Page 184 of Whisper

And Dawood on his own.

For two years they’d planned. Everything came together slowly. Dawood watched the patterns, watched the ripples of history moving forward and backward in time. Watched his path straighten, the steps before him made clear by Allah.

He offered up a final prayer, a private one, the words of an old imam from centuries back circling his heart. “Allah, make the best of my life be the end of my life, and the best of my deeds the last of them. Make the best of my days the day that I will finally meet You.”

Looking right, he performed thetasleem, gave blessings to the angel on his right shoulder, and then again to the angel on his left. “As-salamu alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.”

And then he was done. He stayed kneeling, though, for a moment. He’d finished his last prayer service for the brothers. Soon, they would separate, go down their different paths. Find their different ends.

You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.

After he rose, Ihsan and Abu Dujana gathered the brothers around him. Ten in all, young faces, eager to embark on the mission. They wore mismatched camo jackets and cargo pants, black-and-white scarves tied around their necks. He, too, wore the garb of a fighter. Gone were his prayer robes, his djellaba.

Abu Dujana smiled, urging him on. He was supposed to make a speech.

He swallowed. Inhaled slowly.

“To be a Muslim is to live with a pain that sits in your soul. A pain the rest of the world cannot know. It isMuslimpain. To have everything of our greatness ripped away. Everything of our history, destroyed. The world once saw us as people to admire. To love. But now, the world sees only ruin.” He took a breath, a shaking inhale. “I know what it’s like to be hated for who you are. To have your life dictated by others, and your choices, your path, made for you. There is a rage that lives inside us, brothers. There is a rage that screams, ‘we will prove everyone wrong’. We aremorethan this.”

Murmurs. Ihsan’s eyes glittered. Abu Dujana nodded, fury and passion in his gaze, in the way he looked at Dawood. Like Dawood was the answer to his prayers.

“Yallah,thisis Muslim pain,” Dawood whispered. “And we will not feel this pain any longer.”

Cheers rose, breaking like waves over the ghost lands of Afghanistan. The brothers fired their rifles into the air. Shots echoed, cries ofAllahu Akbarmixing with privatedua, prayers offered to Allah. Abu Dujana pocketed his audio recorder. Dawood’s message would go out to the whole world, soon. His stomach clenched. Who would hear his words?

Behroze waited for him, standing apart from the fighters. His big brown eyes stared into Dawood’s. No longer was he small, underfed and slight. He gazed into Dawood’s eyes as a young man. A scraggly beard, a young man’s beard, dusted his cheeks, his chin. “Imam,” Behroze said slowly. “Istilldon’t understand.”

Everyone had their mission, their destination. Except for Behroze. He was to go to Islamabad, stay in a house Dawood had scraped and saved for. Once, he’d had a home on the other side of the world, a place of peace, grand and expansive. What he was able to give Behroze was a one-room square made of concrete and tin, with no running water. But it was a home, and it was what he could do. The rest of his meager savings, he sent to an imam at a madrassa and asked for Behroze to be taken in, taught to be a scholar, to follow in Dawood’s footsteps as an imam.

“Your jihad has always been of the heart,habibi. To love, when it feels like love is impossible. To love like Allah does, continuously, eternally, with no conditions.”

“Why are you leaving?” For a moment, Behroze wasn’t a young man, verging on the cusp of adulthood. He wasn’t the young man who had devoured what Dawood had taught him. He was the boy from the village again, his lip quivering as Dawood stitched his arm. Held him as he sobbed. As he curled close and wailed when mortars launched, or fighter jets screamed overhead. “Why must youdothis?”

There were no answers for Behroze, not now. He handed Behroze a piece of paper, folded tight. “Check this email,habibi. Check it every day. One day, you will have your answers.”

A single tear slipped from the corner of Behroze’s eye. “You make my jihad so much harder, Baba. Why—” His lips clamped closed. He rubbed away his tear.

Dawood dragged him close, enveloping him in a father’s embrace. “Look to the moon,habibi,” he whispered. “We will always be under the same moon.”

“In shaa Allah,” Behroze whispered. “Please,pleasetell me when you’ll return?”

Dawood stayed silent.

“Your name will always be on my lips and in my prayers.” Behroze stepped back. His face twisted, his struggle exposed for everyone to see. His eyes gleamed, shining, wet.

“As will yours,habibi.” It seemed he was destined to leave, always be separated from the ones he loved. Was this another outcome of the path Allah had given him? Endless goodbyes, endless broken hearts?

“It is time!” Abu Dujana’s cry broke over the brothers. “Brothers, it is time!”

Behroze lifted his chin. He clutched the Quran ’Bu Adnan had given to Dawood and tried to bury his heart. He walked away from Dawood, toward the convoy that would take them over the mountains and back into Pakistan. Into his future.

You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.

Kris.Dawood closed his eyes. The moon hadn’t risen yet, but still, he whispered to him.Soon, we will be together again. This life is drawing to a close. This path is winding to its end. And, after everything, my only hope isyou.

Chapter 28

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