The doorbell sounded. Two women stood outside. Sara invited them in.
When they left, she had no idea who they had been or what their names were, but they had looked kind and she thought they might be teachers. They had told her to let them know if there was any way they could help. She had asked for money.
A few days later they returned and handed her an envelope. There were 9,000 kroner inside. The teachers from Rud Upper Secondary had managed to find some money in the budget for social measures. Leila had left the school but Ismael was still a pupil there. They did not want to leave him in the lurch.
* * *
Osman’s backyard was always filled with men. There were soft chairs and low tables in the shadow of the grapevines, and mattresses lay flat along the wall with cushions to rest your back against. Smugglers and militia leaders sat around gossiping, smoking, drinking tea, and making plans.
The house lay behind a blue gate with sharpened spikes, and the cement top of the high wall surrounding the yard was covered with shards of glass. The stiff desert wind carried anything lying loose along with it, and plastic bags, string, lengths of rope, and all manner of lightweight litter were blown onto the wall and impaled.
It was calm at the eye of the storm. A few villages over, the jihadists were in control. A couple of hours away Assad was bombing Aleppo. The Kurds were a few miles west, and directly north lay Turkey.
The shifting alliances formed a perfect backdrop for profit. Wads of cash were counted. Ammunition, rifles, cars, two sisters—everything had a price in this cross between a military camp and a gangsters’ lair.
Apart from Osman’s mother, Sadiq had never seen any women in the house. He had heard voices; one he assumed belonged to Osman’s wife and others he guessed to be those of his sisters. But he did not know what they were called. Osman never mentioned them by name, and it did not seem appropriate to ask.
In the evenings, when Sadiq lay in the guesthouse, Osman’s voice dominated. He was no henpecked husband, that was for sure. He yelled and told people off, was quick-tempered and impatient. Osman and his wife had two daughters. Four-year-old Randa had the same auburn hair as her father, the same eyes, fair skin, and energy. She took after him in every way. She was boisterous and brave—to his despair; he didn’t view her behavior as appropriate for a girl. Sadiq never saw Osman play with his daughter. When she approached him, he usually sent her away with, “Go in to your mother!” One time she clambered up on his shoulders while he sat in the shade talking. He pulled her off and told her never to do that again, and another time when she was running around the yard with a neighbor boy and knocked over a glass of tea, her father slapped her hard across the cheek. He shouted to his wife, “Don’t let her out here anymore!”
“She’s too active, that girl,” he sighed afterward. “I don’t know what I’ll do with her. It will only get her into trouble if she continues on like this.”
Sadiq, who had always allowed his daughters to climb, swim, and play ball, would cheer for Randa when she saw her chance and snuck out. He would kick the ball her cousin left in the backyard back and forth with her. She would squeal with delight. Osman scowled at them but did not say anything.
Arabs have some odd ideas when it comes to women, Sadiq thought. How long would it be before Randa’s spirit was broken?
* * *
The search went slowly. Osman had undertaken new jobs, some of which were lucrative. He was tasked with smuggling a bunch of jihadists across the border from Turkey and spent a long time planning the operation. There were bribes, middlemen, and drivers to think of. The fighters were to be picked up at the airport in Hatay, driven to a house in one of the villages near the Turkish side of the border, before being transported over when the Turks looked the other way, and delivered to an ISIS base. With Osman’s help, the jihadists would get their reinforcements.
There was no sign of life from the girls. No one had seen them, no one even thought they might have seen them.
One day when Sadiq and Osman were waiting for lunch, Sadiq’s mobile phone rang.
“Hi, Dad.”
It was Leila.
Sadiq got to his feet and went to a corner. Don’t scare her off, don’t scare her away, he told himself. He did his best to speak calmly.
“Leila, darling, where are you?”
“Dad, stop looking for us. Just return to Norway, go back home to Mom and the others.”
“I need to see you. Where are you?”
His daughter failed to answer. He told her where he was.
“I’m in Atmeh. Right next to the Turkish border. Why don’t you both come here, or tell me where you are, then I can come and get you.”
The line went dead. He remained standing, waiting for her to call back.
Grilled chicken with raw onion and bread was placed on the table. He sat down without uttering a word; he had to take this in on his own. The other men were absorbed in their meal. Afterward they smoked and drank tea.
Then he turned to Osman. “The girls called me!”
* * *
While his father was waiting in the afternoon sun in Atmeh, Ismael received a text from Fatima Abdallah. He had just gotten home from school. It was three weeks since his sisters had left.
“We have spoken to Dad, we’re going to meet him soon, everything is still fine with
