—Never have we had a visitor from such a distance. California. He pronounced the word carefully. —You do us a great honor. You and Brother Ali.
—Yes, mu’allim. Who is that?
—Your companion, of course.
—My companion? I don’t—
—Ali is the name he selected.
She looked at him blankly. He took the cup from her and refilled it.
—I’m sorry, mu’allim. I guess I’d have expected him to tell me.
—You are bosom friends with Ali. Is this so? He beamed at her. —Friends of long standing?
—I’m not sure how to answer, mu’allim.
—You may answer directly. By saying the truth.
She hesitated. —Decker Yousafzai is the best friend I have in the world. Without him I wouldn’t be sitting here now.
—That is well, said Hayat. —It is well to have such a friend. But in this house his name is Ali Al-Faridi.
She felt the blood rush to her cheeks. —Yes, mu’allim. Of course.
—I’ve had Brother Ali with me here, in this room. While you were reciting. I asked him the question I’ve just asked of you.
She sat back on the cushion. —And what did he say?
—Why are you here, Suleyman?
Her scalp began to prickle. —To learn the Holy Qur’an, mu’allim. To memorize it. To learn it by heart.
—To learn it by heart, he repeated. He took in a breath. —Yes, that is what we practice in this house. You have not been misled.
—Excuse me, mu’allim?
—No one has misled you.
She was unsure what if anything he wanted her to answer. He seemed to want nothing. She drank from her teacup.
—Of course, this school of mine is not exceptional. We are believers but we can in no way—what is the word in English? He frowned. —We can in no way contend with the great madrasas. Ashraf-ul-Madaris in Karachi, for example, or Jamia Ashrafia in Lahore. Their fame is glorious and well deserved. You have heard of these schools?
—I have, mu’allim.
—Yet you chose to come here. To my village madrasa of fewer than forty heads. Truly, we feel ourselves blessed.
She found herself nodding.
—Does it not say in scripture: Whoso emigrates in the cause of God shall find on earth many places of emigration and abundance? And elsewhere: You will surely find that the nearest in amity toward the believers are those who say: ‘We are Christians,’ and that is because they do not grow proud? He raised both arms toward her. —How true are those words, Suleyman, in this case!
—Thank you, mu’allim.
—Is it perhaps also true that you came to my school because it is close to the border?
—Excuse me, mu’allim? I don’t—
—Perhaps you are not aware that we are situated a day’s march from the border here, well within the tribal regions. Many young men pass through this district, and in fact through this village, on their way to the camps of the mujahideen. Was this fact known to you?
She shook her head stiffly.
—But you have seen their advertisements in Peshawar, I am sure. Their slogans of recruitment.
—I’ve seen them.
—I would advise you kindly, Suleyman, against this course of action.
As in every other room of that thin-walled house the sound of muffled voices carried to her. Behind or below them she heard other sounds: a motor backfiring, the laughter of children. It occurred to her for the first time, as she sat straight-backed before the mullah and struggled to reply, that there might be children in the village with no interest in the school.
—May I ask a question, mu’allim?
—You may.
—Why are you telling me this? About the mujahideen?
—I have been engaged in the instruction of young men for nigh on thirty years, Suleyman, and my eyes have been made keen, all thanks to God, to certain signs. He cupped his palm and tipped it upward, as she’d seen him do before. —You have a restlessness, child, although you take pains to keep yourself still. Your feeling for scripture is— He paused. —Your feeling for scripture is a desperate one, he said finally. —And such feeling can tip easily toward violence. I have seen this often. I have grown attentive to it.
—I came to you to learn, she said. —That’s all. To get nearer to God.
—I can have no objection to jihad, he continued, as though she hadn’t spoken. —The Prophet himself tells us: Fighting has been prescribed for you, although it is a matter hateful to you.
He sat forward and lifted his teacup and drank.
—But the jihad of the Kalashnikov may be the least useful, Suleyman, both to us and to God. Many young men have departed this house for the camps. No small number of them left in the dead of night, leaving everything behind—even the Book they had come here to study. As though it had outlived its usefulness. Few of them have graced this house again.
He took her cup and refilled it. She had been threatened before in the guise of advice—her father had done so many times, especially since her conversion—but she had no sense of what the mullah’s threat entailed. The threat had not been expressed in words or even by his voice but it hung in the air between them like a wisp of colored smoke.
—You may sleep here, Suleyman Al-Na’ama. You will do me that honor.
—Here, mu’allim? But this is your—
—We are not so fine as the schools in Lahore but you will find that you are treated with respect. You have perhaps seen the rooms—the dormitories, yes? Is this the term?—where the men have their beds. You have passed by these rooms?
—I have, mu’allim.
—Then you’ve seen that they differ from what you are used to. This room is more suitable. The cushions can be joined to make a bed.
—May I speak, mu’allim?
—You may.
—I’d like to sleep in the dorms if that’s all right. With the others. I don’t want anything the rest don’t have. I don’t want anyone to think of me as strange.
Hayat was watching her closely. —And yet you are strange, Suleyman. Even to me.
—But not forever, mu’allim. Not if God wills it. I can get to be as normal to you as this pot of tea.
The mullah ran his fingers through his beard. He smiled at her and nodded. —You will sleep in this room, Suleyman, he said.
She slept fully dressed and when the call to prayer sounded she awoke to find a bowl of water and a washcloth on the floor beside her feet. She listened for a moment, holding her breath, then got up quietly and barred the door. She opened her pack and found its inner pocket and brought out a handkerchief neatly folded to the size and thickness of a deck of cards. The cloth lay cool and dry against her palm. She unfolded it and drew out a silver wheel of pills in its envelope of foil and tore it open. The brittle sound it made was somehow pleasing. She laid the first of the pills on her tongue and packed the handkerchief away and knelt down to perform her dawn ablutions. She performed them with care because her presence in that house was a pollution and an outrage. She was a liar and dissembler and she’d never been so happy in her life. The pill had no taste at all. She ran down the corridor to join the others in the freezing unlit courtyard, placing her mat in the last row so no one would see her. But the