Alif the Unseen Page 6

  “It’s a book,” he said.

  “I can see that,” said Dina, “but the title’s blurred out. I can’t read it.”

  Alif lifted the manuscript into the light and squinted at it. The title appeared to be written by hand in an old-fashioned kind of Arabic calligraphy, using gold ink. It was flaking badly and some of the letters were barely visible. He was startled to discover that the first word was his own name.

  “Alif,” he said excitedly, “It says Alif!”

  Dina snatched the book from his hands.

  “No it doesn’t,” she said after a moment. “It says alf. Alf Yeom wa Yeom. The Thousand and One Days.”

  Chapter Four

  Alif sat back on his heels.

  “It must be a joke,” he said.

  “It looks serious to me.” Dina held up the manuscript, turning it one way and then the other. “See how old it is. And it smells like—like—”

  “I know,” said Alif hastily, flushing. “But what does it mean? Why did she send it?”

  Dina rolled her eyes. “You’re asking me? I’ve only met her twice. I could have told you that running around with a stuck-up silk slipper behind her father’s back was a bad idea. No wonder you’ve gotten so strange—”

  “All right, all right.” Alif jerked the book out of Dina’s hands. The sun beat down on his dark hair and made sweat stand up on his scalp. He wanted coffee and the cool of his bedroom, the pleasant familiar hum of his machines. “Never mind. Thank you for bringing this to me. I’m sorry I got you involved.”

  Dina’s eyes looked hurt. She stood, gathering the folds of her robe with offended elegance.

  “Here, wait.” Alif felt guilty. “I’ll walk home with you. If we leave together without shame people will assume we were in here to pick the last of the dates.”

  “Thank you.” Dina walked to the edge of the orchard without looking at him. Alif tucked the book back into the box and followed her. They passed between the jagged palm trunks and were immediately deafened by late afternoon traffic that moved down the street in one overheated mass. A skinny man on a moped reached out for Dina’s veil as he sped past. Alif cursed at him, running a few steps before Dina called him back.

  “It’s just a donkey whose mother raised him wrong,” she said, adjusting the black fabric over the bridge of her nose. “The City is full of them.”

  “You should have let me catch up,” Alif muttered, “I’d teach him what his mother couldn’t.”

  Dina moved closer to him. They walked in silence, threading through a series of named and unnamed streets until their own block appeared beyond an intersection.

  “I’ll stop at the pharmacy,” said Dina. “Baba’s liver is acting up again. It’ll only take a minute.”

  “Okay.” Alif waited as she ducked into a white storefront that advertised its wares in Tamil. When they got home he would take a shower and change into the grey house-kurta his grandmother had sent him from India, the one made of cotton so soft it felt like a baby’s blanket. Then he would put a cold compress on his eyes and try to make sense of the day’s events. The smell of frying papadams wafted down from a cook shop in the next street, mingling with gasoline and dust: a greasy comforting scent he had known since childhood. Their little corner of the City was reassuringly solid, unchanged by what had happened in the past thirty-six hours. Alif ’s tragedies seemed to spring from some perverse timeline to which Baqara District was not a party.

  Alif ’s gaze drifted to the garden in front of their duplex, halfvisible between the neighboring apartment blocks. A man was loitering near the front gate. Alif squinted. He was an Arab, clean shaven, wearing a white thobe and sunglasses. He stood as though he was waiting to meet someone or expected an imminent delivery. Alif had waited at the gate in a similar fashion a hundred times, to receive the butcher’s boy, the ironing man, the fruit-seller. But that was not strange, because this was his house.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Dina, exiting the pharmacy with a brown paper bag.

  “There’s a man standing in front of our place,” said Alif, “Looking like he owns it.”

  Dina peered down the street. “Must be waiting for someone,” she said. “Maybe he’s a friend of Baba’s. Or could he be looking for your father?”

  “I don’t—” Alif ’s phone buzzed in his pocket, interrupting him. He pulled it out and touched an icon on the screen: it was a text message from Abdullah. He opened it.

  Faris says: Abbas Al Shehab.

