Years before, newly arrived in London, Sofia briefly loved the zoo. She would head straight for the rainforest house, crazily hot in a London winter, the sloths hanging by their tails and the little bearded monkeys jumping from branch to branch. Spotting the iguanas, which she called gwanas, in the dead leaves that lined the floor of the cages. They’d been many times with Ester and once on their own, when she was in hospital; the sight of Sofia there without her mother had been too much, and though they lived close by they never went again. It was expensive, and anyway, Sofia soon came to see the cages and not the animals they held.
If she were here now, she’d be railing against the zoo, no question. Everywhere he went, he was arguing with her, her voice in his ear an irritant and a comfort; he wanted her to be quiet, and he wanted her to keep talking. It was so like grief, this, and it occurred to him that he was waiting for news of her death – if she had crossed the border she might as well be dead, and slowly the peace cracked, replaced by the fear that had become his usual state.
‘Do you have news?’
Aziz sat down on the same bench as before and nodded, in no hurry to start. He took in a deep breath, nodding slowly.
‘I have news.’
Abraham couldn’t bring himself to ask the next question.
‘Is good and bad.’
‘Go on.’
‘She is in Syria.’
Abraham closed his eyes and quietly shook his head.
‘She is in Dabiq. Small town. In a makkar. You know makkar?’
‘No.’
Makkar. It had a horrible sound. He saw her in a kind of barracks in the dust, lined with bunks and fighters and guns.
‘Where woman go. When they arrive. And families. She is there, we know the place.’
That was better, if it was just the women. But really it made no difference. It was over. She was beyond his reach.
‘Is that the good news?’
‘Good news is we can get her out.’
When Abraham opened his eyes, the gazelle that had been chewing grass by the fence had lifted its head and was staring again, as if it could sense the conflict in him.
Good news. It was good news. He had no choice but to think that.
‘She won’t want to come.’
‘She have no choice.’
‘How would you do it?’
‘We do it before. Three times. Two girls, one boy, his mother took him, we took him back. My people, my friends, very good, very professional.’
‘But it’s like a prison.’
Aziz snorted.
‘Bad prison. They kidnap from our land, we kidnap from their land. No guards at makkar. We go, we look like Daesh fighters, we tell her she has to come with us, she comes, we bring her here.’
‘What about all the checkpoints?’
Aziz raised his eyebrows, intertwined his fingers and pushed them out until the bones cracked.
‘For this we need money. For whole thing we need money.’
Abraham barely heard him. His hand went to his mouth and he bit at a hangnail that wasn’t there. He was trying to pick out a single question from the dozens crowding him. To intercept her was one thing, to get her to see sense, even to say goodbye, but taking her back – it would never work. She wasn’t ready.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, wishing he had a single person to discuss it with.
‘Ten thousand dollars.’
That was all he had, almost exactly. Even if it worked, there would be nothing left to rebuild their lives together somewhere. Perhaps this was the universe’s way of forcing him to prove his love for her.
‘It’s a lot.’
Aziz shrugged.
‘How much your daughter is worth?’
‘She won’t be ready.’
Now Aziz turned to him, his belly shifting under his shirt. The hair on his chest ran up into the stubble on his neck.
‘Your daughter, she is pretty?’
Abraham felt his hand stiffen.
‘What do you mean?’
‘She is pretty, she marry quickly. They will marry her. And when she is gone from the makkar she is gone. Like this.’ He slapped his palms together twice like a man disposing of a problem.
What would Ester say? The money wasn’t a consideration. It came down to an impossible calculation: take her now, and she might never see that she was wrong; delay too long and she might be too far gone to recover. Did the poison wear off? How long did it take?
‘I need time to think.’
Aziz sighed and shrugged, as if he was tired of his clients but understood.
‘Tomorrow. After that, too late. And nine hundred dollars now. Minus deposit is six.’
11
Sometimes the kitchen is left in a real state, plates and mugs in the sink, food out on the sides, no one bothers to empty the bin and when they do the bag sits there because to get to the bin store you have to go outside and none of us are allowed to do that. When the air con’s not working and there’s no breeze there’s a real stink. The sitting room as well; people just leave stuff and I tidy it up and then it’s a tip again within minutes. I don’t even want to talk about the bathroom.
So I have an idea. A roster. I spend the afternoon drawing one up, and when Badra comes home that night I show it to her. The boxes are blank for now – I want her advice on who should do what.
She nods as she looks it over.
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re tired now, I’ll leave you. We can talk about it later.’
‘We can do it now. I do not have a pen. You have a pen?’
I say of course and hand her mine.
She thanks me for it and starts writing in the blank boxes. My name in the first, in English script, just Umm Azwar. Umm Azwar in the next one, and the box after that, and in all the boxes on the top line. I think she wants me to do all the washing-up, but she keeps going, speeding up and eventually just writing the letters UA in every single box. I feel like I’m turning to stone as she’s doing it, I want to speak out or walk away but I can’t, it’s like I can feel the blood freezing in my veins.
When she’s done, she hands the paper back to me and there’s a cold fire in her eyes.
