palm-reading – it’s a circle, and they speak to us. That is why you cannot
‘Do you know who this man is, Jones?’ Samad grabbed the Doctor by the back of his hair and bent his neck over the back seat. ‘The Russians told me. He’s a scientist, like me – but what is his science? Choosing who shall be born and who shall not – breeding people as if they were so many chickens, destroying them if the specifications are not correct. He wants to control, to dictate the future. He wants a race of men, a race of indestructible men, that will survive the last days of this earth. But it cannot be done in a laboratory. It must be done, it can only be done, with faith! Only Allah saves! I am no religious man – I have never possessed the strength – but I am not fool enough to deny the truth!’
‘Ah, now, but you said, didn’t you, you said it
Dr Sick, watery eye-blood now streaming like rivers, was still being held by the hair by Samad and was gagging, now, on his own tongue.
‘Watch out, you’re choking him,’ said Archie.
‘What of it!’ yelled Samad into the echoless landscape. ‘Men like him believe that living organs should answer to design. They worship the science of the body, but not who has given it to us! He’s a Nazi. The worst kind.’
‘But you said – ’ Archie pressed on, determined to make his point. ‘You said that was nothing to do with you. Not your argument. If anyone in this jeep should have a score to settle with mad Jerry here-’
‘French. He’s French.’
‘All right, French – well if anyone’s got a score to settle it’d probably have to be me. It’s England’s future we’ve been fighting for. For England. You know,’ said Archie, searching his brain, ‘democracy and Sunday dinners, and… and… promenades and piers, and bangers and mash – and the things that are
‘
‘You what?’
‘
‘I should cocoa!’
‘Jones, your destiny is staring you in the face and here you are slapping the salami,’ said Samad with a nasty laugh in his voice, and still holding the Doctor by the hair across the front seat.
‘Steady on,’ said Archie, trying to keep an eye on the road, as Samad bent the Doctor’s neck almost to breaking point. ‘Look, I’m not saying that he doesn’t deserve to die.’
‘Then do it.
‘But why’s it so bloody important to you that I do it? You know, I’ve never killed a man – not like that, not face to face. A man shouldn’t die in a car… I can’t do that.’
‘Jones, it is simply a question of what you will do
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I want to know what kind of a man you are, Jones. I want to know what you are capable of. Are you a coward, Jones?’
Archie brought the jeep to a shattering halt.
‘You’re bloody asking for it, you are.’
‘You don’t stand for anything, Jones,’ continued Samad. ‘Not for a faith, not for a politics. Not even for your country. How your lot ever conquered my lot is a bloody mystery. You’re a cipher, no?’
‘A what?’
‘And an idiot. What are you going to tell your children when they ask who you are, what you are? Will you know? Will you ever know?’
‘What are you that’s so bloody fantastic?’
‘I’m a Muslim and a Man and a Son and a Believer. I will survive the last days.’
‘You’re a bloody drunkard, and you’re – you’re drugged, you’re drugged tonight, aren’t you?’
‘I am a Muslim and a Man and a Son and a Believer. I will survive the last days,’ Samad repeated, as if it were a chant.
‘And what the bloody hell does that mean?’ As he shouted, Archie made a grab for Dr Sick. Pulled his now blood-covered face near his own until their noses touched.
‘You,’ Archie barked. ‘You’re coming with me.’
‘I would but, monsieur…’ The Doctor held up his handcuffed wrists.
Archie wrestled them open with the rusty key, pulled the Doctor out of the jeep and started walking away from the road into the darkness, a gun pointed at the base point of Dr Marc-Pierre Perret’s cranium.
Sitting in the jeep, some five minutes later, Samad heard a shot ring out. It made him jump. He slapped dead an insect that had been winding its way round his wrist, looking for enough flesh to bite. Lifting his head, he saw in front of him that Archie was returning: bleeding and limping badly, made visible, then invisible, illuminated, obscured, as he wound in and out of the headlights. He looked his tender age, the lamps making his blond hair translucent, his moon-shaped face lit up like a big baby, head first, entering life.
6 The Temptation of Samad Iqbal
Children. Samad had caught children like a disease. Yes, he had sired two of them willingly – as willingly as a man can – but he had not bargained for this other thing. This thing that no one tells you about. This thing of