  Points of light danced in front of Alif ’s eyes.

  “Are you all right?” Dina looked at him in alarm. “You’ve gone pale!” She said his given name in an anxious voice. He barely recognized it, or her.

  “Please—” Her voice came out of a hazy brightness. “Answer me. I’m getting scared.”

  He mouthed a prayer. Adrenaline shot through his veins like an angelic answer, clearing his mind in one ringing blow. He grabbed Dina’s arm. “I need you to do something for me,” he said, “Quickly, without any fuss.”

  Dina looked from his hand to his face. “Okay,” she whispered.

  “Knock on my door and tell the maid you need to get a novel you lent me. Tell her it’s in my room. Go up and get my netbook. It’s sitting on my desk next to the main computer. And get—” his throat closed. “Get the grey kurta that’s hanging in my wardrobe, on the left.”

  Dina’s chest rose and fell rapidly beneath her robe. “What’s going on?” she asked in a low voice.

  “That man is waiting for me.”

  “What have you done? What have you done?”

  Alif fought to keep his breathing steady. “I’ll tell you everything, I swear—I’ll tell you whatever you want. Just do this first. It’s not safe for me to go home now.”

  Dina left him without a word. Alif watched as she crossed the street, paper bag clutched tight against her body. He held his breath when the man at the gate stopped her. Dina shifted from foot to foot, gesturing toward the New Quarter at one point with a hand that fluttered and shook. As she turned toward the house, the man grabbed her wrist.

  Alif bolted across the street without thinking. As he neared the gate, Dina met his eyes with a look that stopped him dead: a terrible look, a warning, her pupils collapsing into tiny dots. He noticed irrelevantly that her eyes were flecked with green, forming starburst patterns around her pupils, like copper suns. Alif would have reached for the Arab man’s arm, or even hit him, but Dina’s gaze forced him back with a pressure that was almost physical, and he found himself retreating step by step until he stood at the edge of the street.

  Dina twisted deftly out of the man’s grasp and continued toward the house. The Arab man turned away from her, pulling a crease from the sleeve of his thobe in a gesture of irritation. He looked up, and for a moment Alif saw his own startled reflection in the man’s sunglasses. Alif ducked behind the corner of the apartment block next door, panting. The box containing Intisar’s book puckered as he held it to his damp chest. The Arab man did not follow him.

  The alleyway between the two buildings was lined with bags of garbage awaiting collection day; pools of reeking yellow fluid had formed beneath them, criss-crossing the unpaved earth to meet one another in rivulets. Alif gagged, straightened, and gagged again, tasting bile. He was still heaving when Dina touched him on the shoulder.

  “Don’t speak,” she whispered, “He’s still there. Keep walking down the alley.”

  Alif stumbled to obey her. They made their way along a thin spit of clear ground that ran through the trash, Dina bundling up her robe to keep it from dragging in muck. When they emerged into the next street, she punched Alif on the arm.

  “Ow! Damn it!” He glared at her, rubbing the sore spot. “You stupid, careless, selfish son of a dog,” she said, voice shaking, “You’ve put all of us in danger. Our families, our neighbors. Do you know who that was? That was a detective from State security. Oh yes.” She shoved a backpack into his arms. “Here, take your stuff.”

&n
bsp; Alif stared at her, slack-jawed. “I can’t believe you just said a swear-word,” he said, “I didn’t know you knew any swear-words.”

  “Don’t be an idiot and don’t change the subject.”

  Alif flushed and hugged the backpack to his chest. “What’s in here?” he asked.

  “What you asked for, plus some clean socks and a toothbrush. And a bag of dates.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “Really. You’re—I’m sorry about your wrist.” He glanced at her black sleeve, feeling ashamed. “This is the second time today I should have protected you and couldn’t. I owe you better.”

  “You owe me an explanation.”

  “Fine, yes, you’re right.” Alif glanced around anxiously, bundling Intisar’s book into his backpack and letting the box drop. “Not here. We’ll go to my friend Abdullah’s place.”

  Dina looked uneasy.

