A New Faith: Part 3: Chapter 36

Both Sara and Alia were lost in their thoughts about what they had done and the terrible consequences of their actions. It was only when the train braked that they came to their senses. The lights from the city of Cypress were visible from the half open door. Wordlessly, both of them hid themselves in the shadows hoping that the freight-removing robots wouldn’t come anywhere near them. 

The broken door opening mechanism saved them. The robots flagged it as a malfunction that would be repaired by the human crew when the train went back to the port. The other three doors of the compartment provided sufficient room for the robots to maneuver around to offload the designated stacks. The broken stacks were left as they were. The robots were not programmed to clean up any mess. They were to simply flag it and then move on to the next task. 

No person was around anyway. It was the middle of the night and this operation was usually conducted entirely by the robots. The distance between the cities was about two hundred kilometers and the train, usually, took a little more than an hour to cover that distance. The journey always initiated from the port of Skibotn that had been created, specifically, to serve the three cities. The first stop was Sequoia in Norway, followed by Cypress in Finland, then Juniper in Sweden and return to Skibotn via Sequoia. The total travel time for the circuit was approximately five hours including the stops for off-loading and loading the train. 

After the initial shock of her deed had worn off, Alia’s brain started re-asserting itself. The very first question that came to her mind was - why had she forgotten about the killing of Basheer until that moment? Or maybe she hadn’t really forgotten it. Somehow her mind had managed to hide it from her. But she knew about it. That dream she was getting lost in repeatedly, that nightmare rather, had been hinting at the fact that she was chasing herself. The reason she didn’t seem to be able to catch the suspect in her dream was because she was afraid to catch herself. 

Something had unlocked that memory and brought it forth. Maybe it was the tumultuous day she had - dealing with Sonia’s rage, the accidental death of Irfan, the mind-altering concert, the terrifying riot including the horrific immolation of Shahid, and finally, the scarcely believable chase across the top of the speeding train to catch Sara. All those upheavals had come practically on top of each other and at some point her mind must have snapped and all the defenses it had built to keep her protected from the memory of Basheer’s murder must have been breached.

She suspected that the transcendent feelings she had experienced at the concert, in all likelihood abetted by whatever stimulants had been introduced in the air by Maria to heighten the emotional response of the audience, also had something to do with her mind opening up again. After all, disparate things had indeed clicked together in her mind when she had seen Sara at the riot. She had all that data but had not been able to put it all together until that moment. Anyway…

Alia was an idealistic person. Always had been, as far as she could remember. Killing another person was as bad as it got in her books. And now she had done exactly that. Not as part of her law enforcement duties or in self-defense - but as a totally unprovoked attack on another human being. She was guilty of a crime both in her own eyes and those of the law. The law that she had swore to uphold. As soon as she reached Sequoia, the first thing she would do was to go to the police HQ and surrender herself, unconditionally. She would voluntarily confess to her crime in as much detail as she remembered it. That was it!

The second thing she would do was to charge Sara and lock her up in the overnight holding cell. No, wait! That couldn’t be the second thing. That would have to be the first thing. The moment she surrendered, she would lose her police powers. She would not, then, be able to charge Sara. So swap those things around then! 

She was sure that Sara was the one who had killed Nadeem. But so far, her team had not been able to unearth any evidence connecting Sara to Nadeem’s death. The potential sighting of Sara at the concert hall, the art cafe in Nadeem’s building, and the bar where he was last seen would help. But, to prove beyond any doubt that Sara murdered Nadeem would still not be possible. That is, unless Sara confessed. And that is what Alia intended to do at that moment - get Sara to voluntarily confess.

In her team, she was the best officer when it came to interrogations. There was something so reassuring in her manner that it created a conducive environment for getting people to confess to their crimes. Maybe her sense of righteousness shone through when people spoke with her. They could trust her to always do the right thing. They felt that they would get a fair shake with Alia. The thing was, except in the context of training, Alia had never had to catch a murderer. This would be her first time. She would be doing this alone and under extraordinary circumstances. 

