Evin lowered her gaze. She confessed to me that in fact every girl was the “property” of someone at the base. The man who’d bought Evin was called Mahmudi, a middle-ranking commander. From the way Evin talked about him I knew she loathed the man. She didn’t tell me what he did to her, and I didn’t dare ask.
Instead I asked apprehensively, “What about me? Who bought me?”
“No one bought you,” she said. “The Emir gave you as a present.”
“To whom?”
“Azzad.” She told me that Azzad was one of the two men who’d come to fetch me. The young soldier had clearly distinguished himself in the battle for the gas field. Common foot soldiers in ISIS didn’t usually get women, or did only in recognition for special achievements. In spite of the grim state I was in, I was obviously a good enough gift for a man of his rank.
“I think he’s all right,” Evin said. “At least he’s halfway friendly to us girls.”
I could barely imagine this to be true of an ISIS soldier, but I breathed a small sigh of relief. At least the man hadn’t yet made any move to claim his rights as my “owner,” although that may have been related to the state of my health.
“However . . .” Evin said, pausing.
“What?”
She bit her lip. “He doesn’t want you. He’s already told me he’s going to sell you.”
THINGS HAD ALREADY moved on by that evening. Azzad came into the container with a considerably older man, and I realized he was presenting me to his potential buyer. Amjed had white, almost transparent skin, shoulder-length hair, and a long, light brown beard. He was slightly portly. As he was from Azerbaijan, his Arabic was poor.
“Hey, girl, do you speak Arabic?” he asked. “Do you understand me?”
As always I said nothing.
“My sister doesn’t speak Arabic,” Evin said.
“Oh well, it’s not so important.”
The men went and concluded the deal outside our container. I listened to the conversation. “She doesn’t look particularly agreeable at the moment,” Azzad said. “But that will change when she’s back to full health.”
“Why don’t you keep her, then?” Amjed asked doubtfully.
“I can’t afford the doctor’s fees.”
“Does she really need urgent treatment?”
“Yes, otherwise she’ll never get back on her feet again.”
The Azerbaijani seemed to think this over. “Hmm . . .” he said, undecided.
“Listen, my friend,” Azzad said. “I’ll do you a special price of fifty dollars.”
“Really?” the Azerbaijani said in disbelief.
“If you promise you’ll have a doctor look at her,” the young soldier said, setting his conditions.
“Deal,” Amjed agreed.
Through the curtain I saw them shake hands. So I was worth fifty dollars. The ISIS soldier had supplemented his pay and arranged for medical treatment for me, which he couldn’t afford himself. There was that, at least. So did he ultimately feel a hint of responsibility for me?
“Azzad’s different from the others,” Evin said, as if reading my thoughts. “It’s a shame you can’t stay with him.”
“What’s different about him?”
“He got involved with them through some silly chain of events. And now he regrets it. But he can’t get away.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he told me when Mahmudi sent me to clean his container.” I presumed the girls were regularly given such tasks by their “owners.” “He said he felt sorry for us and in truth he was just as much a prisoner in the camp as we were.”
“Huh,” I said, unsure what to make of all this. It was easy to say such things. “But there must have been a time when he supported ISIS. He wouldn’t have joined them otherwise.”
“He says they brainwashed him.”
As I continued to puzzle over Azzad’s behavior, Amjed sent a doctor to examine me. Amjed came in as well to oversee things. As my new “owner,” he didn’t want to take any risks by leaving me with another man, even if it was a doctor. ISIS soldiers didn’t do such things. They knew each other too well, and when it came to women they didn’t trust anyone else an inch.
But in fact the doctor wasn’t an ISIS man; you could tell that at first glance. He didn’t have a beard, nor did he wear anything on his cropped hair. His clothes too were those of a civilian. That’s why I liked him. The doctor gave me a thorough examination, especially my back, pelvis, legs, and the injury to my head. Evin also told him about my epileptic fits. He looked extremely concerned. “She’s in a very poor condition,” he told Amjed.
