The Good Sister

by Chris Morgan Jones

  Keep your arrangements, Vural had told him. They seem fine. And true, real, they will believe, this is good. Before leaving with as little fuss as he had appeared, he had given Abraham a telephone number and a clutch of advice – beard long, trousers short, pray all the time – and that was it. No support, no escape route, no tricks of the trade. What should I do if something goes wrong, Abraham had asked. If I had power there I wouldn’t need you, was the answer; but if I can help get you out I will do whatever I can.

  As he watched the old white car shaking up the track, throwing out dust behind it, he saw that Mrs Demirsoy had come too, no doubt with food and advice; and as they drew near, that a second car had just turned off the road a quarter of a mile behind them. A tan 4x4, of the kind that sat on the street corners of Akçakale and Gaziantep with fighters inside.

  He stared at it stupidly for a second, then came to; ran to the shed, threw his bag inside, and took an old spade from the rack by the door, the heaviest thing he could see. Out of sight of the track he waited for the Demirsoys to reach him. They weren’t quick. Mr Demirsoy parked the car carefully, and Mrs Demirsoy needed to retrieve a bag from the boot, and as they walked towards the shed Mrs Demirsoy began to shout Abraham’s name in a puzzled tone, wondering why he had been there one minute and the next had disappeared. Abraham closed his eyes and prayed that they would hurry. By the time they rounded the corner the second car was pulling in behind theirs, and Mr Demirsoy was turning to notice it for the first time. As he stood and frowned, his wife and Abraham exchanged a single look of understanding, and Abraham darted behind the shed.

  Two car doors opened and closed, but he only heard one voice, raised against the wind.

  ‘Where’s your friend, old man?’

  ‘She is my wife.’

  ‘You’re very funny. Now tell me.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Sure.’ Then, in a different tone: ‘Find him.’

  ‘You people are crazy.’

  Mrs Demirsoy had walked round to confront them. Abraham could picture her, arms crossed, staring fiercely. Her voice was imperious.

  ‘You. Are you the one who came to my house? Didn’t you hear me then?’

  ‘I heard your lies, mother. Get out of my way.’

  There was nowhere to hide out here. In the barn, in the shed, or behind the shed in the angle of the trees, where he was now. Immersed in the trough of muddy water next to him. Abraham looked out at the bare horizon through the line of cedars that bordered the plot and wondered how far he would get. Yards, at most. There was no cover, and he felt his shoulders tighten at the thought of the bullet in his back.

  Christ, where were they? He couldn’t look without being seen and the wind was blowing too hard in the trees for him to hear footsteps. Even Mrs Demirsoy had gone quiet. Standing with his back to the wooden wall, spade raised, he watched the corner and prayed that neither had thought to come up behind him.

  The shed door opened. He heard it, and he felt it through the wood. Here was a chance; for once, just take the fucking chance. With a deep breath he made his decision, stepped to the end of the wall, and saw away on the other side of the field a man in fatigues with his gun held up walking towards the barn. Abraham moved silently to the doorway, saw a figure inside with his back to him; raised the spade behind his head and brought it down with all the strength he could find. In that moment by some instinct the man turned and the spade caught him on the neck and jaw. Abraham saw his face crease and distort, felt the power of the blow in the crack it made, hit him again as his knees buckled from the shock so that he sprawled forward heavily, his arms still by his side, his face in the dirt. God, such a weight to him, he seemed to rattle the floor as he went down. Appalled, electrified, past regret, Abraham readied himself again but it wasn’t necessary. The man was out. Blood began to pool in the corner of his open mouth. Dropping the spade, Abraham squatted down to pick up the gun that his fingers still loosely held.

  Across the field the barn door was open and there was no sign of anyone; at the top of the track Mr Demirsoy was reversing his car into a turn. Only when Abraham saw Mrs Demirsoy next to him – her little mouth open and silent, watching the scene as she might some collision she was too old and too slow to avoid – only then did he become aware of himself, of his dry mouth and the pain in his throat where the sides seemed to be clamped together, of the insanity of the life he had fallen into. A chemist, a man of inaction, standing in no man’s land with a price on his head and a meaningless gun out in front of him. He had never shot a gun. Never held one. Strange, how it could feel so alien and yet sit so comfortably in his grip.