It had been chilly in the compartment as the train sped from Cypress to Juniper. Sara was sitting next to the stack opposite to Alia. She had her hands clasped around both knees tightly as she rocked back and forth. Her eyes were blank. Alia was sitting cross-legged with her hands were in her pant pockets to keep them warm. She quietly switched on the recorder on her phone inside her pocket. She had decided to do something quite different than what she had been trained to do. But then, how many times does such an occasion come up in life when one murderer is attempting to get another murderer to confess. Alia felt confident that her strategy was the best one in this situation. 

She looked away from Sara and began, “yes - I killed Qasim. I used a shovel to smash his head in. It was one blow and I knew even before the shovel touched his head that he was going to die."

"I don’t know why I had blanked it all out until a few minutes ago. Something for the psychologists to figure out, I guess,” she added, ruefully.

“I knew Qasim from my life in Iran. He used to be called Basheer in those days. He had killed my father and two elder brothers. Just shot them in the middle of the street outside our shop. In broad daylight. Dozens of our neighbors had watched it happen. After shooting them, he had screamed with joy. I saw it all. I was just a teenager back then.” 

Alia stopped talking. She had still not looked at Sara. She was trusting that Sara was now concentrating on every word that Alia said next. 

“Why did you kill Nadeem?”

“I know what you are trying to do,” murmured Sara after a long pause. Alia was surprised but she didn’t show it. She could tell that Sara wanted to confess, anyway.

“You know that I killed Nadeem. Somehow you figured it out. That is why you followed me tonight.

Nadeem led one of the Janjaweed gangs in Darfur. His people raped my mother and sister; and then killed them. They also killed my father that night.

Nadeem was playing the flute as those brutes were decimating my family.

I thought that I had left all that behind when I came to Sequoia. And then a few days ago, I heard that flute again. It felt like fate was playing a cruel joke on me.

I was delivering some equipment to the concert hall, when I heard that same tune on the flute. Then I saw him. The monster was still alive. He had followed me over all these years and thousands of miles. I was terrified.

The screams of my family came back to haunt me. They were blasting away as if they wanted my eardrums to split and bleed.”

Alia finally turned her head and looked directly at Sara. Her eyes were full of kindness. This poor woman had suffered, too. There was so much pain in this world. Pain that just wouldn’t go away, it seemed. Pain that would eat away at the soul until there was nothing left but the empty shell of the body. A body that would seem to be alive in every way, yet dead when it came to feeling anything beyond what the physical senses would convey. Sometimes even those senses would be deadened. After all, the emotions that we feel tend to affect us physically in myriad ways that we still don’t understand. Alia had read about how otherwise healthy people died because of heartbreak. There were so sad that their hearts simply stopped beating. 

As much as she wanted to reach out and pull Sara into a comforting embrace, she reminded herself that she was still a cop. She desperately wanted to hold Sara who was shaking with silent sobs as she re-lived the worst moments of her life. But that would have to wait. First, she needed to understand the sequence of events in as much detail as possible. That way her team could have a chance to collect sufficient evidence to convict Sara even if she recanted her confession later. 

Alia was finding her own behavior utterly distasteful for the first time in her career. There was something deeply disgusting in what she was doing. It was not the surreptitiousness of how she was obtaining Sara’s confession. That was par for the course. She had no compunction in using whatever tricks she could think of to put criminals behind bars. And Sara was indeed a criminal. But this felt different. It felt almost cruel to manipulate this vulnerable woman who had already lost so much and was now about to lose whatever little was left. 

Alia had decided that she would turn herself in after she had booked Sara. But, that was something that Alia had decided on her own volition. Sara, clearly, didn’t want to get caught. Sara had tried to run away. Sara was even willing to hurt Alia in her bid to avoid getting arrested. That is how far Sara was ready to go. Still, Alia couldn’t bring herself to look at Sara as a straightforward criminal. There was some strange connection between the two. It was not as simple as Alia, the cop, arresting Sara, the criminal. Why did this feel so difficult and complicated and messy?

