“No, it can’t be like that!” He banged at the door with his foot, kicked at it with his heel, hammered with his fists.
“Where are you from?” Sadiq asked. “From here. A village on the crest of the hill, a little west of here.”
“My name is Abu Ismael, I’m from Somalia.”
“Suleiman.”
“What did you do?”
The young man took a deep breath. “My parents have an olive grove . . .” He was silent for a time, then began to recount the story of the land his family had tended for generations. Some time ago it had been divided by a road. Last week he had cropped the olives on the Isis side, and then, defying Isis, had crossed the road to pick the olives on the Kurdish side. The young man burst into tears. “They took my sister and . . . she had come with me to help pluck today, to get it done quicker since she is faster than any of us. My little sister . . . I’ve no idea where she is, where they took her, what they’re doing to her. Awlad al haram! Sons of bitches!” he shouted.
He got to his feet and pounded on the door. Sadiq attempted to restrain him, but Suleiman was like a raging young bull.
A gang of guards showed up. He stood, bloodied but unbowed, ready to take on 10 men. “Step aside,” they told Sadiq before grabbing hold of the young farmer and forcing him down the corridor.
A while later the door was opened again. They threw the farmer on the floor. Sadiq ran his hand over him, felt his pulse. Was he alive? Yes. Sadiq tried to avoid his sewage-coated fingers coming into contact with the wounds. He must not do any more damage. The night passed. The door was opened wide. The terrible trio. They dragged Suleiman out. Morning came. Abu Ahmed came in with tea. Sadiq looked at him. “Where is Suleiman?” Abu Ahmed made no reply. “What happened to him?” Sadiq persisted. “You don’t want to know.”
It was several hours before Sadiq came to himself again. He lay on the floor, sobbing. He had never wept for anyone as he wept for Suleiman. A person he had known for only the briefest time. A person who should have lived but no longer did. A person with a vitality and strength he had scarcely seen the likes of, a farmer who should have had a whole flock of children.
A voice in Sadiq’s head now took up and shouted what Suleiman had exclaimed upon being thrown into the stinking cell: What sort of hell is this?
MOCK EXECUTIONS
A few hours later he was kneeling in the backyard, blindfolded, his hands tied behind his back. Two men held him down. He felt the blade of a knife against his throat. He was aware of a sharp pain, of blood trickling. He prepared himself. He imagined the sensation of the knife edge slicing through skin, flesh, sinew and finally the artery. Poor Sara. His poor old mother. They were the ones he thought of most. The children would manage. “We know you’re a spy,” a voice above him said. “Who are you working with here? Who’s given you information?”
“I’m not a spy, I’m a father,” he repeated. “If you’re going to kill me, then kill me because I’m a father who refuses to abandon his daughters, but don’t kill me because you suspect me of being a spy.”
Sadiq thought that if he admitted to spying, they would kill him. He told himself, no matter how much they beat me, I must never say yes. The knife was taken from his throat. They began to beat him instead. He was still blindfolded. The worst beatings were when you could not see what was happening. You had no chance to tense your muscles before the blow landed. He could easily take a beating with eyes open after this. They threw him back in the cell. A little later Abu Ahmed came in. He brought water. Sadiq gulped it down.
The trio returned. “Who’s paying you? What did you tell them?”
“I’m just a father.” Sadiq kept to his mantra. “I swear to you, if I was a spy I would tell you. I’m here as a father, I want to fetch my daughters home . . . ”
“We’re very fond of your daughters, they’re good Muslims,” the younger one said. Sadiq gave a start. Did this guy know his daughters? “And because we are fond of them, I’ll make your last night taste that little bit sweeter because tomorrow we’re going to kill you.”
They tossed a bag of sweets to him. Sadiq just stared at him. “The sweets are from your son-in-law,” the one with the beard added. “He asked me to give them to the old man. I promised to send his regards.”
Sadiq shuddered. They left. He did not touch the sweets. He had no desire to taste his own death sentence. That night a young boy was thrown into the cell — not yet fully grown, with the face of a child. They came again just before dawn, hauled the boy out and disappeared. Sadiq laid his head on the filthy floor. What kind of people were they? This had nothing to do with Islam, nothing to do with jihad.
Least of all had it anything to do with God. Because God was merciful. They had forgotten that. The next night he was the one they took out. He was handcuffed and blindfolded and beaten. Then the blows ceased. The fat one ordered Sadiq onto his knees. Drizzle was falling. The knife the man had pressed to his throat was wet. They wanted a confession. Sadiq answered on autopilot: “I’m just a father.”
The knife was removed. While he knelt in the mud, his hands tied behind his back, they debated whether or not to kill him there and then or let him live. The rain continued to fall. They forced him to his feet and back to his cell. I have a small spark named Sadiq, he thought, as he lay dazed. The rest of me is dead. …………. continued on the next page
