Two Sisters

by Åsne Seierstad

  Ayan’s class was called to the stage. Hanne had been wondering if Ayan would show up and was happy when she caught sight of her among the crowd. She must have enjoyed some of her time here, then, she thought, in spite of the conflicts and the uncompromising tone of that last e-mail. Ayan went up onstage with the rest of the class.

  It was getting to her letter of the alphabet. Would she stand demonstratively, refuse to approach when her name was called? No, the graduate walked over to Hanne, accepted the rose, and returned to her seat.

  Ayan received no diploma, only an academic transcript. Among the Bs and Cs, and the A+ in oral Norwegian, NA—not assessed—was printed in the space for physical education. A failing grade, in other words. Her refusal to take part in gym class was the demise of her diploma. Until she repeated and passed phys ed, her other grades were worth nothing. Her certification was insufficient for further education at a college or university.

  Two years earlier she had harbored ambitions of being the first person in her family to further herself academically. Now she was finished with second-level education, without any qualifications.

  On her way out of the school building for the last time, she passed the wall with quotations. One was attributed to Nelson Mandela, even though it was by an English poet in Victorian times. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.

  She had made up her mind.

  I am the master of my fate.

  18

  THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION

  One morning, at the start of the school year in autumn 2013, one of the department heads at Rud Upper Secondary was looking out the window. From his office he could easily survey the entrance the pupils were now crowding in. A female figure in black approached. She looked as if someone had thrown a black sheet over her and fastened a schoolbag on her back. He hurried down the stairs and intercepted the black-clad figure as she came in the door.

  “Hi,” he said. “My name’s Totto Skrede. Who are you?”

  Leila introduced herself.

  “You’ll have to remove that.” He pointed to her niqab.

  “No problem,” Leila replied, and took it off.

  “Yes, that’s the way we want it here.” Skrede nodded. The recent county school administration committee meeting was fresh in his mind, and he remembered Hanne Rud, the principal at Dønski, informing them in detail about the decision reached by Akershus county. Covering up at school was not permitted. Everyone’s face had to be visible.

  The following day he was again sitting by the window. The same thing happened! The girl entered the building wearing the niqab. He went down to head her off.

  “That has to be removed.”

  “I was just about to take it off,” Leila replied.

  “It’s to be removed on the pavement outside. It has to be off before you set foot on the steps to the school,” Skrede stressed.

  That year, IMDi—the Directorate of Integration and Diversity—was raising awareness about genital mutilation and forced marriage. The county authority had employed an adviser who, as it happened, had an office right there at Rud Secondary School. Perhaps the girl should be considered at risk in some way?

  Leila’s form teacher called her parents in for a meeting. They did not come.

  She decided to leave it for the time being, get in touch with them again later. The teacher thought Leila was interesting, a pupil displaying more maturity than the others in the health care, child and youth development curriculum, which this year was composed solely of females. The girl came across as being comfortable in her own skin and confident, bordering perhaps on overconfident, always seeming to think she was right.

  The teacher had also noticed she did not socialize with her classmates. She made no attempt at small talk, didn’t hang around with any of the others, preferring to go pray in a room at the disposal of those who wished to use it. Sometimes she did not turn up at all. That was a worrying sign. In the teacher’s experience, absenteeism increased as the year progressed. Taking that as a basis, Leila was off to a bad start.

  But it wasn’t a bad start, it was a cover-up.

  Despite the smokescreen, Leila did leave a few clues about what was really occupying her. After only a week at Rud, she changed her profile picture on Facebook. The new one paid tribute to Anwar al-Awlaki, a man known as the “bin Laden of the internet.” In a lecture titled “Call to Jihad,” he explains in detail why it is every Muslim’s religious duty to kill Americans. In another online video, in an almost placid tone, he instructs al-Qaida militants how to mix chemicals to make bombs. He calmly reminds them to tape screws and nails around the device to render it even more effective. Red-hot metal shrapnel will then bore itself into the bodies around where the bomb detonates.

  Barack Obama had placed al-Awlaki on a list of people who could be killed by the CIA, which he was, in a drone attack in Yemen in 2011. He was the first American citizen in recent history executed without judicial supervision by his own president. In the wake of the drone strike, Obama stated that al-Awlaki had been “removed from the battlefield.” But the terrorist leader had in no way been removed from the virtual battlefield.

  * * *

  While Leila was at school, Ayan spent her days online. In addition to religious sites, she had begun checking out new types of videos. Laura in the Kitchen presented recipes for fatty American fare, from mac and cheese to peanut brownies and cinnamon rolls. Make popsicles from Nutella, Laura said, laughing. Bake a meat pie, the brunette suggested as she smiled and licked her lips. Show Me the Curry demonstrated how to make Asian dishes. Somali Food described cuisine from her parents’ homeland. On one site, Ayan studied cooking suited to simple conditions: NoSpoonsHereCooking—how to make food without measuring or weighing.

  She also spent a good deal of time seeking out tips for housekeeping, visiting sites with names like Decorate Your House, Learn to Sew, Create Magic in Your Home. She sat at the computer and hungered, for magic, for real life to begin.

