Alif the Unseen Read online

  “What book?”

  Catching Alif ’s eye, Dina gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

  “Nothing,” Alif stuttered. “Just thinking out loud. Some research I have to do.”

  “Well, do it on your own time. Right now you have to think about keeping yourself—and the rest of us—out of jail.”

  Alif let his head go limp and loll between his shoulders. “Vikram the Vampire. I committed a sin by waking up this morning. That is the only way this day could have gone so terribly wrong.”

  “What a bizarre thing to say,” Dina scoffed.

  They cleaned up the crumbs and tea things in the gathering dark. When Abdullah and Dina left for his sister’s apartment, Alif took the opportunity to boot up his netbook. He braced himself to find some insidious worm waiting in his email, some miraculous program that would allow the Hand to descend on him out of the ether if he so much as coughed. But there was nothing. Cautiously he enabled remote access to Hollywood: the hypervisor was still online. Alif let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Hurriedly he set up a roving IP address—a costly, inefficient way to disguise his location, and far from foolproof, but it would buy him a little time. The Hand would see Alif using his email and cloud computing accounts, but until he could crack his algorithm, Alif would appear to be working from Portugal, Hawaii, Tibet.

  Next, Alif set about dismantling his creation. He downloaded what little he could on to the netbook’s modest hard drive and dumped a little more—cryptic commands, programs unusable without other programs—into the cloud he shared with a few other City grey hats. Enough to seed a new version of Hollywood when real life reasserted itself. The Tin Sari program files he transferred intact and whole on to the 16 gig flash drive he always carried in his pocket. The drive had been blessed, at one point, by a toothless Sufi dervish from Somalia who grabbed Alif ’s wrist as he sat in a street cafe. Alif had yet to discover whether the blessing stuck.

  When he was finished he blanked the hard drive of his home computer, leaving behind a program that would cause the CPU to overclock—and, he hoped, melt—the next time it was booted up. He would leave the Hand’s agents with a lump of silicon too hot to pick up. They would get nothing from him.

  “God, he’s crying!”

  Dina and Abdullah had returned and stood in the doorway staring at him. Alif realized his face was wet.

  “It’s gone,” he said. “I destroyed it. My whole system.”

  Abdullah knelt beside him with a look of profound compassion.

  “It’ll be all right, bhai. You’ll rebuild.”

  “Not in time to help my clients. I have to write a bunch of awful emails.”

  “The threat was always there, Alif—they’ll understand.”

  Alif stroked the white plastic casing of his netbook absently. “In the four years I’ve been doing this stuff for money, I’ve had less than forty-eight hours of downtime. Did you know that? And now I’m a ghost in the machine. By next week all the hacks and geeks and hats I call my friends will have forgotten who I am. That is the nature of this business. That is the internet.”

  “You still have real friends,” said Dina. The two men made identical derisive noises.

  “Internet friends are real friends,” said Abdullah, “Now that you pious brothers and sisters have taken over half the planet, the internet is the only place left to have a worthwhile conversation.”

  “Even if they forget all about you in two weeks?”

  “Even so.”

  Abdullah had brought two thin cotton mattresses and a largish bed sheet. He and Alif strung the latter across one corner of the room, fastening it to the wall with thumbtacks. Alif cleared away computer boxes and put the better of the two mattresses—one had a suspicious stain—in the tent-like space their makeshift curtain had created.

  “Here,” he said to Dina, “We’ll leave while you get ready for bed.”

  “This isn’t right,” Dina fretted. “I told my mother I’m staying at Maryam Abdel Bassit’s place. If she finds out I’m lying she’ll be crushed.”

  “Live adventurously. See you in the morning.” Abdullah left the room with a flourish, one arm slung along Alif ’s shoulders.

  * * *

  The room was dark when Alif returned. He took off his shoes and lay down on the second mattress, feeling as though he had been through a physical ordeal. His back and legs ached. Intisar reentered his thoughts every time he tried to forget her for a few minutes, bringing with her an unsettling combination of arousal and guilt, foreshadowing a disaster even greater than the one that had already befallen him. Her life was at risk: that much was clear. He felt impotent in the face of the pain he had brought on her, the danger she must now face. He could not save her with a few bracketed commands and C++ programs, but this was the only way he knew.

