LITMIR.BIZ

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accept ATM cards.”

      He had never met a woman like this in a cheap prostitute’s haunt. The usual way things went down in these situations was that there was a lot of cursing, insulting, slapping, and kicking. He thought that if he had met this woman in another context he would have spoken to her with respect and admiration. He also thought that if he hadn’t caught her with this village boy in this dirty place, but under different circumstances, he might want her for himself. She was different: she was cultured, an engineer, and had a strong personality. She was the antithesis of all the women he had met in these contexts before.

      “How much money do you have with you?” he asked, his voice starting to soften from fatigue.

      She emptied the contents of her purse on the bed. It was a mixture of makeup, crumpled receipts, and other trivial things. She grabbed a bunch of bills and handed them over . . . it wasn’t as much as he anticipated.

      “That’s all an engineer carries with her?”

      She paused for a moment, recalling something that would save her some extra time and effort. She opened an interior pocket of her handbag and pulled out a gold necklace that had a shiny precious stone.

      “This is extremely valuable and worth more than anything I could give you. It’s all yours.”

      He took the necklace. “I’ll consider it a gift,” he said, running his fingers over the stone.

      4

      The call to prayer rang out at daybreak in Kandahar, the name the residents of Casablanca’s Saada district gave their neighborhood. The muezzin, Driss, had a beautiful and gentle voice. The mosque didn’t have a speaker or a minaret, so designating it a mosque was something of an exaggeration. The “mosque” was really a garage on the ground floor of a building owned by a Moroccan émigré who lived abroad. He had Belgian citizenship and had joined an extremist group to fight the Russians in Afghanistan; then he fought the Americans with the Taliban. After Kabul fell, all the fighters received orders to return home and await instructions regarding future operations. Most Moroccans came back, but those holding European citizenship were told to gather donations and start funding mosques in impoverished and marginalized neighborhoods, like this one in Kandahar. As far as the extremists were concerned, state-registered mosques were off limits for prayer since they were not seen to be built on real piety—not to mention all the informants, lackeys, and spies that infiltrated them.

      The owner of this building followed his orders. Each year, he would return from Europe more of a fanatic. He entrusted the mosque to a group of young men primed for radicalizing others and who had nothing more to pin their hopes on than waging jihad.

      The Kandahar neighborhood was located in the heart of Casablanca, the nation’s economic capital and home to over four million residents. It was uniquely positioned, set between soaring high-rises on one side and massive elegant villas on the other. It was an ugly stain on the urban fabric, with its dirty walls, draped doorways, and unbearable stench. The haphazard construction, the tin-panel roofs everywhere, and trash strewn all over made it seem like a neighborhood that had been hit by a tornado. A home built to house a single family was partitioned into four, and more closely resembled a rabbit’s den: no windows, no kitchen, and no facilities whatsoever. Families piled together in the quarters at night to sleep, but during the day most activity took place by the entryways, where the clotheslines were strung. True suffering came to the neighborhood in the winter months, when rain turned the unpaved passageways into mud, and the winds carried plastic bags and other light rubbish their way. In the summer, residents had to battle insects, cockroaches, rats, stray dogs, and putrid smells.

      The neighborhood was completely deserted and still pitch black at this early hour. Everyone was asleep except those at the mosque, which was located at one end of the neighborhood. It was lit with neon lights and plastic mats covered the floor. It didn’t have any openings except for its wide wooden door, which allowed for some air circulation. All of those praying were neighborhood youth—many wearing Afghani attire, consisting of a short tunic over trousers, and sneakers. Most of them had beards, but had refrained from growing moustaches. After the early-morning prayer everyone dispersed and headed home to go back to bed, except three young friends: Driss the muezzin; Sufyan, who was preparing to travel to Syria to become a martyr; and Ibrahim, Nezha’s brother. They had gotten used to hanging around after prayer under the streetlight at the edge of the neighborhood, where they discussed religion, politics, and jihad. They were all close in age. Sufyan was the eldest, at only twenty-four years old. He planned to travel to Syria via Turkey in a couple of days to carry out his mission.

      Sufyan was considered the religious leader of the neighborhood. He was skinny and rigidly built, and sported a thick beard. He was anxious and fidgety. He had been expelled from school, and before turning to religion he had been addicted to all sorts of substances: hash, hallucinogens, and any cheap alcohol. When he got drunk or high he’d take off his shirt to show off his muscles, and parade through the neighborhood brandishing a sword, waving it in everyone’s face. It was impossible for anyone to stop him, and no one in the neighborhood dared call the police, fearing revenge.

      Everything changed when Sufyan’s mother passed away. She died in his arms, after suffering from cancer for years without ever even knowing about it. She had never received proper health care, and couldn’t afford to go to the hospital. A nurse in the neighborhood clinic had diagnosed her condition from her symptoms. Sufyan would give her aspirin to ease her pain during the toughest times, when the pain was tearing up her insides. She underwent herbal treatments, and would visit revered herbalists and so-called miracle workers, who claimed to be capable of treating anything. Her health worsened day after day until she began falling in and out of consciousness. Sufyan was by her side until the moment she passed.

      Sufyan was so deeply affected by his mother’s death that he left the neighborhood for an entire year. When he returned, he was a completely different young man. He wore Afghani attire, sported a thick, rough beard, and espoused extremist views. He declared that his new mission was the promotion of Islamic virtue and prevention of vice. He had a real impact on the youth of the neighborhood, who came to listen to him, and then began to admire and respect him. He showed how religion could transform the immorality and violence of your past into a life of piety and salvation. No one knew—not even his two best friends, Ibrahim and Driss—where he had spent that year away. When asked, he would look into the distance and offer a calm smile. His gaze would wander as if he were in another world, and he’d just say he was with “the group,” giving no further details.

      On the opposite end of the spectrum from Sufyan’s desire for leadership and power was Ibrahim, Nezha’s brother. He wasn’t self-assured: even in the company of his friends he was introverted. He listened far more than he spoke, despite the fact that he had spent half a year at university. His mind wandered whenever Sufyan assailed them with some new religious treatise. He would pretend to be listening and feign interest, meanwhile absorbed in his own conflicted and depressive state. Deep down he was not religious, and didn’t even have much desire to pray, but he feared he would be cut off from the neighborhood gang if he deviated from their views. This close-knit group was hostile to anyone who left—considering him or her an apostate. Ibrahim needed to maintain their acceptance and friendship, so he wouldn’t be kicked out, but he also needed it to distance himself from his sister Nezha’s conduct. He was ready to respond forcefully to any insinuation that she wasn’t proper and chaste. He insisted that his sister—even if she wore makeup and wasn’t veiled—was just an employee at a clothing factory.

      Driss, whom Sufyan had chosen to be the muezzin because of his melodious voice, was the youngest of the three, only twenty-one years old. He looked like a burly kid: he had exaggerated features and colorless, aggressive eyes. He claimed to know absolutely everything in spite of his obvious ignorance, and he never hesitated to argue passionately with anyone who disagreed with Sufyan. Driss was expelled from school by sixth grade after failing repeatedly. In his teenage years he followed the same path as Sufyan: he took any cheap drug he could get his hands on, he picked pockets in the market, and his family kicked him out so many times that he was basically homeless. Sufyan took him under his wing after returning from his year with “the group,” and since then, Driss

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