as she pulled the door closed. Impassive and prideful, prepared for the worst. She recognized her likeness there at last.

She walked down Hidden Valley Drive to the cemetery, past Carmen’s Burger Bar, past Ramirez Pawn N Carry, then up Pacific toward the junior college. On Mendocino she stopped in front of a shop window and shaded her eyes and looked in through the glass. A pyramid of mobile phones, leather protective cases for the phones, matching plastic belt clips for the cases. She imagined a world in which she might possibly enter that shop—in which she would work and save to buy the items offered there for sale—and it was not a world in which she cared to live.

Some kids from school walked by and snickered, and she allowed herself, for the last time, the luxury of picturing them dead. She watched them in the glass until they passed out of sight, then took stock of her own reflection, frail but straight-backed in a white shalwar kameez. Not a girl, not a boy. Just a ghost in a body. She felt a passing pang of sadness, perhaps even pity, but whether for herself or for the kids who’d laughed at her she couldn’t say.

The campus was quiet and dark and unnaturally flat, a painted backdrop in a silent film. Her father’s was the only office lit. She picked up the ancient security telephone at the service gate and waited for Ed Aycker’s sleepy mild voice and the sharp double tone of the buzzer. It had excited her once, this clandestine transaction: it had put her in mind of coded entry to a military compound, or the vault of a bank, or the visiting room of a prison.

—You came in the back way? said her father before she could knock.

—Same way as always.

—I’m surprised Ed let you in with that crew cut of yours. Not everybody gets past him, you know. Must be a sign that you are pure of heart.

—You made that joke last week, she said, lifting a stack of legal folders off a stool.

—As I recall, you didn’t laugh then either.

—I guess I haven’t changed my mind about it.

—Fair enough. He brought his hands together in an attitude of prayer, an unconscious salaam, a gesture he’d newly adopted. —You haven’t changed your mind about anything else, I suppose.

—I fly out tomorrow.

He lowered his hands to the desk. —And your mother? How’s she handling this, would you say?

—She turned all the pictures around. Even ones you’re not in.

—Don’t play dumb with me, Aden. It doesn’t suit you. He looked down at his hands. —How’s she handling this trip of yours, I mean.

She watched him for a time across the great round-cornered teakwood desk that took up half the room. He had brought her with him to work on certain rare afternoons of her childhood, a reward for good behavior, and she’d often napped beneath its creaking eaves. In her imagination and occasionally even in her dreams she’d sat behind it, poring over parchment scrolls and penning learned studies. It seemed unwieldy to her now, a monument to some forgotten culture, an ocean liner stranded in the desert. Her father’s soft complacent face was hard to get in focus.

—It’s not a trip, she said.

—Of course it’s a trip.

—Not the way you mean.

—No? Maybe you should explain.

—I shouldn’t have to explain. Not to you. She shook her head. —I’m not going over there just to see the sights, Teacher.

—I’ve never liked it when you call me that.

—I know.

He nodded for a time. —You’re traveling to the Emirates to study, he said finally. —To improve your language skills, to broaden your perspective, to see for yourself what the fuss is about. I appreciate that. You’re a serious girl, Aden. An asker of questions. You always have been. He pressed his palms lightly together. —Or is there some other reason?

She stared down at the floor between her feet, at divots in the carpet where a less stately desk had once stood. She wondered whose office the room had been then. She could picture no one but her father in that space.

—Have you given any further thought to your plans for the future? he asked her. —To your education?

—This is my education.

—I’ve spoken again with Dean Lawford. He’s agreed, very generously, to permit a deferral—

—I know all about that.

—I’d like to speak frankly with you, Aden, if I may. He arranged his features into a smile. —This past year has been hard on all of us. I was distracted when you asked for my help with this adventure of yours, and I do regret that. But things have stabilized now, as you’re no doubt aware, and I hope that you’ll regard me as a resource. I have friends in Dubai: people you may find it good to know. I’ve prepared a list.

Her father pushed an index card across the desktop.

—There will be some adjustment required, needless to say. A great deal of adjustment. And in the matter of your return ticket—

—Don’t worry about that.

—Sweetheart. Look at me for a second. You’d do well to consider—

—How are things with Mrs. Al-Hadid?

He hesitated. —Ayah is well, Aden. Thank you for asking.

—Ed Aycker ever give her any trouble?

—I wonder how your Arabic is coming, said her father.

—It’s coming just fine.

—I wonder if you can read the verses on the wall behind me. In the little brass frame.

—In the name of God, she said. —Merciful to all. Compassionate to each.

—Those are good words to remember. Especially where you’re going. Her father coughed and shifted in his chair. —Merciful to all, he repeated. —Compassionate to each.

She could hear students in the hallway outside, at least half a dozen, making high-pitched theatrical chatter. A hand was pressed against the glass as if in greeting. She gave her father the nod he expected.

—Good words to remember, he said. —There’s a reason they’re the first words of the Book.

—I know more words than that.

—I don’t doubt you do.

—The woman and man found guilty of adultery. Flog each of them a hundred—

—Shut your mouth, said her father. He spoke in a lighthearted voice, as if amused. —I was a student of sharia before you existed as a thought in your poor benighted mother’s mind or in the All Creator’s either. What you understand about scripture could fit in a tub of eyeliner. Go to the Emirates with that attitude and God have mercy on your soul.

She leaned back on her stool and studied him.

—What are you grinning at?

—Eyeliner doesn’t come in tubs, she said. —It comes in sticks.

—I see. He bobbed his head. —This is a joke to you.

She watched him and said nothing.

—What about that boyfriend of yours? Does he have the slightest idea what he’s getting himself into?

—Decker isn’t my boyfriend.

He flapped a hand impatiently, a quick dismissive gesture, the same one her mother had made not an hour before. —What do his parents say?

—They’re proud of him, actually. Supportive, I mean. They’ve got family there.

—I was told the Yousafzais were Pakistani.

—They’re Pashtuns, she said. —From near the Afghan border.

—I see. He watched her. —They emigrated to Dubai at some point, I’m assuming. Looking for work.

When she said nothing he sat back stiffly in his chair. Again his palms came nervously together.

—Your hair was so lovely. So curly and dark. You were terribly vain about it when you were small. He looked down at his hands. —Do you have any recollection of that?

—None at all.

—Are you doing this to hurt us, Aden? To punish us? Your mother and myself?

She gazed up at the scroll above the desk, letting her sight go dim and out of focus, watching the letters writhe and curl together. Those fluid voluptuous letters. No language on earth was more beautiful to look at, more beautiful to speak. She knew it and her father knew it. The difference was he saw the beauty only. She herself saw the grief and forbearance and hope behind the brushwork, the suffering brought to bear on every calligraph. But beauty was its first attribute and the most dangerous by far. The beauty of austerity. The beauty of no quarter. She felt its pull and saw no earthly end to it.

—You think everything comes down to you, she said at last. —That everything’s on account of you, or thanks to you, or coming back off something bad you’ve done.

—Aden, I—

—But you’re wrong. I don’t think about you much at all.

The students were louder now and more numerous but if anything the room seemed more sequestered than before. It seemed airless and dank. Her father’s eyes were closed and he appeared to be asleep. His chest rose and fell. When he spoke again she had to strain to hear him.

—I apologize, sweetheart. I’m trying very hard to understand.

—That’s all right. I forgive you. The first part of my jihad—

—For God’s sake, Aden, don’t call it that.

—Jihad means struggle, that’s all. Any kind of a struggle. You taught me that yourself. Don’t you remember?

—It’s a new century now. A new world. He interlaced his fingers. —Things are taking a turn.

—I don’t know what that means.

—It means you need to be aware of the rest of the world, not just Claire and myself. Are you listening to me? You need to take its fear and its prejudice into account. You need to consider other people’s ignorance, Aden. He let out a breath. —You need to consider your own.

—I’ll leave that to the experts. I’ll leave that to you.

—You’re still not hearing me, apparently. I’m endeavoring to explain—

—If they want to pass judgment they can go right ahead. They do it all the time anyway. At school and everywhere else. Even in my own house. But you wouldn’t know about that.

—Aden—

—Try and stop me if that’s what you want.

—I don’t want to stop you, her father said tightly. —That’s not my position at all.

—Don’t talk down to me, then. It doesn’t suit you.

Before he could answer she took up her pack. An army surplus model, sun-bleached and tattered, with squares of darker cloth where the insignia had been. She’d found it in the attic of her father’s house the day before Thanksgiving, the day she’d decided to take up her jihad. She sat up and cleared her throat and raised the pack so he could see it, thinking even now to ask his blessing. But her father’s eyes were dull and flat and blind.

—The religion I’ve spent my life studying teaches deference to one’s elders, he said slowly. —It teaches the child to venerate the teachings of the father.

—Not if the father is an apostate.

—Aden, do you fully understand what that word means?

She got to her feet. He shook his head at that, regretfully and stiffly, as though forbidding her to take another step.

—I’m sure you’re aware that I could put a stop to this adventure with a phone call. And the more I hear you talk, sweetheart, the more inclined I am to do so.

—You did this yourself when you were my age. You’ve been talking about it my whole life. It’s the only thing you’ve ever talked about.

—I’d just turned twenty-two when I went to Kandahar. Twenty-two, Aden, not barely eighteen. And there’s a more significant issue than your age.

—I don’t know what you mean.

—You’re being childish again. The possibilities for a woman in that part of the world are limited, as you know very well. You have disappointments in store, I’m afraid.

—Well Teacher you’re wrong about that.

