“What’s happening?”
And there the conversation ceased. How he hated this! These messages from out of the blue that ended just as abruptly as they started. When he tried to make contact again, he was met with a wall of silence. Then a new message would pop up all of a sudden with a “hi” and a smiley, and open up the wound afresh, then nothing more until his sisters saw fit.
Ismael had gotten a part-time job at a local supermarket, and he took all the extra shifts that came his way. When he was not working, he found himself with a lot of downtime, which he spent with friends, hanging out, going to the gym, and playing computer games.
He examined the prospectuses of a number of colleges and universities. The most prestigious courses, the ones requiring the highest grades, could be ruled out; he had not left school with particularly good grades. The previous year he’d looked at a petroleum-engineering program in the north, but then he discovered that unemployment within that sector was on the rise.
If he were to follow his heart, he’d learn about the universe, about atoms and physics and chemistry. He wanted to find out how the world worked.
At the same time, he wanted to forget it.
He had found it hard to focus in his final year at school, had been unable to apply himself. That was the reason his results had been so poor. He knew he had to pull himself together, but the application date for the next academic year was still a long way off. Next year he would do something with his life. Drag himself up from the trough, from the glum mornings, the bleak nights. Put his sisters behind him.
Advent, the darkest time of year, arrived, and still no snow fell to brighten up the Norwegian winter. One night in December he wrote to Ayan.
“I would sooner go to hell than worship God even if he exists. God is such a tyrant. He/She demands respect and subordination. Fuck that.”
He continued his nocturnal monologue.
“By the way, Ayan, I thought you were one of the smartest people I knew, I looked up to you, where did you lose all logic, do you really believe little ISIS/Daesh are going to take over the world? With their AK-47s and the equipment the Americans ‘left behind,’ ISIS and other small groups like them are only doing America’s dirty work. ISIS is killing other religious groupings. Say ISIS takes over the Assad regime, do you know what will happen then? It would give the USA the excuse to send in forces and kill the rest. BUT HANG ON that’s not the objective. There’s oil there after all = less fatalities for the Americans—making Obama look good—America gets to pump oil ensuring their weapons industry continues to turn a profit. In the meantime IS soldiers sit around complaining that the USA won’t send in ground troops just drones. ‘so unfair with drones, fight like a man’—Tards.”
Christmas was approaching and the shifts at the supermarket increased. Ismael stocked the refrigerated counter with ribs, herring, and head cheese. He packed the biscuit aisle with ginger cookies, confectionary, and doughnuts. He filled up the fruit section with oranges, dates, and figs. Christmas beer. Mulled wine. Advent wreath candles for hope, peace, and joy. Lines of traditional marzipan pigs stretching from here to hell.
In the Juma household, neither father nor son lit any Advent candles. They never had. There was no calendar or decorations. There never had been. Sara had always made a point of not serving anything special at Christmas; it was important to make a distinction between Christian festivities and Islamic festivities. This year, she was in a Christmas-free zone in Somaliland anyway, and the blessed sisters were in a land purged of Christmas spirit.
From there, Ayan suddenly replied: “I believe 110% that DAWLA is going to crush and humiliate this coalition that is in league against them if ALLAH SWT grants it.”
“Allah doesn’t exist,” Ismael replied. “I can also sit here and convince myself I am able to fly if I just believe hard enough. But it’s still not going to happen.”
The wall of silence again, but Ismael continued. “God is so great while at the same time he is such a self-obsessed asshole that he wants the people he ‘created’ to pray to him five times a day and for those who don’t believe in him to be killed. He is all-powerful and yet he’s too lazy to send them straight to hell himself.”
Ayan started typing.
“You’re playing with your life,” his sister wrote. “Instead of talking crap and being offensive try finding the truth or shut up and respect other people’s choices.”
“You. Are you here?” Ismael wrote.
“I refuse to speak to you when all you do is badmouth ALLAH swt. You may discuss, but with respect.”
“The truth isn’t always as pretty as you think.”
“It’s possible to express yourself with respect. Without deriding the other person’s choices. Wondering whether or not God exists is something else entirely.”
“I don’t believe God exists, but I find it odd your not realizing that dawla are going to lose in the long run and that it is not jihad but suicide. It’s like lying down on a train track and saying ‘I’ll survive if allah swt wills it’ and you die. Nuff said.”
Silence from his sister.
Ismael logged off as well.
On Christmas Eve, he sent her a thumbs-up icon.
On Christmas Day, Ayan responded: “Tell Mom that she must forgive me.”
She would never write to her brother again.
27
NEW YEAR, NEW OPPORTUNITIES
Syria had become a dump, Osman complained. “Nusra is squeezing me,” he wrote to Sadiq in January.
Osman had become entangled in the strings he had once pulled, as if someone was standing by to draw them taut, throttle him, and take over his business and operations. Being an independent player was no longer possible and even smugglers had to submit to circumstances. The war was brutalizing people, and the struggle for resources was