  “It’s public,” Alif reassured her, “At least technically. It’s a shop, but only for people who know people. I won’t make you break any rules. We’ll leave a door open or something.”

  “Okay.”

  Alif led her on a circuitous path through Baqara District, doubling back every few blocks. Each time he saw a man in a thobe his stomach churned. When they reached the door of Radio Sheikh the sun was setting, and what birds remained in the City made restless sounds as they jockeyed for position in the stunted trees. Alif knocked on the door more forcefully than he meant to.

  “Yes?” It opened a crack, and Alif saw Abdullah’s eyes flashing back at him in the rosy light.

  “We need to come in,” said Alif, “Now, immediately.”

  “We?”

  Alif pushed the door open over Abdullah’s startled protest and ushered Dina inside. Abdullah shrank away from her, glaring at Alif over her head.

  “This is Dina,” said Alif, “Find your manners.”

  “Assalaamu alaykum, miss,” muttered Abdullah, shifting his gaze to the concrete floor.

  “W’alaykum salaam,” said Dina. Abdullah’s expression changed.

  “Is this—is she the—” He stopped midsentence, blushing. It took Alif a moment to decide what he meant.

  “No! This isn’t her. This is the neighbor’s daughter.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Abdullah took a deep breath. “Tea, anyone? Dina?”

  Alif threw his backpack on the welding bench without answering. “Listen, bhai,” he said, “I am in serious going-to-jail-to-be-raped-by-thugs trouble. It’s real this time. I have screwed up the most profound way imaginable and I am fucked, fucked.”

  Dina began backing toward the door.

  “The Hand again? Has something happened?”

  “State security is watching my house. Our house. Dina’s family lives in the same duplex. He was very nasty with her when she tried to get inside.”

  Abdullah fumbled his way toward the bench and sat down. “Go on,” he said, feigning composure.

  “The girl—Intisar—when the Hand broke into my computer I was connected to her machine. I thought since she’s an aristocrat they wouldn’t bother with her, so I wasn’t worried, but then Faris—” He swallowed. “It’s her fiance, Abdullah. Abbas El Shehab—that’s her fiance’s name. Imagine his surprise when he found his future wife’s computer hooked up to a hacker’s. All our emails, all our chats—it will be a scandal to end scandals.”

  “Wait a minute.” Abdullah steepled his fingers. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Slow down and tell me again, because it sounds like you’re saying you’ve been screwing the Hand’s bride-to-be.”

  Alif slumped to the floor and covered his face.

  “Alif,” said Abdullah in a soft voice, “Were you running the pattern recognition program? The one you’ve been working on?”

  “Yes. It was installed on her machine. Functioning perfectly too.”

  “So you have delivered into the Hand of the enemy a tool they could use to hunt us down no matter which computer or login we use?”

  “Yes.”The single syllable crescendoed in a squeak. “Yes.”

  “And you’ve given the Hand a reason to cut off your dick as well as your head.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I agree.” Abdullah stood. “You are one fucked man, and you’ve fucked us all along with you.”

  “Please stop cursing,” said Dina.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Abdullah, beginning to pace the floor, “You can’t stay here. I mean you can, for now, but you’ll have to keep moving.”

  “Thanks. Even one night would be a huge—”

  “Don’t thank me. This isn’t a favor for a friend. I’m so angry I could bash that half-Arab nose right in. But what happens to you now will affect everyone you know. I’d like to keep my own ass out of prison, when it comes to that.”

  “What about Dina?”

  “What about Dina?” said the girl herself, “Dina is going home this very moment. I’ve heard enough.”

  Alif looked up at her anxiously. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Not with State watching the house. They could get angry and decide arresting you is the best way to drive me insane. You live next door to a terrorist. People have been executed for less.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Are you saying I can’t go back to my own house?”

  “Please keep your voices down,” said Abdullah, twisting his hands.

  “My mother,” moaned Alif, “My poor mother.”

  “You should have thought of your poor mother before you started screwing someone else’s prize filly.”

  “Stop it!”

