The Walking Dead

He had said to her, whispered in her ear so that the boy did not hear, 'Keep him strong. You alone can do that. He will weaken, will depend on you. You do what is necessary. They are all frightened at the last. You are with him tonight and he will lean on you, and you give him backbone. In the morning you will walk with him, and you will give him courage. The others were idiots, incapable, but you are the one who can help him. Walk with him as far as is sensible, until he has the smile on his face — we call it the bassamat al-Farah, which is the smile of joy — until he is within sight of the target area. When he smiles he is content that he is going to Paradise. Tell him, the last thing you say, that he does not look into the faces of those who are close to him, he must not. Must not gaze at the faces of the men, women and children who are around him because that is the source of failure. Then you are gone. You go home, return to your family. I think he will walk well. It is my judgement. Forget me, forget that we met, forget my face and my voice, forget everything of me, and sleep again.'

He went fast, with a good, confident stride.

He had the cap low on his bowed head and the scarf wrapped round his lower face. He did not look up — did not search for cameras high on lamp-posts. He went, in that early evening, where they would come in the morning.

The road was filled with streams of traffic, and he had to scythe through the pedestrians on the pavements. He passed the wide-fronted, brilliantly lit windows of the stores selling bright new consumer goods. He went by the wealth of his enemy, but emptiness gripped him. He felt the loneliness and it unnerved him. He was not looked at, not noticed, by the drivers of cars, lorries and vans, by the swarms of men, women and children who hurried towards him and passed him. It was as if he had no importance in their lives, and no fear of him. He swam among them. He heard laughter, raucous, and argument, and he was ignored as if he did not exist. He wanted to be dear, to be gone. Muhammad Ajaq, following the route she had given him, came down the long bill and into the town, into its soft belly.

He stopped, hesitated. He had reached the square. Around him, the day was ending, the shutters were coming down and office workers spilled out, jostling against him. He was anonymous. In front of him, dazzlingly lit, were the windows above the steps, and the signs for the sale starting the next morning. He stared at the target. A pushchair cannoned into his legs, and an Asian woman — in a jilbab robe did not apologize but wheeled her child past him. When he stepped to the side, he was bounced by the shoulder of an Asian man whose beard was stained with the red henna dye, and again there was no apology. He went across the square and saw the sign for the bus station. When he advanced on a target in occupied Iraq — a mosque or street market of the Shi'as whom he detested, a convoy of the Crusaders whom he despised — he was satiated with commitment, and when he saw the bomb's blast he was consumed with pride. Here, he felt nothing.

He left the bus-station sign, the square, the steps and the sale posters behind him. He had said it so many times: he should never have come. He had yearned for it so often: he craved to be back where he believed he belonged.

Muhammad Ajaq stood in the queue — where she had told him to — and made a picture in his mind of the old men, in caves or in the compound of a tribal leader, and thought they crowded close to a battery-powered radio, and waited. He believed his name was on their lips.

The bus came. He boarded it and found a seat.

Muhammad Ajaq left behind him the target for a martyr bomb. He sat beside a young man who chewed gum incessantly. The bus drove away.

Naylor stood in the doorway, had not spoken but was noticed.

He was offered cake, compressed and fruit-filled, from a tinfoil sachet, then a mug of tea. To have regained control he should have refused both.

He ate and drank His hand trembled and the mug dripped tea on to the crumbs at his feet. Control had passed, and he knew it.

He had lost control by introducing the American to the equation. The American sat easily in the chair given him. The notebook, pencil and tape-recorder were laid on his lap, and he ate heartily and drank, as if the circumstances were neither peculiar nor particular.

With his mouth still full, Naylor mumbled his question. So bloody anodyne, all the intensity of a chemist's pain-killer. 'So, how are we doing, boys? Where are we at?'

They did not answer. Both men glanced at each other, then — as if it were synchronized — gestured towards Hegner, their spokesman. The American took his time, cleared his throat and said softly, 'We're doing good. Getting there.'

'Where, specifically, are we getting?'

Droll: 'We're on to the subject of a ticket.'