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When Arif dropped me off at the apartment in the wee hours, I wanted to tell Ziad all about the event, and about the sense of belonging I’d felt with the Pakistani laborers, but I found him asleep. I went out to the balcony and sat up awhile longer humming the tune to myself and smiling.

13

Over the next few days I didn’t spend any time on Islamic reform.

Ziad and I played tennis, argued through long games of Scrabble, and hung out with migrant Kenyans who taught us how to play Uno with regular playing cards. We went to look at calligraphy at a museum, drove out to a marina to attend a yacht party on the sea, and watched kids flirting at the mall. Then we went and bought a long hose at the hardware store and used it to wash the sticky desert sand from his car.

While I was spraying the vehicle, a man in a robe stopped in his Benz and, thinking me to be a laborer, gestured at me to wash his windshield. I agreed to do it as long as he let me fuck his mother. He cursed and drove off.

Ziad was impressed. “You came here as a beggar to the rich, and now you’re giving them a piece of your mind.”

After the car was washed we drove to the meat market and bought an assortment of different meats: chicken, New Zealand beef, baby lamb, and Ziad’s favorite: camel. We decided to have a barbecue.

While the chicken was marinating and I was waiting for Ziad to finish making lemonade, I went to the computer and, for the first time in many days, checked my e-mail. I found a series of startling messages.

The first was from one of the shaykh’s acolytes, saying that he was ready to meet. She told me to send her the questions in advance so that she could point out—and I could toss—the ones the shaykh wouldn’t answer.

The next was an e-mail from the sculptor. He advised me as to his availability and said that he looked forward to hearing from me.

The last one was the most surprising. Rashad had gotten hold of one of the shaykh’s silent benefactors—an older noblewoman with a reformist slant to her philanthropy—who might be receptive to ideas about expanding the shaykh’s regional and international reach. She was a professional philanthropist—the sort of person who looked forward to seeing a PowerPoint presentation. I excitedly printed out the e-mails.

As I was standing in front of the printer, I took a look out the window at Ziad, who was on the balcony grilling camel burgers. I could smell every spice he’d used in the seasoning. I also picked up the scent of basted chicken thighs crisping on the grill. I could hear the sound of clinking ice cubes when he took a drink of lemonade. I saw him wipe his mouth with his bare arm. The perfect picture of a life savored.

I wanted to go out and show him the e-mails. I wanted to tell him that my scheme had not been insane, that my plans had not only come through as I’d hoped, but had the potential of being so much more.

Yet a part of me felt reluctant. I remembered the gulf between us when I’d been caught up in my work. I didn’t want a repeat of that. I was drawn to the voracious way of living that Ziad had shown me. If I threw myself back into my schemes, Ziad’s way of living—living with abandon—would be lost. I’d be back into the fiber optic cables and press releases, back into the suffering that came with saving sufferers, back into the violence that was involved in vanquishing extremists.

I sat back down and put my head in my hands. What was happening? Was I really contemplating abandoning all my plans just because they would create some distance between me and someone who didn’t agree with my aims? It was irrational! I didn’t have a legal career anymore. I’d lost my family. I had no money. Islamic reform was my salvation—my way of becoming respectable and stable again, my way of having a place in society, my way of gaining status among the community of believers. Only the utterly insane would fail to act responsibly here.

And it was more than just material things. The think tank was to be the culmination of the covenant with