An Infidel in Paradise (28 page)

“My life is here,” he says. “Aisha is my life. You should know that in case you have to make a choice.”

“A choice?”

“Between your own safety or coming back for us.”

“I know you belong with her,” I say, realizing in that moment that I’ve always known.

He closes his eyes again, and his breathing gradually slows down. I take him in my arms and gently shift him onto the pile of towels. He groans, but his eyes stay closed.

I kneel beside him, leaning down close to his ear. “I
promise
I will come back, for both of you.”

I
stand in the cool night air next to the smoking carcass that was our vehicle and try not to think of the rage and hatred that went into slashing the tires, pouring the kerosene, and throwing the matches. The acrid smell of burnt rubber makes my eyes water, and I’m reminded of women I’ve seen in the past few weeks who’ve had their faces burnt off by husbands and relatives.
If they can do that to women who share their lives and faith, how much easier will it be for them to set fire to me or Mandy?

To walk away from the building that suddenly feels like a sanctuary takes all of my willpower. I have only a vague idea of the direction of the diplomatic enclave, and first I must find my way back to the main road. The sound of sirens carries through the stillness, but it’s a distant call, and for that I’m grateful. I have no more desire to confront the dour, heavily armed military than I do the militants. I just want to go home.

As I leave the front courtyard of the market, I pass close to a pack of dogs sleeping by the roadside. A huge mastiff that looks straight out of a gothic horror flick lumbers to his feet and trots after me. Strangely, his attention doesn’t surprise me. I’ve always had a thing with animals. They’re drawn to me and I to them. For years, I begged Mom for a dog, but she never gave in. Too complicated, she said, with the many moves and different quarantine regulations.

I look down at the mostly furless beast keeping pace with me. His skin is stretched tightly over jutting ribs, and both ears have chunks bitten out of them. On another night, I might wonder what diseases he carried and begin concocting plans to get him to a vet, but tonight he just seems a suitable companion, as luckless as the rest of us who find ourselves alone and unprotected in a hostile land. I give him a brief smile as we steal down the laneway, keeping to the shadows.

At the first crossroad, we stop and listen. Turning right will take me in the direction of the enclave, but from that direction I hear sirens. I remember my night walk with Angie. If I go beyond the main road in the other direction, I can perhaps find a path that will skirt the front wall and take me into the enclave from the unfortified side. I wonder how similar my devious scheming is to the others who have gone before me tonight.
Did the bomber sit with his fellow jihadists, plotting the various ways they could infiltrate my world? How could I have left my sister to face them alone?

I turn left and speed up, breaking into a steady jog. My scruffy friend lopes along, easily keeping up. He seems happy to be with me. Perhaps he thinks we’re going to my home, where a solid meal awaits him. Or he plans to pick over my bones when I’m caught and killed. I give him a sidelong look, but he wags his tail and I weave close to pat his head. He licks my hand, which is gross but also comforting. I wipe it on my jeans when he’s not looking.

A light goes on in a house we’re approaching. My heart jumps, and I run flat-out to get past it. I keep going till I’m well beyond. My side aches and I really regret not taking up running before tonight. It seems shortsighted not to have developed such a basic survival skill. When no voice calls after us, I slow down again, holding my side. I don’t look back to see if anyone has come out of the house to observe the strange spectacle of a pale, fair-haired girl with her scabby cur running through the night. I imagine we would look more like minions of the devil than two comrades chasing our own salvation.

We’re only a few yards now from the main boulevard, and I move toward it cautiously, loath to step into the harsh glare of the streetlights. But I have to get across the boulevard if I’m going to have any hope of finding a side road into the enclave. I wait in the shadow of a house for several minutes, straining my ears to pick up any sound that might indicate the jihadists are nearby. The silence is thick and ominous. There are no cars, no
voices – none of the sounds that would be normal in a crowded city, even at night.

I plunge into the street and move quickly, running across the road, hopping up on the wide landscaped median, dodging trees and flowering bushes, and stepping down onto tarmac again. Only a few more yards and I’ll be back on another side street, once again cloaked in the darkness. I sprint the last few feet under the last bright light.

It’s then I hear them.

I don’t know if they’ve been lying in wait the whole time. Perhaps they were on their way home and came upon me by chance. As the four of them step into the harsh brilliance of another streetlight less than a block away, I see they are not much older than Vince, though their hard expressions make them look ancient. I stop so abruptly the dog bumps into my calves. His whimper is not from the collision but from the fear that passes from me into him like an electric current.

It’s a moment frozen in time. They stare at me in shock. And in my terror, my body turns to stone, unable to take advantage of these few precious moments when I might secure a head start. I can only stare back.

One of them breaks the silence with a laugh that is so harsh, so unlike any laugh I’ve heard in my life before, that it penetrates my frozen consciousness and empowers my immobile limbs. I run.

I run like I’ve never run in my life before, my legs churning, my chest heaving, a searing pain in my gut. I
trip several times, once falling, but I barely notice the rock that tears through my jeans, gashing my knee, as I stagger to my feet and keep running. I hear the click of nails on pavement as my dog runs with me, and the slap of leather sandals that tells me they’re not far behind. I race for the safety of darkness. If I can get back to the narrow side street, there are places I can hide, sheds in front courtyards, empty street stalls. They laugh and shout as they make chase, as if we’re playing a game. I’m sport to them, exotic quarry, and my body shakes to be this close to their evil, but I don’t slow down.