  Alif and Abdullah went silent and stared at Dina. She was breathing heavily, fists clenched at her sides.

  “Stop saying such ugly things! You’re a couple of boys trying to talk like men—you’re not fooling anyone!” She took a few deeper, shaking breaths and relaxed her hands. “We have to think calmly and decide what must be done.”

  Alif studied Dina over the ridge of his updrawn knees, impressed. A damp flush had appeared on the skin beneath her eyes, but her gaze was steady. She sat down on the welder’s bench and smoothed her robe before addressing them again.

  “Brother Abdullah, I think we’ll take that tea now.”

  * * *

  For an hour they discussed and discarded Alif ’s options. Could he flee the country? No, by now his name had certainly been added to a blacklist at every port and border. Could he bribe some Bedouin to take him through the desert, where he could cross into Oman or Saudi Arabia unnoticed? Dina dismissed this as fanciful. Was there no relative or friend with political connections to whom he could appeal for protection? Alif thought of his father’s other family: his first wife had a cousin or two in some modest level of government. But she would never help him.

  After the evening call to prayer Abdullah left for a quarter of an hour, returning with hot shawarma sandwiches. By this time Alif ’s anxiety had changed shape: he considered what might happen, or worse, had already happened, to Intisar. Everything hinged on whether her fiance decided to reveal the scandal to her father or not. The Hand did not yet have formal control over Intisar; her father, on the other hand, was within his rights to beat her to the verge of death. For a brief, fluttering minute he let himself imagine the Hand had released her from her engagement and hushed the whole thing up to avoid embarrassment.

  “When you saw her,” Alif asked Dina as they ate, “Intisar I mean, did she look like she’d been hurt? Did you see any bruises or marks? Was she limping?”

  “No,” Dina said curtly. “She wasn’t limping. She just seemed upset.”

  “Maybe it’s all right then,” said Alif, thinking again of the possibility that Intisar was both free and socially damaged enough to make him look like a suitable match. He could give up his work, take a job at respectable company, make microchips for morons. They could be happy.

  “All right,” snorted Abdullah, “You’re going to need a bodyguard for the rest of your life. If you even make it to the rest of your life.
”

  “I don’t care if I do,” said Alif. “All that matters is that Intisar is safe. She shouldn’t be punished for what I’ve done—she’s never said a word against the Emir or the government in her life. If they hurt her I’ll kill myself.” He ground the palms of his heels against his eyes.

  “Don’t be a baby,” Dina muttered.

  Abdullah crumpled the wax paper wrapping of his sandwich and dragged one hand across his mouth. “Look,” he said, “Here’s my idea. You both stay here tonight. I’ll curtain off a corner for Dina and my sister can lend her some night things. Then in the morning you both go to the old part of the souk and look for help. You need protection.”

  “Look for help? From who?”

  “Vikram the Vampire.”

  Alif burst into an exasperated laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Vikram the Vampire? Are we ten years old?”

  “I used to play that game with my cousins,” said Dina, “We’d turn off all the lights and say his name three times and then spit. He never showed up. Of course when I got older I repented.”

  “He’s not really a vampire,” Abdullah said crossly, “That’s just what they call him. After the legend, you know. He’s a black market thug. He worked over my friend Nargis who imports those Chinese hacktops when he was short on cash one month. Nargis came in here with a broken jaw and two missing teeth, scared to death. Said the guy has yellow eyes.”

  “So why would we go to him?” Alif asked. “I don’t want a broken jaw.”

  “You pay him, idiot. You pay him to protect you.”

  “One guy is no match for the Hand, even if he does have yellow eyes.”

  “Would you just listen? Of course he’ll have ideas we haven’t thought of. Smugglers, dock workers—who knows what kind of connections those thugs have. They’re almost as crooked as the government. And Vikram is the worst of the lot.”

  “Can’t we talk to someone normal?”

  “No,” said Abdullah, “You are divorced from normal. The further off the grid you go the better.”

  Alif let out a sharp breath. “Fine, okay. Let’s say I find Vikram the Vampire. There’s still the matter of the book.”