The Good Sister

by Chris Morgan Jones

  ‘This is going to take a long time,’ I tell them both in Arabic. ‘And we don’t have long.’

  Where the ceiling dips, Abraham has to crawl on all fours, sometimes for minutes at a time. More than once the earth roof brushes against his back and the pain leaves him sprawled in the dirt, but he has the will to pick himself up. Now he has something to escape to.

  The tunnel is roughly built, propped up every yard or so with timber, but the floor is rocky and soon his knees hurt as much as the rest of him. His neck aches. So much has happened that only now does he realize that he hasn’t drunk any water for the best part of a day; his mouth is cracked and dry with thirst and sand. With every step – every inch forward – he wonders whether it wouldn’t be easier to be on the surface, where at least he could breathe. The air down here is thick and empty at the same time; he has to pant to suck the oxygen from it.

  After twenty minutes the tunnel surfaces, and they wait by the entrance, listening for activity above. Then, like some burrowing creature, Sofia raises her head slowly above the parapet, crouches down to let a car pass, then repeats the process and eventually pulls herself up. The first time this happens they have to cross a road; they sprint to the other side, Sofia first, Abraham at the back, this young girl they’ve brought with them in between, and for a while they run about in the darkness, still crouching, desperately trying to find the entrance to the next stretch.

  For hours, many hours, this goes on. Sofia lets them rest, but not for long, and she doesn’t seem to need it. Abraham hates this city like he never knew he could hate anything, but he’s strangely proud of the way his daughter navigates it. She doesn’t flag. She’s clear and courageous. Going back to Borz’s for the girl was an insane thing to do, like her coming here in the first place. Down here, in the heat and the intense dryness and the total dark, where the images that come to his mind are of himself taking the cable across his back as he hangs in space, of the shock, almost puzzlement on Borz’s face as the bullets sink easily into his chest, he concentrates on an idea of her future and for the first time in a long time knows it can be bright. It’s the only thing sustaining him.

  The sky is turning from black to the darkest blue when they emerge at the exit to yet another tunnel. There’s just enough light for Abraham to see that his hands and the sleeves of his jacket are black with dirt. The streets are quiet. Quietest before the dawn.

  Sofia throws the gun out, pulls herself up after it, and tells them to wait for her, she’ll be back in a moment. Abraham hates any separation now. He wants to protect her, absurd though that is – she’s protecting him – and if something bad happens he wants it to happen to them both. With an almost physical certainty he feels that all life is now bound up in her.

  By an old instinct he puts his hand on the shoulder of the girl to reassure her, but she shrinks from him, and he apologizes. He can see her face now, the outline and essence of it, and it seems to tell him what he knows already, that she has more reason to be terrified than him.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ he says, in Arabic first and then in English, to himself.

  7

  I’m sure this is it. There’s a building on the corner that’s collapsed on itself and I remember the shape of it, like a tooth with decay, the four corners still standing and everything else sagged into the middle. From that crossroads it’s two or three minutes to Badra’s but we have to be really quick now because dawn is on its way and any moment the first call to prayer is going to start and the whole city will come alive again.

  Out here my legs barely work, they’re cramped with crouching and crawling, and my energy is almost gone. My feet are badly cut, each step is agony, and my mouth is so dry I can’t move my tongue. If we’re not in the right place I won’t be able to go on, I don’t think I can.

  That first stretch is so long, it feels like a hundred miles, and with each step I’m praying that no brothers drive past or take this moment to look down from a window. There’s enough light to see by now which means we can be seen, we might as well have a giant spotlight trained on us. And the call to prayer must be minutes away.

  Twice cars pass, and twice I have to decide whether to just keep on walking or try to find some dark spot out of sight. Both times I keep on walking, and my heart pounds so hard I swear I can feel the fabric of my niqab shaking. I’m praying we look like a family, husband, wife, child. They drive straight by, and my heart rests a little, not much.

