Mother of All Pigs Read online

  The man in the butcher shop has the appearance of someone who has been on the road for months. His eyes are animated but somehow vacant. He keeps glancing from side to side as though searching for a hidden threat. Hussein knows the expression. It belongs to someone who has seen action.

  As a rule, Hussein thinks about the army only when he’s forced to. There were men who believed in what they were doing and embraced the experience wholeheartedly. It was as though they were able to inhabit different personalities. They could change who they were depending on the company they were keeping. It was a kind of dissembling of which even Allah approved, in the doctrine of taqiyyah. With civilians these men were civil, with their enemies they were harsh and cruel, and if they lived among their own kind had a disagreement and broke with them, God forbid, they became murderous. Hussein knew he was not talented in that respect. His father’s opinions, although he did not always readily accept them as his own, had penetrated the shreds of what was left of his principles and formed some kind of basis for his behavior. For many of the men he trained, particularly those who came under his command once he was promoted to the antiterrorism platoon, morality was not fixed but porous.

  The arrival of the haggard young man in the butcher shop brought back a time that Hussein would have preferred to lock away in the furthest reaches of his consciousness and forget. After he retired, he was secretly relieved his army days were gone for good.

  “Mustafa?” he asks carefully, as if peering out of the dark tunnel of his past. “Can it really be you?”

  They hug and kiss each other twice on both cheeks. Despite all that had gone on before, Hussein is exhilarated to be once again in the company of one of his men.

  “Ahlan, Mustafa, what are you doing here? The last I heard, your brother was in”—again it is something Hussein doesn’t like to consider too deeply—“Afghanistan.”

  It was more than just a rumor. Only last month he had come face-to-face with his military past when a mysterious stranger arrived unannounced at the shop. The man, introducing himself first by saying he was grateful for Hussein’s contribution in keeping their country safe, identified himself as a concerned individual from one of the ministries. Then without warning he asked what Hussein knew of a breakout from a secret facility. Hussein admitted only what he had gleaned from newspaper reports published outside of Jordan at the time, which he had read at the local Internet café. He was aware that enemy combatants captured in the field were often brought hooded and shackled to Jordan. While the CIA didn’t maintain an official presence in the country, Jordanian intelligence, the GID, had proven its usefulness many times over. Not only did the agents speak a difficult language, which the Americans struggled to master, but they were also enmeshed in local religion and culture.

  Then the mysterious stranger suddenly asked after one of Hussein’s men and received no reaction whatsoever from the former commander. Natural suspicion prevented Hussein from volunteering information that he knew to be true: wherever Sayeed was and in whatever guise, his brother would not be far behind.

  “I’m on my way home, Lieutenant,” says Mustafa. “I’m tired of journeying,” and he touches Hussein’s bloodstained butcher’s coat. “This is how you’re supposed to look in the places I’ve been, not during peacetime as a civilian.” He is attempting to make a joke but his eyes are dead.

  Good-naturedly Hussein slaps the young man on the back. He is more than happy to see Mustafa. However, there is a question that dies before it reaches his lips. One brother without the other seems incomplete, like a man with a missing limb. Instead he remarks, “You have come far, Mustafa. You must be hungry. There is a sink in the yard. Wash up and I’ll prepare something.”

  Once the soldier goes out back, Hussein interrupts Khaled sloughed over a comic book in a corner and orders his assistant, “Go and get me a lemon, an onion, and some bread. Take the money from the register. When you get back you can go home.” Then he adds, in case the boy doesn’t realize it’s Friday, “Take more time for lunch today. I will close the shop myself and come back for the evening trade.”

  After Khaled sets off, Hussein opens the halal refrigerator and removes a plastic bag filled with offal. He selects two kidneys and a liver and washes them in the sink. With a sharp knife he cuts a slit in the membrane around each kidney, peels it away, halves them both lengthwise, and carefully trims off the fat and gristle. He is in the process of arranging them on a cracked plate when the soldier emerges through the back door, drying himself on his shirt, which he’d removed.

