Northern Iraq, outside Mosul—the Jihad Nation encampment
“Don’t you dare move, sharmoota,” Abeer said as she scrolled on her smart phone, sitting on the sofa, her dirty feet up on the brass tea table. “On your knees. No sitting back. Or you’ll get the stick.”
Abeer’s gnarled walking stick leaned against the tattered arm of the sofa.
Up on her knees, Besma shook with exhaustion. How much longer before Hassan returned? How ironic to think she actually wanted him here. But Abeer was a meeker creature when he was around and her bullying would be curtailed. Hassan was interrogating the parents of the runaway man they spoke of, the one hiding in Paris. Kafka, Besma had heard him called.
She sat silently, on her knees, arms by her side, in the scratchy black robe that the women in black had given her, that smelled of other women. On the floor of Hassan al-Hassan’s private quarters, as she’d been ordered by Abeer. Her knees ached. Her back hurt.
The room was crowded with furniture, a bed with a cracked mirror over it, two ripped sofas, a big flat-screen television teetering on top of a bookcase. A giant teddy bear, of all things, staring down from another.
She would pray. Silently. It was all she had left. And for that, she needed the sun. And even though Hassan al-Hassan’s room was shut off from light, the window boarded up with plywood, the sun was up there. Even though the air conditioner chugged away, the generator running during the day, she knew the relentless midday sun blistered down on everything in equal measure.
Besma had never felt the need to pray so strongly before.
Pray for Havi, at the madrassa, the school the jihadists had set up on the far side of the camp. Besma had gotten a glimpse when she went to the outside toilet, escorted by Hassan’s private guard, thankful not to use the indoor one that stunk, with no wind to ventilate it. Men with wild hair and beards were showing boys—little boys—how to behead a prisoner with a toy sword, demonstrating on one of the men. Everybody laughing.
She shut her eyes now. The daily prayer of the Yazidi must not be performed in the presence of outsiders, and always in the direction of the sun. She would have to make allowances. Abeer sat nearby. The sun was hidden.
On her knees she cast her eyes up, facing the noon sun beyond the roof. A black Jihad Nation flag with white Arabic writing was pinned to the ceiling, draping in places like the inside of a Bedouin tent. She closed her eyes, directing her thoughts beyond that flag, to the sun.
Yazidis were descended from Adam. God created the world and entrusted it to the seven angels. The most divine of them was the Peacock Angel, Melek Taus.
The Peacock Angel was beautiful and strong, with brilliant blue feathers sweeping back from his aristocratic forehead and a face of the noblest, purest features.
The jihadis called him Satan and said the Yazidis were devil worshippers. That was why her people must convert to Islam or die.
Convert or die.
She prayed silently for her dayik, her mother, for her poor dead soul, split into two when her life was snuffed out by Hassan’s rifle butt. The loss of her mother was so great she had not fully grasped it yet. But one thing she knew was that she hated Hassan al-Hassan almost as much as she feared him.
Then she prayed for her bawi, her father, wherever he might be. The last she had heard he was off to Raqqa province, to pay ransom for girls and women taken hostage. Once he learned what had happened to mother, he would grieve. But when he found Besma and Havi were taken, he would go mad with worry. She prayed his grief would be bearable, that he would keep a clear head, and find them.
But most of all she prayed for Havi, to keep him from becoming one of them. A jihadi. To keep him from being one of their suicide bombers.
She did what she could to push her fear aside, the fear of what could happen to her at the hands of men who took young girls, did what they wanted with them, laughed while they did it, then passed them around before selling them like animals.
She’d met those who’d been raped and beaten. Some descended into a pit of despair, but others, the brave ones, lived with it, somehow, returned home, to care for their families. She prayed she would be strong like them, not let what might happen destroy her. Otherwise the jihadis would win.
She folded her hands discreetly and prayed, while Abeer texted on her cell phone. Besma intended to repeat her simple requests twenty-one times. Twenty-one was a sacred number.
Suddenly, the clattering of Abeer’s smartphone on the brass table shook her out of her secret worship.
“I’m going to the toilet,” Abeer announced, climbing out of the overstuffed sofa with an effort, overweight, looking foolish in her camouflage. Without her naqib she was not pretty, just young, a few years older than Besma, with mousy hair cut in a greasy bob, accentuating her nose, turned-up like a pig. Acne mottled her plump face. But she was an American, so still a prize.
