Jihadi (21 page)

Fatima read the offer. She requested a day to prepare.

The nine Bearded Glarers parted, scurried, scanned the streets separately, reconvened and jointly surmised that between fifty and seventy-five thousand souls had gathered for the next midday prayer to be led by the New Imam. It was not even a Friday.

The Islamic City police refused to give an estimate for public circulation. BII analysts, preparing a summary for the prime minister, put the figure at sixty-five thousand, a number described within the report as ‘significant, given the city’s population of three and a half million’.

The huge congregation presented logistical challenges. In service of the man with the sallow face and patchy, scraggled beard, and of the silent boy by his side, the nine Bearded Glarers recruited a hundred earnest-looking brothers and gave them all armbands. These men directed the crowds.

The New Imam’s sermon that day, although amplified erratically, landed its point: the legal necessity of serving justice upon a particular American, now held by the government. He had urinated upon the Holy Koran and then murdered a father and his daughter in the street. His name was unknown. The sentence upon him was death.

‘You recited one of the promises of God.’

The Raisin rose, went to the window, retrieved the Koran, found a certain page, then walked over and offered the book to Thelonius.

‘The verse you recited.’

Thelonius swatted it to the floor. The Raisin only sniffed, smiled as an unconvinced judge smiles, retrieved the book, put it back on the windowsill, settled into the cot, turned over, and went to sleep. There was no more conversation that day.

The next morning, the Raisin asked: ‘Is it possible that something went quite wrong on this mission?’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because you talk in your sleep.’

Thelonius’s insides froze. ‘What?’

‘You said, “Why did I do it?” You repeated it several times. In your sleep.’

The cell drew itself in tight.

‘You can talk about what happened, you know,’ the Raisin said. ‘Better for you if you do. Perhaps you lost something along the way. Better to talk about such things. I think this mission was a difficult one for you.’

‘Don’t think about me,’ Thelonius said. And turned over to face the wall again.

As he handed them out, Dayton had no idea what significance the curious symbols on the sheets of grey paper were supposed to have. He thought maybe Mike had some kind of game in mind. Games calmed Mike down sometimes.

When he found out that night, as Mike sat on a crate, handed him a beer, and told him to sit his ass down so Mike could explain the grey sheets before he explained them to everyone else, Dayton kept his face expressionless.

When Mike was done talking, there was a gap between songs. Mike kept looking at him and Mike’s eyes didn’t look calm at all. Then the boom box played ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’.

Mike said, ‘Yes!’ and gave the three-fingered salute to the world at large. He stood up like Dayton had agreed to something. Then Mike began to party, not in a calm way, though.

Dayton waited until he thought people weren’t looking before he left the Wreck Room.

Up very early, Fatima wrote a letter by hand, sealed it in an envelope, and called for her driver. His lateness and gruff demeanor put her off, as usual. She had forgotten his name. From the back seat, she decided against asking him.

Within the BII compound, before all but a handful of people had arrived for work, she showed the appropriate clearances, made her way to the proper plastic bin, pulled the prisoner’s file, saw to it that her letter was placed within
SERGEANT USA #109
and entrusted the plastic-sheathed comic book, with clear instructions, to Ra’id’s assistant, who came in early. Fatima had been gone for over an hour by the time Murad Murad, who always checked the front-desk logs, made it to his desk.

Thelonius concluded himself awake, then, eyes still closed, reconsidered. Things had been odd lately. It was worth double-checking.

He opened his eyes, scanned the floor, and sat up with a start. What appeared to be, but could not possibly be, his favourite comic book,
SERGEANT USA #109
, lay on the floor right next to his cot.

He looked around. No sign of the Raisin. Thelonius was all alone in the cell.

His attention returned, like iron to a magnet, to the familiar cover. His right hand twitched, as though it recognized an old friend. He picked up
SERGEANT USA #109
– yes, it was real, or at least as real as anything else in the cell – and unsheathed it. He let fall the plastic cover. It made a clicking sound as it fell to the linoleum.

Page one should have read THE HERO THAT WAS.

As indeed it did. He turned a page, convinced for the moment of the book’s objective existence and of his own.

Inside the familiar bright leaves was an envelope, sealed. It fell to the linoleum, as the plastic cover had, but it made a softer, rustling sound. Thelonius picked the envelope up and read what was written on the front of it.

It said, ‘READ ME’.

Eyes wide, he opened it and removed two rectangles, folded upon themselves, inscribed in the same tiny, neat hand as the words on the front. The letter read:

Thelonius felt a pounding in his ears. He read the letter from beginning to end three more times. Once he reached the end for the third time, he stopped at her name (which of course was rendered without dashes in the original) and stared at it as though it were the only island on a horizon. Then, having established the reality of the island, having confirmed it was no mirage, he worked his way back up to that sentence that spoke, however obliquely, of the possibility of a return home, and confirmed the reality of that, too:

I do have an opportunity for your release I am professionally obliged to discuss with you.

At some point, Morale Specialist must have readmitted the Raisin to the cell – when and from where, Thelonius had no idea.

‘That coloured booklet came for you while you were asleep,’ Morale Specialist said from the free side of the bars. ‘I was instructed not to wake you. You are to read it, now that you are awake.’ He strode away.

The Raisin settled in.

‘I hear a person’s name actually means something in this country,’ Thelonius said to the Raisin. ‘What does Fatima mean?’

‘A person’s name means something in every country,’ the Raisin replied. ‘It’s just that Americans tend to ignore the meanings.’

‘Right. What’s it mean?’

‘She who weans the infant,’ said the Raisin.

‘What does A–– mean?’

‘In Arabic, “virgin”. In Hebrew, “fire”. In Greek, “beauty”.’

Thelonius studied the Raisin as a man might study a page too dense with someone else’s handwriting.

‘And what does my name mean?’

‘That you must learn for yourself.’