Voices from the minarets and mosques across the whole town mingled. It was beautiful, it felt sacred. Even in this hellhole, the call to worship was beautiful.
The afternoon prayer of asr was to be recited at a time defined by the length of any object’s shadow. While in the toilet cell, Sadiq had not been able to make out the calls to prayer. Now they sounded like cries of freedom. He prepared to pray.
I bear witness that there is no god but Allah
I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God
Hasten to prayer
Hasten to success
God is greatest, God is greatest
There is no God but Allah
When the calls died away, Sadiq made himself comfortable on the mattress. Beside him a man lay groaning. Sadiq looked around. The occupants of the room varied in age—there were boys and grown men—and several others were moaning and writhing in pain.
“What happened to you?” he asked the man beside him, who was trying to stifle a groan.
“You don’t want to know.”
But Sadiq always wanted to know.
“They roasted our balls,” the man said, “charred them.”
They had burned them black with a lighter, he told him. The pain had been out of this world. Several men had passed out. They had awoken to hellish pain. “The agony!”
“What are you accused of?” Sadiq asked.
“I was guiding a man across the border, an IS fighter, he was killed and they accused me of betraying him … Wallahi, I’m innocent!”
Sadiq looked around. Again, the Syrians were the ones suffering the most, all those he had shared the death cell with were local Syrians. They were the ones dying.
The night seemed interminable. The mattress provided no succor. It was as though everyone in the room was inside his head wailing and crying.
* * *
The next morning Sadiq was taken to an office. When he saw the flags and placards bearing the seal of Muhammad, he lost hope.
There is no way out of here. They have already decided who will live and who will die.
Sadiq was told to sit and wait for the judge. An imperious man with a long gray beard entered. Abu Hafs an-Najdi was Saudi Arabian and responsible for the sharia court in al-Dana. He began the hearing.
Sadiq endeavored to use the correct words and phrases, as he had learned them in Saudi Arabia. He was careful to offer precise details in his story. The account of two daughters journeying to Syria without his permission. Of a father traveling after them.
The judge turned to some men and asked for the evidence in the case. Sadiq heard the words “spy,” “intelligence,” “Norway,” “Turkey.” One of the men held up Sadiq’s mobile phone for the judge to see.
“This contains texts from his employers,” they said.
The accused was here on a mission at the behest of Western intelligence and this supposed search for his daughters was a cover story.
Abu Hafs asked to see the phone. He scrolled down the screen.
“What language are these texts in?” he asked.
“Norwegian.”
“Who here speaks Norwegian?”
There was a general shaking of heads. A Moroccan working at a garage was mentioned.
“Find him.”
Coffee was brought in for the judge and his men.
The Moroccan was finally tracked down.
“Do you understand both Arabic and Norwegian?” the Saudi Arabian asked when the court was again in session.
The man nodded. He was instructed to translate the messages on Sadiq’s phone.
Sadiq knew that his fate depended on what the man said. He had to convince the Moroccan that he was telling the truth without using his voice. I am just a father, I am not a traitor, I am just a father, he said in his mind, hoping the message would reach the man, who suddenly turned to him.
“Who’s Ismael?”
Sadiq was rudely awakened from his attempts at telepathy. He felt outside of himself, merely an observer of what was happening in the makeshift court.
“Who is Ismael?” the man repeated when Sadiq failed to answer.
Sadiq’s mind was racing. What did Ismael have to do with this?
“I said ‘Ismael’! Can’t you hear?”
“He’s my son,” Sadiq replied meekly.
The Moroccan translated Ismael’s message for Abu Hafs. The police came today to question me. They asked where you were. I said I didn’t know. Where are you?
No one at home was aware of his imprisonment. He had, in their minds, simply vanished after the last conversation with Ayan. The texts on his phone had come while he was in ISIS custody.
The Moroccan continued to translate.
Dad, where are you?
Dad, call us!
Dad…?
* * *
A few hours after the hearing, Abu Sayaf, the man who had led him from the prison yard the day before, stood over his mattress. When the Moroccan had clarified the contents of the texts from Ismael, Abu Hafs had asked the prosecutors if there was any other evidence that he was a spy. There was not. Sadiq had been sent back to the cell he shared with the other prisoners.
“You’re being released,” Abu Sayaf told him. “You’re free to go, but you need a permit for the checkpoints and roadblocks. You’ll get the papers tomorrow. Then you can leave.”
Sadiq felt like he was floating on air. He had survived! The blows, the kicks, the beatings—mock beheadings. He was free!
But it wasn’t over. He was alive, but he hadn’t accomplished what he came here for: his daughters.
His mind was cluttered, his thoughts crisscrossed and entangled with one another. He looked around at the men moaning in pain.
Abu Sayaf went on to tell him that the prison governor had opposed his release. Why had he done that? Sadiq was drained of strength, at the bottom, bewildered. This was not like being in the field in Somalia, this was unfamiliar terrain.
Still, for the first time since he had arrived at the water treatment plant he fell asleep with a sense of expectancy. He was awakened by the sound of a door being flung open.
He propped himself up on his elbows.
