I hesitate, no words in my head, and when they come they stumble out.
‘I want a man who embodies all the strength and grace God has given us as a species, so together we can help our great civilization to triumph.’
I’m not sure what I’ve said makes any sense. With this man of deep faith and real learning listening to me I suddenly appreciate how little I really know, and I watch his face closely for signs of a reaction. If he has one I don’t see it. His skin is grainy like pumice stone.
‘This is Abu Khalil al-Hazmi,’ he says, opening his hand towards the young brother. ‘He is a mujahid who has distinguished himself in battle and in service of Allah, may He be praised. A serious Muslim. It pains me to say that not every young fighter is as serious, but it takes many types of craftsman to build a house. Yes?’
I nod, nervous still, excited. I don’t mind how slowly He is talking because I cannot believe what he’s saying. Never before in my life has a dream like this come true. When people say their heart flutters? Mine feels like it wants to break loose and fly round the room. While Imam Talib talks I give thanks to Allah, and wonder at His generosity.
‘His father was Abu Fayiz al-Hazmi, who was a fighter for Islamic State in Iraq. A great man, and a great friend. His son is precious to me, and so is the question of his bride.’ He turns to Abu Khalil. ‘What do you look for in your wife, my son?’
He pauses, glances at me, and thinks about it – not because he’s nervous too but because he’s confident enough to take his time – and when he speaks his voice is like the evening outside, warm, and light, and full.
‘Someone who in devotion and eloquence will match the strength of my faith,’ he says, and his eyes stay on mine. They are so pure, so deep. I see the smile in them, and know I am that woman.
20
Aziz called; called and called again. How Abraham wanted to pick up. Maybe Vural was wrong about him. Maybe Vural was deliberately wrong, and had his own reasons for wanting Sofia to stay where she was.
One of them was lying, but what Vural had said, that it was impossible to get anyone out unless she really wanted to leave – that was plainly true. It was one thing rescuing prisoners, another to rescue the guards. Every argument ended in the same place. But the universe didn’t care about argument. God wanted faith, not thought. What if the only way to recover his daughter was to sacrifice everything else – pay the money, be left with nothing, take the same crazy step into nothingness that she had taken?
At least it would be doing something.
Abraham watched the phone and let it ring out.
21
— I think I have found the one
What do you mean, sister?
— a husband. This evening. The head of the makkar took me, specially, like we were a prince and princess or something
You are married?
— tomorrow
So quick. Who is he sister?
— the most beautiful man I think I ever saw
Are you sure he is the one? Beauty is not everything.
— He has ordained it swt. It feels like it was always meant to be, like the sun coming up in the morning. He’s a warrior and the son of a warrior. I feel like I’m in a story!
Make sure he is good to you.
— he has the most noble spirit I can see it in his eyes, they burn with fire and faith.
You are so young sister.
— in my heart I am ready. u must not fear these things. when u come here u will feel it urself, all doubts will disappear
I have to go.
— okay sister you take care and wish me luck!
22
Khalil and I are husband and wife.
My husband! I can’t believe I get to say those words. I will never tire of saying them.
Imam Talib married us, in his house. I wore my best abaya, which is the same as the others but had never been used. Khalil wore a thawb that belonged to his father, in memory of him and his brave death. Part of me wishes that I had a father who was worth remembering, but at least now I have someone to talk to about things like that. I’ve never had anyone before, not directly, anyway, face to face. I can’t wait to get to know him!
Badra was there, and the Imam’s wife, and Umm Karam, and Idara. We didn’t need anyone else. Two minutes, two simple, profound vows, and it was done.
At the end of the ceremony my husband and I kiss, and his lips are strong and tender and so, so sweet. My first kiss. The whole world is there.
I hope it’s as good for him. I’m sure it means as much.