  “I don’t like calling you Alif.”

  He looked over at the veiled corner of the room.

  “Why?”

  “It’s not your name.”

  Alif looked back at the ceiling. “It might as well be my name,” he said.

  “But it isn’t. It’s a letter of the alphabet.”

  “It’s the first letter of Sura Al Baqara in the Quran. You of all people should approve.”

  He heard Dina shift on her mattress. With the angle of the light from the window, he realized that she could probably see him through the curtain, though he could not see her.

  “I don’t approve,” she said. “Your real name is better.” “Alif Lam Mim.” He drew the letters in the air with his finger. “One-digit symbol substitutions: God, Gabriel, the Prophet. I named myself after the first line of code ever written. It’s a good name for a programmer.”

  “Why does a programmer need a second name?”

  “Tradition. And it’s called a handle, anyway, not a name. It’s safer to be anonymous. If you use your real name you’re liable to get into trouble.”

  “You use a fake name and you still got into trouble.”

  Alif bit back an insult, keeping his teeth shut until he could trust them. “Whatever. Good night, Dina.”

  He had begun to lose the distinction between his thoughts and his dreams when she spoke again.

  “I’m not what you think I am. I’m not trying to be stuck-up and annoying. I’m not what you think.”

  “I know,” he muttered, unsure of what he meant.

  * * *

  When he woke up the next morning he forgot where he was. Bolting upright, he stared wildly at his surroundings, blinking until his eyes adjusted to the unsaturated light that filtered in through the window. Dina moved along his peripheral vision like a dark bird, humming an Egyptian pop song. The sheet that had protected her while she slept was folded neatly on her mattress. Alif caught the sharp, astringent scent of tea: a tin pot was steaming atop a camp stove on the window ledge, next to a plate of fried eggs and roti.

  “Abdullah left some breakfast,” said Dina, “We didn’t want to wake you. It’s nearly ten.”

  “Where’d he go?” asked Alif, rubbing his eyes.

  “He said he had to make some phone calls. We’re supposed to lock up when we leave.”

  They ate without speaking. Alif stared pensively out the window, trying to map his next steps. The day, and the days that would certainly follow it, were unfathomable: too much had been asked of him. He looked at his backpack, wishing he had had more time to consider what he might need.

  “Why didn’t you want Abdullah to know about the book?” he asked Dina, reminded of the inconvenient article by a rectangular bulge in his bag.

  Dina shrugged. “Why does he need to know?” she asked. “The less he knows, the less he has to lie about when they come for him. Your friend obviously wanted to keep the book a secret. There must be a reason for that.”

  “When they come for him,” Alif repeated. “God, I feel sick.”

  Dina began to tidy the room, clearing away their breakfast things and straightening the boxes the
y had moved to make room for their bedding. Alif watched her with pursed lips.

  “You sing,” he said abruptly. “You listen to music.”

  “So?”

  “I thought women who believe the veil is mandatory also believe that music is forbidden.”

  “Some do. I don’t.”

  “Why? You all read the same books. Ibn Taymiyya, right? Ibn Abdel Wahhab?”

  “Birds make music, river-reeds in wind make music. Babies make music. God would not forbid something that is the sharia of innocent creatures.”

  Alif chuckled. “Okay.”

  Dina whisked his empty tea glass out of his hands and clucked her tongue. “You’re always laughing at me,” she said.

  “That’s not true! I laugh when you surprise me.”

  “How is that better?”

  “All right, I laugh when you impress me.”

  Dina said nothing, but he could tell by the way she refilled his glass that she was pleased. He drank the tea down quickly and helped her finish tidying the room. When they were done Alif shouldered his backpack and opened the door cautiously: no one outside, no one on the rooftop across the way, no one loitering at the corner in an obvious manner. An elderly man in a donkey cart piled with jackfruit rolled past the alley along the street beyond. Otherwise, they were alone.

