The Good Sister

by Chris Morgan Jones

  The fighter was following him.

  ‘Hold up, brother. I’m coming with you. See what the hospital has to say about these babies.’

  He waved the white packs in Abraham’s face and grinned a set of perfect, pure white teeth.

  19

  Together they waited, the director at his desk, Abraham standing across from him, Huq and the fighter against the wall. On the desk were the pills, and nothing else. After five minutes the director became restless and sent Huq to look, and he returned in a moment preceded by Dr Saad. Sweat shone on Huq’s upper lip; he seemed more nervous than Abraham, who had reached a state of serene resignation. Let them do their worst. He had done what he could.

  The director looked from face to face with eyes that bulged and seemed never to blink. For a long moment he said nothing, anxious to display his authority, and with something just short of a sigh Saad let him know that he was used to this sort of performance but had better things to do elsewhere.

  ‘Do you know what these are?’

  The words were meant to sound stern but they slipped dully from his mouth. Saad stepped forward to inspect the pills and then stepped back.

  ‘Roxanol. Pain relief.’

  ‘Do you know what they’re doing here?’

  Saad looked from the director to Abraham and from him to Huq.

  ‘I imagine Mounir got them for me.’

  Impassive, the director waited for him to explain. Any disappointment didn’t show.

  ‘I need morphine for two patients. I told him if he ever saw any spare he should bring it to me.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘I don’t know. Two days ago.’

  ‘Civilian patients?’

  ‘Patients.’

  The director looked at Abraham, who had come round like a man slapped awake.

  ‘You took Islamic State medicine to give it to pigs?’

  ‘It was extra. I saw no harm.’

  ‘You would have fighters suffer?’

  The director looked at him long and hard, a great sage weighing up the appropriate punishment.

  ‘Then you will suffer. Eighty lashes.’

  Abraham hung his head and felt the flesh on his back go tight.

  ‘I need him,’ said Saad.

  ‘After the lashes. You –’ the director nodded at the fighter – ‘take him.’

  ‘I need him now, and I need him able to work.’

  ‘After he is punished.’

  Saad sighed. The pained sigh of a tired man.

  ‘It will take time to have him lashed. After he is lashed he will try to work but he will tire and make mistakes. And men may die as a result.’

  ‘God’s retribution is stern.’

  ‘God would find another way. Would He want His own fighters to suffer?’

  The director’s eyes looked ready to pop; Saad had pushed him too hard. It was a mistake to have brought God into it.

  ‘How dare you predict what God the most high would do? That is blasphemy, Saad.’

  But Saad smiled and shook his head.

  ‘Please. Not that track again. I’m simply wondering what happens when you lose a man because you lashed a good nurse. What his commander might say.’

  The director sniffed, eyeing Saad with less confidence, and ran his tongue round the inside of his lips as if checking for undigested food. Finally he turned down the corners of his mouth in grim resolution.

  ‘You need him?’

  ‘We need him.’

  ‘Two weeks’ pay. No more errands.’

  ‘Fair,’ said Saad, and went to take the drugs from the desk. ‘For the fighters,’ he said, with a thin smile, and left the room.

  Out in the corridor Abraham caught up with Saad.

  ‘Thank you. My God. How did you know what to say?’

  ‘What were you doing with these?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I knew the moment I came in the room. They think they’re clever but most of them have the brains of flies. Why I bothered is another question. Here. These are yours.’

  Abraham shook his head. He wanted Saad to see his eyes but he was walking fast, as he always did.

  ‘They’re for upstairs.’

  ‘I don’t want them. Sell them or take them or whatever you want to do with them but keep me the fuck out of it next time.’

  Abraham reached out and pulled him back. Everyone else might misjudge him but it was important that Saad knew. Saad of all people.

  ‘Once, I’d have taken them. In this place, my God, I’d have swallowed them all. But they were for you. They were for everyone upstairs. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have involved you.’

  The irritation on Saad’s face cleared, and he shook his head.

  ‘You’re a strange man.’

  ‘I don’t know what I am.’

  ‘Find out soon or you’ll get somebody killed. Understand?’

  20

  This is the surest sign yet. The strongest temptation.

  The wrapping is terrible. His wrapping was always terrible. I look at the thing for a while and wonder if I should just throw it away. And probably I should have, because even as I pull at the string I know what it is and I know what he’s doing.

  It’s a photograph of my mother. She’s twenty-five, and she’s looking down at me in my cot, in profile. You can’t really see me through the white bars, but I know I’m there and so does she because you can tell nothing else exists for her in that moment. I can imagine that. I’ve never felt closer to her. The light is coming through an orange curtain, a thin piece of fabric that I remember so vividly even while I can’t remember anything else about the room, and her skin glows quietly. She’s not smiling, because you couldn’t smile with that much love in you. The smiling would take away from it. I haven’t seen the picture before. He must have kept it with him.

  My breath actually catches, like I’m about to sob, but I don’t sob. There’s nothing there. It’s a physical thing, that’s all.

  There’s a piece of paper with five words written on it. In Arabic, which is cunning.

  Your mother still honours you.

