Read Online Escape from Baghdad! by Saad Hossain - Free Book Online Page A

behind.”
    â€œLeft behind?” Dagr asked.
    â€œLeft behind when men decide in which peculiar holocaust they will end their world.”
    â€œWomen do not perpetrate holocausts?” Dagr asked.
    â€œOnly in reaction. In the claiming of retribution,” the crone said cheerfully. “We do not initiate the madness. But sometimes we must seek redress to approach balance.”
    â€œI notice that the ‘great silences’ have not affected you overmuch,” Kinza said.
    â€œI speak for those who are struck literally speechless,” Mother Davala said. “Those who continually lose must, at some time, begin to take back. We arrive at this conclusion at different times of our lives but arrive we must, even if at the edge of a knife, in a tub of hot water.”
    â€œYou babble, woman,” Hamid said. “Living in this empty house has robbed your mind of sense.”
    â€œI know you, Torturer,” Mother Davala said. “You are a man who has found joy in your profession. What frightens you is the vengeance that is owed to you, that has been piling high since the day you first embarked on your career. Do you think you can avoid it forever?”
    â€œWhat do you know, witch?” Hamid shouted. “Whom have you told? Kinza, we are betrayed! That shit Xervish has sold us out!”
    â€œDo you think to command me now?”
    â€œNo,” Hamid said in a low voice. “No.”
    â€œWhat game is this, old mother?” Dagr asked. “What secrets do you know of us?”
    â€œNo secrets,” Davala said. “Not by some nefarious path. I only use my eyes. Your nature, for example, is written on your face plain as the day. Your losses, dear one, mount up higher than you can bear. Soon,you, too, will live in silence. What have you left to wager, after all? You could float away, unfettered, invisible, valueless. ”
    â€œYou assign value most carelessly,” Kinza said.
    â€œThe city changes its currency. One would be blind to miss it,” Mother Davala turned to him. “Your friend is mere nostalgia. His day is gone. Will it return again? Who knows? It is your time now, the hour of the wolf.”
    â€œYou mock me.”
    â€œNo, dear one, I need you,” Mother Davala said. “Our sons and grandsons are dead and scattered. Nephews, uncles, cousins—all gone. Do you not see here a dearth of men? So our business lies unfinished.”
    â€œWhat business?” Kinza asked.
    â€œThe business of debit and credit. Of ledgers unbalanced for too long,” she said. “The killers of our families still walk free, unafraid. They must be taught fear. They must be driven mad with suffering. You can do that, surely? It is what you were born for.”
    â€œWho do you want killed?” Kinza asked.
    â€œMany, oh many men need killing who walk this earth. Many men for whom death is too good a punishment,” Mother Davala said. “Seven months ago, Captain Eric Hollow of the occupation forces thought he saw a man on a truck with an AK47 during a midday patrol through a crowded market. He opened fire with his machine gun, emptying his magazine. He must have been blind. It was my great grand nephew, playing on the truck bed with a piece of wood. He was three years old. A round blew his entire head off. When the boy’s father started crying hysterically, the captain arrested him for inciting a riot and took him away. They left the headless boy on the street. Later, I received a note saying compensation was denied for the accidental deaths of both father and son, as the event could not be verified. A condolence payment of $1,500 was enclosed.”
    â€œCaptain Eric Hollow,” Kinza said, with a peculiar emphasis, and it seemed to Dagr as if some giant magnet were trained on his friend, inexorably drawing him in, resonating on frequencies unseen, thrumming the rage out of some reservoir. Kinza’s fingers curled