A Cave in the Clouds

by Badeeah Hassan Ahmed

  A Daesh man marched over to the BMW and motioned for us to park, instructing my father to leave the keys in the ignition. “Bring your money, jewelry, and cell phones with you,” the Daesh man snarled.

  When we got out of the vehicle, Hassan was shoved toward a line of men. Adlan and I merged with the women and children, losing sight of Hadil, Majida, and Eivan in the crowd.

  As we neared the entrance to the school, Daesh men forced us to halt in front of some blankets that had been stretched out on the ground. On one were piles of coins and wads of dinar. On another were cell phones. And on another were necklaces and bracelets made of gold and silver, some inlaid with diamonds and other gemstones. Kocho was wealthy because we had so much land on which to plant and harvest our crops. Tucked in between Syria and the rest of Iraq, we also had many markets where we could sell our goods.

  A lump rose in my throat as I looked down at our village’s riches. A Daesh soldier punched Adlan in the shoulder with the barrel of his gun. “Give it over,” he hissed in Arabic, pointing at her belt. It was clear Daesh knew the women’s hiding places. Beads of perspiration dotted my mother’s upper lip. The soldier snapped at her again, and Adlan’s crooked fingers slipped underneath her belt. I watched her withdraw the dinar first, then my earrings, and finally, with a trembling hand, her gold jewelry, some of which was from her wedding to my father.

  Inside the school building, Adlan and I climbed the stairs to the second floor, my nails digging into her flesh. That was in part so I wouldn’t lose her and in part from nerves. We moved with the current of other Yazidi girls and women until we found ourselves in a classroom. The classroom reminded me of the one in primary school where I had taken some of my grades. During break time there, I would play house with my cousin Nadia. We each had fabric dolls sewn by our mothers. Our dolls were dressed in Yazidi costumes—white dresses with red belts, to symbolize love, and kufis on their heads.

  Now the room was filled with women and girls shaking with fear and holding each other tight.

  Above us on the third floor, we could hear the heavy footsteps of Daesh men, their haunting laughs and their loud Arabic conversations.

  No one in the classroom spoke. Suddenly, the door slammed shut and the windows shook.

  A black cloud enveloped us. Night seemed to have fallen outside, despite it being midday.

  Women started to scream. Children cried out in terror. Someone shouted that it was the end of the world.

  Adlan and I, folded into each other’s arms, looked out the window in stunned silence. It was a sandstorm. Sand had whipped up, circling faster and faster, blinding us to everything outside.

  Doors opened and banged shut as wind howled through the hallways of the school. Suddenly, I couldn’t swallow or breathe.

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  Finally, the sandstorm ended and daylight returned. But those of us trapped inside the room were still gripped in a nightmare.

  Above and around us, we heard scuffling, then gun­shots. A shock ran through the room as we grasped each other. Old women mumbled their prayers.

  Ahmed Jasso, our mukhtar, came into the classroom, his face strained and red. Perspiration stained the armpits of his shirt. In a quivering voice, he said that if we had held back any dinar, phones, or jewelry, we must hand it over now. “Let’s just pay Daesh off and get out of the village,” he implored, reminding us that Daesh had promised to take us to Kurdistan. From behind Ahmed Jasso emerged a tall, fat man in a long, brown dishdasha with a black scarf worn loosely over his head.

  Sanaa, a girl I knew from my primary school, gripped my free arm. A woman I didn’t recognize and her four children crowded in close behind me.

  “Are you going to convert to Islam?” the fat man shouted. His booming voice bounced off the walls. The classroom was empty except for our bodies. The school had recently sold all its desks and chairs and was waiting for new ones to be delivered.

  The man was so huge he reminded me of an oak tree. He had even had to duck as he came through the door. I looked quickly at his face and then away, but not before I saw his eyes. They were dark and cold, like shiny black marbles.

  “Where are you from?” the woman with the four children called to him.

  The man tilted his head and studied the woman. A chill ran through me. I was afraid for the woman, but she was not intimidated. She stepped toward the man, her children still attached to her. “I’m a doctor in Shingal,” she said. “I’m in Kocho with my children. You need to let us go.”