—We’re fighting again. Let’s both just take a moment—

—I’m going to get to places that you’ve never been. All kinds of places. I’m going to see things that you couldn’t even dream of.

She met Decker on the airport bus at noon. He was dressed in a tracksuit and a Giants cap and his sneakers sat beside him on the seat across the aisle. His duffel was black and his high-tops were the same acidic orange as his tracksuit. An unlit Camel dangled from his downturned boyish mouth. When he saw Aden coming he picked up a book.

—You don’t smoke, she said.

—I’m an international man of mystery, Sawyer. There’s things you didn’t know about me yet.

She nodded. —Like that you can read.

—I’m just reviewing this here list of conjugations. He puffed out his chest. —I happen to be traveling to Pakistan today.

She glanced across the aisle at his high-tops. —I thought you might be traveling to a kickball game in Oakland.

—This look is like American Express, he said, adjusting his cap. —It’s accepted worldwide.

—There’s a lot of places don’t take American Express. She passed him the high-tops and sat where they’d been. —La Tapatía, for example.

—La Tapatía? Decker said, raising his eyebrows. —That taco place back of the Costco?

—Lots of places don’t take it.

—They’ll take it in Karachi, he said as the bus began rolling. —What did you think people wear over there, Sawyer? Turbans and pointy slippers?

—I couldn’t care less.

He frowned at her. —Why’s that?

—Because Karachi’s not the place I want to be.

It was hot on the bus and Decker nodded off quickly, his forehead propped against the greasy glass. She looked past him at outlets and drive-throughs and strip malls and cloverleaf ramps. The light on the hills was the light she knew best, the embalming golden light of California, and it lay thickly over everything she saw. Already looking out at that landscape was like watching footage of some half-forgotten life.

Decker started awake just as they reached the airport. —What time is it?

—We’re all right.

—Did we miss our one o’clocks?

—It’s okay. We can pray when we get out.

The terminal was the last part of America she’d see and she made a point of paying close attention. The guideways, the acoustic tile, the sterility, the equivalence of every point and feature. She’d loved it as a child, seeing her father off to Islamabad or Ankara or Mazar-i-Sharif, and the child that survived in her loved it there still. The most American of places. A luminous blank.

A flight crew hurried past—the genteel blue-eyed pilots, the coquettish attendants—and an usher with a bindi waved them forward with a bow. The scene might have been choreographed for her express instruction: the quick servile gesture, the noblesse oblige. She felt the old childish thrill and did nothing to curb it. It posed no danger anymore. Her eyes were open.

—What are you smiling at, Sawyer?

—I used to come here sometimes.

Decker stopped and adjusted his sneakers. —Tell you what. I’ve never even been inside a plane.

—You’ll like it.

—What does Swiss food even taste like?

—Swiss food?

—We’re taking Swiss Air, right? It’s a sixteen-hour flight. They’ve got to feed us something.

She took his hand. —Let’s go, man of mystery. We’re late for prayers.

They found a small bluish room labeled INTERFAITH CHAPEL past the food court and set their bags in a neat row beside its entrance. A family of Mennonites rose to leave as soon as they came in. A limping old man and his wife and two toddlers. Decker held the door for them. Their dark formal clothing rasped and whispered as they moved. The wife seemed barely older than he was and she smiled at him sweetly as she sauntered out. Decker watched her until she was out of sight.

—I’m not supposed to say this in here, but that old Hasid is one lucky bastard. Did you see the look I just got?

—You’re right.

—Damn straight I’m right. Did you even—

—You’re not supposed to say that in here.

—Okay, Sawyer. My bad. Seriously though—

—And those weren’t Hasids.

Decker sucked in a breath. —I’m getting a tater tot kind of smell. Tortilla chips maybe. I’m guessing from the Taco Bell next door.

—Shut up and help me move these chairs around.

They cleared a space at the front of the room and laid their prayer mats on the stain-resistant carpet and cleansed themselves with water from a bottle. Decker’s prayer mat matched his tracksuit and his sneakers. Aden watched him for a moment, then shifted slightly to the left.

—How do you know that’s east, Sawyer? There’s no windows in here.

—It’s east.

He nodded dubiously. —We’re praying at the food court, basically.

—I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Decker. I’m going to go ahead and say the prayer we missed. What you decide to do is totally your call. Maybe your Mennonite’s waiting at the Taco Bell. Maybe you guys can split a quesarito scrambler.

—Is that what you think she was? A Mennonite?

She gave him no answer. Eventually he kicked off his high-tops and knelt next to her.

—That’s better, said Aden, prostrating herself.

—So long as you’re happy. I think this is south.

When they came out of the chapel their luggage was gone. They stood blinking wordlessly down at the carpet, listening to the crackle and hiss of the PA. She felt no panic, only a coldness mustering under her ribs. Her passport and visa had been in her duffel.

—Those motherfuckers, said Decker. —We were praying, for shit’s sake.

—It’s all right. It’s all right. We just need to find security. They can’t be far.

Decker let out a groan. —I bet it’s illegal, leaving bags around like that. Do you think they’ll—

—No I don’t. We were stupid, that’s all. I was stupid.

Lost Baggage was in another terminal altogether and by the time they’d found it both their shirts were dark with sweat. Its foyer was the same jaundiced blue as the chapel. The guard at the window knew what they’d come for before they said a word. Their passports lay facedown on the countertop in front of him.

—You kids might as well take it easy. No one’s flying anywhere today.

They waited for him to go on, wavering slightly in place, struggling to master their breathing. The guard looked down at them from on high, remote and unmoved, like a judge at some inconsequential trial. He took off his glasses and began to clean them with a wrinkled handkerchief. He seemed to consider the matter resolved.

—I’m not sure I understand you, sir, said Aden.

—Leaving two unmarked black duffel bags in the busiest part of the international terminal, right outside of the chapel. And a backpack. The guard shook his head. —Right next to the food court, for Jesus’ sake. Neither of you been in an airport before?

—I’ve been to this airport eighteen times, sir, not counting today. With my family. We live in Santa Rosa.

The guard squinted down at her passport for a time. —Aden Grace Sawyer, he said thoughtfully.

—That’s right.

—You’ve cut your hair since this passport was issued, Miss Sawyer.

—So what? said Decker.

—I wouldn’t of recognized you, the guard went on. —You look like a boy.

—We’re students, said Decker before she could answer. —We’re on our way to Pakistan for school.

The guard flipped through her passport with an elaborate show of disinterest. He seemed unsurprised to find its pages blank. —What kind of a school?

—A madrasa, said Aden.

—A what?

—It’s a religious school, said Decker. —Like a Catholic school, but for the study of the Holy Qur’an. It’s actually—

—Just do what you’re going to do to us, said Aden.

—Excuse me, Miss Sawyer? I’m not sure I heard you quite right.

—There’s nothing illegal in those bags. You’ve searched them already so you ought to know.

—I wouldn’t say nothing, Miss Sawyer. I wouldn’t say that. He lifted Decker’s duffel onto the counter. —Defense of the Muslim Lands, he said, bringing out a paperback without a cover. He brought out another. —Join the Caravan.

—Those are religious texts, she said. —They’re for our course of study.

—These books are on the State Department watchlist. They’re recruitment texts for militant jihad.

—We bought them from the campus bookstore of the University of California at Berkeley. There’s nothing illegal about having those books.

—Her father’s the dean of Middle Eastern studies, Decker cut in. —You know what a dean is?

—Tell your Arab friend to shut his mouth, said the guard.

This is what it means to live with open eyes, she thought. This place was here when I came with my father and we passed it by without even noticing. This same man sitting here at this same window. People stood where I’m standing but I never saw them. Where are those people now.

Decker was shouting something about freedom of religion.

—If you’re not going to give us our bags back, tell us, Aden said. —Tell us that and we’ll go.

The guard’s drawn and bloodless face regarded her through the window, so leached of human feeling that it barely seemed a face. The waiting area smelled of exhaust and toner cartridges and sweat. The noise of traffic carried in from the outside. He hears this all day, Aden said to herself. All day long he hears these sounds and breathes this air. No one ends up here by choice. Not even him.

—I never said you couldn’t have your bags, the guard said finally, shutting Aden’s passport with a shrug. —I don’t think you’ve heard a single word I told you.

By some undeserved miracle they reached the gate at final boarding call and were rushed aboard the plane like VIPs. People glared at them but she was used to worse. As they made their way up the aisle, disheveled and short of breath, a rush of jubilation overtook her. They were headed to Dubai and after that to Karachi and more of the faithful surrounded her than she’d ever seen outside a mosque. The plane would soon be airborne, a sovereign state, accountable to no laws but its own. Her country had relinquished her without a hint of protest. She was gone.

—I expected that to be rough, Decker whispered once they’d gotten to their seats. —The scanners and the pat-downs and the questions and all. But that was— He shook his head. —I don’t know what that was. Son of a bitch, Sawyer. They made me unbuckle my pants.

—They do that to everybody.

—It’s because we’re Muslim, isn’t it? They think I’m going to set my beard on fire.

—I’m kind of hoping you will, to be honest.

—Fuck you.

—Might not be worth the trouble, though. I’m counting maybe fifteen hairs.

—Better than you can do, Sawyer.

—No argument there.

—You look about six with that haircut. Like they had to shave your head at school to check for fleas.

She smiled at him. —What was up with all that b.s. back there? My father isn’t dean of anything. You know that.

He shrugged. —You told me that he used to be. Back before his, shall we say, romantic complications.

—You were lying, she said. —You were bearing false witness.

