The Garden of Last Days Read online

  But Bassam liked her brown eyes, her brown hair, how she had it tucked up into pins revealing her neck. How she smiled at him and touched his shoulder or arms or back as she instructed him. She was kind. He could see it and feel it. She was kind.

  As were so many others. Gloria, the real estate woman who found them their first apartment in Del Ray Beach. She was short and wore very much jewelry and lipstick, but she laughed at whatever she said and looked into Bassam’s eyes with hers, blue and smiling, and he felt liked by her even though she did not know him. It made him want to sit with her, a kafir and a woman, and sip tea and tell her things he had never told to anyone. She asked them their names and tried to pronounce them correctly though she could not and she laughed at herself, squeezed his arm, and he could not bear being in her presence any longer.

  There was Cliff, the man at the fuel station store three blocks south. Taller than Bassam, he was as old as his father, his hair colored blond, his whiskers gray. Upon his arms were inked figures of naked women, and when Bassam came in for more milk or bread or Cokes, he asked how his studies were coming, was he having any goddamned fun? There were the women who served them food in restaurants, the young ones or older ones, the pretty or the ugly, they were polite and smiled while looking them in their eyes. Except Amir’s. Their smiles changed then. They could see and feel his hatred for them, and Bassam had felt soft and weak and not worthy of the title shahid; these people should fear him, too. He was prepared to do what he was chosen for. They must not doubt this. No one should question this.

  It had been months since their training and now he and Tariq and Imad were back home. After the purity of camp, where daily they had fought hand to hand, where they fired the AK-47 while running, where they wired plastic explosives while reciting from Al-Anfal and Al-Tawbah, where they fasted and cleansed themselves and where their softness fell away like fat from a lamb, it was difficult being once again in the dusty and idle streets of Khamis Mushayt; Karim and the others wanted to race, to smoke, to gossip, to stay baboons. Imad and Tariq had grown beards and tried to teach their old friends to stay away from these evils. But Karim, standing before them in his Nike cap and T-shirt and jeans, his shiny cell phone in his hand, he was already lost; for two years he had studied in London, something he was always boasting, and he showed them the photograph of the Zionist girl from Jerusalem who had loved him, his mind soiled, his heart falling to the West. Karim told them they should not believe everything the Imams say. “Read the Qur’an, my friends. It says Ahl al-Kitab, the People of the Book, Christians and Jews, deserve respect because they are fellow monotheists. Have you read all the suras? Because I have. Read 3:113–115: ‘They believe in Allah and the Last Day; they enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong; and they hasten in the emulation of all good works. They are in the ranks of the righteous.’”

  “And that is why they enslave the Palestinians?” Tariq said. “That is why they occupy our land and kill our brothers in Iraq? You have fucked a Jew, what can you tell us about anything? Go play with your cell phone. You are not going where we are going.”

  “Yes,” Karim laughed. “Have a nice trip.” And he turned and walked away, the sun on his back, dust on the soles of his Nike shoes; soon he would be an unbeliever and after his death he would walk the bridge over hell as all souls do, and Bassam could only leave it to the Most Merciful to spare him from the fall to Jahannam. For Karim and the rest did not know who they were talking to: shuhada’, martyrs who would sit in the highest rooms with Allah, men whose names would never be forgotten.

  The moon was high. It shone blue on the dome of the mosque across the street. It was after Isha, the final prayer, and Bassam sat in the outer building of their home before his father. Many of Bassam’s brothers wanted to sit down as well, but Ahmed al-Jizani told them to leave until the meal was served, he wanted to talk alone with Bassam. They sipped hot tea. Inside the main house Bassam’s mother and sisters were preparing lamb kufta. He could smell it and knew they would squeeze lemons over it and serve it with tahina sauce and there would be laban bi khiyar and he was very hungry from the fasting in camp. His father sat against the wall dressed in a new thawb the color of linen. It was too loose upon him and he appeared tired.

  “So you have taken up jihad?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Do you understand what this means?”

  “Yes.”