  He raised a hand to her as he ran. It meant goodbye, and sorry, I never meant any of this to happen, and go, get out of here as quickly as you can. But she didn’t seem to register it. Her eyes were on something behind him, and now she turned to shout at Mr Demirsoy, who was trying to find first gear, grinding the gearbox. Please hurry. Please go. Abraham ran behind them to the 4x4, opened the door, and in the moment that he saw there was no key heard a shot sound and the window by him crack and splinter. By instinct he ducked away and turned to see the other fighter running clumsily over the ploughed earth, maybe fifty yards away, gun for the moment by his side again. He could be the second man from his hotel room that night, the one who had done the searching while his friend had pinned Abraham to the wall. He had the same cap, the same build.

  Feet skating on the dust, Abraham swung himself behind the 4x4, and as he did so the car lurched forward with a rattle. A second shot hit the metalwork of the jeep with the same flat finality. He willed the Demirsoys on their way. Fate would run its course, and they weren’t part of it. Besides, fate had evened things up. He had a gun, and he had the advantage. He had something to hide behind.

  ‘Get in.’

  From behind the bumper he saw Mrs Demirsoy’s face looking at him, as exasperated and as sure as it had ever been.

  ‘Go. God, would you go?’

  ‘I will not. Language.’

  Next to her Mr Demirsoy was watching the field and the man charging across it, seconds from them now.

  Her eyes decided it. She wasn’t going to move.

  Abraham stood, aimed the gun past the car at the fighter, and pulled the trigger. The blast forced his arms into their sockets and knocked him back, but he was ready for it and in an instant he was running to the car and pulling at the handle and firing again at the figure crouching all of thirty yards away in the earth.

  ‘His tyres!’ shouted Mrs Demirsoy. ‘Shoot his tyres, you idiot.’

  Half hanging out of the car, with the door flapping as Mr Demirsoy drove off, Abraham took aim at the nearest wheel and fired; missed, and fired again, and the tyre collapsed. He steadied himself to try a second wheel but they were too far away and the car was bouncing and then he was recoiling from a third shot, not his, that shattered the driver’s window and sprayed glass all over Mr Demirsoy and sent the car jumping across the track onto the rougher ground at the verge. Mrs Demirsoy screamed, and Mr Demirsoy’s head slumped onto his chest, and sliding across the back seat Abraham felt beside the terror a sort of stabbing helplessness, even in the chaos and the noise and the speed of it all, the strongest urge to pick these two innocents up and set them down a long way away, beyond the reach of this vicious world that now seemed to be his. The car carried on, jolting over rocks and ruts and beginning to slow, one door still hanging open like a broken limb, and while Mrs Demirsoy reached for the steering wheel with one hand and held the other to her husband’s face, Abraham managed to twist round and look back at the fighter who was standing at the top of the track, feet set, both hands holding his gun motionless before him.

  The back windscreen shattered. Tiny pieces of glass showered him, scoured his face and arms. More to put up a fight than to accomplish anything he tried to steady himself and take aim, return some fire at least, but the car gathered speed and changed direction and sent him sprawling over the seat towards t
he open door. He grabbed at a seat belt, managed to steady himself, and when he looked up saw that Mr Demirsoy was in charge again, head down between his shoulders and his eyes just over the steering wheel, but driving, and muttering Turkish under his breath, taking the car back onto the track. Blood was staining his collar.

  ‘Silly goat,’ said Mrs Demirsoy, leaving her hand on his shoulder.

  Another two shots; the first hit the metal of the boot, and the second either sailed clean through or missed altogether. Abraham rested his hands on the back seat and tried to aim, but he didn’t shoot; he wouldn’t hit anything, not at this distance, and in any case the fighter had given up, and was running to his car.