  I screw up the paper, hold the photograph, ask myself what he’s trying to achieve, why he’s doing this. Did he bring this with him all the way just to give to me, or is this his final sacrifice, his last desperate act?

  It doesn’t matter. What matters is my response, and I see now what I have to do. To resist the greatest temptation in the darkest hour requires the purest strength.

  Umm Karam will understand me. She was there when Khalil died and when my father appeared, she knows I didn’t ask for any of it. The message I write to her is short but in my heart it feels like I’m crossing a chasm. I have made a mistake, I tell her. Please can I meet you later? My father should be there as well.

  Because when I denounce him, it must be to his face.

  21

  The next day Vural texted again.

  I am best hope for you. Do not forget.

  Abraham deleted the message and was dressing a wound when Saad appeared and told him to get some instruments and drugs together, whatever he could find, and join him upstairs – and quickly, they had maybe half an hour. A straightforward procedure, a caesarean section for a mother whose cord had prolapsed, and no nurses anywhere because your fellow devils keep beating them for one bullshit infringement or another.

  The woman was on her own, and terrified, under her veil. They shouldn’t have been treating her, but there were no female doctors left, and without treatment the baby would die.

  ‘So why do you hate women?’

  Saad spoke in English, and the shock of hearing it and the abruptness of the question caused Abraham to stop and look up. Saad continued to prepare the anaesthetic with the total concentration that he seemed to bring to everything.

  ‘I don’t hate women.’

  ‘You all do. What scares you?’

  ‘I’m not scared. Not by that.’

  ‘Because you are dif
ferent. Of course.’

  For a good minute Abraham thought carefully about his reply. It was only vanity to worry what Saad thought of him. Or anyone but God. If an airstrike killed him tomorrow and the world knew him as an evil man who joined ISIS to be with his daughter, so be it. But to be straight with one person? God, the release. Like a confession. Let Saad be his priest.

  ‘I’m not one of them.’

  Saad glanced up at him.

  ‘You are with them, you are one of them.’

  ‘I’m here for a reason.’

  ‘Fuck your reason. Your reason is the problem.’

  ‘I’m a Christian.’

  Saad’s hands stopped doing what they were doing and without looking at Abraham he shook his head.

  ‘Now I have heard everything.’

  ‘My daughter was poisoned by these animals. I came to bring her back.’

  Saad was still shaking his head, eyes wide.

  ‘I had to join them. At a checkpoint. They were going to shoot me.’

  ‘She needs to be completely clean.’

  ‘And I’m not a doctor. I’m a pharmacist.’

  ‘You’re a Christian pharmacist.’

  ‘I trained as a doctor. But I never qualified.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘I’m going to go into the spine.’

  ‘Because it’s quicker?’

  ‘And to save anaesthetic.’ Then in Arabic, ‘Please, turn on your side.’

  Together they helped the woman and Saad ran his fingers along her vertebrae. There was another reason he liked working with Saad, Abraham realized. He felt like a student again. He was learning.

  Saad said nothing until the injection was done. Then he straightened up and told the woman that everything was fine and he would operate in five minutes.

  ‘Is she worth saving?’

  At first Abraham thought he meant the woman lying between them.

  Was Sofia worth saving? It was a good question. If he was to rescue one person from Raqqa how far down the list of the deserving would she come?

  ‘She’s my daughter.’

  ‘You do know there’s no way out? This is a black hole. No light escapes.’

  ‘People get out.’

  ‘Most don’t. I didn’t.’

  ‘You should try.’

  ‘Ibrahim – is that your name?’

  ‘Abraham.’

  ‘Of course. Abraham. My wife died before the occupation. Assad killed her. When the devils arrived I stayed because I figured they couldn’t be worse and then I stayed because there were only four surgeons left in the whole city and now I stay because there’s just me. So I will die here, like the thousands and thousands who cannot leave. If you find a way to leave, go. Take your daughter with you if you can. Save her soul if there is anything left to be saved. I am sorry for your pain but next to the pain of Raqqa it is a cut, a graze, a bite from a mosquito.’

  Abraham looked at his feet and nodded. Tell the truth and it got reflected right back at you. A bad man he might not be, but how far from a good one?

  Saad reached over the woman and touched Abraham on the arm.

  ‘Nothing is right. It is all impossible. I think sometimes the only good I do is save people’s lives so they can be killed some other way. We didn’t create this place.’

  Abraham pinched his eyes closed, and saw there a million souls in pain, without hope of peace or even rest. How could he leave? It would be like fleeing a burning building past the outstretched hands of those about to burn.

  When he opened his eyes, Saad was pricking the woman’s abdomen with a pin.

  ‘Will you teach me?’

  ‘Teach you what?’

  ‘If I stay, will you teach me? To be a doctor.’

  ‘I don’t need doctors. I need pharmacists.’

  Okay, thought Abraham. I can live with that.

  22

  I feel lighter today. The sun has joy in it, it’s not oppressive like it has been, and I understand why. The lie I have lived with will soon be out in the open. The khilafa can judge me and I can stop judging myself.

  No word from Umm Karam, not yet, but then she isn’t at my beck and call. There are processes.

