The other pilgrims were sleeping. Bambang shoved sand over the mess. He was embarrassed, but then he wondered if this was a good sign. He had prayed to expel the evil inside him. Perhaps this was how it happened. Suddenly. With shocking force. He had thrown off the burden of his misdeeds. He was surely purified.
But his strength had fled. He was dizzy. He tried to stand but only got to his knees before deciding to lie back down again and let the stars turn over him. Hours passed. Bambang did not know what to make of his condition. Was he being elevated to a higher state, in transition to whatever awaited him? Surely his prayers would take him to a new level, and this sensation must be a test.
The voice of the muezzin awakened the other hajjis. They unrolled their mats and recited the dawn prayer. Everyone was stiff from sleeping on the ground, so Bambang did not feel conspicuous. He was strong enough now to stand, but he did not feel inclined to take breakfast. Instead, he folded himself in with the first group that was walking to Jamarat, sunrise being the most blessed time to make the march. Pilgrims filled the road for miles, moving in a shuffle. Bambang could not see the beginning or the end of them. The sun climbed the sky. Sometimes the pilgrims passed under misters to cool them off. There were people lying on the rocks, exhausted and dehydrated, perhaps even dead; it was hard to determine. Lucky ones carried umbrellas advertising Egypt Air. Overhead news helicopters were circling.
The procession passed through lengthy tunnels under the blue hills. The pilgrims had been cautioned that this was the most dangerous portion of the hajj, because this was when panics arose. Someone faints. People stop to help. Those behind press ahead impatiently. Confusion sets in, along with anger. Then, almost like a bomb going off, a frenzy takes over. The crowd becomes a mob. People are trampled. Hundreds, even thousands, die all at once. It’s over as quickly as it started, and no one knows why or exactly what happened.
Bambang had a plastic jar containing forty-nine pebbles that he had carefully selected from stones on Mount Arafat. The pebbles were for the stoning of the devil, represented by three large columns, each standing inside a walled arena at Jamarat. The pilgrims were reenacting the actions of Abraham, who resisted the temptation of Satan by throwing stones at him on this very spot. The road forked into different branches, each of them feeding into a vast structure resembling a multilevel parking garage. Bambang already felt light-headed and squeezed by the chanting crowd pressing against his sides, exhausting the oxygen in the air they all breathed at once. The noise inside the structure echoed off the concrete, building to a roar. A bolt of dangerous energy surged through the mob.
He had hoped to get to the rooftop of the stoning place, but he was shunted to a middle level. In the center of the structure was a portion of the Jamarat column, an imposing wall of granite rising from a concrete basin. When it became visible, the pilgrims pressed forward more insistently, trying to get to the edge of the basin where they could hurl their pebbles. Cursing Satan, some of them also threw sandals or umbrellas.
Bambang had his first pebble ready in his hand, but by now he had no control over his movements. He was roughly shoved ahead by the strength of the crowd, mashing him against the woman in front of him. Fear and ecstasy raced through him like an electrical current. Amid the din, he tried to pray, “Here I am, O Lord, here I am! I am at your service. You have no partners, here I am.” Already poorly aimed pebbles were pelting him.
And then he was pressed against the edge of the basin itself, the stone column confronting him like Satan in the flesh. Pilgrims screamed in his ear. He raised his hand to throw the first pebble, but it fell short of the column. He was shocked. How had he become so weak? He reached into his jar for another pebble, but the jar fell out of his hand. He felt it strike his foot, but it was impossible to bend over to pick it up. He could feel his knees buckling but he couldn’t fall, he was pinned upright.
Now he detected the circular motion of the crowd propelling