“Here’s what I think.” Raymond rested the back of his head against the wall. “The Egyptian authorities certainly would like to collect evidence of espionage to present to a tribunal. And you could easily give them that evidence by twisting what you’ve seen and heard. But I, on the other hand, could report that you were acting suspiciously on the film set, even before you gave me that timing device. So it’s in both our best interests to improve the terms of our relationship. Don’t you think?”

  My cousin was still staring and pulling so determinedly on his beard that I thought he might be trying to yank hairs right out of his chin. He seemed almost hypnotized. Then I realized he was working himself into a rage. We might still be family, but we were no longer allies. For the first time, I knew with total certainty that he would kill me now if he had half an opportunity. I took a quick look at Raymond instead.

  “So is this friendship or blackmail?” I asked. “I still don’t understand why you took the beating for me.”

  “Have a little faith in your fellow man.” He pushed off the wall. “Or look at it this way. I owed you for not dropping me off the cliff.”

  He saluted my cousin with his walking stick and then hobbled back toward the cellblock.

  June 8, 2015

  To: Caddygrandaddy71@aol.com

  From: Raqqarolla@protonmail.com

  Grandfather,

  I’ve calmed down a little since the last email I sent you. Now I can sort of appreciate the irony. Because I’ve become more acquainted with the Jew I mentioned the last time I wrote.

  His name is Tyler Sommers. He claims he’s a freelance journalist, but my fellow soldiers don’t believe him. They think he’s a spy, because he gave two different reasons for being here. First, he said he wanted to interview us about the Kill the Crusader video game. Then he mentioned he was already in this part of the world to cover the war. I think the truth is that he’s just kind of a lonely lost guy, trying to get assignments and figure out what to do with his life. But that makes no sense to a committed jihadi.

  Anyway, Tyler is from Montclair, New Jersey, and went to Middlebury College in Vermont. He’s five years older than me and used to play a lot of the same video games, like Assassin’s Creed II and World of Warcraft. Other than the stories and reviews that he’s written for PC Gamer, I only found three other articles he published, two of them on the Vox website. One was about some American soldiers coming back from the war in Iraq. Another was about a folk singer named Mandy Prashker, who I think Tyler was in love with.

  I’m pretty sure that Tyler Sommers is Jewish because Noah Sommers in my high school class at James Madison was always taking off extra time for the “High Holidays,” and getting in my face about Israel and the Palestinians. Also, the third article I found by Tyler was on something called Jewsinsports.com. But I haven’t shared that with any of my comrades yet.

  It’s a pretty tense situation right now. Tyler is I guess you would say our hostage. We’re keeping him in a donkey’s stall that’s been converted into a cell. My new commanders are in touch with his parents in New Jersey and trying to get, like, ten million dollars’ ransom. I’ve tried to explain that even successful American oral surgeons don’t always have that kind of money lying around, even if they sell their house in the suburbs. But no one wants to hear that at the moment, so I’m shutting up.

  The thing is, I kind of like the guy. He reminds me of Noah and some of my other friends in Brooklyn. He’s a nerd, like I was. He used to trade Pokémon cards and get beat up by the jocks in the bathroom. He can recite every word of the rap album Life After Death by Biggie Smalls end to end like it’s the Koran. When we caught him, he was wearing a wrestling club T-shirt that said “Submit,” cargo shorts, and skater-boy Vans, even though he obviously doesn’t have enough athletic agility to wrestle or ride a skateboard. Well, he used to have the T-shirt and Vans. But they got taken away and now my commander wears the “Submit” shirt.

  Tyler also claims he has a girlfriend back home, but I don’t believe him. Or maybe he just thinks he has a girlfriend.

  He’s into Spider-Man, like me. He thinks he’s like Peter Parker. As if. I guess sometimes I did too. At one point, we talked about doing a graphic novel, with me drawing the pictures and him writing the words. But then my commanders made us take the pen and pad out of his cell.

