“I see someone down there, Ernest.” Jasmina dodged sideways and began to cross the road. The Major created a diversion by saluting the clipboard man and receiving an uncertain hand waggle in response, then followed her.

A man became visible, running toward them up the incline from an area of thick scrub. It was not Abdul Wahid. This man also wore a reflective vest and the Major prepared to avoid him but he was waving his cell phone in a way the Major understood as an urgent signal for help.

“Oh, no, not him again,” said the clipboard man, who was puffing along behind them. “You know you’re not allowed up here, Brian.”

“No bloody phone reception again,” said Brian. Although he was a compact, fit-looking man, he put both hands on his knees and bent over to catch his breath after the uphill climb. “Got a jumper south of Big Scrubber,” he went on, pointing with a thumb back over his shoulder. “Can’t get near to talk him in. Some old lady with a weapon and a foul mouth threatened to stick me in the gonads.”

“It’s Abdul Wahid,” said Jasmina. “He’s here.”

“You’re under caution not to do any more rescues, Brian,” said the clipboard man.

“So you’re not going to come and help me grab her?” asked Brian.

“We’re not to approach people with visible weapons or obvious psychiatric disorders,” said the man, with the pride of someone who has memorized a handbook. “We have to call for police backup.”

“It’s not like they send a bloody SWAT team, Jim,” said Brian. “You could save ten people in the time it takes you to call two constables in a Mini Cooper.”

“Is it a knitting needle?” asked the Major.

“Is it that clump of trees?” asked Jasmina simultaneously.

“Yeah, Big Scrubber—or maybe it’s an ice pick,” said Brian.

“Don’t tell them,” fumed Jim. “They’re the general public.”

“Are you going to radio for help or do I have to go to the phone booth and ask the Samaritans to relay the message?” asked Brian.

“Reception’s better at HQ,” said Jim. “But I can’t go unless you all come with me. No civilians allowed.” He sidled over and stood downhill of Jasmina as if preparing to grab her. “The days of vigilantes like Brian are over.”

“Please, I have to go to my nephew,” cried Jasmina.

“Brian, you seem to me to be a man of action,” said the Major, unsleeving his gun as casually as possible and breaking it gently over the crook of his elbow. “Why don’t you take Jim to get reinforcements and the lady and I will go down and quietly persuade the elder lady to behave.”

“Shit,” said Jim, staring mesmerized at the shotgun. Jasmina gasped and then used the opportunity to turn and run down the slope.

“Shit,” said the Major. “I have to go after her.”

“So go,” said Brian. “I’ll make sure clipboard Jim makes the right calls.”

“It’s not loaded, by the way,” called the Major as he began to hurry after Jasmina. He omitted to mention the cartridges in his pocket. “Only, the old lady already stabbed one person with that needle.”

“I didn’t see any shotgun,” said Brian, waving him away.

As the Major broke into a run, ignoring the danger of turning an ankle on the many rabbit holes, he heard Brian say, “And Jim’ll back me up, because otherwise I’ll tell them how he lets me rescue people on his shifts and takes all the credit.”

“That was one time,” said Jim. “The girl was so out of it I didn’t even know she’d already been rescued. I spent two hours talking to her.”

“Yeah, I heard she almost decided to kill herself all over again,” came the faint reply, and then the Major reached the outer rim of the bank of gorse and scrub trees and their voices disappeared.

Behind the scrub, he saw Jasmina’s small Honda half buried in gorse; a great furrow of mud behind it indicated that it had slid and swerved before coming to a stop. Perhaps Abdul Wahid had planned to simply drive to Mecca.

Abdul Wahid was kneeling close, but not dangerously close, to the edge of the cliff some two hundred feet away. He seemed to be praying, bending his head to the ground as if unaware of any drama in his surroundings. Closer to the Major, two islands of gorse created a narrowing of the grass and here the old lady stood guard, her face as hard as ever but now animated by the sharp in and out of her breath as she pointed her knitting needle toward Jasmina. She held it professionally—pointing down from her fist and ready to thrust like a dagger—and the Major felt sure she was very capable at using it.

“Auntie, what are you doing?” called Jasmina, speaking into the wind and spreading her hands in a gesture of placation. “Why must we be out here in the rain?”

“I’m doing what none of you knows how to do,” said the old lady. “No one remembers what it is to have honor anymore.”

“But Abdul Wahid?” she said. Then she raised her voice and called out to him, “Abdul Wahid, please!”

“Don’t you know better than to disturb a man at prayer?” asked the old woman. “He prays to take the burden on himself and restore the family honor.”

“This is insane. This is not how things are resolved, Auntie.”

“This is how it has always been done, child,” said the old woman in a dreamy voice. “My mother was drowned in a cistern by my father when I was six years old.” She crouched on her heels and traced a circle in the grass with the tip of her needle. “I saw. I saw him push her down with one hand and with the other he stroked her hair because he loved her very much. She had laughed with the man who came selling carpets and copper pots and handed him tea from her own hands in her mother-in-law’s best cups.” She stood up again. “I was always proud of my father and his sacrifice,” she said.

“We are civilized people, not some rural peasant family stuck in the past,” said Jasmina, her voice choked with horror.

“Civilized?” hissed the old woman. “You are soft. Soft and corrupted. My niece and her husband are weakened by decadence. They complain, they make their little schemes, but they offer only indulgence for their son. And I, who should be eating figs in a garden of my own, must come and set things right.”

“Did they know you would do this?” asked Jasmina. The old lady laughed, an animal cackle.

“No one wants to know, but then I come—when there are too many puppies in the litter, when a daughter has something growing in the belly. And after I visit they never speak, but they send me a small goat or a piece of carpet.” She ran her fingers slowly up the shaft of the needle and began to creep forward across the grass, waving the tip of the needle as if to hypnotize. “They will cry and rant and pretend to be ashamed but you will see, they will give me my own small house now in the hills and I will grow figs and sit all day in the sun.”

The Major stepped from behind the bushes and planted his feet firmly apart, resting his right hand on the stock of the shotgun still broken across his arm. “This has gone quite far enough, madam,” he said. “I’ll ask you to throw down your needle and wait quietly with us for the police.” She fell back a few steps but regained her composure and a leer crept slowly up the left side of her face.

“Ah, the English Major,” she said. She waved her needle like an admonishing finger. “So it is true, Jasmina, that you ran away from your family in order to fornicate and debauch yourself.”

“How dare you,” said the Major, stepping forward and snapping the shotgun together.

“Actually, you’re quite right, Auntie.” Jasmina’s eyes flashed with anger. She stepped forward and held her chin high, her hair whipping about her face in the wind. “And shall I tell you how delicious it was, you with your shriveled body and your dried-up heart, who have never known happiness? Would you like to hear how it is to be naked with a man you love and really live and breathe the sensuality of life itself? Should I tell you this story, Auntie?”

The old woman howled as if racked with pain and leaped toward Jasmina, who planted her feet and held out her arms and showed no intention of dodging. Quick with fear, the Major swung up his gun with a shout and, running forward, butted the edge of the stock against the old woman’s head. It was only a glancing blow, but her own momentum made it enough. She dropped the needle and crumpled to the ground. Jasmina sat down abruptly in the grass and began to laugh, an ugly robotic laugh that suggested shock. The Major bent down to pick up the fallen knitting needle and slid it into his game bag.