#19. DAR EL-TAWHID MADRASSA, Damascus, Syria
Friday July 10, 12:07
"SUBHAANA RABBEE al-A' laa" cried Osama from the front of the prayer-hall. "Glory to my Lord, the Most High, the Most Praiseworthy".
A hundred men and boys repeated the cry and bent at the waist.
''Rabbanaa wa lakal-hamd" - "O our Lord! All praise is for You''.
A hundred men and boys knelt and touched their foreheads to the ground.
Ali Hassan had his own prayers today. He had been attending class, sniffing glue and sleeping late for a week now and it was time to move things on. Talal Hafez seemed to like him and Moussa Bashir positively slavered over him and although the bald, vulture-faced man made his skin crawl and he had spent much of the week trying to avoid him, he understood he had to give him at least a hope of sex if he were to remain in the school. He also understood that he needed to hide his Shia background in this ferociously Sunni environment. Taqiyya, or dissimulation, was the order of the day. Sura XVI, verse 108, said that taqiyya was acceptable if one were in mortal danger. "If anyone professes unbelief with his tongue, while his heart contradicts him, in order to escape his enemies, no blame falls on him, because God takes his servants as their hearts believe." Ali clung on to this as a drowning man clings to a lifebelt.
After prayers, Talal delivered a ranting homily on the evils of Western music. Hisham and the others weren't there. Nor was Osama. They had all gone swimming with Moussa. That was why Ali had decided on today, while the others were out of the way and it was just him and Talal. He had complained of a stomach-ache when they had asked him, saying he wanted to stay somewhere quieter, out of the sun. Besides, he wanted to learn more from Imam Talal.
''Oh, you all go,'' Talal had preened himself airily. ''Ali and I will stay here and study together. I am glad you are so enthusiastic about our faith.''
He had patted Ali's head, making him feel like a good little dog awaiting a treat.
Several minutes in, Talal Hafez was fully engaged with his sermon:
''Women,'' he thundered, brandishing the hook, ''Are base, bestial, begging for sex at all times of night, and all times of day. They must be tamed. They must be controlled. They stand on stage, shaking their hips, jiggling their breasts, adorning themselves with make-up and jewels to tempt honest men to lie with them and sin, corrupted women doing Satan's work…''
Ali had never considered his late mother as a seductive temptress before. He knew she had been considered handsome when young but he had only known her as stout with a broad backside. As for her breasts, of course he had never seen them. He shuddered at the idea. But he knew the kind of women Talal meant, women like Shakira and Britney, women like those his brothers talked about, women like those who had occasionally flitted into his dreams…
He slipped silently away, heart thumping in the base of his throat. He had work to do.
The tiny office was extremely untidy. There were two cheap desks piled high with papers, newspapers, bills, statements, print-outs. The plastic chairs were cheap discarded garden furniture and the HP computer was an ancient-looking box with big, chunky keys. The whitewashed, windowless walls were grimy, web-smeared and grey with age.
Leaving the door open so he could hear Talal's harsh, angry voice raging about Madonna and Lady Gaga, those wicked temptresses who pranced about in flimsy clothes tempting men to self-abuse, Ali switched on the computer. It ran on Windows ME and seemed to take hours to flash up the request for a password.
Pulling the toothbrush apart, Ali stuck the flash-drive into a USB port, hit ENTER and waited for the device to scan for the password. Five seconds later the words 'ht1' and 'jihad' appeared in the appropriate boxes. Ali hit ENTER again. The computer unlocked.
He did not have time to look through all the folders. Instead he opened the icon on 'My Computer' and clicked COPY ALL. A window appeared on the screen showing the download rate with a slowly creeping green bar.
Ali could hear Talal's voice rising to a climax.
The green bar moved in millimetres. It was like watching ice melt.
Ali settled his glasses and photographed the office. He wanted to sort through the papers but there were too many and he did not know where to begin.
He tried the drawers. They were locked.
He searched for the key, trying not to disturb the heaps of paper. It was not there.
Should he blow it? He had the chewing gum in his pocket.
Could he pick it? He unbent a paperclip, dug around in the lock. Nothing happened.
Damnation.
The green bar was at 85%. Talal had finished his sermon and moved into the closing prayers. Even among a hundred worshippers, Ali did not want to be missed.
''Come on,'' he muttered, ''Come on.'' His palms were damp.
''Allahu Akhbar!''
Blow the lock.
What if there was nothing in it? Could he pretend there had been a break-in?
That would simply tighten security and make Talal paranoid.
''Sala'am aleikum.''
''Come on!''