Alia had not noticed that Sara had fallen silent. Sara had stopped sobbing. She was leaning against the stack with her eyes closed. There was a serene air around her. Finally, being able to talk with someone about her past and what she had done, had brought her immense relief. She had been petrified of getting caught and being sent away from Sequoia. And now she had, indeed, been caught. By a cop, no less. Yet, this had felt different. Unburdening herself to Alia - who was in the same situation as her - had felt good. The tension that had built up in her muscles since the day she had discovered Nadeem had melted away. Maybe she could sleep well from that moment. All would be well. She smiled to herself and gently opened her eyes to look at Alia. 

Alia was looking down at something in her hands. The tension was back, in a flash. That looked suspiciously like a phone. Alia looked up, grimly, at Sara. 

“What is that? What were you doing?” hissed Sara. 

“I have uploaded a recording of our joint confessions to my personal server. When the train reaches Sequoia, we shall go to the police HQ and surrender ourselves,” Alia said, unequivocally.  

“Why?” Sara had to make an effort to get that word out. She was feeling weak. It was good that she was already sitting down on the floor and leaning against the stack, or else, she would have fallen down. 

“Because you and I are criminals, of course! We have murdered. And that act cannot go unpunished!”

“Nooooooo…. no…. no…” whimpered Sara. 

“I thought that you understood it. That was not a crime that we committed. We didn’t do anything for personal gain,” Sara had found a little bit of strength to string together those few words.

“The why doesn’t matter, Sara. All that matters is that we did something illegal.”

“But of course it does matter!! How can you not see that? It was self-defense! Nadeem had followed me here and would have killed me after torturing me. That was in his nature. I was simply protecting myself. And self-defense is no crime!!” Sara was steadily gaining strength as she marshaled her thoughts. This was all going haywire. Why was Alia being so strange? Did she not get it? 

“You did the same thing. Your family was killed by Qasim or whatever his real name was. He had also followed you to Sequoia - undoubtedly to hurt you. You had to do something to protect yourself from him. You had no choice!”

Alia was momentarily taken aback by this torrent of words pouring forth from Sara. So far, Alia had not tried to understand, let alone remember WHY she had killed Qasim. All she had ascertained in her mind was that she had indeed murdered him. According to her memory, which was crystal clear, she had picked up the shovel and hit Qasim. But what had been the thoughts going through her mind at that moment? Why had she picked up the shovel in the first place? Why had she smashed Qasim’s skull with it?  Was Sara right about her motivation, too? Did she kill Qasim in self-defense? Well that would change everything then.

The memory playing out in her head - though - seemed to show Qasim on his knees in front of her, begging for mercy. She remembered the fear in his eyes. There had been no sign of Qasim threatening her. Rather, Qasim didn’t seem to even know her. While she had seen Basheer, he had never seen her. Definitely, not on the day he had shot her father and brothers. She had been completely hidden inside the store that day. She had stayed behind the sack for what felt like hours after the death of her family. In fact, it was her mother who had found her behind the sack. 

Could Basheer have seen her before or after that horrible day? Could he have known that it was her family that he had destroyed? And that she was avenging their death in Sequoia all these years later? No - that sounded ridiculously far-fetched! She didn’t remember saying anything about her family’s death to Qasim before she had killed him. 

She thought hard about that evening at Qasim’s camp. Until the moment she had seen that old photograph of Basheer and then realizing that Qasim and Basheer were the same person, there had been nothing even remotely disconcerting about her interaction with Qasim. Whatever her motivation behind killing Qasim was, it was not self-defense. 

For that matter, it was not the motivation that Sara was claiming to have had for killing Nadeem. She had poured over the interview notes of all the people that Nadeem had been in contact with. There was not an iota of evidence suggesting that he had been violent toward anyone in Sequoia. If - as Sara was asserting - that Nadeem had followed her from Sudan to Sequoia then why would he wait for five whole years to threaten her. Did Nadeem even know Sara? After all Basheer/Qasim had not known Alia as per her own recollections. 

“Did Nadeem know you from Sudan?” Alia asked, suddenly. She had to know the answer to that question!

Sara hesitated and that was sufficient for Alia to prod her further.