“If you even move,” Abeer hissed at Besma, picking up the knotted walking stick, brandishing it, “you’ll get a beating, whore.”
“I won’t move,” Besma said.
“No, you won’t.” Abeer jabbed Besma in the ribs with the end of the stick, almost knocking her over. Besma recovered.
Abeer, Hassan al-Hassan’s terror bride, squeezed past the sofa too close to the bookcase with the big dusty TV on top, left the room, passing Hassan’s guard in an afghan turban with an AK-47 who was manning the door. He squinted at Besma before the door was shut. The key turned in the lock.
Besma fell back on her heels. A precious minute or two on her own.
She stood up, her feet buzzing, and leaned back, hands on her hips, cracking out her back. Shaking the numbness and ache out of her limbs.
Relief!
She heard a blip. From the brass tea table.
Abeer’s phone. Flashing. Someone sending her a text.
If Besma could use that phone, she could call her father. It had been done before. When security grew lax, someone managed to get hold of a phone and call for help. Then the people back home would arrange a ransom, buy the women and children back. Or they would know where their loved ones were, send help.
Besma eyed the phone on the low table, her chest grinding. She took a step closer, turned the phone to face her, and the blackened screen opened up. No security gesture required. Yes.
She picked up the phone, an ear cocked to the door. A text window flashed.
MOM: Traci—are you OK? Are you there, hon?
Besma could read a little English.
It was from Abeer’s parents. In the United States.
MOM: Please call—or answer—just to say that you’re OK, Traci—please?
Besma heard footsteps pounding down the hall. Her heart leapt. She turned the phone back the way it had been on the table, found the button on the side and, with trembling fingers, blacked the screen out.
Besma resumed her kneeling position on the floor by the corner of the bed.
The door unlocked. Abeer came in, eating an apple, the stick in the other hand. She glared at Besma. Hassan’s guard, standing behind Abeer, looked at her suspiciously as well.
“What were you doing, whore?” Abeer held the stick lazily as she ate the apple.
“Nothing,” Besma said in a whisper.
Abeer slammed the door, bit off a large piece of apple, a piece of pulp falling onto the floor.
“You moved,” she said, chewing.
“No,” Besma said.
“You’re a liar.”
Besma said nothing, heart pounding.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes,” Besma said.
“What are you?”
“I don’t know,” Besma said.
“A liar. You’re a liar.”
Besma kept silent, her heart racing.
“What are you?” Abeer said.
“A liar,” Besma whispered, watching the stick twitch in Abeer’s hand.
“Don’t look at me, liar.”
Shuddering, Besma fixed her gaze onto a palm tree on the threadbare Persian rug.
Abeer strode over, squeezing past the sofa and bookcase, crunching the apple. Her stick banged the edge of the brass table as she walked by.
Abeer’s dirty feet came into view. Besma heard her bite the apple.
“Liar.”
Besma didn’t know what to do. Stay silent? Pulse skittering, she decided to do that.
“Whore.”
Besma gulped.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I’m a liar.”
“And?”
“A whore.”
“Together.”
“I’m a liar and a whore.”
“Yes. Yes, you are.”
Abeer tossed the apple core in front of Besma.
It lay there.
“Are you hungry?”
“No,” Besma said, although she was starving. But she didn’t want to eat the apple core.
“You’re lying again.”
“No,” Besma said. “I’m too frightened to be hungry.” Almost true.
“Eat it,” Abeer said. “Eat the apple core.”
Besma gulped. “Please don’t,” she said.
The next thing Besma heard was the stick whooshing through the air before it connected with her ribs in a crack of bone. It hurt. Oh, God, it hurt.
Besma toppled over to one side, clutching her rib, biting her lip, trying not to cry like a baby. She prayed something wasn’t broken.
“On your hands and knees, you liar. You whore.”
Besma struggled back up onto her hands and knees.
“That’s it. Like a dog. You’re my dog.”
Besma drew in a shallow breath because every single one she took made her side scream.
“Well—what are you waiting for?” Abeer said.
Besma drew another thin breath, contemplated the apple core.
“And while you’re eating your lunch,” Abeer said in her bastardized American Arabic, “Think of one thing: when Hassan al-Hassan returns and flirts with you, you will shun him. And when he takes you, and does what he wants, you will not give him any pleasure beyond what he takes for himself. If you do anything—anything to give him pleasure, I will know, and I will see you and your little brother dead. Got that?”
