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22

Suhayl took another sip of tea and silently looked into the old man’s eyes. They were the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen and it gave him peace and contentment just to sit silently and be watched, to be observed by those two steely grey eyes that absolutely twinkled with mischief and happiness, as if the man were about to reveal some wonderful joke that he just couldn’t wait to tell.

“Suhayl, I see that you know some of my other young friends here. I am glad you found one another.” Khalid Edrissi fingered his tasbih without taking his eyes from Suhayl’s gaze. The younger man moved uncomfortably, not sure what to say beyond admitting that he knew some of the shaykhs mureeds, new mureeds of recent vintage it seemed.

“Yes, I know Rashid and Linda, and they mentioned some other people I knew too, a man named Hussein and his wife Elizabeth.” Suhayl’s voice had become almost a whisper and he didn’t really want to talk about the connections he had had with these people.

“You knew them from their former khaniqah Suhayl?” Edrissi’s voice was full of compassion and warmth, like that of a doctor sympathetically letting it be known that he suspected your dissolute past, and that he understood.

“Yes, I’d been with Shaykh Abusalem for a while, I took bayah with him in the States and then when I could, I saved up the money and freed my various obligations, and I moved here to be closer to the heart of things.” He broke his gaze from the older man and stared at the floor beneath his knees and began running a finger aimlessly through the deep pile of the beautiful Persian carpet.

Ya Allah.” Edrissi sighed and shook his head. They sat in silence for a few more minutes and finally Suhayl relaxed and looked up. He smiled and immediately broke up into a grin when he saw Shaykh Khalid’s face beaming like a light that burned away everything else.

“I take it this Abusalem is not a very nice man.”

“No, no he’s not sir, and, I apologize with all my heart for the gossip, and I know Rashid and Linda meant no harm, they’re not like that.”

“Salaam, Suhayl, Salaam. I know, I know. It’s okay.”

“I know that adab forbids backbiting and gossip, but, well, I had to know, I’m so glad they told me what happened after I left there. I always secretly feared, that it was me, that I didn’t understand some message, that my faith was weak after all. My heart told me not to fear, but to leave him and get as far away as I could. But still, I worried that it was my nafs telling me to take the easy road and avoid the trials of the path.” Suhayl’s voice broke off and he slumped down with his head in his hands.

“Suhayl, let me tell you a little story. In the old days of Islam, there were many rivers flowing through the land. Some of those rivers were shallow and filled with sweet water and anyone could drink from their streams and river banks, men and women, small children, even the smallest of creatures filled their needs from these life giving waters. There were other rivers, some in deep gorges, others teaming with treacherous rapids, others impassable at any point. So the people got together and built bridges over these rivers and soon people were able to pass back and forth and to come and go in both directions, passing safely over waters that would kill any but the most powerful and experienced swimmers.

Little by little and over a very great pass of time, some of these bridges became important thoroughfares between mighty kingdoms and they were maintained at the expense of great kings and often they began to charge tolls and fees for crossing and only those dressed in the finest robes could pass by dropping their gold coins into a box held by a gatekeeper. These bridges were about nothing more than making money from the wealthy and so they catered to their needs and their nafs, providing foods and entertainment and all manner of amusements, all just so they could pass over a bridge, from one side of the river to the other.

Other bridges fell out of use or were abandoned and soon taken over by highwayman who lured the people to the bridge and then stole their money and their possessions and left them naked to wander back down the mountain trail, having never set foot on the bridge. These old bridges had often crumbled and would carry no one to the other side. But the brigands who sat at their gates did not let this be known. They promised to bring the unwitting travelers to the other side when they had never been to that other side themselves.

Often these brigands set up camps around the base of the bridge and kept people prisoner, allowing them to believe that at the auspicious moment, the gatekeeper would usher them over the bridge to the other side. When in fact, keeping these travelers captive was what these gatekeepers had in mind all along, because it made their own egos grow fat with contentment believing it was they and not the bridge and the destination on the other side that the travelers sought.

Eventually they passed a law in the land that made it a very great crime to say anything about the bridges other than how wonderful they were. And if anyone dared say that such and such a bridge was controlled by a brigand and that the bridge had fallen into ruin and people had actually fallen to their deaths from its heights, they were accused of gossip and backbiting and were made to feel as though it was they who had sinned. When in fact Suhayl, what greater service can there be to your brother that you meet along a steep mountain trail than to warn him that the bridge up ahead has rotted cables, and is about to fall into the rapids below, or that a greedy gatekeeper, hungry for gold and the fawning adoration of travelers in need of his aid lies hidden along the road.

