Book: A Mighty Heart

Author: Mariane Pearl
Publisher: Virago Press 2003

The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Daniel Pearl

The kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl in Karachi last year was a real life horror story that few of us will soon forget. It illustrated the barbaric depths which human beings are willing to reach in order to prove a point to a captive world. On the other hand, A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Daniel Pearl, the memoir of this time as lived through by Pearl s wife Mariane, is a tale of courage and
endurance, one which shows the heights that the human soul can achieve when tested by forces and events that are beyond most people s imagination or expectations.

In writing this memoir, Mariane Pearl has taken an unflinching look at the events that surrounded her husband`s disappearance. Her straightforward, searingly honest prose, which comes from her journalistic training, is interwoven with remembrances and anecdotes about Daniel; his life as a child, his aspirations, his professional work, and their hopes and dreams for their marriage and unborn son, with whom Mariane was pregnant at the time Daniel was kidnapped.

The book opens with a description of the last day that Daniel and Mariane spent together in Karachi before he went off on his fateful rendezvous with Shah Gilani, a spiritual leader who was suspected to have ties with Richard Reid, the infamous “shoe bomber”. Pearl has been led to this man through a network of fixers, mysterious contacts, and anonymous men who have managed to secure an interview with the religious leader after several months of following the trail. He sets off on his day`s work, with the interview scheduled for the last part of the day, while Mariane goes to interview a domestic violence expert and then prepare for a dinner party in the evening. But as we all know by now, Danny never makes it to the party.

What follows is a chilling plunge into the depths of the underworld: Mariane and her fellow journalist friend Asra Nomani have to piece together the clues Danny has left behind to try and figure out what has happened to him. Two women together in a strange
country, they enlist the help of various experts: the head of the CPLC, security experts at the US consulate, and terrorism experts from the Karachi police. Mariane swings back and forth between moments of cold terror and unemotional investigation; all the while trying to cope with the stress of her missing husband and her pregnancy. She knows, without doubt, that Danny is in terrible danger.

What adds to the danger is the fact that Danny is Jewish and his parents have ties to Israel; this information can be fatal for Danny if it becomes public knowledge. Mariane outlines the terrible moment when she reads in an Urdu newspaper that Danny has been named as a “Mossad spy”. Balancing the horror is the extraordinary support she gets from two members of the police, men she calls “Captain” and “Dost” in order to protect their identities. These men become like her brothers, staying with Mariane and
Asra at all hours of the day and night, unearthing clues and chasing leads without a thought to their personal safety, their families, or their own health. “I will bring your Danny back to you” is Captain`s mantra, and it becomes a beautiful motto that Mariane
derives strength from as much as from her Buddhist chanting.

The trail turns into a cybertrail with the advent of e-mails from Danny`s supposed kidnappers, who send photographs of the captive journalist, and a list of political demands from America, along with a series of threats and political statements about the plight of Muslims in Afghanistan and Kashmir. The name of Omar Shaikh Saeed emerges, and he is taken into custody, where he first admits and then retracts his statement of guilt. The police work frantically to uncover the identities of the kidnappers, and begin to make progress, but it is too late; eventually the kidnappers reveal that they have murdered Daniel Pearl.

There are so many heartbreaking moments in this book that it is impossible to choose one above all others, but possibly the moment where Mariane is informed of Daniel s death, and the day, several months later, when she must give birth to Adam alone in a maternity hospital in Paris, are the most striking. Mariane records everything, her emotions, her feelings, the depths of her pain, her thoughts and the internal monologue that goes on in her mind throughout all of these moments, not holding anything back, not hiding anything from her audience.

It takes an exceptional kind of courage to be able to do this, without lapsing into self-pity, hatred, or bitterness. There is a great deal of fury and despair in her narrative, but it is directed against the people who perpetrated this crime against her husband, his family, and innocent people at large. Mariane does not sanitize her narrative from these very natural emotions, and shares them as a sort of catharsis with her reader. But she does not allow her hatred or her anger to remain unanalyzed or unprocessed, and she also does not allow herself to be defeated by the terror that has been directed against her in the most personal way possible. By facing it all head on, she refuses to bow down to the forces that would break her and everything her husband stood for.

In the end, A Mighty Heart is more than a memoir: it is a love letter, a tribute, and a record of her husband`s bravery. It is also an intelligent analysis of the time and country that robbed Mariane Pearl of her life partner and the father of her child. It is an attempt to understand the various political dimensions of the struggle between the so-called Islamic fundamentalists and their chosen targets. By writing about Danny`s set of guidelines for journalists who devote themselves to reporting in dangerous places, it also attempts to serve as a learning experience for those who would follow in his footsteps. Most of all,
it is a contribution to what Danny named as his life`s purpose: creating a dialogue between civilizations through his journalism. A Mighty Heart succeeds on all counts.