Another Life

by Andrew Vachss

  Her hooded eyes narrowed as if against the desert sun, but she said nothing.

  “My mother believed she was throwing me either to safety or to death,” I went on, feeling her heart pulsate. “She knew her own life was already finished. She knew she would never live to raise me herself. All she could do was try to give me a chance. A chance at another life.”

  I felt her heartbeat slow as she accepted it all. Then I struck again:

  “But what my mother never knew was that she threw me into a fire worse than the one that finally consumed her. That fire took her body, but the one she threw me into took my soul.”

  That hit too deep for her to maintain the stony silence. Heat lightning strobed her dark eyes. “My son’s soul—”

  “Is not where you believe it to be, Aabidah Amatullah,” I interrupted. “May I tell you my story? My own story? Please? Then you will make a decision, as you did before. Whatever decision you make will be respected. Respected completely. Do you understand? Even if you choose to leave your baby with al-Qaeda, your husband will never, ever know.”

  She took that body-shot without flinching, shielded by her frozen silence. But her eyes crackled, a fuse burning down.

  “Please?” I asked again.

  She made an untranslatable gesture with her hand.

  I made a gesture of my own. Michelle stepped in behind her like a gentle breeze, a comb and scissors in her hands.

  I took a deep breath in through my nose, letting it all come into me until I was full enough to overflow. I’d only get this one chance to tell my story, and I had to make it become the truth. I exhaled, felt my core, and lifted the curtain:

  “My mother gave birth to me when she was fourteen years old,” I told the Princess, my voice very measured, as if fighting for self-control. “Or perhaps even younger. I will never know, because I never saw my mother, not even for a second. I never tasted a drop of her milk.

  “I was born in the emergency ward of a charity hospital. My mother used a false name when she came in, and she fled, still bleeding, before they even realized she was gone. This is the birth certificate they made for me,” I said, reaching into my jacket and offering her a piece of paper.

  She gave it a quick glance, said: “Anyone can—”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Anyone can lie. I know. I should know. I have lied all my life. Especially to myself. That paper you hold says ‘Unk’ in the space for ‘Father.’ That means ‘Unknown.’ The made-up name my mother gave the hospital was Brenda Burke, so I am ‘Baby Boy Burke’ forever. A child without a name.”

  She blinked twice, steadied herself, then stepped back inside her silence.

  “The State became my father,” I told her. “In this world, some are born as powerful as gods, while some are born to be lower than dirt. This you already know. So, when my mother fled, I was placed in what you might call ‘orphanages.’ Institutions for unwanted children, where every person who touches you knows you are less than nothing, without even a family to avenge you should they cause you harm.

  “My first memories are of screaming. I never stopped. Some children are adopted, but nobody wanted me. They put me in foster homes. Those are places where people are paid by the State to act as substitute families. Some of those families are sent from Heaven. And some would be barred from Hell.”

  Again she blinked rapidly, resettled herself, and maintained her silence.

  “In one of those families, I was raped. Yes,” I said, catching the faint snarl before she suppressed it. “I mean exactly what you are thinking: I was used as a woman. I was burned with cigarettes, made to do things I will not say in your presence.

  “After they were done with me, I was sent to a prison for children. There I learned the ways of the Outcast. And I embraced them.

  “That is where I was taught my religion, in prison. My religion is Revenge. That became my reason to live. And, later, my reason to take lives.”

  Any chance that she would get up and walk out was long gone. The air between us was vibrating with things I couldn’t name, but always trusted.

  “I have committed murder, Aabidah Amatullah,” I said, an unrepentant confessor. “I have robbed, stolen, lied, and cheated. I have committed more crimes than I can count, sinned against every god. That is my life. A criminal is what I am, now and forever. Branded from birth.”

  A storm threatened to break in her eyes. Michelle kept right on with her work.

  “And this is also true,” I told the woman across from me. “I took a vow that I would never hurt a child, never commit a rape. And I have kept that vow. All I wanted from my life was to seek vengeance, again and again.

  “Once, I went to war against a group who preyed upon little ones. I stopped them just as they were about to sacrifice a baby. Hate guided my hand. In the exchange of gunfire, the child himself died. Yes, he would have died anyway. Yes, his death was instant, not the slow one they had planned for him. But, no matter what lies I have told myself ever since, I know I am responsible. The child’s death is on my soul, forever.”

  Her eyes never left mine, but I could feel the subtle shift from a princess who had refused to be intimidated by a criminal to a mother who would not hesitate to kill to save her own child.

  “Only a short time ago, I finally accepted the truth,” I went on. “I had always believed that my mother had been a prostitute, and my father had been some faceless customer. I believed that my mother chose to return to selling her body. I believed that she discarded me, not caring that I might be delivered to tormentors. My heart could not contain my hate for such a mother, a hatred beyond the power of words to express.”

  The woman across from me blinked rapidly again, but she stayed wordless. She hadn’t learned patience the same way I had, but she knew its value.

  “And now,” I told her, “now, when it is too late, I finally know the truth. My mother was no prostitute; she was a slave. She was not only my mother, she was also my sister. Do you understand?”