—Your virtue does you credit, pilgrim. But it would be a hell of a lot more convincing if you stopped grinning like a monkey.

She closed her eyes and settled back into her seat. —I can’t believe we’re on this plane, she said.

She came awake in the dark to the sound of her name. She was far from herself and returned only slowly. The voice she had heard was not her mother’s or her father’s, not exactly, but the same silvery thread of worry ran through it that her parents’ voices had. She waited with her eyes closed but it did not speak again.

—You are traveling to the Emirates? said a man across the aisle.

Blearily she turned to take his measure. He was portly and bearded and he blinked at her kindly. His voice was not the voice that had spoken her name but he seemed a remnant of her dream regardless. He wore a blue chalk-striped blazer over a shalwar kameez and a Qur’an lay open on his seatback table. She sat up and made an effort to seem boyish.

—Just to change planes, she said. —We’re going to Karachi. My friend has family in Pakistan.

—Ah, the man said. —Karachi.

He pulled the Book toward him and asked no more questions. He sat spotlit and solemn, the only passenger in sight who wasn’t sleeping. His thin lips moved subtly. He seemed to be reciting from memory.

—We’re traveling to Peshawar, she said. —To a madrasa there.

—A madrasa! the man said. —That is very fine. He spoke a musical and British-sounding English. —Your intention is to memorize the suras? To learn them to heart?

—Yes, sir. It is.

He nodded gravely. —You are embarking on an honorable spree.

—I am, she said, biting her lip to keep from smiling. Beside her Decker mumbled in his sleep.

—But it is soon for you, I think, to leave your family. You can’t have many more than fourteen years.

—My family can spare me, she said.

The man inclined his head. —You do them credit.

—Thank you, sir. I’m not sure they’d see it that way.

He let this pass without comment. —Peshawar is an uncertain place. But in the madrasa you will have your security. They will see to your case.

—To my case?

The man smiled and said nothing.

They sat for what seemed a great while without speaking, listening to the sighs and protestations of the plane. Underneath or behind the man’s amiable manner was a quality that set him apart from the passengers around him. Or so it seemed to her as she watched him in the artificial twilight of the cabin.

—We hope to continue on from Peshawar, she said. —After we’ve finished our studies.

The man nodded politely.

—My friend says Pakistan is not an Islamic state. Not in the true sense of the word.

He gave what might have been a laugh. —Ah! he said. —Of course. It’s very far from that.

—We’re hoping to visit Afghanistan.

—Yes?

—Yes, sir. To cross into Nangarhar by the Torkham Gate.

The man’s expression brightened. —But that is my own country! The Nangarhar province. We have a saying on the road when you arrive, a kind of advertisement: Nangarhar, House of Knowledge, Cradle of Peace. He nodded to himself. —It is warm in Nangarhar, and very green. Green all the year. We have another saying there: Forever Spring.

Of course this man is an Afghan, Aden thought. Of course he is. She waited respectfully until he spoke again.

—My work is in fabrics. I reside in Karachi. I have not seen Nangarhar in quite some years.

—I would like to see it, Aden said. —I’m excited to see it.

—You must see it.

—It’s safer now, I think. My friend tells me it’s safer. The warlords have all been pushed back to the north.

The man made a gesture she couldn’t interpret.

—Isn’t that true?

—The animals of the north have been given a kick, he said, repeating the same cutting movement.

—Yes.

—By other animals. By other beasts.

—By students, she said. —By the devout. By a learned coalition.

—Young man, he said slowly. —Where have you heard of this?

She held her breath and counted down from ten. It was hard to speak calmly. —My friend told me about it. He gave me a book.

—A book? said the man. —Not the Qur’an, I think.

—They’re talibs, sir. Students. They’re fighting to bring faith back to the country. They’re fighting against the godless, like the mujahideen did against the Russians. Am I wrong about that?

—I will ask you a question.

—Please.

—Why do you care to pass over the border?

—I told you already, sir. I— She hesitated. —I just want to see it. A place ruled by believers. A country full of people living by the word of God.

—Your friend fancies himself an adventurer, does he? A bearer of arms? He glanced past her. —He has this ambition? To join in the fight?

Reflexively she turned to look at Decker. His mouth was working quietly as he slept.

—He told me he doesn’t, she answered. —He promised me that.

—I see.

It struck her now that the man’s manner had changed. Though he remained civil he no longer looked at her. —No such ambition, he said, letting his eyes rest on Decker. —I am satisfied to hear it.

—Why is that?

—Because he is still very young.

He opened his Qur’an and did not speak again. For the rest of the flight he remained as he was, sitting straight-backed and serene with the Book in his lap. Each time Aden awoke she looked shyly at him in his warm pool of light and found him exactly as he’d been before. When they arrived in Dubai he asked her help in bringing down his rolling suitcase and thanked her and wished her good fortune with her study of the Recitation. She never saw him again.

—Who were you talking to? said Decker as they came out of the gate.

—A Pashtun from Nangarhar. Can you believe it?

He let out a yawn. —That explains that.

—Meaning what?

—He had that sort of tribal shuffle. Like this. Decker took a few waddling steps. —It comes from walking barefoot over rocks.

—You’ve never seen an Afghan in your life. You’re just being ignorant.

—There’s an Afghan kebab place in Santa Rosa, Sawyer. You’ve been there yourself. What the hell kind of mood are you in?

She’d wanted so badly for things to be different. The place and the people. She’d hoped for grace and dignity and unity of purpose. Instead she felt the same disgust she’d felt at SFO, the same dismay, the same remove from everything she saw. Certain details had changed but the place was no different. The same shadowlessness, the same array of gaudy shops, the same sterility. She’d been a fool to think her country had released her.

They were sitting at their connecting gate before she spoke again. —I hate it here. We might as well still be in California.

—It’s an airport, Sawyer. Decker yawned into his sleeve. —What did you expect?

—I don’t know. She pressed a thumb to her teeth and bit down on the cuticle. —I don’t know, she repeated. —Not this place.

A group of Saudis passed them on their way to a neighboring gate, the men in tunics and keffiyeh and open-toed expensive-looking shoes. The wives walked a few steps behind their husbands, chattering and ignoring their overfed children, encumbered with bright bags of luxury goods. She felt sick to her stomach. The children clutched their own bags to their chests or dragged them indifferently across the polished floor. The smallest boy carried a bottle of cologne in a starfish-shaped box.

Decker sighed and cracked his knuckles as he watched the Saudis pass. —Are we just going to sit here for the next six million hours?

—I don’t like it any better than you do.

He gave her statement due consideration. —All right then, he said. —Let’s get up to no good.

They spent the next hour in a shop called Golden Ali Baba Duty Free. The prices were displayed on sliding vinyl tabs beneath each item and while Decker engaged the saleswoman in conversation Aden went stealthily to work in Scotch & Bourbon. The twelve-year Macallan that had been on sale at €59.99 was now offered at €99.95 and the eighteen-year at €00.99. The Glenlivet was €6,779.02 and the Jameson cost nothing at all. On the highest shelf, in a velvet-lined case previously occupied by Laphroaig Original Cask Strength, she set a starfish-shaped bottle of cologne. Then she noticed the saleswoman standing behind her.

—You are helping with my work? That is generous. But first to learn the difference between whiskey and perfume.

—Where we come from they’re the same, she heard Decker answer. —They’re both made from the devil’s urine. The dreaded Al-Kool.

—And where is this place? said the woman, beckoning to security.

—Nangarhar, said Aden.

—Don’t judge us, miss, said Decker. —We’re mujahideen. We were born in a cave.

To their amazement they were ushered out of the shop without further questioning and left to disappear into the crowd. Decker whispered that they should take this as a blessing, maybe even an omen, which did not sound like Decker at all. She spun slowly in place in the bustling concourse and everything she saw and heard surprised her. The distance she’d felt earlier had passed without her noticing and now she fought the urge to laugh or to dance or to shout at the top of her lungs. She saw women in niqab and men in keffiyeh and blinding white vestments and began at last to understand how far she was from home. It made her feel as weightless as a bird.

Sometime later they found themselves in a magazine shop and her sight fell on a row of books in Arabic and Persian. She saw no English names or words at all. To have traveled so far. To have crossed half the world. She ran a thumb across the richly colored spines.

—We made it, she heard Decker say. —We finally made it, Sawyer.

She chose a book at random and studied its cover. The word embossed there in silver foil was one she did not know. It lay dead on her tongue when she tried to pronounce it. She grew aware of Decker close behind her.

—Not yet, she said.

He hooked a finger through her belt and turned her toward him.

—The hell with that. We made it, girl. We’re gone.

—That old man, she said quietly. —The one on the plane.

—What? He drew her closer. —Don’t talk to me about some fat old man right now.

—He asked if you were an adventurer. That’s what he called it. If you planned to go and fight.

—Of course not.

—That’s what I told him.

—Admit it though, Sawyer. It would be—

—It would be stupid.

—For you, I guess. He gave a shrug. —Because you’re not a man.

She said nothing for a moment. —You’re just pretending now. It’s make-believe. You’re trying out a part.

—Of course I am, he said. —And so are you.

She stood there unflinching and let him appraise her. He’d earned this much, surely. This modest concession. His face too close to hers to get in focus. His warm smoker’s breath on her lips and her neck. She felt his thumbnail through the linen of her shirt.

—Sawyer, he whispered. —Let’s go find a place.

A shiver ran through her as she braced the heel of her right hand against his ribs. He smiled and leaned closer. She pushed away and saw his eyes go dark.

—Careful, Decker.