  Now they were halfway to the road. Abraham had time to register the heat, and the glare from the sun, and the emptiness all around. No one was going to help them as these people had helped him. Who would help them?

  He looked along the road to Akçakale, looked back up the track, and tried to gauge how long they had before they were caught. Mr Demirsoy was still muttering, and his hands were tight on the wheel. He was leaning forward with a concentration Abraham hadn’t seen in him before; but the car was old, and disintegrating, and behind them the 4x4 had turned in a wide circle, ignoring the verge, and was racing down at them, clouds of dust rising in its wake, back end squirming on its one good tyre.

  Mr Demirsoy slowed at the junction with the road, and looked carefully left, then right, then left again, so slowly that he had to wait to let a truck laden with watermelons amble past on its way to the town. Abraham saw the fear in his eyes and would have done anything to ease it. Imagine how many times they had made this same journey at their own pace, the boot laden with lettuces and courgettes, Mrs Demirsoy talking, Mr Demirsoy half listening and half not. Now they were silent, and the 4x4 was so close that Abraham could hear its engine screaming; it wasn’t slowing, it was going to shunt them across the road, nose first into the ditch, and while they struggled to get out the fighter would come and calmly shoot them, if they weren’t dead already. With the same care, Mr Demirsoy made sure nothing was coming and finally turned, so late that Abraham braced himself for the 4x4 clipping their bumper and sending them spinning forward. But sedately the car settled onto the tarmac, and through the back window Abraham watched as the 4x4 braked too late on the dust and stones, started to veer and spun across the road; it seemed to stop there, caught in time for an instant, and then with a great crunching, tearing sound it crumpled, and splintered, caught like a steer on a cowcatcher by the cab of the eighteen-wheeler that was shunting it down the road, helpless and ruined, away from Akçakale.

  Like a thunderclap it was everything and then it was gone. In shock, Abraham watched the scene recede, scarcely believing it; then he faced the front, and closed his eyes, and let out a breath that seemed to come deep from the earth beneath.

  ‘By the heavens what was that noise?’ said Mrs Demirsoy, twisting a little in her seat and catching Abraham’s eye. She hadn’t seen it. Possibly she had had no idea they were being chased.

  ‘An accident.’

  ‘Nothing happens for years and then everything happens.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine. I’m quite all right. He, he is a mess, but this is normal.’

  She dusted his shoulder, and with a look she let Abraham know that if he asked her again he would regret it.

  23

  With the Yazidis I feel like a lion roaring at a herd of goats and hoping that if I roar loud enough they’ll become lions too. All I have is the roar, and the threat of my bite, and although I try my hardest that’s not enough. Faith, faith will make the bridge, and when I’m at my lowest, and all I can hear is their bleating, on and on, with no sign that I’m getting through, I just keep going, knowing that He would not have sent me here unless it was to accomplish something with meaning.

  I breathe slowly and will myself to concentrate. Niran is the key to this. Since her mother went away she’s been pale and lifeless, like she’s suffering from some illness, the light has gone from her eyes, and I know that the only chance she has of salvation is me.

  Today is day seven. We’re on Zakat – charity – and I can feel my enthusiasm building. I’m in the flow, He’s guiding me, but then this is one of my favourite things, perhaps the best one of all. How amazing is it, I ask them, that every Muslim has to give – and is happy to give – a percentage of everything she earns to those who have nothing? What other religion does the same? Not Christianity. Not Judaism. Does your religion say anything so simple, so powerful, so pure? I have them here. Usually old Emina has something to say but this shuts even her up. What did you do for your poor and your sick, I ask her. The sick we tended, she said, and the poor, we were all poor.

  As I begin to tell her that there’s a reason for that, that they’ve been forsaken by the one true God, the door opens. I’m expecting a guard but it’s someone I don’t recognize, which means that I’ve been so deep in my teaching that I didn’t hear anyone arrive, as I usually would.

  He’s a brother but brother is the wrong word for him. He looks different. Even the way he stands is like no other brother, like he’s never been afraid of anything.

