Two Sisters

by Åsne Seierstad

  Asiyah was dressed in different outfits in the three photographs, in white and baby pink, all white, and all pink, there were teddy bears, rabbits, and bows on the clothes. In the background was a tray with mineral water and mango juice. Where was Leila getting her hands on all this baby equipment? All shiny and brand-new, there, in a war zone?

  * * *

  Allahu Akbar, Allah!

  The call to prayer sounded from several minarets in the town. Powerful and booming from those closest; deeper, with a more distant echo, from the ones farther away. There was something soothing about the beautiful male voices lifted in praise of Allah: the drawn-out a, then the sustained ll, followed by the second a, an octave higher. The voice quivering for a time before fading into akbar—and then a new Aaaaaallaaaaah.

  Following iftar, the evening meal at sundown that concluded the day’s fasting, Sadiq usually went to a local café. The women of the house remained sitting on large carpets in the yard. The evening breeze roused them and they drank tea, ate sweets, and looked at the stars. Sometimes a visitor dropped by, a relative or neighbor. Some came to ask a favor, or to offer something, or simply to chat.

  Sadiq went out the gate. The house Sara had found was the last one on the street with a wall around it. The next dwelling was made of corrugated iron, tarpaulins, old carpets, sticks, twigs, and plastic bags. The road was of earth and sand, deep potholes making it impassable for cars, allowing the children to play safely in the streets.

  There were tents and shacks lining the street farther on. And goats, always goats, lots of goats, their emaciated forms drinking rainwater and grazing on husks. Any vegetation on the ground was soon forced up by tongues and teeth and clamped between their jaws. The few trees that did grow in the city center were fenced off with chicken wire to keep the goats from them.

  Sadiq passed the tarpaulins on his way to the main street.

  The heat had subsided. He was looking forward to an espresso and a smoke, maybe there would be someone there to have a chat with. Whether it was due to his age or the years spent in Norway, he could not cope with the heat like before.

  As he savored the strong coffee, his mind began to settle after the long day of fasting. His mobile phone beeped: a text from Osman. The screen lit up. The night was dark and starry. No one used unnecessary light in Somaliland.

  “I have terrible news, my dear brother,” the message began. “We fled Raqqa. Thank God, the lads and I are safe and sound. We had to get away … the Eritrean found out about us. He has control over your daughters. I am so sorry. I cannot help your daughters now. Pray to God for us.”

  Sadiq’s head began to swim. His hands shook. It was as if the girls were dying within him. Here he was, sitting in the dust, a continent away, powerless, staring into space.

  He took the long way home.

  * * *

  Ramadan was nearing an end. The others were looking forward to Eid al-Fitr, the feast marking the end of the month of fasting. Lamb, birds, and fish would be baked with herbs, fried with vegetables, boiled and mixed with rice and pasta. The house was to shine, as were its occupants. The little boys washed one another in a large tub filled with water in the backyard. The largest mirror in the house was brought outside. It was the inside of a cupboard door, the sill of which was broken off. One by one the boys sat in a chair in front of the mirror, getting their hair cut by the family member most skilled in the use of a scissors and razor. The hair at the back of the neck was scraped short with a razor blade. The hair was to end in a defined line, straight across the nape of the neck and curved over the ears toward the forehead and afterward glazed with black Brylcreem. A steady stream of boys flocked to and from the mirror under the banisters. They turned and tilted their heads, looking at themselves from different angles, admiring the shine, studied themselves in profile, and turned to look over their shoulders to check if their newly purchased jeans looked all right from behind.

  Sara was in bed. She lay in a daze, hot and hungry. The afternoon was the warmest time of the day. Her mouth was dry. Not a drop of water until the sun went down. A week had passed since Osman had sent word that he and his men had left Raqqa. She could not face going out to see the bustling preparations.

  The telephone beside her on the bed rang. She registered a crackle on the other end of the line before she jolted awake.

