Brother's Keeper

  After the child dies, will they keep his drawings? Will they cling to them out of hatred, grim mementoes of that arrogant American who made a diagnosis, proposed a treatment, and then did nothing? He must remember that these people, some of them at least, are in league with the Heroes of Jihad. The baskets of food, the handwritten notes: this com­pound represents a link in that chain of communication and supply. He wonders if his treatment of the child could have an impact on his captiv­ity. His actions tonight might make it easier for someone down the line to kill him or set him free.

  The boy, having partially submerged the tube, begins blowing bubbles in the bowl. One of the men pats the boy’s shoulder and mutters some comment of praise that prompts chirps of agreement from the burqas.

  But not from the mother: she remains silent. Staring at Burkett, she offers little more than a nod, and when he meets her eyes, he sees the despair he would have expected, but also something else, perhaps a kind of rage. He can understand why she would be angry, why she would even despise him for hesitating to save her child. She could easily take a cynical view of his reluctance, seeing it not as overly careful medicine but as a cold bargaining tool, perhaps a means of hastening his release or gaining some advantage from his captors. Or even worse, she could accuse him of withholding care simply out of spite. Could she even imagine such a thing? Would any human be capable of that kind of cruelty, using the life of a baby as a tool for vengeance?

  He reminds himself yet again: the baby will die either way.

  The tube fits easily over the spout of the bellows. He lubricates the other end and slides it into the infant’s anus. Without being asked, Asadullah squeezes the buttocks together to keep the tube from slipping free.

  ‘You should think about medical school,’ Burkett says, even though no one understands.

  Very slowly he compresses the paddles. When he removes the tube, gas squeaks from the anus, followed by a spurt of blood and mucous. Again he inflates the bellows and inserts the tube. Drawing together the paddles this time he feels a greater resistance but of course there is no way to check his progress. All he can do is imagine the length of colon on fluoroscopy: the gas inside pushing against that knot of mucosa, a gentle unfolding till all at once the blockage disappears.

  Afterward, when he turns the baby onto her back, he feels no change in the distended abdomen. It is impossible to know if he perforated the colon or reduced the intussusception – if there was an intussusception at all.

  He sits on the floor by the crib. His eyes meet Sajiv’s, who remains seated on the far side of the room with the old man, the grandfather now asleep.

  Women pass in and out of an adjacent room. Through the open door, Burkett can see curtain partitions, a bare mattress separated from the dirt floor by a sheet of plywood.

  The mother of the child jerks free when one of the men tries to lead her away from the crib. It must be her husband, wanting her to come to bed. Burkett can guess the nature of the dispute: if she wants to stay with her baby – and keep the baby near the doctor – she’ll have to spend the rest of the night in the same room as a man from outside the family. It is bad enough that Burkett has seen her face. In the end the husband goes to bed – rather selfish, Burkett thinks – while two of the other women lie on wool blankets by the fire. It seems their purpose in staying is to ensure the virtue of all present, particularly the young mother. Would she otherwise suffer the wrath of her husband? From the way he grabbed her wrist and tried to pull her away from the crib, Burkett suspects she will suffer his wrath no matter what.

  Now he faces that ancient task of the physician. He must serve as a witness to death. Having exhausted all means of treatment, he will sit here till the child dies.

  Sajiv disappears into a separate part of the house with Asadullah and the grandfather. Burkett lies on the floor and tries to sleep. Whenever he opens his eyes the mother is seated in the same place, both hands draped through the bars of the crib. After perhaps an hour, he walks over and checks the baby’s pulse and presses the abdomen. Nothing seems to have changed, but he takes that as a good sign. He would have predicted death by now.

  At the bustle of morning prayer, the mother is holding a wet rag, drip­ping water through the baby’s trembling lips. The pulse is stronger. There is a new warmth to the fingers and toes. Burkett can see now there is no longer any need to turn the child’s face toward Mecca.

