The Garden of Last Days (57 page)

“Do not be proud, Tariq. We must be vigilant now.”

“I am not proud, Bassam. I am prepared, that is all. I am ready.” And he rises and passes Bassam, touching him lightly upon the shoulder.

I am ready
. How
different
they are. Tariq has lain with a whore and now he is ready to leave this world. But why did you lie with her as well, Bassam? How could you have felt so stongly in the presence of the Holy One in one moment and then succumbed to the worst of this life in the next?

The door closes, the shower runs, and Bassam knows he has lied to him. He would not kill the whore, he would not. What he wants with her is more time. What he wants with her is more and more of what she sold to him, for it was over so quickly. And there are so many ways of doing it, are there not?

He looks at their remaining money beside the beds, and Al-Khaliq help him, for he wishes to count it, to see if there is enough to buy her once more. Or to buy another one. One even prettier. But he will not be able to bring her here. Imad will return soon, Insha’Allah. Allah willing. Allah willing. What is he thinking?

He looks downward at his mattress. Its cover is wrinkled slightly
but that is all. There is no other sign of what happened here. No sign of his seed being wasted. So why does he wish to waste it again and again? For a
feeling
? A simple physical sensation? Or is his soul as tied to the earth and all its pleasures as strongly as a kafir’s?

Cliff, at the convenience station, over sixty years and he has bleached hair and smokes the entire day and wears gold around his throat and wrists, the inked markings there of women and their hips and naked nuhood, the cross of Mary’s son, the names of kufar women he has lain with, one of them burned away by a lighted cigarette. Cliff, who called him Sammy. Cliff, who has certainly lain with many, many women in this world. His face and body an ugly map of his lostness, his nothingness, his unbelief.

What, Bassam? Do you want to stay here, is that it? Do you wish to smoke and drink and lie with whores and non-whores like the tall girl who smiled at you today? The girl who certainly at this moment is taking her boy inside her, pulling his precious seed from him? His strength? For that is what they do, do they not? These kufar women? Even the kind ones like Gloria, like Kelly, especially the kind ones—they take from you your power, your physical strength, yes, but also your ability to think clearly, to receive the Word of the Creator, to see and accept His signs.

Bassam grasps the bed’s cover and rips it from the mattress. He throws it into the corner. He sits. On the table, the sealed envelope from their commander. To all of them. Here, and across the river, and in the two cities to the south. Look how many thousands of kilometers from home they have come. Look at all the work and preparation, the training and practice, the fasting and prayer. Do you think this is wasted, Bassam? Do you think one brief thrusting into one kafir whore will waste this? Are you not ready to do what must be done? Are you not?

He pulls open the bedside drawer. He removes his razor knife. It is gray and metal and always he has liked the weight of it in his hand. But he has not always liked what they have planned to do with these, has he? A kafir businessman, yes. But a woman? A friendly woman—he
has been
blind
. For look at how weak he is now. Look at what the white whore and Shaytan have done to him.

He pushes the button, the blade revealing itself. It is silver and very short and shines in the light from the lamp. It is so sharp it cuts paper and it will cut flesh easily, Insha’Allah, it will cut through it very fast, and after all is done, Allah willing, from the highest rooms he will witness what happens to these jinn on the Last Day. He will watch them beg for their souls. He will watch them kneel before the Judge and the Ruler and tear at their faces and prostrate themselves and beg and beg, but for them only will be the everlasting fire and what joy Bassam will feel, Allah willing, as he watches these whores fall from the bridge into the flames. As he watches them fall.

He retracts the blade, drops it onto the holy book of the kufar, and he pushes shut the drawer.

SHE HAD TO
talk to him through a video screen. Her own son. She had to sit in a chair in front of a TV with him looking back at her in his jail clothes and talk to him on a telephone in the narrow, loud hallway where many others sat in front of similar television screens talking to their loved ones too.

She’d never seen him look so bad. Even when he had to come live with her away from his family, even then. It was his eyes. The will she’d seen in them his entire life. That undying determination to get done what had to get done, to get through what had to be gotten through. It was there in his low-slung eyes when he was little and pushed one toy into another, when he was bigger and walked off to the school he hated, when his voice was changing and he closed his bedroom door to her and whatever man she was giving herself to, when he was grown and carried all of Eddie’s tools onto the sunporch each evening and then back out every morning, when he married that
Deena—even then, standing before the justice of the peace in the county courthouse with only her mother and father and Virginia as witnesses, Alan in a jacket and tie she’d bought him, his pregnant bride in a plain cotton dress, he had that look, that this was another thing to take on and he was going to take it on and get
through
it.

But looking at him this afternoon on the television monitor looking back at her, she saw him in a way she never had. His shoulders were slumped and he kept looking away from the camera like he wasn’t sure where he was or what he was supposed to do now or if she was even there on the other side.

He’d taken a long breath and let it out.
I was trying to do something good, Mama. I was trying not to think of my
self.

You never do, honey. You never did
.

On the drive home she began to cry for him, this boy she’d raised to take on everything so
alone
. Why couldn’t he have just called the police? Why couldn’t he have asked
her
for help?

But why would he? Lord, why would he? When she thought of their past together, so much of it was with AJ as a tag-along—to her work, to the barroom or pool hall with whomever she was with, as a young third-wheel she’d put in front of the TV while she carried on with Eddie or the men before him in the kitchen or the bedroom.