  A henna tattoo of cursive writing covers the surface of his chest, his shoulders, and his back: “In the name of merciful Allah! We grant you triumphant victory. He will absolve you of all your sins in this life and in the hereafter. The war between the sky and earth belongs to Him!” Hussein has seen such markings on the bodies of nameless men in secret facilities, and the writing reminds him of engraved amulets or prayers concealed in the walls of old houses to protect them against evil. The words are different but the meaning the same. And the fragile bodies covered by the prayers collapsed even easier under pressure than those ancient structures.

  Still, Hussein can’t stop himself from staring. He never once suspected Mustafa or Sayeed of piety. Meeting his gaze, Mustafa nonchalantly buttons his shirt but lurches at the sound of the shop bell. Khaled has returned from his errand. Hussein takes the parcels from him and then dismisses the boy with a brusque wave of his hand. He cuts the lemon in half and squeezes it over the kidneys. After making sure that there are no seeds, he pushes the plate across the counter to the soldier and places two slices of pita bread beside it.

  “Eat,” Hussein instructs. He turns around, slices the liver and sets it to fry on the tiny gas jet in a little olive oil with onion, salt, and pepper, and then places two glasses on the counter. “Did the mujahideen stop you from drinking?” He crouches down behind the refrigerator and brings out the secret jar.

  The soldier laughs. “They gave us tea, hot milk, and sugar, but that was only on good days. When the water ran out in the mountains, we drank urine. So I have tasted all manner of refreshment except the one you give me now. Is it as delicious as I remember it?”

  His face screws up from the straight arak.

  “I’ve been waiting for this, Lieutenant. Some of the places I’ve been make your town look like paradise. There you could only buy rugs, hashish, and Kalashnikovs; here you can have a drink and eat raw kalaawi. To decadence!” he toasts. “May you never grow old,” then ends his sentence with a loud and defiant “sir!”

  Hussein drinks lustily to his young comrade, but his throat remains dry. The soldier grows serious over his food. He asks, “So what do you know of Sayeed?”

  “I heard a few rumors, nothing definite.”

  “He had been saying things he never thought before,” the soldier continues, but talking as though to himself. “I’ve known him all my life and suddenly he’s telling me he rediscovered his faith—not in a mosque, not in the company of our religious uncles, but while a notorious fundamentalist is being tortured?”

  The question hangs in the air until Mustafa speaks again. “When Sayeed disappeared, I expected to hear that he had been kidnapped. But no ransom demand materialized. The very last time Ummi and I saw him, she was fussing over us as mothers do. He kissed her and said, ‘Never ever forget me.’”

  Hussein can easily picture the scene: a proud mother who won’t take no for an answer attended by her two grown sons. She had heard about Hussein from a relative and surprised him by showing up in the army barracks one morning unannounced, demanding that he watch over her boys in another unit. How she made it past the guards remains a mystery.

  After her visit, he arranged for Mustafa and Sayeed’s transfer into the battalion he was serving in at the time, and his efforts produced an unexpected reward. The brothers were not much to look at; physically, they appeared spindly and small. It was an impression that was exaggerated when they wore full battle dress.
However, given the choice between larger, obviously tougher men and these two slight brothers, Hussein always chose the latter. Growing up in one of the poorest, toughest neighborhoods in Amman had given them surprising reserves of resilience and stealth. Their mother could have saved herself the trip, because they knew how to fend for themselves.

  Sayeed, two years younger than Mustafa, was the more determined. He set the bar and viewed each exercise or assignment as a test of his ability. His older brother worked hard to keep up with him. To outsiders they seemed in competition with each other; to Hussein they were two sides of the same coin. The brothers thrived in the army. They liked the exercise, put on weight—despite the bad food—and didn’t object to being ordered around. Sayeed and Mustafa turned into impeccable soldiers, quick-witted, dependable, and brave. Hussein had almost come to regard them as surrogate sons. If his own boys grew up to be like these two, he would have no reason to complain.