“He didn’t know you at all - right? You mentioned that his men had entered your home and killed your family. And you also mentioned that after that horrible night, the first time you had seen Nadeem was directly in Sequoia and that too only a few days before you killed him. How could he have even known of your existence then? Why would he have followed you? Why would he even threaten you with violence?” the ruthless interrogator in Alia was back in the saddle. No more doubts about what was to be done.

Sara hesitated because she knew that Alia was right. What puzzled Sara was that in all her hand-wringing after she had killed Nadeem, this thought had never once crossed her mind. Nadeem didn’t even know her. But she had been so sure of her fear. She had acted out of fear. Hadn’t she?

This was pure survival instinct in action. Flight or fight. Both she and Alia had chosen to fight back instead of running away. In all likelihood, if they had met their respective tormentors outside of Sequoia, they would have chosen to flee. The dynamic in that context was the men having all the power and control while the women being the oppressed ones. That dynamic had been decisively eliminated in Sequoia. Alia’s and her behavior were proof of that.

They had grown into strong and independent persons. They were fearless. They had stood their ground courageously instead of backing off. They had delivered justice instead of wilting in the torment. That was the magic of Sequoia. Women were truly equal to men. She didn’t want to leave Sequoia for any reason whatsoever, the law be damned. She had to somehow persuade Alia to drop this matter entirely. 

“Did you kill Nadeem in order to avenge the torture and death of your family?” Alia continued doggedly.

“I… I… you are right. Nadeem didn’t know me. And he had not threatened me. But don’t you see Alia - he didn’t have to do that. His very existence was sufficient to portend violence. He was an evil man. He had, somehow, escaped punishment for his crimes. He should have been sentenced to death long ago. That would have been the outcome of any fair legal system in a decent society. You have to agree then, that all I did was do the legal system’s work. It was overdue,” Sara tried another tack. 

“Justice can only be delivered by the legal system, Sara. You are not part of it. You could have brought Nadeem to the attention of the legal system in Sequoia and through that, of the legal system in Sudan. You cannot take law in your hands, Sara. You just can’t! Nor can I!”

“How is ending evil NOT a good thing? I don’t get it! Qasim was an evil man! He should have been punished a long time ago, too. And the fair punishment for him was death. But he was never punished. He changed his name and got away with his crimes. Of course - he and for that matter anyone who gets away unpunished always, always, assume that they are safe to continue with their bad deeds. You stopped that. You saved other people from death. That is all that matters. 

You and I did the right thing. We should - in fact - be rewarded for our good deeds. And here you are talking about confessions and surrendering. 

What if they don’t understand us and instead punish us? THAT would be the wrong thing to happen.”

“Qasim and Nadeem were bad people. They should have been punished a long time ago. Yes - I completely agree with you on that Sara. BUT, they should have been punished by society collectively acting through the law enforcement mechanism. We cannot just ignore that mechanism even when the ultimate outcome is the correct one. If everyone did that, then the social compact that we have established among ourselves, would be void. Don’t you understand that? It is a slippery slope. You get that… right?”

That was the second argument that Alia had decisively struck down. Sara was getting increasingly desperate.

“I… I am a decent person. I am training to be a nurse. Please believe me.”

“I am a decent person, too. But we still killed a human being. And for that we need to face the consequences. I don’t see any way out of this. 

Even if we decide to not confess and somehow we manage to escape detection, do you think we shall be able to live happily for the rest of our lives? Our conscience would always remind us. We would never find peace.”

“I made a mistake. I don’t know what got into me that I did it. I have never hurt anyone. I haven’t even hurt an animal or insect or plant,” said Sara wringing her hands in frustration. 

There were no do-overs here. No rewind button to go back in time and undo the past. Death was like that. It was final. If she could, then in a heart-beat she would go back and spare Nadeem. The painful past was not as important as the future that she was building for herself in Sequoia. In fact, the more she thought of this, the past - good and bad - was entirely irrelevant. She should have forgotten it. All of it. Completely erased it from her mind and brain. She should have filled her mind and brain with all the wonderful things she had dreamed of ever since she had arrived in Sequoia. 