  “Your father . . . !?”

  “Yes. The . . . creature whose seed I carry, he began raping my mother when she herself was just a child. She was not his daughter; she was his property. Just as you are your husband’s property.

  “When my mother learned she was about to give birth, she ran. Not for her life, for mine. When she left me in that hospital, she believed she was giving me a chance. A chance she never had, and never would. And then she went back to the life she had been cursed to live. She stayed in that fire until it swallowed her alive.”

  The woman across from me nodded. Not saying, “I get it” saying, “I would do the same.”

  “Maybe my mother dreamed of meeting me someday,” I said, sadly. “Maybe reading about me in the newspapers, hearing about some wonderful thing I had done. And she would say to herself, ‘That is my son. He will never know that I gave my life for him, but I know, and that is enough.’”

  Her mask wanted to crack, but she held it in place by the same force that had guided the maybe-mythical mother I had been telling her about.

  “I have spent my whole life as a criminal,” I continued, now in a just-the-facts cadence. “What saved me from becoming a vile monster was not my mother, it was my family. Understand me, please. I speak not of a blood family; my blood is so diseased from my father’s filth that I had surgery performed on myself to make certain I could never create a child.”

  The woman across from me made a sound without moving her lips.

  “I found a family,” I told her. “It took me a long time. The woman behind you, the one who is cutting your hair so expertly, she is my sister. She chose me; I chose her.

  “Our family was created at the intersection of our paths. I found love then. But I never stopped believing that it wasn’t the government who had sentenced me to a life of torture as a child—it was my own mother.

  “In prison, alone at night, I used to wish I could meet her someday. So I could tell her what she had done to me . . . before I killed her.”


  A tear formed at the corner of the Princess’s eye, but she still embraced her silence as if it was an amulet against evil itself.

  “Your son was taken by an al-Qaeda cell,” I told her, switching too quickly for her to throw up a shield. “A cell that has been planted here for years. Such men are much too valuable to be wasted on suicide missions.”

  My tone was without emotion, a tour guide pointing out exhibits.

  I was back to pure truth. Pryce had delivered his little lecture about the banzai pilots sent to their certain deaths, as if those were the only planes the Japanese had. But the Imperial Navy also had a fleet of their infamous Zeros. Those sky-dominators were reserved for ace pilots, not human sacrifices. And those pilots weren’t sent out to die; they were sent out to kill.

  The no-choice robots who dive-bombed the Twin Towers were unskilled labor. For top-level work, you need Zero pilots. Such men are not bound by the same rules as the expendables. If one of them feels like having a few drinks to relax after a hard day’s work serving Allah, so be it.

  To a war commander, the higher the skill level, the higher the tolerance for off-duty conduct. Your best sniper has a preference for little girls, your top chopper-pilot’s hobby is rape—so what? It’s your men they’re protecting; that’s not just their job, it’s yours, too. Your only one. Always been that way; always will be.

  “You paid them to take him, Aabidah Amatullah,” I said, careful not to call her by her title. “In your mind, in your heart, you were throwing your child from a burning building. Yes, he might later die in battle, but he would die a man. A man, not the hideous beast your husband was training him to be.”

  Her sharp intake of breath was like a blast of luminol on bloodstains.

  “You knew all about that training, Aabidah Amatullah. And your mother’s heart could never allow such filth to infect your son. Better a desert fighter than a prince, yes? Better honor than degeneracy.

  “You knew Allah would never accept your husband. He chose his life; he will have to answer for that choice. But to bar your son from Allah’s grace, this you, his true mother, could never allow. So, you see, I do understand.”

  She still held her silence tight against the hideous spirits my words had let loose in that room.

  But she bowed her head. Saying nothing, confirming everything.

  “But you do not understand.” I spoke very quietly, every word leaden with grief. “Mothers offer their children for adoption every day. That is often an act of heroism. They want another life for their child than the one they are doomed to themselves. But they can never really know,” I said, thinking of how a creature who would be despised by jackals had “adopted” Lisa Steinberg years ago. And how not one damn thing had changed since then.

  “But there is no such mystery for your son, Aabidah Amatullah,” I struck mercilessly. “He will never become a warrior! No, he will be raised in fear and torture, as I was. Those who took him, they will bring their prize back to the training camps, and present him to the Taliban. ‘Here is the firstborn male child of Prince Fazid el Kandal.’ What do you think will happen then?”

  She tried to freeze her face against the intrusion, but I could see every terror-frisson as it burst in her eyes. I leaned forward, thick sinuous venom now coating my voice as I opened the cage to let each terrifying word slither toward her.

  “What joy those who loathe everything your husband represents will feel as they castrate your son! His horrible screams when they shove a hot iron inside his body will be music to their hearts! And it will all be videotaped, so that those who dare oppose them can know the true meaning of terror.”

  She was shuddering with soundless sobs. I felt nothing. All I saw was an opponent. Against the ropes, bleeding. Close the show! I heard the Prof scream from ringside.

  “Your child can never be one of them, Aabidah Amatullah. If he lives—and he probably will not—he will be used all his life by grinning perverts. His pain will be their ultimate thrill.