  After what seems like hours we’re there. My first home in the khilafa.

  She’ll be awake now, she always is. I press the buzzer and tell my father what to say. After maybe a minute, just when I’m thinking she’s somewhere else, something must have happened, there’s her voice as hard as ever.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I have a message from Umm Karam.’

  ‘Why can’t she call?’

  ‘There are documents.’

  He does well. The door clicks and we’re in. Even the smoothness of the tiles under my feet is a relief.

  The lights aren’t working and neither is the lift. It takes us so long to get to the fifth floor, one flight at a time, that I’m sure by the time she comes to open the door Badra must already smell a rat. After two flights the first call to prayer starts, and outside the day has really begun.

  My first idea had been to talk to her on my own but the other two are in such a state, they need water and rest and I don’t want her just shutting us out. The sight of them may be the best appeal we can make.

  I knock, firmly, trying to make it sound like a man’s knock.

  She’s unveiled, dark against the light in the hall of the apartment, and her strict blue eyes stare right at me like she was expecting me the whole time.

  ‘You.’

  ‘I need help.’

  ‘They came for you.’

  When, I want to ask. Did they come before or after we killed Borz? But instead I say, ‘Then they won’t come back.’

  She just looks at me, and as usual I have no idea what she’s thinking, none at all. All night I’ve been wondering what I tell her, and now that the moment is here I can’t think of any lie that she won’t instantly see through.

  ‘They want to kill us this morning.’

  ‘Who is this?’

  She juts her chin at Zarifa.

  ‘She’s Yazidi. Borz’s.’

  ‘You took her?’

  ‘No one should live that life.’

  ‘You still think there are rules, don’t you?’

  I’m not here for one of her discussions. I’m here for water, and money, and help from another human being.

  ‘You said it. The khilafa is not for us. Not for her, not for me.’

  She shakes her head, and her mouth makes something like a smile.

  ‘No one leaves. That is the only rule.’

  ‘I thought there was only sharia.’

  ‘You don’t listen. You never listened. There will be sharia. One day. Now all we have is force.’

  God forgive me, how I hate her logic and her coldness. She knows what I’ve been through. I don’t want to hurt anyone else, I never want to hurt anyone again, but I will shoot her if she doesn’t get out of my way.

  ‘I just need some water and some food. That’s all.’

  ‘Then you better hurry.’

  I feel like I’ve swallowed a cold stone. I don’t even have to ask what she means, she volunteers it.

  ‘I called them the moment you buzzed.’

  The door’s open three inches and she’s kept her body behind it the whole time, but now she steps back and in her hand I see a pistol coming up at me. I kick at the door, lean into it with all my weight, shout for the others to get back – she’s surprised and her first shot goes past me somewhere, does no harm. Now I barge the door because my only hope is to keep her close, don’t let her take aim, and as she fires again she staggers backwards under the weight. I feel that one, it flies past me and I flinch from it but I keep pushing, and the door gives,
and she falls backwards and with my balance gone I fall onto her, veil pulled off centre, on the floor we roll and grope in the dark through the black fabric for each other’s arms, trying in the mess to stop a shot and trying to get one away. Waiting for His will to choose one or the other.

  I can’t see a thing but I sense someone by me and Badra shouts, a muffled shout and when I finally shift my veil I see Zarifa kneeling down, she’s got Badra’s head wrapped in the folds of her abaya and with one hand she’s pulling the material tight against her neck. I keep fighting but the fight is going from Badra, the hand that clutches me loses its power and I pull away, keeping my hand on her gun hand.

  ‘Zarifa. No.’

  Either she doesn’t hear me or she can’t stop. I can’t see her eyes but I know she wants it, and I can’t let her, she’s too young.

  With some wild last burst Badra brings her fist blindly up into my jaw. It sends me over and I shoot, and for a second, two seconds, I think I’ve hit Zarifa and that God has chosen the most awful punishment for me. No. Not this time. Zarifa still kneels, still tightens her grip on Badra, and I shout at her again because I can see that Badra’s back is no longer arched and her chin is slumping onto her chest.

