The Twelfth Imam (8 page)

15

Gouin Reservoir, Quebec, Canada

For David, it was even better than the stories he’d been told.

His older brothers had told him about their adventures, but they weren’t capable of describing the color of the sky in the dawn or the feeling of being so far removed from any other human beings. David felt like a pioneer and imagined that their group was as far as human society had ever gone. He spent the first full day glued to his dad’s side, getting an introduction to the walleye up close and by the dozen. He’d never seen a place so thick with fish, as if no one had ever fished here except the black bears. He and his father skimmed around the edges of the island in low, flat, jigging boats, and David began to learn how to work the sonar and how to feel a strike as he held the rod. The fish were low and deep in the lake, but they hauled them up and into their boat all day, stopping only to drift in a little bay as they munched PB&J and the last of the doughnuts the boys had bought at the airport in Montreal. The water was clear, the sky was deep blue, and even the simplest of sandwiches tasted wonderful. Of course, there would be plenty of fish for dinner.

David wondered how Marseille and Mr. Harper were getting on. The two had decided to spend the morning on a hike with the promise to rejoin the fishermen in midafternoon. David found himself looking forward to seeing her and even tried to prethink some better conversation than he’d been able to summon up thus far. He wondered if she even liked fishing, seeing as she and her dad were the only ones who hadn’t plunged in first thing. Either way, though he was a bit embarrassed to think it, he was actually glad she was here. Maybe his father hadn’t done such a bad thing after all.

David wasn’t disappointed, therefore, to see Marseille sitting by the shore when his father’s boat came to rest at the dock. As the two dads took the opportunity to grab a cold drink together and catch up on old times, David shyly asked Marseille if she was up for a walk. “Want to show me what you guys discovered all morning?” He hoped he didn’t sound too eager.

Smiling, she said, “Sure. We just walked along the shore for a long time and tried to see if we could make it around the whole circumference of the island. We weren’t even close. This place is huge!”

David grabbed a thermos of water, and the two wandered off together. After a few minutes, he realized they were heading straight for their “ghost town.”

Marseille pointed out the clawed screens of the cabins, and David decided it might be better not to make any more bear jokes. The A-frame seemed almost tidy among the group of shabby cabins, and with both of them exerting their full weight at the same moment, they were able to force open the front door. Inside they found a few sling-back chairs and a very basic bed frame supporting an ancient, thin mattress. David used his sweatshirt to dust off the chairs and dragged them over to the open doorway. They both plopped into them, feeling quite at home.

“Any good fish stories from your morning on the reservoir?” Marseille asked.

He liked the question, liked the way she asked it, liked the way she looked at him with real interest.

“It was great to be out with my dad. I’m a walleye rookie, but I caught more than I thought I would.”

David asked about her school and found out her favorite classes were English, creative writing, history, and drama. He asked about her hobbies and learned she played the piano, only because her mother wanted her to, but also the saxophone because she loved it. She ran cross-country but not terribly well; she loved poetry, Shakespeare, singing in the choir, and especially acting in school plays. She was looking forward to the spring, when she planned to try out for the part of Nellie Forbush in the production of
South Pacific
at her school. Her real dream was someday to play the role of Cosette in
Les Mis
on Broadway, or better yet, in London or Paris.

“What about politics?” he asked her.

“What about it?”

“Are you a Democrat or a Republican?”

“I have no idea,” she said.

“No idea?”
he asked, incredulous.

“No, why should I?”

“Weren’t your parents Foreign Service officers in France, Italy, and Switzerland after getting out of Iran?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So doesn’t your father teach history and U.S. foreign policy at Princeton?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So wasn’t your mom a consultant for the Treasury Department for a few years before getting a job with some big investment bank in Manhattan?”

“She was, but how do you know all that?” Marseille asked.

David shrugged. “I don’t know—I hear things; I remember them. The point is, your parents are so interested in the world and in government. Didn’t any of that rub off on you?”

“I guess not,” Marseille said. “I can’t stand politics. It’s just a bunch of old men arguing and spending all of our money.”

David laughed. She was feisty and sure of herself, and he liked that. “Do you think it’s all going to get better if young people like us tune out the world’s problems and do nothing?”

“No,” she conceded.

“Well, shouldn’t you pick a team and root for it?”

“Maybe,” she said at last, pulling a box of Junior Mints from her knapsack and eating a few without offering him any. “All right, which party should I sign up for—Republicans or Democrats?”

