The Good Sister

by Chris Morgan Jones

  ‘I know. You are hero, on special mission. I know. And now, right now, you are alive and free. You do nothing wrong, okay, for now, and this guys, they fuck up your room but they leave you. Okay. But your daughter she is gone, and you start stupid things, and best you are arrested, worse we find your head here and your body here. Yes?’

  ‘How do you know she’s gone?’

  ‘I know things. Okay?’

  Vural put his hand on Abraham’s shoulder and grudgingly Abraham turned to look at him.

  ‘You know already she is in Syria?’

  Abraham didn’t respond but he knew his face was giving him away.

  ‘Okay. You know. How you know?’

  ‘Through a man.’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You give him money? How much?’

  ‘A few hundred.’

  ‘And now more to get your daughter, yes?’

  Abraham nodded as a deep sense of foolishness started to unfold in him.

  ‘Okay. This is job for him. Understand? Antep is full of fathers, mothers, brothers, all want information of their children, sisters. It is business, big money.’

  ‘But he knew she crossed the border.’

  Vural laughed.

  ‘Is easy, to say this. What else he say?’

  ‘Just that. That she was in a town called Dabiq.’

  ‘Okay. Not Dabiq. Raqqa.’

  Abraham watched Vural’s slumped face and his quick eyes and somehow knew that he wasn’t the one who was lying.

  ‘How do I trust you?’

  Vural smiled, almost grinned.

  ‘Because I do not want money.’

  ‘Then what do you want?’

  ‘Name and everything of the man. Yes? And everything about your daughter.’

  Kind she had always been, but hard with it. A powerful imagination and a preference for action over outrage: if you were hurt, she’d feel your pain and work to make it stop, perhaps because that stopped the pain for her.

  At eight she had stopped eating meat, acting not on anyone’s example but on principles she seemed to have discovered for herself. When friends finally came, she was the one who wanted to ease tensions, isolate bullies, redress grievances. She had bound their little group together, as far as he could tell – in those days she would tell him things – and in the process had fought anyone she needed to fight: older girls, older boys, teachers. Injustice drove her, and if he looked carefully he could begin to understand how her old compassion had transformed into this new anger. It was there online, you could see the connection. This was her response to the horror of the world.

  Some of this he struggled to explain to Vural, but for his own benefit he worked at it.

  ‘She is violent?’

  Vural had moved to the room’s one chair, and was leaning back with his arms crossed looking tired but unstoppable; Abraham was still sitting on the bed. The room was in one piece again, and talking was doing something similar for his thoughts.

  Violent, no. Far from it. He had never seen her hurt a thing. Not so much as a mosquito. And understand, she is kind to everyone, she has respect for people, she would stop and give money she didn’t really have to beggars on the street. Whatever her purpose now, it wasn’t to express some deep cruelty she’d contained and hidden for years. It wasn’t in her.

  ‘She has friends in Syria?’

  ‘I don’t know. She stopped telling me things a long time ago.’

  ‘Boyfriend?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You have talked with her?’

  Abraham closed his eyes and shook his head.

  ‘She changed her number. I tried.’

  ‘She has not called you?’

  He shook his head again.

  ‘How long, in Raqqa, before her mind changes?’

  That was the question. How long?

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How long you wait here, Abraham?’

  14

  It feels like I’ve been running fast downhill and just as I was getting close to the bottom this invisible rope has yanked me back. I’m not ready. My old life isn’t ready to let me go.

  I remember the imam saying to me – he was so wise, I thank God in His wisdom for sending him to me – that my father was a man who had become defined by what he was not. That was how he put it. I told him how he wanted to be a doctor but had to stop studying when my mother got sick and he said exactly, there you are, he is not a husband, not a father, not a doctor. Such people are sad, and we have compassion for them, but we must see they are dangerous, they can pull us from the path of faith. I resolved not to let that happen. And in that I think I succeeded.

  I may be free of him. But not of her. At night, the more I read from the Qur’an, the more I really, really concentrate, the less she’s there when I close my eyes, but she’s always somewhere – like moisture in the air, you can’t see it but you feel it on your skin, on your face, every time you breathe.

  I thought when I threw away my diary I’d be over the pain, and again when I converted, but it’s still there, I can feel it now. And like a shock right through my body the revelation comes. This is the rope I’ve tied round myself.

  They call on idols that can neither harm nor help them. That is the extreme error.

  How could I not have seen before that my love for my mother has become an idol? I cling to it as my father clung to me.

  I must say goodbye to her, and set us both free.

  15

  The interrogation over, Abraham had asked a single question of Vural, praying for the right answer, like a man receiving test results.

  ‘How many come back?’

  Vural had known at once what he meant.

  ‘As human beings?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Vural hadn’t answered straight away; this required thought. For a good ten seconds he waited, stroking his moustache between thumb and finger.

  ‘The men, they are not human when they start. The men, the real men, from Iraq and Chechnya and hells on earth, they are devils – they know what they want, they just move their hell. And even the stupid boys, the sick ones, they want to kill, or why go?