  When I arrive at the school there’s one brother on duty outside but the one who was guarding the room inside has gone. He’s not with the women either, and the moment I appear one of them comes at me, Niran’s mother, shouting and crying and shaking her head. She holds on to me and hangs there and in my exhaustion I have to push her off.

  ‘Niran,’ she says. ‘Please. Niran.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  But the woman is beside herself and all she can do is hold her hands up and together, like she’s praying.

  ‘They took her,’ says Besma.

  From the corridor I shout to the guard at the front but he doesn’t hear me or he chooses not to answer. I try the next door along, the bathroom, barely noticing the stench, but there’s no one there. Beyond that there’s the storeroom with all the old clothes and I don’t expect to find her there either but when I open the door there she is, in the corner with her dress off, tiny and naked, powerless, and in front of her is the brother, crouching down to her level with his hand out touching her cheek.

  I stop thinking. I’m too tired and too wired to think. I shout at him to get away from her but he ignores me, like I’m simply not there. I run to him and push him so he loses his balance and he falls forward, reaching out with his hand. His gun is on the floor beside him and I grab it. I point it at him and for a moment I’m just staring at the twisted filthy desire in his face and the innocent fear in hers. He holds up one hand, regains his footing, then holds up both and starts to stand.

  ‘You get the fuck away from her.’

  The surprise has gone from his face and he’s cocked his head to one side and he’s grinning with crooked teeth behind his scraggy beard. His eyes are wide and swimming with something like excitement. Blue eyes that don’t fit the rest of him. I don’t know what it is men feel when they’re like this.

  If I shot him now surely he would go to hell. War or no war. Fortress or not. In that moment I hate his face and his emptiness and his distance from the faith and I see no reason why he should survive, but that’s not my judgement to make and somehow I stop myself.

  Niran wasn’t crying when I came in but she is now and it makes me come to. I start thinking about how on earth I’m going to get us both out of this.

  I motion with the gun for him to move towards the door and at the same time I circle round to be by Niran, who shrinks from me as I come close. I stoop down and hand her her dress, without taking my eyes off the brother.

  Brother. He is not worthy of the name.

  He skulks round, hands half up.

  ‘Above your head,’ I tell him, and slowly he raises them.

  ‘Okay, stop. Stop.’ I breathe, try to keep calm. The only hope I have is that he doesn’t know very much. The khilafa is so well organized, but different parts don’t always talk to each other.

  ‘You know how old she is?’

  He grins harder, raises his eyebrows like the whole thing is a joke.

  ‘Do you?’

  He shrugs, says he doesn’t know.

  ‘She is eight. Eight years old.’

  ‘Never too young,’ he says.

  ‘She is not for you.’

  ‘Will bring me closer to God.’

  His biggest grin yet. So I gamble.

  ‘She is not yours. She is being kept for Borz.’

  The grin stays on his face but his eyes lose some of their bullshit, so I carry on.

  ‘You know Borz? Good. When she is nine he will marry her. She is intended for him and for no other. If you touch her again, you come in the same room, you even fucking look at her I will tell him you think your claim greater than his, and you can settle it with him. Understand? And I will pay your friend outside to tell me if you do.’

  He’s s
till grinning, but like a fool grins.

  ‘Out. Go!’

  He holds out his hand for his gun.

  ‘No. Tell your commander you had your gun taken from you by Borz’s wife.’

  Now his face drops. I see the fear go right in, the fear this pig likes to sow in others.

  ‘That’s right. I’m his wife. Don’t fuck with me and maybe I won’t fuck with you. Now go.’

  He’s so different now, just a little man with a beard and a hole where his soul should be. I watch him go and crouch down in front of Niran.

  ‘It will be okay,’ I say as I hold her arms and look right in her eyes, and she shrinks away. I no longer know how I can help these people.

  23

  i am not made for the khilafa sister

  may your time be different

  i do not have the strength.

  24

  Abraham was woken two hours before dawn as the fighters dressed in near-silence and left, taking their guns and leaving their stench behind. Sweat, fear, old breath, gun oil, farts. No air was left. It made him retch, and further sleep impossible, so he got up, splashed water on his face in the filthy bathroom – though it made him feel no cleaner – and sat alone in the kitchen watching the sun rise over the rooftops and the desert. He found tea and read Sofia’s most recent messages. Still, after everything, his stomach dropped at the sight of them. The end was coming. She had started to break.

  — Sister, what is wrong? I am worried for you. Tell me. Do not despair.

  There had to be a way to get to her. No one else would pick her back up.

  His phone lit up with a new text. This time from Huq.

  — come now many casualties!

  How could he come now? There was no one to drive him and he barely knew his way around. But there was reception here, and Google knew where the hospital was, so he walked, half ran, and even before he heard all the noise could sense that the atmosphere had changed.

  He rounded the corner to the hospital out of breath and sweating, and found the space at the top of the ramp clogged with jeeps and 4x4s and fighters loitering and pacing and shouting in a round of anger and indignation and mutual stoking. The words kafir, American and dogs rang in the air, but so charged were the fighters that they barely paid Abraham any attention as he ran inside. ‘Doctor,’ he shouted at the single guard, who watched him with slack eyes.