David laughed again. “Well, it’s really not for me to say,” he said, sure she was going to prove to be a liberal Democrat like him but wanting her to come to her own conclusion lest he look too pushy. “How about this? I’ll give you a little test to see if you’re a liberal or a conservative. Then you decide which party is best for you. Deal?”

Marseille thought about that for a moment and liked it. “Deal.”

“Okay, let’s see. Are taxes too low or too high?”

“Too high.”

“Should government spend more or less on education, health care, the environment, and other important necessities?”

“Government spends too much as it is,” she said. “I think they should let people keep more of what they earn.”

David continued cautiously, surprised by her answers. “Should the government protect a woman’s right to choose?”

“You mean abortion? No way! It’s a baby, David. You can’t kill a baby in her mother’s womb.”

David gulped.

“Don’t you agree?” she pressed.

“Well . . .”

“Isn’t government supposed to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?” she continued. “Life—it’s the first one, for crying out loud. Life comes first, then choice. If you switch that around, you’ve got chaos. Right?”

David was stumped and decided to move on. “What about gay rights?” he asked.

“Well, you shouldn’t be mean to gay people, but they shouldn’t have special rights. After all, marriage is a beautiful, sacred thing, between one man and one woman, don’t you think?”

David nodded weakly.

“
Don’t
you think?” she pressed a bit stronger, popping a few more Junior Mints into her mouth and smiling.

“Absolutely,” he insisted. “Beautiful, sacred—absolutely.”

He asked her some foreign policy questions, then a few about trade policy and immigration. When he was done, he just sat there for a few minutes, trying to process all that he’d just heard.

“Well?” she asked, practically glowing in the fiery rays of the sun beaming through the window. “What am I?”

David shook his head. “You’re a 99.967-percent rock-solid conservative.”

“Really?” she said, seeming happy with the sound of that. “So that’s the Republicans, right?”

David nodded but was crestfallen. He liked this girl. But he couldn’t fall for a Republican, could he?

“So are you a Republican too, David?”

At that, he shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

Marseille was aghast. “What do you mean? Don’t you agree with me on all those things?”

They talked and argued—civilly, but passionately—as the afternoon slipped away unnoticed. For someone not interested in politics, she certainly had strong opinions! Before they realized it, the sun had fully set, and they were arguing by the light of their flashlights. David suggested they’d better put their political feud on hold and get back before their fathers sent out a search party for them. Reluctantly, Marseille agreed.

“Maybe we should change the subject,” David said as they bushwhacked their way to the camp.

“Maybe.” They picked their way around a fallen tree in the darkness. “So what about you? What do you dream of doing someday, aside from running for president as a lunatic Democrat?”

“Very funny,” David said. He stopped walking for a moment. “You really want to know what my dream is?”

She nodded, expectantly.

“I dream—” he hesitated, and her eyes widened—“of having some of those Junior Mints.”

Marseille laughed. “Dream on. These are my own special treat.”

“You’re really not going to offer me one?” he said. “Not even one?”

“Maybe if you really tell me your dream.”

He smiled. “All right, it’s a deal.”

“Go ahead,” Marseille said. “I’m listening.”

“Actually, I’ve never told anyone this. . . .”

“It’s okay,” she said. “You can tell me.”

He took a deep breath.

“My dream . . .”

She leaned in.
“Is . . . ?”

He paused again, letting the suspense build further. “. . . to get back to camp without being eaten by a bear.”

With that, he took off in a sprint for their camp, laughing, with Marseille running after him, yelling and trying to catch up.

16

Sadr City, Iraq

Najjar lay in bed and closed his eyes, but he could not sleep.

His mind raced as he pored over every detail of the kidnapping and his encounters with the taxi driver and later with the beggar. Then he thought of the little boy who had rescued him from a beating by those bullies when he was just ten years old. Was Allah calling him? Najjar wondered. Had he sent angels to protect him, to speak to him? Was he truly being chosen to know and serve the Promised One? It couldn’t possibly be. He had no parents, no money, no religious clerics in his family, no political power, no influential friends, no reason of any kind to attract the attention of the Mahdi, peace be upon him. Yet how could he deny this bizarre chain of events?