‘You are right. The makkar needs work. You can start tomorrow.’
It takes me all day. Idara looks in and teases me. This means Badra likes you, she says. I laugh what you’d call a hollow laugh but she says no, really, she does. Of course. Right. By the end I’m dripping under my abaya and I can smell my own sweat rising up off me. Everything looks so much better. I’d like to beat the rugs but I can only really do that outside.
I eat early because I don’t want to see Badra, but when she comes back that evening she comes to find me. I’m in my room, reading hadith. She stands over my bed for a few moments, as if she’s inviting me to say something, but I don’t want to give her anything to work with so I put my book down and look up at her, waiting.
‘I didn’t say do it all today,’ she says at last. ‘I thought it was a roster.’
She uses the English word, and a mocking sort of tone.
‘It needed it.’
‘It’s better.’ She leaves a pause. ‘Remember you are on duty again tomorrow.’
Then she goes, and I lie in my bed wondering what I have to do to be accepted by her.
12
His daughter was gone, and tonight he would drink. The Golden Lion was the last bar remaining in Gaziantep: dark, airless, tomblike, dank with the smell of old beer and last night’s cigarettes. Erol, the proprietor, brought him a bad Turkish whisky, and as he set it down Abraham ordered. The place suited his mood; somewhere that had known fun but wasn’t expecting to see it again. The photographs of parties that lined the far wall had an ancient feel to them, historical documents only.
By the time the second drink arrived Abraham had finished the first.
‘Two more whiskies, please.’
Erol looked at him with great subtlety. I am happy for you to drink
as much as you want, but understand, not everyone in this city will share my tolerance. Abraham was grateful to him; more than that, he was filled with a great love for the man and what he represented. A last bulwark against the darkness.
‘And something for you. Please. At least until you get busy.’
Erol nodded, went to the bar, took bottles from the shelves and started preparing something out of sight. When he returned he had a tray, and on it a single tumbler, a two-thirds full bottle of whisky and a Martini glass full of some bright pink liquid and sporting a cocktail stick.
With different appetites, each went at their drinks. Erol sipped at his like a connoisseur.
Perhaps Gaziantep had been cosmopolitan once, the real gateway between East and West. In its own way it was cosmopolitan still, no? Abraham thought of all the fighters that had passed through on their way to sign up. English, Swedish, Russian, American, Moroccan, Belgian, Czech. A great clearing house for the scattered scum of the earth.
What has happened to your city, he wanted to ask this decent-seeming man across the bar from him. How have you allowed it? But he knew Erol wouldn’t understand, and so he smiled a smile he didn’t mean, drank the whisky until he felt numb, and took himself to the blankness of the hotel.
13
Abraham shifted in bed, conscious of trying to escape something in his dream, some noise or unpleasantness he didn’t want to confront. He did his best to stay under but the noise came again, and as he began to wake he realized that it wasn’t in his head but in the room. A banging, a hard banging on wood. On his door.
The only light was the dull orange from the street lamps outside. He sat up, tried to rub his eyes awake and as the banging started once more rolled over and out of bed.
‘Wait. Please.’
His laptop and phone lay on the floor by the bed. He took them, went to the bathroom and by the light of the phone lifted the tile and placed the computer inside alongside his pills, letting the tile drop gently back into place.
‘Who is it?’
The breath caught in his throat as he said it. Outside, someone grunted something he didn’t catch: a man’s voice, that was all, and then a fist making the door shake. One, two, three, deliberate, violent.
Oh God, I hate this place. Please deliver me from it. Deliver us, God, Sofia and me.
The voice said something else and now the whole door shook. With a silent prayer, Abraham turned the handle.
Two men stood there, one at the shoulder of the other. The moment the door opened, the first of them walked past Abraham and in one motion reached up, dragged him into the room and pinned him by the neck to the wall by the foot of the bed, so quickly that Abraham barely registered what had happened and with such force that he felt the breath go from him and his feet lift from the floor. Christ, the man’s grip was strong, like his fingers were cast in metal.
Each man had the same build, short and broad with thick arms, and the same solid, heavy head. The second man switched on the overhead light, stopped for a moment to stare hard at Abraham and after a swift scan of the room crossed to the bedside table and pulled the drawer right out, turning it upside down and dropping keys, change, receipts onto the floor. His movements were quick and forceful, in an established pattern. Squatting down, he picked up Abraham’s passport, leafed through it, tossed it away, did the same with his notebook. He wore a cap; Abraham thought he recognized him from the hotel lobby, he had seen him sitting there – had done his best to avoid seeing him there.
‘What is?’ said the man holding him to the wall.
‘Notes. For my work.’
‘What work?’
‘I’m a pharmacist. Medicines.’
After another minute of studying Abraham’s scrawled handwriting the searcher threw the book impatiently behind him. Now he kneaded the pillows, lifted the mattress and pushed it onto the floor, squatted down briefly to check underneath. With another look at Abraham he edged round the bed, took the suitcase from the wardrobe and emptied it, began to sift through the contents, scooping things behind him as he was done with them.