“Yes,” Besma murmured.
“Louder.”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now eat my garbage.”
Besma stared down at the apple core, the teeth marks on it already turning brown. Her stomach retched.
“Eat it, whore.”
There were far worse things. Besma closed her eyes, opened her mouth, and bent her head down to the floor.
Then she heard voices outside the door. Hassan al-Hassan talking to his guard. A swell of relief overcame her.
“Get up!” Abeer hissed, clambering back up onto the sofa. “Move!”
Besma decided to stay right where she was, on her hands and knees in front of the apple core. Let Abeer pay.
The door opened. Hassan’s heavy breathing filled her ears.
“What is going on here?”
“Nothing,” Abeer said in a high voice.
“Don’t tell me nothing, woman. I can see it’s something. Tell me what’s going on or feel the back of my hand. Why is she kneeling like that?”
“We were just playing a game.”
“A game?” He slammed the door.
Hassan came up to Besma, took her chin roughly in his hand. His black fatigues were dusty and he smelled. “What kind of game is this?” He spotted the apple core on the floor and grimaced. “Did you do this?”
Besma shook her head no.
Hassan let go of her, turned slowly. “You’ll do well not to play any more games, woman,” he said to Abeer.
Abeer stared at her bare feet. “Yes, husband.”
“Come here!” Hassan said to Besma.
She did so, standing, savoring the movement in her limbs if nothing else.
“Closer.”
She obeyed.
He leaned over, his nose inches from her neck.
“Her robe stinks,” he said to Abeer.
“She’s Yazidi.” Abeer laughed.
“What are you laughing at?” Hassan shouted, storming over to Abeer. She cowered, clutching her phone. “Put that thing down when I speak to you! Always playing with it like some toy! I forbid you to use it anymore!” He struck her, knocking the phone from her hand, sending it flying across the room, landing near Besma’s feet. “You stupid Ameriki! I’ll knock some sense into you.”
Hassan proceeded to beat Abeer as she burrowed down into the sofa, holding her with one hand while he slapped her with the other repeatedly, generating cries and shrieks.
“Take your punishment, woman!”
As little as Besma cared for Abeer, she could not watch. And she prayed that Hassan would not unleash such anger upon her, or Havi. But the real reason she could not watch was because she was placing her bare foot on top of Abeer’s smartphone and sliding it underneath the bed, as far as she could manage without having to stoop. A box of DVDs poked out from under the bedspread. With a shock she saw the cover of one video, a garish photograph of a naked white woman doing unspeakable things with two men, also naked. Could such an abomination truly exist? She shifted the box under the bed with her foot, pushing the phone back behind it. She hoped the battery would last long enough for her to make use of it.
She turned back around and stood to attention as the beating drew to a close.
“Sit up, woman!” Hassan al-Hassan shouted.
Abeer sat up, blood dripping from one corner of her mouth, her face streaked with tears.
“Let that be a lesson to you,” Hassan said.
“Yes, husband,” Abeer cried, wiping her face with her sleeve.
“Go get Besma a clean robe. Something decent. Not that filthy rag.”
“Are you all right?” Besma said to Abeer as Abeer wiped tears from her face.
They were standing in the hall down from Hassan al-Hassan’s room. The air was hot and close.
“That was nothing,” Abeer said. “Wait until it’s you turn.”
“I need the toilet,” Besma said. It had been many hours. “Please.”
Abeer gave a deep sigh, but led Besma toward the indoor bathroom that the women used. They stopped at a door where another guard, Mustafa, a short dark-skinned man with a big belly and a gray thatch of beard, stood outside, an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. A smirk appeared when he saw Abeer’s bloody lip. No one liked her.
There was no sound coming from the bathroom. No water splashing. They had to carry water inside. All the pipes had been stolen and sold for scrap, long before Jihad Nation took this facility.
Abeer tried the door handle. Locked.
“Who’s in there?” she said to the guard.
He shrugged. “One of the new ones.”
“How long has she been in there?”
“A while.”
“I asked you how long?”
“I don’t time them.”
Abeer banged on the door. “Open up in there. You’ve been long enough.”
There was no response.
“Open up in there!”
No response.
Abeer stood back, glowered at Mustafa. “Open this door.”
He scowled, a woman giving him orders.
