The Norwegian authorities had actually dispatched a police liaison who worked for the Scandinavian embassies in Ankara to act as an intermediary between the Turkish police and the police back in Norway. He had called Sadiq, who had not understood what he said because the policeman was speaking in Danish. Eventually Sadiq just hung up.
After another visit to Gulp, he collapsed on the bed once more. He was fumbling in the dark.
Sara called: Well? Well? Well?
He answered: Unfortunately. Sadly. Sorry.
* * *
The following morning, after a cup of strong tea and a breakfast of beans, olives, and yogurt, he asked the hotel receptionist, “Is there a meeting place for people who want to get into Syria?”
The receptionist looked him up and down. “There’s a park,” he said, his voice lowered. “They meet there. Make deals. They can get you in.”
Sadiq had met two Somali youths from Gothenburg at the hotel. They had returned from Syria. One had been wounded in the back and wanted to get home to Sweden for treatment. Hatay province was a way station for jihadists. They flew in, or came by bus, staying for a few days while waiting to be smuggled into Syria. Some of them traveled straight from the airport to the border and crossed over within a matter of hours. Or they returned from the war zone to Antakya, which Syrians called Hatay after the surrounding province, to gather their strength, rest up after seeing action, meet their families, and stock up on supplies.
“Take a left when you go out the door,” the receptionist motioned. “Follow the pavement until you reach a main road, then take a left, walk over the bridge, then take a left again at the first set of traffic lights across the river, then continue on until you come to a park…”
He could make out the tops of the trees from a distance, tall palms and Mediterranean conifers. Drawing closer, he saw trails and walkways crisscrossing one another, shaded patches between the trees, playground equipment, and a kiosk selling soft drinks. Nothing happens there until after dark, the receptionist had added as Sadiq had made ready to leave. He sat and waited.
In the playground, women sat chatting. The squeals of the children livened up the drowsy atmosphere. Elderly men rested in low chairs in the shade, smoking and engaging in quiet conversation as the late afternoon turned to evening. Large fir cones lay strewn all around.
A mother wheeling a buggy exited the park, a couple of young men entered. An old man with a cane rose unsteadily to his feet, two bearded men took his place. So it continued, until the sun went down.
The game began. Money, notes, telephones, and messages changed hands. Conversations were carried out in low voices, with common knowledge implied, and alternated between Turkish and Arabic. Most of the smugglers were Arabs of Syrian extraction.
Hatay province mirrors the ethnic distinctions in Syria. Here live Alawites, Sunnis, Kurds, Circassians, Armenians, and Christians. Family ties to Syria are common.
Under Ottoman rule, Hatay was the hinterland of the powerful trading city of Aleppo. With the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, the spoils of victory were distributed among the Western powers, which drew up new borders—so-called spheres of influence—in the Middle East, in accordance with the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Hatay was incorporated into the French Mandate for Syria. In the 1920s and ’30s, the province avoided Kemal Atatürk’s campaign to impose a unitary national identity, since Turkish annexation did not take place until 1939. Syria protested, to no avail. But the Assad regime still included Hatay within Syria on official maps. The two countries had attempted to find an amicable solution and planned a Friendship Dam to create a reservoir on the Orontes River, which formed part of their mutual border. But that was before the uprising in Syria changed everything.
The Turkish authorities feared that the civil war, which was creating ever greater divisions among Syria’s ethnic and religious groups, would spill over the border. At the same time, they turned a blind eye to the smuggling of weapons and influx of fighters. Every day jihadists from all over the world were landing at Turkish airports to make their way into Syria.
Sadiq had found an underworld. Smugglers who drove people into Syria for money. Or were paid to get them out. People slipped in and out, to kill or be killed.
The park was merely the gateway. The real black market was on the outskirts of town. The smell of gasoline from drums of oil drawn from Assad’s wells filled the air. Everything could be bought here. Weapons, what type? Ammunition, how much? Drugs, any kind you like. A woman, for an hour, a night, or as long as you wanted.
Whom the weapons would be aimed at, no one cared. What the woman’s name was, only she knew. No one asked about your beliefs, your doubts. Here, the price was everything.
Are you looking for a son or a daughter? he was asked.
Two daughters.
One thousand dollars first. That will get you an answer. If they’re alive, it costs three thousand each to get them out. If you want both of them, it’ll be six thousand.
There were no guarantees. Sadiq’s instinct was to take matters into his own hands.
Still, there were young people being extricated. One wounded boy was to be taken out, paid for by his family, he told Sara. Parents from Kuwait, Qatar, the UK, had come looking, he recounted. Hunched figures. Desperation in their eyes. Wringing hands. Shoulders stooped.
Because when your child is missing, it shows.
Then there were those who did not get their children. Instead they only received word: He’s dead. He died there. Your son, forget about him. Your daughter, forget about her.
One day he was driven to a place to negotiate. He sat in the backseat almost passing out, every turn or bump was nauseating. Out of the car, up a staircase, he found himself in an apartment.
Let me see my daughters,
