Empire of Lies

23

It ended up being a sleepless night for Nisreen and Ramazan.

How could it not? There was so much to discuss, to explore, to bat around.

At first, Nisreen couldn’t accept it as fact. Her reaction went from anger, to incredulity, to thinking Ramazan was spouting some wild tale to hide something bad that he was involved in, then back to disbelief, although with a growing undercurrent of fear.

They mulled and debated and pulled it apart for hours. By the end of their discussion, after they had moved into the bedroom, Nisreen with her back against the headboard, Ramazan reclining in an armchair that faced the bed across from her, they were both utterly drained in body and mind.

After a long silence, Ramazan said, “So where do we go from here?”

“It’s like you said. If he’s faking it… why?”

“I don’t know.”

Nisreen steepled her fingers in front of her mouth and shut her eyes, thinking. “But if it’s true… if he’s not a pathological liar…” She reset her fierce gaze on her husband. “He didn’t say how he does it? How he travels through time?”

“I was going to ask him tonight, but Fonseca interrupted me and I couldn’t.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Can you imagine?”

“What?”

“If it’s true… can you imagine what one could do with that kind of knowledge? With that power?”

Ramazan gave her a rueful shake of the head. “It’s limitless.” The enormity of what he’d got himself into seemed to suddenly sink in. “What have I done? If anyone finds out…”

“No one needs to find out. And besides, we don’t know if he’s telling the truth. But if he is… it’s got to be something he can pass on. To us. Something you and I could try.”

Ramazan snapped forward in surprise. “You’d want to try it out?”

“Wouldn’t you? I mean, if it’s safe—who wouldn’t? Besides, how else can we be sure he’s not faking it?”

Ramazan shook his head. “This is insane.”

“He says he came from another world, right? Another version of history. Another 1438.”[4]

“Yes.”

“Well, what was his 1438 like? Don’t you want to know? What was the world he left behind like?”

“He didn’t say much about it beyond the war he was in.”

“A big war in the east, right?”

“He called them Iraq and Syria, which I think mean Al Jazira and Al Sham.”

“A war that was started by the Americans,” she said, her tone questioning. “But then he did say one crucial thing. That the empire—our empire—didn’t exist anymore.”

“Yes,” Ramazan confirmed. “He said it got weaker after they failed at Vienna; then it broke up, and other powers took its place.”

“Which means that world, his world, had three hundred years of a very different history.” She paused. “If that’s true… I want to know what that world was like.”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course,” Nisreen insisted. “I want to know how it was different. And why he wanted to change it. Don’t you see? That’s how the world was supposed to be.”

“Assuming no one else had gone back and changed things before he did.”

She thought about it. “Maybe. But I still want to know if his world was better or worse than ours.”

“He was caught up in a big war.”

“We’ve had wars. And unless you haven’t noticed, we’re in the thick of one right now. A worse kind of war. A silent one. A war where anything we say can get us killed by our own people. Don’t you want to know if there was a better world out there?”

“Maybe we should leave it alone. This talk of another world is crazy.”

Nisreen studied him. “Are you happy with the way things are?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you happy with how our lives have changed these last few years?”

Ramazan shrugged. “Well, if you’re talking about you and me and the kids, and—”

“I’m talking about the world Tarek and Noor are growing up in. A world that corrupts everyone, that turns one brother against another, against family—a world that sucks the sense and decency out of people. If there was a better version of the world out there, don’t you want to know about it?”

Ramazan knew full well whom she was referring to, and he felt a tinge of jealousy. As much as he loved his brother, he was always aware of how Nisreen and others like her were drawn to him. Before, of course. Before the world had shifted unexpectedly under them. Before his brother had fallen from grace.

“What difference does it make?” he fired back. “We live in our world. Nothing’s going to change that. And people are what they are. No one’s forcing anyone to be anything different from what they want to be.” He shook his head, angry at himself for saying that about Kamal, and forcing himself to resist Nisreen’s drive. “No. It’s too dangerous. We should leave it alone.”

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Nisreen said, visibly dejected. “You’ve always been more comfortable taking the safe road.”

“Hey, you were the one who gave me a verbal flogging for looking into it in the first place,” he hissed, mindful of waking up the children. “Remember?”

Nisreen shrank back under the admonition. “Fine, but now that you’ve let the djinn out of the bottle, it’s too late to put it back.”

Ramazan saw the remorse on her face, but he also saw something else. That familiar disappointment—in him. He couldn’t stand it. Even when she was dressing him down for his internet search, he’d enjoyed the feeling of knowing he’d shown her a different side of him. A daring, reckless side.

He wanted that feeling back.

“So what are you saying?” he asked her. “What do you want us to do?”

“I want to know what it was like. And I want to know how he does it.”

“If it’s real.”

“If it’s real.”

Ramazan nodded, deep in thought. “Alright,” he finally relented. “I can ask him.”

Nisreen sat up. “Not you. Us. We can ask him.”

Ramazan felt a surge of alarm, not liking where this was going. “Us?”

“Yes. You and me. Together. I want to be there when you talk to him again.”

“No. No way.”

“Why?”

He grasped for any answer. “He’s in intensive care. I can’t have you in there for any reason.”

“He’s your patient,” she insisted. “I’m your wife. You’ll figure something out. No one’s going to question it too much. He’s nobody.”

Ramazan scowled. “What I’m doing is already tricky enough. Your being there might attract more attention.”

“You said yourself you need to bring him out of his sleep this morning. You probably only have one last session with him. You go in first, make sure it’s clear, and then I’ll join you. We can always say there’s an important family situation I needed to see you about. Something urgent. No one’s going to care.”

“What about the kids?”

“I’ll call Sumayya.” Sumayya was in her late teens and lived across the street from them. She was their children’s preferred babysitter.

“This early?”

“She’ll be happy to. She could use the money.”

Ramazan closed his eyes and tilted his head back and said nothing. Then he faced Nisreen again. He knew this was a bad idea. But seeing her fired up like this, imagining himself doing something wild and audacious with her, was hard to resist.

Outside the bedroom windows, the first scouts of dawn were repelling the blackness of night. Soon, the calls to prayer would sound out from the city’s minarets.

He looked at her wryly, relishing what he was about to say, pushing away the fear to make way for the words that cut through his better judgment. “Let’s get ready then,” he told her. “It’ll be morning soon. And the earlier we get there, the better.”