Alan’s father had taught him to shoot, or at least had brought him along hunting a few times. He didn’t teach him much. When Alan was ten, he handed him an antique Winchester .22 rifle and had said, Do as I do. Ron was using a .45 semiautomatic rifle, and Alan had followed behind him. When Ron lifted his rifle Alan had lifted his, too. Eventually Ron taught him to breathe into the shot, to keep the rifle as close to the body, to the cheek, as possible. But Alan didn’t take to it the way Ron had hoped, and after those first few times, that was that.
Across the valley, another pair of headlights appeared as a blue sunrise beyond the ridge’s ragged silhouette. Alan looked to Yousef. Yousef shrugged. —This is a big event here. Everyone wants to be part of it. This is like Christmas. Yousef considered this for a second. Maybe not like Christmas.
Alan looked into the pen and saw nothing. The sheep were safe under their corrugated roof, and the wolf still hadn’t dared to cross the stage. Yousef lowered his rifle and rubbed his shoulder and neck.
He looked to Alan. —Hey, how’s your neck?
—Fine. Sore.
Alan watched as Yousef, smiling, took in the sight of Alan draped over the rock, poised to shoot.
—Were you ever in the army? he asked.
—No, I told you.
—You said you weren’t in the CIA.
—I wasn’t in the army, either. My dad was.
—And he fought?
—He did. In World War II.
Yousef made an impressed sound. —Where?
The mythology of the World War II vet dictates that they don’t like to talk about the war, but Ron never hesitated. Anything could get him going. An Italian accent in any TV show started him in about the two Mussolini soldiers — he didn’t call them Italian, for, he said, true Italians didn’t follow or fight for that maniac — he’d killed, or helped kill. The sight of a nurse triggered stories of the German nurses he’d known, the British ones aboard his ship home, the Polish one he’d known quite intimately. That story he began telling after Alan’s mother died. Ron had really become a strong dose in his old age, hadn’t he? But there were these stories, better stories than Alan had or would ever have, stories that began with any injury, stories prompted by hearing Schubert, Wagner, by documentaries on the History Channel.
Alan told Yousef the best part, that his father had been captured by the Nazis, imprisoned at Muhlberg, and when the Soviets overran the region, they expected to be freed, but were not. They had a feeling that Stalin was bargaining for the prisoners somehow, that he was holding them while he weighed his options. Ron and his bunkmate knew something was amiss, and though their orders were to stay put, to be patient and respect the process, they wanted out of there. They wanted to be home. So one night they stole a pair of Soviet bicycles, sped to the fences, found a hole, snuck through, and rode off through the German countryside.
Yousef was loving all this.
—Ah, that’s why you went into bicycles, he said.
—How do you mean?
—Because your father escaped on a bike.
Alan spent a moment with that. —Huh, he said, finally. I’d never made that connection.
Yousef didn’t believe him. To have never drawn the line from his father’s escape aboard a bicycle, the only vehicle that would have taken him so quietly and so quickly? Was there a connection? Alan didn’t attempt to parse it all.
—But you didn’t want to join the army?
—No.
—Why? No good wars?
—Exactly.
—But you would have fought in World War II?
—I wouldn’t have had a choice.
—What if you had?
—A choice?
—Yes.
—I would have gone. I would have tried to avoid the Pacific.
—And if you were young now?
—Would I join? No.
—Why? Still no good wars?
—Why all these questions, Yousef? You thinking of joining the army?
—Maybe. I’d like to be a pilot.
—Well, don’t.
—Why not?
—Because you should just get back to college and finish. You have a great brain. Stay safe, go to college, give yourself options.
—But there’s no options here. I told you that.
—So leave.
—I could leave.
—Then leave.
—But it would be better to stay here, and have things be different. They lay in silence for a while. Yousef turned to him.
—Alan, would you fight for us?
—Who?
—People like me, in Saudi.
—Fight for you how?
—Like you guys fought for the Iraqis. Or what you said you were fighting for. To give them opportunities.
—You mean would I fight personally?
—Yes.
—Maybe. As a young man, I would have.
—Would anyone else?
—Yousef, this is nuts. No one’s invading Saudi Arabia.
—I know. I’m just curious. Just about individuals.
—You want to know if individual Americans would come here to fight alongside you?
—Exactly.
—I don’t know. Probably. I think we have a lot of people willing to fight to support the people who are trying to be free. Americans like a cause. And they don’t think too much about it.
Alan laughed at his joke. Yousef did not.
—So if I start a democratic revolution here, you would support me?
—Is this your plan?
—No. I’m just asking. Would you?
—Of course.
—How?
—I don’t know.
—You would send troops?
—Me personally?
—You know what I mean. The U.S.
—Send troops? No chance.
—Air support?
—No, no.
—Shock and awe.
—Here? No way.
—Advisors of some kind, maybe. Spies?
—Here in Saudi? There are plenty already.
—What about personally? Would you personally come to support me?
—Yes, Alan said.
—That was quick.
—Well, I’m sure.