  Tyler’s just a really nice guy. Even though I know I should hate him because of what his people have done to our people.

  And here’s the other funny thing about him. He’s seen this movie you worked on, The Ten Commandments. He says he used to watch it every year “on the holiday” with his parents, that it was kind of a family ritual. Only they’d kind of recite the dialogue and laugh at the corny parts. Especially when the Red Sea splits and before that when the lady says, “Oh, Moses, Moses, you stubborn, splendid, adorable fool!”

  When I asked Tyler what holiday he was talking about, he said Easter. I didn’t believe him, though. Because I know from Noah and parking rules in the city that the holiday of Passover comes around the same time.

  So I’m taking a big chance writing to you again, since my commanders have severely restricted our use of computers. So I’m sneaking this message out from an internet café, while I’m supposed to be in town getting a new USB cable for the computer I use to edit videos and send ransom emails in English to Tyler’s family back home. I may have to hit the Send button any second, if I see one of my comrades passing by the window.

  But I wanted you to know I’m not that mad anymore. Though I am pretty depressed because of what happened to Shayma. I never really got to know her, because of the language thing and the constant crying. And my commanders keep reminding me that she’s from a group of unbelievers who are meant to be subjugated. But really she was just a kid, trying to get back to her family. So that kind of sucks. Actually, it totally sucks and it’s bothering me. But I can’t say anything to anybody here about it. So that’s that.

  BTW, you still never said how things went with your doctor that time. I haven’t heard from you in a while, so let me know.

  Yours truly,

  Alex

  June 9, 2015

  To:Raqqarolla@protonmail.com

  From: Bayridgemama475@gmail.com

  Alex,

  This is your mother. I’m writing in reply to your last email to your grandfather, which I only just found.

  He had a stroke several weeks ago and cannot answer for himself. It’s not clear if he will ever be able to use his computer again. It’s not even clear if he’ll ever be able to speak again, or how much he understands of what’s going on around him. His condition is still a little touch and go, as they say. The manuscript you’re reading may be the only voice he has left to speak to you. We’re praying for his recovery, but it’s unknown how much longer he can hold on.

  In your last email, you said you could not be online very much now. I will be brief, then. Come home. It’s terrible what happened to this poor girl and the business with this Tyler is something you need to get away from ASAP. In whatever way you need to. I don’t know how much more strongly I can say it. I miss you. Your father misses you. And your grandfather needs to see you before it’s too late.

  Please.

  We love you.

  Mom

  27

  The weather turned colder over the days after I talked to Raymond in the yard. The guards tried to spread rumors that I was already cooperating, to increase the pressure on me. I was given extra blankets to keep me warm in my cell. I tried to give them to Sherif and Professor Farid in the hallway, but they wouldn’t talk to me, so the guard just ended up taking them back. Then I was flagrantly given extra portions of hot soup in front of my fellow inmates in the mess hall. I bridled against this oafish attempt at coercion. But in private meetings in the warden’s office, the warden spoke to me more straightforwardly about getting more visits from Mona and my father if I began to inform on Sherif, Raymond, and the others.

  “Why hold out?” he asked. “We can make it good for you. If you cooperate, there will be a cell with a clean mattress for the next time your lady friend comes. You’ll be spared the gallows for sure. And then, who knows? They may even let you out within a year or two!”

  I was up all night, pondering what to do. I still wanted to believe what Mona had said, but I hadn’t heard from her in the two weeks since her visit. I worried that if she had gone to America, she might never come back.

  But the very next day, a postcard appeared under my cell door with an American postmark and a full-color photo of the Hollywood sign on the front.

  Dear Ali,

  I’m sitting outside Mr. DeMille’s office as I write this. It’s not clear if he is in or if he’ll agree to see me. But stay strong, my love. Hold on to what’s best in you. Don’t let prison change you. I’ll wait until the end of time if need be.

