The Good Sister

by Chris Morgan Jones

  ‘We will say that the moment we discovered the girl was a spy we brought her in close so we could investigate. We watched her, her communications, to make sure she was not operating in a ring. When we were satisfied she was acting alone we executed her and her handler, her father.’

  Borz crosses his arms and sits back in his chair, shaking his head.

  ‘This is my name.’

  ‘This is your mistake.’ The man in black looks straight ahead as he says it. ‘Abu Selim’s solution is correct. Tomorrow morning, at eight. Make the arrangements. Until then lock them up, but not here.’

  3

  I must have seen fifty of the things, at least, maybe a hundred, and before he is shoved into one of the tiny cells I see them hand one to my father – an orange jumpsuit ready for tomorrow. They keep me in my niqab because I guess the rules are the rules even in death.

  The logistics I’ve never considered before – where the prisoners are held beforehand, when they change into their death clothes, who guards them, what they think is happening. I remember reading in the kafir press that some of the early hostages were told they weren’t actually going to be killed, that the camera would cut away at the last moment and leave the rest up to the imagination of the millions who would see it, but I don’t believe anyone could be in any doubt, not at this stage.

  So I know the form. Beheading, for treason, unless they have something unusual in store, something creative, and I doubt that because this already has all the appeal they need. Two members of the same family would be enough, but a father and his daughter is new and fresh, and I think they’ll keep it simple. I hope so. Cleaner than what happened to Idara – quicker. An instant, the soul detached from the flesh like an apple from its tree, and painless, I imagine. Like a paper cut, you only register it after it’s been made. And there is no after.

  This place was the local police station, I know it from the brigade – we would bring people here before trial. Before we took the town, political prisoners were kept here. Maybe we’re political. I’m on the ground floor in a cell on a corridor of ten or twelve. Mine’s the first cell on the left, and although I don’t know who’s in the others I think they must all be men – I hear them sneeze and cough and groan like men.

  Before they do it I hope they let me wash, I want to be in a dignified state for when I meet Him. If I must be clean for prayer how much more important is it to be clean for death?

  I wish it could be now.

  When they brought us up from the cellar and stood us in the dining room of that disgusting house I looked at my father and I looked at those other men and in their strength I saw weakness and in his weakness I saw a strange sort of strength. I’d never recognized it in him before. Borz is weak because he’s a hypocrite. He is not a holy man. In his eyes there is only murder and lust, nothing else. My father loved my mother so much that when she became ill life stopped for him. He lived in fear, all the time. I see it now. Borz has never known fear. He just makes others afraid.

  What is in his head when he executes a woman with her hands tied behind her back or forces himself on a girl a third his size? The young brothers, the stupid brothers, the ones who came here for a gun and a wife and to think they’re big, a nobody become a somebody, the ones who’ll come to my class and take an eight-year-old and treat her as no one should be treated and then say it brings them closer to God – those brothers, with their eyes that turn from sparkling to dead in the instant they get what they want, when they bring the axe down or sink their weight onto some poor girl, all they want is an excuse. Badra’s right. They have given as much thought to Allah, the most glorified, the most high, as they have to the life they take or the beauty they destroy.

  What is in Borz’s head? Does he know he is no different? Does he know he is a sinner?

  My eyes are shut, and against them I see an image, I don’t know where it comes from – barely an image, it’s more of a sense, maybe this is what they call a vision – of the universe in cold harmony, every part of it connected to every other and working for the whole, and of Borz naked in the desert, his white flesh writhing on the sand, eyes screwed tight and a silent cry in his throat. And flowing through everything, around and within, are His words.

  THE DISASTER! What is the Disaster?

  On that day people shall become like scattered moths and the mountains like tufts of carded wool.

  Then he whose good deeds weigh heavy in the scales shall live in bliss; but he whose good deeds are light, the Abyss shall be his home.

  Would that you knew what this is like!

  It is a scorching fire.

