Abdullah leaned out the open window and took his hand. “I must go alone, my friend. Thank you.”
“I will wait for your call.”
The Son smiled wearily. A silver mini-sedan rolled to the edge of the landing strip and two beefy men with rifles got out.
“You must go with them,” he said sadly. “It’s the only way to maintain secrecy.”
Azhar tensed. “But my family.”
“Their grief will be addressed.” Abdullah half coughed, half laughed at Azhar’s fear.“Azhar, Azhar, do you think I’m a Crusader? Imagine how delighted your wife and sons will be when you return miraculously alive.”
He rolled up the window and the car drove into the night. Azhar just stared, considering running off into the thin forest. But to where? Suddenly he had no home. His home, his family, what would they be told? That he drowned at sea after being killed by Crusaders, like the orphans? Like Clary.
One of the large men climbed behind the wheel while his colleague waited impatiently.
Azhar angrily brushed past into the back seat. A small traveling bag rested on the floor.
“Where am I going?” Azhar asked, not expecting an answer. He rummaged through the bag of toiletries, socks and underwear. He was about to complain, angrily, lividly, whether he was to be a prisoner in socks and undies, when he noticed a leather suitcase under the front seat.
He dumped the clothes onto the seat.
“This is not my size.” Mustafa held up a pair of adolescent pants that would be tight on Jalak.
The bodyguards ignored him.
“Nor are these shirts.” He flung a pair into the front seat. “I need proper clothes.” No, he didn’t. If Abdullah had lied about the strength of his allies’ armies to Grandma, he could lie to him. No witnesses to the agreement. Or to the shame of being kidnapped. Abdullah could say anything; who would contradict?
He wept for a while, loudly, piercingly; the guards ignored that, too. When he stopped, he noticed the car was heading south on Fuego del Torres.
“Get off at the next exit. I said get off. I am a ward of the Mufti’s Son.”
Apparently they were killing him tonight, so fulfilling a last wish meant little. The car wound around the narrow hill.
“Next left. Second right. Do as I say,” he shouted, smiling at the liberation of imminent death. “Now stop here.”
His dark house slept; Mustafa could almost hear Jalak snoring. He carefully folded all the clothes and tossed the suitcase into the front seat.
“Leave that by the door. The clothes will fit my son.” The guards hesitated. “Please. My wife will think it is charity.”
The driver finally nodded. His colleague gently laid the suitcase on the front step. He returned and they drove back down the hill.
I love you Jalak. I love you Abdul. I love you Omar. Believe nothing they say.
• • • •
THE THIRD GRADE class huddled horrified in the far corner beneath the poster of Grandma, eyes lifted defiantly. BUILD ON LOVE. Zelda went to join them, but the children hurried into another corner, eluding her no matter what angle she took, no matter how many crayons she threw, no matter how many chairs she kicked over.
Shaking her head sadly, the teacher took Zelda’s hand and calmly led her into the principal’s office. Zelda couldn’t remember either’s name. Her teacher had the gray hair which all educators had during the war, dyed down to the roots in the short style of the period. You couldn’t hide anything in clipped hair. It was 2070. November 18, 2070. She squinted at the calendar in the principal’s office, confused because the name on the door was blocked out, like boobies in the vidmovie Pablo had once shown her.
Zelda grew woozy as the pill she’d curled under her tongue slowly disintegrated.
The principal was Mrs. Rogers, of course. She hated Mrs. Rogers. The principal Mrs. Rogers pressed down Zelda’s drawing onto the desk as if making an imprint. She asked if that was Zelda’s drawing and she’d answered why else would I put my name on it. Mrs. Rogers persisted and asked if Zelda ever put her name on anything belonging to someone else and Zelda had said that was dishonest and DVs don’t lie.
Isn’t this a lie? The principal sighed. A drawing of dead soldiers wrapped in a flag isn’t true. But, Zelda sputtered, soldiers had died. Mrs. Rogers looked very sad, that expression of giving up on you which most people in the DV got at one time or another. Teachers weren’t supposed to have that look. They were your friends, sometimes your only friends other than your real friends. They were supposed to protect you and do everything they could to help you learn and make you see truth so you could be honest.
Why? Mrs. Roger asked. Of all the drawings, why this one?
The principal had smiled; Zelda wasn’t fooled. She was trying to get something out of her like this kindly prison visitor on the chair in the cell. Not a bad cell, Zelda tried remembering before the pill and the VR and couldn’t. Maybe because she was back in 2070 and explaining when things came into her head she just had to draw them. Mrs. Rogers asked what other things came into her head. Zelda said her head was empty. The principal leaned forward and asked if other things like dead soldiers wrapped in a flag came into her head would she draw them or would she maybe think what effect that had on other people when Grandma and the rest of America were fighting so hard.
Don’t you want to fight hard, too? Zelda thought of the soldiers in their fake legs and fake arms begging in the DV.
“But didn’t you keep drawing whatever you wanted?” The kindly prison visitor asked softly somewhere beyond the
