“Hi, Ismael, what’s happening, no more messages?”
She went on. “Can I ask you a question, and you promise to answer totally honestly? You say you don’t believe in Islam, right? Are you at least searching for something to believe in? Like, seriously, because if you don’t believe Islam is the truth then there must be a truth out there, right? Are you looking for it? Your niece is doing fine … thanks for asking, 4 months old now.”
“Can’t take more of this,” Ismael wrote back. “Whenever you get in touch I’m reminded of 2 sisters I’m never going to meet again. So congrats on the child but just stop contacting me. I believe I will revert to whatever I was BEFORE I was born when I die. That’s it.”
“Ismael … I never thought of you as a pessimist, what do you mean we’ll never see each other again? Never say never. I asked if you were searching for the truth because that’s what you told me last time (how you wanted to find something to believe in) because as people we need ‘something’ to believe in no matter what it may be. ‘I believe I will revert to whatever I was BEFORE I was born when I die.’ Do you mean to tell me that you’re living and have ambitions to become nothing?”
Ismael replied after an hour. “Yep. I think you misunderstand, nothingness is neither good nor bad, nothingness is perfect harmony. Think about how beautiful nothing actually is.”
Leila did not respond.
After an hour, Ismael asked, “Are you being bombed?”
A week later he wrote: “?”
Then he noticed Leila had deactivated her account.
There was nothing more after that.
34
LEGACY
The brain is built up of experiences. They start in the womb.
A newborn can recognize her mother’s voice. After a week she recognizes her smell, after a few more her face. At two months a child can raise her head when lying on her stomach. She can distinguish between herself and her surroundings. At three months a baby can signal when she wants to be cuddled. At four months she can interact visually. By five months she is able to interpret the feelings behind facial expressions. A six-month-old baby will begin to show interest in other babies. She will be able to sit by herself, in some cases will have begun to crawl.
At seven months she has formed a bond with her parents, if she has been given the opportunity. The world develops fast. The brain is quickly furnished. Experiences will figure into language, logic, and systems. At eight months old she will learn to be skeptical of strangers and to check with her parents to learn if the newcomer is one of us. Thoughts will begin to form, which in time will turn into beliefs and convictions. At nine months old she is able to stand.
That was when Leila called. “Asiyah just stood up on her feet!”
Sara cried, “Oh, how wonderful!”
When the girls called their mother, it was to update her about the babies’ progress. Asiyah had been through several bouts of illness, but Leila was now confident she had fully recovered. Little Sara did not have much of an appetite. But things were much improved.
In autumn 2016, the two sisters, their little girls, and their husbands were living together in a large collective, with Norwegian, Swedish, and British couples. Along with an increasing number of children.
“It’s so nice, Mom,” Leila told Sara. “We’re never alone.”
The women made food, watched each other’s children, ran errands or cleaned the house, while the men carried out the tasks the Islamic State ordered them to. The sense of sisterhood seemed strong. If one of them had a headache, another one did the dishes, if one of them had a toothache, another would fetch her painkillers, the girls told their mother. They cared for one another’s children, washing them, changing them, feeding them, and putting them to bed.
Cousins Asiyah and Sara lived a life like their mothers, indoors.
Their grandmother asked about the bombing.
“Mom, it’s not a problem. We live in a solid house, and we have a really good basement, a proper bomb shelter, don’t worry.”
When they heard the airplanes, they just went down, they assured her, plain and simple, an everyday occurrence.
On social media IS girls were preoccupied with appearing unafraid. The bombing was more an irritation than anything else. “Three bombs already in the space of an hour. What kind of animals bomb people at nine in the morning. I hate America,” wrote one British girl. Umm Jihad shrugged it off: “A bomb landed literally right behind me as I was walking home. Bombs are noisy is all I can say.”
* * *
Three winters, three springs. Without them.
The girls hardly got in touch throughout 2016. They called on Muslim holy days and that was it. Was that the only times they were allowed? Sara wondered. But she did not ask. She never asked anything that might annoy that dangerous group who were no doubt listening in.
Sadiq and Sara had been prepared for the worst for a long time. Readying themselves mentally for the day when the news came that their daughters were dead. Sometimes Sadiq thought it would be for the best. It would give them closure. They could then get on with their lives. Sara could return home.
When she rang from Hargeisa and said she missed him, he cut her off.
“You know where I am. If you miss me, then come home.” She was the one who had chosen to move, now she wanted sympathy and to be consoled for making that choice. She knew what he meant, that she should come home, enroll the boys in school.
Find the girls! That was what Sara had said from day one. Save them!
For Sadiq that had become the meaning of life.
He was diminished in Sara’s eyes, he knew that. He had failed as a father, as a man, as the head of the family. This was the punishment. They had left him. His