  On the walk back he and Sajiv pass a coffee tree recently struck by lightning. The crown is nearly bisected, charred limbs on one side and green leaves on the other. It must not have taken long for the rain to extin­guish the fire. Despite the persistent downpour, Sajiv takes the time to gaze at the tree from different angles. Burkett doesn’t understand what he’s saying till he forms an imaginary camera with his hands. Sajiv wishes he could take a picture of the half-burnt tree.

  18

  Sajiv wakes Burkett before sunrise. By flashlight they climb the stairs and pass through the room where last night their game of chaupar lasted into the late hours. Sajiv and Akbar’s mattresses are stacked neatly against the wall. Outside he can hear Akbar in whispered conversation, but the other voice he doesn’t recognize.

  Down the corridor light seeps from a curtained doorway. Burkett wonders what waits for him there, in the largest room of the compound. With growing fear he envisions spotlights for a video production, an online decapitation. They’ll demand that he read some statement on the secular government in the north, or perhaps American foreign policy, but he won’t give them the pleasure. He will wait for his death in silence.

  A grumble in the distance at first sounds like one of the drones. Or a chainsaw, for cutting off his head.

  Akbar has to prod him along. Almost against his will his thoughts take the form of prayer: Be with me, give me strength. But whom is he addressing? How illogical to believe in God simply because you think you’re about to die. And yet he prays: If I live through this, I’ll believe in you.

  Sajiv pulls back the tattered curtain to reveal a man at a table, the room illuminated by an electric lamp. No Islamic flag, video camera, or masked gunmen. An extension cord leads out the window. The grumbling sound, Burkett realizes, must come from a power generator.

  The man at the table – in his late twenties, Burkett would guess – is writing on the lined page of a leather-bound journal. Burkett studies the hands, half expecting the amputation stumps of a bomb-maker, but the man’s fingers are intact. Burkett stands behind an empty chair, waiting while the man finishes whatever he’s writing.

  ‘Forgive me,’ the man says. He rises and places his right hand to his chest.

  ‘No problem,’ Burkett says. Now that he’s dodged a video execution he can hardly resist the lure of sociability.

  ‘Call me Tarik,’ the man says.

  Tarik: he remembers the name. This is Akbar and Sajiv’s superior. The neatly trimmed beard, the prayer cap and wire-rimmed glasses, slightly crooked, remind Burkett of those clerics in the news, the ones who inspire terrorists, although his western attire – khakis and white oxford shirt – and knowledge of English suggest worldly experience beyond the usual madrassas and militant training camps.

  A high value target, he thinks as he sits in one of the injection molded plastic chairs.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to make the acquaintance of a fellow physician,’ Tarik says.

  ‘You’re a physician?’ Burkett asks, stunned.

  ‘Internal medicine,’ he says, with a slight bow, as if to say, At your service. ‘But Allah willing, I will some day have an opportunity to train as an endocrinologist.’

  Burkett stares, making an effort to keep the smile from his lips.

  ‘Where did you do your training in medicine?’ he asks.

  ‘A perfectly reasonable medical school and residency program, I assure you.’

  Is he actually a physician? What could possibly be the advantage of s
uch a lie? No, he thinks: the name is a lie but the profession is real.

  ‘How is your stay with us?’ Tarik asks. ‘Have you been comfortable?’

  He hands Burkett a Snickers bar with English writing on the wrapper. ‘Have you been well provided for?’ he asks.

  Burkett shrugs and tears open the Snickers and bites off the top third.

  ‘When can we go home?’ he asks through the mouthful of candy.

  ‘That’s precisely why I’ve come,’ Tarik says, as if struck by the coinci­dence of their shared interest. ‘Yes, I’d very much like to arrange for your safe and joyful return to – Mejidi-al-Alam? America? Where is home for you, Dr Burkett? Online it says you are a fellow in plastic surgery in Atlanta, but this information seems out of date.’

  Burkett flinches at the thought of his truncated fellowship, though now it seems like a distant memory.

  ‘I’m in transition,’ he says.