—With your twenty-two-caliber rifle.
—Exactly.
Yousef smiled. —Good, good. When I start the revolution, I’ll at least have you on my side.
—You would.
—You’re crazy. Yousef shook his head, grinning, and went back to his rifle, positioning himself again to be ready. Then he turned again to Alan.
—You know I was kidding, right?
—About what?
—About wanting the U.S. to invade our country.
Alan didn’t know what to say. Yousef was still grinning.
—You’re so ready to believe it! It’s kind of funny, don’t you think?
—I don’t know if it’s funny, Alan said. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were kidding.
—It’s okay. I’m still happy you’d bring your twenty-two to fight with me. Even if I’m not about to start a revolution.
They went back to watching the valley below, but Alan was shaken. Yousef had been lighthearted during his questions, but there was something very serious and very sad under his smile, and Alan knew what it was. It was the knowledge that there would be no fighting, and there would be no struggle, no stand taken, and that the two of them, because they were not lacking materially, because despite injustices in their countries they were the recipients of preposterous bounty, would likely do nothing. They were content, they had won. The fighting would be done by others, elsewhere.
Down below, movement. Alan lifted his rifle and pressed his cheek to the smooth wood. But it was one of the sheep. Somehow it had gotten loose, and now wanted to rejoin its brethren in the shelter. Alan had it in his sights, and a good part of him wanted to shoot that sheep. He harbored no ill will toward the animal, and he’d g
et in trouble for shooting it, but then again, he had a gun and had been waiting for forty minutes. Just waiting, watching. If he shot it, it would be something that had happened. The gun wants to be fired. The waiting must end.
A wind swept through the valley and up toward the ridge where they all gathered. A fine dust swirled about, making it difficult to see, but Alan felt that with the wind came the strange but absolute certainty that he would kill the wolf.
He was not one for premonitions, and had never felt any sense of destiny about himself, but now, with his cheek pressed against the cold wood of the rifle, he was sure he would pull the trigger that would send the bullet through the heart of the wolf. He was so sure that he felt a wonderful calm, a calm that allowed a smile to overtake his face.
This will be good, he thought. It will be good to be the one to see and shoot the wolf. To shoot a wolf in the mountains of Saudi Arabia will be something. The man who pulls the trigger will have done something.
He waited this way, content and certain, for some time, even as voices approached from behind him. He didn’t look back, but it seemed that some of the other hunters had given up their posts and were either settling in here to wait for the animal or had come to collect Yousef and Alan. But as if intuiting that Alan was locked in, that he knew something they did not, they kept their distance. Amid the steady wind their voices were distant and, to Alan, irrelevant.
What would they do when he shot the animal? They would shake his hand, pound his chest with their palms. They would all say that they knew it would be him. The second they saw him, they knew he would be the one to get it done.
Suddenly, movement below. A figure swept into his sights. It was large, dark, quick. Alan’s finger touched his trigger. His barrel was steady. The figure emerged, and Alan saw the head of a wolf.
It was time.
He breathed out and squeezed the trigger. The rifle sent the bullet into the night with a low pop and Alan knew that he would be the shooter. He would be the killer.
Then he saw a head. A mess of black hair. It was not the wolf. It was a boy. The shepherd. He’d emerged from the shelter to lead the sheep inside. There was a fraction of a second wherein Alan knew that the bullet might hit the boy, might kill the boy.
He waited. The boy was looking up to them, following the sound of the gun, and Alan waited to see him jerk back or fall.
But the boy did not fall. He was not hit. He waved.
As Alan’s heart hammered, he lifted the rifle from his cheek and set it down on the rock beside him. He didn’t want to see the boy anymore, and didn’t want the boy to see him, so he turned away, his back to the valley. And then he saw the men.
Yousef was there, and the young cousins, and the man who asked him if he ate the animal or ate the man, and the man who he had told he was with the CIA. They were all standing, their guns at their side. They had all seen Alan shoot his rifle at the shepherd boy, and no one seemed surprised.
Yousef sat with Alan on the ride home, in the cab of the truck. They said nothing until they reached the fortress and went inside.
—You should sleep for a while, Yousef said.
He led Alan to his room.
—I’m sorry, Alan said.
—I’ll have a car drive you back in the morning.
—Fine.
—Good night, Yousef said, and closed the door.
Alan did not sleep. He tried to calm his thoughts, but everything came back to what he’d almost done. Because he hadn’t done anything, for years or ever, he had almost done this. Because he had no stories of valor, he had almost done this. Because the efforts he’d made toward creating something like a legacy had failed, he had almost done this.
Somewhere near dawn, a car arrived.
Alan walked to the driveway, where Yousef was waiting.
—This is Adnan. He’ll take you to Jeddah.
Adnan stayed in the car, looking tired and unhappy. Yousef opened the back door and Alan got in.
—I’m so sorry, he said.
—I know, Yousef said.
—It’s important to me that you’re my friend.
—Give me some time. I have to remember what I like about you.
