The Bone Clocks

Nasser replied, “While Fallujah burns, we are all Iraqis.”

Like I said, Nasser’s good. The voice asked for a cigarette.

After another pause, the man asked what supplies we had.

“Baby milk,” said Aziz. “For the hospitals.” Nasser said how his imam told them the American pigs were throwing baby milk into the sewers, to stop Iraqi babies growing up to become jihadists.

“We have hungry babies here, too,” said the man.

Neither Aziz nor Nasser had an answer to hand.

“I said,” repeated the man, “we have hungry babies too.”

If the car was unloaded, I’d be found, a foreigner, within spitting distance of Iraq’s Ground Zero of Incarceration. By hiding, I’d already put my Bosnian Muslim journalist story beyond use. Nasser sounded cheerful. They’d be happy to donate a box of baby powder to the babies of Abu Ghraib. Then, innocently, he asked for a favor in return. His damn car wouldn’t start, and he needed a push.

I couldn’t catch the man’s reply. When the Corolla’s door opened, I had no way of knowing if Nasser was being ordered out at gunpoint, or if every box of baby formula was about to be removed. The seat was flipped forward and the box covering my face was lifted away …

… I saw a hairy wrist with a Chinese Rolex and the underside of the box covering my face. I waited for a shout. Then the driver’s seat flopped back, and no more boxes were taken. I heard laughter, then the car sagged under Nasser’s weight and goodbyes called out. Soon after, I felt the car being pushed along, heard the tires crunch gravel, and felt the car jolt before the engine started.

Aziz half gasped: “I thinked we dead men.”

I was lying under the boxes twisted and breathless.

Thinking, When I get back home, I’ll never leave again.

Thinking, When I get back home, I’ll never feel this alive.

“HOKEY-DOKEY, WE’LL START with the two families,” says the beagle-faced photographer in his Hawaiian shirt. It’s sunny on the church steps, and all the leaves are fresh and lime-green. They’d be microwaved brown by a single afternoon in Mesopotamia, where flora has to equip itself with armor and thorns to survive. “Webbers on the left,” says the photographer, “and Sykeses on the right, if you will.” Pauline Webber gets her family into position with martial efficiency, while the Sykeses drift into place unhurriedly. Holly looks around for Aoife, who’s scooping up drifts of confetti for a confetti fight. “Picture time, Aoife.” Aoife snuggles against Holly and neither think to look for me. So I stay where I am, out of shot. Like all belongers, the Sykeses and Webbers don’t notice how easily they slip into groups, lines, ranks, gangs. But we nonbelongers know what we are, all right. “ Squeezein both ends, if you will,” says the photographer.

“Wakey-wakey, Ed.” Kath Sykes beckons me. “You’re in on this.”

The devil suggests I answer, “Holly seems to disagree,” but I step between Kath and Ruth. Holly, below, doesn’t turn around, but Aoife, with flowers in her hair, looks back and up. “Daddy, did you see me take up the ring tray?”

“I’ve never seen a ring tray held so skillfully, Aoife.”

“ Daddy, flattery will get you anywhere,” and everyone who hears laughs, so much to Aoife’s delight that she repeats the phrase.

Once I hoped that, by not getting married, me and Holly might avoid the scenes that Mum and Dad played out before Dad got sent down for his twelve years. True, me and Holly don’t shout and throw stuff, but we sort of do, invisibly.

“Hokey-dokey,” says the photographer. “All aboard?”

“Where’s Great-aunt Eilнsh?” asks Amanda, Brendan’s eldest.

“Great -great-aunt Eilнsh to you, technically,” notes Brendan.

“Right, Dad, whatever.” Amanda’s sixteen.

“We’re on rathera tight schedule,” declares Pauline Webber.

“She was talking to Audrey the vicar …” Amanda scoots off.

The photographer straightens up, his smile drooping. I tell my sort-of sister-in-law, “Beautiful ceremony, Sharon.”

“Cheers, Ed.” Sharon smiles. “Lucky with the weather, too.”

“Blue skies and sunshine all the way from here on in.”

I shake Peter’s hand. “So, Pete, how does it feel to be Mr. Sykes?”

Peter Webber smiles at what he imagines is my mistake. “Er, you mean Mr. Webber, Ed. Sharon’s now Mrs. Webber.”

My expression should tell him, You just married a Sykes, matey, but he’s too in love to read it. He’ll learn. Just like I did.

Holly’s acting like I’m not there. Getting some practice in.

“Ancient lady coming through, make way, make way,” says Great-aunt Eilнsh, in her freewheeling Cork accent, escorted by Amanda. “Audrey—the vicar—is off to Tanzania next week and she was asking for a few pointers. Kath, might I just slip in here …” So I step forward and find myself next to Holly after all, wishing I could just slip my hand into hers without it being such a big bloody deal. But it is. I don’t.

“All present and correct,” Pauline Webber tells the photographer. “At last.”