  ‘The women. Some are stupid, some clever. The stupid ones, from far away they see a palace and when they are close they see it is builded of shit. They want a husband with a gun and a car and money and a big cock but it is someone like me –’ he had patted his belly – ‘fat and ugly and disease down here and when they see this they cry and they want to go home. These, they are children. Babies. Is she one like this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Other ones, they come here because they think.’ Tapping his temple. ‘They have reasons. Crazy reasons. They come to Syria they are already crazy, yes? So they see the palace of shit and to them it shines, it is like diamonds. They cannot see the shit. They cannot smell the shit. The shit it smells like a flower. You understand?’

  Here Vural had paused, shrugged, shaken his head.

  ‘Some, some they wake, yes. Like from black dream. But to what life? They cannot go home. They are in prison also. You see, just now they execute a fighter, a Daesh fighter, for wearing burka and trying to leave, to escape. It is black hole, my friend, nothing leaves.’

  A black hole. The words stayed with him long after Vural left. Abraham looked for hope, some implausible scheme, at least a berth of some kind that his faith might make for him, but found nothing, and when he could stand it no longer he got up, showered under the lukewarm water, dressed as smartly as he could manage, and opened his computer.

  It was dawn in Raqqa. The temperature today would reach thirty-five degrees. Pictures showed an anonymous city, apartment blocks and office buildings, wide streets, and everywhere ISIS fighters and the black ISIS flag. Books burning in a great bonfire in the road. Crucifixions, beheadings, lashings. It was under occupation and you had to look carefully to see signs of life persisting in the few cracks that had been allow
ed to remain open. There were markets. During the day you could move around, if you were a man or had one with you (a relative, of course). That was about it. When she saw all this – the girl who had railed against injustice since she was young enough to think – surely she would wake from the trance they had induced? She would feel for these people as she had for the faceless millions she believed to be oppressed, and come home.

  He longed to ask her. What are you doing? What do you think you’re doing? Have these people made you crazy or is there some cold purpose in this sacrilege?

  And it occurred to him that he could. Not those questions, not straight away, but he could talk to her. Here, he could be anybody.

  New to Twitter? Sign up.

  His name and his email, it wanted. Irene Massud. imassud574@gmail.com, which took two minutes to create. Country, France. In half an hour he had followed sixty accounts that he hoped would make Irene appear plausible: some French imams, Al Jazeera, and several handfuls of the sort of monsters, chancers and hotheads that Sofia herself followed, taking care to range more broadly but to leave some overlap. Then a photograph. Rather than a face he found an image of five hands, each clasping a wrist in a circle, that seemed to represent the Ummah, the universal brotherhood of Islam.

  Finally, he needed to say something about himself, a slogan. From a French Koran website he copied a likely phrase and pasted it in. Bienheureux sont certes les croyants, ceux qui sont humbles dans leur Salat. Blessed are the believers, who are humble in their prayers.

  Then he sat back and inspected his work, checked it for errors, wondered what to do next. Go straight at her, was his instinct. Irene had read the news of Sofia’s journey and been inspired by it to finally act on her own plan, secret until now, of one day making pilgrimage to the khilafa. Sofia would be her mentor, her guide.

  Irene’s English was okay, but not perfect, her tone gushing, rapt, a little naive. Her first tweet took perhaps half an hour to write, it made him sick to write it, and when it was done the morning sun was showing above the rooftops opposite.

  — My sister! Ma soeur! You have made it! Truly you are an example for me. If you will, please pray for me I can follow in future.

  Abraham clicked send and saw the message register on the screen. Tweets, one. A nervous excitement ran through him. He sent another, to everyone and no one, about the glory of Allah, the most glorified, and a third, telling Sofia that her courage was an inspiration. For perhaps half an hour he watched for a reply. When it didn’t come, he showered, dressed, and went to walk through the city, his future now hanging in front of him by the thread that he had spun.

  16

  I’m resting in the sitting room after dinner trying to read the Qur’an and doing my best not to be distracted by two of the children, brother and sister, who are playing and squabbling and refusing to settle down. I’m not annoyed with them. I’m annoyed with their mother, who should be putting them to bed, but she’s on her phone – and maybe she’s doing something important on it, I don’t know, my mood is all over the place. I think my mother’s still on my mind.

  Badra comes in, and the woman finally snaps at her children to be quiet. Even at the best of times Badra’s stern, and right now you wouldn’t want to argue with her. She looks at me, tells me to follow her and leaves again. At the end of the corridor she waits by her room for me to go inside. She and Idara share, but there’s space in here for two proper beds and two wardrobes, and they have a view over the city from two big windows, one on each wall. They have a bedside light. Badra sits on her bed, which is neat like you’d expect, and tells me to sit on Idara’s, which isn’t.

  How am I getting on? I’m wary of her, after the whole cleaning thing, and she’s not doing anything to make me feel more comfortable. I tell her fine, thank you, that it’s amazing to be here and I’m looking forward to being useful to the khilafa. I try to make it sound as positive as I can.

  She takes it in. How did I feel when the other girls got married so quickly?