“Do you want me to go get Hassan al-Hassan?” Abeer said.
“No,” Mustafa said. Now it was his turn to bang on the door and shout. Still no answer.
“She’s going to get a beating for this,” he said, standing back, kicking the door with a stocky leg
The lock ripped loose, the door flew open, hitting the wall.
Besma gasped when she saw Shayma, a girl she knew from her village, a year or two younger than her, in shorts and T-shirt like Besma had worn, sprawled on the floor of the bathroom. Shayma lay motionless, curled around a shining pool of blood. Her right wrist had been butchered open. A piece of broken blood-smeared mirror lay by her hand. Her head was twisted up to one side and her blue eyes were open, as was her mouth. She appeared to be staring at the ceiling. In the direction of the sun. She must have prayed before she took her own life.
Besma reeled back in shock.
“Oh my God!” Abeer said in English. Her hands flew to her mouth.
“She’s gone and killed herself,” Mustafa hissed. “I knew we should never have had a lock on that door.” He turned to Besma as he unslung his rifle. “You can carry her out to the pit. Go get the wheelbarrow.”
The two Al-Khansa women followed Besma back from the huge open grave, outside the walls of the compound, chiding her, telling her that her people were filth to kill themselves in such a way. Besma thought she might be sick again as she pushed the empty wheelbarrow, the blood in the tray attracting flies as she bounced it across the hard dirt. Her hands were sticky with the girl’s blood, having had to load Shayma and ferry her out to the pit. It was almost more than she could bear. She recalled the vision of her people lining the mass grave in the midday sun, some old, some children, and so, so many. It was heart-rending when she accidentally tipped the barrow into the pit along with the flopping body and had to climb down at gunpoint, retrieve the wheelbarrow, standing on the stinking corpses of her people to hoist it back up. She looked away to avoid seeing the faces of anyone she might know. Her stomach wrenched when she saw a familiar bracelet on a withered wrist. Only the constant reminder that Havi needed her gave her the strength to complete the gruesome task. One of the Al-Khansa women joked about needing a bigger grave. Besma was exhausted and shook with fear as she climbed out of the pit.
How could human beings—women, no less—behave in such a manner? Maybe they weren’t human. Besma had to clean the bathroom floor with dirty towels, her gut a churning maelstrom.
Afterwards, she took a sponge bath with a rag and a scrap of soap that had hair on it, standing over the dead girl’s bucket of filmy water. There was no usable sink. It lay in the corner, broken off the wall because the men had stood in it to wash their feet before prayers. Abeer and one of the Al-Khansa women watched Besma bathe with guarded eye. They remarked about her young body and her dainty breasts as she washed herself down.
“She’ll fetch over a thousand,” Abeer said.
“When the men are done with her,” the woman in black said, laughing.
Besma was given a clean robe to wear and, as she combed her wet hair back, she took strength from the fact that she had hidden Abeer’s cell phone under Hassan’s bed. She would hopefully use it, even as she feared what Hassan would do to her when he had her alone.
Abeer led her back to Hassan al-Hassan’s quarters and was surprised and relieved to see Havi sitting on the floor with Hassan al-Hassan, watching a video on his phone. Hassan grinned. Havi paid close attention to him but Besma saw that he was nervous, playing the student. He gave her a quick glance. He was coping. His youth was an advantage. She just hoped he wasn’t becoming one of them.
“Pay attention now, Havi,” Hassan said, and Havi craned his neck to look at the phone in Hassan’s hand. The sounds of gunfire and men screaming popped from the tiny speaker.
Abeer and Besma sat on the floor and Besma realized what her little brother must be watching. It filled her with disbelief, numbing her emotionally and physically.
“We sent the infidels to their appointed fates, Havi,” Hassan said. “Allah’s justice was swift.”
“Yes, Hassan al-Hassan.”
“And that is holy jihad, Havi,” Hassan said, tapping the phone, slipping it into the pocket of his black shirt.
Besma could only imagine what horrors they had been viewing.
“Are you hungry, Havi?” Hassan said, patting him on the back. “Are you hungry after your morning of instruction?”
“Yes,” Havi said quietly.
“Yes, of course you are. You’ve worked hard. You will make a fine warrior.” He clapped his hands to get Abeer’s attention. “Bring us our meal.” He clapped again. “Quick now.”
“Yes, husband,” Abeer said, standing up, eyes to the floor. She left the room.