—What for?

—Use your head for a second. All right? Think about where we are.

He frowned and slid his hand under her shirt. The heat of it felt good after the chill.

—This is the Emirates, she whispered. —Not some park bench in Berkeley.

—I don’t—

—Not a place where you want to get caught with a boy.

—Don’t be an idiot, Sawyer. You’re not as convincing as that.

—Take a look for yourself.

He turned his head and as he did she watched the understanding hit. —How long have they been doing that?

—Doing what?

—You know what goddamn it. Staring like they want to hang me from a flagpole by my balls.

—I’m guessing probably since you got a boner.

He didn’t laugh. —Just get me out of here.

She led him by the sleeve past the cashier and a knot of hard-eyed patrons to an empty gate across the corridor. He followed her tamely. His expression was that of someone lost in thought.

—You’re angry at me, she said as they sat down.

—I’m not angry. He squinted at the floor. —I don’t know what I am.

—Listen to me, Decker. You came all this way and I’m grateful. I’m so grateful to you. I never could have made it by myself.

He shook his head. —You’d have made it fine without me. Better, probably.

—You’re the only friend I have. Do you know that?

—I do, actually. But you’re the kind of person who doesn’t need more than one. He grinned at her. —One might even be too much.

—Would you stop for a second?

—I’m not—

—Stop trying to be funny. She pushed his shoulders back as she bent toward him. —This is going to come out wrong.

—What is?

—It’s not too late for you to go back home.

His mouth came open but he made no sound.

—Because it isn’t going to happen, she said gently.

—What are you talking about?

—What you wanted back there, in that shop. It isn’t going to happen, all right? Are you listening? Not ever again.

She’d thought her roundabout way of talking might confuse him but he understood at once. —But you like it, he mumbled. —You told me you liked it. You never once said no to me before.

—That was before, she told him. —That was in a different country.

—What does the country have to—

—Look at me, Decker. Do I look like the person you did that stuff with? Do I even still look like Aden Sawyer?

—You look like Aden Sawyer with a haircut. He bowed his head. —It doesn’t matter anyway. I know who you are.

—You know who I used to be, maybe. When I had long hair and smoked pot and washed the piss out of my mom’s sheets every day. But I’m not even sure you knew me then.

She watched his features slacken. He put up no argument, said nothing at all, and she gave a silent thanks for the reprieve. She couldn’t have explained it any better. She was still trying to explain it to herself.

—All I’m saying is that you can change your mind. You don’t have to get on this next flight, even. You can do what you want.

Decker didn’t answer.

—I’ll tell you what, though.

—What?

—I can’t think of anything back home I’m going to miss.

To her astonishment he looked at her and laughed. —And here I thought this trip was my idea. All those chatrooms. All those books I made you read. Join the Caravan and whatnot.

—I’m not joining any caravans. I’m not joining any armies. Don’t go trying to change the game on me. Okay?

She sat back and waited for his grudging nod.

—Okay. Thanks. And one more thing.

—Holy shit. What?

—I won’t be using swear words anymore. I won’t be cursing.

He let out a breath. —You’re really fucking doing this.

—Of course I am. Just like we said.

—Hold on. He cocked his head. —Did something happen with your voice?

—What do you mean?

—Your voice sounds lower. Are you doing that on purpose?

—Took you long enough to notice. She grinned at him. —I’ve been practicing forever. Like a month.

He sat back in his seat. —And this whole time I’ve been worrying that you’d have second thoughts. I’ve got to be the dumbest shit there ever was.

—I didn’t think you’d come at all, she said, taking his hand in hers. —I was so surprised to see you on that bus.

Half an hour before boarding she dug her toiletries bag out of her father’s pack and followed the backlit signage to the restrooms. The men’s and women’s entrances were separated by a frosted glass partition and she stopped in front of it, flushed and lightheaded, waiting for her fear to die away. Men passed to the right of her, women to the left. The women glanced at her reflexively before averting their eyes but the men paid her no mind at all. She waited and watched, drawing courage from their obvious indifference. A boy of no more than ten shuffled by, fiddling sleepily with the zipper of his jeans. She gritted her teeth and followed him inside.

The restroom seemed more harshly lit even than the corridor and she was about to turn and bolt when she saw that the men at the urinals took care to look at no one but themselves. She hadn’t expected such a show of modesty. She had a dim but sharp-edged memory of being taken into a lavatory by her father years before, of staring up at the urinals in wonder and confusion, and she pictured him guiding her forward now, his strong square palm between her shoulder blades. The farthest stall was empty and she locked its door behind her.

The floor of the stall was littered with bunched wads of paper, the damp debris of bodies in extremis, worlds different from the brilliance of the terminal outside. She gave thanks for the mess: it made the space less frightening, less perfect. She might have been in any public restroom in the world. She lowered the lid of the toilet and sat—tentatively at first, then with all of her weight—and quickly pulled off her kameez.

She sat motionless then with the shirt in her lap, listening to the sounds from the urinals and the stalls and the sinks, so different from the noises women made. She heard no restraint or even self-awareness in the grunts of effort and relief around her. She was sitting on a toilet in a place reserved for men. No one had tried to stop her. She stared down at her fish-white arms and faintly freckled shoulders. The thrill of secret knowledge made it difficult to breathe. She pulled her pants and panties down and pushed her knees apart. The lure of invisibility. The power of deceit. These pleasures were ungodly and she endeavored to suppress them but they racked her with excitement all the same. She was no one in that instant, an animal with neither name nor history, which also meant that she was not a child. Her childhood meant less to her now than the wads of paper littering the floor.

A man came to the door as she sat there entranced and tried to force it open with his shoulder. He was wearing espadrilles and chinos and he abused the door in Arabic before he stepped away. He seemed to think that no one was inside.

She still wore a tank top that Decker had lent her and when the man had gone she looked down at her chest. Though the air in the terminal was perfectly conditioned she was sweating and her nipples stood out plainly through the cloth. The man was two stalls down from her now and she heard him muttering and fumbling with his belt. She pulled the tank top over her head and hung it from a hook and held her breasts in her cupped hands, as she sometimes did to lull herself to sleep. Her hands could still cover them, but only just. She felt secure again and let her mind wander for a time, listening to all the pissing men. Then she opened her toiletries case and brought out an Ace bandage that had once been her mother’s and wound it carefully around her ribs and chest.

Karachi proved a greater disappointment than the airport in Dubai. It reminded her of Oakland and Sacramento and the handful of other cities she knew, but it was hotter and more desperate and smelled of things she couldn’t put a name to. The housing complexes and vacant lots and even the construction sites seemed primeval to her, the ground cracked and septic, the packed bazaars and thoroughfares a scrim over some underlying ruin. It disgusted and dismayed her and the shame this triggered brought her close to panic. The fault was hers, she knew, and not the city’s. She was seeing it as her mother would have seen it.

She hailed an unmarked taxicab and rode with Decker to the terminal for buses headed north and bought two tickets. She’d expected him to protest, to insist that they spend that first night in the city, but he followed her like someone half asleep. He made no mention of his cousins in Karachi.

A bus left for Peshawar that same afternoon and they waited in the diesel-smelling courtyard of HINDUKUSH HI-WAYS, dipping flatbread into bowls of tepid dhal. The buses that passed as they sat on their duffels were garishly colored and slathered in images painted by hand: diamonds and horses and crude constellations, pomegranates and tigers, bluebirds and mountains and all-seeing eyes. She marveled at the profusion of graven renderings in a nation of Muslims but reminded herself how far from the true faith the country had fallen. She pictured the buses’ interiors as richly upholstered and smoky with incense, smelling of anise and cinnamon, like the restaurants she’d gone to on Sunday evenings with her father and mother, long ago and on the far side of the world.

Eighteen buses passed through the yard, each more ornate than the last, before the Bannu Line to Peshawar arrived. The passengers ignored them but the man who filled their teacups watched them closely. He watched her when she stood to use the toilet and he watched as she returned. When they settled their bill he gave an elaborate bow, leering frankly at Aden, and rested his right hand on Decker’s shoulder. He said something in Urdu as he took the cups away.

—What did he say to you?

—Didn’t catch it, Decker muttered, stepping past her.

—What was it?

—Stop looking at him damn it. Let’s just go.

The bus to Peshawar was empty when they climbed aboard, as though some disaster had struck the north without their knowledge. They sat down and waited with their bags on their knees, neither of them speaking a word, and her stomach began to cramp from the fumes and the dhal. Men boarded singly or in pairs, many of them holding hands, and seemed to fall asleep as soon as they sat down. They had a forsaken look to them, chagrined and defeated, though it was possible that they were only tired. Many of them were wearing freshly store-bought shirts with creases at the collars and the sleeves. It was the day before Juma’a and she imagined them bound for villages along the northwest border, in the tribal regions, to pass the Day of Assembly with their families before returning by that same reeking bus to whatever form of work it was that had left them so expressionless and still.

As they drove northward out of the city, past tarp-covered bazaars and ornate mosques and slime-clogged aqueducts, she began by degrees to recover. The sun rode low over the shining alluvial fan of the Indus and a line of cranes flew gracefully across its red disk as if the sprawl the bus moved through were no more than a trick of the eye. Decker’s head came to rest on her shoulder. His touch was innocent in sleep and drew her back into her body and she felt safe inside her clothes again and comfortable and calm. A sentence she’d read in some chatroom came back to her as her own head grew heavy: You can either touch each other’s skin or you can touch the face of God. She slid nearer to Decker and felt his coarse disheveled hair against her neck. He was beautiful and she wanted him against her. For the briefest of instants she wanted not to disappear. Then she thought of the waiter in the exhaust-stained courtyard and the look on his face as he’d whispered in Urdu. She thought of the way his tongue had come to rest against his teeth.