  ‘The perfect time for a visit to our beautiful island,’ Tarik says with a smile.

  The tone is off-putting: sarcasm in the form of sympathy. Burkett focuses on the man’s brown eyes, slightly magnified by the lenses.

  ‘What about you?’ Burkett asks. ‘Do you practice medicine – or does jihad take up too much of your time?’

  ‘I’ve had to put my career on hold,’ he says, taking the question at face value. ‘You’re right, though, with all this . . .’ A weary sweep of the hand seems to indicate not just Burkett but also Sajiv, who sits just outside the door, as if together the two of them embody the stress of the whole enterprise – the ransom negotiations, the management of prisoners and guards.

  ‘When this is over,’ Tarik says, ‘I hope to advance my training.’

  ‘A fellowship in endocrinology,’ Burkett says doubtfully.

  ‘Why not?’ he asks. ‘I’ve done quite a bit of research on diabetes.’

  ‘Terrorism might not look so good on your CV.’

  ‘Call it what you will,’ he says with a shrug. ‘Our goal is to gain indepen­dence for the Islamic Republic of South Khandaros. When that happens we will put aside our weapons, beat our swords into plowshares, as they say.’

  ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’

  Tarik’s face suggests that he doesn’t care whether Burkett believes it or not. He smoothes a sheet of paper on the table and takes a moment to study what looks like a typed list of names with handwritten notes in the margins.

  ‘And who is Véronique?’ he asks, attempting the French pronunciation.

  Véronique. The sound of it, that dip of the middle syllable, brings to mind an image of her pale thighs on either side of his. With the memory comes a spark of desire, quickly suppressed by the sound of Tarik clearing his throat.

  ‘Your few other phone contacts include the first and last name, but for this Véronique, you used the first name only. Why is that, Dr Burkett?’

  ‘I never learned her last name,’ he says. ‘She was a woman at my hotel.’

  He tries to remember how many names he had programmed into that phone. Surely no more than four or five – he’d only just bought it at the airport.

  ‘Did you and Véronique enjoy a roll in the straw?’ He expands this last word as if to make room for both humor and disapproval.

  ‘It’s hay,’ Burkett says. ‘The expression is roll in the hay. If you want to know her last name, call her and ask. You have her number.’

  ‘Is this woman a spy, Dr Burkett?’

  ‘No,’ he says. But of course there’s no other answer he could give. If she were a spy, she certainly wouldn’t have told Burkett.

  ‘Are you a spy, Dr Burkett?’ The smile that accompanies this question seems isolated to Tarik’s mouth. His eyes retain an air of detachment, as if he were looking not at Burkett but considering the possibility of a diagnosis.

  ‘How could I be a spy?’ Burkett says. ‘Do you think I came here to collect data between appendectomies?’

  ‘The CIA has been known to use medical personnel to procure DNA and other forms of biological data. Perhaps you’re part of a covert opera­tion to sterilize Muslims.’

  ‘Surely you don’t believe that?’

  ‘No, I personally do not, but there are many intelligent, godly men who do.’ He nods toward the doorway, where the curtain exposes a sliver of Sajiv’s foot with its cheap sandal of plastic and foam.

  ‘You can see how this idea would have appeal, Dr Burkett, can you not? Muslims being emasculated by Christians? Here is this occupying force, these crusaders, not just invading our very homes on a daily basis, but also depriving us of the very means of creating a home.’

  ‘There is no occupying force,’ Burkett says.

  ‘I seem to see white faces everywhere I look.’

  Burkett thinks of Captain Rich. ‘The few Americans are here as advisors and nothing more.’

  ‘And what do you think of this fleet of drones? That is the real occupy­ing force. Through the stupidity of Djohar and his secular advisors, our island now plays host to an army of foreign robots. The Khandari special forces might think they control these robots, but of course there is an override switch in the Pentagon. These are CIA drones first and foremost.’

  Such idiocy, Burkett thinks, and from a physician no less. But he shouldn’t be surprised: he’s heard equally moronic conspiracy theories from paranoid doctors in the States.