Then Eddie gone and his vodka too. How quiet the house got, AJ working nights at the drugstore in the clothes she ironed for him. She’d smoke and flip through the channels, not really watching, just waiting, it seemed. But for what? Weeks and months of this, and she was smoking so much she couldn’t breathe. Had to get that tank. And then that woman on TV, that pretty woman Virginia’s age talking about her assault, about two men who’d bound and gagged and “violated” her for a day and a half. Virginia doesn’t remember how she escaped or what happened to the men, only that the woman went on to describe years of drinking and promiscuity. “You’d think I wouldn’t want any man to touch me. But I was trying to fill an emptiness only the Lord can fill. Only Him.”

Virginia began to weep.

The following Sunday she walked into a Catholic church. Seated in half the pews were well-dressed families: husbands and wives and kids. The walls seemed to be made of dark wood and stained glass, and suspended high above the altar was Jesus on the cross. The priest was young, his dark hair combed back from his face. He was handsome and spoke of the evil among and within us, and it was like putting words to the name of something you’d seen or used for years but had never known. There was the feeling she was being gently lifted and placed on the right path, one she could only stay on by letting go of the wheel.

You need to sell my truck, Mama
.

But she wouldn’t. She had two CDs worth plenty and tomorrow she’d cash them in and hire a lawyer.

And she’d get him out of there. With God as her witness, she would do whatever she had to for her son. For her one and only son.

MONDAY

THE ROOM IS
darkness. Bassam touches his chest. He touches his face. He turns upon his side and pulls up his knees, his legs whole, his arms—still here.

The shower runs. Tariq’s bed is empty, and the red light of the clock radio casts dimly: 5:03. Your last full day, Bassam. Allah willing, your last full day. He makes his supplication for waking:
All praise is for Allah who gave us life after having taken it from us and unto Him is the Resurrection
.

Bassam pulls the covering away. He sits and turns on the lamp and his eyes narrow at the light. He closes them and prays the morning supplication:
We have reached the morning and at this very time all sovereignty belongs to Allah, Lord of the world. O Allah, I ask You for the good of this day, its triumphs and guidance, and I take refuge in You from the evil of this day and the evil that follows it
.

Water runs in the pipes in the walls. The brass clip is empty, their
remaining money lying upon the two sealed envelopes. Bassam lifts his and rips it open, his fingers shaking as they did with the whore he fears now has ruined him.

It is several pages photocopied, and it is both a comfort and an admonition seeing his written language from home.

The Last Night

1. Make an oath to die and Renew your intentions
. Bassam rubs his eyes. He sits more erectly.
Shave excess hair from the body and wear cologne. Shower
.

2. Make sure you know all aspects of the plan well, and expect the response, or a reaction, from the enemy
. Bassam’s heart begins to beat more quickly. He breathes deeply through the nose and he wipes more sleep from his eyes.

3. Read Al-Tawbah and Anfal and reflect on their meanings and remember all of the things that Allah has promised for the martyrs
. Yes, yes.

4. Remind your soul to listen and obey all divine orders and remember that you will face decisive situations that might prevent you from 100 percent obedience, so tame your soul, purify it, convince it, make it understand, and incite it. Allah said: “Obey Allah and His messenger, and do not fight amongst yourselves or else you will fail—”

Imad last evening, his shouts, his anger at the smell of perfume, Tariq proud and with no fear shouting back at him as if Imad were Karim, lost and with no knowledge of the Truth. “It was a
bounty
and nothing else, Imad! Leave me alone. Only Al-Khaliq is my Judge!”

“Tariq, is
this
how you prepare? Is it? And Bassam, you as well?
You?!
”

Bassam could not answer and there was the slamming of their door, the slamming of Imad’s. Tariq laughed.

“Be quiet, Tariq. Say nothing, please. Nothing.”

—and be patient, for Allah is with the patient
.

Their fighting, their smoking, their purchasing a woman who
could well have been police, how easily they could have been stopped, detained,
exposed
. And Bassam feels as if he is a small child entrusted with something precious to which he has no right.

The water stops in the pipes. But this letter, written to him by whom? One of their commanders, perhaps even Abu Abdullah himself, may Allah bless him. Bassam imagines him sitting in the central tent, writing it to them so far away. This holy man. This holy warrior whose words Bassam continues to read slowly and with great care.

Purify your soul from all unclean things. Completely forget something called “this world” or “this life.” The time for play is over and the serious time is upon us
.

The words become difficult to see; Bassam’s eyes burn and he wipes at them.

The time for play is over
.

All is known, all is forgiven.

That
is what his sheikh is telling him. He knows where he has sent them to live. He knows what they have faced here. And so wisely he has given them these instructions with only one day remaining, so there will be no further time to waste, no further time to be led astray. Abu Abdullah’s eyes. His
belief
in them! His
love
for them!

How much time have we wasted in our lives? Shouldn’t we take advantage of these last hours to offer good deeds and obedience?

Yes, yes. Bassam sits back in his bed. He covers his bare legs.

Keep in mind that, if you fall into hardship, how will you act and how will you remain steadfast and remember that you will return to Allah and remember that anything that happens to you could never be avoided, and what did not happen to you could never have happened to you. This test from Almighty Allah is to raise your level and erase your sins
.

Erase
your sins. He has
not
lost his place in Jannah, he and Tariq and Imad chosen through Abu Abdullah by the Creator Himself. Have you forgotten this, Bassam? Have you forgotten everything ever taught to you by good and holy men? He must simply perform his task and, Insha’Allah, all is guaranteed. He must pray for this. He must pray.