More than anything I fear his fearlessness, and when I lie awake at night I picture my lion tearing a dozen of his prey to pieces before some coward from the shadows takes him from me with a single bullet. But it will be okay. I know we have something up our sleeve. We just need the weather to change. Then they’ll see who are the true fighters of Allah, the most glorified.
Patience in progress. That is what this place is teaching me.
I don’t feel great when I get back, and put it down to being out in the heat all day and not drinking enough, but even after two glasses of water I’m not myself. Still, I know it’s important to eat, and I’m making myself a salad when the intercom goes, and as I go to the door I can see on the screen it’s Badra downstairs waiting, and I’m pleased to see her. I could do with the company, and she’s proved herself my friend.
I buzz her in, but she rings the bell again and over the intercom tells me to come down straight away, there’s no time, we have to go out. I sort out my abaya and my veils and leave the flat as quickly as I can.
Even by Badra’s standards she’s in a strange mood. She’s cold to start with and says nothing much in the car, except to tell me that this is work, whatever we’re doing, and we’re heading a little way out of town. It’s a sweaty hot evening and for once the clouds are covering the whole sky, and the city seems quiet, heavy somehow. I want to tell her I’m not feeling good but really there’s no point with her. She’ll only see it as weakness.
On the edges of the city we drive through industrial buildings, and past them I can see the desert, a dead gold in the dull light. Just as we’re leaving Raqqa behind, Badra turns off the main road and towards a group of cars and 4x4s that have stopped between an old warehouse and what looks like an old factory, most of its windows smashed. The cars are in a semi-circle pointing inwards and the light of their headlights is shining on a crowd of maybe a hundred people who are all gathered round to watch something.
‘We’re late,’ says Badra, pulling up.
As we walk towards the crowd I can hear a voice I think I recognize, a man’s voice, high-pitched and cutting. Everyone is listening hard and I listen too. I find great beauty in it, so sharp and clear.
Of all the sins, there is none greater than this, it is saying. When a woman fornicates with a man who is not her husband she is an apostate, she has forsaken her faith, in that moment and from that moment she is an unbeliever, only she is worse than the kafir because she was given the gift of faith and she chose to cast it aside to satisfy her lust. The khilafa cannot tolerate this insult to Allah, the most glorified, the most high, this insult to the Prophet, and the punishment is set and unchanging.
The voice stops, and everyone stands silent, expectant. Badra pushes through the people in front of us so that we can reach the front, and we arrive to see Imam Talib throwing the first stone, not so hard because he’s not a strong man, but hard enough. He must be six feet from the woman’s head, which is bare and all that’s showing above the ground, just her neck and head. She’s so well buried that it’s hard to imagine there’s a body beneath. The stone – the rock, it’s the size of a fist – connects with a heavy crack and drops back onto the sand. Her black face twists in pain but it can’t recoil, it can’t move, and only when I bring myself to look fully at her do I realize who it is.
Badra crouches by me, stands with a rock in each hand and passes one to me. I don’t say anything but I don’t need to. We both know exactly what she’s doing. The ache in my head is clamping hard.
The circle around Idara tightens and the rocks beat down. I hear some miss and fall dead in the sand, and I hear some hit, and I hear her crying, wailing, an animal noise I haven’t heard before, high and strangled, like foxes fighting. The crowd shouts in a virtuous rage but her wailing is above it all. I keep my eyes on Badra, because I don’t want to look, and if I could shut my ears right now, shame on me, I would.
I imagine that I’m her encased in earth and I can’t move my arms or my legs, not an inch, not a finger, and the rocks are coming for me and I can only twist my head from side to side, there’s no escape from them.
The rock is still in Badra’s hand. I wish I could see her eyes. Are they full of His light, are they righteous? Would I see in them that mix of regret and certainty that ought to guide the punisher? Or is there victory in them, over me or the woman in the sand?
All she is right now is a black form and a choice. My choice. No choice.
I take the rock and turn towards Idara. My eyes slip off her, no matter how hard I try to keep them there. The sand around her neck is spreading black.
This is the just punishment. I know that. It is written. If I cheated on Khalil this is what I would expect, and I would want it. I would want to be cleansed. If she’s guilty this is the only outcome, and who am I to doubt her guilt? What, I know better than Imam Talib, the man who found me my lion, the man who married me? I think about his words. We, the community.
I raise my hand, ask Him to forgive my weakness, and throw.
4
My head is full of knives as we drive away, the sickness from earlier is churning through me, and each time the car jolts I seriously think I’m going to throw up. I watch the road as hard as I can, because my weakness is lingering and I don’t want to see the images that are there when I close my eyes. If I wasn’t feeling ill I’d be stronger, and I curse myself for it.
The elation I ought to be feeling at passing the test won’t come. Maybe in time.
As if she’s picking up on my anxiety Badra turns to me.
‘You did well.’
I nod and thank her.
‘Some people find it easy. But they have violence in their hearts and they do it because they want to. To do it because He wants you to, the most glorified, this is something else.’