  “Let’s go.” Alif ushered Dina out in front of him and locked the door from the inside before closing it. They set off down the alley at a nervous pace, wandering too far apart and then too close together. There was an acrid smell in the air, the scent of factory fumes and the overheated sea; cement dust from construction in the New Quarter. Alif bore in the direction of the harbor, following streets that sloped downward to meet the water.

  “You’re heading toward the souk,” Dina observed at one point.

  “Yes—I thought that was the plan.”

  “Plan? We’re not seriously going to look for Vikram the Vampire, are we? Even your Bedouin idea was better than that.”

  Alif kicked a dried clot of dung that lay in his path. “I don’t know what else to do, Dina. I really don’t know what else to do.”

  “This isn’t a movie, for God’s sake. You can’t just walk up to a back-alley thug and ask him for a favor. And Abdullah’s never even met this man—he could have been making that whole story up!”

  “What do you want?” Alif turned on Dina with a snarl. “We are down to a small selection of shitty options. Don’t harass me.” He spun around and continued walking. A minute later he heard sniffling: Dina was trailing behind with one hand over her veiled mouth, head down.

  “Oh God.” Alif ducked into a side-street, leading Dina by the hand. “Please don’t cry. I didn’t mean for you to cry.”

  “Don’t touch me.” Dina shook her hand free. “You think this isn’t awful for me too? I could have just—” She stuttered to a halt, breath catching in little gulps.

  “What?” Alif asked.

  “The detective,” she answered, “He said nothing would happen to me or my family if we turned you in. You were standing right there. If I had—I didn’t—”

  Impulsively, Alif took her hand again turned it upward, pressing a kiss into her palm. They stared at each other. Dina pulled away, rubbing the tears from her eyes.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “Okay. Let’s go find Vikram.”

  * * *

  Souk al Medina was close to the wharf, giving vendors easy access to the fishing boats that came in at dawn and sunset. It was as ancient as the Old Quarter, active since the days when the City was only a punctuation mark on the Silk Road, a resting-place for merchants and pilgrims on their way to Mecca. Alif had known it since childhood. He remembered clutching the end of his mother’s shawl as she bought live chickens and fish heads for stock, or raw spices measured by the gram.

  With Dina he wandered down alleys that had never been paved. The footing was half mud and reeked of yeasty animal functions. Every so often the alleys were interrupted by limestone arches, the remnants of a covered market hall long since quarried for newer buildings. The place was impervious to its own history. Women and maids were out resupplying their households in the morning light, a throng of black veils and multicolored shalwar kameez so indistinguishable from one another that Alif kept glancing over his shoulder to re-identify Dina.

  “I think we should look around the wharf-side,” he said at one point, trying to sound confident, “I know a couple of smartphone importers down there who might be able to help us.”

  “Importers?”

  “Smugglers.”

  “Oh.”

  Alif pushed his way toward the wharf, past fishmongers extolling the freshness of their wares in rhyme. Over the sea of covered heads he saw a tiny storefront with a sign advertising mobile phone sales and repairs, and moved toward it. With relief, he spotted a familiar figure—Raj, the enterprising Bengali who had unlocked Alif ’s own smartphone—leaning in the doorway.

  “Raj bhai!” Alif tilted his chin up in what he hoped was a jaunty manner. “It’s been a long time.”

  Raj looked up at him with disinterest, then glanced suspiciously at Dina. “Hello,” he said in English. He toyed with a SIM card in one hand.

  “Listen,” said Alif, clearing his throat, “I have a strange question. This might sound strange, I mean. I’m wondering if you know—”

  “A man named Nargis,” said Dina, cutting him off. Raj’s eyes flickered over her cloaked form. Alif shifted uneasily from foot to foot, and elected to say nothing.

  “You looking for a hacktop?” Raj asked.

  “No,” said Dina, “We just want to talk to him.”

  “No one comes here to talk,” said Raj.

  Dina sighed with an air of impatience. “We don’t have a lot of time,” she said, “Do you know this guy or not?”

  Raj looked faintly impressed. “I know him. He’s usually around in the afternoons. Let me give him a call.” He eased himself upright and went into the shop.