  “Are you converting to Islam?” the man spat out, taking a giant step toward her. His spittle landed on the woman’s face.

  To my surprise, my mother spoke up. In a meek voice, she asked our mukhtar, “How did our men answer?”

  “They refused,” Ahmed Jasso said.

  One after another, the women in the room lowered their heads and mumbled that they wouldn’t convert—everyone except the doctor from Shingal. She moved up close to the man in the dishdasha. “You need to release us,” she said again, her voice full of authority. “All of us.”

  “What’s your name?” the man asked.

  “Manje,” she said. “And yours? Where are you from? Saudi Arabia? I can tell by your Arabic.”

  The man scratched his beard, which, like his hair, was black, curly, and coarse. Then he snickered. “Are you converting to Islam?” he asked Manje again.

  Manje shook her head slowly. The fat man snapped his fingers, and three Daesh, dressed in black and wearing face coverings, rushed into the room. One of them grabbed Manje. Her children shrieked as their mother was torn away from them. The second man pointed his rifle at the rest of us. The third held a long knife like the kind used to slaughter animals. As Manje was dragged from the room by the collar of her dress, her children tried to run after her. Other women in the room held onto them as they struggled to get free.

  The man with the knife sneered at us to get moving downstairs to the courtyard. The women and children in the room started screaming then, so loudly my eardrums rang.

  I held on tight to my mother’s hand, but as we neared the final step, I felt her hand being pried away from mine. Someone had grabbed hold of one of my arms and was twisting it. Fleshy hands pushed me out into the crowd. When I finally managed to turn around, Adlan had disappeared.

  Tears streamed down my cheeks. “Mama!” I yelled.

  I was caught up in a sea of bodies; all the women and girls and some small boys.

  Where were our men?

  Ahead of me, I could see a group of girls, including my cousin Nadia and my sisters Hadil and Majida. They were getting into the cargo bed of one of our farm trucks as Daesh men with guns stood by. Ahmed Jasso called out for us to settle down. “We’re going to Solakh,” he shouted, referring to one of the many Yazidi villages surrounding Shingal. “From there, you will be reunited with the men and we’ll head to Kurdistan.” As he spoke, he flapped his hand, indicating that we should be quiet and calm down. But his clenched teeth and furrowed forehead belied his words.

  Just then, twelve-year-old Aryan, the son of a man named Ali, pushed his way past me. Aryan’s face was red, slathered in snot and tears. He was yelling that Daesh had killed his father. “I saw, I saw,” he screamed, drowning out Ahmed Jasso, who was continuing to plead with us not to worry. “Daesh are murderers!” Ali said.

  I strained my eyes to find my brothers and Hassan. The sound of gunshots bounced against the cement. More screaming.

  My head spun, my legs weakened, and I found myself sinking toward the ground. As my body slumped forward, I saw it.

  Eivan’s taxi was buried in some sand. I grabbed it quickly and tucked it into the pocket of my sweater.

  “Eivan!” I yelled, knowing he had to be near. “Eivan!”

  A thump on my back. Hands pulling me up by my clothing. A fist in the base of my spine pushing me forward. A D
aesh soldier was shoving me and shouting at me to go with the other young women.

  I spied the huge Saudi Arabian man from the classroom in front of me. He was standing with his legs spread and his arms folded across his wide chest. His eyes were focused on something behind me. I turned to follow his gaze and saw that he was looking at Eivan.

  I took a deep breath, dug my heels into the ground, and ducked down low, out from underneath the Daesh man behind me. I darted toward Eivan and whisked him into my arms seconds before the Saudi Arabian man reached him.

  Eivan was trembling and calling out for his father. I put my lips up close to his ear and told him to shush. But he wouldn’t.

  “Who is that?” the Saudi man demanded, pointing at Eivan.

  My mind churned.

  Eivan was sobbing now. I wanted him to stop so I could think. I spied Viyan, a new mother, getting into the back seat of another one of our trucks. In her arms was her baby.