  “Eid Mubarak! Blessed Eid!

  “Leila!”

  “Happy Eid al-Fitr!”

  “My little girl! We’ve been so worried about you!”

  Leila continued on, seemingly unaffected by her mother’s expression of concern.

  “We’re going to celebrate Eid at some friends’. Imran is on leave. Everything’s fine with Asiyah.”

  “And Ayan?”

  “She’s not here and doesn’t have internet where she is. Asiyah is one month old tomorrow, we’ll be celebrating her aqeeqah and I promise to send pictures! I have to go. Bye, Mom!”

  Hearing her daughter’s voice had been like receiving electric shocks. She and Sadiq had feared both Leila and Ayan could be beheaded on account of Hisham discovering their dad’s rescue plan. But now to hear, We’re going to celebrate Eid at some friends’—as though she were calling from an ordinary life, in an ordinary town, in an ordinary country.

  * * *

  Toward the end of July, Sadiq received a text from Leila.

  “Ali ibn Abi Talib said: if you wish to know where the true believers are, look where the arrows of the kuffar point. Things have been a bit hectic here with Asiyah’s aqeeqah and all the preparations around it. You should know that we are happy and well, we are safe and ALLAH has provided us with plentiful rizq. HE gave us both husbands who take good care of us and HE has blessed us with children, do not believe everything you see and hear on the news because the media have done nothing but twist the truth and mislead people.”

  Sadiq read the message aloud to Sara. They looked at each other in silence.

  “That was written by Hisham,” Sadiq said.

  Sara shook her head. “That’s how she talks now.”

  Aqeeqah was a sacrifice. Two goats were slaughtered for the birth of a baby boy and one goat for a girl. Rizq meant gifts or provisions. Sadiq read the text aloud again to see if there was anything between the lines. The preparations for their granddaughter’s feast had been hectic. As though they came from an existence filled with parties.

  A second part to the text message followed: “God has taken us from the heathens and led us to a Muslim country. A land where people love us and we love them for the sake of God. Keep in mind that God has ordained that our reward is here. Wallahi, fa wallahi, thumma wallahi, know by God, and again by God, and yet again by God that we are not brainless girls just running around aimlessly. God knows the number of books we read, the number of lectures we listened to, and the number of learned men we sought advice from prior to our departure.”

  The last part, although similar in tone, was written in Somali. Which meant Hisham could not have written it after all. But he still might have dictated it, Sadiq insisted.

  He had made his son-in-law out to be a monster that had captured, brainwashed, and gagged his daughters. Thus the girls were to be pitied, as were the parents.

  He could not admit that what he wanted was not what his daughters wanted.

  Sara opened the photographs of Asiyah in the freshly ironed baby clothes. So they were probably gifts, which Leila had written were so plentiful.

  Self-satisfied, the seventeen-year-old had told them: Keep in mind that God has ordained our reward here.

  The Islamic State’s version of: because I deserve it.

  PART V

  Hell is other people.

  —Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit, 1944

  32

  A DIFFERENT LIFE

  Sadiq entered the apartment. The smell of old dust and unoccupied rooms hit him. Everything was just as he had left it, the dishes dirty and the place untidy. He stopped in the entranceway. Except for the hum of t
he refrigerator, the one with the sticker that read ALLAH SEES YOUR HEART AND YOUR DEEDS, everything was quiet.

  If Allah looked into Sadiq’s heart, he would see a hard lump.

  He wandered around the empty apartment, jet-lagged after the flight from Hargeisa, shivering in Norway’s late-summer temperature. He had to adjust his circadian rhythms after Ramadan, after all the irregular hours he had been keeping. He had to, he really did, he needed to sort out his life.

  He made yet another plan. Or a life buoy. 1. Put the girls out of his mind. 2. Find a job. 3. Pay off his debts. 4. Everything else would fall into place. Sara would return home with the boys. Life would continue as before, only without the girls. They had made their choice. They had left. They were never coming back.