  Yours, with all my heart,

  Mona

  No more than an hour later, guards came into my cell. The sergeant took the postcard from my hands and set it on fire. Then he dropped it at my feet and watched it burn. Of course, they had only allowed it through to torment me. But the pressure to cooperate faded as soon as I stepped out into the yard that afternoon. My cousin was waiting. He fell in beside me as all of us walked in the circle.

  “I heard you got a letter today,” Sherif mumbled.

  “Who told you?”

  “We have eyes all over this prison,” he said. “We keep trying to tell you that.”

  “What do you want from me, Sherif?” I looked up at the high walls and the guard towers.

  “We’re about to make our move.” He trudged along determinedly, keeping pace. “We’ll remember who was with us and against us for a long time. Not just you and your father, but the girl. If you talk, we’ll find her no matter what. And then we’ll make her suffer. She’ll scream so loud that you won’t know another night’s rest, even if you’re already in the grave.”

  His warning kept me awake all through the night. I lay there, watching shadows meld and diverge. Every time I resolved what to do, doubt came over me. The truth would not necessarily set me free. The authorities could still keep me in prison even if I testified, while Mona would be in danger as soon as she came back to Egypt to see her father. But staying quiet guaranteed I would be locked up for years.

  * * *

  When the deputy warden and the sergeant roused me in my cell the next morning, they looked like they had not slept much either. Their eyes were downcast and their movements were slow, almost as if they were chastened. They said very little as they handcuffed me and marched me past the warden’s office and into what appeared to be an infirmary.

  I saw about twelve beds, half of them vacant; the others were occupied by quivering figures groaning under wool blankets. On closer inspection, I saw that their IV lines were swarmed by little black fruit flies feeding on the leaking sucrose droplets. The smell of liniments and ammonia filled the air, and a radio down by the orderlies’ station was blasting the familiar news introduction “This is Cairo” from the Egyptian Broadcasting Network, a remnant from my old life. There was a great deal of static and distracting background noise from prisoners yelling in the cellblocks.

  I was taken to a private area behind a cloth screen and handcuffed to a narrow steel examining table. I was left sitting there for several minutes.

  As I waited, I noticed dots and smears on the screen. At first, they appeared to be squashed bugs, like the ones in my cell. But when I looked more closely, I saw they were specks of blood, bright red as if they had come straight from a human heart and not yet dried.

  The screen was pulled back. The tall visitor in the sunglasses and skin bronzer was grinning with his white teeth. A long stethoscope was hanging around his neck, parallel to a red-and-white striped tie.

  “Good morning, Ali Hassan,” he said, in his good Arabic. “How are you today?”

  “I am well, thank you. And you, sir?”

  He took a deep breath and rubbed his hands together, as if he had a great deal to tell me, and then sighed as if it wasn’t worth the effort. I noticed his palms were pale. He either hadn’t bothered to disguise them the way he’d disguised his face, or it simply wasn’t possible, with the amount of handwashing required while working in an infirmary.

  “Busy,” he said, when he finally exhaled.

  “Sir, I’m not sure why I was brought here,” I said. “I feel fine.”

  “Yes, I know. That’s the problem.”

  “Sir?”

  “Actually, it’s ‘doctor.’ I am called Dr. Abd’ al-Qadir Sabri.” He grinned more widely, so I could glimpse the gold in his mouth again. “I was telling the warden that you’d gotten too comfortable. And when people are too comfortable, they become resistant to change.”

  I was mindful of what Raymond had said about his being German. At this close distance, his makeup was even more obvious, almost like American blackface. His smile began to unnerve me, because he patently knew I’d seen through him as well.

  “I promise you, Doctor, that I am not ‘too comfortable’ here,” I said. “No one would be.”

  “Maybe this isn’t the right word.” He nodded. “Arabic is not my first language, you know. It’s not even my second language. Maybe accustomed is the word I was looking for.”

  He took off his sunglasses and put them in his breast pocket. His eyes were gray-blue. They looked alarming with his dyed black hair and his unnatural skin tone.

  “Yes, maybe that is a better word,” I said.

