Dilal said she would see what she could do, but she did not think Ubaydullah was the best person to talk Ayan’s father into coming around. He had not even managed to convince her father of their marriage. On the other hand, she had never let him try. She had just left and never gone back. Broken off contact with her family. Maybe Ayan could do the same?
“Maybe,” Ayan mumbled.
Unhappy love was the theme that Ayan chose to write about for her special report in Norwegian, which was to be inspired by art and literature.
“Many in modern society do not believe there is one true love out there for them even though so much of contemporary culture is dedicated to that very thing,” she wrote in the introduction.
“I too have my doubts, because we do not see much of it these days. Is no one willing to struggle valiantly for their beloved, or for a moment beneath the moonlight? For a Somali brought up in Norway, this is a difficult subject. The topic of love is practically taboo and the romantic love between a man and a woman is certainly not talked about. You seldom hear the words ‘I love you’ exchanged between a Somali man and wife. Although parents say it to their children, their children would be shocked if they heard their parents say it to one another. In spite of this I adore love and unhappy love in particular, as it seems so genuine to me, so realistic. After all, not everything can have a happy ending.”
To shed light on unhappy love she chose Edvard Munch’s Separation from 1896. The painting, which she included on the front of her assignment, showed a gloomy-looking man in a dark suit stooped over with eyes downcast while holding a hand over his bleeding heart. A blond woman in a white dress stood turned away, looking out to sea.
“I thought it was such an intense painting that I began to read up on it and then came across a text by the painter about the subject of the picture.” Ayan quoted Munch: “So she left. I do not know why. She moved slowly away, toward the sea, farther and farther away. Then a strange thing happened. I felt as though there were invisible threads between us. As though invisible threads of her hair were still twined around me. And even though she completely disappeared across the sea I felt the pain where my heart was bleeding, because the threads could not be severed.”
In order to understand why unhappy love has such an effect on us, we need to understand the part love plays and how significant it is, she explained. “Knut Hamsun actually opens the novel Victoria with an explanation of love. I have chosen to leave it out as I consider it blasphemous,” she continued. “As human beings we are always striving for what we cannot have. Our hearts suffer in the pursuit but we suffer even more if we give up and leave. Those fleeting moments where we breathe easily and look our beloved in the eyes without fate coming between us, are the ones that keep us alive and almost drive us crazy. I think such ardent passion is a wonderful thing. It gives us hope in spite of hopelessness.” She ended by saying that the obstacles standing in the way of love “were all too evident in many societies nowadays but you can choose to break with convention and go your own way.”
The consequences could be many, she wrote in conclusion, “from honor killing to a cold shoulder.”
17
FRAUD IN THE NAME OF GOD
“Once the Muslims were a people who loved death just as much as you love life,” Ayan wrote on Twitter. It was something Osama bin Laden had said, and it had become the refrain of jihadist bloggers the world over. A martyr’s death was what was longed for, the acceptable way to salvation. This was intended to scare the infidels, those who denied God, because an enemy who does not fear death is a dangerous one.
Ayan had found a better world. A higher heaven. She listened to Koran readings recited by beautiful male voices. She watched videos on Peace TV, Talk Islam, and Quran Weekly. This was not the real life, the next one was. Death was only a transition to it.
At school she spent most of her time in the library. She often disappeared into the small book depository at the back. The room was without windows. By the door, class sets of Animal Farm and Of Mice and Men lay stacked. There were plastic boxes on the floor containing Bibles with pale yellow covers. German dictionaries for advanced learners lined a shelf.
Sometimes she went there alone, other times in the company of a couple of friends. Once, when the librarian had entered by chance, she saw the girls lying on green mats and praying. So that was what they were using the room for. She went back out quietly. On occasion the librarian saw Ayan’s head disappear behind the sofa in the corner and then reemerge when she was finished praying. The librarian had bought the sofa at a jumble sale. The material had struck her as Middle Eastern looking and she thought it would liven up the featureless library.
Ayan’s routine of practicing her faith in the middle of the chaos of the lunch break fascinated the middle-aged librarian. Youngsters sat in groups all around, eating and talking, but Ayan did not pay the least bit of attention. She sat calmly on the sofa with a book. Her ability to shut out the rest of the world was impressive.
Abdi was a distant memory.
After he left, Ayan had found several shortcomings with him. He was not really a proper Muslim.
She had devised a new plan. There was no reason to hang around waiting.
* * *
Ayan smiled scornfully when al-Qaida came up in a debate during a class on politics and human rights. The topic