She came awake in the night to Decker’s breath against her neck. —Did you say something?

—Tell me, said Decker.

—What? I just woke up. I don’t—

—Tell me why you’re here.

—I don’t know what you’re talking about.

—On this bus. Heading north. Here with me.

She willed herself to think clearly. —I’m sticking to the plan we made, that’s all. The one we made in Santa Rosa.

—The hell you are.

She kept quiet and watched him. He seemed to be smiling.

—When you got your hair buzzed and started wearing those clothes I thought it was for both of us. For you to follow me. For us to keep together. He shook his head. —I was wrong about that. Or else you were lying.

—I wasn’t lying. Not to you. I’ve never lied to you.

He nodded to himself, considering her answer. —You like girls.

—Come on, Decker. That’s not even a question.

—What’s the answer?

She looked past him out the window. His round head hung reflected there with her own head behind. In silhouette she saw no difference between them.

—I don’t know.

They were in high country now with the least curve of moon. She thought of her conversion and the vows that she had made. As always the fact of it calmed her. A fire smoldered in the courtyard of a newly finished mosque and she saw herself arriving for the first prayer of the morning, the dawn light behind her, all heads turning as she stepped across the threshold. She imagined their indignation, then their wonder, then the voice of the mullah calling their attention back to prayer. She saw herself taking her place among them, gracious in her modesty, sovereign in her devotion. She turned the image back and forth in her mind, letting each of its brilliant facets catch the light. Then she imagined herself in her little room in Santa Rosa, staring up at the ceiling, listening to her mother’s labored breathing through the wall.

—I’m going to ask you a favor, she said. —No more questions.

—You don’t have many favors left to ask.

—You can go home any time you want. I told you that.

He shook his head. —Bullshit. You don’t speak Urdu or Pashto, maybe two or three words, and that fancy Arabic of yours won’t cut it anywhere outside a mosque. If I go home you’re done.

—You said yourself that I’d have made it—

—I don’t see you fooling this country for six whole weeks, Sawyer. I’ll tell you that much for free. You’d better have a story ready for them when they catch you in your panties and your bra.

She hesitated. —You said they have a custom here. Remember? Of girls being dressed up as boys. You said they even have a name for it.

—That’s got nothing to do with what I’m talking about. Nothing.

—Tell me the name again, Decker.

—You know it yourself, he said. —Bacha posh. But that’s something parents decide for their children. Fathers decide it. It won’t do a thing for you if you get caught. He gripped her arm. —Why the fuck are you smiling?

—Just about what you said.

—What I said?

—The six weeks.

—Listen to me, he hissed. —I plan to make it back to Santa Rosa with all my parts in mint condition. I plan to come home with my head on my neck and my dick in my shorts.

She smiled in the dark. —I can’t blame you for that.

—Then why are you so goddamn happy?

—I’m not sure I’ll be going back at all.

The next time she awoke it was morning and the sun was high and pale above the Indus. She looked out at the water, faster and deeper and blacker. A true northern river. The road ran hard by the bank and followed every cut and furrow of the hillside. The tribal zone was perhaps fifty miles to the west and she told herself that she could feel its closeness. Then she told herself that she felt no such thing.

Dust filled the air even at that early hour and wraithlike men and oxen staggered through it. The bus overtook flatbed trucks hauling propane and rock salt and chickens in blue wicker cages. Three boys on a moped passed them on an incline and threw fistfuls of sand at her window. They stuck out their tongues at her and she salaamed.

—We’ll be there in an hour, said Decker.

—Who says so?

—My best buddy Khalid, he said, pointing across the aisle. He lowered his voice. —He’s been trying to sell me hashish.

—An hour, she said, sitting forward. —That’s soon.

She reached up sleepily to arrange her bangs and was surprised for a moment to find her head shorn. She turned back to the window to hide her confusion. The bedlam outside was so all-encompassing that it put her in mind of a mass exodus, or some great northward pilgrimage, or the aftermath of an enormous wedding.

—This is what you wanted, Sawyer. Decker reached past her and rapped on the glass. —Seven thousand miles from where you’re from.

She felt herself nodding. —This is what I wanted.

A group of women stood balanced on the highway’s shoulder, indifferent to the chaos, holding firmly to each other through the rumpled blue silk of their burqas. She imagined their eyes staring out through the lacework. She imagined them sightless, then faceless. A tremor ran through her.

—I’ve been picturing you in one of those things, said Decker. —With nothing on underneath. What do you think?

—Shut up.

—We could pick one up for you in Peshawar. It sure would make things simpler.

—What the hell would it make simpler, Decker? What part of our plan? Our coming here? My studying with you at the madrasa? She waited for him to answer. —Or is there something you’re not telling me?

He shrugged. —I was thinking you could hide me up in there sometimes when things got scary. Would you deny a brother in his time of need?

She pushed his hand away and turned back to the window. An even gaudier bus was passing in a rippling haze of diesel.

—When did you stop laughing at my jokes?

—Just stop talking.

—You didn’t use to be this pissed off, Sawyer.

—You’re wrong. I always was. Just not at you.

Peshawar was no less abject than Karachi had been but this time she was not to be deceived. She saw through or past the stained concrete and armed checkpoints and sewage troughs and red-lipped unveiled women leering down at her from billboards. She saw it for the holy fortress it had been. The bus passed a mud lot so crowded with tents that there looked to be no open ground between them. Sun-bleached tarps and kilim scraps and siding weighted down with broken bricks. Limping mange-marked dogs and creeks of yellow filth and ravaged faces. The man across the aisle let out a sudden angry laugh.

—Those were Afghans, she murmured to Decker.

—Who was?

—Back there in the tents. Those refugees.

—That’s not what my boy here called them.

—What did he call them?

—You don’t want to know.

At a bazaar near the station they bought water and biscuits and Decker grudgingly put on his shalwar kameez. The few women she saw were in burqas and the men wore brown homespun headcloths or pleated hats of heavy beaten felt. Here and there she saw young men in the pillbox-like skullcaps of students of scripture and she wondered whether any might be from the madrasa where she and Decker meant to study. So far away, she said under her breath, too quietly for anyone to hear. So far away. So far away. So far. Again a wave of triumph seemed to lift her off her feet. Decker whispered to her to stop laughing but no one in the jostling crowd around them seemed to notice. She wanted them to notice. All of them. She wanted everyone to see how far she’d come.

The university was nearby and as they made their way there she tried to interpret the slogans spelled out in chalk or in housepaint wherever she looked. Some were obscene, at least in Decker’s rendering, and some were advertisements for auto parts or rice or gasoline, but most were exhortations to jihad. Many invoked the name of the Prophet himself or of those blessed enough to have fought and died beside him. The letters were familiar but the words they formed meant nothing to her. Some were followed by quotes from the Recitation or by columns of precisely stenciled numbers.

—What are those numerals for? Do they mark the citation?

—Phone numbers, Decker said, making a dialing motion with his finger. —Join the caravan, pilgrims. One call does it all.

They had arranged to meet Decker’s cousin Yaqub at the east gate to the university but though they waited there in plain view, standing on their duffels and scanning the crowd, by afternoon no one had come. In his downy beard and brown kameez Decker looked no different from the locals but the locals seemed to keep their distance from him. His hesitancy marked him as a stranger, she decided. His uncertainty made him someone to steer clear of.

—Maybe we should change some more money. How much have you got left?

—I gave you all my money, Decker. You know that.

—All of it?

He picked up his duffel without waiting for an answer and cut headlong into the crowd. Between a tobacconist’s and a bakery they found a window across whose shutters the symbols of various currencies had been neatly scrawled in pink and yellow chalk. A man with teeth stained red from betel nut took the money Decker handed him and passed back a fistful of tattered rupees. She’d never seen so fat a wad of bills. Decker counted the money, then counted it again, then said one word sharply in Urdu. The man broke into a wide grin, disclosing his blood-colored gums. He reached into his shirtfront and brought out a small stack of sweat-blackened coins.

—Take them, Decker said, gesturing with the rupees. A group of boys had gathered while she stood at the window and now they closed ranks, pushing between the two of them, blessing her softly and begging for coins. Suffer the children, O believers, for theirs is the greater need. Their blessings grew shriller as the ring of bodies tightened.

—What are you doing, Sawyer?

—We don’t need all this money.

—Like hell we don’t. What are you—

—They’re little kids, Decker. We can’t just ignore them. What kind of Muslim are you?

There were more of them now and they pulled at her outstretched arms and clung to her shirtsleeves. Decker’s panicked voice was swallowed by their flattery and pleading. Not all of them were children and they came from all directions and she felt herself pulled backward toward the window and the wall. The money she’d offered had long since been taken and still the crowd around her clutched and pressed and clamored. They hung from her shoulders and worked their fingertips into her belly and her armpits and the gaps between her ribs. They were pulling at her collar and her shalwar’s linen drawstring. She shouted at them in Arabic and they answered her in English. She seemed to hear the words bacha posh whispered behind her but she couldn’t be sure. They were laughing at her openly and parroting her speech. The voices grew dim and the light seemed to fade and she saw herself as they must surely see her. Blood rushed to her head and her body went light and she heard a small voice asking God’s forgiveness. She saw herself stripped naked. A shutter clattered open and she felt herself wrenched back into the dark.