90%.
''Wa aleikum sala'am.''
Leave it for another day. It was too risky. And now he was sweating uncomfortably.
''Rabbanaa wa lakal-hamd."
92%.
A chorused reply.
95%.
''Come on.''
97%
Talal was finishing the service.
''May God go with us.''
99%
Crowds of people were moving.
100%.
Done.
Shutting down the computer, Ali slipped the Scandisk back into the toothbrush handle and scurried across the courtyard back to the mosque. The crowd had thinned out. A knot of men clustered round Talal Hafez. He was frowning.
Ali crossed the river of prayer-mats nervously and asked if Talal wanted a glass of tea.
''I did not see you while I was speaking,'' Talal remarked, gazing through him.
''Oh no,'' said Ali, ''I was here. I listened really carefully. I liked what you said about slutty singers with skimpy clothes. They shame Woman-kind.''
''What would you do with them?'' asked one of the men.
''Behead them,'' said Ali fanatically. ''Chop off their heads.''
The man grunted, dissatisfied. ''After you'd raped them, of course,'' he said.
''Of course,'' Ali grinned. ''Goes without saying that I'd rape 'em first. Lesbian bitches, all of 'em, 'n' all on heat. Rape and execution's too good for 'em. Only wish I could kill 'em twice.''
The men still seemed dissatisfied. Talal did not. ''Two sugars,'' he smiled.
''And tea for your friends?'' Four men. ''Is there a tray?''
''In the office,'' Talal gestured vaguely. ''Tea-leaves and glasses are on a shelf.''
Ali returned to the office. He found a kettle and went to fill it from a tap in the courtyard. The toothbrush was burning a hole in his galabeya. He needed to get it back to Hamza.
While he waited for the water to boil, he put a teaspoon of leaves in each of five glasses arranged on a round tin-tray, moved to the far side of the desk so he could see into the corridor and leafed through the first twenty papers in the first pile.
They were mostly scribbled, hand-written notes, ideas for sermons and jotted quotations from The Hadith and The Qur'an but a receipt from a local hardware shop for a kilo of nails and a kilo of ball-bearings caught his attention. He photographed it then, just as the water was starting to knock in the kettle, he found a bill of sale for delivery of a package to Moustapha Al-Sekem in Ajloun, Jordan. The package had been paid for by Hands across the Sands. Ali stifled a cry of excitement as he pressed the corner of his glasses and heard a soft click as the image was recorded. The transport company, Al-Houri, was based in northern Damascus.
Suddenly he saw a shadow moving down the corridor wall. Swearing softly, he dumped the papers back on the heap but not carefully enough. They cascaded onto the floor. Leaping round the cor
ner of the desk, he seized the kettle as Talal himself appeared in the doorway. Hot water spilled onto the tray. Talal said nothing, merely pointed his hook at the scattered papers.
''I was looking for sugar,'' Ali stuttered. ''I bumped against the desk and everything fell off. I'm sorry.''
The man gazed at him silently.
''I tried the drawers,'' he added, ''But they're locked.''
Talal fished the key from his pocket. ''Here you are,'' he said. ''Open the drawer.''
Ali hesitated.
''You want to look in the drawer,'' said Talal evenly, ''Look in the drawer.''
He suddenly seized the front of Ali's galabeya and shook him violently.
''Look in the damned drawer, boy!'' He raised the tip of his hook to Ali's nose. ''Or I'll gut you like a fish.'' He shoved Ali backwards so hard the boy staggered.
Trembling slightly, he fitted the key to the lock. The click was barely audible as he twisted it to the right. He glanced at Talal. The man's face was impassive. Slowly he pulled the drawer towards him.
''Put your hand in,'' Talal said softly, menacingly.
''I d….d…don't want to.'' Ali heard the wobble in his suddenly squeaky voice.
''Put. Your. Hand. In.'' Talal commanded.
Swallowing hard, holding his breath, clenching his jaw, Ali thrust his hand into the drawer.
His fingers touched the sugar bag. Pent-up breath and tension exploded from his body.
''It's sugar,'' he said foolishly.
''What else?'' Talal burst into an enormous yet humourless laugh and patted Ali's shoulder with his good hand.
''Sugar,'' Ali repeated, feeling weak at the knees.
''Sugar,'' laughed Talal. Then the laugh shut off, as though an electric switch had been closed. ''I don't want sugar now.'' He slammed the drawer shut on Ali's hand.
''Next time I catch you snooping in my office,'' he hissed into Ali's pain-distorted, purpling face, ''I'll snap your scrawny neck like a chicken's.''