As if she was talking to herself, Sara continued, “it was like a nightmare. I don’t know how to explain it, really. It was as if I was watching this person called Sara kill Nadeem. As if it was someone else who was following Nadeem. Plotting his death. And then carrying it out. It’s just that that person looked like me. But it was not me. I don’t understand how I could have done all those things.”

With a start, Alia realized that Sara had put in words exactly what Alia had been mulling over at the back of her mind. It was unfathomable for Alia that she would break the law. That was so not her. Then why had it happened? How? Why hadn’t she been able to stop herself? Maria and for that matter everyone at work routinely teased her about how she was so inhibited. She never let go of her iron self-control. What had caused this deadly deviation?

The train was slowing down again as it neared the city of Juniper. Again, wordlessly and without any gestures, both of them hid themselves in the shadows during the unloading of stacks from their compartment. Both were lost in deep thought, trying to solve the puzzle of their abnormal behavior. Non-violent and loving individuals was how they saw themselves. Now they were faced with the reality that they were violent. So violent that they had each killed a human being. Yet, both - in their own ways - had sworn to protect life. 

The train took off again and as it gathered speed, both knew that their time was running out. Their freedom was about to end. Their future was going to abruptly change course, again. Sequoia would be gone. The lives they had built for themselves would be no more. They would be banished back to their former homes and the law there would decide what would happen to them. They both knew what that meant. They would be hung. And that would be that. 

They had been doing something good in Sequoia. The success of Sequoia was supposed to pave the way for a better life for tens of millions of people. They were meaningful contributors to that promising future. What a waste! 

“If one is not fully in control of their actions then are they even responsible for those actions? Should they be punished?” Alia thought aloud without realizing it. This got Sara’s full attention.

“How does one prove whether one is in control or not?” asked Sara, hopefully. Alia may or may not have heard that. She continued, as if she was still thinking to herself.

“I don’t remember consciously deciding to kill Qasim. It just happened. But I cannot - for the life of me - recall the thought process that led me to that action. I am quite sure that I did not deliberate on it. No weighing of pros and cons. No premeditation - in other words. I did pick up the shovel. I did swing it. I did aim for his head. I did - in fact - kill him. But I can’t find the motivation behind that action anywhere in my memory. It can be a crime only if I willed it so and then acted on it. Where was my will in all that?”

Sara was listening keenly to Alia’s monologue. She was finally seeing a glimmer of hope. Alia seemed unsure at worst. At best, Alia appeared almost ready to retract her original opinion of being guilty. What Sara had subconsciously concluded and then tried to articulate to Alia in a half-assed manner was now getting articulated clearly. 

“If I am not responsible for my actions then neither is Sara responsible for hers. Unfortunately, both of us are in the same position, we cannot prove conclusively to anyone else that we were not responsible for our actions. We are both sane - there is lots of evidence of that. Temporary insanity could be a defense but it would be well-nigh impossible to make that case. Why would anyone believe us?

Since they won’t believe us, they will convict us. And banish us from Sequoia forever. It is not the prospect of the death sentence that we would receive back home that bothers me much. My life was worthless before Sequoia and it would be worthless without it. But it would not be fair to me as I was not responsible for my actions. No - it would not be fair at all!”

Alia looked at Sara, still unaware that she had been voicing her innermost thoughts so vividly. 

“You and I are both innocent, Sara. I am more or less sure of it. But we cannot prove our innocence to anyone. I am barely able to make the case to myself. Hence, confessing to these crimes and inevitably getting punished for them would not be fair to us. I am not going to confess and neither am I going to charge you. You are free to go. I shall delete our confessions from my records.”

Wordlessly, with tears streaming down her cheeks, Sara hugged Alia tightly. A bit stiffly, Alia returned the hug and patted Sara’s back kindly. The train had been hurtling toward Sequoia at top speed. As they stepped apart, the now familiar lurch of the train reminded them that the train was slowing down. The moment the train stopped, they stepped off it and without another glance at each other, walked away in different directions.