The Good Son (20 page)

They had sedated her, and she came up out of the welcome oblivion to find him staring down at her, his appearance so startling she let out a little cry of alarm. They had opened the blinds so the room was full of winter’s pure light, and he was sitting at such an angle that this light reflected off his round gold-rimmed spectacles, so she saw only two glittering disks and a halo of untidy, flossy, gray-tinged wheaten hair. Then he moved slightly and she saw his face: round, red-cheeked, knobby-featured, the brush mustache, modeled on the Master’s, still yellowish, and those deep-set, humorous, penetrating blue eyes.

He introduced himself and asked how she was feeling. She turned away from him, told him to leave her alone. But he did not. Instead he began to talk, in a pleasant baritone, slightly accented. He said she’d been unconscious for two days, during which time the authorities had determined her identity and gathered information on her recent catastrophe. He extended his condolences. He said further that inquiries had been made of her family in Lahore. There seemed to be much confusion in Lahore—understandable in the circumstances. He was obliged to inform her that, regrettably, her husband had also suffered a severe breakdown and was at present himself in hospital in Lahore. Whoever had spoken to
the inquiring administrator had been quite adamant that the family wanted nothing whatever to do with Sonia Bailey.

She had not responded at all to this information. She recalled wishing that he would go away. She recalled wishing for more sedation, another plunge into dreamless sleep. But he did not depart. Instead, he told her that he was an admirer of her work. He’d read both her books: a fascinating view of a little-known world—unknown to the average Swiss, at any rate—he himself had always longed to travel, as she had, as Jung had, of course, and immerse himself in different cultures, but aside from the usual conference-going he’d only managed two trips, one to Brazil and the other to China, both too short, and he hadn’t known the languages and was a victim of translation, unlike herself. How remarkable her facility with languages! He had very few himself, alas, just the usual Swiss mix. To what did she attribute this gift?

No answer, but he plowed along as if she
had
answered, as if they
were
having a conversation. He talked knowledgeably about her books, including his favorite passages, and about other travel books he’d loved: Saint-Exupéry, Beryl Markham, Rebecca West, Bruce Chatwin, Gertrude Bell. Intertesting that so many great travel writers were women, especially given the limitations faced until quite recently by women traveling on their own. Why do you think that is?

No answer to this either, or to dozens of other questions over the following week, but he is not put off, every day in the late afternoon he arrives, pulls up a straight chair, and begins again, as if they are old friends, as if she is a willing partner in their conversation. Later she understands that he is using language to bring her back into life; he does the same with people who have not spoken to anyone in years, and sometimes even they respond.

When eventually she spoke it was with anger: How dare he interrupt her grief with this chatter? She told him to go away. He ignored her. He beamed. She speaks! Wonderful!

She shouted, cursed, threw a water glass at his head.

He picked it up, smiling, and she saw he dragged his left leg; he had a built-up shoe. He tapped the cup: plastic, he said, inelegant, but many patients throw cups at my head, and the staff dislikes clearing away the broken glass. How did you come to marry into a Pakistani family?

If I tell you, she answered, will you leave me alone?

Of course, he said. I promise to skip tomorrow.

She told him the story, the murdered family; he listened, asked no question, bid her good day, and left.

He did not come the next day, true to his word. When he arrived again, she told him she wanted to leave. He smiled. Of course you can leave. This is a madhouse, you know, and you are not mad. Anyone would break down under a load of such grief. But now you have recovered yourself. He called an attendant: Bring Madame Bailey’s things, if you please. He shook her hand and turned to go, but paused. He said offhandedly, with that hint of slyness she would come to recognize, You know, it is really a shame.

The attendant entered with her clothes and she sat on the bed, clutching them on her lap. The blouse was stained with her dried blood. She felt a pang of nausea but not because of the blood. She was fine with blood; the nausea was existential, as in Sartre.

She asked him what was a shame?

He said he had reread her books. He said she had a remarkable ability to penetrate foreign cultures; she was a listener; she accepted the concrete existence of the unseen world. All these abilities were desirable in an analytic psychotherapist, for the mad are a different culture, each one a sole member of that culture, each speaking a tongue incomprehensible to others; thus their dreadful isolation and pain. We have drugs and shocks and all that now, but here we also believe that you must enter that world, the culture of the insane, speak to them in their own language, and gently bring them back to our world. I believe this is something you could do.

She was amazed: did he seriously think she could be a therapist? I can barely take care of myself, she said.

Actually, that is an advantage, he said: the wounded healer. He tapped his bad leg. Polio when I was fifteen. I was a football player, a mountain climber. I thought my life was over. I was at zero, you understand, as you are at zero now. The ego is all eroded. There is nothing worse than a therapist full of himself, and we both have avoided that. Besides, you must have work. I expect you are no longer interested in traveling the world and writing, and you are cut off from your family. It is just a suggestion. . . .