Suhayl breathed deeply and cleared his head, nodding in agreement as he saw the truth of Shaykh Khalid’s story.

“Yes, I see.”

“Indeed. And such gatekeepers cannot be allowed to hide behind adab, hide behind religion. Because what happens is people no longer see the gatekeepers, they just see religion. And when so many of these scoundrels have taken over these old bridges or in some cases created new ones, the overwhelming image of religion is seen through eyes that behold only the scoundrels. You did well Suhayl, in leaving and in sharing your story with Rashid and Linda, as they did the right thing to get your story. Such men need to be recognized for what they are. It is a service to Allah and His Islam to unmask them. And so often, nothing at all needs to be done because they unmask themselves through their greed and their arrogance. You are welcome here Suhayl. There is no compulsion in religion. I offer you the hospitality of this khaniqah. You may come to pray, to eat with us, to share the friendship of good companions in Allah. And if there is anything at all you would have from me, you may ask it. We want nothing from you here, but to take the salaams of religion and share our company honorably.”

Suhayl was overcome with emotion and he felt the intensity and horrors of the last few months melting and his heart softening, and he felt he might actually start crying, so he laughed instead and wiped his face.

“Thank you Sir, thank you so much. I would love to come here, to start coming to your meetings. I don’t know what, I mean beyond that I don’t know ----“

“None of us knows Suhayl. So be at peace. There is one thing, when I said we want nothing from you, I, well, I can’t speak for that willful daughter of mine! She will run you ragged and milk every word out of your tired soul if you let her. She can be like a little dog that won’t stop jumping all over people. She means well, she is very bright, but do not fear to tell her to be silent and leave you alone if she infringes upon your peace.” The old man winked and Suhayl laughed out loud, freeing himself from the last of the stress that had coiled around his heart and mind.

“Sir, I have the utmost respect for Ceyda. I don’t know her well, but I see what she does in the computer lab. She runs rings around our professors and I see them come to her for help. I look forward to getting to know her better, with your permission of course.” Suhayl nodded shyly and the old man waved his comment away.

“Suhayl, this is a khaniqah and it is assumed that anyone who comes here will abide by the rules of Allah’s adab and treat everyone here with respect. I welcome you Suhayl Sutton, be welcome here.” Shaykh Khalid said formally and then closed his eyes briefly and sighed.

“My deepest thanks Sir.”

“We have other guests arriving in a day or so Suhayl, they’re known to you as well I believe. Azadeh’s brother Khosro and his assistant and friend Gary.”

“Oh of course. Although I only met Gary once, briefly. But Khosro I met many times, a very wise man.” Suhayl thought back on that night in the mosque six months ago. Khosro had been there. And the Jinn, Khosro and the Jinn had been connected in some way he didn’t understand, and he only knew pieces of Khosrow’s story. But he knew him as a man of power and dignity and great spiritual wisdom. And the Jinn. Did Shaykh Khalid know about the Jinn? He had no intention of launching off into the details of that strange night, having no idea what the older man might think. But Shaykh Khalid knew Khosro, how could he not know about the Jinn?

“Suhayl, this is a strange khaniqah, in many ways not like any other. We have our own rules and they tend to be more flexible, and yet more stringent than many other orders. We have only a few members around the world, but each man and woman is drawn here as to an underground spring from which they alone may drink. Khosro was drawn to such a spring long ago with his friend Tursun. Yes, I know these stories. And I know they are all true.”

Suhayl looked up, relieved that the other man knew and he wouldn’t have to test his fears that he might appear like a madman or a gullible naïf.

“You recall my story of the bridges a moment ago, well, we have each discovered a ford in the river that we might cross, and there is no bridge for us to use here. Do you understand me? Those of us here, we are drawn to this order, because we can swim. We do so, or we drown, and that’s not always a bad thing. For in any event, we drown among good companions who know the waters. But come, I just saw my Ceyda girl poke her head in. Let’s go eat!”

23

He wore the body of a man once more, and reclined against a soft rise of red sand, his right hand resting on his knee. Sand, he could see nothing but red sand and the deepest blue sky unbroken by the floating clouds of any moisture. Azami had departed, melted back through the barzakh of dreams and become a man once more, nestled in the dreams of men and awaiting the call of fajr to bring him to his prayers.

