Now he nods to the two brothers and says something in Russian.
Emina stays where she is, but the other women shout, and the children pick up on their fear and start to cry. The brothers say nothing, they just grab her by the arms and pick her up off her chair. I haven’t noticed before how light she is, how skinny – between them they carry her easily, like an empty sack, and haul her out of the room, her feet just dragging on the floor. She’s too proud to say anything, but her eyes burn at this fearsome brother, and at me, and even though I’m full of conviction from the lesson, and fuller still of His love, I find it hard to look at them. Maybe it’s because with her I’ve failed, and as I watch her go I feel a great guilt that if I’d done my job better this wouldn’t have needed to happen.
But she was never going to see the light. An old creature from a dark and ancient world.
The commander follows her out.
I’m concentrating so hard on her that I barely notice all the noise from the women left behind. When I come to, I shout at them to stop. I’ve had enough, I can’t take that any more. They quieten down a bit but then the wailing starts, that low and sort of fluttering noise they make and although it’s doing my head in I do my best to ignore it.
I have a whiteboard now, like in a proper classroom, and I’ve been writing basic concepts down, showing them the beauty of the words. Now I wipe it off and start writing so that they’ll have something else to concentrate on.
‘Pay attention. Okay. Pay attention. It’s time for our Article of Faith.’
From outside there comes a single dead crack, a noise we all know well in this city, and for the shortest time the wailing stops.
24
‘My God, what happened to you?’
Today Murat’s suit was sober, his shirt white. He was on time, in the appointed place. Everything was toned down, professional even, but he looked at Abraham and Mrs Demirsoy now as though they were the first truly surprising thing he’d ever seen. While the two of them went at each other in the quiet, dusty street, Abraham looked up and down it, certain that in the next moment a jeep full of fighters was going to swing round the corner and it would all start again.
‘Never mind what things have happened. What has happened is not your concern. Concentrate on what happens now.’
Murat tried to control it but his face was pure puzzlement.
‘I have a right to . . .’
Mrs Demirsoy stepped towards him with her finger raised. After everything she was still immaculate; a pale blue cardigan despite the heat, her flowered headscarf tightly tied. Murat’s eyes went to the finger as if there was some special power in it.
She spoke in Turkish, quickly and quietly, and Abraham never knew what she said, but whatever it was it made Murat lean back from her and raise his hands, and by the time she was done he was shaking his head and saying okay okay, in the tone of a teenager who knows he might rebel but in the end has no choice. Abraham glanced at her husband, who was still sitting in the car, looking straight ahead with unseeing eyes.
‘Okay,’ said Murat a final time, and then to Abraham, ‘Cairo, open your case.’
Abraham hesitated, not because he was reluctant but because he was still dazed and didn’t understand.
‘Are you awake? I need to look at your case, and your phone, and any other fucking thing you’ve got with you.’
Abraham watched him closely. There was strain in his face, a thread of fear, but it was open still, it had that same naivety.
‘I need to know who you told about today.’
Murat frowned deeply and quizzically, baffled.
‘Told who about what?’
‘Did you tell anyone you were taking me?’
‘Why the fuck would I do that?’
Mrs Demirsoy tutted, but her eyes stayed sharply on Abraham and his on Murat.
‘You promise me you didn’t?’
‘My paranoid friend, think about it. If I’d betrayed you I wouldn’t be here now. And you’re paying me way more than I could make selling you out. So yes. I promise.’
‘If he promises . . .’
Abraham looked at Mrs Demirsoy and she gave a little nod. That would have to be good enough. What choice was there?
‘We okay?’
There was a smile in the corner of Murat’s mouth.
‘Sorry. We’re okay.’
‘So who knows?’
‘Everyone, apparently.’
‘Then we should go. Open your case.’
Abraham kept his hand tightly on it.
