Alif the Unseen (23 page)

“That’s . . .” The convert trailed off, looking lost.

“Miraculous. Indeed.”

“I don’t understand,” said Alif “What does this have to do with
The Thousand and One Days?
It’s not a holy book. Not even to the djinn. It’s a bunch
of fairy tales with double meanings that we can’t figure out.”

“How dense and literal it is. I thought it had a much more sophisticated brain.”

“Your mother’s dense,” Alif said wearily.

“My mother was an errant crest of sea foam. But that’s neither here nor there. Stories are words, Alif, and words, like
,
sometimes represent much grander things. The humans who originally obtained the
Alf Yeom
thought they could derive immense power from it—thus, it was in their best interests to
preserve these manuscripts the best way they knew how. That way, even if they never cracked the code themselves, the books would be vital and healthy for future generations, who might have more
success.”

The convert yawned into the hem of her scarf

“I can’t function anymore,” she said. “I’m going to sleep. Is the spare room through there?”

“Yes,” said Alif, distracted. A verging, half-formed thought stood on the edge of his mind, plaguing him. Vikram faded from his vision. He curled up on the floor, pulling his knees
to his chest and closing his eyes. The thought could wait; he was still exhausted. If he slept now he could get another hour or two of rest before the dawn prayer. The convert’s footsteps
ended with a door creaking shut and a murmured
good night
. He didn’t answer.

A doe leaped across his eyelids, pursued by a stag; the landscape they traversed was a Linux platform. He knew there was a snare waiting for the doe—
The Days
said so—and
watched passively as the creature stumbled, its leg crushed in a hidden vise of slash commands. A Trojan, thought Alif, a cleverly hidden trap. In all probability the doe had invited it in without
knowing; perhaps it had executed some kind of dubious content from a foreign land. The stag ran on obliviously. It was a utility program, incapable of responding to the doe’s anguished cries,
built for more basic purposes than empathy.

Alif cursed it. Idiotic animal. Little packet of ones and zeroes—it was all he was; this was his problem. Dina needed help with her little hoof shattered in the trap. It was his fault. Why
couldn’t he turn around? A doctor, a doctor—

“Alif.”

Vikram’s voice seemed to come from inside his own head.

“Wake up, you silly meat puppet. Something is wrong. Stop thinking about forest animals and move your feet.”

His eyelids were slow to open. He felt hot breath on his cheek. With great effort, he moved his fingers, batting at whatever was breathing down his neck. He encountered fur.

“Fuck!” Alif sat upright, staring: a large dog—or jackal, or ghastly thing—crouched in front of him with an intent look in its yellow eyes.

“For God’s sake, don’t be such a baby.” The figure shimmered like a mirage, resolving into Vikram. “You were dreaming.”

“Don’t do that,” Alif croaked, rubbing his eyes. “Please, I’m serious. Don’t ever do that again.”

“I haven’t done anything. You need to pay attention. There is a woman here to see you. You’ve got to send her away.”

“What?”

“She’s being followed by something terrible. If she leads it here we can all put our beards in our asses. I can’t protect you from everything, Alif, or the girls for that
matter. Do you understand?”

Alif struggled to his feet. The look on Vikram’s face alarmed him. He shuffled toward the great copper doors, willing himself awake. He undid the lock and heaved the crossbar upward,
pushing on the left door with his shoulder. It slid open without a sound. Outside on the steps of the mosque stood a woman with her back turned, wearing a black veil. Night air floated past her to
touch Alif’s face; it was damp, smelling of the sea and the oncoming dawn. Little lights were visible in the windows of the villas and shops down the street.

“Hello?” called Alif tentatively.

The woman turned and looked at him through familiar ink-black eyes. Alif stopped breathing.

It was Intisar.

“Peace be upon you,” she whispered.

Alif could not speak. He didn’t return her greeting.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked finally.

“I can’t stay,” said Intisar, ignoring his question. “I got your message. I was going to meet you at the university, like you wanted, but Abbas—Abbas found out. He
finds out everything. All the things I write in e-mails or say on the phone. You shouldn’t try to contact me again.”

“I wasn’t going to,” said Alif. His voice cracked. “I tried to leave you alone. But the book—”

Intisar’s eyes flickered, unable to hold his gaze. “I should have just given it to him. I took all the notes I need for my thesis—I didn’t understand why he was so
interested in it. But I was angry, so angry, at him, at my father—I thought if I gave it to you, you might be able to figure out why he wanted it so badly. You’re clever about these
things. I wanted to punish him.”

“Do you know?” he asked her. “Do you know what it is? Do you know who—what—wrote this book, Intisar?”

The eyes peering out from above her veil were very black.

“I don’t know what I believe,” she whispered. “I only found out about the
Alf Yeom
by accident—it was mentioned in an article I read about French
Orientalist translators. I wanted to see if I could find a copy in its original language. But as soon as I began to search for it, things got—strange.”

Alif held his breath.

“I was contacted by a bookseller in Syria who said he had a copy to sell for fifty thousand dinars. I was skeptical—that’s a lot of money. I asked him if the book had been out
of print for long, thinking I could find another copy and get a different price. He just laughed at me. He said it had never been in print to begin with. He said the original wasn’t even
written by human hands. I thought he was crazy. But I was so intrigued that in the end I agreed to pay his price.”

“And you read it.” In spite of himself, Alif’s eyes lingered on her slim shoulder. The fabric of her gown was so fine that he could detect a hint of collarbone beneath it, and
ached, longing for permission to kiss the enrobed skin.

