“But Parvaiz Pasha is not my concern. I never met him and it’s true, I don’t know what he did, what crimes he might have committed while in Syria. I do, though, know his sister. The woman you’ve been watching on your TV screens is a woman who has endured terrible trials, whose country, whose government, and whose fiancée turned away from her at a moment of profound personal loss. She has been abused for the crime of daring to love while covering her head, vilified for believing that she had the right to want a life with someone whose history is at odds with hers, denounced for wanting to bury her brother beside her mother, reviled for her completely legal protests against a decision by the home secretary that suggests personal animus. Is Britain really a nation that turns people into figures of hate because they love unconditionally? Unconditionally but not uncritically. While her brother was alive that love was turned toward convincing him to return home; now he’s dead it’s turned to convincing the government to return his body home. Where is the crime in this? Dad, please tell me, where is the crime?”
So this was what heartbreak felt like. Karamat acknowledged it, allowed it, arms dangling helplessly from his side. Personal animus. That was an arrow dipped in a poison only those closest to him could know to use. Whoever was standing behind the camera, whoever had honed Eamonn’s words, whoever had chosen that particular shade of blue that the color psychologists insisted instilled confidence and trust—it didn’t matter. It was Eamonn who mixed the poison, fired the arrow. He knew it to be a lie, he knew that of all lies it was the one that would hurt his father the most, he knew that once he’d said it he gave carte blanche to every one of Karamat Lone’s political opponents to repeat the claim. If a son doesn’t recognize personal animus, who does? Fathers and sons, sons and fathers. An Asian family drama dragged into Parliament. He clenched his fists, pulled them up to rest on the arms of his chair, muscles taut along his back and shoulders. Where the body leads, the mind learns how to follow. He breathed in slowly, pacing his thoughts along with his breath, the chess player in him seeing the move just made then examining the whole board.
James waited silently until the home secretary turned to look at him. “What do we do now, sir?”
“We do nothing. He’s, excuse the expression, digging his own grave.” He looked at his watch. “Let’s go to the office and watch it unfold.”
“Will you be wanting a few minutes with your wife before we leave?”
“James, until this thing is over I don’t have a son and I don’t have a wife. I have a great office of state. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
Karamat returned to his room, opened the cupboard, and looked at his tie rack. There were more blues than any other color, but today his hand reached for a matte red—strong but subtle, the tie of a man assured of his own power.
||||||||||||||||||
He arrived at Marsham Street along with the first editions of the morning papers, which he still insisted on reading in print. His face, half in light, half in darkness, like some comic book villain, was above the fold of the newspaper most closely allied to his party. NATIONAL INTEREST OR PERSONAL ANIMUS? asked the headline.
“Someone must have leaked the video to them ahead of time,” James said unnecessarily.
“Stand outside the door and don’t let anyone in. I don’t care if it’s the Queen herself.” The building was empty, most of London asleep. He simply wanted to be left alone.
The first paragraph gave him the phrase “anonymous cabinet member,” which, when put together with the name of the journalist, almost certainly meant the chancer. The anonymous cabinet member reflected on the irreversible damage to the home secretary if his son had been seen attending the funeral of a terrorist—“of course he’d do everything in his power to prevent that from happening.” Such a simple line of attack, as the most effective ones always were.
Piece by piece the article dismantled yesterday’s principled man of action and remade him: an ambitious son of migrants who married money and class and social contacts in order to transform himself into an influential party donor, which allowed him to be selected ahead of more deserving candidates to run in his first election. He used his identity as a Muslim to win, then jettisoned it when it started to damage him. It remained a mystery how he had had the privilege of running in a by-election for a safe seat after his constituents threw him out following Mosquegate; it had led to resignations within the party. Rather than fully address the questions regarding his connections to known terrorists in the mosque he frequented, he’d taken on a new role as the loudest voice of criticism against the community that had voted him out. Working-class or millionaire, Muslim or ex-Muslim, proud son of migrants or antimigrant, modernizer or traditionalist? Will the real Karamat Lone please stand up? And the final blow, again from Anonymous Cabinet Member: “He would sell out anyone, even his own son, if he thought it would move him closer to number 10.”
It escalated from there. Britain woke up to a chorus of tweets, hastily written online columns, and morning TV interviews all placing the home secretary on trial. “Personal animus” the phrase they all picked up on, which one wit turned into #PersonalEnemas.
A professional, coordinated effort, all in all. Why had it taken him so long to work out who was behind the camera?
“Alice, you’ve never liked me, have you?” he said, when the Halibut deigned to answer her phone on the fifth ring.
“Mr. Lone, your son hired my family’s PR firm,” she said, in a tone of warm honey dripped onto cold fish scales. “This is purely professional. No personal animus.”
He hung up, laughing, and unbuttoned his cuffs. “Hold your nerve, marshal your forces,” he said to James. It wasn’t quite eight a.m. yet. Plenty of day yet to come, and there was only so much the Halibut could spin.
He clicked on the video file on his desktop. A shadow on the desert sand of a man kneeling, a curved sword like a crescent moon above his head. Exceptional production values, the work of people who cared about camera angles and light and—he pressed a key repeatedly to increase the volume of God’s name being sung in praise—sound. This came from the media unit for which Parvaiz Pasha had been working. He didn’t want to release it to the British public—barbaric, nightmare-inducing stuff. He shouldn’t have to. If he had gauged the situation correctly—and he was sure he had—it would take only the sight of Eamonn walking into that most un-British spectacle in the park to switch the conversation from personal animus to Eamonn Lone’s clear lack of judgment. But just in case it didn’t work that way, it was useful to have a backup plan to remind the public that the only story here was that of a British citizen who had turned his back on his nation in favor of a place of crucifixions, beheadings, floggings, heads on spikes, child soldiers, slavery, and rape. And did Karamat Lone take this personally? By god, yes, he did! He thumped his hand on the desk, practicing, wondered if “by god” was a good idea, as a head rolled in the desert sand.
The first time he’d watched the video he had been unable to eat meat the rest of the week. Had barely been able to shave without thinking of that blade on flesh. Now it was his weapon. He looked up from the computer screen to the television, which he’d switched on as soon as he’d entered the office. The girl was cross-legged beside the ice coffin, hair still caked with mud, once white clothes soiled, everything about her older and more tired. Do you even know the man you’re mourning? he wondered.