When he got there, an older man and a younger woman were in front of him in the queue. Judging by their dress, they were poor, the man was wearing a white tunic and a keffiyeh, the woman a black abaya and hijab.
“It’s not possible,” the man behind the counter said. “We can’t register you.”
The father and daughter were stateless refugees from Syria. They had lived at a refugee camp outside Damascus for thirty years and never received Syrian citizenship. Therefore, they had no national identification or social security number for the shop assistant to enter into the system, meaning he could not sell them a SIM card.
“No matter how much I want, it will not go through the system,” he explained.
For Turkcell the man and his daughter did not exist.
Then it was Sadiq’s turn.
Nationality?
Norwegian.
ID?
Sadiq handed him his passport.
He was deemed worthy of a Turkish SIM card.
He called Osman from the new number. Still no answer. It was 100° in the shade. He went to the same old juice presser who had always served him and ordered an avocado juice with pistachio seeds. Osman still didn’t answer.
He continued on to Four Friends, where the kitchen was open twenty-four hours a day. The waiters came over and greeted him.
“How’s it going?” they asked.
“Good,” Sadiq replied.
But things were far from good.
At sunset he made his way down to the empty, air-conditioned dining room in the hotel and ordered a bottle of ice-cold water. They had Wi-Fi there and he could try to raise Osman on Viber and WhatsApp. He found a socket and sat down to charge the phone. There was some activity at least—the screen lit up, the battery percentage rose.
The smoking ban had made it to Hatay, so he had to go outside for a cigarette. The foyer doors were open. He stood on the street inhaling nicotine until he was dizzy. He felt a light breeze on his back, between the material of his shirt, clammy with sweat, and his skin. A tickling sensation. He had the wind at his back now, did he not?
He went back in to his telephone. Eventually he received a text message.
“Hang tight,” Osman wrote. “Await message!”
Sadiq made his way to a hipster bar across the street from the hotel. A bowl of popcorn accompanied the beer he ordered. It occurred to him that he needed salt. That’s probably the reason he was so exhausted, he thought. He finished the bowl.
His telephone rang. It was the middlemen from Dubai. He went to meet them, but nothing came of it. They traded in all kinds of things, he gathered. But they were on different planets. His mind was elsewhere. The night was heavy.
His head was pounding when he awoke the next day. He texted Osman. The border was closed for the time being, so he was not coming.
Was Sadiq supposed to sell the mercury on his own?
No, no, Osman replied, he would back him up from Atmeh.
The next day Sadiq walked around aimlessly. The middlemen did not show up in the evening. He went to bed. The night was hot and clammy. His head hurt. The only air getting into the room was through a little opening high up under the ceiling, it was impossible to breathe. He cursed himself for making the trip. Gloom began to take hold.
“What are you waiting for? Answer me!” Sadiq shouted into the phone the next morning. The promise of easy money had not materialized.
“Okay okay,” Osman replied. “I was driving south toward Al-Harem yesterday … then there was a load of shooting. Chaos! Many killed. Sadiq…?”
But Sadiq was no longer listening.
He had no more space in his head.
33
VOICES IN THE MIND
Sadiq was having a hard time focusing.
Streets, roads, squares, culs-de-sac, rules, regulations, taxi meter, weekend rates.
He was spending most of the day at the library in Sandvika. He looked at Arab news sites. He checked mail and messages. He did his homework. He went back online. Osman called him about the middlemen in Dubai. He fantasized. Wrote poetry. Studied. Recalled. Forgot. Hospitals, schools, embassies, churches, mosques. Graveyards, parks, sports arenas.
He was supposed to memorize every single little street in Oslo. Tors Gate, Odins Gate, Løvenskiolds Gate, Gyldenløves Gate. He learned about traffic management systems, outpatient transport, credit management, first aid, customer service, and safety procedures. Can you drop off passengers at a bus stop? Are you required to have a child seat in the car?
“How are things with you?” Osman asked him one morning.
“Ah, this taxi course, you know,” Sadiq answered.
“Ha ha, I should send Mehmut to Norway to give you some competition!”
“I have a load of Mehmuts to compete with. This country is already crawling with foreigners,” Sadiq wrote back. “Lots of Syrians now too. You should come over, bring your family.”
Osman paused before responding.
“Yes, I might. I don’t know how life is going to be from now on. Both al-Nusra and IS want me working exclusively for them … I’m running a huge risk. I should get my family out, my wife and daughters at least, but then there’s my parents to think of, I don’t know, you’re going to have to help me, promise me that, if I have to get out…”
Sadiq promised.
* * *
September 30 was the date for the exam.
The candidates were issued fifty questions along the lines of “Which route would you take from the Central Station to Ekeberghallen sports arena?”
At the same time as the new batch of prospective taxi drivers were filling in answers in Oslo, the Federation Council in Moscow was approving the deployment of Russian air power in Syria. Mere hours after the decision, Russia dropped its first bombs over Homs.
After handing in his exam papers, Sadiq took the train to Sandvika, traipsed up to the library, and turned on a PC. A weight had