‘Look, brother. They’ll go through them. They find anything – cigarettes, booze, the wrong fucking aftershave, you’re dead. I’m dead. If there’s anything you want to lose now, lose it.’
‘None of that language,’ said Mrs Demirsoy, who was watching the two of them with her hands behind her back, keenly, like a crow. Murat glanced at Abraham with his eyebrows raised, and Abraham wondered at his bravery.
‘Of course,’ said Abraham. ‘Sorry.’
He opened it and Murat crouched down to sift the paltry contents. Abraham went into his phone, deleted his Twitter app and handed the thing over. In there was Vural’s number, saved under the name of his friend Albert. What if someone knew it?
‘Okay. All right. What’s in your pockets?’
Abraham emptied one, then the other, and Murat inspected the keys and coins in his hands.
‘What’s that?’
‘What?’
‘There.’
His hand went to Abraham’s belt.
‘What the fuck is this? Are you serious?’
Abraham had forgotten he had it. Murat pulled the gun from his waistband and held it up.
‘This is nice.’ And to Mrs Demirsoy, ‘What did you say, innocent as a child?’
‘It isn’t his.’
‘It isn’t mine.’
Murat looked from one to the other and shook his head.
‘I must be fucking crazy. Here. Take it.’
He passed it to Mrs Demirsoy, who looked at it for a moment as if it was a dead mouse, or some other mild unpleasantness, and then took it.
‘Get rid of it.’
‘Young man, I’m not going to keep it.’
Murat sighed, shook his head again, and ran his hand through his hair.
‘A Koran. Where’s your Koran? You need a Koran. And some hadith. Luckily I keep spares.’
He looked at Abraham and shook his head for a final time.
‘Okay. You are clean. Now that we’ve got rid of the fucking murder weapon, you’re clean. I must be crazy. Okay.’
He went to the car and took an envelope from the glove box.
‘Your papers. You aren’t whatever the fuck you’re called. You’re Aref Jandali. Born in Aleppo. A businessman, and not a murderer.’ He grinned, not meaning it. ‘You can pretend not to be a murderer for five minutes, yes?’
Mrs Demirsoy clucked.
Abraham inspected the document. It looked fine, but then he wasn’t the audience for it. A strange sensation, meeting your new self, confusing even, as if he’d stolen this identity from the real Jandali, who happened to have his face and his height and, he noticed, his birthday.
‘Anybody asks why you speak like a fucking retard, tell them you grew up in Cairo or some shit. They’re not that clever. Now, give me your old passport.’
‘Why?’
‘You serious? Anyone finds it, you think they might figure it out?’
‘I don’t like that.’
‘You don’t like that. Are you for real? I don’t like any of this.’
Abraham took the passport from his jacket and handed it to Murat, who squatted by the car’s open door, pulled a corner of the plastic panelling away, popped the passport inside and snapped the panel back again.
‘There. Okay. We can go. Before some other shit happens. Say goodbye.’
Abraham looked at Mrs Demirsoy, and she looked up at him. What can I give you, he wanted to ask. How can I improve your live
s as you have forever changed mine? But he knew he had nothing, so he nodded when she nodded, and managed to say the one thing that came close to expressing what he felt.
‘Teşekkür ederim.’
Thank you. Two of his five words of Turkish.
‘It’s nothing at all. The bad people will always hurt the good. But without them how would we have good to do? Your daughter. I hope she sees what you are.’
Abraham nodded again, to himself as much as to her, and while his emotions were still in check got into the car.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ said Murat.
Abraham looked up at him.
‘Are you serious? You’re a murderer. Murderers go in the trunk.’
25
At the border crossing Abraham felt the car slow to a stop, and heard Murat talking, relaxed and easy. He was a pro, and that was good. In the boot, wedged up against his case, nose full of exhaust and hot rubber, Abraham felt his heart going and marvelled at the man’s calmness. Where did they come from, these people? How could the world hold two men so different from each other?