We have tea, and cakes dripping with honey, and afterwards Khalil drives me away across the city. It’s the middle of the day and I can feel the heat pressing down on his car, a Toyota that feels nearly new, it has that smell. I ask him where he got it but he won’t tell me – says it will spoil the surprise. There’s an ISIS flag strapped across the bonnet, and as we left he tied a black headscarf round his head and picked up his gun. I realize as we drive that Raqqa is now open to me. I’m not just married – I’m married to an ISIS fighter, and no one will ever stand in our way.
Yesterday, out with Badra in the city for the first time, I felt excited, but now it’s like I’m a new being altogether. As I look around at the sandy buildings and the dusty roads and the black fighters I have this sense that I understand it all, how it fits together, how it was made, what it’s for. It’s like I suddenly speak a new language. The language of His will.
We see a patrol, two trucks that have pulled over a civilian car on one of the main roads, and as we pass Khalil winds down the window and gets me to pass him his gun and fires three bursts into the beautiful blue sky. The noise goes right through me, it thrills me like the sound of thunder or the crash of waves.
‘Allahu Akbar!’ he shouts, and I shout with him, and I know that we are joined by one energy, one light, one faith.
This is a nice building. You can tell it’s well built. He presses the button but the light doesn’t come on and after listening for a moment he smiles and says, ‘Electricity,’ and taking my hand we walk up the stairs.
We stop two flights up, on a landing with a door at either end. He takes the keys, selects one, and hands it to me. With a nod, he gestures to the door on the left.
Oh my God. This is ours.
I turn the key in the lock and the door opens into a hallway with so many doors leading off it I can’t take them all in. I look at Khalil, and he shuts the door before turning to me.
‘Our home,’ he says. ‘You can take off your veil now.’
Even that is like the most beautiful shock to me. Of course I can. This man is now my mahram. I unhook the veil and stand before him as his wife. He bends down to kiss me – he’s so tall, I come up to his shoulders – and for the second time that day his lips are on mine. This is a longer kiss, and still it feels so right. Skin above and beard below, the best of both worlds.
‘Come. Look.’
He takes my hand and almost pulls me round the flat – he’s as excited as I am. It’s all perfect, like a show flat. The sofa in the sitting room still has plastic on it. Whose was this, I ask, and Khalil tells me it was some Shia family, he doesn’t know anything else.
Two bedrooms, both white and clean. Khalil leads me into the bigger one, bright from the sun pouring in through the net curtains. He stands me by the bed and looks into my eyes and in his I see sparks of fire burning in the blue. I don’t know if I’m equal to it, that intensity. It’s like half of me is being pulled up to him and the other half is heavy on the ground. Can he possibly be seeing in me what I’m seeing in him? Yes. Yes, we were meant to be. This is ordained. I’m in the way, and I close my eyes, breathe, and tell myself to have faith. That’s better. His breath is sweet and there’s heat coming off him and even before I touch him I can sense his strength, the fullness of his chest that doesn’t give when I lay my hand on it. The softness of his lips and the scratch of his beard.
That slow fire begins to burn in me. I reali
ze I’ve never really known it until now, just a hint of it. Up and through, until it’s in my fingers and my cheeks and every part of me seems to be vibrating like life itself. It’s in him as well, I see it. Feel it in him as he holds me.
His grin disappears for a moment as he pulls his thawb over his head, and soon he is as God made him. Energy seems to run round him like blood. A thin trail of hair leads down from his belly button. Everything about him is as it should be. Fear rolls through me, I can’t help it – of not knowing what lies ahead, of not being ready for him, of not being worthy. I think there’s fear on my breath. I’m sure there is, my mouth has gone dry and sour. His body is perfect, a warrior’s body, and like there are little lights in them I’m conscious of every flaw on mine. My ankles. My wide hips. My skin. I’m not a physical person, my path has been different.
