by Sidney Wood
She smiled as she thought of the casual regard she had for things like her laptop, Xbox and iPhone. “I’d give just about anything to have any of those now,” she thought. “Ugh,” she thought. “And my clothes…I miss my clothes!" She thought of her friend Sarah from back home. She imagined the two of them at the mall together. Suddenly, a light skinned Iranian girl was standing there with them. She looked up at Jen with tears in her eyes, and Jen awoke with a start.
It was dark in the room the four girls shared, and they shivered in the cold. Jen scooted closer to the others and tried closing her eyes again. It was quite some time before she could fall asleep. Each time she closed her eyes she saw Mara or Sarah looking at her with brimming tears. “Please, God,” she prayed. “I know you are still there, and that you hear me. I don’t understand why you have placed me here, but I am scared. I know you have a plan for me, and I am waiting for you to reveal it." She scrunched her eyes tighter and folded her hands under her chin. “Please be with my parents and comfort them. Let them know I’m okay…and Sarah too. Thank you Heavenly Father, amen."
Chapter Ten
Fouzia closed the car door and laid her seat all the way back. She closed her eyes and took a deep calming breath. She exhaled. She took another deep breath and let it out slowly. Her hands trembled as she struggled to regain control. “You can do this,” she thought. “Just turn on the car and go home."
For six months Fouzia and her husband petitioned the State Department to help find their daughter. “She is an American citizen!” they argued. It didn’t matter. The State Department had no intention of doing anything more than making one or two inquiries. In six months, the only answers they received were, “Yes, we can confirm that your daughter was kidnapped,” and, “No, we have no information as to where she might be at this time." They even asked Fouzia and Najid not to speak to the media about the situation. It was nearly the New Year, and Fouzia was at the end of her rope. She was having trouble making through an entire shift at the hospital, and it was even worse at home. She couldn’t stand being there anymore.
After five minutes, she raised her seat-back and put on her seatbelt. She pulled the visor down and looked in the small rectangular mirror. Her eyes had dark bags under them, and her cheeks looked hollow. “I look as old as I feel,” she thought. She flipped the visor back up and started the car. With practiced movements, she backed out of her hospital parking space and headed home.
It only took her twenty-five minutes to drive home. That was one of the benefits to working a swing shift. She tended to miss the worst traffic coming and going. Fouzia hit the garage door button in her visor and slowed her approach to let it rise up. She pulled forward until a fuzzy orange tennis ball barely touched her windshield and stopped. She killed the engine and left her keys in the center console. She pressed the garage door button again, clutched the small duffel bag in the passenger seat, and climbed out.
The house was depressingly quiet when she entered the kitchen through the garage man-door. “Hello?” she called out. “Not home again,” she muttered when there was no response. Najid had been spending more and more time away from home the past few weeks. Fouzia couldn’t blame him though. She was guilty of the same. She passed through the kitchen and kicked her shoes off just before the carpet. She walked tiredly up the stairs in her socks and into the master bedroom. As soon as she passed the doorway she tossed the duffel on the floor and collapsed on the bed. “So tired,” she thought. “I need to brush my teeth…”
Four and a half hours later Fouzia’s phone rang. She rolled over, onto her back and reached for the night stand. “What? Where is the night stand?” she thought. She opened her eyes and raised her head to see she was still lying sideways in the middle of the bed on top of the covers. She was still in her scrubs. She looked toward the headboard and saw the night stand beside the bed where it should be, but her phone was not there. It continued to ring and she followed the sound down to her side. “Oh, it’s in my pocket…" She said groggily. She fished it out and pressed the green phone icon.
“Hello?” she said.
“Good afternoon. I am Tom Davidson. I am an assistant to Congressman Paul Seaver, and the congressman asked me to call you on his behalf.”
Fouzia rolled her eyes and groaned. “Look, Tom, I am sure you mean well, but I just got off a long shift at the hospital and I’m tired. I don’t have the time or energy to participate in a survey or poll, or whatever this is.”