After a full five minutes the car moved forward again and picked up pace. Straight ahead for maybe two minutes, cautiously enough, then swinging round corners with an abandon that suggested some punishment was being dished out.
Then with a jolt the car stopped, and the trunk opened, and there was Murat, grinning down against a brilliant blue sky.
‘Welcome to the Islamic State, motherfucker.’
He gave Abraham his hand and pulled him out.
‘What do you think?’
He held his arms out and gestured up and down the street. Low breeze-block buildings, beaten-up cars, graffiti on the weathered walls. It looked just like Akçakale. Exactly like Akçakale.
‘Have we gone anywhere?’
‘To the other side of the world, brother.’
Murat laughed and handed him something. A case, and inside it a pair of sunglasses, gold-rimmed, either expensive or diligently faked.
‘Put these on. Look at me.’ Murat shook his head. ‘May the Lord protect us.’
In the car, Abraham pulled the sun shade down and looked in the narrow band of mirror. Without the tired, hunted eyes he wouldn’t have known himself.
‘Remember, you do not talk. I talk. If someone asks you a question, I answer it. If they ask you again, you give the answer I gave. Understand?’
Three times Murat made him say he understood.
Tell Abyad was simply the mirror of its sister to the north, in all but one respect: here the fighters had control. This was like the pictures he had seen. Black flags flew from houses, lamp posts, cars. Soldiers with machine guns patrolled the streets, the only officialdom. Here they wore camouflage, desert-coloured kit, big black boots. Murat pulled over to speak to one group, who he seemed to know by name, and this time Abraham understood them, and marvelled at how little was said. Hey. What’s up? Raqqa, you know. This is my cousin’s friend. He has family there, he’s been away. No, he’s good.
From behind the dark lenses Abraham watched the street. It was hot, tired, functioning. It worked. Life was going on, less tense than it was just across the border. Here the war had been won.
They drove on. When they were clear of the town Murat lit a cigarette.
‘Is that wise?’
‘They all fucking smoke. Away from the street. You want one?’
Murat offered him the pack, and Abraham shook his head. What he would have done for a drink. Just one swift Scotch to stop these skittering nerves.
North of Akçakale there had been fields, irrigation, life; here there was dirty red sand and patches of stubborn grass and the husks of forgotten buildings that seemed to have risen from the desert of their own accord. They saw few cars, and no people. A tank passed them, heading north, the colour of mustard, black flags flying from it front and back and a goggled, balaclavaed head above its gun turret. Half an hour in, Abraham saw in the haze above the ground something that might once have been a house, now a crooked pile of rubble and concrete blocks – the first signs that the fighters really fought. This was no man’s land. The whole landscape had been abandoned, and Abraham felt as if he was crossing from one realm into another, from the world into hell, with this unconcerned young man, this boy as his ferryman.
‘So who came for you?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You thought I shopped you. You must have had a reason.’
Abraham breathed deeply and thought about the consequences and decided he had had enough of them. Why not tell him? Why not simply trust someone?
‘A man called Vural. I think he’s a spy.’
‘For who?’
‘For you. For the Turks.’
‘He’s not spying for me, Cairo.’
‘He wants me to report to him.’
‘Report what?’
‘I join up, I tell him what I see.’
‘What d’you mean, you join up?’
‘I join ISIS.’
‘Serious?’
‘He was.’
Murat threw his head back and laughed hard at the roof of the car.
‘Seriously? Cairo, you’d last five fucking minutes.’
‘I know.’
‘So don’t do it.’
‘If I don’t he’s going to hand me over to the police.’
Murat took both hands off the wheel and gestured at the miles of scrub to the east and west.
‘You see any fucking police, Cairo?’
It really was hell. The afterlife. Nothing mattered here. Nothing that had pursued him in the world could reach him – the police, the Syrians, Vural – and in that moment Abraham felt a shock of strange freedom. All his daily fears consolidated into one pure source of terror, which with God’s will he might overcome. Few people got this chance, this strange privilege.
