In the Light of What We Know: A Novel

by Zia Haider Rahman

  There’s nothing to tell—I mean as far as I know. Sure, there’s some kind of detention facility, but that’s about all I’ve heard. That’s an open secret, he said.

  I probed Crane for a few minutes before Suleiman reappeared.

  We’ve run out of tea. I’m just going to buy some, okay?

  Fine, I said.

  I understood that the jeep had just come, a little too soon after Crane’s arrival, and that Suleiman was improvising a sign for me to get Crane to the guesthouse, since there would not be time now for even a sip before the next stage. A few moments later, the AfDARI car in the courtyard fired up and the gate let out its shrill sound.

  Crane, let’s go to the guesthouse, I said, motioning my head in the direction of the door to the office as if to suggest the veranda wasn’t private enough. An unplanned bonus: Crane will assume Maurice is here, and that he would take delivery of the letter.

  I hear you, said Crane.

  I glanced toward the gate. I was counting on not being able to see the jeep from the steps of the veranda. The AfDARI car was waiting as the gate opened. Suleiman did not appear to be in it. The jeep must have reversed to let the car pass and, in so doing, had moved out of view behind the wall. I had to keep Crane from looking that way but make sure anyone in the jeep could see him from the back.

  I’ve been talking to Colonel Mushtaq.

  It’s strange: I can remember that Crane didn’t react right away. Some part of me must have registered that. I realized only later that the delay ought to have puzzled me. At the time, my focus was on keeping his attention away from the gate.

  Sikander Ali Mushtaq, I said. Do you know him?

  I know of him, of course.

  Of course?

  He’s high up in military intelligence. Have to do your homework in a place like this, buddy.

  What kind of place would that be? I asked.

  We were nearing the guesthouse.

  Goddamn war zone, he replied.

  After you, I said, making sure to stop on the side of him away from the road so that as he looked at me he would not see the jeep. I saw the door of the sentry box open. Suleiman would be going to collect the envelope.

  Inside my room, I walked over to the door at the back, taking out a packet of cigarettes.

  Do you smoke, Crane?

  That stuff’ll kill you.

  When in a war zone, I said. Mind if I do?

  Go ahead.

  Let’s go out back. I sleep in here and don’t like the smoke, I said, opening the back door.

  We stepped outside and I pulled the door shut.

  Crane was squeezed between me and the dead black tree. He moved around the bush to where there was more space. I stepped nearer to the wall. If Crane moved too far over, he might catch a glimpse of the jeep. I needed him closer to the wall and to me. Lowering my voice, I said: Mushtaq had something interesting to say.

  Excuse me? replied Crane, obligingly moving closer to me, closer to the wall, well away from the line of sight to the jeep.

  Mushtaq seems to think you’re up to something and asked me if I’d find out.

  And what did you say?

  So you are up to something.

  We’re all up to something, Zafar. Everybody here is up to something. I could ask you the same question. Why are you here? Why not wait until the UN rapporteur gets here, why not come here with him and then go to Bagram? You know they’ll let you all in then.

  Why do you think they haven’t responded?

  Maybe they don’t trust you. Maybe they think you might be working for the enemy. Heck! Maybe you are.

  Now which enemy would that be, Crane?

  What exactly did you want to ask me, Zafar?

  As a matter of fact, I didn’t want to ask you anything. I wanted to tell you something. That’s all. I wanted to share something with you. Nothing I don’t know is any of my business, but what I know is what I know and I just wanted to tell you what I know. You do with it what you will. That’s your business.

  That sounded like English—

  You understand I’m not asking you anything?

  Go on.

  You weren’t born yesterday, Crane. You know your reputation. I rather suspect you even cultivate it—or part of it, at any rate. I think you like being thought of as a cad, a noisy, rambunctious cad.

  Boy, you’re straight out of the nineteenth century, aren’t you?

  But there’s a rumor, something you’ll want to hear.

  Crane looked at me intently and I let time draw out over us, cocoon us from what was going on in the guesthouse.

  You do plan to tell me, don’t you? he asked presently.

  Apparently, you’ve been driving north to C___ every week, I said, and stopped there.

  Again I let time draw out.

  Driving is a crime?

  Funny you mention crime. I never practiced extradition law, but, if I remember it correctly, there’s a principle you might be interested to hear about.

  Not if it means you don’t get to the point.

  Oh, I’m getting to the point. In fact, all of this is the point. In a way I’ve arrived at the point. In general, a man can’t be extradited from country A to country B if the crime he’s accused of committing in country B is not a crime in country A.

  I went to law school, interjected Crane.

  Excuse me, Crane. Did you study extradition law?

  No.