A gentle breeze flowed over the rise and a gust of sand blew up before him. In the sands he saw the face a beautiful woman and he smiled. She was the daughter of a sultan, and in her eyes he learned stories that the Jinn may only hear about. But in her arms, he learned secrets that would make the others of his kind jealous for a thousand years. She had wanted a child from him and had refused to believe it was not possible. As a woman, she knew that the only way to secure the power and safety she longed for, and the continuation of the life she loved upon her father’s death, was to have a very powerful son to protect her, and what more powerful son, than the son of a Jinn. She had cast him out of her bed when her belly had refused to rise. But he remembered her always, even though she had been dust in the earth for over twelve centuries.

But for the Jinn, there are no centuries. And if he chose, he could go to her now, enter the red sands and find her once again to lose himself in those laughing black eyes that were far more intelligent than the men of her father’s court dared to suspect. And too, he could lose himself in those arms. But to do that, he would have to lie, say to her that he had discovered a way to giver her child, and that he would not do. And so he sighed and remembered.

He was drawn from this reverie as another gust of wind blew up from behind him and tickled the back of his neck. He smiled again and turned to gaze into the red sand floating on the air and swirling into a face. It was a dark angry face that bore a murderous sneer, the head shaved but for a long braid down one side. The quilted leathers were soiled with years of campfire soot and dried blood, and the urine of horses was rubbed into the hair and scalp and flesh to keep away the flies and fleas and other vermin. The face was almost pitch black from the dirt of the road, and a necklace of talismans and fetishes and the polished skull of a fallen enemy dangled from his chest.

And the Jinn roared with laughter. The cook in the khan’s great army. Always in search of new disguise that might make him appear ferocious and terrifying, he was harmless and sweet natured as a kitten, but refused to seem less a man than the greatest warrior. This man was the source of boisterous mirth and joviality among the men of the army and a favorite among the khan’s body guard. Whenever they conquered any army, town, or village, this man always sought out the cook to beg or buy or coerce their favored delicacies from them so he might prepare them for the khan in his nightly tent among his nobles and his family. The Jinn had delighted in slipping this man the wondrously inexplicable recipes that never failed to dazzle his master and his favorites. Had he wanted, the Jinn could have found this man and laughed with him once more and slipped him a culinary oddity from more modern times than his own.

And soon the sands were swirling madly around him from a thousand directions, each congealing in a face that vied for the undivided attention of his memory. Kings and warriors, peasants and monks, horse thieves and scholars. And always the women, beautiful and kind, and taking great risks to know him and suffering no regrets.

And then too he saw a sickly man, frail and almost snow white, his veins laying upon the surface of his skin like a maze of delicate blue snakes. The man was on the top floor of a monstrously tall glass tower surrounded by a lake filled with large carnivorous fish. He stood at the window and gazed down, longing to break the glass in front of him and fall to his death. This man would live in a world two thousand years after Azami’s death. And the Jinn remembered him well. Such was the memory of the Jinn, not bound by time or place but always an eternal moment in which he may appear in any time or place by stepping into the red sands. And the thousand faces bore down upon him, each lost in the dreams of their times and calling out for him, their lost friend and companion, to return to them. And they, his human companions and friends, all known to him from the first day of his existence to the last, all in an eternal moment of now.

When Nazer Silmi first saw Azami in the café with Zafer Yilmaz, he had been waiting for him, knowing he was soon to arrive, and he recognized him instantly. And through he could always move and travel in this manner, and often did in his dreams, the Jinn chose to live daily through the normal course of time and be in the world of the Sons of Adam, to watch, and perhaps help them in ways that would not interfere with the grand course of things that were playing out upon the world of that time.

Which is why the sultan’s daughter had felt betrayed when a lesser man than she of dubious honor and intentions was allowed to claim the throne of her father and begin wrecking havoc and horror in her kingdom after taking her to wife, when all the Jinn had to do, she believed, was give her a child, a child of their love. Was that so much to ask? She had screamed, and her scream echoed down through the centuries. And this is why the great khan had felt betrayed when his cook had been captured in battle and the man who took his place slipped poisons into his evening soup. The Jinn had watched and not interfered and the great khan wept like a child in his arms as he died, the pain of betrayal and disbelief clouding his eyes in the final moments. And the sick man in the glass tower had felt betrayed, and his world betrayed when the Jinn stood by and watched as the air in the sky soured and rotted and the world died around him.