“I read it,” she said. “It became clear to me that this was not an ordinary collection of stories. When I got to the last chapter I almost panicked, it was so disturbing. And
then one night I woke up all of a sudden and saw a man sitting in the desk chair near my bed. Just sitting, looking at me. He had yellow eyes. And I realized he wasn’t quite a man at all. He
was something else. When I turned on the light, he was gone. The next day, Abbas came to ask my father for me.”

“A spy,” said Alif. His heart rattled in his chest. “Sakina was right. He’s got allies. That’s how he found you. Intisar—” He seized one of her hands.
“He doesn’t need you anymore. You got rid of the thing he really wanted. You could leave him. I’ll give the
Alf Yeom
back to the people who know what to do with it, and
you and I will go somewhere, anywhere, together. Screw the City. We could see Istanbul or Paris or fucking Timbuktu. I’d live in a hut if it meant I could see you every day.”

He could see the interest draining from her eyes. The first ripples of despair began somewhere in his gut.

“It’s not that simple,” she murmured. “He’s already paid part of the dowry—a very generous dowry. I think he’s serious, Alif—it isn’t just
about the book. If it was he could have thrown everything back in my face after I betrayed him by sending it to you. But he didn’t. If anything, he’s been nicer to me since then. Just
today he came and sat next to me and told me how beautiful our children would be, because I was so beautiful, and asked me about my thesis and told me how happy he was to have an educated wife. He
cares about my mind. None of the other men my father has suggested have given a damn what I think, or whether I think at all.”

“He’s trying to bribe you.” Alif attempted to quell the searing sensation that was burning up his veins, the onset of a rage that would be the end of his self-control.
“He thinks if he pampers you you’ll hand me over to him and he’ll get everything he wants—the book, the girl, and the hacker he’s been trying to squash for
years.”

Intisar said nothing.

“Tell me,” said Alif, breathing hard. “Tell me you still want me and not him. Tell me you meant it when you said you loved me all those times.”

“Of course I meant it,” snapped Intisar. “But love isn’t everything, Alif. Where would we live? What would we live on? I can’t spend the rest of my days in a
two-room apartment in Baqara District, doing my own laundry.”

Her words fell on Alif like stones, leaving bruises.

“Is that what you were thinking about when we were together?” he asked. “When we were lying in my bed and counting streetlights out the window like they were stars, is that
what was going through your head? That you couldn’t believe you’d agreed to slum it with an imported Rafiq from Baqara District?”

She jerked away, her pretty brows knitting together above her veil.

“Of course not. I wanted to be with you. I fought my father when he told me he was marrying me off to Abbas. I hid the
Alf Yeom
from him, remember? I sent it to you. To hurt
Abbas. It’s just that . . .” She trailed off, looking restlessly out into the deserted square.

“It’s just that I’ve been thinking about things since then,” she continued in a more moderate voice. “And talking with my father, and with Abbas. They’re not
going to force me to do anything I don’t want to do. But they’ve convinced me that marrying outside your own people can only lead to trouble. You know that better than anybody. Look at
your parents.”

Her reasoning sounded stilted, rehearsed. Though he could not refute her logic, the insult was too great to bear. It was one thing for him to criticize his parents—which he had done on
more than one occasion while Intisar listened in what he had assumed was sympathy—but quite another to have that criticism thrown back in his face. He felt her betrayal of his confidence more
keenly than he had her betrayal of his body.

“What about me?”

Intisar dropped her eyes entirely. Her face was unreadable behind the black drape of her veil.

“What about me?” Alif asked again, more agitated now. “You get engaged to this monster behind my back, you saddle me with this awful-smelling old book, and while I’m
running around like a criminal in my own city, you’re doing what exactly? Do you know what I’ve been through in the last few days?”

“I’m sorry,” Intisar whispered. “I thought—but it doesn’t matter now. I’m frightened for you. I don’t know what he’s planning. He told me
that even without the
Alf Yeom
he had enough evidence of your illegal activities to put you behind the sun for the rest of your life. What’s Tin Sari, Alif?”

Alif swallowed. “A program,” he said hoarsely.

Intisar looked at him. “He says you were involved with criminals, real criminals. Is it true?”

“No.” Indignation began to override his anger. “That’s a lie. My clients aren’t criminals. They’re just trying to escape from this gold-covered shit we live
in, like everybody else. The only difference is that they have the balls to stand by what they believe.”

“You said you loved me,” Intisar said softly. “How could you get mixed up with these people when you knew I would get dragged in, too?”

He found the question bizarre. The strangeness of this meeting—the late hour, the steps of the mosque, the absence of Intisar’s car and driver anywhere he could see—crept up on
Alif like nausea.

“Intisar,” he whispered, “how did you know I was here?”

She backed down the steps.

“I was supposed to make you come out,” she said. “Where they could see you. They needed to be sure. They made me, Alif—I didn’t want this to
happen—”

The red beam of a laser sight danced near Alif’s temple. With a screech, he ducked back inside the great door and slammed it shut. The crossbeam slid down into its cradle with a loud
clank.

“You bitch,” he shouted through the dense metal. “You’ve sold us all to the Devil!”

The lights inside the
musala
flickered and shadows began to move across the underside of the dome in strange patterns, against the light. Alif felt chilled. Vikram appeared behind his
shoulder.

“Get the girls and the old man,” he said. “Lock the rest of the doors.”

Alif looked up at him wildly. “What do you mean? What are we going to do?”

“We are going to stay exactly where we are for as long as possible. Your friend’s new buddies can’t come inside a mosque, but that won’t stop them from trying. I have to
warn you—this can only end one way.”

“What? What way?”

“With you in their custody.”

Alif ran a trembling hand through his hair.

“Is it better if I just turn myself in?” he asked. “Do you think they’d be merciful if I cooperate?”

“I doubt that very much.”

“Mother
chode
.” Alif sat down on the floor.