“Oh no, ma’am!” he said apologetically. “I am so sorry, that’s not what this is about. The congressman wants to meet with you and your husband to talk about your daughter." There was an awkward silence on both ends of the phone as Fouzia fought to catch her breath and Tom waited for her to respond. “Would you be able to meet sometime this week?” Tom asked.
“Yes!” Fouzia shouted, sitting up straight. Her heart was pounding and her entire body was trembling. “I’m sorry,” she laughed while wiping tears from her eyes. “I didn’t mean to yell at you, it’s just that I am so excited to finally speak with someone about her." She stood up and began pacing. “We can meet as soon as possible. You tell me when and we’ll be there.”
“Okay then,” Tom said kindly. “I understand your eagerness, and I apologize that we weren’t able to contact you sooner. The congressman read each of your letters and assures me that he is taking a personal interest in Jena’s case. I am putting you down for tomorrow at 11:15. Do you need directions to his Dallas office?” he asked.
“Tomorrow at 11:15,” Fouzia repeated as she wrote it on the inside of her forearm. “No, we’ll find it. Thank you so much! We’ll be there tomorrow." She ended the call and fell face first onto the bed again. This time it wasn’t from exhaustion. This time she was energized and her whole body hummed with excitement. She bounced up and ran for the shower. She needed to find Najid and get ready for the meeting tomorrow.
A few moments later, Fouzia was standing under the showerhead as hot water cascaded over her body. The stress and fatigue seemed to melt away under the cleansing flood. “The cleansing flood…or blood,” she considered. She remembered something Jena said to her when she was eleven. Fouzia had praised her for being extra helpful and considerate, and asked her why the big change? Jena had shrugged and replied with a smile, “I’ve been washed clean, Mom." At the time, Fouzia had passed it off as a weird response. “Sarah and her family are Christians…” thought Fouzia. She held her hand to her mouth and laughed. “Oh my goodness! Was my Little Bird trying to tell me she was saved?” she thought excitedly. Her head swam with random memories, trying to make connections. “She began to act differently when she was eleven or twelve. She spent more and more time at Sarah’s house, and always returned with questions about faith and why we believe what we believe."
Fouzia’s heart suddenly felt heavy. It was as if instead of a heart, her chest was filled with solid lead. She succumbed to the overwhelming weight and sunk to her knees. She doubled over and cried great heaving sobs as the water continued to spray and wash over her. “Dear God,” she prayed as she cried. “I’ve known you my whole life as Allah. Somehow I always knew that something was wrong. I never truly believed that my God, Allah, could sanction the ruin of so many innocent children and the rape and abuse of so many innocent women. Did you save my Little Bird? Do you watch over her now? Please, dear God, save my daughter! Wash me clean with the blood of Jesus like you washed her. Take my sins and give me my daughter, God! Take my life if you must, but let my Little Bird live!" She rocked on the shower floor as she prayed out loud. “Please forgive me!”
“Fouzia?” Najid shouted from outside the bathroom. “Are you home?"
Fouzia reached up slowly and turned off the shower. The last of the water washed over her and slipped down the drain. She gracefully stood up, cleansed and renewed. She wrapped a soft cotton towel around her body and walked out of the bathroom to greet her husband. Without a word, she met him on the stairs and took him in a warm embrace. It was the
first real physical contact they shared in many days. He hugged her back and she whispered, “I love you Najid,” in his ear.
He kissed her cheek and they walked up the stairs together. Fouzia put some comfortable house clothes on while Najid unwound and changed out of his work clothes. They both sat on the bed and Fouzia shared the news of the meeting with him.
“That’s wonderful news, dear,” he said. “But, please don’t get too hopeful about it. There isn’t much chance that he will do anything he promises, even if he can."
“I choose to hope, my husband,” she said with a confident smile. She placed her hand on his.
Najid withdrew his hand and asked, “Why do you do this to yourself? Why do you do this to us? Don’t you realize she’s gone?”