Abraham tried to speak. Tell me what you’re looking for, he wanted to say, and I’ll help you. But the moment he tried, the grip on his neck tightened and nothing came out. This man was a professional.
Finished with the bag, his friend went to the wardrobe and examined every piece of clothing, went through every pocket, until the wardrobe was empty and the floor behind him covered. When he was done, he ripped the curtains to the floor in two big heaves, flapped the fabric like someone making the bed, and seeing nothing there stood for a moment with his hands on his hips, looking round the room and shaking his head. Muttering something to his friend, he picked his way through the mess to the bathroom, flicked on the light, and Abraham heard the little he had in there – toothbrush, toothpaste, soap – being thrown on the floor.
‘La shay’ huna,’ he said, coming back into the room and stepping right up to Abraham so that his face was only inches away. Six inches shorter, he must have been.
‘Phone. Mobil, now.’
Abraham still had it in his hand; he held it up. The man took it, tried to unlock the screen and passed it back.
‘Number. Now.’
The grip on Abraham’s neck released and he felt himself sliding the two inches down the wall to the floor.
‘Here,’ he said, rubbing his neck. It felt grazed, it was so sore.
For a good minute the man’s thick thumbs flicked here and there over the screen of the phone, in and out of every app.
‘La shay’ huna.’
Nothing here. The man with the cap threw the phone aside and reached up to Abraham’s face. Abraham pulled back, expecting him to go for his neck, but with a firm open palm the man stroked one side of Abraham’s face and then the other before pinching his cheek, hard, between finger and thumb.
‘Taqlim hayatik.’
‘He say cut your beard,’ said his friend, and left the room.
The man in the cap stared hard at Abraham, and without warning slapped him round the head. Pointing with two fingers at his own eyes and then at Abraham’s he walked away, leaving the door open behind him.
Bent over, Abraham rubbed his neck and with each deliberate breath swung between terror and defiance. The room was wrecked, his thoughts in chaos. He knew nothing here. Any more out of his depth and he’d go under.
He stood up and with his hands on his head surveyed the ruin, trying to find the energy and the will to start setting it straight. He could just leave. Should just leave – pack up his things and go, right now, pay the bill and a bit extra for the damage and take the first bus to Adana, as Vural had suggested.
And yet he knew he couldn’t retreat now, at the first encounter with actual danger. There would be worse, and no way of avoiding it. Wasn’t that why he was here, to confront all this? This was the world Sofia lived in now. If he couldn’t save her from it, he should at least live it alongside her.
First, he found his passport. How stupid, that as an outlaw in this lawless place, he should still think it important. Then he put the drawer back in the bedside table, and was recovering all the odds and ends it had contained when there came another knock at the door, and a cough, and a sniff.
He looked up to see Vural in a pair of striped blue pyjamas, mouth open in apparent horror, slowly shaking his head.
‘Sami, my God, what do they do?’
‘Pretty much everything.’
‘Who do this?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How they look?’
Abraham picked up the last piece of change, dropped it in the drawer and went to pull the mattress back on to the bed.
‘Here. I help.’
Together they heaved it back. Abraham sat down on it, and Vural sat beside him.
‘Two men. Short and strong.’
‘And feet?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘What on feet?’ Vural pulled his leg onto his knee and pointed
at a leather slipper.
Abraham thought about it.
‘Boots. Like workman’s boots.’
Vural nodded slowly with some dark realization.
‘Fighters.’
‘Yes.’
‘What they say?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘They told me to cut my beard.’
Vural let his head loll back and looked up at the ceiling, as if in prayer.
‘Sami, Sami, Sami.’
‘What?’
‘They think you are Daesh. ISIS. I wonder, your beard, all this time. In Cairo, okay, a beard. Here a beard means bad thing. You must . . .’
He mimed lathering his face with a brush.
‘Understand. Antep, there is Daesh, Free Syrian Army, Al Nusra, more, the Kurds. I think maybe this is Kurds. And then is you. In middle. Like ant with many elephant.’
With unnecessary emphasis Vural ground his slipper into the carpet.
‘Sami. We must talk. You and I.’
‘Vural, I just want to get my room straight and go to bed. I’m very tired.’
‘Sami, no. We must talk. I know why you are in Antep.’
‘I know. I told you.’
‘No, the reason you do not tell me.’
Abraham tried not to frown, not to give it away, but Vural’s expression told him that he had nowhere left to go.
‘I know you are Abraham.’
Abraham turned from him, fitted the drawer into the bedside table and started to pick coins and papers from the floor. His London keys were there, his driving licence, his boarding pass.
‘You must work with me now. Or I cannot help you. Abraham, listen to me.’
Abraham stopped, closed his eyes, wondered where he would find the strength for this new encounter.
‘How do you know?’
‘I know things.’
‘And you know why I’m here.’
‘Of course. You are not so clever and we are not so stupid.’
‘And what now? Why are you here?’
Vural sniffed, took a handkerchief from the waistband of his pyjamas and loudly blew his nose.
‘To save your life.’
‘I’m not here for that.’
The Good Sister Page 4