  He had to adjust to a life without them.

  A life without them.

  A different life.

  * * *

  The mail had piled up over the summer. There were letters for him, for Sara, some final demands for Ayan and Leila. They would eventually be written off as bad debts by the creditors. He opened the letters to Sara. They were bills and a demand for reimbursement from NAV. She had failed to inform them about moving to Somaliland and had therefore continued to receive child benefits. When the school reported the boys’ nonattendance, the welfare office had investigated the matter and found that Sara had broken the rules. Taking the children out of Norway meant losing the right to child support. Bærum county was demanding that the incorrect payments be refunded.

  Sadiq was informed his job seeker’s allowance was going to be stopped. Support was dependent upon his making use of follow-up assistance from NAV in order to “be in a position to gain or keep suitable employment.” The agency explained: “The recipient has to be active, is required to arrive at NAV when called in for appointments, and collaborate on a plan of activity as well as follow up on it.” The background for the warning was that “it has come to the attention of NAV that you have taken repeated trips abroad during the period when you were in receipt of job seeker’s allowance without having applied for these trips or having them approved.” The payments were dependent on “residency in Norway.”

  He also received word from Bærum county that he would have to move. There was a waiting list for larger family apartments.

  He was called in for an appointment the following week.

  At the meeting, the caseworker told him he did not need the four-room apartment. He was the only one living there, after all, now that Ismael had left for college.

  He nodded. What could they offer him?

  A one-bedroom apartment.

  * * *

  He received notice of a date to move out. He had to get rid of what was left in the girls’ half-empty closets and drawers. Go through their papers. Pack Sara’s clothes. His own. The boys’. Sheets and bedding. Towels. Pots and pans, saucers and bowls, knives and forks, kitchen utensils. He had to take down the framed poster of Mecca. The notes in Arabic. The remnants of a family life.

  Essay assignments. School reports. Science books. A whole box of unopened letters addressed to Ayan. He did not throw away any papers. He hardly threw anything out—that would require an estimation of value, is this important or not? He stuffed everything into a couple of boxes and fled. To bars and cafés. Played the drums, met friends. Sometimes Sara’s friends called him up to check if he was behaving himself. Now and then they dropped by. When people asked him how it was going, he told them he was working on a new rescue plan. That he would soon succeed.

  The plans he had made for a new life on his return were on hold. The dashed expectations, the betrayal, the loss, the ever-increasing debt weighed upon him. The spark that was Sadiq was in danger of being extinguished.

  He was broke and had borrowed money from friends for two years. He had sent a text to a couple of them when he was in Hargeisa saying he had been admitted to a hospital and needed treatment. One of them had sent him a small sum. The money had dwindled away, new clothes for the boys, food for Eid, money for school, gas, and the upkeep of the car. He owed Osman money for the last, unsuccessful rescue attempt. Expenses had accrued despite the negative outcome.

  “Come to Hatay!” Osman told him. “There’s a market for everything!” He suggested a range of ways for Sadiq to make money, and listed Sadiq’s advantages; he had a European passport, contacts in Somaliland, and access to Osman’s network in Syria.

  In Hatay, he would be closer to the girls. He would be just around the corner if they wished to get out. He could meet them at the border, in Atmeh, or he could go to Raqqa. Bring them home or die trying.

  One day Osman called him and proposed a deal. He had contacts in Syria who had gotten hold of an extremely rare and valuable substance: red mercury. It could fetch a sky-high price. The profit would be huge. Supposedly, the stuff had almost magical properties and could be used in the manufacture of dirty bombs and suitcase nuclear devices. But it was also dangerous, he warned: It was forbidden everywhere and had to be smuggled; dealers and distributors operated in the shadows.

  Sadiq weighed his options. Should he seize the opportunity to do business in Hatay, or struggle to get his old life in Norway back in order?