The rupee merchant kept her in his shop until the mob dispersed and Decker came to claim her. The merchant seemed embarrassed by her gratitude, or by his broken English, or simply by her presence in those spare and unlit rooms. She sat with her arms around her knees in the corner, painfully aware of her girlish body in its sheath of rumpled linen. When Decker came she asked him to thank the man in Urdu and to offer him some form of payment and he shook his head and told her to shut up.

She followed Decker mutely back to the university gate and made no objection when he left her there and wandered off alone. He came back with a packet of chips and two lukewarm cans of Farsee Kola and they took turns standing up so Decker’s cousin wouldn’t miss them. As the hours passed she felt her courage dwindling. She began to feel hollow. She took care to speak softly, to give no offense. She knew nothing and understood nothing. Even on that paved and cobbled street there was dust in the air and she found herself longing to shelter behind it. A woman in a burqa passed them, gliding measuredly across the pitted ground, and she watched her move with something close to envy.

—I’m tempted to try one of those on myself, Decker said, watching her watch the woman. —If you won’t then I will.

She drank the last of her cola. —I don’t see anybody stopping you.

—Maybe my cousin got the date wrong. Maybe he thought we were on the Islamic calendar.

—Very funny. She frowned at him. —That’s not possible, is it?

—Everybody else’s damn number is tagged around here. I bet the madrasa doesn’t even have a phone. We should probably sign up with one of these militias.

—I’m not ready to get blown up yet.

—I was born ready, brother.

—I’d like to take a shower first.

—Martyrdom Is Your Desire and Ours, he said, squinting at a slogan on the wall across the street. —That’s a pretty good description of our day.

—You don’t even have an address? Just the last name of the mullah?

—I’ve got what town he’s in. He took out a folded scrap of yellow paper. —Half an hour’s drive west. That’s what Yaqub told me. Feeling up for a hike?

They waited one more hour at the gate. She fell asleep for a time with her back to the wall and her legs gripping her duffel like a saddle. She had a dream that drops of blood were running down her calves into her shoes. There was no pain, only embarrassment. When she awoke Decker was holding the scrap of paper up to the light, like a shopkeeper checking a counterfeit bill.

—Rise and shine, Sawyer.

She blinked up at him. —How much money did you change back there?

—Enough for a hotel room. The kind where you shit in a bucket.

She nodded and got to her feet. —Let’s get going.

—You have somewhere in mind?

—If it’s enough for a room it’s enough for a car.

The driver they hired had heard of the village but looked doubtful when they asked about the school. He seemed to speak neither English nor Urdu and shook his head regretfully when Decker showed him the name on the paper. They drove for an hour on a paved road and as long again on none at all and he deposited them at sundown at a cistern between crumbling sandstone bluffs. Not a house was in sight. He refused their rupees with a shake of his head, letting them fall through his hands to the ground. They offered him an American five-dollar bill and he bobbed his bald head and allowed them to take their duffels out of the trunk and drove slowly away after calling down God’s blessing on their studies.

It was dark enough to make out a weak wash of light up the slope and they followed it stumbling and cursing to what looked like a child’s or an idiot’s rendering of a town: high mud-walled compounds, bowing outward and cracked at the corners, with pale blue gates of corrugated steel. A dog in the deserted square barked halfheartedly at them without getting to its feet. From somewhere nearby came the smell of boiling dhal. They went from building to building in search of a bell, too exhausted and timid to knock or call out. Eventually a gate swung inward and a man appeared and beckoned Decker closer.

She watched the two of them converse in cautious murmurs, guarded and formal, keeping their arms at their sides. After what seemed a great while the man pulled the gate shut behind him and led Decker hastily around the corner. Instantly she felt as helpless as a toddler. She followed their voices to a stucco-walled compound abutting the first, lit at its entrance by the headlights of a truck. Only then did she notice how completely night had fallen. She had no option but to make her way across that floodlit ground.

She closed her eyes for a moment and felt someone touch her. She was trembling and her steps were unsteady and her body felt outside of her control. A small hand found her arm and pulled her forward. A boy no more than six years old was leading her into the compound by the wrist.

The man who shook her awake the next morning spoke both English and Arabic in a voice almost too decorous to hear. He carried a cup of green tea in one hand and a plate of flatbread in the other and he watched her raptly as she ate and drank. He did not ask why she had crossed half the world to study at his dirt-floored madrasa, or whether she had found the room comfortable, or why she had slept in her clothes.

—The bread is to your liking? said the mullah in English.

—Thank you, mu’allim. It’s wonderful.

The room was bare and windowless and the sound of voices joined in recitation carried faintly through the wall. She had a memory of Decker sleeping beside her but Decker was nowhere in sight. The mullah wore bifocals and a yellow homespun shawl and a wine-colored birthmark ran from his left ear to the collar of his shirt. His lips moved as he watched her, as though in sympathy with the disembodied voices. A second pair of glasses hung from his neck by a loop of plastic fishing line. It occurred to her now that Decker had told her almost nothing about the man before her or about the school itself. She had trusted him blindly. She’d been told the mullah’s name and nothing more.

—I’ve allowed you to sleep through the first prayer, said the mullah. —For travelers an exception can be made.

She sipped her tea and gave a tight-lipped nod. Her voice seemed to have failed her.

—My name is Mufti Khizar Hayat Khan. You and your friend are welcome to this house. While you remain I am father and mother to you. He pointed at her. —Now you tell me your name.

She set her cup down circumspectly on the floor between her feet. —Aden Sawyer, she said.

—Yes. This is what I have been told. Is it your full and only name?

She shook her head. —My middle name is Grace.

—Ah! said the mullah. —And what does it mean?

Again her voice failed her. Her feet were bare and she was suddenly afraid that they might attract the mullah’s notice. They were slender and delicate, her most girlish feature, not yet ready to be seen. She felt herself flinch.

—You needn’t be afraid of me, child. We have no cause for fear inside this house. He brought his heavy hands together. —Outside is another matter.

She swallowed the last of the flatbread and found the word in Arabic that she’d been seeking. It rang strangely in her ears, deeper and angrier than she’d intended. She wondered whether all boys’ voices sounded harsh to them.

—Na’ama, the mullah repeated. —Na’ama is Grace.

—Yes, mu’allim.

—This is a common name in California?

—It was, mu’allim. In more religious times.

He nodded again. —And your father?

—What about him?

He tipped one hand upward. —His name. His vocation.

—Martin Isaiah Sawyer. She took in a breath. —He’s a professor.

—Of what?

—Of Islam. Of Islamic studies.

The mullah sat forward. —Ah! He leads a madrasa?

—No, mu’allim. The students he instructs are not believers.

—Not believers?

—They are not, mu’allim.

—Then why do they study the Book?

—My father would say— She hesitated.

—Yes?

—My father would say, because they find it interesting. —Interesting, said the mullah.

—Yes, mu’allim. Like visiting a foreign country.

He pursed his lips as though he’d eaten something sour. —And your father himself? Has he been rewarded with faith?

The voices in the next room had risen. The sura was one she knew well. Should you slip after clear signs have been revealed to you, be assured that God is Almighty, All-Wise.

—I don’t know the answer to that question, mu’allim.

His expression clouded further. —How do you not know?

Are they truly waiting for God to come to them in the shadowy folds of clouds, with His angels, when judgment is pronounced and all revert to God?

—Because he never told me.

—Does he not pray in your home?

For those who disbelieve, the present life has been made to appear attractive.

—My father and mother live in two different houses, mu’allim. I don’t see him much.

—Tell me about your mother.

—I’d rather not, mu’allim.

—Ah, he said. —And why not?

—Because she’s a drunk.

The mullah cleared his throat and ran his fingers through his beard. He seemed to be observing something just beneath her cot. He seemed to be considering its merits.

—I see now why you came to us.

—Yes, mu’allim.

—Let me ask you something more. Have you elder brothers?

She shook her head.

—You are the oldest in your house?

—I am, mu’allim.

—Then why do you not bear your father’s name?

—I don’t— She stopped herself. —I can’t say, mu’allim. I’ve never asked.

The mullah nodded thoughtfully. She kept straight-backed and solemn and watched him considering her answers. It was a sign of disrespect to stare but the mullah seemed indifferent to her rudeness. She tried to look away but could not do it.

—I see, he said a second time, taking the cup back from her and getting to his feet. —Perhaps it is well, given what you have told me, for Martin Isaiah Sawyer’s name to go no further.

—Yes, mu’allim.

—In this house you will be called by a new name. One of your own choosing. You will find this is best. He took her by the hand.

—I beg your pardon, mu’allim. I—

—Yes, child?

—I don’t like to be touched.

He seemed not to hear her. —You are a young man of gumption, to travel so far. Is this what you say? Of gumption?

—Some people might say that. It’s an old word, mu’allim. Like grace.

—I see. He bobbed his head. —Do you have need yet of a razor?

She opened her mouth and closed it.

—Feel no embarrassment, child. We have boys in our care of less than seven years. He straightened and turned toward the door. —I’ll see that a copy of the Book is brought to you, that you may choose your name.

—I don’t need the Book, mu’allim.

—No need of the Book? Why is this?

—I chose my name the day I left my mother’s house.

He gave her a Qur’an regardless and led her down an unlit corridor with his hand at the small of her back. He was temperate and mild and did not rush her. It was she who was rushing. The Recitation grew brighter as the daylight receded. God guides whomsoever He wills to a path that is straight. Though the voices were high-pitched and lilting they were the voices of men and men only and this thought forced the air out of her lungs and made her head go hot and empty. She could no longer make out the walls or the floor. She was listening her way forward.

