The Walking Dead

Regret that he had not taken more time to toughen the mind of the Saudi boy, to prepare him better. In the country where he fought — and the boat would take him on the first step of his journey to return there — he had satisfied himself that a cuff on the shoulder and the murmur, always the same, of 'God waits for you, God loves you, God will give you virgins', the briefest of brush kisses on the cheeks was enough. And the Engineer, checking the wiring on a belt or to a switch on the dashboard, would have told the idiot that failure would mean torture by the Americans and worse torture from the collaborators, the Shi'a Iraqis. Should he have done more?

Regret that he had not organized classes in the cottage for the cell. Not classes in indoctrination and Faith, but on resistance to interrogation, of the procedures to counter surveillance, of the making of explosive devices, of the chemicals to be mixed if commercial and military dynamite could not be obtained, of the selection of targets…but he had thought them imbeciles and not to be trusted, except the girl with the scar on her face and the smooth skin on her belly.

And regret that he had not gone far to the north and found a man alive or dead, that he had not gone to the door of a small retirement house and confronted, with fury and violence, his father, or had gone to a cemetery and kicked down a gravestone, had not, on the step-or by the grave, spoken the name of his mother. It would never happen now, and that was the most wounding of the regrets.

The hull of the boat rose over the breakwater, dwarfed it. When he was on board, when the coastline — and there would be sunshine on it — faded, he would be on a remote corner of a deck. He would not use the canteen self-service or sit in a public area. He would find a place where the wind blustered cold and where passengers did not come, sit alone there with his thoughts, and the regrets would be gone. It would be two hours after the sailing that the boy walked into the square, went towards the crowds waiting for the doors to be opened. He would be on the deck, with the boat's wake stretching out behind him and the dark line of land barely seen, when the boy died.

The woman with her dog came off the shingle and sand, used steps that were close to him. She walked past him, then stopped, smiled. 'I think it's going to be a fine day,' she said. 'The sort of day it makes one glad to be alive.'

And she walked away.

Ajaq killed more minutes, and the light brightened the paving slabs of the esplanade, glimmered prettily on the sea's waves, and he felt the first traces of the sun's warmth.

* * *

Pricks of light, and zebra lines of it, crept through the holes in the plywood over the windows and the gaps between the planks nailed across the door.

She had not slept. She had held him.

She did not want to move, to wake him.

He had cried out in the night, twice. He had used the Arabic language that she could not understand. She did not know whether he called for God, or for his family, but it was not for her. Each time, to calm him, she had wrapped her arms tighter round him and had let her nakedness warm him.

He was still now and his breathing was quiet. His head was against her, cradled in her arms. Faria did not know whether she would be cursed or praised. She had been told to give him love and had done so. He was at peace.

She did not want him to wake, but could lie there no longer. She extricated herself.

Ashamed of deceit, no glow of pride, she moved first the arm that was above her shoulder and round her neck. Then the arm that reached across the small of her back, and the hand over her hair. His eyes did not open. So slowly, she eased away from him. She rolled on to the floor, felt the bare boards and a protruding nail gouged her buttock. She went on to her hands and knees and crawled clear of him.

He did not stir, slept on. He had not touched her scar — had never gazed at it. He had shown no sign that the scar — a motor accident in a cousin's van, on early-morning ice — frightened or disgusted him. Every other man she had known in the Dallow Road, and all those in the cottage, had stared so blatantly at it, as if it repelled them. He, in spite of the scar, had loved her. For that, she believed she owed him more than he owed her.

Tears came to her eyes. She convulsed, wept.. She was a whore, she betrayed him…The imam who had recruited her, twenty months ago, had said before she was sent away to sleep, 'Much may be asked of you. Only the most strong and dedicated are capable of doing what is asked of them. Are you?' She had sworn she was. Her strength and dedication was to sleep, body to body, him inside her, until she had given what was asked of her. She swallowed hard, and used her wrist fiercely against her face to wipe the tears. She had been, through one night, loved.

Light, spots and lines, lay on his body.