‘Seriously, my friend. Get to Raqqa, find a place to stay, look around, keep low. It’s the only way. I can help you.’
‘Thank you. This isn’t my world.’
‘Isn’t anyone’s world now, brother.’
Clouds covered the sky, and the heat grew sticky, and in his languid way Murat asked Abraham questions about Cairo, and being a pharmacist, and his wife.
‘You love your daughter?’
‘Of course.’
‘My mother says that without children life would be a dance.’
Abraham nodded. The thought upset him. He imagined a life in which Sofia had never existed, and found himself wondering whether in sum it would have been better – whether the pain she had caused had yet cancelled out all the joy. But he had limited the joy himself. He felt as he had when his father had died, that their time together had been too inhibited and too short. But with Sofia that was his fault. He could have relaxed. He could have given her the freedom that now she had come to this prison to seek.
In return he wasn’t much of a travelling companion. His questions to Murat were practical. What happens in the city? Can you just move around? Where can you buy food?
Life went on, he said, slowly. It was like the city was in a coma. The schools were shut, the university was shut, half the cafes were shut, most people had no jobs.
‘My friend, his job was to mend the roads. I mean he organized it, he had an office, a good job. Daesh told him, we are the government, you work for us now, or you don’t work at all. So now he stays at home, he doesn’t go out, his wife and his kid in the apartment all day. He’ll leave. He says he won’t, that Daesh should be the ones to leave, it’s his home, but he’ll go. He’ll have to. Otherwise, what are they going to do? They stay there, they want any future for the kid, she’ll have to go to Daesh school, and then she’s one of them. You know?’
Abraham didn’t really know. He had read about these things but could hardly imagine them.
‘How many are there?’
‘Who?’
‘Daesh. In Raqqa.’
Murat shrugged.
‘I don’t know. Ten thousa
nd. Not so many in a big city. But it doesn’t matter. They have fear on their side. No one wants to end up with their head on a stick, you know?’
He looked across at Abraham and grinned.
Food was okay. Expensive if you weren’t a fighter, but it was there. Trade hadn’t died just because these fuckers had control. They all liked to eat. Coke, candy, Red Bull. Chicken. They all fucking loved chicken. You look on Twitter – you do Twitter? Go on Twitter and look at all the pictures of food these idiots post. Unbelievable. But hey, they were good customers. In Turkish, there was a saying. The silver door closes, a golden door opens. It was good for business.
‘What business?’ Abraham asked, but Murat just grinned and shook another cigarette loose from its pack.
‘Look. All you need to know is, keep your head down, don’t do anything stupid. Don’t take any photographs. They hate that. Don’t look the fighters in the eye. Then they’ll leave you alone. It’s simple. You’ve got a good beard, you’re a good Muslim, that’s all they want.’
After an hour, they reached a checkpoint, two 4x4s parked off the road and four fighters with guns across their chests. Murat slowed a long way off, stopped by the men and passed them his papers, folded round three or four banknotes. This time he wasn’t subtle about it.
‘Hey, cousin, you still here? You need a new gig, man, there’s no action here.’
The fighter took the notes, handed back the papers without looking at them and smiled.
‘If they keep me here any longer I’m going to have to put the price up.’
‘You’re in charge, man.’
‘Who’s this?’
‘This? He’s my actual cousin. He’s good.’
The fighter stepped back. Murat grinned, raised a hand in goodbye, and drove away.
‘You got to keep these people sweet. Business is always business, anywhere you like. When these fuckers are gone, there’ll still be business. I’m going to do this for a while, build up some capital, wait to see which way the wind blows and then when all this shit is over, boom, this part of the world is going to go crazy, like a river that’s been dammed for years, you know? Opportunities everywhere. You come back in ten years’ time, cousin, I’m going to own this road. Own this country.’
The Good Sister Page 17