DAY 31

Kashif and The Messenger have been placed in the back of a dark cargo truck for purposes of discretion before crossing the border. The Messenger can’t see Kashif in the dark, which makes him more accessible for conversation.

“Who are these people?” The Messenger asks.

“Another local group. They will serve the purpose of getting us across the border. We will most likely be kidnapped again afterwards.”

“How many groups are there?”

“As many as you can imagine. There is a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, and it is bottomless to whoever brings me in.”

“Tell me about her?”

“My daughter?”

“The mother of your daughter.”

“Why? She has passed.”

Kashif always speaks in a matter of fact manner. There are no emotional links. Just connectors or patterns, with no weight or bias attached to each.

“Did you love her?”

“I don’t believe in the term.”

“But you love your daughter.”

“I ache for her. It’s all I know. She suffers and I suffer at the same time.”

“I think people call that love.”

“I call it pain. And pain needs to be fulfilled. That’s all it needs, the fulfilment of release.”

“So you are saving her for you?”

“I don’t want her to know pain as well as I do.”

“She has been suffering a long time. She probably knows it more than you.”

“When she is cured, she will live a beautiful life free of it. She will live by the right instincts, and even the wrong ones will guide her to live fully.”

“And what about your pain?”

“I am cursed with it. It will never go away.”

It is silent in the truck and the ground underneath is one cratered pothole after another. The back cabin shakes and its metal bearings vibrate against the wind.

Kashif confesses.

“I met her at the market. I was tired of my hiding, tired of the people surrounding me for my protection. Tired of their body scents, their jokes, and their feigned sacrificial gestures. So I escaped them to find open air. Not too far away from here. Further north, in the mountains. A festival for a village Saint. I could hear children’s voices and ripened fruit luring me to the center of the village. No one recognized me. They paid me no attention at all, really. They focused on the statue of the bearded saint in a procession up another mountain. Festivities drew the villagers to the market, next to the church, and I was hungry for real food. Not hunted food. Prepared food, by a woman.

“So I found myself in the market. While hawkers tried to sell me on charms or religious articles, she approached me. Her hair was dark and long and her eyebrows sharpened. I have never seen black eyes like hers before. Blacker than the brown of her hair.

‘So this is what it took to smoke you out?’ she said.

“She knew me, I could tell. My instincts had failed me. She surprised me with her recognition. She surprised me by how much she could see into my thoughts, and I had never met her in person before. I tried to play the role of the ignorant by observing some shelled trinkets sprawled on a board before me. She pursued me.

‘I have been waiting for you.’

‘You have me mistaken.’

‘I know who you are. My father pays you for your work.’

‘I don’t know your father.’

‘Yes, you do. He pays you to create fear.’

“The more she spoke, the more I wanted to escape. I had left one prison to be entrapped in another. I felt myself suffocating the more she stared at me. The more she leaned into me.

‘I have been waiting for you here. I will find you in other places when the time comes.’

“She spoke to me as if she knew she would bear my child already. She slid her arms around my waist and placed her head on my chest. I didn’t move, I simply stood still. She then left and disappeared into the crowd. She had planted an evil seed in me. And from that point forward, I could think of only her. I searched for her late into the night, after she had disappeared from the festival. When I returned to the camp, everyone dropped to the ground praising Allah.

“Some took a bullet to the head for not watching me close enough, for not protecting me the way they should have. I believed I would never see her again, until she found me in the desert.”

The cargo truck stops and the sliding door opens with a loud rattle. The bright light of the new day blinds him temporarily. When his eyes dry some more, The Messenger recognizes the Valley of Kaa behind the men about to inspect the contents of the truck. When the outlines of these men clear, The Messenger identifies the border man, the general, whom he had paid to cross. The official recognizes The Messenger as well and is shocked to see him sitting next to Kashif.

The Messenger realizes there is no need to pay this man this time around. He walks into the truck and approaches Kashif himself.

He says, “I am sorry, I didn’t know.”

Kashif doesn’t respond. He looks over to The Messenger.

“Prepare yourself.”

“For what?”

“For the desert where she found me.”