As he trudged home from an end-of-school party at four in the morning, he typed in “At least they meet!”
The conversations continued like this, intermittently. The sisters would write that life was great, apart from the heat. They were used to Norwegian summers and unprepared for the desert temperatures. They expressed their concerns about how Isaq, their youngest brother, was fitting in at school—“Has he got any friends?”—or about his foot, which was slightly shorter than the other—“Is it any better?”—or inquired if Jibril had been happy with the iPad they had given him, and if he was still going to karate. No, he was not, the family could no longer afford to pay for the lessons. All their money had been spent on trying to rescue them. The trip to Syria had put Sadiq in serious debt. They were unable to use the car, the EU roadworthiness test had been too expensive. The sisters responded by saying that they were sure Allah would sort that out too, along with everything else.
Ayan logged on erratically but at a regular time, between ten and eleven at night. She made contact one night in mid-May.
“You at home?”
“Yes. But I was going to bed.”
“Nooo, video chat, go online and wake the family!!!”
“Can’t, have an exam to study for, anyway, good night!” Ismael sent her a thumbs-up symbol.
Three days later Ayan again requested a video chat.
“Why are you always logging on so late?” Ismael asked.
“I don’t get the time to any earlier.”
“I have my math EXAM tomorrow. So I think I’d better get some sleep.”
“Soon inshallah I may have some exciting news.”
“… okay, good night.”
“You’re such an idiot. Sleep tight!”
A week later, she got in touch again, between ten and eleven at night as usual.
“Hi. Hope the exam went okay!”
“Hi. Felt it went well.”
“Good. What other exams were you selected to sit for? What ones did you want to do?”
“It was good to get math. I wanted to sit for IT. But I always get the exams I don’t want.”
“I hate that too, being picked to sit for exams in my weak subjects.”
“Oral and written Norwegian should go okay.”
“Inshallah, that’s chill, let me know what subjects you need to take an oral exam in, maybe I can help you.”
“Will do.”
“Listen, is there something up with Dad?”
Now it was Ismael’s turn not to respond. Yes, there was something up with Sadiq. He had become withdrawn, went about in his own world. He was present but showed little interest in what was around. None of what Ismael said or did seemed to mean much to him. He never asked his son about anything, school, friends, exams, plans for the summer, for next year. Ismael had not only lost two sisters, he had also lost a father. Sadiq spent all his time sitting at the computer looking at Arabic websites for news about Raqqa, about ISIS, about coalition bombing.
Ismael was merely air. The two who were not there were the ones who mattered.
* * *
Sadiq fantasized about different ways of rescuing the girls, but there was one problem: They did not want to be rescued.
Going to Raqqa, forcing them to come home against their will, no, that would not work.
The girls would first have to realize they had made a mistake.
“Can you put some serious thought into getting out of that hellhole soon?” he asked them when they called.
He bawled them out, until they hung up. Then silence. They had never given a number where they could be reached, the family could not get in touch, all contact was up to them.
As soon as the younger daughter’s leg heals they will set out for home, he had instructed Lippestad to tell the media. They were being held against their will, Sadiq pointed out.
He told people he had been on his way to the library in Sandvika when Leila had called him out of the blue to say she had fled from her husband. Sadiq stormed into the library, looked up Raqqa on Google Earth, and found her position from what she told him she could see around her. From the library he had instructed her to wait by a mosque, where she found a bench to sit on, while he had called a Syrian friend and asked him to send someone to get her. Osman had done just that and now Leila was sheltering at the house of a young widow with two small children, Sadiq told people. After a while Ayan had also made it to the hideaway. They were now hiding from their husbands and awaiting rescue, their father assured those he told the story to. But in the spring the house they were holed up in had been bombed …
If anyone wanted to know more, Sadiq could provide details.
The little children had been playing outside in the yard when a helicopter, loaded with barrel bombs, began circling. The mother had rushed out, grabbed hold and lifted a child under each arm before running back toward the house. The helicopter was directly above them when it slipped its payload. There was an almighty explosion and the mother and her children were no more.
Two sisters, who were sitting in their room, were uninjured.
The gate had been blown open.
They could not remain there.
His daughters had rushed out.
Now he did not know their whereabouts.
The truth was: They had chosen a life without him.
They were making pancakes in Raqqa.
With sugar topping.
24
THE END OF SYKES-PICOT
The days that shook the world came in early June. The time had come to realize the deceased Haji Bakr’s primary objective—expansion eastward.
On the morning of June 5, 2014, a large convoy of military vehicles rolled over the border from Syria toward the Iraqi city of Samarra, situated on the banks of the Tigris, just over sixty miles from Baghdad. The former capital of the Abbasid caliphate was home to the al-Askari Shrine, one of Shia Islam’s holiest sites, and its street layout and architecture dated from the ninth century; the war was putting