  Tarik goes on: ‘South Khandaros, you must realize, is a sovereign nation, at war with a so-called Republic whose military has been usurped by foreigners – namely the CIA with its drones. Do you not see how these drones not only kill but cause shame by invading people’s very homes?’

  ‘You’re talking about a democratically elected government buying products from legitimate businesses and other democratically elected governments. If you have a problem with the drones, why not ask your rep­resentative to write laws that limit the government’s power of surveillance? If he won’t do that, then vote for someone else, or run for office yourself.’

  ‘Democratically elected, you say? A better description of the govern­ment in the north would be democratically engineered. The majority of those in parliament were installed by enemies of Islam. The Khandari special forces have been infiltrated by foreigners, secular cowards who would prefer to use robots to fight their battles.’

  Burkett’s eyes drift over the mural of paradise, the green hills and blossoming trees. There are gashes in the plaster where Akbar took his hunting knife to the pair of human faces.

  ‘But there is reason for hope,’ Tarik is saying. ‘Let me show you.’

  From his satchel on the floor he takes out a laptop and turns the screen toward Burkett. Camcorder footage shows the rooftops and streets of the capital from a high vantage, probably a minaret. The camera zooms in on a line of traffic, and a red circle highlights the middle of three SUVs with tinted windows.

  ‘This was yesterday,’ Tarik says. ‘The president of North Khandaros sits in that car.’

  A policeman steps between concrete barriers as if to cross the street. Burkett has seen enough of the fedayeen videos not to be surprised by the explosion that engulfs the SUV and the policeman. After a caption in Arabic, there is a slow-motion replay of the officer approaching the vehicle. An instant before the explosion, Burkett notices a twitch in the cluster of pixels at the end of the policeman’s arm – perhaps the thumbing of the detonator.

  ‘It still needs editing,’ Tarik says, as if Burkett’s disgust were purely aes­thetic. ‘A triumphant soundtrack.’

  ‘I’m curious about something,’ Burkett says. ‘If someone in your family were to die, would that person be buried or cremated?’

  ‘Buried, of course.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘In Islam it is forbidden to burn the body, which is the seat of the soul.’

  ‘So how is it that your suicide
bombers can justify incinerating them­selves? Is that not a form of cremation?’

  ‘You’re falling victim to the fallacy of legalism. There is religious law, and then there is Allah’s law. Usually these things are in harmony, but not always. Allah’s law always trumps ideas of morality. Look at the hero in this movie. A strict legalist might accuse him of the sin of lying. He dressed as a policeman, did he not? But when Allah commands that something be done, then by definition it is impossible for that action to be sinful. It was the same when he commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael. When Abraham lifted the blade, intending to kill, was he a murderer or a righteous man?’

  ‘A lot of people think they know the will of God.’ Burkett nods toward the laptop. ‘If that’s his will, then he’s not the kind of God I’d want to believe in.’

  ‘Does Allah care what you want to believe? Is Allah some politician who would change his character in order to win your vote?’

  Burkett doesn’t reply. It’s pointless arguing with someone who sees intransigence as a divine virtue.

  ‘When will you let us go?’ he asks.

  ‘It depends on IMO,’ Tarik says. ‘I expect it will happen a week from Monday, when our representative meets theirs. On that day, if all agree to the terms, you will be released.’

  ‘What are the terms?’

  Tarik’s fingers patter against his keyboard. So far from internet access, Burkett wonders what he could possibly be typing. Or it could merely be a way of ending the conversation. Without looking up, Tarik summons Sajiv, who draws back the curtain.

  Burkett turns on his way out and says, ‘Do you know anything about my brother?’

  ‘He was killed for spreading Christianity.’

  ‘Who killed him? I’d like to know the individual responsible.’

  ‘Had I been directly involved,’ Tarik says, closing his laptop, ‘you might have paid a ransom instead of attending a funeral. I’ve argued many times, regarding missionaries and journalists, that killing them is hardly profitable.’