  On Twitter, her profile was more political than before. Her first tweet that autumn, after a considerable hiatus, concerned jihad al-nikah—sex jihad. The phrase incensed Ayan. “By now you have probably already heard of the harem of Tunisian sex-warrior slaves heading to Syria in order to give up their young bodies to the appetites of ravenous rebels … and coming back to the country with bellies full of jihadi babies,” the website muslimmatters.org noted, reassuringly adding: “There is no evidence!”

  Ayan was outraged that the pure intentions of these women were dragged through the mud. By making hijra, emigration, you were washing away your previous sins, and here it was being presented as if you were traveling to Syria to commit fresh ones!

  The story drew attention when a Lebanese TV channel reported that the Saudi Arabian preacher Muhammad al-Arefe, who had several million followers, had issued a fatwa allowing the gang rape of Syrian women. An Arabian website followed up; the same man had encouraged Muslim women to travel to Syria and have sex with the fighters to keep morale up. The Tunisian minister of the interior said women were being tricked into going to Syria and returning pregnant.

  The sheikh denied having issued the fatwa. No human rights groups found any evidence that women had traveled on jihad al-nikah. The minister did, however, have a motive for circulating the story. In terms of percentage of the population, Tunisia was the country with the most young people traveling to join the ranks of the jihadists. Perhaps fewer would be tempted if they were branded as whores.

  The majority of Ayan’s posts were still Islamic words of wisdom. She petitioned God for protection with the hashtag #Pray4Syria. “If all you can do is pray, then pray hard!”

  For her part, she was going to do more than pray, and she was not going to do it alone. She’d have to bring along Leila, who slept on the bunk over her. “Above all other things, the one thing that I found to benefit a person most is a suitable companion,” she retweeted from greatmuslimquotes.com.

  One by one, her friends had pulled ou
t. For her it was beginning to be a matter of urgency. All the unopened bills and reminders were stacking up in the box at the top of the wardrobe. Ayan had received letters from several banks, from all the mobile operators she had subscriptions with, then finally from the execution and enforcement commissioner containing a summons to appear before the arbitration board. All she had to do was leave the letters unopened, not show up in court. But sooner or later someone would turn up on the doorstep.

  One week after her sixteenth birthday, a day before boarding a flight to Turkey, Leila changed her Facebook profile picture one last time. In red writing it now read: “MUJAHIDAH: A caring wife for a mujahid today, and loving mother of the mujahid tomorrow.”

  Ayan had also found a suitable companion in Syria. It turned out he had been living just up the road from her all these years:

  The Eritrean, the Dønski boy, the widower—Hisham.

  After the death of his wife at the Rabita Mosque, his child’s maternal grandparents had been looking after Hisham’s infant. It was only now, in October 2013, five months after the death, that the police had launched an investigation to establish whether there was any connection between the exorcism and the cardiac arrest. But by now all the recordings from the cameras had been erased and no one could say what had taken place prior to or during the incident.

  The case would be dropped.

  Anyhow, the widower was again engaged.

  There’s no such thing as halal dating, it’s called marriage. As soon as Ayan arrived, they were to be wed.

  The Skype ringtone sounded on her laptop. She clicked on the telephone receiver symbol. They never talked with the camera on.

  “Salam aleikum.”

  “Aleikum salam…”

  Hisham told her about his house and car, life among the other fighters. He asked her to click on the camera icon. She put on her niqab and placed her finger on the symbol. She saw him. He saw her eyes.

  “So how did you become ‘radicalized,’ then?” he asked, in a flirty way. He chuckled softly. “Aren’t you actually an Islam Net girl?” In other words, a girl who did not go all the way, one who halted at the threshold.

  “No, I am not! I’ll show you,” Ayan replied.

  “Lift your veil, then,” he said.

  She raised it and showed him her face.

  “Take it off,” he challenged.

  She took it off.

  PART III

  MASHA: It seems to me that one must have faith, or must search for a faith, otherwise life is just empty, empty … To live and not to know why the cranes fly, why babies are born, why there are stars in the sky … Either you must know why you live, or everything is trivial, not worth a straw.

  —Anton Chekov, Three Sisters, 1901

  19

  DANSE MACABRE

  My daughters would never have left. My daughters always asked permission. They would never try to fool me. These were the thoughts going around and around in Sara’s mind.

  But then they were brainwashed.

  Somebody brainwashed them.

  It was not the girls’ fault.

  It was not their parents’ fault.

  Someone or something out there was to blame.

  The internet?

  An aquaintance?

  Because her daughters would never have left.

  Two weeks had passed since Sadiq had gone after them, first to Turkey, then on to Syria. It was a muddle to her. On TV she saw bombs, war, shooting, houses in ruins, people fleeing. She had been a teenager herself when the civil war in Somalia raged around her. She had fled, had rescued her daughters from war, and now they had, what, returned willingly? No, it was impossible.

  Sara had fled to Norway for them. For them!

  Had it been up to her, she would have lived at home in Hargeisa. Yes, she had friends here, in Bærum too, but it was not the same as having your family, your relations, your sisters around you. She was acutely aware of that.