  Have mercy on her, Lord. Have mercy on me.

  ‘Zarifa. Zarifa.’

  I take her hands and unlock each in turn. She looks at me and I tell her we have to go.

  I tell my father to grab the gun and he stands there not hearing me.

  ‘We have to go. Now!’

  I pull Zarifa up and start down the stairs, taking them two or three at a time, my bare feet are slipping on the blood I left on the way up but I don’t feel the pain now, every nerve in my body is pushing, pushing. God, I hope I’m right. Behind me I can hear the others and I will them to keep up.

  At the first floor I tell Zarifa to give me my shoes back. She looks at me like I’m crazy and I have to shout before she understands.

  ‘In there.’ I point at the lift.

  I run downstairs, out of the door, down the few steps to the street, where the trail I’ve left becomes smudged and indistinct. It should be good enough. I put on the shoes, my fingers shaking as I unlace them, and as I race back inside I hear a car, many cars, driving at speed.

  On the first landing they’re still trying to prise the doors open. Together my father and I wedge our fingers into the crack and pull, him on one side and me on the other, and by leaning our weight into it they start to open, enough for me to stick my head in and look, but it’s pitch black, I can’t see anything.

  I take one of the shoes off again, pass it through the opening and let go, and almost straight away I hear the thud of it hitting something solid. The lift is right there, it must be.

  ‘A little more.’

  The opening is now a foot and a half. I squeeze through, the gun slung across my back, and even after everything it’s not easy, just to drop into space, it’s so hard to find a grip but there’s a sort of lip on each of the doors and I hold on to that while letting myself down, and finally I’m hanging from the floor by both hands and there’s nothing for it but to pray and breathe and just let go.

  The lift is right there. Maybe four or five feet down.

  ‘Zarifa. Now.’

  She appears between the doors and my father hands her down to me and as I guide her I can tell she’s quivering. The call to prayer is finishing and the engines are close.

  ‘It’s going to be okay.’

  He slips through next, and stands with one foot either side of the opening where there must be a little ledge. Now they’re here for us. Two or three cars, maybe more, they sound like they’re in convoy, getting nearer.

  ‘Close it.’

  ‘I know.’

  I can see him against the blueish light, can sense how hard it is for him to find a final scrap of strength. The door is old and the mechanism hasn’t been serviced for years, it’s all dry and the parts scrape against each other with a terrible screeching sound. From outside I can hear wheels crunching to a stop, car doors slamming, and that same crazed shouting that followed us into the night at Borz’s.

  ‘Dad. There’s no time.’

  I’m whispering-shouting now, they’re so close. I hear the door open downstairs, hear their boots on the tiles. So many of them. The gap is down to three inches, it’s still too much, but I have to tell him to stop, he has to leave it.

  He gives it one last heave that closes it another inch and then hangs back into space, one hand on each lip of the door, and past him and through the gap I see glimpses of the fighters as they tear up the stairs. I don’t breathe. It takes so long it feels like there are hundreds of them but it’s probably only ten or twelve, and in a pack they’re gone. Now their footsteps are up above us – they echo round the lift shaft – growing higher and fainter.

  ‘Drop down,’ I say, but my father gives the doors one last almighty go until they’re almost shut. Not completely but as good as, just a thin blue line of light shows between them.

  8

  All Abraham can do is listen to the sounds above and hope that the men who have come for them are the kind who act rather than think. Down the lift shaft come sounds of shouting and doors being kicked open and slammed shut. Much shouting, and much frustration. Borz wanted them kept alive, but Abraham knows that this time they’ll die the moment they’re found. Executing the spy and his daughter is one thing. Parading the sorry trio who killed your most feared commander is another.