  Then I’ll carry on, if I may. So if, for example, he’s accused of drinking alcohol in public in Saudi Arabia, say, where doing so is an offense, then when he’s in Germany, say, he can’t be extradited back to Saudi Arabia, because drinking alcohol in public is not an offense in Germany. Of course, this parallelism shouldn’t be taken too far. You asked if driving was a crime. Driving on the left side of the road in the States is indeed an offense, whereas in good old Blighty it isn’t. Quite the opposite: It’s mandatory. But that doesn’t mean you won’t get extradited from Britain to the U.S. simply because the alleged offense isn’t an offense in Britain. The allegation has to be properly characterized, you see. What about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? Not quite about extradition but still a good question. There the United States is claiming extraterritorial jurisdiction. As an American citizen, in certain matters one has to behave overseas. You can see what a fine thing the FCPA has been when you consider that corruption has been all but rooted out of American oil and arms companies. But extraterritorial jurisdiction has nothing to do with whether country A is obliged to hand over someone to country B. What matters is whether what’s alleged by B to have happened in B would, mutatis mutandis, constitute an offense in A.

  What the hell is going on here?

  I’m getting to it.

  Zafar, if I’m not being accused of committing a crime on U.S. territory, then all this shit about extradition is irrelevant.

  That’s a good point.

  Are you? he asked.

  Am I what?

  Are you accusing me of some crime?

  In the United States? I responded.

  Yes.

  No, I replied.

  Well, why the hell are we talking about this?

  You’re right, Crane. I’m prevaricating. Fact is, I’m uncomfortable.

  Just say it. What’s my reputation? Don’t imagine I haven’t heard it all.

  Thank you, Crane. You’re quite right. I’m sure there’s nothing to it. Are you going to dogfights?

  Crane looked at me, apparently quite genuinely puzzled.

  Are you fucking serious?

  You’re not? I asked.

  You’re out of your mind, he responded.

  You’re not going to dogfights? I asked.

  Is that what you wanted to tell me? That Colonel Mushtaq said I was going to dogfights? I haven’t got time for this. You haven’t got time for this.

  Crane took a step toward the back door of the guesthouse.

  And the girl? I asked.

  Crane stopped. He was now r
ight next to me.

  What are you talking about?

  I told you, Crane. I’m just talking about rumors, doubtless untrue, but you should know or at least you might want to know. We have a mutual friend, Crane. You could say I’m doing this as a favor to him. Do you want me to stop talking?

  Go on.

  Let’s go inside, I said stubbing out the cigarette on the ground.

  We were both inside, the back door shut behind us, when I resumed.

  This is, as you put it, a war zone, and what happens in Kabul stays in Kabul, but only if you’re discreet. The fact that others know could mean trouble.

  What others?

  I started to make as if I were pacing, as if I were avoiding the question. I moved toward the door, the one that led into the small hallway that went out into the courtyard.

  Others, Crane, I said. I turned and paced again.

  Fuck this.

  Crane, you need friends here. You don’t care what the Afghanis think. I can get that. But you can’t afford to become a liability to the Americans, to your own.

  Why the fuck should I care about stupid rumors?

  What if it’s more than rumors? What if there’s evidence?

  There was a knock.

  I went to the door and opened it.

  Yes! I shouted.

  My back was to Crane. He might have caught at most Suleiman’s face but would at least have heard Suleiman’s voice.

  I’m very sorry to disturb but there’s a letter—

  Thanks! I shouted and grabbed the envelope with both hands. With my back to him still, Crane would have heard an envelope being ripped open.

  Suleiman exclaimed, No, sir! It’s for Mr. Crane!

  Thank you, Suleiman, I said, shutting the door.

  I turned and walked toward Crane, handing him the torn envelope.

  Excuse me. Where was I, Crane?

  I’ve no idea, he replied.

  Look. Here’s the deal. Too many people know about the girl. If it gets out any further, at best they’ll force you out of the country. At worst …

  At worst what?

  There’s a war on, Crane; there’s too much to lose. A lot of people need the Americans to stay here—can you imagine how much money’s at stake? Actually, you probably can. These people don’t need the scandal of a U.S. senator’s son screwing an Afghani girl. The line between deniable asset and bloody liability is convenience. Your death is nothing to them. Nothing. I hate to say it, but from where they stand it’s the neatest solution. Clean, upright, square-jawed all-American boy fighting for his country.

  Are you really looking out for me? Crane asked.

  He smiled. He seemed genuinely tickled by the thought.

  We have a mutual friend, don’t we? Call it loyalty.

  Crane extended his hand and took a step toward me.

  How long are you here? he asked.

  As long as it takes.

  Listen, I’ve got to go now, but can we hook up in the next day or two? I want to talk to you about something.

  A girl? I asked, half joking.

  No! No! No! I’ll tell you later. So long.

  Yes. So long, I replied.

  Through the window I saw Crane walk across the courtyard to the AfDARI office.

  God! You gave me a fright.

  Suleiman had appeared from nowhere, announcing his presence with a tap on my shoulder.

  Documents? I asked him.

  Yes.

  Did you take the pictures?

  Yes.

  The DVR? Where’s the recording of Crane?

  Suleiman pulled a flash drive out of his pocket, handed it to me, and was out the door.

  A minute later, through the window, I saw Crane emerge from the office and I stepped out into the courtyard. Crane came over to me.

  Why don’t we meet for coffee tomorrow morning at ten? he said.

  I saw something decent in Crane at that moment. I think it was a wish, even a need, to be on good terms with people.