  Envious, to be honest, and I will be honest with her. Envious because they were getting out into the khilafa and could start to do good work. I ask her to forgive me the impatience of youth, I just want to be useful straight away, and to my amazement she smiles, just the smallest shortest smile like a twitch of her mouth, but still.

  ‘You are learned. You know your Qur’an, and your hadith.’

  ‘I’m not perfect.’

  ‘But you try. Not everyone knows as much as you know. And your Arabic is good.’

  ‘I need to work on it. It’s too Egyptian.’

  She takes a deep breath and tilts her head from one side to the other, watching me closely like she’s looking at a painting or something. It’s a strange feeling, because whatever she wants to know I’m sure I could just tell her.

  ‘Your family. You are close? It was difficult coming here?’

  ‘My father is a lost man. A sinner. My mother is ill.’

  ‘Brothers or sisters?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What is wrong with your mother?’

  She’s so direct, it throws me. I’ve never really had to explain it to anyone before, except my imam, but he asked from a place of kindness and I still don’t know what Badra wants. But she represents the khilafa and I have to remember that, I have to trust her. I want to trust her.

  ‘She . . . I don’t know the word in Arabic. In English it’s schizophrenic.’

  ‘In German also.’

  ‘She got ill when I was young.’

  ‘That was difficult.’

  ‘Yes.’

  This isn’t natural for her. I think she wants to be nicer than she knows how to be.

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘Sometimes she lives with my grandmother. Sometimes she’s in hospital. It depends how she is.’

  ‘Did you see her?’

  ‘When she wanted to see me.’

  Badra waits for me to explain.

  ‘She imagines things. The headscarf was frightening to her. Some days she didn’t really know I was me.’

  Badra just nods, and that’s okay, because there isn’t much to say to that.

  ‘Were you frightened? Ever?’

  ‘She’s never tried to hurt me.’

  ‘I mean for yourself. For your own mind.’

  Now I lurch. Right down. Is this a test? An evaluation? Is she trying to work out if I’m going to go crazy too? If I’m a liability?

  Of course, I want to say. My father didn’t have the guts to tell me but I read it for myself. My risk is greater than yours. So what?

  ‘Not since I found the true path and the love of God, the most glorified, the most high. I will be content with what He wills for me. “There is not a creature on the earth whose destiny He does not govern.”’

  I feel His spirit animate me and with great clarity I see no reason to hide anything from this woman. She is a member of the Ummah. She should be my friend and if she is not that’s her failing, not mine.

  ‘I took care of her. My father couldn’t, or wouldn’t, at the end. He is not strong, and his strength left him. I was her mother.’

  My voice is strong and if Badra’s purpose was to rile me or find my weakness she’ll be disappointed.

  ‘I used to take myself to school, come home every day for lunch, make my lunch. This was when I was ten, eleven. One day she was waiting for me and she had a bag packed for each of us, and she put us on a train and told me it was a special trip, the school knew, it was something really special. We ended up by the sea, and there was a house in the woods, in the middle of nowhere – it was beautiful – and I remember thinking this is it, we’re leaving London and we’re going to live here, and she’s going to be better. I hated London, and now it all made sense. The city was the problem. But we didn’t go to the house. She took me to this old hut with no roof and got out sleeping bags and started taping up the windows. She took my phone off me so there’d be no radio waves.’

  Now Badra’s really l
istening. That’s so important to me. This is my safe space. I’ve never told anyone this story before, even my father, not all of it, not the details.

  ‘I told her I was going to watch the sunset and I went to get help. I got her home, I made her take her medication, I put her to bed. If He in His wisdom has the same thing in store for me I will embrace it. I will know the journey He planned for her. But until then I know I’m stronger for it.’

  I am filled with His fire. The words stream from my mouth. Badra looks like she’s watching something she’s seen before but wasn’t expecting to see today.

  17

  Sister hello. Tell me, how do you know about me if you only opened your account today?

  God. There she was. Abraham watched the words flash into being on the screen and stared numbly at them for a while, imagining her fingers typing them out, her eyes following the letters as they appeared. Alive at least. Half alive.

  His mouth had dried to dust but it didn’t occur to him to drink.

  This isn’t your sister. This isn’t Irene. It’s me. Your father, who loves you more than the brothers and sisters who are not your brothers and sisters will ever love anybody. Are you with them because they’re not me? Because they’re everything I’m not? Active, decisive, energetic, certain, bold. Foolish. Couldn’t you have done what daughters have done throughout history and found yourself an unsuitable boyfriend to do the same job?

  This is what he wanted to say. Understand, they have seduced you. You are young and where there ought to be knowledge and resilience there’s a pool of hope and innocence that these people know exactly how to fill. They fill it with their hatred and you take it for certainty. They don’t want you. They want the victory your being there represents. They want people like me to be terrified that the safety we work so hard to create means nothing, has no weight, is mere convenience.

  As Irene, he replied.

  — You were in the newspapers. Even in France. You are famous.

  Sister I have to be careful.

  — Of course. If we cannot talk I understand.