The Jinn sat and watched as wave upon wave of happy memories turned to angry, weeping, pleading, and accusing faces, faces demanding to know why he had betrayed them by doing nothing when even the smallest act from him with his great knowledge would have changed the course of events within the world.

The Jinn watched the faces fade and melt into the sands as the winds died away and all was still once more. Their tears and cries and angry recriminations fell upon his soul like rain but did not touch him. They did not know, they could not understand. Nazer Silmi was a Watcher, sent to watch the world for his Lord. But he was tasked from time to time with revealing himself to others, a very few others, so that they might know, that everything was the will of Allah, a Will that let its signs be known most clearly in the great tides and movements among men in their pulsing dance of love and power, Rahman and Rahim, in its tides upon the body of Time.

24

Shaykh Hassan Abusalem sat on a cushion on the floor of the yali regarding the man who spoke to the assembled mureeds, those of his students who remained at the khaniqah. This was the first time that Abusalem was not the center of attention in his yali, the first time that he had deferred to another to lead the gathered talibs, the students, the first time he was relegated to a seat on the floor beside the small diadem on which he usually sat raised amidst those who called him their master.

“Bi’ismillah. Long ago, in the days of the first Rightly Guided Caliphs, may Allah protect their secrets, Muslims knew treachery, murder, greed, and every sin among the ummah. For centuries, we fought one another, brother against brother, shedding the blood of our wives and daughters, of our sons and our sons’ sons, turning mother against daughter and village against town. Sultans rose mighty from among us and from their loins were raised mighty kingdoms filled with the greatest wisdom and piety, the most magnificent architecture and skilled crafts the world has ever seen. And yet, this was not enough for us. Still we fought on and were never sated with each other’s blood.

And because we have raised ourselves upon this history of warfare amongst ourselves, never uniting for any cause, forever incapable of seeing our common good, we have grown weak and like the city whose walls have crumbled, whose warriors lie dead and rotting, and whose gates are guarded only by the sick and the infirm, we are now indefensible. And we have no one but our own greed and worldly ambition to blame. But there are more enemies in our midst and from them we willingly take the poisoned flask and drink until we have grown fat and besotted.”

You here, all of you.” Shaykh Uthman gestured widely with his arm indicating the twenty five or so young men who sat stiffly in tightly ordered rows before him, nodding slowly at each, his black eyes like those of a bird of prey catching each eye before him and holding it until it looked away. “All of you here, you are Sufis? Is that what you are? This is, what is this place? A khaniqah, a place for Sufis? But I ask you, who are the Sufis? Are they the men who fought beside the Prophet, salle allahu alayhi wa salaam? Did these Sufis ride at Badr? Were they at the Battle of _____ when the great Hamza was struck down and his body was defiled by a woman? Were they at Karbala when the grandson of the Prophet fell? Were they at al-Quds when the Crusaders broke their truce and massacred a caravan on its way to the Holy City? Where were they? What did they do, what did they preach? I ask you, I am an ignorant, simple man, tell me, any of you, please.” He stopped speaking and glared at them, watching with satisfaction as they moved uncomfortably on their cushions and turned their eyes to the floor in front of them.

“I’ll tell you what a Sufi does. He sits on a soft cushion in a mansion such as this yali, and he thinks and he prays to Allah, he drinks tea and eats dates and grows fat, but he renders no service to Allah or to his servants. I sit on no such cushion because I am a slave of Allah.” His voice fell away again and he nodded as first one and then another and then all of them pulled out the cushions from under their backsides and cast them away.

“But that is not all the Sufi does. He wallows in his softness, his private meditations that take him away from the ummah. He is useless to anything but his own fantasies. He is a traitor to the ummah and I say he has poisoned the virile manhood of Islam, dragging him from the saddle, taking the sword of righteousness from his hand and throwing him down, onto what, a soft cushion that separates him from the earth which bore him and which mixes in his veins with the spirit of his Lord. But even that my brothers, even that is not all. The Qur’an says, there is no intercessor between Allah and His servant. And yet, the Sufi bows to a man, takes a man as his master, places his hope and his faith and his trust not in Allah but in a man, and he calls that man a shaykh! I see even now you are glancing uncomfortably at this man seated here.” Shaykh Uthman gestured towards Hassan Abusalem and the others looked at him in dismay, confused and not knowing what was happening.