  I don’t know if I’ve offended you, I said. I’m sorry if I have.

  Hell, no! You Brits and your apologies.

  How about Café Europa?

  You’ve found the expat joints pretty quick, he said.

  I pick things up.

  See you tomorrow.

  Listen, you’re not going to the UN bar tonight? I asked him.

  No. Why?

  I thought I might go for a drink.

  Me and my boys over at the American embassy are watching last night’s big game. God bless the VCR. As a matter of fact, I’m heading there now. We’ll get some beers in before the game. Say, you don’t—

  No thanks. Not my thing.

  Not your cup of tea, eh? Cricket’s the game for you chaps. Well, cheerio, then! said Crane, giving me a big smile as he walked off. I thought of a large, happy dog. That is how I remember Crane now.

  Suleiman was standing on the porch and would have heard everything.

  * * *

  At nine forty-five the following morning, I was about to set off when the boy whose job it was to clean the rooms appeared at the door. He handed me a telephone message from Emily: I’m coming over in just a minute. I remained in my room. I asked the boy if there was a way to get a message to Café Europa—to Crane—saying I’d be late. The boy didn’t understand.

  And then the waiting began. Just a minute, she said. I have to tell you about the waiting, because if there is a proximate cause, it was the waiting. But how can waiting, which is no action, which is the definition of nothing happening, only the interval between things, between two waves of the sea—how can nothing beget something? When I had last left Kabul, only the previous week, I made my way to Dubai, where I received an email from her saying: I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon. That was all. No other information, leaving me in suspended animation. But which flight? Kabul to Islamabad first? Or flying direct to the U.A.E.? But don’t the direct flights come in at Sharjah and not Dubai? But that adds more time because you have to drive to Dubai. So little information to go on, and perhaps that was the point, not to engage any further, to avoid explanations in order to avoid anything that might approach an apology, because to apologize, and accordingly to explain, would be to acknowledge that she was letting me down. It was never a refusal to apologize, for a refusal or anything that appeared to be a refusal implied, let me repeat, a recognition that there was something that arguably required an apology or even an explanation. No refusal but, rather, behaving as if there were nothing to explain, not one word required. Did my failure to confront this make me complicit? An enabler, they call him, the friend who invites his buddy the recovering alcoholic to the pub. I remembered the first time, so long ago now, when she arrived at the Inns of Court, at the library, to meet me for lunch. Two hours late but not a word of apology or explanation. And I made the excuses to myself, not for the lateness but for the failure to explain, for I told myself that she must believe that she is not important enough to me that something even approximating punctuality would matter to me. A contortion to box out the reality, the only self-respecting conclusion, which was the reverse, namely, that I was not important enough to her to be given an apology, let alone to be punctual for. And again and again it happened, in one way or another. Did I do the same to her? I began to ask. After all, I know that there is a wall around me and that I, too, am seldom confronted, rarely taken to task. Did my memory spare me awareness of my own failures to abide by undertakings I had given? Was I also leaving in my wake a litter of broken promises? So it was that my notebooks became diaries, too, recording not just broken commitments but also every representation made by each of us, upon which the other might reasonably rely. For all the tedious familiarity with her unreliability and for all my own deluded accommodations of it, there was hurt and there was anger, as there must be to be disregarded by someone you loved, who you believed loved you, who previous indications—engagement!—suggested loved you. And then there was the other waiting, the waiting I had
loved, the seven weeks from the day she told me she was pregnant. It was an active waiting, not limbo but a time for the imagination to take up materials from the landscape of memory and set to work. And at the end of that waiting, nothing. Nothing to justify the waiting. No conversation, no talking, only nothing.

  It’s easy to keep a clear head when thinking about something whose existence is outside you, easy to think clearly about mathematics, for instance. But what can be more important to think about than something that is so overwhelmed by emotions that the act of thinking becomes hard? Yet how do you look at something that clouds your vision? I have been full of anger my whole life, and if I’ve seemed to you or anyone as having been as calm as the kind of thinking that mathematics demands, then it is only because the anger had yet to find expression. The lexicographer is always behind the progress of language, his account by definition in arrears.

  In that AfDARI guesthouse, I thought of all the waiting I had done and felt something rising in me. Most people have no need to break free of their inheritance. But those who need to break free of their past and have the means to do so will not escape the requirement of violence.

  * * *

  At ten thirty, I walked over to the gate. The driver and Suaif were standing about, talking. I wanted to be driven to Café Europa, but first I asked them if they’d seen Suleiman.

  Suleiman has not come into work, replied Suaif.

  Yes, but have you seen him?

  He did not come in today, sir. There is a message for you.

  What is it?

  Your meeting this morning was postponed.

  When did he give you this message?

  He is not working today.

  All right. When did you plan to tell me about this message?

  Sir, I was told to give it to you only when you came into the courtyard and not to disturb you with it before.

  Did he tell you why he wasn’t coming to work?

  No, sir.

  I asked the driver to take me to Café Europa.

  Suaif interjected: There has been an IED incident in Shar-e-Naw. Americans were killed. A few soldiers. It is difficult to go there now.

  Only American soldiers?

  And civilians.