Alan tried to sleep on the drive back but couldn’t. He closed his eyes under the white sun and saw only the face of the boy, the face of the men, Yousef’s placid expression when Alan turned away from the valley and saw them all. An expression that spoke of suspicions confirmed.
When he returned to Jeddah, though, he would see Dr. Hakem and she would open him up. Then he would know what was wrong with him, and she could rip it out.
XXIX.
ALAN WAS NAKED beneath a wispy blue smock, in a waiting room in a Saudi hospital about which he knew nothing. He was about to have a growth removed from his neck, one that he still suspected was attached to his spine, sucking away some significant part of his spirit, his will and his judgment.
As he lay on a mechanical bed in a white room, Alan felt glad to be away from the fortress in the mountains. Since leaving, he’d spent a day and night asking himself, What have I done?
The answer was Nothing. He had done nothing. But this brought little relief. Relief would be the task of Dr. Hakem.
He was at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, where he had been admitted and asked to strip and stuff his belongings into a plastic bag. Now he was sitting on the bed, feeling cold in the papery smock, looking at his possessions, reading the plastic bracelet he’d been given, looking out the window, wondering if this was the turning point, after which he would be a sick man, a dying man.
He waited for twenty minutes in the empty room. Then forty.
—Hello!
Alan looked up. A man had entered, pushing a gurney. He arranged it next to Alan’s bed.
—Yes now, the man said, and indicated that Alan should move himself onto it.
Alan did, and the orderly, perhaps Filipino, covered him carefully with a blanket.
—Ready now, he said, and they left the room. They traveled a dozen grey hallways before finally reaching a humble room of track lighting and cinderblocks painted powder blue. He had not expected an operating table, but there it was, and he was asked to move himself from the gurney and onto it. He had foreseen something like a dentist’s office — small, private, a step removed from the consulting room where Dr. Hakem had seen him. Now he worried that everything had become more grave. Again he had the feeling his concerns were warranted: this proved that lump on his back was very serious, the results of the operation more pivotal.
But where was she? There was only one person in the room: a man in scrubs, perhaps a Saudi, standing in the corner. He had looked to Alan with what seemed like hope, as if he thought the man being wheeled in was a personal friend. Seeing it was only Alan, his face fell and turned into a sneer. He removed his gloves, deposited them in a bin, and left. Alan was alone.
Moments later, the door opened and a young Asian man walked in, pushing a machine on wheels. He nodded and grinned at Alan.
— Hello sir, he said.
Alan smiled and the man began an elaborate process of preparing his machine.
—Are you the anesthesia man? Alan asked.
The man smiled, his eyes bright and happy. But instead of answering, he began to hum, loudly and almost deliriously.
Alan leaned back and looked at the ceiling, which told him nothing. He closed his eyes, and within seconds found himself close to sleep. If not for the crazed humming of the Asian gas-man, he would have nodded off immediately. People died during surgery, he thought. He was fifty-four, old enough to die without causing too much consternation. His mother had died of a stroke at sixty. She’d been driving through Acton, on her way to visit a cousin, when it happened. Skidding off the road, her car collided with a telephone pole, causing no real damage to herself or her car — she’d almost missed it. But she wasn’t found until the morning, and by then she was gone. To die alone, somewhere in the middle of the night, on t
he side of the road. Alan saw it as a message: in death, you can hope for dignity but should expect disarray.
—Hello Alan. How are you feeling today?
He knew the voice. He opened his eyes. Dr. Hakem’s head blocked out the light. He saw only a smudge of her face.
—Good, he said, looking around. Somehow the room was now full of people. He counted six or seven, all wearing masks.
—I’m glad to see you, she said, her voice like cool water. We have quite an international group here to help with this procedure. This is Dr. Wei from China, she said, indicating the gas-man. He’ll be our anesthesiologist. Dr. Fenton here is from England. He’ll be observing.
She introduced the rest of the members, from Germany, Italy, Russia. They were nodding, only their eyes visible, and it was all too quick for Alan to keep track of exactly who was who. Lying on his back, naked but for a blue cape worn backwards, Alan did his best to smile and nod.
—When you’re ready, you can turn onto your stomach, Dr. Hakem said.
Alan turned, his face now in the starched pillow, smelling of bleach. He knew he was exposed, but immediately a nurse placed a sheet, then a blanket, on his legs and lower back.
—Is that warm enough? Dr. Hakem asked.
—Yes. Thank you, Alan said.
—Okay. Do you feel comfortable turning your head to one side?
He turned to his left and flattened his arms against the table.
—I’m going to prep the area around your growth, she said.
He felt her untie his gown at the top. Then a wetness on his skin. A sponge, dabbing. A rivulet of water speeding down his clavicle.
—Okay. Dr. Wei will now inject the area with a local anesthetic. There will be a few stings from the needle.
Alan felt the sharp entry of the needle just below his cyst. Then another entry to the left. And then another, another. Dr. Hakem had promised a few, but now Dr. Wei had stabbed him four, five, and finally six times. If he didn’t know better, Alan would have thought the man was enjoying it.