“What does that mean?”
“She needs peace and quiet, complete rest.”
“For how long.”
“She should stay in bed for at least ten days.”
I saw Amjed’s face change to register the disappointment.
“I’ll give her an IV and something for the pain.”
But the Azerbaijani wasn’t listening anymore; he only had one thing on his mind. “Doctor, how long will it be before she’s functioning properly again?” he asked impatiently.
“I can’t say yet. For the moment, at least, no one must touch her.”
I rejoiced inside. That’s what you get, you old lech, I thought. What a bad investment your fifty dollars were!
AS I SPENT all my time in bed in the container, I rapidly became familiar with the routines in the camp. They revolved around a few fixed things, including the prayer times, which everyone in the camp had to observe, whether willingly or forced. Five times a day the entire camp, including the abducted women, assembled in the empty space between the containers.
“Why don’t you refuse?” I eventually asked Evin.
“I tried at first,” she said. “But they beat me to a pulp. They don’t mess around. It doesn’t mean anything, Farida, believe me.”
And I did. For every morning and evening, before or after the men came to fetch them, the girls secretly celebrated their own ritual. All the same, it made me cross that my friends pretended to pray to the same God as our enemies. I was angry at our helplessness and I resolved not to join in under any circumstances.
The second thing determining the daily routine of the girls was the men’s needs. Evin and the others were repeatedly summoned by their “owners.” Officially this meant that they had to perform housework. Sometimes this was actually the case and they would scrub their masters’ containers or do their washing.
Cooking was not one of their chores, because the men were fed from a central canteen. A cook, usually Azzad, prepared them Libyan-style food, meaning that everything was mixed together on the same plate: rice, vegetables, fish, and salad. Azzad would bring us a plate too, which we all ate from together with forks. Although we didn’t like the food much, we were always starving and very grateful to Azzad for thinking of us at least. The other soldiers seemed to forget that we needed to eat too.
But usually when the girls were summoned to the containers it was to perform another sort of service. My fellow prisoners didn’t talk about it openly. But I could see them getting agitated and frightened whenever they were called. They would leave with their heads bowed in shame, and return with puffy faces. I soon figured out what this all meant, and it made me very afraid. Our slavery was first and foremost a sexual one. My friends were also taking the pill. They claimed that their “owners” had prescribed this “medicine” for them and that they weren’t sure what it was. But they could read and understand the writing on the packaging as well as I could.
When Evin came back from Mahmudi and took off her black veil, she regularly had scratches and marks on her body. She’d sit cross-legged beside me on the mattress, lay her head on my chest, and start to cry softly while I stroked her hair. We didn’t have to talk about what had happened; I could tell that Mahmudi hurt my friend badly.
“Don’t blame yourself,” I told her, for I knew that this is what tormented her most. We’d all been
brought up to blame ourselves. I could see that was wrong in the case of my friends. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”
“But I feel so dirty!” she sobbed.
“Your soul is pure. He’s the dirty one.”
“He’s a pig, a brutal, lewd pig!”
“They’re all pigs. They have no morality. And one day they’ll get what’s coming to them. I’ll make sure of that myself,” I swore, and meant it, too.
My “owner,” Amjed, did leave me in peace to begin with. But the doctor came every day to check on me. He changed my IV, treated my wounds, and kept Amjed at arm’s length. For that I was deeply grateful, and the doctor and I soon became friends.
One time, when we were alone, he admitted to us that he was truly sorry about our plight, and ashamed at what was being done in the name of his religion. “I wish I could help you,” he said.
I recognized that he was a good man. My brain whirred into action. “Buy me, then,” I suggested. Forgetting all caution, I even spoke to him in Arabic. “And then let me escape, me and Evin.”
But he only shook his head sadly. “I wish that were possible,” he said. “But I can’t buy you; I don’t have the right.”
