I step out of the taxi, retreat into the shadows of a doorway, mindful that no one see me. I wear a crocheted skullcap over my closely cropped hair, I am now Ismail Khan, according to the nebulously procured passport in my pocket. I look around to see who might be observing me. I know that Sheikh Omar has arranged the meeting with my mother, an opportunity I hesitantly trust, but I wonder if anyone has followed my mother. Bubbles waft across the street from a man hawking cheap plastic toys and bubble guns. I wonder for a moment, perhaps the toy wallah really serves the intelligence service, perhaps he observes the comings and goings at this hotel. Perhaps when he leaves the cart of balloons and plastic cricket bats he reports to men in khaki uniforms, feeding them details about the appearance of men who come in cars to this place, men who walk cautiously through the door, men like me. The small iridescent orbs fall on my face, painlessly bursting into a bit of soapy residue. The toy wallah looks up. If he is an informant, I want to know his face.
Then I lift my shoulders and walk into the hotel. I do not check in with the front desk, I do not take the lift, opting for the stairs. I walk the five flights and step quietly down the hall. Before I can raise my hand to knock, the door to room 505 opens and Sheikh Omar’s Pathan pulls me into the room. He steps past me to look both ways down the hall before closing the door and sliding the lock into place.
“Is she here?” I ask, disoriented. I hadn’t expected to see him.
The Pathan just nods and points. I step into the room and see my mother sitting on the edge of the bed, her head erect, her shoulders square. Something tells me to turn and leave, to run from this woman who has directed my life out of my control. But my weakness wills me to run to her, to crawl into her lap so she will comfort me, so she will stroke me and sing to me as I remember from my childhood. She looks up at me, her eyes clear, her face proud. She nods at me, raises her hand, waiting for me to bow down and touch her feet, seeking her blessing. How many times have I respected her in this way? How many times have her fingers grazed my hair, reassuring me of her approval? I begin to reach down, but the inhale catches in my lungs, the man I have become pulls me back up and I can only stand before her, Ismail Khan, a stranger.
Almost imperceptibly, she flinches. She watches me as I sit down in a chair, not touching her, not speaking.
“Al-hamda’allah,” she says. “You have accomplished our revenge.” She doesn’t know that I would have chosen not to, that I only acted to protect Kathryn and the boys from Abu Omar’s network. Her head is still, but I hear the rings around her now frail fingers rattle as she trembles. “Do you need anything?” she asks as if she were asking me if I wanted another roti, or a bit of lemon pickle.
I practically growl at the absurdity of her question. What don’t I need? I need a home, I need my wife, my children. I need safety and protection, privacy to rebuild a life. I need comfort and love. I need to forget. And I need to remember.
She looks at me, her chunni falls to her shoulder revealing her hair now thinned, with only a few streaks of grey amidst a ghostly white. “Do not think this is easy for us either. I will not tell you how the government men came and questioned us, the ways they laid their hands on your brothers, trying to extract information. The Americans pull the strings of their puppets in our government, and the government men come to yank our strings.” She clasps her hands together, as she used to do when one of the laborers would challenge her, or when a man would come from the market and explain to her that a quantity of our rice harvest had somehow disappeared. “But we have called on our relations, we’ve made contact with your mamaji’s cousin by marriage. He has influence with the security services. Now we are protected, but of course, many had to be included in the bakshish we provided in return.”
“Did you give them our land?” I say, knowing that government officials seize on the misfortune of others to enrich themselves.
“No,” she shakes her head. “I refused to give them even an inch of our farms. Your brothers arranged for cash, to be delivered over time.” She pulls the chunni back over her head. “I will ask you again, do you need anything?”
“I don’t need anything for myself. I only need Majid to be sure the funds are available for my sons. I’ve paid whatever I owed to you and my father, now I must pay the debt I owe my sons.”
“You have my word.”
I sit still, silent.
“Beta,” my mother calls to the Pathan, “I need to be alone with my son.”
The man looks at both of us before lowering his head and stepping outside the door. I half expect that she will cuff me on the ear as she did when she felt I had disrespected her as a child.
“Despite our sufferings,” she begins, “I will be able to leave this life contented. I will be with my loved ones again in heaven, you’ve made this possible. I’m proud of you, you have maintained our culture, honored our traditions even though you left our lands. In the West they believe in their lawyers and judges, as if their tedious arguments in the courtroom could compensate a victim’s family for their loss. They act as if humans are robots, as if all of our actions could be explained with laws and in books.” She thumps her hand over her breast. “They don’t understand that we all carry the law around in our hearts, that the love and suffering we experience must be balanced by love and suffering. This is the natural order of things.”
She stands and walks stiffly to me. “You killed. The Americans killed for hate but you killed for love.” She takes one of my hands in hers, turns my palm up and runs her fingers along the deep crease in the center of my hand. “You have your father’s hands. But not your father’s fate.”
The warmth of her skin in my palms shoots through me like lightning. When was the last time someone I loved touched me? Hungrily, I grasp her hands in mine, I press her palms against my eyes, blocking out the light. I will myself to be strong, not to cry. Shame and hope, anger and relief, hubris and grief swirl into a knot—like the legendary knot only Sikander’s sword could detangle—until my insides are still, constricted with the enormity of what I have done.
Carefully, gently, she retrieves one of her hands from my grip and places it atop my head. In this gesture she offers me whatever blessing she can bestow, whatever goodness she still contains, her legacy of strength and honor are now mine. I look at her feet, understand the paths they have walked, the journey that has brought her here to this secret meeting. I know this will be the last time I see her.