  “And each time they torture him, he will be told that his mother sold him into slavery to buy herself another diamond necklace. That lie will make him hate you with every sobbing breath he takes. Allah may forgive you. Of this, I know nothing. But your son—and this I do know—your only son, he never will. This is inside me, this truth. Look for yourself,” I challenged her.

  She met my eyes. I watched as the unspeakable penetrated her heart. Her hands were soaking in some kind of lotion bowls Michelle had placed on the arms of her chair, but she wouldn’t have moved anyway—her body was in rigor.

  I was empty. Couldn’t even raise my hands to punch again.

  It was so quiet I could hear my heart.

  “What other possible choice . . . ?” she finally whispered.

  “Your son is still here,” I whispered in return, knowing if I had been wrong about that she would have stopped listening a long time ago. “I don’t know how you contacted the al-Qaeda cell, and I don’t want to know. But I know they didn’t come over here just to take your son; they had another mission, a mission yet to be completed. So they are still here. And they still have Ghazi. They would not dare to harm him themselves. Such pleasures belong only to masters, not servants.

  “Your baby is worth a fortune to them if delivered untouched, Princess. He is merchandise, and the more pristine the condition, the higher the price,” I said, watching the nightmare I was painting drain the blood from her face.

  That gave me the strength I needed to strike again. “Their reward for allowing their leaders to mock the name that your husband gave his son will be great. To them, they will have performed a holy act . . . and will be well paid for it. But they cannot just ship your son out of this country. That takes planning, and planning takes time.

  “Only one thing can change this, Aabidah Amatullah, mother of Ghazi,” I said, as if taking an oath. “If you love your only son enough to tell me where they are keeping him now, he will be returned to you.”

  She raised her head, laser-lanced my eyes. “And those who . . . those who have him, they will die?”

  “No. They will be paid. Money is their only true god. You already know this. Why try to block that truth? They took your money, didn’t they?”

  “A ransom? And my husband would return to his—”

  “A ransom will be paid, yes. A fortune for those who took him, and their masters will never know what they did. But your husband will not pay this ransom.”

  As confusion glazed her eyes, I threw my finisher, putting everything I had left behind it: “I swear this to you on all that is sacred. If you save your baby now, your husband will never poison his soul again. Never.”

  “You are saying . . . ?”

  “Yes,” I said, not knowing if she would hear a threat or a promise in the word.

  “How do I know any of what you say is true?”

  “You threw your son out of a burning building, into the black night below. I have let you see into that night. I have told you things no man says aloud, especially to a woman. Your blood is burning now. That is your heart, telling you the truth. You know it now.

  “I have shown you your son’s future. That future sits across from you; it speaks through my mouth. Ask Allah if I lie. He will answer. Ask him now. If you truly want to save your child, you have been shown the way.”

  “You might be his . . . employee yourself.”

  “If I was, you have already said enough to guarantee that the only person on this earth who truly loves Ghazi will die. You know what your husband would do with you. It would be a thousand times worse than the Haya.”

  She closed her eyes.

  As Michelle worked on the Princess’s shoulders, I reached deeper, enveloping her silently in the truth of my hate.

  It seemed as though hours passed before she decided. I don’t know who or what she was listening to when she finally spoke.

  Her voice never quavered. The power of a mother’s love ripped through every word of the address she spat out.r />
  “Police Operator 2193. Where is the emergency?”

  “Right on the corner, just across from the—”

  “What borough are you calling from?”

  “Borough? This is the City. The fuck’s wrong with you people?”

  “Sir, it would help if you would stay calm, all right? We need as specific a location as you can provide. If you—”

  “Corner of Seventy-first and Third. Motherfuckers rolled up on this guy and just blasted him. He down on the sidewalk, blood all over, okay?”

  “Personnel are responding, sir. If I could please have your—”

  The caller hung up. No surprise to the 911 operator; happens all the time.

  By then, calls would be flooding in from a dozen different locations within the same sector. Central Command might get the joke, but they’d figure it for professionals at work: a jewel heist in progress, a bank drill-through . . . something like that. When all you need is misdirection, you don’t care which wrong direction your opponent picks.

  But way before anyone could even start to analyze the pattern, the Prince would have covered the ground from his set-back door-way all the way down the path to the front gate, surrounded by his bodyguards. All he had to do was step on the sidewalk and climb into the waiting limo.

  He was on three different kinds of visual as he strolled, every self-assured movement monitored.

  Buttons were pushed.

  One of them signaled Pryce.

  The explosion blasted across the headlines. Seven lives lost. The Prince, five of his servants, and a jaywalking civilian.

  But the papers were late with the news. Person or persons unknown had already sent a JPEG of the blast scene to Al Jazeera, with

  plastered in see-through symbols across the face of the photo.

  Whoever sent that JPEG was a champion cyber-slinger. The symbols had been embedded within the digitized image; any attempt to Photoshop them out would erase the whole thing.

  Al Jazeera ran it as received. Maybe because they’re actual journalists, not the propaganda tools some say they are. Maybe because their attempts to remove the embed failed, and they knew if they didn’t run it someone else would.