  His father looked at him as he had always looked at him, as if all the sons before Bassam had been the best. “Tell me then, what does this mean?”

  “It means I am prepared to die for Allah.”

  “No, that is not jihad. That is a lower meaning of it.” His father sipped his tea, his eyes on him. “What did they teach you at this place?”

  “The Truth, Father. They taught me the Truth.”

  “And what is the truth, Bassam? Who can know the truth but Allah?”

  Bassam nodded. He would not receive his father’s blessings. Why sit here any longer? Why sit before this man who had built a mosque, yes, but also buildings on the air base of the kufar. His father was an important man, an al-Jizani, but his mind and heart had become weakened by the ahl al-shirk, the polytheists and the unbelievers.

  “Father?”

  “Yes, speak.”

  “They want to occupy our land. They want to separate us from Islam. Khalid—”

  “What of Khalid?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Do not say this. What of Khalid?”

  “He was lost. He died because he was lost.”

  “Your brother drove too fast. Do you understand this? He was no more lost than am I.”

  Bassam looked down at his hands. They were clean, his feet as well, his body strong and pure and prepared, yet he was ashamed. He sat there before his own father ashamed. Of him. Of Ahmed al-Jizani.

  His father sat forward. He lowered his tea quickly, some of it spilling onto his hand. “You have never been a bright boy, Bassam, so you must listen to me carefully. Jihad is this: it is a struggle within yourself, that is all. It is the struggle to live as Allah wishes us to live. As good people. Do you understand? As good people. Now go call your brothers please.”

  Soon they were all eating kufta, and it was clear to Bassam, the dull boy, the slow one, that his father had favored not Rashad the officer or Adil the engineer, not the businessmen so many of his brothers had become, three of them moving their families to Riyadh, not even the one who had worked so hard as a stock boy for Ali al-Fahd, no, their father had favored the one who had done nothing but dream of the West and smoke and drive too fast listening to an American Jew.

  And Allah took him from Ahmed al-Jizani.

  Allah took the son whose death would hurt him most.

  Because Ahmed al-Jizani, builder of air bases for the kufar, he has forgotten the Creator, the Mighty, the Sustainer and Provider. As have so many others across the kingdom. They have allowed television into their homes. They have installed satellite dishes onto their roofs and now their families gather between Maghrib and Isha and watch programs from the West. Censored yes, but the women are uncovered and the men carry weapons and drive shining cars in their fallen cities. On Fridays, the Day of Gathering, entire families used to picnic in the desert between the evening prayers; now they stay inside to be drawn into the television of the kufar while thousands of young men like Karim lounge in the streets in kufar clothing, secretly listening to their music and dreaming of lying again with Jews.

  Meanwhile the Zionist/Crusader alliance slaughter their Muslim brothers and sisters in Chechnya and Kashmir, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Palestine.

  It was two hours before the final prayer. The mosque was empty. Bassam, Tariq, and Imad were dressed in clean thawbs and they had performed their ablutions slowly and with care. Tariq’s beard was thick while Imad’s was light and bushy and in it was a crumb of bread his ablutions had not found and Bassam reached out and picked it free.

  Imad’s eyes grew light, as if he were ab
out to joke, but then he nodded and they knelt facing Makkah. They held hands, Tariq’s small and worn, Imad’s large, still damp from his ablutions. At camp, many times during the day they were told to recite the Shahaada, and so they did it now, their heads bowed. “La ilaha illa Allah wa Muhammad ar-rasulullah. There is no god worthy to be worshipped except Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”

  Imad looked down at Bassam as if he were unsure what to do next. Bassam closed his eyes and breathed in the air still sweet from the incense burned for Maghrib. Inside his head and heart were the words he had recited again and again while cleaning his weapon at camp, pulling free the loaded magazine, blowing dust from the breech, ramming the oiled rod into the barrel.

  “And from His Book: ‘O Lord, pour Your patience upon us and make our feet steadfast and give us victory over the unbelievers. Lord, forgive our sins and excesses. You move the clouds. You gave us victory over the enemy, conquer them and give us victory over them.’