Fouzia didn’t let the hurt she felt from his withdraw and accusation show. She calmly said, “Until I know for certain that she is not coming home, I will continue to hope.”
Najid looked at her suspiciously. “You’ve been sulking for weeks. When I see you, you are always tired." He stopped there and hung his head. “We both are." He turned his bowed head to look at her. “Today you greet me with a kiss; you smile and speak about hope. What is going on with you?” he asked.
Fouzia smiled, leaned close and whispered, “I’ve been washed clean.”
He gave her a questioning look, and shook his head. He stood up and went downstairs to watch TV.
Chapter Eleven
Jen held her hands out and looked away. She heard the loud snap of the switch and felt the sharp pain on her hands almost immediately. She cried out and jerked her hands back. The man in brown spoke and his men forced her hands back out in front of her. Jen struggled to get away, but they were too strong. She closed her eyes tightly and screamed when she heard the snap again. This time the pain was more intense. A third strike was administered before Jen was dragged back to the building and thrown into the girls’ living area. It was June, and only three of the original group remained.
During the first six months in the compound things had loosened up a bit and the girls had grown closer. The next six months had proven to be the opposite. Things were getting much stricter and the girls who remained were being driven apart. The other two girls were constantly turning on each other, and now on Jen, to curry favor or to take the focus off of their own mistakes. Jen had just taken the punishment for a ruined supper, something she had no hand in. The girl who actually mismanaged the fare blamed Jen, knowing she wouldn’t be able to properly articulate a defense.
Other girls arrived sporadically in ones and twos. Most of them were young, only five or six years old. None of them was older than nine. They were sold or given away to Jihadists fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, ISIS, nearly as fast as they arrived.
Jen learned that she was living in Northern Syria, near the Turkish border. This compound was a rest and resupply stop for ISIS soldiers fighting along the border. The man in brown was particularly proud of their supporting role in the fall of Raqqa, to the south.
Jen held her bruised and swollen hands against her belly and curled up on the floor. She would not get to eat tonight and possibly tomorrow. Her stomach was already growling. More and more soldiers were coming through the compound, sometimes too many to accommodate all at once. Several times, there had been companies of soldiers camped outside the compound waiting for their turn to come inside. The soldiers were priority. They were fighting for Allah, and they ate first. When there was food left over, the girls were allowed to eat. They found ways to get by, hiding a little here and there, and stealing from the store room when they could.
The one grace that continued to give Jen reason to praise God, was that she had not been given away or sold as a wife or sex slave to one of the Jihadists. “Thank you, Heavenly Father, for watching over me and keeping me safe. I am not at home, but I am alive and I am whole.” She prayed every day.
The next morning, Jen awoke when the door opened. It was still early, and the sun had not yet appeared over the mountains. The old woman beckoned her to come and waited for her in the open doorway. Jen got up and followed her obediently. The woman brought her to the cooking shack and instructed her to quickly make a meal to feed four men. They were very important, so Jen was to take special care. The woman knew Jen was a competent cook. She also knew the other girl who accused Jen was not. She had not tried to stop the punishment, and Jen knew she never would. The woman didn’t care about them. She just cared that the work got done and punishment, right or wrong, sent a strong message to everyone.
Jen began setting out the pans and utensils she would need to make breakfast. Once the woman left, Jen took a cup of water and hurried behind the building to take care of her morning hygiene. On the way back she ducked into the store room and collected the ingredients she would need. She found what she needed, but shook her head at the state of their supplies. The stores were getting dangerously low.
She set about cooking and began quietly singing as she worked. “It’s been a long day without you my friend, and I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again…" She hummed the rest and danced inconspicuously while she chopped and stirred, and then fried the scramble she prepared in an iron skillet. She heard the popping and grinding of rubber tires on gravel approaching.