At the corridor’s turning the mullah stopped her and opened an unpainted door. The hall they passed into was narrow but deep and though it was filled with skullcapped figures not a man among them raised his head to look. Fluorescents bathed the kneeling men in quavering yellow light. The Recitation was of the two hundred and fourteenth verse of the second sura of the word as revealed to the Prophet by the Angel Gabriel. Or do you imagine that you will enter the Garden without undergoing that which befell those who came before you? Violence and injury did touch them and they quaked, until the Messenger and the believers with him said: When will God’s victory come?

—Children, said the mullah in Arabic when the sura had ended, letting his hand come to rest on the declaimer’s shoulder. —Join with me in greeting Brother Suleyman. He comes to us from California.

Now their heads lifted. She had dreamed of this instant and feared what might follow but she saw no malice in that field of upturned faces. A welcome was murmured in Arabic and a language she guessed to be Pashto. The youngest sat elbow to elbow in the foremost row and she noted to her amusement that their expressions were the most dignified of all. She tried and failed to find Decker among them. She had never felt so closely watched or so unseen.

—Find a place for Brother Suleyman. We receive him this day as our honored guest.

A shoulder’s-width interval opened before her and she took her place among the youngest children. They were ten years of age at the oldest, some much younger, and she tried to make herself as small as possible. Tattered brown prayer books lay before them on bookrests and their shoulders pressed against her through the linen of her shirt. Sweat was gathering in her armpits and at the small of her back and she imagined the men behind her watching first with curiosity and then with outrage as the body her clothing hid from them came gradually into view. But of course the men were doing no such thing. They stared down at their prayer books and she did the same. When she raised her head again the mullah was gone.

The declaimer coughed into his fist and turned the page.

—The Messenger believes in what was revealed to him.

—The Messenger believes in what was revealed to him by his Lord, came the answer. —As do the believers.

All believe in God, his angels, his Books, and his messengers. We make no distinction between any of his messengers. They say: we hear and obey.

We await your forgiveness, O Lord. To you is the journey’s end.

God charges not any soul except with what it can bear. To its credit belongs what it has earned: upon it falls the burden of what it has deserved.

—Our Lord, said the declaimer.

—Our Lord, Aden answered. —Do not lay upon us a heavy burden, as You laid upon those who came before us. Our Lord, do not lay upon us that which we have no strength to bear.

They recited without pause until the noon call to prayer and when their prayers were done they gathered in the courtyard. She relieved herself in the latrine on the far side of the building, taking care no one saw her, then went looking for Decker. She found him crouched in the shade of a mulberry tree with two beardless men she hadn’t seen before. As she approached them the men got grudgingly to their feet, mumbled a few words in greeting, then drifted away. Decker sat back on his heels and watched them go.

—Your friends don’t seem to like me much, she said.

—They can’t figure you out.

The blood rushed to her head. —Figure me out how?

He yawned and shrugged his shoulders.

—Did I do something wrong at recitation?

—I wasn’t at recitation.

—Why not?

—I slept in.

—Do you want to let me know what’s going on? Are you trying to impress your new friends? Is that it?

—Don’t wig out on me, Sawyer. I’m sure you can guess.

Her back was to the yard now but she felt herself observed. —Tell me what you’re trying to tell me, Decker. Just say it in words.

—These kids grew up poor as shit. They’ve never seen— He stifled a yawn. —I don’t even know where to start. A Corvette. A laptop. An American up close. You might as well have a pointy tail and horns.

She nearly laughed with relief. —Is that all it is? That I come from the States?

—It’s enough.

—Don’t scare me like that again. Okay?

—Just quit worrying so much. That won’t help anyone.

She put a hand on his shoulder and felt him pull back. —Are you going to tell me why you’re treating me like this?

—Like what?

—Like you wish I was dead.

He squinted into the sun. —I’m trying to figure out why I should lie for you, I guess.

—Coming here was your idea, remember? Lying was always going to be a part of it. Nothing’s changed.

—You’ve changed, Sawyer. You cut off your hair and you talk in a fake voice and you won’t even say fuck. Won’t say it and won’t do it. So don’t go trying to act like I’m the one that’s different. Don’t you dare.

She gripped her knees and listened to the ordinary sounds around her. The clatter of teacups. The call of a magpie. The whining of a generator on the far side of the wall. —I’ll make this right, she said at last. —I’ll make this up to you.

—Sure thing, Sawyer. Whatever you say.

—What are you going to do, Decker?

He shook his head tiredly.

—It won’t just be me that gets in trouble if someone finds out. We came here together.

—I could leave anytime.

—That doesn’t make what I just said less true.

The look he gave her brought her precious little comfort. It was less a look of cunning or resentment than one of calm indifference. It made no sense to her.

—Don’t turn on me, Decker. Don’t do it.

He looked away from her. —You’ve got things switched around again. You turned on me.

They chanted through the afternoon until the third call to prayer and when their prayers were done they chanted on till dusk. The declaimer’s reedy singsong never wavered. The Arabic of the others was colored by Pashto or by Urdu or by languages of which she had no knowledge. She sat in the midst of them and recited in a halting, breathless voice, so softly that not even she could hear. The talibs rocked in rapture to the verses. In the very best moments her own sight seemed to dim and she could feel the verses buzzing as they passed between her teeth and that was all she wanted or could ever want.

After the fourth call to prayer Decker appeared in the doorway and found a place for himself at the back of the hall. They had reached the two hundred and sixtieth verse of the sura and each voice seemed distinct and known to her. His California twang cut through sharpest of all: the voice of privilege and vanity and everything else she’d hoped to put behind her. Her own voice was just as grotesque, just as incongruous, subdued though it was. She did her best to ignore it. She pictured herself reciting as if from on high, a small still form in all that sway and tumult. She imagined herself and the others, bowing and rising and bowing again, rippling like a field of windswept grass.

When Saul set out with his soldiers he said: God is about to test you at a river. Whoever drinks from it is not my follower. Whoever drinks not is my follower, save one who scoops a scoop into his hand.

They drank from it, all but a few.

When he passed across the river, he and those who believed with him, they said: We have no might today against Goliath and his troops.

Those who believed they would meet God said: How often a small force has overcome a numerous force, by God’s leave. God is with those who stand fast.

After the fifth prayer they took their evening meal of flatbread and dhal in the courtyard and when she’d finished she was sent for by Hayat. She found him in a sunlit room at the school’s southwest corner, humming unmusically to himself, sitting on a leopard-spotted cushion in the middle of the floor. Apart from a tea set and a padlocked metal cabinet the little room was bare of ornament. A matching cushion faced him and he gestured toward it grandly.

When she was seated the mullah arranged the pot and cups between them. A small boy with a harelip came to serve the tea but Hayat waved him off. —I’m not too decrepit to pour my own tea, praise God, he told her in English. She nodded and gave him a tentative smile.

—I take buffalo’s milk with my tea, Hayat said as he poured. —The English prefer cow’s milk, I understand.

—Yes, mu’allim, she said. —But I’m not English.

—Of course! He let his head tilt forward in what might have been a bow. —And yet you do take cow’s milk with your tea.

—I don’t take anything.

The amusement that was never entirely gone from his countenance was conspicuous now as he sat and observed her. She found herself smiling to mask her discomfort. She was tired and unsure of herself and her throat was raw from chanting. She raised her teacup to her lips and drank.

—To your fine health, the mullah said, raising his cup.

She stopped in mid-sip and returned his good wishes. —Pardon my rudeness, mu’allim, she said in Arabic. —I have many things to learn.

—You know a great amount already, Suleyman. An astonishing amount. Are many American boys like you?

She took another sip. —I don’t think so, mu’allim.

—Your Arabic is better than that of most of these country blockheads God has given me to teach. Much better. It pleases my poor half-deaf ears to hear it.

—Thank you, mu’allim.

—It is formal, of course. Not the everyday way of speaking. And there are traces of the English, especially in the qaf and the ha. He smiled. —Which only reminds us of how far you’ve come.

She bobbed her head and said nothing.

—Never have we had a visitor from such a distance. California. He pronounced the word carefully. —You do us a great honor. You and Brother Ali.

—Yes, mu’allim. Who is that?

—Your companion, of course.

—My companion? I don’t—

—Ali is the name he selected.

She looked at him blankly. He took the cup from her and refilled it.

—I’m sorry, mu’allim. I guess I’d have expected him to tell me.

—You are bosom friends with Ali. Is this so? He beamed at her. —Friends of long standing?

—I’m not sure how to answer, mu’allim.

—You may answer directly. By saying the truth.

She hesitated. —Decker Yousafzai is the best friend I have in the world. Without him I wouldn’t be sitting here now.

—That is well, said Hayat. —It is well to have such a friend. But in this house his name is Ali Al-Faridi.

She felt the blood rush to her cheeks. —Yes, mu’allim. Of course.

—I’ve had Brother Ali with me here, in this room. While you were reciting. I asked him the question I’ve just asked of you.

She sat back on the cushion. —And what did he say?

—Why are you here, Suleyman?

Her scalp began to prickle. —To learn the Holy Qur’an, mu’allim. To memorize it. To learn it by heart.

—To learn it by heart, he repeated. He took in a breath. —Yes, that is what we practice in this house. You have not been misled.

—Excuse me, mu’allim?

—No one has misled you.

She was unsure what if anything he wanted her to answer. He seemed to want nothing. She drank from her teacup.