“Why not?”
He sighed, then revealed his secret. “I don’t belong to them,” he said, explaining that ISIS had kidnapped him in the hospital when they took Deir ez-Zor. “We’re in the same boat,” he said. “I’m just as much a prisoner as you are. That’s why I can’t help you.”
I understood what he was saying, but refused to accept it. “Please think whether there’s anything you can do for us,” I encouraged him. “Your God will reward you for it.”
“But that’s what I’m doing, that’s what I’m doing.”
When my condition hadn’t significantly improved after ten days, the doctor told Amjed that he had to take me to the hospital. Only there could I be properly examined. The Azerbaijani objected. “Is that really necessary, doctor?”
“If you want her to be able to walk again, there’s no way around it.”
Reluctantly Amjed agreed. Clearly, what he was most annoyed about was having to pay for the treatment. But that had been his deal with Azzad, so he couldn’t shirk his responsibility. But I think he was already regretting having gone into the deal without thinking. “I really bought a pup with you, didn’t I, girl? You’re causing me nothing but problems!” he cursed.
“Tell him that I’m not happy being with him either,” I said to Evin, who was as usual acting as my translator, because I supposedly didn’t speak a word of Arabic. He went into a rage.
“Tell her to keep her trap shut!” he barked at us. “She’s given me enough grief already!”
In our region it’s very rare to go to the hospital alone, and this hadn’t changed under ISIS control. Evin was desperate to accompany me, but Mahmudi wouldn’t let her. Maybe he was worried that the two of us would escape together. Sumeya, a shy sixteen-year-old, came with me instead. After the two of us had covered ourselves in black from head to toe, Amjed packed us into a car he’d borrowed from somebody and drove us to Meadin Hospital in Deir ez-Zor.
The hospital was close to the airport, where there was constant fighting. As soon as we got out of the car we could hear firing in the distance: rifle shots, but also the thunder of artillery. If only ISIS’s opponents would take the hospital, I wished secretly, as Amjed carried me into the building on his shoulders.
The facility was still in the hands of the military; armed guards stood around the entrance. Inside things were running fairly normally, though there was a strict separation of the sexes. Amjed explained to the staff that the room Sumeya and I stayed in must be locked from the outside at all times. This was agreed to without question; Amjed’s status as a fighter allowed him to issue such orders. We were in the middle of a war after all.
After he’d left my escort and me alone, the doctors carried out all sorts of tests on me. They X-rayed my back and legs to check for fractures that might have been overlooked. To examine my head they inserted me into a long tube, a diagnostic technique they called an MRI. I think the camp doctor had ordered this, because since Zeyad’s beatings I’d had constant headaches and dizziness, as well as two recent epileptic attacks at night.
I recall little of my time in the hospital, as I was given fairly strong painkillers—morphine, I think. For most of it I was only semiconscious. Having my body numbed in this way was a very pleasant experience; it gave me respite from the permanent pain I’d had to endure since my abuse at the hands of the Emir. I’d have been very happy to keep on taking the drugs.
I don’t know what emerged from the tests; they didn’t share the findings with me. Nor do I know whether further therapy or an operation was necessary. The doctors didn’t talk to me. They only revealed to my “owner” what they’d discovered. Whether it was out of fear, conviction, or opportunism, the entire staff at the clinic behaved loyally toward the ISIS leadership.
I was quite disappointed when after three days Amjed packed me into the car and took me back to the camp. For some reason I’d imagined that it wouldn’t come to this—that ISIS’s opponents would take the hospital beforehand. I’d been hoping for a miracle, but it didn’t happen.
When the Azerbaijani showed the camp doctor my X-rays and MRI scans, the man put his head in his hands and asked why on earth he hadn’t left me in the hospital. The answer was simple: Amjed would have had to pay for any further treatment, and clearly this exceeded by far the budget for his “slave.” All the doctor could do was give the strict order that I needed more time in bed.