“Alhamdu’lillah, your old master here has ended his ignorance and come out of his jahiliya and accepted the true Islam. Never again will he be a master, not to you, not to anyone, and not even to himself. These fine carpets, these, cushions, all of these will be removed tonight and burned. The library here, will be given close scrutiny and all books that contain blasphemies against Allah and the society of the ummah shall join these vanities in the flames. No longer will this place be called a khaniqah, no longer will you refer to yourselves as Sufis. Any Sufis among you, are free to leave as the kafiroon westerners among you have left, as the defiled Arabs and Persians and Turks among you have left who took kafiroon women as their wives and rejected your own sisters. Anyone who wishes to serve Allah by sitting on a cushion and reading poetry, can get out now and follow the kafiroon into infamy, for the days of jahiliya in these lands is drawing quickly to a close.” Uthman stood quickly to his feet to gage the reactions of those young men before him. With only a few hesitations, the rest jumped quickly to their feet and cried out the divine formula. Allahu Akbar!

Abusalem rose to his feet as well, and glanced around at the faces of the young men. A few were looking at each other with shock and confusion, the rest seemed ready almost to fall at Uthman’s feet. There had been hintings, preparations for this day for many months. Little by little, under Uthman’s direction he had weeded his garden of all but those young Arab, Turk, and Persian men who did not mind this great weeding, the loss of the other mureeds, the stiff and unyielding trials that he had set them too in preparation for just this moment. And now, now, he felt a strange chill come over his body as he watched Uthman take his students in hand and disperse them to the hammam to wash for the prayer.

When they had gone, Uthman motioned for him to sit back down. Abusalem grew uncomfortable under the man’s gaze, but waited for him to speak. When he did not, Abusalem decided to ask him about the carpets.

“You will burn the carpets Shaykh Uthman, and the cushions?”

“Yes, there is no need for them now, and they will only remind the talibs of the days of their ignorance, and make them soft. The yali is ours now, do not worry about those heaps of rubbish.” The man said smugly.

“Ours? But what of ---“ Abusalem got a sinking feeling but allowed Uthman to speak.

“The former owner of this yali is dead.” He said casually.

“Dead?” Abusalem muttered in horror.

“Yes, dead. It seemed the most expedient way to gain possession of this building. He was in a casino, drinking, women hanging around him. But it was the dark eyed beauty who caught his eye and he drew her into his arms and then swept her upstairs into his rooms.” Uthman laughed and nodded at the look of confused surprise on Abusalem’s face.

“Yes, the dark eyed beauty in her kafiroon dress and her skin bared for all to see. But oh, look at this! Do you think all our people are angry looking men in big beards and white thobes? The dark eyed beauty was my own brother’s daughter who agreed to defile herself before a room full of unbelievers in order to get close to this man and move him out of our way. Once they were in the room, she poisoned him and waited for him to die. The neighbors, fools that they were, thoughts the screams were the sounds of passion and the laughter of the beautiful woman. Then she quietly left, leaving him on his flight to Jehanum. She emptied his wallet before leaving and threw the money into the river, not wanting the filthy money, but leaving the scene to look like the act of an easy woman and a mere robbery. Then my brother’s daughter disappeared back into the neighborhood where the ummah lives where she did a full ghuzl to purify herself, and then she flew home to her father’s house. So you see, the yali is now ours. And Abusalem, we have no qualms about eliminating any such obstacles that may arise in a similar manner, and there is no one who is not potentially, an obstacle.”

Abusalem got up and went to the window in an attempt to steady himself and hide the look of shock and misgivings that gripped his features. His hands shook as he grasped the window sill and looked down onto the street. He saw two figures emerge below, two of the mureeds who had seemed unsure of Uthman’s words. They stood for a moment talking, their backpacks securely in place. They glanced up at the window where Abusalem stood, and the man stepped back so they wouldn’t see him. When he looked back, they had disappeared into the growing darkness. He knew they wouldn’t be back and he wished them well. And he would say nothing of their disappearance to Uthman, for fear they too might become obstacles.

25

The morning after the Azami’s evening visit, Rafiq was at the door of the mosque in time for the fajr prayer. Selim joined him in the garden for wudu, surprised to see his friend up so early and on time for the prayer at the mosque.

“We have to talk.” Rafiq said sharply.

“We have to pray my brother, we have to pray. Then we can talk.” Selim said solemnly as they walked into the mosque. Azami had just given the adhan, the call to prayer, and was standing in the middle of the room facing the mihrab, his head bowed and his right hand over his left wrist.

After they had finished the prayer and Azami left to go help Ramsay Hamza with the morning’s bake, Rafiq and Selim sat facing each other in the garden, steaming cups of tea in hand.

