The War After Armageddon

He couldn’t put up any re sis tance. The best he could do was not to break down in tears when they lifted him. It felt as though his every bone and sinew were coming apart.

The officer spoke in Arabic. Telling his subordinates to go gently, that they would suffer themselves if they did Nasr any further damage.

“I suppose,” the col o nel told Nasr, “I should have brought a nurse along. Thoughtless of me.”

As the men carried Nasr down the corridor, only one of his feet dragged. The other leg curled back, as if in an elbow cast.

Outside, the bright sun shut the slits of his eyes. The enlisted Jihadis really did try to be gentle with him. It didn’t help much. When they put him in the back seat of the sedan, he imagined himself imploding, collapsing into a mound of gristle and bone fragments.

“Your forces are doing rather well,” the col o nel told him, once he had settled himself on the seat beside Nasr. “We Arabs never do seem to get the knack of this sort of warfare. Of course, we have our own repertoire.” He tapped the back of the front seat with a swagger stick, and the car proceeded to grind down the broken alley.

“We haven’t much time,” the col o nel told him. “I expect your forces to arrive in Nazareth in a matter of hours. Perhaps sooner. And it would hardly do for me to be here.”

Nasr was so crumpled that he barely saw over the ledge of the car door, giving him a child’s view. The houses were shut up tight.

“The refugees,” Nasr said. He had to repeat it several times before he could make himself understood.

“Oh, they’re still here,” the col o nel told him, once he’d deciphered Nasr’s mumbling. “Down in the old city. I’m afraid we’ve had to shoot a few, to make them understand they’re not to leave.”

“Why?”

“Just riff-raff, really. The ‘intelligentsia’ of the Middle East. No feeling for Islam. No sense of faith, of purity. We see them as something of a fifth column. Impossible to reform.” The col o nel half-turned toward Nasr. “They’re our gift to you. Perhaps you can build your new Middle East with them. As your president wished to do, when I was a lad. One must never give up hope — isn’t that so?”

As the car threaded its way through the labyrinth of Nazareth, Nasr glimpsed crowds of civilians crammed together in the lower streets.

The noise of war ruled the world beyond.

The car turned south. On the main road.

“I really must apologize to you,” the col o nel said. “In advance. In war time, one finds oneself compelled to do things that don’t really square with the old conscience. Allah will forgive me, of course. Nonetheless, I find it embarrassing.”

Nasr didn’t find it embarrassing. Nor did he have another word for what he saw when they pulled up to a stretch of the road where empty lots on either side had become the site of an artificial forest.

“Get him out of the car,” the col o nel told his subordinates.

They came around and drew Nasr into the warm sunlight.

This? Was this the way it would end? Would there be a special dispensation for this?

They held him up in a mockery of standing. Before him, Nasr saw dozens of crucifixes. Each bore an American soldier or Marine.

“Deplorable, I know,” the col o nel told him. “But we feel we need to make a point. Not least, given what your MOBIC fellows have gotten up to in Jerusalem.” He brought his face close to Nasr’s, braving the stench. Nasr saw a youngish man, handsome, with skin the color of coffee with milk.

“The message is that there will be no quarter. From this day forward. This is a war of extermination. Do you think this display sufficient to drive that home?” He backed away. Slightly. “We’re not complete barbarians, you understand. Unlike your ‘Military Order of the Brothers in Christ.’ Is it really Christ’s message they carry? I’m surprised, really. But what I wanted to say was only that we’re not animals. We killed these men before we nailed them up. No need to gild the lily.”

Nasr let his head sink. He could bear the sight no longer. The crows were already at some of the crosses. Crows and flies.

“I suppose I should’ve mentioned it earlier,” the col o nel resumed. “Bad form on my part. You have nothing to fear. Nothing more, I should say. You’re not going to share the fate of your comrades. We need you to do us a last favor. If you don’t mind.”

The colonel clapped his hands. Nasr heard a car door slam behind his back. A moment later, an NCO stepped up, snapped to, and saluted. After which he handed the col o nel Nasr’s transmitter.

“It seemed unjust,” the col o nel said, “to make you climb those streets again. Frankly, you don’t quite look up to it.” He switched to Arabic and told his men to place Nasr on the far side of the road. They dragged him across the asphalt but sat him down almost tenderly on the curb.

The officer stood over him. The man’s shadow dulled his polished brown shoes.

The col o nel set the transmitter down in front of Nasr, then dropped to his haunches to look Nasr in the face a last time.