“No. What was that all about? The guard didn’t seem too happy.”
Sonia summarizes the conversation. Annette gives an astonished whistle. “Wow! Do you think it’s wise to annoy our guards?”
“The truth is often annoying. Besides, just now it’s our only weapon. I’ve penetrated his self-righteousness, just a little. He sees himself as a holy warrior, which is why he can bear to serve in a unit with men from other tribes, and take orders from men from tribes with whom his tribe or khel has a blood feud. This is how Pashtuns are: they can join briefly against a common enemy, but they always tend to pull apart after that enemy is defeated. That’s what happened in Afghanistan after the Russians left. This so-called jihad is all that holds them together now, so we have to break them of the idea that they are fighting in God’s cause, which of course they are not. Let’s see what happens when young Patang hurts his foot.”
“But what makes you think he’s going to hurt his foot?”
“Because he dreamed it and I interpreted the dream that way.”
“What? That makes no sense.”
“No, not rationally, but we’re not in the rational world here-or in our dreams either. Patang will be thinking about his foot all the time now.
He’ll be extra careful for a while, but it will gnaw at him, he’ll grow clumsy, because, of course, you can’t really do any of the things we normally do with our feet using conscious thought. So he’ll trip and sprain an ankle. Or he’ll become so obsessed with the idea that he’ll unconsciously discharge the tension by ‘accidentally’ dropping a load of bricks on his toes. Then, naturally, he’ll blab the whole thing. Pashtuns are fascinated by this kind of stuff; it’s threaded through all their folk tales-the prophetic dream. We should get some attention after that.”
“My God! Isn’t that incredibly dangerous?”
Sonia laughs softly. “Well, we’re not exactly in the lap of safety as it is. No, first we have to draw their attention to us-to me, actually-as something other than a victim. Once I’m established as that, I’ll have to challenge them from the heart of their religion, which I’ve already started doing with Patang. I told you before, hostage and captive are in a relationship and we have to control the tempo of that relationship, even though we have no power. Think of the Romans and the original Christians. The Romans murdered them for three centuries, and with every murder the Christians grew stronger and the Romans weaker. Why was that? Because their faith allowed Christians to die with nobility, even though they were slaves, and that struck at the heart of the Roman idea of how the world was constituted. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Any belief that allowed a slave to die like a Roman general had to have some underlying reality, so every martyrdom in the arena made a hundred converts.”
“But what if they kill you?”
“Oh, they’re going to kill me. I was doomed from the moment they stopped our convoy. But I’m going to make it hard for them, and maybe that will save some of you.”
Sonia can now make out the shape of her companion across the room. The gaps between the slats in the shutters have gradually become visible as slate-blue strips.
“What do you mean you were doomed?” says Annette. “Why you in particular?”
Sonia laughs again. “Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration for effect. I have a tendency to oversell. It comes from being raised in the circus. Tell me, do you know who Sonia Bailey is?”
“Some kind of explorer, back in the seventies? My roommate in college had her book.”
“Ah, that’s a welcome answer. Let’s hope our friends out there share your ignorance.”
“I don’t understand. What does Sonia Bailey have to do with us? Anyway, isn’t she dead?”
“Not yet. I’m her.”
“You’re Sonia Bailey?”
“Yes. Pleased to meet you. Anyway, it’s not like Superman and Clark Kent, although I try to keep it quiet. Back when I wrote those books I declined the usual celebrity perks: I didn’t give interviews or do book tours, I wasn’t on TV, I didn’t even have an author photograph. The mysterious Sonia Bailey. Obviously, my family knows, and several members of our group here, but for the past thirty years I’ve been Mrs. Laghari, a Pakistani-American therapist, a respectable lady who did not travel the haj to Mecca disguised as a man. If these jokers find out they’ll snuff me like a candle.”
“Jesus!”
“Just so. Crucifixion is one of the traditional punishments for blasphemy, although, for women, chopping them into pieces is more common. On the other hand-”
She stops. A thin wailing has begun outside, hardly distinguishable from the whine of the eternal wind, announcing that the night is ended; it is time for morning prayers. Annette watches Sonia as she washes and performs the ritual gestures and prostrations, so different from her own private, silent, liberal religion.
Sonia finishes the Fajr, the shortest prayer of the day, and becomes aware that the other woman is staring at her. She smiles and says, “It must seem strange to you, this kind of prayer. Primitive?”
Annette blushes. “Yes, frankly, a little. I realize it’s not politically correct, but I tend to be suspicious of highly ritualized religion. It’s too easy to punch in all the rituals and then feel you’re right with God, meanwhile feeling free to be as nasty as you like in daily life.”
“Spoken like a true child of the Reformation,” says Sonia, and they both laugh. “On the other hand, we’re animals, we have bodies, and what our bodies do is important. That’s one reason God gave them to us.”
“Don’t you find it hard to practice back home? I mean in the States.” “Oh, no. Back home I go to church. I’m a Catholic there.”
This knots Annette’s smooth brow. “You mean it’s a pretense?”
“Not at all. I’m perfectly sincere at the moment of prayer in either tradition. Surely you don’t think God cares how we worship Him? And a mass, with its ritual motions and responses, is very much the same as salat, in the sense that humanity is one family, whether you call it the umma or the Body of Christ, and it’s important for us all to do the same thing with our bodies at the same time. Every believing Muslim in this time zone just did what I just did, and as the earth spins around today so the tide of Fajr will flow with the light of day, and then another prayer at noon, Dhuhr, and then Ashr, Maghrib, and Isha, five in all, today and every day. It’s a pretty neat feeling, being engulfed in prayer and, despite individual differences between people, to be united in that one thing.”
“Yes, well, it doesn’t seem to have helped the Muslims get united any more than it’s helped the Christians.”
“No, it’s a scandal. We’re none of us what God meant us to be. But on the other hand, if you suppress that kind of ritual you atomize the faithful even more. Islam has a small number of divisions, and the Catholics are still hanging in there, but anyone with a Bible and a good speaking voice can start a Protestant church. Recent history suggests that when you cast off all that uncomfortable ritualistic stuff your religion tends to collapse into mere sociability and niceness, and then it fades away. Then some joker comes along and says, Believe in me; we can make Paradise here on earth; we don’t need God. All we have to do is get rid of the capitalists-or the Jews, or make everyone into a capitalist-all we have to do is make everyone rich and have lots of sex, and life will be perfect.”
Annette says, “Surely you’re not saying that religious fanaticism is better for the mass of humanity than civil rights, clean water, health care, and a decent income.”
“No, of course I’m not saying that,” Sonia replies, but any further clarification is interrupted by the sound of the door. In comes a woman carrying the usual food tray with tea, chapatis, and dal. It is not the old woman who has served them before, but a younger one, just a girl. Her shape under the concealing robe is slender, her face is veiled by a fold of her dupatta.