  He had only bad memories of that town, and what Osman was suggesting involved great risk. Besides, he had taken his first step toward securing a steady income. He had signed up for a taxi driver’s course.

  “That’s wonderful!” the caseworker in Bærum county had said. “Really great that you’re taking the initiative to find work.”

  The course was starting the Monday after next and would last three weeks. This time he would take the taxi license test, he wanted a job, yes, he wanted two jobs, three jobs, he was going to apply for a train conductor course, or be a tram driver, earn money and pay back all that he had borrowed. He couldn’t let everything continue collapsing around him any longer. No, he had to tell Osman that he would not travel to Hatay. Not now, not ever.

  NAV in Bærum had extended his job seeker’s allowance after all, and he would still receive housing support, even though the children no longer lived with him. Social services was aware of the difficulty of his situation. He did not think it unreasonable to have to move, since he no longer needed accommodation for seven people. After Ismael moved out to study nanotechnology, he no longer had children at home. He was single. Damn it, what was he sitting at home for? It was Friday night. No one to look after, no one to support. He called a friend.

  * * *

  Sara lay in the large double bed with just a sheet over her. The August heat was sticky, the air heavy. There was not a breath of wind.

  The house was finally quiet. One by one they had all fallen asleep. The children. Her sisters. Their husbands. Now it was Sara’s turn.

  The telephone rang. Sadiq. He was the only one who called at this hour. He knew the house was quiet and he could have Sara to himself. She pressed Accept.

  “Mom…”

  “Ayan?!…”

  Sara pressed the telephone against her ear. She had not heard her elder daughter’s voice since winter.

  “Mom…” Ayan repeated, her voice was weak.

  “Ayan, my girl!”

  “I’ve given birth to a daughter…”

  “God be praised!”

  “She’s beautiful. She was delivered here at home. It took soooo long, and was so painful, I’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  “Ayan, dear…”

  “I’m very tired … I need to go, just wanted to let you know: She’s fine, healthy.”

  Sara rang Sadiq. The call went straight to voice mail. At the tone, she couldn’t gather her thoughts to say anything. She rang a second time and left a message but was cut off before finishing because her credit ran out.

  Sadiq was sitting on the metro into Oslo. The city was bathed in a sudden late-summer warmth. It was still light and the air was sultry as he exited the train.

  The battery on his mobile phone was empty, so the news of a new life did not reach
him while he was in the downtown bars.

  Not until the following day, when he got home and charged his phone, did he receive the message. Another granddaughter.

  Named Sara.

  * * *

  A storm was brewing. Sudden gusts of wind caused branches to break and fall to the ground, the last of the petals were blown from the stalks, summer was over. Water streamed down the hillside, raindrops beat upon the decking outside the living room where Sadiq sat alone. All day. All afternoon. All evening. Then the night began. He sat awake through it, smoking, with a glass in his hand. He thought about Sara, about little Sara, and about the two girls who had betrayed him.

  I cannot take any more of this, he thought. Waiting for texts. The disappointment of failed rescue attempts. I want my normal life back, my normal, boring life. I want my wife on the sofa, Ismael at a party, and the girls at the mosque. I want to take the boys to the pool, without having anything on my mind except that we are going swimming. Then we can all meet here in the apartment, eat dinner, and talk. Like we used to do.

  He was hardly out of one tunnel before he was plunged into a new one. They divided, turning labyrinthine, he was walking into dead ends at every turn.

  He looked out.

  Osman logged on.

  “Anything new?” Sadiq asked.

  “Yeahyeahyeahyeah.”

  “What’s happened?”

  There was a ticking sound on the line.

  “Atmeh is under attack!”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Five rockets came down. Here, in the middle of town! It’s burning!”

  It was a smaller war within the larger one. The war in Syria consisted of hundreds of minor conflicts, many of them centuries old. They all concerned the same things: land, soil, resources. One conflict was taking place right outside Osman’s blue gate.