—Of course, this school of mine is not exceptional. We are believers but we can in no way—what is the word in English? He frowned. —We can in no way contend with the great madrasas. Ashraf-ul-Madaris in Karachi, for example, or Jamia Ashrafia in Lahore. Their fame is glorious and well deserved. You have heard of these schools?

—I have, mu’allim.

—Yet you chose to come here. To my village madrasa of fewer than forty heads. Truly, we feel ourselves blessed.

She found herself nodding.

—Does it not say in scripture: Whoso emigrates in the cause of God shall find on earth many places of emigration and abundance? And elsewhere: You will surely find that the nearest in amity toward the believers are those who say: ‘We are Christians,’ and that is because they do not grow proud? He raised both arms toward her. —How true are those words, Suleyman, in this case!

—Thank you, mu’allim.

—Is it perhaps also true that you came to my school because it is close to the border?

—Excuse me, mu’allim? I don’t—

—Perhaps you are not aware that we are situated a day’s march from the border here, well within the tribal regions. Many young men pass through this district, and in fact through this village, on their way to the camps of the mujahideen. Was this fact known to you?

She shook her head stiffly.

—But you have seen their advertisements in Peshawar, I am sure. Their slogans of recruitment.

—I’ve seen them.

—I would advise you kindly, Suleyman, against this course of action.

As in every other room of that thin-walled house the sound of muffled voices carried to her. Behind or below them she heard other sounds: a motor backfiring, the laughter of children. It occurred to her for the first time, as she sat straight-backed before the mullah and struggled to reply, that there might be children in the village with no interest in the school.

—May I ask a question, mu’allim?

—You may.

—Why are you telling me this? About the mujahideen?

—I have been engaged in the instruction of young men for nigh on thirty years, Suleyman, and my eyes have been made keen, all thanks to God, to certain signs. He cupped his palm and tipped it upward, as she’d seen him do before. —You have a restlessness, child, although you take pains to keep yourself still. Your feeling for scripture is— He paused. —Your feeling for scripture is a desperate one, he said finally. —And such feeling can tip easily toward violence. I have seen this often. I have grown attentive to it.

—I came to you to learn, she said. —That’s all. To get nearer to God.

—I can have no objection to jihad, he continued, as though she hadn’t spoken. —The Prophet himself tells us: Fighting has been prescribed for you, although it is a matter hateful to you.

He sat forward and lifted his teacup and drank.

—But the jihad of the Kalashnikov may be the least useful, Suleyman, both to us and to God. Many young men have departed this house for the camps. No small number of them left in the dead of night, leaving everything behind—even the Book they had come here to study. As though it had outlived its usefulness. Few of them have graced this house again.

He took her cup and refilled it. She had been threatened before in the guise of advice—her father had done so many times, especially since her conversion—but she had no sense of what the mullah’s threat entailed. The threat had not been expressed in words or even by his voice but it hung in the air between them like a wisp of colored smoke.

—You may sleep here, Suleyman Al-Na’ama. You will do me that honor.

—Here, mu’allim? But this is your—

—We are not so fine as the schools in Lahore but you will find that you are treated with respect. You have perhaps seen the rooms—the dormitories, yes? Is this the term?—where the men have their beds. You have passed by these rooms?

—I have, mu’allim.

—Then you’ve seen that they differ from what you are used to. This room is more suitable. The cushions can be joined to make a bed.

—May I speak, mu’allim?

—You may.

—I’d like to sleep in the dorms if that’s all right. With the others. I don’t want anything the rest don’t have. I don’t want anyone to think of me as strange.

Hayat was watching her closely. —And yet you are strange, Suleyman. Even to me.

—But not forever, mu’allim. Not if God wills it. I can get to be as normal to you as this pot of tea.

The mullah ran his fingers through his beard. He smiled at her and nodded. —You will sleep in this room, Suleyman, he said.

She slept fully dressed and when the call to prayer sounded she awoke to find a bowl of water and a washcloth on the floor beside her feet. She listened for a moment, holding her breath, then got up quietly and barred the door. She opened her pack and found its inner pocket and brought out a handkerchief neatly folded to the size and thickness of a deck of cards. The cloth lay cool and dry against her palm. She unfolded it and drew out a silver wheel of pills in its envelope of foil and tore it open. The brittle sound it made was somehow pleasing. She laid the first of the pills on her tongue and packed the handkerchief away and knelt down to perform her dawn ablutions. She performed them with care because her presence in that house was a pollution and an outrage. She was a liar and dissembler and she’d never been so happy in her life. The pill had no taste at all. She ran down the corridor to join the others in the freezing unlit courtyard, placing her mat in the last row so no one would see her. But the mullah nodded to her all the same.

At midday she found Decker where he’d been the day before. He sat slouched in the mulberry’s dappled shade and watched her blankly as she crossed the yard. Again she tried and failed to grasp the change in him. The same two men sat beside him and this time they remained. She greeted them both and they smiled in return. She had no memory of seeing them in recitation or at prayer.

—These here are my cousins, said Decker. —Altaf and Yaqub. Altaf used to be a talib at this school.

She shifted from one foot to the other, unsure what to do next. —I’m honored to know you, she murmured in Arabic. They nodded and touched their right palms to their chests.

—My brother has no Arabic, the one called Altaf said.

—That’s all right. She smiled at him. —I have no Urdu.

—Urdu is a dirty language. You are better for not having it. It is the language of the ignorant. Of vagrants.

Decker gave a laugh she hadn’t heard before. He’s laughing in Urdu, she thought. Or in Pashto. The man called Yaqub nodded again and laughed uncomprehendingly, looking at each of them in turn. His features were the gentlest of the three.

—I’m sure that’s not the case, she said. —Please tell your brother that.

—Your Arabic is beautiful, the man said, ignoring her comment. —You speak it very sweetly. As if reading from a poem.

As he said this a question or a doubt crossed her mind and she glanced at Decker, hoping for some sign, but Decker’s face and eyes were closed to her. She understood now what had changed him. The arrival of these men. The one called Altaf watched her slyly and his brother bobbed his heavy head behind him. They might have been grinning at the way she wore her clothes or at her pronunciation of Arabic or simply at the paleness of her skin. They might have been grinning at nothing. She looked from Altaf back to Decker and saw no resemblance there.

—You are a favored student here, the one called Altaf said. —Uniquely favored. I’m told you have a whole room to yourself. His grin shifted subtly. —Perhaps this is why your Arabic is still so pure.

—You studied here, with Mu’allim Hayat?

Altaf shrugged.

—When was that?

—Perhaps six years ago or seven.

—How long did it take?

—How long?

—To learn the Recitation. She sat forward with her elbows on her knees, as she’d seen the men doing the evening before. —I hope to have it learned within the year.

Altaf’s expression clouded. Decker said something to him but he gave a quick hard laugh and shook his head. Again she’d committed some error.

—I failed to learn the Recitation, Altaf told her. He said it carelessly, as if the fact were of no consequence. —To commit the Book to memory, Brother Suleyman, one has to keep one’s distance from the troubles of this world.

—Of course, Decker put in. —Just look who runs this place.

—I disappointed the mu’allim. I broke off my course of studies.

She apologized and did her best to cover her confusion. She had known that the compound was open to people from the village and to travelers as well but she had no recollection of either Altaf or his brother at the first or second prayer. It seemed a grievous sin to use the school for any other purpose.

—The mu’allim must not be displeased with you, Brother Altaf, she said. —After all, he’s received you into his house.

Altaf shook his head. —We’re not here for the old man, he said. —We came to see our cousin. Your good friend.

—My mistake, she heard herself mumble. —I thought—

—Our cousin has grown into a man, Brother Suleyman, as you can see. Altaf took Decker fondly by the collar. —You yourself, who are still a child, have much to discover before you can follow his lead.

—I do, she said, looking down at the gravel.

—What’s that?

—I do. I have much to discover.

—And you shall, if God wills it. He rested a hand on her shoulder. —Apply yourself, little brother, that you may follow soon.

With that the two men rose and moved unhurriedly along the shaded wall of the courtyard and up the concrete steps into the house. They greeted no one and returned no one’s greeting. Decker kept his eyes on them until they had passed out of sight.

—Who are those men, Decker?

—I told you. My cousins.

—Do you want to explain to me what the hell is going on?

—Brother Suleyman! I thought you’d given up cursing. I must have misunderstood.

—I’m going to ask you one more time.

—And then what?

—And then I guess you stand to lose a friend.

He said nothing to that, tugging idly at the hem of his kameez. She took in breath in steady pulls and waited for his answer. She felt far from things but calm and wide awake.

—One of them is, he said at last. —My cousin, I mean. Yaqub’s father was the one who hooked us up with this madrasa. He’s my father’s older brother. He lives a few towns over.

—He didn’t look anything like you. Or like your father either.

—Can’t help you there, Sawyer.

—What do they want from us?

He gave her no answer. Across the courtyard the others were getting to their feet and brushing the dust from their shirtfronts. She willed herself to speak softly.

—Why didn’t you introduce us yesterday?

—I told you already. They didn’t feel comfortable. They’re kind of twitchy.

Again she sat back and waited. It didn’t take long.

—They’re hiding out, said Decker.

—Who from?

—Come on, Sawyer. They’re not going to tell me that. If they did they’d have to shoot me or something.

—It almost sounds like that would make your day.

His face took on an air of gravity. —I probably shouldn’t have told you this much, even. They don’t trust you yet.

—They don’t have to trust me. I came here for school.

—I guess I’ll have to take your word on that.

—Decker, you’d better tell me—