  “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. There is no god worthy to be worshipped except Allah.”

  And yes, Bassam, say again the oath you made in camp. “The pledge of Allah and His covenant is upon me, to energetically listen and obey the superiors who are doing this work, rising early in times of difficulty and ease.

  “Bismillah. In the name of Allah.”

  And once more, the Shahaada: “La ilaha illa Allah wa Muhammad ar-rasulullah.”

  Bassam stood first, Imad and Tariq following. Imad’s eyes were shining. He smiled down at them and put his arms around their shoulders. “Brothers, we have bound ourselves to the Holy One as shuhada’. This bayat has sealed this. Insha’Allah, we will live together forever in Jannah.” And he hugged Bassam and Tariq to him, his thawb smelling of fresh linen, his throat of soap and water.

  Before leaving for Dubai, Bassam embraced his mother at the door. When he was young she only wore kaftans under the jamah, but now she was in a dress made by the kufar, a modest purple dress with long sleeves that covered her arms, yes, but still a dress made by our enemy, and she smiled at him, his short, round mother with her graying hair and deep brown eyes she’d passed to him. She appeared as if she might weep, for he was traveling to a place he could not name to her. She held him and kissed both his cheeks, calling him Bassam when he was now Mansoor, the Victorious, the name he decided to take with his oath.

  Since he’d become a jihadi, living among his family was like living in a dream except in the dream everyone else is sleeping while you are awake. They sleep and do not know they sleep. His mother did not even know she was no longer awake with the Creator as she should be. She smelled of perfume and the amber incense she preferred to burn. He could not hold back any longer. “Soon, Allah willing, everyone will know my name, O Mother. You will be very proud that I am your son.”

  “Bassam, darling, I am proud. Please, don’t do anything foolish. You are a good boy. Please, where are you going? Please, tell me.” She rubbed her thumbs along his cheeks, the stubble there.

  He nodded to his sleeping mother. He took her wrists and pressed her hands gently together. “I will call you. I will call you soon.”

  Though he never had. Months now, and he never had.

  The black whore blows out smoke from her cigarette and she looks at him from the bar. She stands near the Jew owner and they drink coffee from white cups like his he has not touched. She smiles at Bassam, and he looks away. He knows when they are let go by these police she will try to get more of the money he should not have spent. She will offer him her qus, and not just to view, he knows this, and it is like bleeding in the Red Sea, sharks smelling his blood from kilometers away, his weakness, Shaytan trying to pull him from the highest rooms of Jannah to the lowest and hottest of Jahannam. How deceptive he is, and yes, Bassam is afraid he will like it too much to leave this earth; he will lose his resolve, his bayat with his brothers and with the All-Knowing will be broken and is there any fire more hot than that reserved for a failed shahid? For one who loses his way?

  But what is worse is what he never would have known as he hardened and purified himself in training, as he prayed steadfastly in tents and motel rooms and autos, that he would like these kufar, that he would like Kelly and Gloria and Cliff, and yes, this April who calls herself Spring, her brown eyes that could belong to a good girl from Khamis Mushayt, whose skin is soft and warm and whose hair is shining, and who smells not of lust but of companionship, he likes her as well. And there is a sting in his heart for what he told her last, not because it is not true—because she will burn, they will all burn—but because he was using the truth to push himself away from her and his own weakness. Her scar from delivering her child, so dry and raised, the color of old goatskin, not as if it had been cut and healed but burned, like the skin of the burned. He made himself see her entire body that way, bare belly and hips and legs, her round shoulders and throat and face, her nuhood he so weakly and strongly wanted to touch. He forced himself to see it as it will be.

  All the money he gave to her. How could he justify it? How would he explain it to Amir, who would know precisely how much.

  “Sir?” A young policeman points at him, curling his finger rudely for him to come be questioned.

  There are four kufar remaining. As Bassam stands, one of them nods and smiles at him as if they are all brothers in this misunderstanding, as if this is a small price to pay for their pleasure here, the only price.

