Children of Dust_ A Memoir of Pakistan - Ali Eteraz [92]
Somehow I needed to change the subject away from missiles toward something, anything, that might earn me some good graces in the eyes of the hostile gathering. “After the Soviet Union fell,” I improvised, “America needed an enemy. It has targeted Islam.”
I couldn’t remember exactly where I’d heard this idea discussed, but I recalled reading that a professor named Samuel Huntington had said something similar. My comment silenced the group, so perhaps my strategy was working. Imagining that I could turn the hostility around so that these people would trust me, wouldn’t think I was a CIA agent but would see that I was a good Muslim, I went further. “America wants to be the world’s only power. Just as the British took over the world centuries ago, now America is doing the same.”
I was surprised at how easily these thoughts came to me. Feeling encouraged and powerful, I kept going. I recalled a particular e-mail I’d once received that had listed all the times the United States had invaded a foreign nation or supported covert action or engendered a coup d’état, and I did my best to echo its contents to the group. I started with the Spanish-American War and cited examples all the way up to U.S. sanctions against the regime in Iraq. Recalling my political science classes, I marshaled the views of Francis Fukuyama, who had declared that the West represented the end of history, and Kissinger’s realist school of foreign policy, which said that all countries were enemies to the United States. Speaking forcefully, I explained that America was on a mission to turn Islam into its enemy.
Having exhausted my argument, I took a deep breath and paused, waiting for the frowns to turn into smiles, waiting for someone to say that it was nice to see an American helping Islam.
Yet no such recognition came my way. The men kept on chastising Clinton and Madeleine Albright and American foreign policy and me, as if I’d been a member of the president’s Cabinet. Using some of the facts I’d told them, they made me feel as if it was my fault that Muslim children in Palestine and Kashmir and Iraq were dying.
I decided that leaving the shop was the best thing to do. Sidling out while the attention was focused on another speaker, I headed out.
“Where are you going?” Ittefaq asked, running after me and grabbing me by the arm.
I yanked myself away. “I’m going to the mosque.”
Worship was my refuge. If I could go to the mosque and put my head to the floor, at least God would see that I loved Islam, would see that I wasn’t, as the men in the shop had implied, a part of a massive American conspiracy against it.
“I’ll come with you,” he offered.
“Suit yourself,” I said curtly, upset with him because he didn’t seem to understand why I’d snuck out of the shop.
We took a circuitous road that led around the two gol dairas back to Dada Abu’s mohalla. Suddenly Ittefaq grabbed my arm and pulled me around a corner toward a row of single-story cement homes in a narrow alley.
“Where are you taking me?” I demanded.
“Just come with me,” he said cheerfully. “I have to make a trade.”
“Trade what?”
He smiled wickedly and patted the porno cards in his pocket.
Heaving a deep breath, I followed him out of necessity, uncertain how to get home from there.
We entered one of the houses without knocking. Ittefaq’s familiarity with the place made me wonder if it was his home, but I seemed to recall that his family had lived on the other side of town. I followed him past the empty verandah and into a bedroom in the back.
When we entered, I saw three older guys in shalwar kameezes. They had big beards and wore large turbans and the sort of vests preferred by mountain men. I stood near the door and waited for Ittefaq to complete his deal. After a moment’s conversation, however, Ittefaq sat down and made himself comfortable. The largest of the men turned to me and glared while his associate reached around me and closed the door.
“I want to ask you about America,” the big man said,