—Anton Chekov, Three Sisters, 1901
19
DANSE MACABRE
My daughters would never have left. My daughters always asked permission. They would never try to fool me. These were the thoughts going around and around in Sara’s mind.
But then they were brainwashed.
Somebody brainwashed them.
It was not the girls’ fault.
It was not their parents’ fault.
Someone or something out there was to blame.
The internet?
An aquaintance?
Because her daughters would never have left.
Two weeks had passed since Sadiq had gone after them, first to Turkey, then on to Syria. It was a muddle to her. On TV she saw bombs, war, shooting, houses in ruins, people fleeing. She had been a teenager herself when the civil war in Somalia raged around her. She had fled, had rescued her daughters from war, and now they had, what, returned willingly? No, it was impossible.
Sara had fled to Norway for them. For them!
Had it been up to her, she would have lived at home in Hargeisa. Yes, she had friends here, in Bærum too, but it was not the same as having your family, your relations, your sisters around you. She was acutely aware of that.
For the first time in her life she had to tackle everything on her own. Sadiq had always taken care of things. Sara had never so much as opened a letter. Money matters were her husband’s responsibility. The family often lived beyond their means. It was not uncommon for Sadiq to go to the social welfare office toward the end of the month to ask for extra money.
She rang her husband several times a day. Have you found the girls? Heard anything? Haven’t they called?
They were lifelines for each other. She needed to hear his voice and he hers. They had to be together on this.
The days grew shorter. Darkness fell earlier. The most everyday things upset her, like seeing the girls’ toothbrushes in the bathroom, finding hair ties under the sofa, going into their room where their shawls lay folded. Sniffing their scent on them …
She had not heard from her daughters since the day they left. They had made a huge mistake, but she had already forgiven them. They had to come home, then they could talk about it.
The verdict within the Somali community was harsh. They were critical of Sadiq as a father and Sara as a mother. The opinion in Somali chat rooms was that their daughters had taken off to Syria because he was too liberal and she was too stupid. Their leaving was a punishment from God.
Sara was in the kitchen preparing dinner when the telephone rang.
“Mom!”
“Ayan!”
“We’re in Syria!”
“I know! Your father’s there too!”
“What? Why?”
“Because of you!”
“How did he get in? Why has he come?”
“To get the two of you!”
“Oh…”
“Ayan, come home with him, bring your little sister, come back. I’ll give you his number. Please, I beg of you, do as I ask, call him and come back home with him!”
“Wallahi, he’s crazy!” her daughter groaned.
Sara gave her his number. Then she called Sadiq.
“The girls rang me! They will ring you now!”
Sadiq, who was sitting in Osman’s backyard smoking, jumped to his feet, embraced his host, and shouted. “The girls are about to call me now!”
But they did not call.
Not that day, not the next one, nor the day after that. Sara was the only one who rang him, over and over.
As Sadiq was not there to drive the boys to school, she was taking the bus with them every morning and picking them up in the afternoon. It was wearing her out and keeping her going. When the refrigerator began to empty and the dry goods ran out, she and a friend went to NAV and explained the situation. She was granted a payout to cover the immediate necessities and an extra allowance for food in November, in addition to benefits for rent and electricity.
Sara had attended a few Norwegian-language classes but never learned much. On her certificate she had almost two hundred hours of “unauthorized absence.” She had never put any effort into learning Norwegian, had never looked at a lesson plan, didn’t understand what the letters from the school said, couldn’t read the notes sent home from Isaq’s kindergarten or from the kids’ schools. If there was something she was interested in on the news, she asked the children or her husband to translate for her.
Sadiq, who had been tenacious in learning Norwegian, claimed to know the reason Sara had never bothered to learn the language. “Sara comes from an arrogant family,” he said. “To learn a new language, you need to be willing to make mistakes, and Sara could not countenance that. Her arrogance is like a membrane against knowledge. It’s beneath her dignity to strive.”
Three years earlier, NAV had organized a job for her at a discount store, in order for her to gain the relevant work experience to enter the job market. The job description was “customer service, cash register, stocking, tidying, and keeping the premises clean.” Upon returning from her first day she complained to Sadiq.
“They’re treating me like a slave, giving me the most demanding tasks. They have me standing on a ladder stacking shelves.”
Sadiq replied that if she learned Norwegian she could work the till.
“I don’t like the till,” she responded. “I don’t like numbers.” She was exhausted after each working day and cursed the job. One bright night in June, the chain store’s warehouse was gutted by fire, causing the temporary closure of the shop, prompting Sadiq to joke that Sara had been behind it.
“You had it in for that place,” he teased. Sara was never called back after her apprenticeship ended.
She sat on the sofa looking out at the terrace. The junk silhouetted like a ramshackle ruin against the dim sky. Piles of boxes with things they might one day need lay on top
