Home Fire(43)

“One day you’ll tell us the story behind your name,” the American said. He was black, very tall, and had a wide smile. His friend was quieter, bespectacled, mixed-race Pakistani-Scottish. The name he meant was Parvaiz’s nom de guerre—Mohammad bin Bagram. Farooq had written it onto Parvaiz’s registration form at the first checkpoint with an air of pride at having chosen it for his friend. It was both a reminder of what his father had suffered and an acknowledgment that this new Parvaiz was born out of vengeance and justice, Farooq said—which made it impossible for him to say he hated it. And anyway he’d quickly been distracted from questions of naming when Farooq had reached into Parvaiz’s knapsack, taken out his passport, and handed it to the man at the registration desk, who had the soulless look of bureaucrats everywhere. Relax, Farooq said. If you ever need it back I’ll get it for you. But you won’t need it back. You’re now a citizen of al-Dawla—the State.

Parvaiz tried not to think about the passport and asked the cameramen how long they’d been living here. They said they’d been sharing this house for over two months, though their friendship had assumed an instant depth that told them their souls must have met in Jannah well before the will of Allah brought them back together in Raqqa. They touched each other’s arms and shoulders, unself-consciously affectionate, which made the whole thing moving instead of absurd.

“It was the same with this young warrior and me,” Farooq said, ruffling Parvaiz’s hair. “It’ll be strange not seeing him every day.”

“Where you going?”

“To the front. I’m a fighter, aren’t I?”

“You won’t be living in Raqqa?” He saw the American shake his head in that schoolyard way boys signaled to each other that too much emotion was being revealed, usually around a girl, and Parvaiz attempted to undercut the pleading tone of his voice with a chin-jut that said Huh, interesting, why didn’t you say before?

“I’m mostly away fighting the kafir bastards so you boys can be safe in your air-conditioned studios.”

“Big-talking man. If you fighters are so important, why do we get paid more?” the American said.

The Scotsman put up a hand to stop the conversation. “Alhamdulillah, we all play our part in the way of Allah. Who is better or worse is judged only by the quality of his faith.”

“Brother, you can always be relied on to remind us what’s important, Ma’ashallah,” Farooq said, in a tone that managed to sound genuine. “No, man. I’ll mostly be gone. And when I’m here, I’ve got my wife and kid, haven’t I?”

“You have?”

“Of course. They gave me a wife almost right away—these two highly paid men are still waiting to be approved by the marriage bureau.”

“You just got here earlier, that’s all,” the American said. “The waiting time is up to six months these days. Anyway, I’m talking to a girl in France. She’s almost ready to come over.”

“No, but—” He heard his own voice coming out in a whine, but he couldn’t help it. “You said you’d help me find people who knew my father.”

Farooq shrugged. “You’ll run into some of the old jihadis at the training camp. Tell them who you father was, and they’ll hook you up with people who knew him.”

“What training camp?”

“Didn’t you tell him anything?” the Scotsman said.

What Farooq hadn’t told him was that all new arrivals were required to undergo ten days of Shariah camp (“It would have been longer, but I put down your level of Shariah knowledge as ‘intermediate’ when I filled out your form”), followed by six weeks of military training. After that, assuming he was accepted into the media wing (“And of course you will be,” said Farooq, but the other two were quiet), there’d be another month of media training. It all sounded a little overwhelming, Farooq knew, but soon enough he’d be placed in a studio, earning a salary, and would have his own SUV and portion of a house—maybe he’d even have a share of this villa if the marriage bureau or the French girl saw fit to move either or both of its present occupants into married quarters by then.

It would have been stupid to say he thought he’d been brought to this house because this was where he was going to live right away, un-Muslim to say he didn’t want to go to Shariah camp, unmanly to say he didn’t want military training, petulant to accuse Farooq of anything when he had been the one who hadn’t thought to ask the practical questions about the life he was entering. He shrugged and said that was fine by him, although no one had asked.

“And once you’re settled in you can put in a request with the marriage bureau too,” the American said. “Though my advice is, try and find a European girl online. They know how to do more things than the Arabs, if you get my drift, though my bonnie friend here doesn’t like it when I speak that way.”

“Speaking of talking to girls, should we tell your sisters where you are?” The cascading noise from the beanbag was Farooq shifting his weight, reaching for the phone in his back pocket.

Parvaiz had sent Aneeka a series of texts since his arrival in Istanbul the previous afternoon. Cheerful lying messages about sightseeing during his daylong stopover en route to Karachi. Near the Syria–Turkey border he said his battery was dying, it hadn’t charged overnight, so she might not hear from him for a while. Then Farooq had taken the phone from him, jerked his wrist, and sent the phone flying out of the car window. He knew Farooq’s tests well enough by now to merely smile, shrug, and think of the new phone he’d buy in Raqqa with the income he’d receive for his work as a sound designer.