American Taliban: A Novel by Abraham Pearl

Author:Abraham, Pearl [Abraham, Pearl]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781588369789
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2010-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN—MAY 2001

THEY WERE FLYING BRITISH AIRWAYS, New York–London, London–Islamabad. Pakistan’s newest, most modern city would be John’s first view of this world. More than sixty languages, his guidebook informed him, are spoken in Pakistan, but English is the official one, used in business, government, legal, and public discourse.

You’ll have no problem, Khaled said. Even at Islamia, lectures open to the public are in English.

At Barbara’s last fund-raiser, a young Pakistani writer working at his country’s embassy described Islamabad as an Islamized version of D.C. air-dropped into the foothills of the Himalayas. Be sure to visit Mr. Books, he’d said, Islamabad’s best bookshop.

On the plane beside Khaled, John read about Islamabad’s Zero Point from which all distances are measured.

Zero Point. A film of the universe’s history run in reverse would show the universe contracting to a dot, eventually disappearing back to the beginning, before time and space, to a primal zero, the birthplace of the universe, when the big bang banged and burst forth a fury of galaxies, stars, planets, our nonstop cosmos. In the beginning was the point. In the beginning, some 15 billion years ago, before time was timed, on day zero of the world.

He would grind to Zero Point, a sacred spot, and begin again in the womb of the world. He would join an ongoing race of scholar-adventurers, men who have surrendered themselves to the life movement of the universe. He would be this century’s Richard Burton, Sir Richard Burton, speaker of twenty-nine languages, translator of the Kama Sutra, editor of A Thousand and One Nights; Sir Richard Burton, explorer of wild Sind, of Baluchistan and the Punjab; fearless Richard Burton, first European to make the famous pilgrimage to Mecca; the great Sir Richard Burton who described the mystical fana al-fana as a merging of the creature with the creator; Lieutenant Burton, secret service agent in western India; Captain Richard Burton, Sufi initiate; Murshid Burton, who could move the name of Allah through his body; Gnostic Burton, dervish and wandering holy man; Devil Burton, amateur barbarian and frequenter of brothels. All of which would make Barbara both proud and unhappy at once. But she would come around. She and Bill were cool parents, and John was determined to prove himself. In his own way.

He circled Zero Point on the map to mark it. From there, he would set out with his backpack, his skateboard, and guidebook and, for the rest of life, use it as a measure of distance traveled. Though he would have only twenty-four hours in Islamabad, not enough time to see enough, he would grind to Zero, pray, then go forth and learn the difference between nothing and something, absence and presence, meaning and chaos. From Zero Point, he told Khaled, he would skate forth to Islamabad’s main drag, into the Blue and Green Areas, and cover ground quickly.

I hate to bust your bubble, Khaled said, but Zero Point is just a signpost that gives the mileage and kilometers to surrounding cities. You’re overinvesting in it.

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