PINK FLOWERS
One morning his warder brought him out into the backyard. “They don’t work on Fridays,” he said. Friday. Day off. No beatings. It was the first time he had seen the yard in daylight. Small light-pink flowers climbed up a wall. Beyond it, scattered olive trees grew. Sorrow welled up inside Sadiq. The thought of the vigorous young farmer. Syria was being drained of its best men. A black flag with the seal of Muhammad flew above them.
On a sign that no one had bothered to take down he saw where he actually was: Al-Dana Water Supply and Sewerage Treatment Plant. The Islamists were experts at making prisons out of everything. Sadiq swung his outstretched arms back and forth, enjoying the space and air around his body, the sun, the gentle breeze.
“I’ve spoken to someone . . .” Abu Ahmed said. “I told them about you.”
A man came over with a slight limp and showed them into one of the treatment plant’s offices. He introduced himself as Abu Sayaf. “What brings you to Syria?” he asked Sadiq. When he had heard Sadiq’s story, he stood up and paced back and forth in the room, mumbling some verses from the Koran. He turned and looked straight at Sadiq. “If you remain in that cell, sooner or later you’ll be killed.”
Soon, Sadiq found himself being led across the yard to another building, through a door and down a corridor. He was shown into a large room with mats on the floor. “Find an empty spot,” a guard told him.
A mattress! What bliss. Beside him a man lay groaning. 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 burnt 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!”
“WHO IS ISMAEL?”
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 grey beard entered. Abu Hafs an-Najdi was Saudi Arabian and responsible for the sharia court in al-Dana. He began the hearing.
Sadiq 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?” 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. 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. “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 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 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.
Watch Day by Day Videos
Extracted from Two Sisters by Asne Seierstad, translated by Sean Kinsella, published on March 13 (Virago £19).
Some names have been changed……… continued on the next page
