Two days before the man arrived to take him away from the camp, six months after his mother and father and sister had been killed when a government drone launched two air-to-surface missiles into his block in the Sunni half of what had once been Mitchell, South Dakota, Karim got high for the last time with Hazem and Yassim in the ruins of the old abandoned palace on North Main. Carefully, he stabbed a needle into the last pea-size ball of opium they’d bought at the souk.
“Faster, Karim.”
“Chill out.”
“You chill out, mozlem.”
He picks up the disposable lighter. Flicks the striking wheel. Holds it a couple of inches below the drug.
The palace is made of corn. Well, not made of it exactly. But covered, outside and in, with multicolored ears of corn. It used to be a tourist attraction. The city would change the corn on the outside every year, make different patterns and patriotic pictures. That was before the government moved the people of Mitchell and built an electrified fence and put people like Karim inside it. By now, the corn has all been pecked away by birds or shot out with bullets. Not much left but bare cobs turned brownish-green. But the letters above the main entrance—MITCHELL CORN PALACE—have not completely faded; and the domes and minarets, painted green and yellow, still reach toward the sky over the plains, giving the building the look of a mosque from the old country.
The drug has grown soft.
Yassim holds the pipe and Karim smears the flower-sweet goo on the curved sides of the bowl. The boys pass the pipe, heating the drug until they can draw it into their mouths as smoke; once the process has been repeated until there’s nothing left but a gray ghost of resin, Karim says:
“Thazzit.”
“It.”
“Opeem,” he says. “Thizshithole. I cant bleeve izallover.”
“Cant bleeve it.”
“Cant bleeve it.”
“I wish,” Yassim says, “youka come withuss.”
“Me too.”
“Leeme seet.”
“Kikt,” Karim says, and hands the pipe to Hazem. Then, tearfully: “I wanna come widjuguys.”
Hazem says: “You are cominwidjuss. Juzza matturahtime.”
The three orphans lie back on the cool tile floor; and as each one feels his soul levitating just above his physical self, he thinks of the sheikh, Abdul-Aziz, who has said to them, “You may be going your separate ways now, my sons, but very soon you will be together in the highest gardens of heaven. It is just a matter of time.” Each boy contemplating the same thing in his state of flotation: That for which he is destined. Paradise. And wondering. Will Paradise feel as good as this? But thinking also of what must come first. Is it true what the sheikh says? That if we lay our life down in the path of God, we will feel nothing when our body explodes. Can dying be so easy? But even if it’s hard, even if dying hurts very much. To feel like this after. Forever. Matter of time to feel like this foreverafter. To float above the physical world and dream. To be with your family again … Karim reaches into the pocket of his short pants. Touches the eyeglasses. The lenses are gone — the ovals of curved glass which helped her see clearly have cracked and broken into tiny pieces (scattered now, who knows where) — and one of the temple arms has broken off. But what remains, the shape of the plastic frame, helps Karim remember his mother’s face.
Hold it before your eyes. Remember her eyes. Then fold down the temple arm and return it to your pocket. The only memento.
Two days later, dressed in new donated clothes given him by the nuns (a pair of corduroys worn smooth at the knees; a collared shirt, bright red, with an alligator stitched onto the left breast; a pair of tennis sneakers), he sits in a bus painted the blue of a bruise and rides out of the camp and onto a road so straight it might have been drawn on the plains with a ruler. The window of his seat is pushed up. A breeze comes through. On the horizon, he can see a rainstorm: a dark cataract of water plunging from a thunderhead as massive as an intergalactic mothership. The camp, that divided city, is already out of sight. And Hazem and Yassim. Won’t ever see them again in this world. Next week, they leave for the Michigan Territory. A shelter for Muslim-American youth where they can surely score Dream and probably play soccer all the live-long day while you, in some heathen suburb, are getting the agonies and the shit kicked out of you. Karim shuts his eyes and rests his left temple against the window sash. The wind goes right up his nose; it’s like drowning. Like that time a couple years back when they were playing war and he was the terrorist and they tipped him back on a board and poured water into his breathing passages. One of his friend’s mothers found out about that episode and told the other parents and he and his crew got the tongue-lashing of a lifetime. You think torture is a game and so on. Well, yeah. They did, actually. Though looking back now, Karim can sort of see their point. When you’re seven, eight, you make plastic explosives from Play-Doh and fill up matchboxes with rusty nails and tape it all onto a belt and it’s a fucking breeze to kill yourself. Then, one day, you’re eleven, twelve, and you’re a part of something real, more important than childhood, and more important than yourself.
“Him?”
“Yes,” the nun says. “The boy in the red shirt.”
“Jesus Christ Christian …”
They are standing at a window looking out on a fenced, razor-wired area, like the exercise yard of a prison. His adopted son has just walked off a bus. A kid at least ten pounds underweight. Whose flesh looks mildewed. Who’s hugging himself around the midriff as if to keep his guts from spilling out.
“I thought you knew,” the nun asks.
“Yeah, but.”
“But he’s just a boy, I know. Come, I’ll introduce you.”
Out of the building and across the dirt lot. When they get close, the kid sees them and forces himself to stand straighter.
Will has had a lengthy inner debate about conduct in this moment. It’s about the kid, not you. Empathy. Big picture. Imagine you’re three years old and you and your family get packed onto a cattle car and shipped off to a slum with no exit; eight years later, you’re the only one left, and some old white guy comes out of nowhere and expects you to call him father. Be cool and take it slow.
The nun says, “Hello, Karim.”
“Hi, Sister.”
“Karim, this is Mr. Banfelder.”
The kid looks up at Will with eyes big and tear-filled. Not crying, exactly. It’s a symptom of withdrawal.