“Just don’t like the idea of you marrying again and again. I don’t have anything against you tying the knot with one person, but when you know he’s soon going to get killed in the war and you’re planning to move quickly on to the next one,” Ismael wrote back.
“At the moment I’m married to a kind, wonderful man who I love dearly and inshallah he will be the only one I marry and grow old together with. Nobody knows when they will die. And I can’t imagine living without him so forget about the whole remarrying thing.”
“I know he won’t live for long if he goes off to fight on a regular basis.”
“It’s not like that haha, they don’t go off to fight that often, hehe.”
23
SPOILS OF WAR
Leila sent a picture to Ismael.
“Ha, I was shot first” was written beneath the photo of a foot in a cast.
It made Ismael shiver. His sister was such an idiot! How could she joke about something like that?
Later, over the phone, she told him that by the grace of Allah her foot had healed.
“Come home!” Ismael said to her.
“No, you come here,” his sister replied. “We have a lovely big house, our own backyard, a garden … We have a black and white rabbit. As well as a gray one and a white one. They create havoc in the kitchen and eat our bread.”
“Dad risked his life for the two of you … and you accused him of being a spy and tried to have him killed.”
“Well, if he is a spy he should be punished,” Leila responded curtly.
“We want so much to help Muslims, and the only way we can really do that is by being with them in both suffering and joy,” the girls had written when they left. “With this in mind we have decided to travel to Syria and help out down there as best we can.”
But they were not helping anybody. For a while Hisham had allowed the sisters to volunteer at a hospital. He would drive them there and pick them up.
The Islamist hospital procedures had led to a large number of the employees leaving. Many had fled to Turkey. Doctors who had never taken prayer breaks were now obliged to pray five times a day. Nurses had to be fully covered while working, and male doctors were not to see their female patients’ faces.
Ayan and Leila went around kind of helping out.
Then Hisham changed his mind. The hospital was not a good place for them to be. They were better off at home.
Because when a woman leaves the house, the devil always follows her.
* * *
A new thread had started up on the chat page of Leila’s school class. After the tabloid VG reported that the girls most likely traveled to Syria because of boyfriends, a boy asked if anyone knew more about this.
Camilla: She always said that because of her religion she did not and would not have a boyfriend, but you never know
Alexander: She was so unsociable. She probably didn’t tell anyone other than her sister
Camilla: We don’t actually know if she was unsociable or not, given that we had no idea what she was doing in her free time
Fridjof: hahahahahahahahahahaahahaha so true
Alexander: She was unsociable in class, didn’t go on any school trips, didn’t turn up at graduation or at Ulrik’s party
Joakim: I don’t think that had anything to do with how social she was, more to do with the religious aspect or whatever it’s called. It did take place in a church after all
Fridjof: But HEY, massive respect for her daring to go down there
Camilla: I agree completely, Fridjof, she really is a brave individual
Alexander: Are you kidding me?
Fridjof: About what? Listen … it might be a stupid thing to do but she did have the courage to do it. There’s jihad and shit down there
Alexander: Yes, but she deserves ZERO respect. What good has she done??
Fridjof: She does deserve respect, even though it’s a stupid thing to do, she did leave everything she had to go and help complete strangers
Alexander: I get your point but I for one do not respect her
Her former classmates often spoke of her.
“The school actually treated her really well,” Emilie said to Sofie during a free period. They were now attending Nadderud, the most prestigious upper secondary school in Bærum. “She may have felt left out, but then again she wasn’t that easy to talk to either.”
“Wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine,” Sofie said. “But neither was she a bitch.”
They agreed that it would probably have been easier for her if she had gone to a school where there were more people like her there, more Muslims.
The girls recalled what she had said about judgment day. “It’s like a crossroads,” she had told them. “One way goes to paradise, the other leads to hell.”
“So where will I end up?” Emilie had asked.
“Because of how you dress, not covering your hair and the like, and as you’re not Muslim, you’re going to hell,” Leila had replied.
On seeing Emile’s shocked look, Leila had wavered slightly. “Maybe you’ll be all right. We will sacrifice ourselves for all of you as well.”
Sofie contemplated those words. “Is that what she’s doing now, sacrificing herself for us?”
Emilie looked at her. “Haven’t a clue. What’s she actually doing down there anyway?” She twiddled a strand of hair between her fingers and looked at Sofie. “Do you think she went there to be a sex slave?”
* * *
The first couple of months in Syria, the girls lived in different locations, depending on where Hisham was working. They stayed in al-Dana and Tabaqa in Idlib province, then in Aleppo province. At the beginning of 2014, Hisham and Ayan moved to Raqqa, where ISIS had recently taken control. As a suitable husband had yet to be found for Leila, who was still recovering from her bullet wound, she accompanied them.
One militia after another had been
