No, they were in God’s hands. Besides, the day they would die had been preordained from the time they were in the womb.
Several girls wanted to go. Samira was warming to the idea. Ayan was fired up. “And we have to get married there. All of us,” she insisted. “I can fix us up with Norwegian husbands.” She said she knew of many single Norwegian fighters who were there at the moment and listed them. Him and him and him. She told them they would all get lovely houses, much nicer than the local authority housing they were living in now.
“I really want to go, Ayan, but I’d like to see what it’s like to live there for a year first,” Samira said, after a time.
Ayan looked at her. “A year?!”
Her friend nodded.
Ayan shook her head. “If you travel to Syria, you’re going there to die.”
Samira swallowed. That was out of the question. Never to see her little brothers and sisters again? Her mother? Or her big sister? At the same time, she really did want to help Syrian children, do what was right.
Ayan would not let up. They would just have to talk about it again later. She drummed into Samira the instructions the organizers of the Syria journeys had given her. They must never talk about this online, not on Facebook, over e-mail, or on chat. Only face-to-face, in places that were not bugged.
“Samira, it’s high time we got engaged anyway. Isn’t it?”
Ayan had the plan all ready: Flee. Marry. Die.
* * *
Most of the foreign fighters raised money for a little travel fund before setting out. Ayan had been given a pointer by those who had gone, or were about to go, about how to make some money. She needed to keep her eyes out for offers along the lines of “get a mobile phone for 1 krone” and sign up for a fixed-period subscription where you paid later. She could then sell the telephone and the subscription. The bill would be sent to her but was to be left unpaid. Whoever bought the phone would be sure to make as many foreign calls as possible before the service was disconnected and the SIM card could be tossed.
Beginning in February and throughout spring, Ayan signed up for subscriptions with seven mobile operators: Netcom, Tele2, OneCall, Lycamobile, Chess, Talkmore, and Chilimobil. She sold the SIM cards and telephones she received in each package, making several thousand kroner in cash.
“Failure to pay may result in extra costs and legal action,” warned the letter from the debt collection agency acting on behalf of Talkmore. The biggest charge was for international calls. On the Netcom bill, a couple of hundred minutes had been logged as zone World in March, and by April the figure had risen to six hundred. “OneCall wishes you a happy national day on the 17th and a wonderful month of May,” was written on one payment reminder. Principal. Late fee. Interest. Extrajudicial costs. Legal remuneration. Court costs.
She was issued three credit cards. One from Bank Norwegian, one MasterCard for students, and one from an online clothing retailer. It was important everything happened at more or less the same time, as it would not take long before her credit rating was affected. She cashed out where she could. Her credit card debt increased, in step with the notices of debt collection. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand, forty, fifty, sixty. One hundred thousand kroner. More than half of the amount was for overseas calls. The window envelopes piled up. She tossed them, unopened, into a plastic storage box at the top of the wardrobe.
The fraud was easy to justify. It was God’s will that she travel to Syria. She needed money to get there. God had offered this opportunity to her. Not settling up with companies that had their base of operations in a state that attacked Muslims could be regarded as a form of economic jihad.
Ayan continued to go to school so as to avoid complications while she planned her journey. But her attendance was poor. Sometimes she just took the bus into the city instead. Rules governing the maximum permissible absenteeism in secondary schools had recently been scrapped, so she was free to come and go as she pleased, without fear of losing her place. The only communication she had received was a letter warning her she was in danger of receiving lower grades for orderliness due to all her absences.
Ayan no longer wrote on social media. She had been advised to stay clear of the net. PST was monitoring it. All communications with those helping her to organize her journey were to be by handwritten letter, delivered face-to-face, or over Skype.
How to raise money. The travel route. Possible husbands. She could not live in Syria as a single woman. There, in the ideal Islamic state, it was a woman’s purpose to marry.
Time was running out. Ayan had to leave the country before the creditors turned up at the door, before her swindle came to light, before her parents found out anything. She met up with her friends. Samira was not ready. Neither for Syria nor marriage. She wanted to hold off on deciding for as long as she could.
* * *
Aisha gave birth to a son. She named him Salahuddin. Ayan and Leila went to visit her in the basement apartment she shared with her mother.
Dilal also came, together with Ubaydullah.
“He looks like Arfan!” the spokesman for the Prophet’s Ummah exclaimed, taking the boy in his arms and cradling him. “The eyes, the smile, the whole face, in fact,” he said, chuckling.
The child’s father was in prison in Pakistan and had not seen his son. Ubaydullah, now the main recruiter to Syria, was not able to travel and