As I hurtle back toward the darkened streets I emerged from, their voices get closer. They’re gaining on me. My small advantage is that I know these streets, and as soon as the darkness surrounds me, I veer left, leaping a low wooden fence into a front yard where I noticed animal pens earlier. I dive behind one. My heart pounds as cold sweat drips down my back. I curl myself into a ball, pressing my body into the foul-smelling dirt that is home to more than one species of animal. I pray that no part of me can be seen above the low wooden cages and duck my head lower, hoping my blond hair isn’t glowing in the slivers of moonlight.

The men’s voices come near, and for a second, I’m certain I’ve been found. They sound as if they’re just beyond the fence of my yard. A sheep bleats, but I’m grateful for the cover of its noise so the men can’t hear my ragged breathing. Finally, their voices move off. Apparently they hear nothing worth investigating. I stay
nestled in my hiding place long after the last sound of their receding footfalls. The dog, with a cunning born of years on the streets, crouches silently at my side. The darkness covers us like a warm cloak, and I wish I could hide till morning, but I’ve already endangered too many lives tonight, and if there is ever a time to
make things right
, this surely is it.

Slowly, keeping low to the ground, I move across the front yard, ducking from one animal pen to the next until I reach the fence. I look down the street in the direction I believe the men disappeared. I look the other way toward the boulevard. Both directions seem to hold their own dangers, but I decide to try the boulevard one more time. I step over the fence. And hear a noise. A rustling so soft it could be a mere shift in the atmosphere, but my dog hears it too and growls low in his throat. The hairs on his back rise up, as do mine.

He charges across the road, barking at a heaping pile of refuse, and two men step from behind it, smirking. I’ve been tricked. The other two are nowhere in sight, but it’s hard to feel happy about the prospect of being murdered by two people instead of four.

They look warily at the dog that stands between us, snarling and snapping. One man is armed with a twisted iron rod that he likely picked up on the roadside somewhere, but the other has a scythe. Its sharp, angled blade designed for farmwork suddenly looks custom-made for beheading infidels. The dog crouches low, ready to spring.

I won’t have a better opportunity. I turn and flee, throwing every ounce of my being into the desperate race. I have no doubt it’s my life I’m running for, and perhaps not just mine. They’re not immediately behind me, and I falter when I hear a yelp, but seconds later, my dog is back at my side, then bounding ahead of me. We fly across the pavement into the harsh light of the boulevard. For the third time tonight, I leap the same curbs, dodge the same bushes, disregarding the branches that tear at my arms and face as I go for the shortest routes through the greenery.

We run for the narrow street on the other side of the boulevard. I don’t know this street, but in my mind, I picture darkened alleys and hiding places. This time, I won’t move until I’m certain they’re gone. We’re over the median and almost across the second stretch of wide road when a hand that feels every bit like a demon claw clutches my hair. Momentum carries my attacker tumbling onto the pavement on top of me. I grunt under his weight as I struggle to roll out from under him.

He grabs my wrist, dragging me to my feet, and shouts something back to his partner. He holds my arm aloft in victory. The dog stops a few feet ahead of us, watching anxiously. I notice he’s bleeding from the head, and the fact that they hit him fills me with a hatred I wouldn’t have thought myself capable of. I want to hurt them as surely as they want to hurt me. The second man reaches us and leans forward for a minute, his
hands on his knees, panting loudly. I’m not the only one who was tested beyond their limits tonight.

As his breathing returns to normal, he stands upright and laughs, and I recognize the sound; it’s no less chilling the second time round. Reaching over, he grabs my hair and twists it in his fist with a viciousness that brings tears to my eyes. He pulls my head toward him, and I suddenly realize his intention. I twist away, but his tongue pursues me like a parasitic worm trying to burrow into its host. His breath is foul and I think I might vomit in his mouth, but suddenly he’s wrenched away, taking with him a chunk of my hair. He’s lying on the pavement, pinned under my dog, and I’m free to run again, but I am riveted by a vision more horrific than any I have seen tonight.

The second man, raising his scythe high above his head, brings it down in the powerful fluid motion of a seasoned farmer – onto the neck of my dog. The blade slicing through flesh and bone makes a sound of despair and I fall to my knees, too late, throwing myself across my fallen friend. He makes but the tiniest whimper before his body goes limp. The wetness of his blood mingles with my own tears soaking my shirt. I hold his head in my hands, searching his eyes for some hint of life that would deny what I know to be true, but his staring eyes express the shock we both feel that a creature so badly treated by humans throughout his life could be brought down by his own undaunted loyalty.

I look up at the two men looming over me, and for a moment, I think maybe this life will be enough and they’ll leave me in peace. But their looks of shock are fleeting and quickly replaced with leering grins as the one with the cruel laugh drags me away from my dog, throwing me back onto the street and dropping down next to me to reach for the zipper of my jeans. I kick and claw and bite. I don’t just want to escape now; I want to kill them. His laughter dies on his lips as I gouge at his eyes. He smacks me across the face, but I hardly feel it. The second one kneels on my chest and tries to grab for my hands. I twist up and bite his arm, tasting blood. I grimace in satisfaction even as he wraps his hands around my throat. I struggle for breath and use the last vestiges of it to scream. I continue to thrash, though all my limbs are now crushed under their combined weight. Amid the anarchy of our life-and-death struggle, we don’t hear the approach of the jeep until we’re pinned in its headlights.