“Azami told me about this encounter he has had, he showed me the tattoos. When were you going to tell me about this?” Rafiq shook his head in disbelief that his friend had not told him that another Jinn had appeared among them.

“He is quite an individual, I’ll say that much!” Selim laughed and swallowed the rest of his tea.

“What?” Rafiq hissed, his jaw dropping at the thought that Selim had encountered the Jinn as well. “You have met him too? Tell me! Tell me everything, please.”

“The night of the fire, Ramsay Hamza and I had been searching for Azami but we had no idea where he was. The fire officers said they had seen him go into the fire and disappear, and they never saw him come out. We were afraid he had been caught in the fire, but we just didn’t know. I was beside myself. I told Ramsay to stay here of course, and when we got back here, Azami was here in the mosque, sitting here with some guy, or so I thought. “

“He was just sitting here with Azami?”

“Yeah. At first I didn’t think anything of it. I was so mad and relieved to see that kid here safe. We lit into him pretty hard. He had gone into the fire, but only to make sure Ramsay wasn’t inside. I mean, what could I say? He risked his own life to make sure Ramsay wasn’t trapped inside. So when we calmed down and introduced ourselves to this guy, Nazer Silmi he calls himself ---

“Wait, you got his name? He has a name?”

“Yes, that’s what he told us his name was, or the name he uses, has used for a very long time he said. He’s lived here in the city for, a long time. When I got a chance to really look at him, he looks like anybody else, but, there is, what, something strange about him, the feel of him I guess. And then I saw the tattoos on Azami’s arms and the flesh on the back of my neck just about crawled off. I could see Ramsay was shot and almost asleep, so I told Azami to take him to the guest room while Nazer Silmi and I talked. Before Azami came back, he told me his story, part of it, but he couldn’t tell me why those tattoos appeared on Azami’s arms. He said he had found Azami collapsed and unconscious in the fire and had brought him out to safety. It sounds like he had assumed some fiery form and came out of the flames to get Azami out of there. We talked about the other Jinn, and he could feel his presence. Azami came back, the guy touched him and he fell asleep and we talked some more. I don’t even remember what all he said but, I think he’s good Rafiq, I know he is and, I like him.”

“You like him?”

“I like him. He’s nothing at all like the other one, the other Jinn. He’s, more human, if that makes sense. Yeah, I like him.”

“But what does it all mean, what’s happening?”

“That’s it, I don’t think he knows either.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, but, I believe him. If something is, going on, I guess we’ll all find out what it is, him too.”

The two fell into silence, letting the whole thing sink in. Then Rafiq cleared his throat and decided to lay his cards on the table as well.

“Well, I have some news too.”

“Oh, what’s that?” Selim looked up, his gaze narrowed on Rafiq as the other man rubbed his chin and decided where to begin.

“I have seen Tursun.”

“What?” It was Selim’s turn to gasp as he grabbed Rafiq’s shoulder and looked into his face. “When? Where was this and when were you going to tell me? We can’t have any secrets between us my brother, it is the path that binds up and there can be no secrets like this.”

“Oh Selim, it was just a couple of days ago.”

“A couple of days?”

“Yes. You remember my friend Nurhan, well, she passed away, I found her body actually.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. But how ---“

“Just listen. I went to her apartment. He heat had been turned off and I got it back on. But by the time I got there, it was too late. She was in here chair, it looked like she was asleep, but, she was gone. As I was looking at her, a voice spoke to me from behind and I went into complete shock. It was Tursun’s voice. I turned, and there he was sitting in a chair.”

“Alhammdu’llilah! Where is he now? What will he do?” Selim cried with a big grin, then he called suddenly to see that his friend was not smiling. “What’s wrong? Where is he?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know. He left. He left after telling me that he had known Nurhan as a young woman, that he had loved her. I had no idea! But he had come here for her, and I don’t know what that means, he didn’t tell me. But he has not come back, I don’t think. I don’t know. He was strange, of course he was strange, what am I saying. It’s so confusing and I really have no idea. But he said he had not come back to answer any questions or to be around, he sounded vague. It left me with a very, very uneasy feeling. I am glad to have seen him, yes, but, it feels like a broken window now with a draft coming in. I have no idea. Who knows if we will see him again. I just don’t know.”

Selim and Rafiq fell into a dark silence, each trying to steady himself within the unfamiliar terrain that was gathering around them.