He starts to pull up my abaya but I stop him and tell him to close the curtains. I take off my abaya as smoothly as I can and fold it and lay it on the ground. I trip on my jeans and everything seems to be taking so long, it’s like every graceful thing he does I’m matching with clumsiness. But soon I’m naked, and in the half-light Khalil smiles, and the smile gives me faith. I am as God made me, too. I am standing in my home, wife to my husband, servant to my God. To doubt Khalil is to doubt God’s plan. My anxieties are just echoes, nothing more.
Khalil watches, smiles, comes to me, runs his hands up and down my back. Somehow I know I am with a great fighter, his righteousness and his beauty proclaim it.
He lays me down on my back, kisses my breasts and my stomach, lays his weight on me and before my faithless brain finds anything more to say, we are one. One being, one flame. There is pain, but like the fear it starts to go, swirled away into the wholeness of us, and I find myself thinking that this is like my crossing the border – without some struggle, it would mean less, or nothing. I hold Khalil tight, this man I hardly know and yet know better than anyone I have ever known, feel his sweat mix with mine, and wonder if it’s the same for him.
We move together, and then it’s done. An instant, and an eternity. The flame dies, but I continue to burn as he lies heavy inside me.
Now we are truly husband and wife.
I tell him I love him, and he tells me he loves me, and we lie in our bed – the marital bed! – and hold each other, eyes locked. He seems satisfied. I know he isn’t a shallow man, a restless kafir, but still I want to perform my duties as a wife to the standard he deserves. Between my fingers his beard is soft as I twirl and twist it. I can feel him relaxing into sleep. It’s warm in here and the only light is two bright shafts coming through the cracks in the curtains. Part of me would like to talk to him, because we haven’t talked, not yet, but he’s been on the battlefield for three weeks and right now he needs to rest. I watch him for a while, breathing so slow, and the rhythm of it finally makes me calm like a lioness in the shade in the middle of the day.
23
Sister!!! It has happened! I am married! He swt has provided!
So happy so happy so happy. So blessed. #iswearthekhilafaisthejannah
Now I am truly here sister. Now I am truly free!
Sister come! Come. Every moment you waste on the kafirs is an insult to Him swt.
Sister where are you?! I wish you were here to share my joy!
24
Even whisky on top of two pills barely touched him. The Turkish stuff tasted okay but there was no fire in it – it dulled but it didn’t warm and God he needed warmth, against the cold that sat at the heart of him and in every eye he caught. They knew. They all knew, and if they didn’t hate him for his complicity they scorned him for his weakness. He had lost his wife to disease and his daughter to the devil and at least one of them was his fault.
Tonight he was sitting at the bar, and for an hour or two or God knows how long Erol kept him topped up, and then there came a moment when he wouldn’t pour any more. Effendi, he said – home. Effendi, please. Abraham could see the pity and concern in the man’s face and knew they were genuine. Good for us we can’t communicate. If he knew what I’d done – what I’d let happen – he wouldn’t have me in here at all. He’s as much a fool as I am. All fools. All the drinkers, trying to drown our responsibilities in this muck and all we dissolve is our wits.
Why did she hate him? Being here forced the question that had been waiting beneath his thoughts. For taking away her friends and her life and dropping her on the edge of a vast, cold city, that was why, and it was enough, surely – even if it had been unavoidable, because the decision could have been made no other way; the help Ester had needed couldn’t be found in Cairo. But that wasn’t the reason. The reason wasn’t too much reality but not enough of it. He’d never mourned. His wife was gone as surely as if she were dead and he’d let the pain sit in a corner of his soul, screened off, unfaced, deadened to an ache that never left him.
There was poison. It had made them both sick, and when those men came to groom her they found traces in her system already.
They hadn’t started it. He had. All this was on him.
‘Erol. My friend. Tell me. You have children?’
It took a moment, but Erol understood.
‘Evet. Children. Yes. Two children, a boy and a boy.’
‘They are good children? Good boys?’
‘Very good boys.’
Erol said it gravely, as if no question could be more serious.