  Borz will know the Abyss. I have my answer. He will burn in the fire. The fire will scorch him to atoms. And soon I will discover how heavily my deeds weigh, and on which side of the scale I fall.

  I think I sleep, a sleep with no rest in it. I will rest soon enough.

  At first I don’t register them, but screams have woken me, like a baby’s might wake a mother. Screams I seem to know and not to know. It’s dark now, the cell is black, and I both listen and try not to listen. Then there are words, rushed, strangled, and I’ve never heard it like that before but I know the voice, I’ll always know it.

  No one should hear her father like that. I can picture too easily what they’re doing to him. That man I hadn’t seen before at Borz’s, I think I know who he was, and my guess is that they want to force all the intelligence they can get out of us before tomorrow. Maybe they really think we’re spies. Maybe they just enjoy it. I don’t know any more.

  More screams, I press my hands to my ears. He shouldn’t have come, why did he come? Why couldn’t he just live with the fact that I’d gone?

  For so long I’ve watched him suffer and resented the suffering. But I’m beginning to understand. Wouldn’t I want to keep Khalil’s child close forever, that last piece of him? Don’t I?

  Finally it goes quiet, and I hear footsteps in the corridor and a cell door open and slam shut, and I expect them to come for me now and though that terrifies me – I can feel my body tensing – I welcome it. If he has suffered I should suffer too.

  But no one comes, for a long time, I have no idea how long. They seem to know the worst punishment for me would be no punishment at all.

  Then with a crack a little window in the metal door slides back and I briefly see a square of yellow light and two eyes looking at me. They stare at me for a moment and I can’t see what’s in them, why they’re looking, but I assume my time has come. Whoever it is puts his mouth to the hole and says,

  ‘Your father makes a lot of noise.’

  The eyes return and even against the light I can see the leer in them, or perhaps I just know it’s there because it’s always there, in all their eyes, the brothers who took the Belgian sisters from the makkar, the guards at Borz’s house, that Russian with Niran. The look wakes some fury in me and in an instant I know that Badra is wrong. We don’t have to submit. There is another path to the future.

  ‘The more the better,’ I tell the voice.

  The eyes move back an inch or two from the door and now I see something of his face. I don’t know him, but I know him. The look is there, the same hungry greedy brazen look.

  ‘I have no love for my father.’

  ‘Then you are not a good Muslim, sister, and we will have to punish you.’ He half laughs. This is a joke.

  ‘He’s a kafir. You want me to love a kafir?’

  ‘I don’t care what a fucking spy does.’

  ‘I’m not the spy. My father is a kafir, and a spy, and his job was to come here and get me killed. Which you’re going to help him do.’

  ‘Won’t be me, sister. No such luck.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’

  He doesn’t know what to say to this.

  ‘I want to meet the man who does it.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll meet him, sister.’

  I stand and move to the door. My eyes are a foot from his.

  ‘Do I get any last requests?�
��

  ‘Does this look like a fucking movie?’

  I’m staring into his eyes, now, and he’s staring into mine. I can see the thought starting in him.

  ‘You could be in a movie,’ I tell him.

  In fact he’s one of the better ones. Strong, young, I’m guessing Iraqi, the beard still on his top lip.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  I try a smile. This is taking some effort. Part of me wants to shrink back into the corner, part of me wants to break through the door and through this idiot and run.

  ‘I don’t want to go out like this. On my own.’

  He cocks his head and grins.

  ‘You’ll have your dad, sister.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean.’

  I give him a look. I don’t know how good I am at looks but I think this one works because he grins again.

  ‘I’m seventeen. I’ve been with a man three times. One man. That’s not enough.’

  The brother nods. He’s thinking it through, I can see it.

  ‘You ever been with a woman who’s got hours to live?’

  Now I smile, for the first time.

  ‘I won’t be holding back, brother.’

  He takes a step away, sniffs, looks up and down the corridor. He’s really thinking – where to go? What are the chances of getting caught?