  Bassam ignores him and walks away from the empty tables and chairs, damp with spilled alcohol and scattered with ash. His shirt sticks to the sweat of his back and he is thirsty. He keeps his eyes on the young policeman but Bassam can feel the eyes of the black whore upon him, her smile, her long dark legs and arms, her white teeth, Shaytan reaching from inside her to pull him down with these mushrikoon.

  Bassam does not look at her. And he will not look at her. The time for looking is over. The time of living so haram is through. He lifts his chin and follows the policeman. The curtain is parted by one of the men paid to protect these whores, this one tall and without muscle, looking down at Bassam as if he were a dog, a dog someone should have caged such a very long time ago.

  DEENA COULDN’T SLEEP. She had for a while, but now she was awake, lying on her back in the dark, the constant wind from the fan blowing across her face. She kept thinking how bad AJ had looked. His hand was broken somehow, his eyes red from drinking and crying, and even though he’d hurt her and she did the right thing calling the police, it seemed her fault he was turning into such a mess. She kicked off the sheet.

  The first few nights he was gone felt like when hurricane season is finally over. She and Cole had sweet, quiet suppers together, and whenever he asked about Daddy, she told him his mama was sick and he had to go take care of her. But then she got scared. She thought of all the news stories she’d heard of husbands ignoring restraining orders and coming back madder than they were before. There was that woman with three kids down in Venice. Her husband had been beating her for years and she finally called the police and had the order on him less than a day when he came back with a shotgun, kicked in the front door, and chased her past the kids into the bathroom and killed her. She couldn’t picture AJ doing anything like that, but then she never guessed he’d ever hit her either. And how could he not be getting madder and madder having to live with his old, wheezy mother and stay away from his son?

  One night at the end of that first week, after Cole was asleep, Deena had taken AJ’s .22 rifle out of the closet. It was a good-looking gun with a shiny stock and a long straight barrel. AJ’s stepdaddy had left it to him, and AJ wanted to teach her how to shoot it but she already knew how; her father owned all kinds of guns and when she was eight or nine he carried their picnic bench down to the beach and lined up Budweiser and soup cans and it wasn’t long before she could hit each one with a rifle just like this. She was good with a pistol too, but Daddy’s semiautomatics scared her with their kick in her hand and how easy it was to fire off th
ree or four bullets just like that.

  I’ll kill him. Daddy in their kitchen at home, his lined face and big belly, the way he glanced over at Mom like he was expecting her to say something though she didn’t. He lays so much as a fingernail on you, I swear to Christ I’ll shoot him where he stands.

  That didn’t help anything. Four nights in a row after AJ got driven away, her father had come over and played with Cole and watched some TV with her, his .380 strapped in a holster on his belt.

  “Daddy, you can’t keep coming over here.”

  “Yes I can.”

  “What if he comes and you shoot him? Then I lose you, too.”

  “What do you mean too? You miss him?”

  “He’s my husband.”

  “You can get another. A better one.”

  Could she? Really. Could she? Daddy had always ignored how dumpy-looking she was. How in high school she’d only had Reilly, who was skinny and hated people and animals and with his mustache and pointy nose looked like some kind of rodent. He called her a fat whore, and that was after they’d done it on the moldy couch on his parents’ sunporch.

  “Please go, Dad. If he comes, I’ll call the police like I’m supposed to.”

  He did go but not before he unstrapped his .380 and laid it on the kitchen counter. “Keep it.”

  “I don’t want that in the house with Cole. If you leave it here I swear I’ll throw it away.”

  He smiled sadly, took it back, hugged her. “You call me.”

  “I will.” Though she knew she wouldn’t, knew if she ever had to because of AJ that her daddy would drive up with another loaded gun. It’s why people owned guns in the first place, wasn’t it? Because they were just itching for a good reason to use them, a better one than picking off cans and shooting squirrels? But Daddy showing up like that had scared her even more than she’d been and for a week or more she slept with AJ’s rifle on the floor by his side of the bed. Each morning before Cole woke, she’d put the loaded clip in her bedside drawer, then lean the rifle back in the corner of the closet behind AJ’s button-down shirts.