  For the first time in her life she had to tackle everything on her own. Sadiq had always taken care of things. Sara had never so much as opened a letter. Money matters were her husband’s responsibility. The family often lived beyond their means. It was not uncommon for Sadiq to go to the social welfare office toward the end of the month to ask for extra money.

  She rang her husband several times a day. Have you found the girls? Heard anything? Haven’t they called?

  They were lifelines for each other. She needed to hear his voice and he hers. They had to be together on this.

  The days grew shorter. Darkness fell earlier. The most everyday things upset her, like seeing the girls’ toothbrushes in the bathroom, finding hair ties under the sofa, going into their room where their shawls lay folded. Sniffing their scent on them …

  She had not heard from her daughters since the day they left. They had made a huge mistake, but she had already forgiven them. They had to come home, then they could talk about it.

  The verdict within the Somali community was harsh. They were critical of Sadiq as a father and Sara as a mother. The opinion in Somali chat rooms was that their daughters had taken off to Syria because he was too liberal and she was too stupid. Their leaving was a punishment from God.

  Sara was in the kitchen preparing dinner when the telephone rang.

  “Mom!”

  “Ayan!”

  “We’re in Syria!”

  “I know! Your father’s there too!”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because of you!”

  “How did he get in? Why has he come?”

  “To get the two of you!”

  “Oh…”

  “Ayan, come home with him, bring your little sister, come back. I’ll give you his number. Please, I beg of you, do as I ask, call him and come back home with him!”

  “Wallahi, he’s crazy!” her daughter groaned.

  Sara gave her his number. Then she called Sadiq.

  “The girls rang me! They will ring you now!”

  Sadiq, who was sitting in Osman’s backyard smoking, jumped to his feet, embraced his host, and shouted. “The girls are about to call me now!”

  But they did not call.

  Not that day, not the next one, nor the day after that. Sara was the only one who rang him, over and over.

  As Sadiq was not there to drive the boys to school, she was taking the bus with them every morning and picking them up in the afternoon. It was wearing her out and keeping her going. When the refrigerator began to empty and the dry goods ran out, she and a friend went to NAV and explained the situation. She was granted a payout to cover the immediate necessities and an extra allowance for food in November, in addition to benefits for rent and electricity.

  Sara had attended a few Norwegian-language classes but never learned much. On her certificate she had almost two hundred hours of “unauthorized absence.” She had never put any effort into learning Norwegian, had never looked at a lesson plan, didn’t understand what the letters from the school said, couldn’t read the notes sent home from Isaq’s kindergarten or from the kids’ schools. If there was something she was interested in on the news, she asked the children or her husband to translate for her.

  Sadiq, who had been tenacious in learning Norwegian, claimed to know the reason Sara had never bothered to learn the language. “Sara comes from an arrogant family,” he said. “To learn a new language, you need to be willing to make mistakes, and Sara could not countenance that. Her arrogance is like a membrane against knowledge. It’s beneath her dignity to strive.”

  Three years earlier, NAV had organized a job for her at a discount store, in order for her to gain the relevant work experience to enter the job market. The job description was “customer service, cash register, stocking, tidying, and keeping the premises clean.” Upon returning from her first day she complained to Sadiq.

  “They’re treating me like a slave, giving me the most demanding tasks. They have me standing on a ladder stacking shelves.”

  Sadiq replied tha
t if she learned Norwegian she could work the till.

  “I don’t like the till,” she responded. “I don’t like numbers.” She was exhausted after each working day and cursed the job. One bright night in June, the chain store’s warehouse was gutted by fire, causing the temporary closure of the shop, prompting Sadiq to joke that Sara had been behind it.

  “You had it in for that place,” he teased. Sara was never called back after her apprenticeship ended.

  She sat on the sofa looking out at the terrace. The junk silhouetted like a ramshackle ruin against the dim sky. Piles of boxes with things they might one day need lay on top of one another, collecting autumn leaves and bird droppings. The pains in her body were no longer diffuse. They were concentrated in her chest. In her stomach. In her heart. Loss. Sorrow. Deceit. She longed to feel the warmth of her daughters’ cheeks. The Somali sun. Life as it had been.

  The doorbell sounded. Two women stood outside. Sara invited them in.

  When they left, she had no idea who they had been or what their names were, but they had looked kind and she thought they might be teachers. They had told her to let them know if there was any way they could help. She had asked for money.

  A few days later they returned and handed her an envelope. There were 9,000 kroner inside. The teachers from Rud Upper Secondary had managed to find some money in the budget for social measures. Leila had left the school but Ismael was still a pupil there. They did not want to leave him in the lurch.

  * * *

  Osman’s backyard was always filled with men. There were soft chairs and low tables in the shadow of the grapevines, and mattresses lay flat along the wall with cushions to rest your back against. Smugglers and militia leaders sat around gossiping, smoking, drinking tea, and making plans.

  The house lay behind a blue gate with sharpened spikes, and the cement top of the high wall surrounding the yard was covered with shards of glass. The stiff desert wind carried anything lying loose along with it, and plastic bags, string, lengths of rope, and all manner of lightweight litter were blown onto the wall and impaled.