  Boots on the stairs, hammering on a door far above, the door being kicked in, everything accompanied by a constant yowling of shouts and instructions. Christ, what a horrible sound, like dogs in a frenzy. A group of four or five come all the way down the stairs and pass the lift doors at a run, boots clattering. Everyone seems to be making noise, and above it no one seems to be in charge. A group comes down a floor, then another, until the men are so close that Abraham can make out individual voices and imagine them in each room of the apartment on the floor above. In amongst them a woman’s voice pleads and a child cries, and he prays that he hasn’t brought fresh misery on the head of another innocent.

  Beside him, Sofia is holding Zarifa and comforting her, rocking gently forward and back.

  Now the men are on the first floor, and Abraham can see looming through the crack the figure of a fighter in his fatigues, enough of him to know that he’s carrying a gun at his side and wearing a black scarf on his head. Now they don’t even knock, they kick down the door to the apartment and storm the place, yowling harder than before; but it seems to be empty and in less than a minute he hears one of them saying they’re not here, let’s go.

  This is the moment. When they leave the last apartment the lift doors will be right in their line of sight and if one of them is quick, and thinking, this is the time for him to work it out. Abraham holds up a hand and all three of them stop breathing while the heavy footsteps start down the stairs. He keeps it raised until what he thinks is the last pair of boots has appeared and gone.

  One more door kicked in on the ground floor, more shouting, inside then outside, and conversation that he can’t catch. He lets a breath out slowly, closes his eyes, wills them to leave.

  Boots coming up the stairs now. They’ve figured it out. Like a child playing hide and seek Abraham keeps his eyes shut in the hope that when they force those doors open and look down the shaft they won’t see him there.

  But the boots go past at a run. Sofia shrugs, her arm still round Zarifa. Upstairs they hear more shouting, and after five minutes, maybe ten, the fighters come back, talking the whole way down and issuing commands, if you could call them that.

  ‘Get a fucking move on.’

  ‘Stop that fucking noise.’

  The crack in the lift doors turns briefly black as a dozen women in their niqabs are hurried down the stairs. The women from the makkar, leading their children. They’re carrying bags, it looks like, and more than one of them is crying.

  Finally, engines start up
outside, one, two, three, and the place is quiet. All he can hear is the crying of a child, maybe two, on the floors above.

  They’re not clever enough to be waiting, he’s sure of it, and he knows Sofia is thinking the same, but they wait anyway, for what feels like a century but is probably half an hour. The building creaks like a ship in the wind. He puts his hand on her shoulder and whispers.

  ‘Now?’

  She nods.

  Together the three of them climb warily to the top floor, checking to see from the windows on the stairwell whether anyone has been left behind to stand guard. Outside, there’s no one, and when they reach the makkar everything is quiet. Badra’s body lies by the threshold, crumpled and awkward, her head lolling back heavily on her neck, which has stretched to its full extent, long and white. Her blood has splashed the wall but none shows on her black niqab. Sofia stands over her for a moment, looks into her open eyes, and shakes her head before leading the way inside.

  Her gun is up, and she moves in quick arcs from room to room, checking for fighters. After each she holds up a thumb for Abraham to see. From the hall, a corridor heads left and she swings into each of the doorways like a professional, like she’s done it a thousand times, and all Abraham can think of is the bullet that’s waiting for her inside. But there’s no one there. She lets her gun drop, and in that moment he sees the exhaustion she’s been storing up flood her young body and, as if stumbling on her niqab, she takes two clumsy steps and collapses.

  9

  Water feels like a sacrament. God-given. My father sits me up, splashes me with it to bring me round and lets me drink a little, not too much, from the glass he raises to my lips.

  ‘You okay?’

  I nod but I don’t mean it.

  He finds food in the kitchen and prepares it with Zarifa. She’s still terrified, poor thing. We sit at the table where I sat on that first night, it feels like years ago, and watch the sun rise across the rooftops. From the minarets all over the skyline the call to prayer sounds again.