  Without saying anything he shuts the slot in the door and walks away, the chance has gone, but in a minute I hear steps again and the metal of a key in the lock. I get ready.

  The door opens, and he’s there against the light.

  ‘Not here,’ he says.

  ‘Wherever you want.’

  I smile and move towards him, my eyes on his so that he won’t look down and see what I have in my hand. He has a machine gun hanging from his shoulder. I put one hand there, still smiling, and bring the other up into his side as hard as I can manage it so that the metal of the chisel sinks right in, up towards his heart. I’m surprised by how soft it is, how easily it travels, and something about how easy it is makes it harder. His eyes go wide and his mouth opens and lets out a scream that dies in a kind of sigh and the smell of fear. He tries to pull back and get at his gun but with the chisel still inside I turn him to the wall before pulling out and stabbing him again, in the same place, in and out now while a kind of craziness takes me, a fire burns all through me and I’m not even thinking any more, there’s nothing in my head but his flesh and mine and only one can survive. He’s groaning, and pushing me away, but no, you can’t live, you won’t live, you weren’t meant to live, I’m sorry my brother, I’m sorry, this was your choice, this life, this death.

  I feel his weight sink against my hand and the fire calms, but something tells me this is the dangerous moment, that he’s not gone yet, and I force myself not to back off, but his body slides down the wall and his eyes stop being eyes, there’s no light going in or out.

  I step back from him. The dead weight, so much of it, the pointlessness of all that bulk. I see the blood on my hand, on the wall, on the floor, and in the half-light it looks black, toxic, a poison that’s in me now. I can feel it filling my veins until I’m a new person with sickness in my stomach and an ache in every bone.

  Whoever kills a human being, it shall be as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a life, it shall be as if he has saved all mankind.

  Have I not done both these things?

  I ask Him but there is no reply.

  4

  No one comes. For some time I just stand, not moving, not thinking, but then time returns and I know I have to work. I drop the chisel, and pull the brother into the cell. I take his gun, find his keys and leave him in there, locking the door behind me.

  Making my way down the corridor, I quietly slide back the windows in the cell doors. No one moves or says anything, some are asleep, some assume I’m a guard and that a new bad thing is about to happen. My father is in the second to last cell on the right, awake, lying on his side, but his eyes don’t even move when I call to him. When you don’t have anything to tell them, they don’t let up.

  The key is the last I try. I step forward and put my hand on his shoulder, but he hardly seems to notice I’m there. The light has left his eyes as completely as the dead brother’s in my cell.

  ‘Dad. Dad, it’s me.’

  Nothing. It’s like he’s gone already.

  ‘Dad.’ I shake him gently, run my hand up and down his arm.

  His eyes move to mine.

  ‘We’ve got to go.’

  Like a child woken from sleep he sits up, nods, and tries to stand, but his legs are weak and he has to rest before trying again. This time I help him up, and as I put my hand round his back I feel warmth and wet. He winces, and I know what they’ve done to him.

  ‘Wait.’

  I turn him so that he’s facing away from the door and inspect his back. It like it’s been clawed by some immense creature – deep crossed lines of red are cut through the cloth of his shirt which is meshed into the wounds and the whole thing covered with blood. The lines run diagonally both ways, as if two men have beaten him, one from each side, one left-handed, one right. I remember with a rising sickness the lashes I gave, even if they weren’t like this.

  The blood is beginning to clot. There’s nothing I can do for him here. The cloth will have to be picked out of the wounds before they heal, but I’ll need water, and something to clean them with.

  ‘Your jacket.’

  He shakes his head and tries to speak but at first the words don’t come, it’s like they’re stuck inside.

  ‘They took it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He’s unsteady, and for the first few steps all his weight is on me. I ask him where they took him, but he barely knows what I’m saying. I have to get something to cover his back, we can’t go out into the city with him looking like that, we’d last five minutes. So I guide him into the corridor and ask him which room. He looks like he’s never seen the place before and shakes his head.

