Nazir wouldn’t recruit and inspire these children as he had been taught. And, now that he was in the position of doing just that, he had no idea what role to play. It was one thing to believe in something, another to put it into practice, when the implementation could cost his life. How could he, on one level, seem to teach jihad…yet on another, get into their young minds and shift them out of wanting to become suicide bombers? What if his reading of the imam was wrong? It was a paradox for which he had no answer, and it terrified him.

War was clear. Dead. Alive. His circumstance now was a grey zone, and he thought of his grandmother, who’d tried to teach him about the complexities of life, but he’d refused to listen. She was the woman who’d cared for him after his parents were killed. The woman who said he was spared for a reason. Who said he could never bring his parents back with blood. That blood for blood was not God’s way. She’d never stopped trying to impart the futility of war or relinquish her vow to infuse in him the love of all men, which she believed Allah spoke.

He cried, for he saw the disrespect he’d given her even though he’d loved her. And he let himself cry, for he knew Mariam and the young boys would believe his tears were for the beauty of the Qur’an. And he let the lie linger. He knew what was needed must be done with lies and “much discretion.”

Mariam said to the class, “You should all be so moved by the words of the great Prophet like Mister Siraj.”

Nazir nodded and smiled through his tears.

As he told the students of his life in Mosul, a woman came to the door of the classroom and motioned to Mariam, who went to her.

The woman whispered something to Mariam, who turned to Nazir and said, “There are a few things I need to attend to.”

She turned to the class, directed them to be good and attentive to their guest, and left.

Nazir wiped his tears. He went to the door and closed it. If he was ever going to attempt to cultivate the seed of non-violence, now was the time. Now was the test he believed the imam had set before him. The test he was betting his life on.

He walked among the boys, shifted from his life in Mosul, and told them a tale he called, “The Mystery in the Desert.”

He hadn’t planned to tell them about what had happened to him, but realized he was being guided and trusted the scent of roses, of which he could see only he was aware.