THE MIRAGE
Matt Ruff
Dedication
FOR
MY PARENTS
Epigraph
When God wants to punish you,
He grants your wish.
—
AMERICAN PROVERB
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue: 11/9
Book One: The Mirage
Book Two: The Republic of Nebuchadnezzar
Book Three: The Glory and the Kingdom
Book Four: The Stone
Epilogue: The City of the Future
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Matt Ruff
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
11/9
This is the day the world changes.
It’s 21 Shaban, year 1422 after the Hijra. Or as the international trade calendar would have it: November 9, 2001. Sunrise in Baghdad is at 6:25, and as the first rays strike the Tigris and Euphrates twin towers, an old man stands in the main dining room of the Windows on the World restaurant, gazing out at the city.
The morning commute is well under way, cars streaming in along the expressways from Fallujah, Samarra, Baqubah, and Karbala. Across the Tigris, the 6:30 Basra Limited loops around the old World’s Fair grounds and runs briefly parallel to the Sadr City El before both trains plunge underground into the central station. There’s traffic on the river, too: passenger and cargo barges, water taxis, the racing shells of the Baghdad U rowing team, the hydrofoil ferry from Kut.
Looking down at it all, the old man feels a sense of vertigo that has nothing to do with fear of heights. He tells himself it’s the motion, the city’s ceaseless motion, which the rush hour only amplifies.
The old man grew up in Yemen. His family owned a bakery, and he and his brothers all worked there. It was hard work, long hours, but every day, five times a day, everything stopped, employees and customers alike stepping out to go to mosque, leaving only a Christian behind to mind the ovens. It wasn’t just the town’s businesses that shut down: A witness viewing that landscape from above would have seen the roads empty too, even long-distance travelers pulling over to pray.
Baghdad, city of the future, doesn’t pull over for anything. Here when the old man steps out of the kitchen for dawn prayer, it’s not just Christians who stay behind working. Here attendance at mosque varies, as if it were the world’s schedule, not God’s, that needed to be accommodated. Here the traffic flows round the clock, pausing only for accidents and gridlock. Little wonder that the sight of it disorients him, producing the flutter in his chest and inner ear that says This is not the place you were made for.
Or so he tells himself. But really, what else could it be?
Someone calls his name from the kitchen. It’s time to get back to work. There’s another round of pastries to get out before breakfast service starts at seven, and then he needs to begin prepping for lunch.
A helicopter buzzes past the windows, and the sun continues to rise, revealing a sky streaked by contrails. The heavens are in motion, too.
7:15 a.m. In a broadcast studio just blocks from the towers, Baghdad’s mayor, Anmar al Maysani, is appearing on the Jazeera & Friends morning talk show. Today’s topic is the skyrocketing murder rate: 463 people have been killed in Baghdad since January, and the year’s final tally is expected to top five hundred. It’s the worst violence the city has seen since the mob wars of the early ’90s.
The mayor has some explaining to do. After being introduced as a “noted feminist,” she’s braced to spend the allotted time discussing whether some jobs aren’t better left to men after all, and is surprised when the host’s first question is about another subject entirely.
“Madam Mayor, there are many who believe that the increase in lawlessness we are seeing is an inevitable consequence of the secularization of society, and that what’s needed is a new Awakening, a rejection of modernity and a return to traditional religious values. What do you say to this?”
“Well,” the mayor replies, “the first thing I would say is that God is great, and nothing is more important than the struggle to live righteously. If citizens are inspired to rededicate themselves to that struggle, that’s the best news that could come out of this unfortunate situation. But I don’t agree with the connection you’re trying to draw between so-called secularization and lawlessness. If you look closely at the statistics, you’ll find that the increase in murders is being driven by a rise in organized crime activity. When men turn to violence in their pursuit of illegal profits, the problem isn’t that they’ve failed to submit to God; the problem is that they’re gangsters.”
A dry cough from the show’s other guest, the publisher of the Baghdad Post, gets the host’s attention. “Mr. Aziz? You have a comment?”
“I’m just a poor Christian,” Tariq Aziz says, “and I wouldn’t dream of lecturing my Muslim brothers and sisters on the struggle to be righteous, but if men are choosing to become gangsters, that would seem to me a clear sign that they are not submitting to God . . .”
“Madam Mayor? Your response?”
“If Tariq Aziz feels he’s a poor Christian, I won’t argue with him,” the mayor says. “Perhaps it would benefit Mr. Aziz to contemplate a line from the Psalms of David: ‘I will not have an evildoer for a friend.’ There are several verses from chapter 63 of Holy Quran that I might also recommend to him . . .”
“I’d recommend the mayor review the laws against slander,” Aziz shoots back.
“I’m only too happy to focus on the law,” the mayor says. “It’s through law and order that we’ll solve this problem, God willing.”
“But that raises another issue, doesn’t it?” says the host. “For several years now, you’ve been the public face of the law in this city. And yet things have gotten worse.”
“Recently they have, but—”
“Yes, recently, even as you’ve been given greater authority by the city council. Some people might say that’s a sign you’ve been given too much authority, that you’re not up to the responsibilities of your office. Some might go farther, and say that God has placed a natural limit on how much responsibility any woman can handle, and that you’ve tried to exceed that limit, with predictable results. Madam Mayor . . . Your thoughts?”
7:59. Down by the river, it’s time for another round in the War on Drugs: A young boat pilot, having just tied up to a pier under the July 14th Bridge, finds himself surrounded, not by the smugglers he was expecting, but by uniformed agents of Halal Enforcement.
The lead agent is a big man named Samir with a bodybuilder’s physique. “Before you lie to me,” he says, wagging a warning finger in the youth’s face, “I want you to think about something. We know your name is Khalil Noufan. We knew you were coming here, and we know what your cargo is. We know you have an uncle Ziad who’s up to his ears in gambling debts. We know all that, so ask yourself: What else do we know?”