  “Who is that?” the man said again, stepping in so close I could feel his steamy breath on my cheek.

  “My son,” I said breathlessly. “My son,” I repeated in a louder voice.

  I looked down, not wanting my eyes to give away my lie.

  I watched the man clench and unclench his fists. His knuckles were hairy and big like the rest of him, and they bulged white against his brown skin. His fingernails were dirty, as if he’d been digging in dirt.

  I rocked Eivan back and forth. “Shush,” I cooed into his ear.

  “Over there,” the man eventually grunted, pointing toward the truck carrying Viyan and her baby.

  As I walked, I caught glimpses of Arab men from nearby towns. They were standing off to the side, staring, doing nothing to stop Daesh. I recognized many men, men who would drop by the house for tea with Hassan. Brahim’s Kiriv Abu Anwar was there, in the middle of the group. When our eyes met, he quickly looked away.

  I had no time to think with Eivan still crying and calling out for his father.

  Terror moved through me. What if he asked for his real mother next and my deceit was revealed? I needed Eivan to settle down and trust me.

  I moved my mouth up so that my lips touched his ear. I whispered to him about the time I’d been lost in the forest near Lalish and a butterfly rose out of the mist to guide me back to the others.

  “Has your mother told you about Khatuna Fakhra yet?” I asked, speaking as low as I could. Eivan murmured no.

  “For everything in the universe, there is an opposite. Khatuna Fakhra represents the energy of women. She is the feminine of the universe, the female part of our culture. She is an angel, a legend, a holy person. Her energy guides and protects women and girls and children. Think of her now. Like the butterfly who guided me in Lalish, she will bring you safely home again,” I told Eivan as we shifted in beside Viyan.

  Thankfully, he quieted at my words.

  Once we were in the truck, I held Eivan on my lap with his face turned inward so he couldn’t see what was happening. Beside me sat Viyan and her baby. On the other side of her a woman named Ghalya held her baby close.

  The cries of women and children amplified as more gunshots rang out, this time rapid-fire from automatic rifles followed by single shots.

  Eivan’s body turned hard and cold.

  “What’s going on?” Viyan shouted at the Daesh soldier who had hopped into the driver’s seat. He wasn’t wearing a face scarf, and I shifted so I could see him in the rearview mirror. He looked younger than me.

  Another round of gunshots rang out.

  When the soldier turned to face us, I could see that I’d been right. Our driver was just a child, barely a teenager. “We’re killing your dogs,” he said, his lip curling into a snarl.

  “You’re not killing our dogs,” I returned, startling myself by speaking up. Anger bubbled inside of me, anger at what war did to children, what it had done to my brothers Adil and Fallah, and what it was now doing to this boy, who had become one of the enemy. The driver glared at me. “All the dogs have left,” I pressed on. “They ran away when you came.”

  The boy made as if to punch me. I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them again, he was fumbling with the keys in the ignition. He didn’t even know how to turn the truck on. Finally, he got the key in properly. The engine backfired and the vehicle rocked on its wheels. Soon we began to creep through town, past Kocho’s shops and the dirt roads and paths that led to our farms, and then past our houses.

  I locked my eyes tight onto my family’s front door until eventually it faded from view.

  Chapter Six

  Prisoner

  A convoy had left Kocho, with Daesh driving us in our own vehicles. The rumble of car and truck engines was deafening at first.

  As we drove, I rocked Eivan in my arms and thought about my mother and all she had taught me about the Yazidi. “We are a strong people,” she would say. “We’ve faced and survived seventy-two genocides. Do not hate, Badeeah. This is the test of survival, to not lose one’s soul.”

  Our truck came to a stop.

  I looked up and could see that we were in Hatimiya, the village near the special hill where we Yazidi bury our dead. The convoy seemed to have left us behind.

  “What’s happened?” Ghalya demanded. “Why are we stopping here?”

  “I don’t know where we are,” the boy driver admitted, squeezing his fists tight around the steering wheel.

  “What? Where are you from?” Viyan asked him.