I nod again. Part of me – most of me – wishes she’d be quiet. With what just happened, and still nothing from Khalil, and feeling ill myself, I don’t need to be wondering for the fiftieth time what this woman wants from me.
‘What did she do?’
Badra takes a moment. ‘Her neighbours heard her. Through the walls.’
‘Who was he?’
‘Some fighter. A young guy. She was stupid.’
‘Does her husband know?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Now he has two wives again.’
She doesn’t reply, and for a while we’re silent, driving through the city. It’s dark now, and the place is still quiet. A question’s been eating away at me and in the end I have to let it out.
‘Were there witnesses?’
‘To what?’
‘To Idara. To her crime.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Was she pregnant?’
Badra takes a moment, and I can feel the heat growing behind her veil.
‘You are doubting the decision of the judge?’
‘Not at all. I was just wondering how we know.’
For a full minute she doesn’t speak, but when she does the heat is in her voice.
‘We account to you now, is that right? You are the caliph? If you are in charge, maybe you can tell me why you hesitated to throw your first stone? You think a caliph would have doubts?’
I stutter no, of course not. That wasn’t what I meant.
Without warning she pulls over to the side of the road, brakes sharply to a stop. She is speaking English to me for the first time since the makkar.
‘Fuck Idara. Fuck Idara. Fuck what she did. She knew, and I tell you, this was not the first time. Not the first, not the second. Don’t trouble yourself with whether she deserved to die.’
As she pauses, her head drops, as if it’s been heavy with some burden for years. She sits like this for a moment, then reaches up and unhooks her veil and pulls it aside. It’s dark now, but even by the street light I can see her eyes are red.
‘You. You are one of the good ones, and they are the worst. Fuck your idea of good. It is a Western thing, corrupt.
There is no “fair” in sharia. Only justice. It has contempt for you and your fairness, and if you do not change it will cut you in two. Do you hear me? This is not some fucking utopia. It is a fortress and sharia is our sword. We are building a fortress because we are at war. The West, it would destroy us. Not just the khilafa, all Muslims, every last one. The whole Ummah, because we are the only true threat to their creed of money and endless pleasure. Every other enemy has gone. You are too young, too fucking young, but think, just think if you can. Stand back and use your big brain. The Americans, they wage war for a century against communism, they suck it dry until the whole thing crumbles into dust. Because there is no money in a better world. So they sweep the body aside, ask themselves what is next, and what do they do? Invade Iraq. Start the whole thing over again, because they are not stupid. They know where they can be hurt. In here, and in here.’ She holds a finger to her temple, then beats her fist against her heart. ‘We fail, and they have won forever. This is the last great war, and if we do not win we will be finished. So fuck Idara, and the witnesses, and the truth. Forget them. Burn them in the fire of faith. Harden yourself, or you will not survive.’
Her words cut right to the heart of me, and at the same time seem to rush past. I can barely take them in. My head is splintering and I can feel sickness in my throat. I want to take my veil off, to breathe, but I don’t trust myself to hold it together, not after what she’s said. I long to see Khalil, and the days until he will return stretch out in front of me like the desert around us. I just want to go home, and shower, and sleep, and concentrate on my work. But I cannot say nothing.
‘When the war is over, what then? There must be beauty, and love for Allah, the most glorified. Or we’ll lose the things that make them fight us in the first place.’
Badra looks at me and her eyes seem old and so tired. They were full of rage but now their light has gone out. She takes my hand and brings it up to her breast, places it there, and holds it. Her chest is flat, like a man’s.
‘My husband was a good man. When he died I did not want to marry again. But I understood I should build a home, to serve the khilafa. Have the children I couldn’t have with him. And then I began to see. Fighters would come, and they would inspect me, and when they saw I was old, and only had one breast, they would leave, with disgust in their eyes.’
She releases my hand and lets the words do their work. Ashamed, not knowing why, I clasp my hands in my lap.
‘The khilafa is for men. It is not for us. Women mean nothing here. It is for men to fight and fuck, and they will never do anything else, because they are men. They will kill the men and rape the women and marry the fucking children because they can. And we need them to. Nothing else will defeat the kafir.’
With effort, I look into her eyes, and see something else there, some old trace of softness. I think I understand now. And I do not want to become like her.
‘There are brothers and brothers.’
She laughs, if you can call it a laugh.
‘Love is impossible here. Your man will not save you.’
5
we cannot understand Justice. Only Allah the most high, the most glorified understands
pretending we know anything is arrogant and an insult to Him who knows everything swt
how many times must I realize that the khilafa is so much bigger than any one person?
so many lessons here – every day every minute
— is everything okay sister?
all fine i just have a lot to learn
important lesson not to get ahead of yourself
— what do you mean sister? sorry I don’t understand
you have to know how far you still have to go
no matter how close you feel to Him swt He is always so far ahead
6
In figures of eight, Abraham walked around Akçakale, not wanting to stop in any one place for long, hope warmed a degree by Irene’s last exchange with Sofia. He wandered to the beginning of the plains where the sparse traffic thinned and the workshops and factories looked like they’d been abandoned years earlier. He stood on the edge of the empty no man’s land straddling the border fence that divided the town from its Syrian double, just a few hundred yards to the south. Saw the neat, low, new town of tents, like an army encampment, where thousands of refugees were failing to find a home.