  He’s also paler, the palest man I’ve ever seen. His skin is white white, except under his eyes where there are dark bags, and his beard is the same colour as wood that’s just been cut. He’s wearing a long white dishdasha that stops just below his knees and white puttees above his black combat boots, the only dark thing on him. He has no gun. One or two brothers have frightened me, I’ll admit it, but it’s because there’s a craziness about them that they need for the battlefield and can’t always contain. This man isn’t crazy, he’s containing a great power and the moment I see him my breath goes tight. I do my best not to look away from his burning green eyes.

  I start to veil myself but he shakes his head and somehow I know he doesn’t want me to stop what I’m doing, that he’s come to watch, standing a yard inside the door with his arms crossed against his solid chest. Two brothers have appeared behind him, the Russians from yesterday. He nods, once, as if to tell me to carry on, but my head’s empty. The women seem to have shrunk back towards the wall and are just watching him, not making any noise now, and that thought helps me. I have nothing to fear. He is one of us. I am one of us. The kafirs have every reason to be scared, but I don’t.

  So I start again. Not quite where I left off. No one of the five pillars is greater than any other, I say, but Zakat is indispensable, and no Muslim would ever think to . . . all Muslims are happy in their hearts to know that their faith is supported . . .

  My flow has gone. Besma translates even more hesitantly than usual, as if she’s caught it from me, and her unease distracts me further, and I find myself concentrating on her Yazidi words and not on the ones that won’t form properly in my head. All the time I can feel the brother behind me, or whatever he is, those eyes burning into my back.

  I try again. This man will find me out, I know it. Discover how thin my learning is. How weak my faith.

  We build hospitals with this money, I tell the women, trying to concentrate on their faces, which are now familiar, even comforting. Poor children are sent away to study at schools paid for entirely by Zakat. In London, where I once lived, there was a child who was born with great problems, problems in its bones, and the parents could not afford the operation abroad, and so my mosque raised extra money, outside the two and a half per cent, to pay for the child to be healed. I realize as I’m saying it that these people may have no idea what an operation is, but it doesn’t matter. I’m reconnecting again and the eyes are burning less fiercely into my back.

  He says nothing, and I don’t hear him move. Occasionally I see Besma glance nervously at him, as if she knows she mustn’t but is drawn to him anyway. I will her to keep her eyes on the floor in case she gets us both into trouble, but at the same time I understand. I long to look round.

  Five minutes this lasts, or ten, or twenty
, I have no idea, I’m just talking and my sense of time is gone. Somehow the women know not to interrupt, and they don’t, until Emina kicks off. She’s been staring over my shoulder at the man for the whole time, she hasn’t taken her snake eyes off him, and when I pause for a second she jumps in and asks him a question. I have no idea what she says but it’s a question, and it’s short, and Besma doesn’t translate it, she just looks at me and back to Emina. I have to give it to her, for all her crudeness she has some sort of authority, and I feel like a child stuck between the two elders in the room. I start talking again, just try to ignore her, but the brother tells me to stop, in Arabic, in a voice that’s harsh and cuts right through me.

  I stand aside. The room is silent. His expression hasn’t changed – he’s watching her without curiosity or anger or amusement. He has as much interest in her as a man has in the rubbish he throws out. The old woman, though, she takes his look as an invitation to keep ranting. I tell Besma to tell her to be quiet, but before she can translate my words the brother asks his own question, quite calmly, his voice not raised at all. His Arabic is good enough but his accent is strange.

  ‘Ask her if she wants to die now.’

  Besma looks from him to me and I nod. Unable to raise her eyes she translates the words, and when she’s finished Emina takes a deep breath, shakes her head, and makes a gesture with her hand, flicking it at him off her chin. Still looking right at him she says maybe ten words.

  ‘Tell me what she said.’

  The calmness in his voice is like ice and the cold settles on all of us. Besma hesitates again and he repeats himself, word for word.

  ‘She said . . . she said you hate your God so much you kill your people. She said when you die you fall into hell.’

  Silence again. He gives off such a sense of dominance, force, untouched by whatever his feelings might be. His feelings don’t come into it.