  “Did you hear what I just said?” he asked.

  “Which part?”

  “That Arabic is not my first language.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you know who I am, don’t you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Of course, you do, Ali Hassan. My previous patient must have told you after our last meeting. Herr ‘Garfield.’ Which is not his true name either, by the way.”

  He put his cool fingertips under my ears and began to probe the base of my skull. He smelled faintly of lavender eau du toilette and iodine. His hands were very soft but very strong.

  “He’s a very intelligent man, Herr Garfield, but not very adaptable,” he said as he continued the examination. “Are you more adaptable, Mr. Hassan?”

  His thumbs pressed lightly on my Adam’s apple.

  “I try to adapt to my surroundings, sir,” I said with a slightly raspy voice.

  “Yes, but how do you do that while remaining true to yourself? How do you ‘Hold on to what’s best in you’?” He exposed his gums more fully. “Isn’t that what the young lady said in the postcard she sent you?”

  “It seems everyone is reading my mail.” I swallowed, trying to control my murderous impulses.

  “Are you upset by that?” His thumbs stayed on my throat while the rest of his fingers burrowed deeper under the base of my skull. “I’m sure you would like to see her again. And she would like to see you. She sounded homesick, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know. It was a very brief note.”

  “I feel homesick sometimes,” he said. “I miss the Rhine, and the beer, and the high culture of Strauss and Goethe. But there’s much I love about my new country. I love the Nile. I love your hibiscus tea. And, of course, I love your history. The royal tombs. The ancient gods and monuments. The culture that brought us writing, paper, accounting, the pyramids…”

  His words trailed off as he put more vigor into squeezing my voice box. I knew this man could hurt me in more exacting and lasting ways than any of my previous torturers.

  “In fact, the only problem with Egypt is the Egyptians,” he said.

  “Sir?” I held my head up, trying to lessen the pressure of his thumbs.

  “You’ve become stupid and lazy from being invaded so often. You dream that you can be a great people again. But someone needs to wake you up.”

  He slapped me hard, and I saw a flash of white light.

  “How is this part of a medical exam?” I asked, probing with my tongue to see if he’d loosened any teeth.

  “I’m testing your resistance to pain, to see if you’re as stiff-necked as your friend Herr Garfield.” He pinched the underside of my chin. “Don’t worry about giving in too easily. He started speaking very frankly about you after about ten minutes.”

  “If he gave you all the answers you needed, why are you still talking to me?”

  He gave a small appreciative laugh. A few small dark hairs protruded from his nose. His general grooming was such that I knew he would be horrified if I pointed them out. But I could not quite see the advantage.

  “He’s not a well man now, Herr Garfield.” He tucked his stethoscope behind his tie. “As you know, he suffered a grievous injury when he fell in the warden’s office the other day.”

  “You refer to that as a ‘fall’?”

  “Yes. I have diagnosed him with peritonitis. Which can be very serious. Do you know what it is?”

  “No, sir.”

  “It’s an inflammation of the tissue in the abdomen, which can lead to sepsis in the blood. It’s very painful to the touch, as you might imagine. Perhaps you heard him screaming during the examination?”

  I shook my head. “I demand my rights under the Geneva Convention.”

  “I ski in Geneva.” He showed me more of his incisors. “Or at least I used to. Which is a pity. Perhaps I’ll take up scuba diving in Dahab instead.”

  The contrast between his light blue eyes and his tinted skin began to frighten me as much as the sharpened steel instruments on the side table. I asked myself why he would reveal so much if he ever intended to let me walk out of the room.

  “Anyway, you distracted me,” he said. “We treated Herr Garfield with a new technique I developed back home for treating patients with damaged tissue lining around the organs. We call it the ‘bellows.’”

  I had not taken note until then of a jury-rigged air pump that sat behind the scalpels, scissors, and tweezers on the side table. It looked more like a household implement or a street musician’s homemade instrument, with its concertinaed sides and the long black rubber tube attached to its sharp metal tip.