Something had unsettled her, and that could be a good thing.
There had to be a way into this world that didn’t want him. When he came across a bench he sat for a while, until he sensed someone looking at him, or felt the hostile energy of one of the bands of men casually patrolling. He recognized the types from Gaziantep, but here they were so concentrated they seemed to outnumber the locals, who kept their eyes straight ahead and zigzagged from one side of the street to the other to avoid them. Abraham had his eye in now; he was beginning to be able to distinguish. The beards were the giveaway. North of the border ISIS trimmed theirs; all the other fighters simply didn’t shave in battle.
The Kurds, the Peshmerga, in their military boots and their fatigues and their flashes of camouflage, appeared predictable, disciplined, almost reassuring. They might kill you but they’d have a reason for it. No beard and no set uniform were the Syrian rebels, the Free Army and heaven knew how many breakaway groups. Western clothes, jeans, sunglasses. Those two from the hotel, they fit in there somewhere. But ISIS – ISIS were less organized, scrappier, wilder, more like a gang than an army, bound together not by authority but by some unseen, unstable animating force. They wore black T-shirts, sweatpants, trainers, and in any one group it was impossible to tell who had command. But more than that, as he made his lonely way past them Abraham could see in their eyes that their first and constant thought was whether he would be better dead. Every man and woman they idly tracked was an invitation, a taunt. Life was an insult to their power.
Abraham kept his head bowed as he walked and tried to look as weak and unthreatening as he could – not difficult today, his third in these clothes, with his shopping bags and the sweat stains under his arms, more tramp than fighter. But he had to work hard to stop his hand going to his chin. This fucking beard. He had to keep it. Here it marked him, but in Raqqa it would let him disappear.
Twice he passed police patrols and fought the urge to duck his head and run, but they paid him no attention and let him on his uneasy way. He longed for coffee and something to eat but the cafes had all been commandeered by one group or another, little impromptu headquarters in the field. The only one that hadn’t was in the main square, where the bus had dropped him off. That seemed to be a local place, and he needed a local. There was trade between Turkey and Raqqa, he had read about it, and what there was would pass through here. Someone was profiting in this hell.
The Tarcin Cafe, it was called. A handful of Turkish men sat outside in the shade of a jutting concrete canopy, smoking and drinking tea while the proprietor stood in the doorway and followed Abraham with his eyes each time he passed, like a man warning off a stray dog that was circling for scraps.
As the heat was beginning to go from the day, Abraham drew near again and saw that the cafe was busy now. Behind him a car turned over its engine; the noise startled him, and he turned to see where it was coming from. A hundred yards back two men were trying to start an old van, paying him no attention, and walking in his direction was the man that he had passed outside the hotel earlier. It was him, no question; the same fringe of hair and the same gait. God, this was exhausting. Who was he? Police? Fighter? Spy? Impossible to answer and better not to try. In Akçakale no face was friendly, and every look seemed to carry some dark purpose. Abraham walked a little faster, slowed for a moment as he neared the square to let a police car ahead of him idly cross his path, then half jogged the remaining distance to the cafe.
Still no one out on the street, but the tables inside were almost full, a row down either wall of the narrow room. Old men, young men, paunchy middle-aged men, some with moustaches, some
of the younger ones with a few days’ stubble, all in dark clothing and engaged in what appeared to be one large conversation. Locals, here to talk and smoke, a different energy altogether. As Abraham entered, some of the men looked up at him, nudged the arm of a neighbour, until all talk stopped and every man in the room had turned to look at him. Not hostile, not yet, but wary. One of the younger ones said something in Turkish and two of his young friends laughed.
Trying to project confidence he didn’t feel, Abraham walked to one of two empty tables, sat down, and told the cafe owner that he wanted tea. This was the man who had flicked his cigarette butt at him earlier, and now he just stood and stared Abraham down: you’re not getting served here.
Someone shouted something in Turkish, and a moment later in Arabic.
‘For twenty bucks I teach you to shave.’
The joker of the group. Twenty years old, perhaps, no more, wearing a natty tan leather jacket and a white T-shirt, full of himself and enjoying the attention. Some of the older men stared at him with weary disapproval.
‘And wash,’ someone shouted. That got a laugh.
‘I have a scar,’ said Abraham, meeting the kid’s eye. He brought his hand up to his cheek.
‘You sure you haven’t been fighting, my friend?’
The kid laughed at his own joke, looking around for reinforcement.
‘I fell when I was a boy.’
‘Where are you from?’
This was one of the older men, his voice deeper, carrying more authority. At the sound of it the kid sat back in his chair, no longer quite so sure of himself, conceding the arena. The man’s eyes were deep-set and tired, the lines in his face all cast downwards.
‘Cairo.’
‘And what do you want in my town?’
Abraham realized that he had made a mistake: he had walked past these men to his table, and now they were between him and the door. Not that it makes much difference, he thought. If they want to get me, they will get me.
The Good Sister Page 10