  ‘Dad.’ I’m whispering now, because there’s nothing except corridor between us and the lobby of the station and who knows who’s around. ‘It’s important.’

  I see him try to focus, some understanding comes back into his eyes, and he points at the second to last door on the right. I nod at him to tell him to wait here and quietly make my way towards it and inside.

  I close the door as softly as I can and find the light switch. The first thing I see is the blood, spattered on the tiled walls that once were white, some fresh, some dried and brown. I can smell the blood, it makes me gag – this intense smell of metal and flesh and sweat, like no air has ever made it in here, that it’s all been sucked up in people’s screams. I look but I don’t see. I don’t want to see. But my eyes catch on handcuffs, rope, blue and red electric cable, a dial on a wooden box. In the middle of the room is a table with a wooden board that’s hinged in the middle and has straps for wrists and ankles in each corner.

  In a corner is a plastic bin full of clothes and filthy rags and on top of it I see the jacket my father was wearing, a grey suit jacket that I’ve seen him wear a hundred times before, so innocent in here, so out of place, a symbol of the line I’ve made him cross.

  My father looks at the jacket like it doesn’t make any sense to him, like he doesn’t even know what it’s supposed to be, and I have to feed his arms into the sleeves and hitch it ever so gently up onto his shoulders. He starts from the pain and lets out a little cry but as I hold my finger up to my lips I see that some life has returned to his eyes, he’s starting to wake up. As I motion for him to follow me he holds my arm, pulls me back.

  ‘The others.’

  He turns back the way we’ve come, then back to me.

  ‘We can’t take them.’

  ‘We can free them.’

  ‘If we free them, it may finish us.’

  His eyes are bloodshot and exhausted and completely serious, and I know what he’s going to say before he says it.

  �
��What’s the point, if we don’t?’

  I breathe in deeply, close my eyes, nod. He’s right.

  ‘Stay here,’ I tell him, and I take the keys and as quickly as I can I unlock all the doors, but I leave them closed. As I’m doing the last one another opens and a face appears, it’s a young local, he can only be fifteen or sixteen, and he looks at me completely bewildered. His right eye is puffed up in a ball. I put my finger to my lips, finish what I’m doing and, gathering up my father, hurry silently towards the front of the building.

  There’s only one light on in the corridor that joins the cells and the lobby, two of the fluorescent bulbs have gone, but still I feel so conspicuous. No one’s here. As we round the corner, so slowly, there’s a pair of boots on a desk and a fighter asleep in a chair with his feet up, gun hanging off his shoulder. He’s the only one, and I could kill him now while he sleeps. I take my father’s hand and we creep past, keeping my gun on the guard the whole time, and I pray that when the door opens it doesn’t make any noise, and that outside there isn’t going to be a whole crew of fighters wide awake and waiting for us.

  The building is set back from the street and two 4x4s are parked outside, facing it. Two trees block my view a little but in one of the cars I can see the blueish glow of a phone, and, lit up by it, someone in the driver’s seat. The other car is dark. The quickest way out of their line of sight is to the right, away from the street, and then circle round behind them and away into the city.

  I point the way, and looking back through the glass in the door to check on the sleeping brother see the boy we’ve just freed creeping slowly up to him and all I want to do is shout, no, leave him, just get out of there, but I can’t, I have to watch him. He gets within maybe three feet and I know what he’s going to do, he’s going to make a grab for the gun.

  I pull my father behind me and crouching down move away from the door, and at that moment shots sound inside, so flat and matter of fact. Immediately the car door opens and the other brother comes running past us, gun out. I move us round so the tree’s always between us and him but his mind is on other things and as he arrives at the door there’s more shooting, from both guns. The brother’s shooting through the glass and stepping aside and shooting again. I’m willing him to go down because if he’s the only brother here it’ll buy us some more time. And give us a car. He steps to the side of the door and twice leans over to fire into the lobby and then carefully looks round once more and when he’s certain goes into the building. The boy is dead, I know it, and my heart sinks into my gut because now we have no time at all.