Abraham nodded, thinking and not thinking.
‘It is a tightrope. Understand? A rope you walk on like this and nothing either side. I thought I was on it. But I was so far away. So far.’
With an arm across his shoulder Erol helped him down from the stool and walked with him to the door.
‘Effendi. Taxi. Please.’
‘Erol, I can walk on my own. Thank you. Sorry. I have to walk on my own.’
He was asleep in his clothes when the door burst open and the light came on and the voices started shouting, and he felt it all before he registered any of it. There were men there, more than he could count, men in black clothes, and one of them, maybe two, pulled him off the bed and dragged him into the corridor and before they handcuffed him behind his back and marched him away he saw others emptying his case onto the floor.
‘Hey,’ he managed to say, and that one word brought him into himself and released a great pain in his head and a greater sickness in his stomach and it was all he could do not to vomit. The hands on him were strong, they gripped hard, and they took him past the lift and half hauled, half threw him down the stairs, just supporting him. The sickness mingled with fear. These weren’t Kurds. They had polished boots, proper uniforms, they looked like police, they had the same disciplined rage as that English pair who had come to see him in his old life that no longer existed. So they’d found him. Now there’d be an interrogation and in a place like this maybe they’d beat him and then what? A Turkish prison and deportation and a legal fight and his reputation shot? His reputation. He’d never had a reputation. He was about to get one.
And the worst of it was that he didn’t care. This crusade was always doomed. He’d failed as a doctor, he’d failed as a father and now he had failed in this. Even as he was being thrown about there was a sort of peace in knowing it. He had found his level.
At the first floor they didn’t shove him down the next flight of stairs but along the dark corridor that ran under his own. Some of the doors were open and guests, all men, had been drawn in their pyjamas and vests by the noise. At the far end three police officers stood by the last room, arms crossed, guarding whatever was inside, watching Abraham as their two colleagues drove him towards them, and now they stood aside so that he could see, or be seen.
Abraham didn’t hear the shouting back and forth that followed; even if he’d been able to understand it he wouldn’t have heard it. His eyes, which had been slipping around, were set on one thing, the body that lay hunched awkwardly in the corner of the wall and the wardrobe, its head dropped onto its chest, its blood so
aked into a white T-shirt that was now barely white at all.
An officer was crouching by it. Now he stood and came to Abraham, stopped with his face only six inches away, chin up, eyes hard.
‘This man, you know?’
‘No. No, I don’t.’
The officer shouted back into the room and another policeman went to the corpse and pulled the head back by its hair. Abraham saw the dead face and the strange echo of fear in its blank eyes and turned away.
‘You know?’
Oh Christ. This was bad. Oh Christ. Why had they come for him? They knew something but in this fucking state he couldn’t work out what they could possibly know, this whole world was beyond him, he wasn’t made for it.
‘He came to my room.’
‘Who is?’
‘I don’t know. He came to my room with another man. They were looking for something.’
The officer jutted his chin, said something in Turkish, and the two men holding Abraham began to drag him away.
‘I didn’t do this.’
But the officer just turned and went back into the room.
*
His cell had damp walls that had once been white, a filthy mattress on a metal frame, and a single bulb in a cracked yellow plastic casing that gave out a sickly light. Bars ran across the foot of the bed; at its head the end wall had been stained brown where a thousand prisoners’ heads had rested, and above it, like a taunt, hung a photograph of forested mountains in a white plastic frame. Abraham sat with his knees drawn up and his head in his hands and did his best to breathe in the airless stench that filled the place, a heated stink of damp and disinfectant and piss.
Time passed, he had no idea how long. Once, someone came for him, and despite the bleakness of his situation he felt the most intense surge of hope; but the policeman who stood there just said four or five words in Turkish through the bars and then left before Abraham could ask the questions he desperately wanted to ask. The waiting for heaven-knew-what resumed.
The Good Sister Page 7