IT WAS ONLY after a month and a half inside the camp, which I spent mainly in bed in the container, that I recovered somewhat. Autumn had arrived, the sun shone less powerfully, and its rays had given way to a softer light. At this stage, I could even manage the few steps to the door to enjoy its warmth. I was careful, however, not to overdo it; I didn’t want to harm my status as an “invalid.” For I was still excused from all obligations, of which the communal prayer was only one. I often wondered uneasily how much longer I’d manage to keep it like this.
This was also the usual time of our autumn congregation in Lalish. In our imprisonment we wistfully remembered how we’d spent these days in the past. It was in Lalish, we Yazidis believed, that God once came down to earth. Here He created the Seven Angels, the sun, the moon, and the stars, all flora and fauna, the rivers and the seas. Everything, therefore, began in Lalish a long time ago. Human beings too were created in this place of earthly perfection. I recalled the delight my brothers and I felt when my father told the old stories on our way to the shrine. Would there ever be a return to normalcy for us? Did Lalish even still exist? What remained of the world we once knew? Did the Seven Angels continue to meet even if we couldn’t accompany them with our rituals and songs? They had not wished well for us last year. What would they decide for the year to come?
Amjed, who paid regular visits to our container to see whether I was making progress, grew increasingly impatient. “How much longer now, doctor?” he’d keep asking. And each time he’d be put off. In the end his patience snapped. He was desperate finally to enjoy his “property.”
“You’ve been fine for a while now, Farida,” he exploded on one of his visits. “I’ve waited long enough. You’re going to come with me to my container right now.”
I froze and stayed lying there stiff as a poker, pretending not to have understood a word he’d said.
“Enough of the games,” he warned me. “You understand me perfectly well. And you know that I’ve got a right to you. I’ve invested a lot of money in you!”
I remained silent again.
“All right. Either you come now of your own accord, or I’ll have you fetched.”
He left. Shortly afterward, two low-ranking ISIS soldiers came to our container. They grabbed me roughly under my arms. I kicked and screamed as they took me to the door, but they were unfazed. Accompanied by the lewd gaze and whistling of other
ISIS men, who stopped outside our container, they dragged me right across the camp to Amjed’s billet. Shoving me inside, they slammed the door behind me.
The Azerbaijani was already waiting for me. I don’t think I ever found that man quite as repulsive as at that moment when I saw him sitting smugly, his legs apart, on one of the two wide beds in the small room. He was dressed in a knee-length beige tunic, as often worn by men in Central Asia, and also in Libya. Beneath he wore pants of the same color. He’d already taken off his army boots and the cap he always wore on his head. I stood rooted to the spot by the door.
“I’ve waited long enough,” he said. “God is my witness that this is so. I have a right to you!”
He rolled out his mat and got ready to kneel down and pray. I’d heard from my friends that the particularly religious ones commonly did this before taking a woman, thereby celebrating their rape as a form of worship.
In this moment when his attention was diverted, I tried to yank open the window. Although still not fully fit, I thought I might be able to save myself by leaping out. But Amjed realized what I had in mind and grabbed me from behind. “Little bitch!” he ranted. “For months you play the invalid and now you want to try some acrobatic tricks. I’ll show you!”
He held me tight and cut down his prayer to a few surahs from the Quran, which he muttered in a hurry. Then he was ready. He ripped off my clothes. I resisted wildly. “You will obey me!” Amjed cried, pulling down my veil. I screamed bloody murder. He threw me onto the bed. I desperately looked for a way to escape his control. But he pressed me down. Despite his age, he was stronger than I’d thought.
I tried biting his arm. But nothing helped. I could not prevent Amjed from doing what he’d planned. When he finally got off me, I curled up into a ball and stayed on the bed, crying.
Amjed pulled up his pants, put his cap back on, and stomped out of the room in his army boots.
The Girl Who Escaped ISIS Page 14