  Then, when Hussein’s exemplary work became the focus of official attention and he was promoted to the army’s elite antiterrorism platoon, he recommended both men. But only Sayeed made the grade. Due to the platoon’s relentless schedule of reconnaissance and surveillance, Mustafa faded from Hussein’s view. He always managed to drop by, totally relaxed and casual as though it was nothing for him to check on his younger brother, all the while glossing over the fact that news of the platoon’s clandestine activities was filtering down to the lower ranks. Of course, after Hussein left antiterrorism for good, he lost contact with both men, and in the intervening years, Sayeed and Mustafa seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Whenever Hussein allowed his mind to wander, he often found himself turning over one unalterable fact: men of fortitude, no matter their politics or religion, were like gold dust in the region’s many wars and conflicts.

  Mustafa wrenches Hussein away from his recollections. “Brothers are supposed to have an unspoken bond of trust between them, but I swear I knew nothing of Sayeed’s plans. On the day I left the army I vowed to find my brother.

  “It was impossible at first. Every door closed,” he confesses. “Then slowly, slowly, there was a crack I was able to slip through, which led to a man who knew of another place to go. It almost seemed as if Sayeed left signs. Whenever I faltered, someone inevitably appeared to guide me. Eventually a path presented itself: east into Iraq, through Khuzestan and Fars in southern Iran, and across the badlands of Balochistan into Afghanistan. I made my way slowly, under the radar of those who are supposed to know, stopping in out-of-the-way villages and moving among shepherds and their flocks. When I was asked the purpose of my trip I always told the truth: I was searching for my lost brother. The most unlikely people helped me, Allah be praised for their kindness. I crossed borders late at night or in the early morning. It took me close to a year, but I finally found him in the mountains outside Khost, fighting with the mujahideen near the Afghan border with Pakistan. When he saw me, he fell into my arms and gave thanks to God for my safe delivery. He was crying, begging me for news of our mother. It was deeply emotional…” The soldier’s words momentarily trail off before starting again. “Only when we were alone at night, and everyone else was asleep, I whispered to Sayeed that he had damned himself and the rest of our family by running way. But he turned on me, saying only under Islam would the poor, like us, be truly free. At times I thought I was talking to a stranger; but he was my brother.”

  He composes himself in a moment of silence. “Thirteen-year-old boys fighting under the banner of Islam disemboweled American contractors. If you are attacked often enough, you fight back. Martyrdom was all the mujahideen talked about—but not even hell can be more horrible than jihad.”

  Hussein has never liked the word. Over the years its once traditional meaning of “striving” for God has become shorthand to mean all-out holy war. It is the justification used not only by the faithful whenever they feel cornered by the powerful—the British, American, Israeli, or Russian armies—but also the powerless: people shopping for vegetables in a market in Baghdad or eating cake in a bakery in Dhaka. Every new group added to the roster of the damned is attacked with a vengeance.

  But jihad’s ever-widening circle of aggression has also radiated inward, and tensions between the Sunni and Shia have been ignited. Despite the death and destruction, nothing has changed. The corrupt take bribes; guns and drugs are bought and sold; women are raped and suffering continues. To Hussein, jihad signifies ineptitude. It is the last resort of a people who feel so badly done by they eat their young.

  “So jihad murdered your brother?” Hussein purposely keeps his voice sounding neutral.

  The soldier chews a mouthful of bread. “That depends on your point of view,” then he asks, “Have you seen drones in action?” He doesn’t wait for Hussein’s reply. “I had heard about them, of course, but the first time I saw them was in Afghanistan. Suddenly, without warning, Sayeed and the mujahideen started running in circles”—he half smiles, remembering—“like children playing a game.” He explained about the time lapse between from what’s seen on the ground and the image that appears on a computer monitor, via satellite link, at a military facility thousands of miles away in Oklahoma or Omaha.

