“Unfortunately not. But you can hold it here. The dining hall at the hujra will do very well. And I will attend. I too am a great lover of peace.”

“You’ll let me consult my colleagues.”

“You may inform them that such is my will. We will all attend, and we will provide burqas for you and the other female hostage. Perhaps you will learn something about modesty in your last days. You know, there is a long tradition in this region of kings bringing scholars before them to dispute philosophical matters. And I am, as you have perhaps observed, a quite traditional man. I believe I will find your conference entirely interesting.”

“In that case, I hope I can assure my colleagues that they will come to no harm while they are in your custody.”

“Well, yes, providing that our demands our met. I hope Idris was clear on that score. All of you are hostages for the good behavior of the crusaders. On any day that innocent Muslims are killed by their forces we will be forced to behead one hostage. Of course, I should not want to execute anyone whose presentation I had not heard, so I will trust you to arrange the speakers however you choose, and I would also insist that you personally select the hostages to be executed.”

Sonia stares at Alakazai and he returns her gaze blandly, as if he has just foretold the arrival of the next bus.

“Oh? Why me, if you don’t mind my asking.”

“Because you are the enemy. In you is distilled in the purest form everything against which we fight. You are worse than a mere infidel. You are a Muslim who perverts and dirties everything that is most sacred in Islam. You are woman, who destroys modesty and encourages others to do so. I have read your books, you know, yes I have. I read them when I was a student, when you caused this great furor and you were condemned by the ulema. I wished to find you and kill you then, as did many others, but you know how it is with the enthusiasms of youth, one forgets, one gets involved in work and marriage, and so forth. But always in the back of my mind I thought I would do it. And now God has placed you in my hands, all unknowing, like a gift. Don’t you find that remarkable?”

“I do. And it is just as remarkable, don’t you think, that a conference devoted to exploring the mental pathology that underlies terrorism should itself fall victim to someone who exhibits just such pathology in the most extravagant detail? You really should let us live, sir, so that we can study and write about you and your organization. Like the patients of Jung and Freud, you would achieve immortality in the pages of psychiatric textbooks.”

He smiled. “You mean to provoke me, but I am not easily provoked, not like our Idris. I am a patient man and I will appear in books, but not because I am insane. You know, it is the victors who write the psychiatry books just as they write the history books. If the Germans had won the war, would the Nazi leaders be considered madmen? I don’t think so.”

“Perhaps, but moral relativism ill befits a supposed leader of mujahideen. If you really believe that, I would rather take my chances with Idris.”

“And be beaten to death?”

“Perhaps, and perhaps he will remember that God is merciful and compassionate. At least he is still a Muslim. What you are, I leave to God, who knows all the secrets of our hearts. Death comes to everyone, and whether it comes today or in a week or in twenty years is of little account.”

“You have no fear of the Hell that awaits you?”

“I do fear it. I have done wickedness and I will be punished for it. But I look forward to at least one pleasure in the next life, which will be to see you roasting below me in a far hotter fire.”

“You really are a ridiculous woman, you know that? I am a mujahid and a leader of jihad, and God’s word assures me a place in Paradise. I will be interested to see if you speak so brazenly after you have condemned your friends to death, when you are the last one and the knife comes for you.”

“Not the knife, Alakazai: even you would not be so foolish as to behead a woman. But, as Rahman Baba says, ‘All the world travels to the grave, as the caravan heads homeward; death reaps all souls, as the farmer cuts the ripened grain.’ None of us can say what God has in store. You may kill me or you may not. For all you know, at this very minute a drone missile is being targeted on this house, or perhaps, since I am an important CIA agent, they are waiting until I leave.”

She observes this last remark strike home: a little flicker of doubt, some fear in his eyes. She has spent much of her life reading the expressions on faces, in therapy and, before that, on her travels, when mistaking an expression, missing a lie, could be fatal. She is quite good at it, and even in this short interview she has learned more about her captor than he knows he has revealed.

He recovers his aplomb, makes a whisking gesture with his hand. “I assure you there is no chance of that; you will surely die, and your bones will be left to the dogs and birds. That will be your end. In the meantime, go and have your conference. There is little entertainment for a man such as myself in this place, and I look forward to seeing you perform.” He speaks an order to the guard, who walks over and pokes Sonia in the ribs with the barrel of his AK.

“Out,” he orders.

“I can’t walk. Look at my feet.”

“Crawl, then,” he says, and pokes her again, harder.

She slides from the charpoy and crawls. Behind her she hears Alakazai laughing.

10

S o what happened after that?” Gloria asked.

“You really want to know this? My war stories? Why?”

“It’s interesting,” she said. “Like I told you, most guys are totally boring. Your life is like a movie.”

“You think? Okay, where was I?”

“Your grandfather and your sisters got blown up.”

“Right.”

And it happened at the worst possible time, not that there ever would have been a good time, but my mother was in Zurich. My uncle Nisar was studying in London, but it was some school break and he was off in the country with friends, out of touch for weeks. My uncle Seyd was with the army on maneuvers in occupied Kashmir, so he was also more or less out of the picture for days afterward. My aunt Rukhsana was a kid, although I have to say she paid more attention to me than anyone else. My father, who should have taken charge of the situation, he just collapsed, became practically catatonic, and had to be hospitalized, or so I heard later on. My grandmother didn’t bother looking for me. She was probably already plotting to get Farid a new wife to replenish the gene pool.

Anyway, when the bomb went off I ran and hid in the storeroom. I wanted to be near my mother’s tin trunk. Wazir found me there on the night after the disaster. When I saw him I started bawling and he told me to stop crying, and when I continued he slapped my face. He said, “Be a man! A man doesn’t cry like a woman. If a man is injured he seeks revenge.”

I stopped crying. I asked him against whom I should seek revenge and he said, “My father knows, and he is planning his revenge this minute.”

I said, “It’s my grandfather who was killed and my sisters. I should have a part in the revenge.”

So he took me to his father. Gul Muhammed agreed that I should have a part, and he told me the story of why my grandfather had been assassinated. There was a zamindar, a wealthy landowner, who was cheating his peasants-which is to say he ate food, drank water, and breathed air-but in this case the peasants had somehow found the courage to bring a lawsuit against him, the case landed in the courtroom of Laghari Sahib, and Laghari Sahib had refused the customary bribe and given justice to the peasants, at which point the zamindar, Babur Amir, threatened him aloud in his own courtroom, and Laghari Sahib had thrown him in jail-five days-for contempt of court. Babur Amir had waited and plotted the death of Laghari Sahib. There was a man who worked for Babur Amir and did his dirty work: beatings, shootings, and also bombs, because he had been with the jihad in Kashmir and understood explosives. This man was Salim Malik.