He dared not ask his aunt or his uncle about any of this. He couldn’t confide in anyone he knew. They would think he had gone mad. And maybe he had. But maybe not. Maybe Khomeini really hadn’t been the one the Islamic world was waiting for but rather just a forerunner. Perhaps the end of days was truly approaching. Perhaps the messiah was coming after all—and soon.

As the sun began to rise in the eastern sky, a weary Najjar slipped out of bed, quietly opened his bedroom door, scanned the hallway for any signs of movement, and then carefully crept to the living room, hoping he wouldn’t wake anyone. On the shelf beside the television, there were a handful of books—the family Qur’an, of course, and then a series of Shia histories and theological textbooks. His uncle, a devoutly religious man, had wanted to be a mullah before abandoning his studies to join the family business. But even to this day, whenever he had a little spare change, he bought another of the religious books he loved to study, and Najjar loved him for it.

One particular book on the highest shelf was by an Iranian man named Dr. Alireza Birjandi, one of the most renowned Shia scholars in the world and an expert on Shia eschatology, or End Times theology. His book,
The Imams of History and the Coming of the Messiah
, was a classic, arguably the definitive book on the subject. It told the stories and legends and controversies surrounding all twelve of the Imams, but the stories of the last—the Twelfth Imam—had always intrigued Najjar most.

The Twelfth Imam, Dr. Birjandi explained, was not a mythical character or a fictional construct. He was a real, flesh-and-blood person who had lived in the ninth century and would someday reemerge to change the course of history. Born in Samarra, Iraq, in or around the year 868, his name was Muhammad Ibn Hasan Ibn Ali. Like the eleven Shia Muslim leaders who went before him, Muhammad was a direct descendant of the founder of Islam and was thought to have been divinely chosen to be the spiritual guide and ultimate human authority of the Muslim people.

But before he reached an age of maturity when he could teach and counsel the Muslim world as was believed to be his destiny, the Twelfth Imam had vanished from human society. Some said he was four years old. Others said five or six. Some believed he fell into a well in Samarra, though his body was never recovered. Others believed his mother placed him in the well to prevent the evil rulers of the time from finding him, capturing him, and killing him—and that little Muhammad subsequently became supernaturally invisible. That’s why some called him the “Hidden Imam,” believing that Ali was not dead but simply hidden from the sight of mankind until the end of days, when Allah would once again reveal him.

Najjar carefully turned the pages of the dog-eared book. When he found the page he was looking for, his pulse quickened.

“‘The Mahdi will return when the last pages of history are being written in blood and fire,’” he read under his breath. “‘It will be a time of chaos, carnage, and confusion, a time when Muslims need to have faith and courage like never before. Some say all the infidels—especially the Christians and the Jews—must be converted or destroyed before he is revealed and ushers in a reign characterized by righteousness, justice, and peace. Others say Muslims must prepare the conditions for the destruction of the Christians and the Jews, but that the Mahdi will finish the job himself. But know this, O ye faithful: when he comes, the Promised One will bring Jesus with him as his lieutenant. Jesus will command all the infidels who are still standing to bow down to the Mahdi or die.’”

Najjar could hardly breathe, he was so excited.

“‘The ancient texts do not tell us exactly how and when he will come,’” Najjar continued reading. “‘Some believe he will first appear in Mecca and conquer all the lands of the Persian and Babylonian empires, then establish the headquarters of his global caliphate in the Mesopotamian city of Kufa. Others believe he will emerge from the well at the Jamkaran Mosque in Iran and then travel to Mecca by way of Mesopotamia. Some say that he will conquer Jerusalem before establishing his caliphate. Others believe Jerusalem must be conquered as a prerequisite to his return. Yet while much is unknown, the ancient texts make one thing abundantly clear: every Muslim must be ready for his return, for he is coming with great power and glory and with the terrible judgment of hellfire for all those who disobey or stand in his way.’”

Najjar closed the book and shuddered. He had followed the Promised One fervently for the first few years after he had met that little boy at the age of ten. But over time, he had let himself drift away from the teachings of the Qur’an and the responsibility to be ready. Now he wondered. What if the Promised One really did come soon? Would he be cast into hell? Would he suffer forever, with boiling water being poured over his head until his flesh melted away? He had to change his ways. He had to submit. He had to work—and work hard—to win back Allah’s approval.

His encounter with the beggar, Najjar concluded, was a hopeful sign. Allah was not finished with him yet. Perhaps there was still time to become a good and righteous young man and to earn Allah’s eternal favor.

But how?