After a few lines, Ismael’s voice began to quiver.
“What? What?” Sara shouted. Ismael read first in Norwegian and then translated into Somali for his mother.
“… We have decided to travel to Syria…” he read.
“Illahayow i awi! Allah, help me!” Sara cried, and fell to the floor.
Sadiq tried to help her up but tumbled down himself. He remained sitting there, his arms around his wife, rocking her.
“I can’t believe it,” he mumbled. “It’s not possible.”
The smaller boys stared at them. Isaq came over, crept close to his parents.
“Daddy, where have they gone?” Jibril asked.
“I don’t know,” Sadiq replied.
He tried to gather the chaos in his mind. They could not have taken off just like that, without warning, no, he did not believe it. There were three possibilities. One, they were joking. Two, someone else had written the e-mail. Three, he had not read it correctly.
* * *
The police operations center logged the call at 9:54 p.m. The caller had “received an e-mail from two daughters where they informed him they had left for Syria to take part in jihad.”
Sadiq implored the police to track the girls’ telephones to find out where they were.
“Someone has kidnapped them!” Sara exclaimed.
Sadiq called and called. The girls could not have gotten far! Finally he heard a click on the other end of the line.
“Abo—”
He interrupted his daughter, cleared his throat, and tried to calm down.
“Ayan, stop where you are, it doesn’t matter where, stay there, I’m on my way, I’ll put gas in the tank, please, wherever you are, just wait there and—”
“Dad, listen to me—”
“I’m coming to pick you up, I’m taking the car, where are you?”
“In Sweden.”
“Wait for me. I’ll drive, or no, I’ll fly, I’ll take a plane!”
“Forget about it, Dad.”
“Think about this, both of you, we need to talk. Who are you with?”
The line went dead. When Sadiq rang back, he was told the number he was trying to call had no network coverage.
He rang the police operations center again. The operator logged the girls’ location as “an unidentified hotel in Sweden.”
Suddenly Ismael shouted something from his room and came into the living room pointing at his laptop.
“Ayan is online, she’s on Facebook!”
Sadiq saw a name he recognized, his daughter’s middle name: Fatima Abdallah.
He sat down and wrote to her: “My child, tell me where you are so I can come and meet you, or answer the telephone. You’re causing the family huge problems. Don’t make things worse. My dear chiiiiild, please, my chiiiild, talk to me.”
He sat staring at the screen. Ayan’s voice had been firm. Obdurate. They had to go to Syria. To help. The people there were in need. It was their duty.
The decisiveness Sadiq had mustered when he called the police was gone.
Sara was talking to a friend on the telephone.
“Oh, you poor things,” her friend said. “I heard about some girls from England who went to Syria and…”
There was a smell of burning coming from the kitchen. The rice lay black in the bottom of the saucepan.
Isaq seemed to have become a part of Sadiq’s body, clinging to his father like a baby animal. Sadiq let him be. Jibril circled them both, anxiously, vigilantly.
Ayan usually put the boys to bed, read to them from the Koran, then told them about the life of Muhammad or talked to them about the day that had been.
That night they went to bed without the blessings of the Prophet.
* * *
At 10:47 p.m. a reply ticked in from Fatima Abdallah, aka Ayan. She used Facebook Messenger.
“Abo, you all need to relax. It’s better to speak when everyone has calmed down and had a chance to think.”
“Okay, talk to me now,” her father answered.
“Can’t we talk tomorrow?” she suggested. “Whatever you do, for all our sakes, don’t tell anyone.”
“My child, you are stronger than to allow yourself to be brainwashed. I believe you are my little Ayan who used to listen to me. Your mother is in a coma. The house is full of policemen. Child Welfare are here.”
“Why did you call them? We told you not to do that!”
“My child, did either of you tell us anything?”
“You would never have let us go.”
“Ayyyaaaan, fear God if you truly believe in Him. You are not allowed to travel without a male guardian. Name one sheikh who has permitted this so that he can convince me with theological evidence. I’ll go blind if I don’t find you!”
“Abo, relax! I’ll send you an entire book.”
“My daughters, we will never forgive what you have done, not now or in eternity. And neither will you receive any divine reward for this.”
“Dad, don’t say things you will regret. Everyone is worn-out, we’re very tired, can we talk tomorrow?”
“Paradise lies at the feet of your mother. That is a hadith, my child—the word of the Prophet. Your mother’s in the hospital, lying in a coma. How will you succeed? Where will the divine reward you seek come from? My child, do not invest in hell!”
“You have two small children to take care of, be strong for their sakes. We’re safe and can look after ourselves,” Ayan assured him.
“Don’t be naïve!” Sadiq wrote, and repeated that paradise was at their mother’s feet. “Have you forgotten that?” he asked his elder daughter.
“Paradise comes with the grace of Allah,” Ayan replied. She logged off Messenger.
* * *
A picture appeared on Ismael’s mobile phone, on Snapchat: a large steak on a plate, a white tablecloth, nice cutlery.
“Last meal in Europe!” it said beneath the photo, which disappeared after a few seconds.
The text had been sent via Viber. Ismael clicked on the message. What his sister did not know was that the message app automatically showed your whereabouts if you had not disabled that function.
Seyhan, Adana, Turkey, it read. He clicked again. A map came up, and a blue dot. He zoomed in and saw an intersection, streets.
“They’re in Turkey!” Ismael came rushing in to show his parents the dot. “I can see exactly where they are! Call the police, they need to get in touch with