Jen saw a silver colored SUV with darkened windows pull into the compound and stop. For a moment, it reminded her of her dad’s Jeep Cherokee. All four doors opened, and four men dressed in western clothing stepped out. Jen’s heart stopped and jumped into her throat. “Oh my God! Are they here to rescue me?" Her hands immediately started to shake, and her eyes filled with tears. She looked down at the skillet she was tending and couldn’t see through her tears. She wiped her eyes with a dirty sleeve and looked up again. The men were being greeted warmly by the man in brown. Jen’s heart fell. “I see." She looked up to the sky and thought, “In your time, I guess." She looked back down at the food and muttered out loud, “Your timing sucks.”
Three of the men were brutish looking, with close cropped hair, tight black t-shirts and khaki pants. Jen thought they must be some kind of private security. They carried AK-47 rifles in tactical slings, and at least one pistol holstered on their belt or on their leg. They surveyed the compound and seemed to have assigned sectors of responsibility. Jen noticed they all stayed slightly behind the fourth man.
He was a slender man, and stood shorter than most of the men who came through the camp. To Jen, he looked Pakistani or Indian. He had ruddy brown skin, jet black hair and glasses. Jen guessed he was probably about twenty-five. He also wore khakis, but unlike the others he wore a white button-down shirt with pink pinstripes. “He looks like a college professor, or a doctor,” thought Jen. She stirred the scramble and placed a tin lid over it.
On a separate burner, she seared strips of goat meat slathered with oil and garlic. The smell was quite different from the mouth watering food Aunt Fatima had prepared on Jen’s first night in Tehran, but it was still quite appealing. Jen’s stomach was grumbling at being denied a taste. She ignored it and checked the water pot. It was just starting to boil. Jen turned all of the burners down and set plates, cups and silverware on the wooden serving table near the door. She scooped the last of the coffee into a small bowl with a spoon and placed it next to a coffee press that already sat on the table.
Jen stood ready, with her head down, when the men came to get their meal. The three guards were first. The smaller man was still talking to the man in brown as Jen served them. When the guards were seated, the man in brown went back inside his building and the small man walked quietly to the cook shack. He picked up the last plate on the table and held it out for Jen to fill. She dutifully filled his plate with a large scoop of the scramble and three strips of steaming meat. As she laid the third meat strip on his plate he grasped her arm.
Jen was startled and pulled back instinctively. He held firm and set his plate down with his other hand. He pushed her sleeve back to reveal the badly bruised a
nd swollen hand. Jen heard him make “Tsk,” noises. “I am a doctor, let me see your other hand,” he said.
“He is speaking English!” Jen thought excitedly. She held her other hand out for him to inspect.
“Oh my gosh,” he said when he saw the same damage on the other hand. “Put the tongs down for pity’s sake." Jen obeyed and he looked at her face with surprise. “You understand me?” he asked.
Jen nodded and looked down modestly.
“You speak English?” he asked excitedly. Jen nodded again and continued to look down. “Where are you from?” he asked. “Are you American?”
Jen dared to look up choked when she said, “I’m from Dallas. Yes, I’m American.”
“You were born there?” he asked. Jen nodded. “And you have had regular medical care?”
“My mother is a doctor,” Jen answered.
The doctor let go of her hands and turned away from the table. He walked quickly to the door where the man in brown had gone. One of the guards stopped eating and jumped up to join him. The smaller man knocked on the door and called for the man in brown. Jen watched with interest. She wondered if she was in greater trouble, or if a miracle was happening.
When the man in brown came out, the two men talked animatedly. The doctor repeatedly pointed to Jen as he argued. The man in brown shook his head and gestured at the compound as a whole. The doctor turned to the man behind him and gestured at the SUV. The guard walked over to the vehicle and opened the rear lift gate and reached inside. He returned with a suitcase and set it on the ground between the men. He stood just beside it, no longer behind the smaller man, and he placed his hand on the AK-47 in a firing grip. The other two guards stood up and moved closer. Each of them also placed a hand on their rifle. The doctor squatted down and opened the suitcase. He pulled a stack of multi-colored currency out and closed the suitcase. He stood up and confidently held the money out to the man in brown.