  Mustafa checks himself and slows down: “Then a Hellfire missile came close. Maybe it wasn’t targeting us. In an instant a fireball descended from the sky and blew up the van in front of us on the road, which buckled in half. An old woman and her teenage girl, their burkas shredded, crawled from the wreckage. They were trying to call for help, but the shock and their wounds were so great that no sound came from their mouths. Instead every one of us—on the roadside and in the other cars—were screaming. We stayed frozen to the spot. It was too dangerous to venture any closer. Sayeed knew that. But before I could stop him he ran toward the victims. There’s always a second missile—the Americans call it the ‘double tap.’ Before my eyes, in seconds, my brother and the two women were gone. But I will never forget the way they stared accusingly at me. That’s when I knew I could not go on living as I have.”

  Blood drains from Mustafa’s face. “My trip back has been long. I’ve been drifting, sometimes working as a laborer in places. But whenever I get into a van or on a bus, like last night, the ghosts of those women appear to me.”

  The soldier’s face fills with a mixture of horror and fascination. He continues: “They wear white and sit silently together, watching me. I know my mind is playing tricks but it feels like the women expect something. What, I don’t understand.” His terrified eyes look up. “See, I am frightened for my mother. She has lost one son, and the other is majnun—crazy!” Mustafa can barely pronounce the word without choking. In desperation he drains the glass in front of him.

  “I don’t have the courage to go home and tell her Sayeed is dead. So I have come to you, Hussein Sabas, because there is nowhere else to go. There is chaos everywhere. At the Jordanian border, hundreds of Syrians were trying to get in, and those who had the bad fortune to be Palestinian or men of a certain age and look were turned back. They’ll be slaughtered, but the authorities are frightened of Daesh. With good reason.” His laugh rings hollow.

  “I had to cross the Jordanian border illegally. I mean, the soldiers were never going to welcome me with open arms, not with…” His eyes wander in the direction of his stashed bags.

  “Late at night I started heading west by foot and came across some poor farmers and boys, Syrians again, this time traveling northward. I could tell by the way they were covering ground they had few guns between them. Then several hours later, before dawn, I could sense another group behind me. Then the storm struck. When you’re out in the rocky desert of the Badia in the dark, you don’t want surprises, but the wind doesn’t care. Sand blinded us all and I could hear them shouting.”

  He tells Hussein, “I nearly ran into one of them. He was so close I could have pulled the scarf from his face. They were experienced, all right—men who had seen time in Syria and Iraq. I didn’t have to ask where th
ey came from or their final destination. The Arab Awakening has been a distraction. The Salafis have rallied and regrouped, and they are much more determined this time.”

  Listening to Mustafa, Hussein wonders if anything has changed at all. The present conflicts—Alawi vs. Sunni; Salifi vs. the Jordanian intelligence; Saudi Arabia vs. Iran—may appear localized, but they have been shaped by Western invasion and interference. Granted it wasn’t the barefaced colonialism of his father’s day. Now a sleight of hand was at play, due in part to the availability of more sophisticated long-range weaponry. But whether you’re murdered close up or from far away, the message for subjugated peoples is the same: toe the fucking line. All the wars that have been started and withdrawn from, or dragged out as long-simmering territorial occupations, have left a legacy of bloodshed. Every country has been affected… or, as Hussein corrects himself, infected. So many lives wasted and for nothing.

  He fills the young soldier’s glass again and signals for the both of them to drink. The two men stand bound in the knowledge that one of their own has fallen. Others can decide the value of Sayeed’s life and death. He and Mustafa commemorate his passing. In the chasm of silence between them, Hussein casts his mind back to his last mission with Mustafa’s brother. They had been tracking jihadists through arid mountainous terrain in Jordan’s south, where a report had come in about human trafficking and the illicit movement of weapons.

  In the desert between Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, nomadic tribesmen or Bedouin traveled freely. In Hussein’s country, the Bedu were considered upright and honorable. Those of significantly less valor bombed tourist resorts in the Sinai, left mutilated Muslim Brotherhood corpses on the border to the Gaza Strip, and attacked military outposts in their way. The Bedu had become guns for hire and acted as guides to anyone who needed to make their way unseen through the barrenness. Women desperate for a better existence outside Eritrea were often enslaved or murdered during the crossing.