Thus she began her therapy, which, if it did not entirely cure her, had at least provided a direction for her life, a vector that had led to this locked room. Thirty years to go from locked room to locked room. Fluss would have been hugely amused.

She hears soft, scraping footsteps outside the door and a liquid sucking noise, hard to identify until she smells the sweet reek of lubricating oil. Smart Patang, to oil the squeaking lock. A soft click and a little breeze on her cheek and the loom of another human presence in the room. Close by, on her charpoy, Annette Cosgrove murmurs and turns in her sleep.

His voice close to her ear. “How did you know about my dream?”

“Never mind that now. Do you want to know what it means and why God, the compassionate One, has sent it to you?”

A considerate pause. “Yes, tell me.”

“Then in the name of God listen! You dreamed that your father asked you to bring him two horses, a black stallion and a white mare. He told you to ride the white and lead the black on a line. You headed up a high mountain along a narrow path with a precipice on one side. The mare was calm under you, but the stallion was unruly and kicked and bit at the mare, so you decided to disobey your father and ride the stallion instead. The path grew steeper and narrower, and then to your horror the stallion bolted and plunged off the edge. You were suspended over the void by the line but did not fall, because the white mare held it. The line stretched and came near to breaking. Then you heard a voice saying, ‘Cling to the line and cut the stallion loose.’ But you were afraid to cut the line because of what your father would say if you lost a valuable horse. Again the voice called, ‘Save yourself, my son, and cut the line!’ When you realized it was your father’s voice you cut the line, the black horse fell screaming into the abyss, and the white mare pulled you up to safety, but as you rose you wounded your heel on a rock. That was your dream.”

“Yes,” he replies with a quaver in his voice. “What does it mean?”

“The narrow path is the way of Islam; the white horse is the teachings of the Prophet, on whom be peace. The black horse is the horse of pride and the violence that comes from pride. The abyss is the gate of Hell, to which the prideful are condemned. Your father is your father. He is dead, is he not?”

“Yes. He died in the jihad, when I was a baby.”

“God sent him to you out of Paradise then, as a warning, to keep you safe from Hell, by making you return to the path of Islam and the certain guidance of the Prophet, peace be upon him.”

“But I
am
on the path of Islam. I am a mujahid.”

“Your father was a mujahid. He fought the Russians, who denied Islam, stabled their troops in mosques, murdered women and children, and defiled the holy books with their filth. But you murder good Muslims, which I saw with my own eyes, and make war on the innocent.”

“Not true! Idris Ghulam says we must do the lesser evil for the greater good.”

“Which is what?”

“Driving the
kafiri
out of Kashmir and Afghanistan and building Islamic states.”

“If you wish to drive the Indians out of Kashmir, you should be shooting Indian soldiers, not Pakistani Muslims. And Pakistan and Afghanistan are already Muslim states.”

“They are not proper Muslim states. They are allied with America, and they don’t follow sharia law.”

“Tell me, what is the year?”

“What do you mean?”

“The year! What is the year, counting from the hegira?”

“It is 1429.”

“Yes, and why do we count from the hegira?”

“Because it is when the Prophet, peace be upon him, fled with his followers from Mecca to Medina.”

“Yes. Don’t you find it interesting that the birth of Islam is counted from a retreat? Not from a victory, not from the victory at Badr or at Ohod or from the conquest of Mecca, but from a retreat. Why do you suppose we do that, Patang?”

The boy is mute, baffled, and so she continues.

“Because the Prophet, peace be upon him, was reluctant in the highest degree to shed human blood. He did not form a secret society in Mecca to assassinate idolaters and their women and children and burn down their homes. Instead he retreated to a place of safety. And even when the idolaters attacked the Muslims at Badr and God gave the faithful their victory, the Prophet, peace be upon him, released all his prisoners after the battle and warned his followers not to molest the harmless or destroy their dwellings or their means of livelihood. And this was when Islam was a mere handful of families, not a billion people and two dozen nations. No, child, you ride the black horse of pride, you and your Idris Ghulam, and it
will lead you to the flaming pit. Your father warns you from Paradise. God warns you. Heed the Prophet, peace be upon him; ride his horse on the narrow path. Thus says the Prophet, peace be upon him: ‘He will not enter Hell who hath faith equal to a single grain of mustard seed in his heart; and he will not enter Paradise, who hath pride equal to a single grain of mustard seed in his heart.’ ”

“That is not true!” the boy shouts. “Why should I believe you? You are a foreign woman and a witch!”

“I am not a witch,” says Sonia. “You asked how I knew of your dream. I could have lied and put fear in you and say I divined it with the help of the djinn, but God hates liars, and so I say now that I heard you tell your dream to the other guard. But my interpretation is true, as you will see, for you will be wounded on your foot and then recall your father’s words and mine.”

The boy utters a frightened curse and leaves, locking the door behind him.

In the dark, from the other charpoy, Sonia hears Annette stir. “Did we disturb you?” she asks.

“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.”