at night, when the extremists come out of their holes. I will send you money regularly."
For once I see in his face something like affection. He does not often show this. I would think this was about the vast fortune USIC is implying he will get, except for this rare look in his eyes.
But I have not seen my aunt Alika or my cousin Inas since I was three. And I am mindful of one of Uncle's favorite sayings:
The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know.
I am familiar with my uncle, with my daily routines, with asthma, even with entertaining dangerous extremists under my own roof.
Yet America is something quite different. I read online once that Americans see Vietnam as a war and not a place. Well, I see America as falling buildings and broken gas lines. It is a series
of terrible news photos that have haunted my home page for months and remind me constantly of my family's loss.
Roger comes to me. He reads my eyes and tries to keep our thoughts focused. "It's been the tradition for subversives to speak in code and make only vague allusions to their schemes online, Shahzad. But with them sharing some weird software and feeling this much protection, who knows what they're talking about. What we're missing."
I try to swallow, but I have no spit. Only a sore and rattling chest.
"We've been fruitlessly searching Africa for Colony One and have turned up nothing. You still think VaporStrike's Dark Continent is America and not Africa? I don't believe that, but would you like to prove us wrong? Here's your chance."
"So I can go there and die myself?" I turn from them to glimpse the setting sun.
Uncle says in Urdu, so they won't understand, "You're being a small boy with a wild imagination. Go get a birth certificate before I kick a second crack into your ass. Get a transcript also that makes you to be in high school. Take two twenty-dollar bills from the coffee can in the house. Go."
So, I am to go to school and do this internship at night. VaporStrike, PiousKnight, and Catalyst have been called by Hodji "night crawlers" who only chat after dark, so it would work out—for USIC. My heart is troubled.
I decide to argue this out later when my head is clear. I go to pay for false documents, but only so I can enjoy taking deep breaths under the cover of night. I don't like having to watch the Americans gloat.
NINE
CORA HOLMAN
MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2002
1:15 P.M.
I SAT IN MR. GLENN'S law office, watching him shuffle through paper after paper. I was glad to be out of the house again, having spent four nights by myself. That isn't to say I had spent three days utterly alone. Neighbors, teachers, and coworkers who heard the news rang the doorbell, dropping off food and offering kind words.
I'd ask them in but would find myself sitting at the edge of my chair, though I was far more comfortable than I would have been if I hadn't scrubbed the entire house from top to bottom after I got better. The mysterious flu finally left me at dawn the day after Aleese died, but I would use tiredness as an excuse if visitors started staying too long. People left after ten minutes or so, probably mystified that I wasn't completely falling apart.
"Again, Cora, let me say that you don't have to sell the house yet if you're not ready." Mr. Glenn gathered the papers into a stack that I was supposed to sign.
I still felt oddly at peace. Maybe it was the fact that I had on stockings and a black suit, with my hair twisted up in the French knot I usually save for concert choir. Maybe those things helped me finally feel older, more ready to make decisions.
"It's all right, Mr. Glenn. Really."
I had overheard the words "the wrecking-ball house" and "that Holman eyesore" a few times around town. It totally stung. I wanted it torn down as badly as the next person, and I'd had no idea how much the property alone was worth until Mr. Blumberg, my next-door neighbor, had mentioned it when he and Mrs. Blumberg stopped over the morning after Aleese
For once I see in his face something like affection. He does not often show this. I would think this was about the vast fortune USIC is implying he will get, except for this rare look in his eyes.
But I have not seen my aunt Alika or my cousin Inas since I was three. And I am mindful of one of Uncle's favorite sayings:
The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know.
I am familiar with my uncle, with my daily routines, with asthma, even with entertaining dangerous extremists under my own roof.
Yet America is something quite different. I read online once that Americans see Vietnam as a war and not a place. Well, I see America as falling buildings and broken gas lines. It is a series
of terrible news photos that have haunted my home page for months and remind me constantly of my family's loss.
Roger comes to me. He reads my eyes and tries to keep our thoughts focused. "It's been the tradition for subversives to speak in code and make only vague allusions to their schemes online, Shahzad. But with them sharing some weird software and feeling this much protection, who knows what they're talking about. What we're missing."
I try to swallow, but I have no spit. Only a sore and rattling chest.
"We've been fruitlessly searching Africa for Colony One and have turned up nothing. You still think VaporStrike's Dark Continent is America and not Africa? I don't believe that, but would you like to prove us wrong? Here's your chance."
"So I can go there and die myself?" I turn from them to glimpse the setting sun.
Uncle says in Urdu, so they won't understand, "You're being a small boy with a wild imagination. Go get a birth certificate before I kick a second crack into your ass. Get a transcript also that makes you to be in high school. Take two twenty-dollar bills from the coffee can in the house. Go."
So, I am to go to school and do this internship at night. VaporStrike, PiousKnight, and Catalyst have been called by Hodji "night crawlers" who only chat after dark, so it would work out—for USIC. My heart is troubled.
I decide to argue this out later when my head is clear. I go to pay for false documents, but only so I can enjoy taking deep breaths under the cover of night. I don't like having to watch the Americans gloat.
NINE
CORA HOLMAN
MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2002
1:15 P.M.
I SAT IN MR. GLENN'S law office, watching him shuffle through paper after paper. I was glad to be out of the house again, having spent four nights by myself. That isn't to say I had spent three days utterly alone. Neighbors, teachers, and coworkers who heard the news rang the doorbell, dropping off food and offering kind words.
I'd ask them in but would find myself sitting at the edge of my chair, though I was far more comfortable than I would have been if I hadn't scrubbed the entire house from top to bottom after I got better. The mysterious flu finally left me at dawn the day after Aleese died, but I would use tiredness as an excuse if visitors started staying too long. People left after ten minutes or so, probably mystified that I wasn't completely falling apart.
"Again, Cora, let me say that you don't have to sell the house yet if you're not ready." Mr. Glenn gathered the papers into a stack that I was supposed to sign.
I still felt oddly at peace. Maybe it was the fact that I had on stockings and a black suit, with my hair twisted up in the French knot I usually save for concert choir. Maybe those things helped me finally feel older, more ready to make decisions.
"It's all right, Mr. Glenn. Really."
I had overheard the words "the wrecking-ball house" and "that Holman eyesore" a few times around town. It totally stung. I wanted it torn down as badly as the next person, and I'd had no idea how much the property alone was worth until Mr. Blumberg, my next-door neighbor, had mentioned it when he and Mrs. Blumberg stopped over the morning after Aleese
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