  “What are you doing?” Alif hissed at Dina. “What’s all this about Nargis?”

  “Assuming Abdullah was telling the truth, we should talk to the source of the story,” she said, “If we go bumbling around the souk asking for Vikram the Vampire we’ll look like a pair of idiots.”

  Alif felt a swell of admiration. She really was as smart as a man. He straightened up as Raj leaned out of the shop door and motioned them inside.

  “Nargis is on his way. Come inside. Chai?” He said the last word in a Bengali drawl that verged on sarcasm.

  “Hot, please,” said Dina, sitting down on a folding chair along the shop wall, “With plenty of sugar.”

  Raj flushed and skulked away into an inner room. He emerged a few minutes later with two glasses of milk chai, offering them wordlessly to Alif and Dina before retreating behind a desk. Alif sipped his tea in silence, watching Dina as she maneuvered the glass beneath her veil with the dexterity of long practice. A few minutes later, a short, nervous man of indeterminate age appeared in the door. Raj rose.

  “Nargis,” he said, adding something in Bengali that Alif did not understand. Nargis shuffled into the room, glance shifting from person to person as though waiting for a reprimand or a blow. Alif noticed that his jaw was slightly crooked, and sat strangely on his face.

  “Hi,” said Alif.

  “What do you want?” asked Nargis. “I’ve never heard of you before.”

  “I’m—we’re friends of Abdullah’s. We’re looking for a certain person and he thought you might be able to help.”

  Raj said something else in Bengali.

  “Would you mind giving us a few minutes?” Dina asked him sweetly. “Thank you so much for the tea. It was delicious.” Unmanned, Raj bolted back into the inner recesses of the shop. “Abdullah told us you had a nasty run-in with Vikram the Vampire,” Alif said to Nargis, “Is it true?”

  Nargis touched his jaw. “Vikram the Vampire isn’t real,” he said.

  “We’re not interested i
n getting you into more trouble,” said Dina, “We just need to find him.”

  Nargis broke into a sudden, high-pitched laugh, like a scrofulous hyena Alif had once seen in the royal zoo.

  “You must both be insane. He would break you in half if you went looking for him. Do you know what he is? Do you know what he is?”

  Alif was confused. “A thug?”

  “You’re insane,” Nargis repeated.

  “Just give us a location,” said Dina. “That’s all. We’ll never bother you again.”

  “You don’t understand what he’ll do to me if I help you.”

  “He’ll thank you. We want to pay him a lot of money to lend us a hand.”

  Nargis seemed to relax a little. He licked his lips. “That’s something else,” he said. “If you want to hire him, that’s something else. But it will cost you.”

  “That’s fine,” said Alif impatiently, “We need to find him first. Right? Yes? So where is he?”

  Nargis regarded him for a long moment. “There’s a cracked arch on the western edge of the souk. He lives in the alley that runs through it.”

  Alif suppressed a triumphant smile. He glanced out the corner of his eye at Dina. Her gaze was fixed and calm, betraying nothing. She stood.

  “Thank you,” she said, “We’re grateful for your help.” Nodding at Alif, she walked briskly toward the shop entrance. Alif scrambled to follow her, cursing his awkward feet.

  “That was great!” he crowed as soon as they were back in the bustle of the souk. “The way you handled them, Dina—it was like you weren’t even nervous. For a minute I forgot you were a girl.”

  Dina made an indignant noise. The sun pressed down as though endowed with physical strength; the day was growing hotter. They moved into the shade of the corrugated shop roofs that extended row after row toward the wharf. At the end of one alley they found a shabby concrete building that had been converted into a prayer-room, announcing its repurposed function by the pile of shoes heaped outside. Dina slipped off her sandals and excused herself to perform the midday salat. Alif waited idly by the door for her return. The idea of taking off his shoes and socks only to put them back on again was too much in this heat. He leaned against the cool concrete wall and listened to the imam—toneless, weary-sounding—lead the prostrations of his merchant congregation. Dina emerged in the aftermath, a black figure the press of men jockeying to retrieve their sandals and loafers from the heap near the entrance.