  “Mosul.” The boy’s voice was high-pitched.

  I jumped in. “Where are we going?” I demanded.

  “To Solakh to meet the others,” he replied curtly. “Just like your mukhtar said.”

  “And then on to Kurdistan?” My voice quivered.

  He nodded. I didn’t believe him, but I had to hang onto something, even if it was just a sliver of hope.

  “For real?” Ghalya chimed in.

  “Yes!” he shouted. “But if I don’t get you to Solakh, they’ll kill us. All of us!”

  Viyan, Ghalya, and I looked at each other, not sure what we should do.

  The child soldier glanced at us and then away, as if he had been taught not to look us in the eye. “We don’t want to hurt anyone,” he said in a shaky voice.

  “Why did they separate the men from the women?” I asked. “Why couldn’t you just have taken us straight to Kurdistan?”

  “We were afraid your men would rise up against us,” the driver said. “Separated from you, we knew they wouldn’t try to overpower us. In Solakh, we have reinforcements should your men decide to fight back.”

  “What about the gunshots?” I persisted. “Tell us the truth. You know the soldiers weren’t killing our dogs.”

  “They were just bullets shot into the air,” he said. Suddenly, I heard Aryan’s voice in my head, shouting that his father, Ali, had been killed. My head pounded. My temples throbbed. I didn’t know what to believe. I wanted this nightmare to be over.

  Ghalya leaned forward and directed the boy out of the village and onto the road to Shingal and Solakh.

  It was sunny again by now. The sandstorm was long gone, which puzzled me. In May and June, with the tem­perature and air pressure changing so fast, we expected sandstorms. Those storms didn’t come from out of nowhere and then vanish, however. Not like the storm had today. Dark clouds usually came first, heralding the storm in their wake. Whatever had happened back in Kocho was rare, like a flash of lightning on a cloudless day.

  Eivan groggily asked if we were going home.

  “No. I think we’re going to Kurdistan, where we will meet your mother and father,” I said softly in his ear. “But Eivan, you must do something for me.”

  “What?”

  “Call me Mama . . . just until we reach Kurdistan, okay?”

  “Why?” He looked up, rubbing his sleepy eyes wit
h dusty fists.

  “Because we’re playing a game,” I said, thinking fast.

  Eivan’s eyes lit up. He loved games.

  “You know that butterfly I told you about? The one that led me out of the forest and back to Lalish?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “There will be other things like the butterfly that will appear to help us. But they can only show themselves when we are still. If our heads are full of worry or we’re upset or angry, these special forces will remain hidden. The first thing to do in the game is to call me Mama. If you’re asked by anyone, you need to tell them I’m your mother. That’s part of the game.”

  Eivan’s lips parted in a weak smile.

  “Put your hand in my pocket,” I said.

  When Eivan discovered his toy taxi, his eyes danced.

  The young driver stopped the truck in front of the tech­­nical college in Solakh. My legs, cramped from sitting in the same position for so long, were stiff as I exited the vehicle. Any softness the driver had shown us disappeared as he acted tough in front of the other Daesh men. He shouted at me to hurry up, then kicked me in the back of the legs when I moved too slowly.

  I winced, reminded again of my burned leg as I hoisted Eivan into my arms.

  Once inside the building, Daesh soldiers herded us out back into the garden, where the other women and girls from our village had already gathered. Everyone wore the same expression of fear.

  “What is going on?” I asked out loud.

  “I don’t know,” I heard a familiar voice behind me say.

  Tingling all over, I turned slowly. Adlan scurried up beside me and grasped my elbow.

  Something had changed about her, I noticed. Her shoulders no longer slumped. Her eyes were not lined in dark circles. Color had returned to her face. Even her grasp was strong. A knowing rushed through me: my mother was no longer afraid.

  She gathered Eivan into her arms, and we huddled in close to each other as we scanned the garden, looking for my sisters. Cement stones drew twisting paths through tall, willowy Spindar trees and short, fat evergreens that, on any other day, I would have loved to sit near and read a book. The grass was its typical August brown.