“May I speak with my sister, Hassan al-Hassan?” Havi said.
“What a polite boy!” Hassan said, looking at Besma for the first time since her return, nodding with approval at her clean robe, scrubbed face, and freshly washed hair. “Yes, you may speak to your sister—your sister who taught you the noble verses.”
Havi bowed and eyed Besma across the room. “Are you well, sister?”
“Allah be praised, yes, Havi. Am I to assume you have been learning your lessons well?”
“I hope so, Allah be praised.”
She traded glances with her brother. Was he succumbing? She prayed not.
“I’m so very pleased for you,” she said. “God is great.”
Hassan al-Hassan beamed at Besma. “Do you know the Koran well, woman?”
“Not as well as I should, Hassan al-Hassan. But I try. When I can. I learn in order to teach Havi.”
“Do you know the Al-Fatihah?”
Besma racked her brains. “In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful,” she replied.
“Excellent.” Hassan sat back, leaning against the bed. “Recite more. While we wait for our meal.”
Thank God she knew more.
Thankfully, after a while the door opened, the guard outside holding it while Abeer came in with a brass tray of steaming plates.
“Your meal, husband.” She set the tray down on the small stand in front of Hassan.
There was a platter of roasted goat meat in sauce, a dish of rice, bread, a pot of tea, two glasses. The aroma of the cooked meat set Besma’s stomach growling, even though she had witnessed horrific sights not long before. She hadn’t eaten properly since they were taken from their village. But she also understood that she might not be invited. The women frequently dined separately.
“You may leave now,” Hassan said to Abeer, tearing off a piece of flat bread, dipping it in thick brown sauce, shoveling it into his mouth and chewing with his mouth open.
“May I not dine with you, husband?” Abeer said in a tight voice.
“Not now. And you need to dine less, woman.” Hassan scooped meat up with a curl of bread, shoved it in his mouth. “You’ve gotten fat. Look at Besma here. Nice and slim she is.”
“Yes, husband.” Abeer cast an irritated glance at Besma before she left the room.
“Go on, Havi,” Hassan said. “Eat!”
Havi dove in, using just his right hand, as was tradition, for the left hand was unclean. Despite that, he ate quickly, faster than he could swallow, his cheeks bulging.
Besma sat, her stomach rumbling while man and boy devoured most of the meal, and slurped tea. Havi came up for air, looking at his sister with a sheepish frown. Then he said, “Hassan al-Hassan, might my sister join us?”
“Yes, yes,” Hassan said, scooping up the last of the meat with a piece of bread. There was one piece of pita bread left.
Besma got up, approached, sat on her knees by the round brass tray. The bowl of sauce was almost gone.
“May I?” she said.
Hassan waved at her impatiently while he gulped tea.
She took the last piece of pita bread. Scooping up the remaining sauce, she ate the bread slowly, chewing each bite many times. Her empty stomach clamped onto the balls of food, almost hurting with relief.
But it was sustenance. And Havi had eaten his fill, and for that she was thankful.
After the midday meal, Havi was sent back to the madrassa, where he was to learn how to fire guns. Besma could not comprehend how a child could do such a thing. She had fired her father’s pistol, an old forty-five automatic, and his rifle many times. She had gone hunting with him and quite enjoyed it. But she had been older than Havi was now.
But Havi was safe for the moment.
Besma sat alone in the room with Hassan al-Hassan.
Hassan al-Hassan’s eyes fell upon her. He leaned back against a cushion.
Her pulse quickened.
“You are a very pretty girl,” he said, his eyes half-lidded. “Do you know that?”
She swallowed hard. “Thank you, Hassan al-Hassan.”
He stretched out his legs before him, splitting them wide, and rested his hands behind his head.
“Have you ever been with a man?”
“No,” she croaked, cold sweat breaking out on the small of her back.
He turned his head sideways and gave her a sly look. “Are you sure?”
“Of course,” she said. “I think I would remember such a thing.” She didn’t know if it was risky to make that kind of talk.
But Hassan actually smiled. She was relieved. Her mother—bless her soul—had told her there were things a woman had to do for a man and that it was best to just get used to them. Make the best of it so that it would be over sooner rather than later.
“The women are going to make sure, you know.”
“I have nothing to hide, Hassan al-Hassan,” she said. It was getting difficult to talk. Her lips were dry. Her mouth was dry. She felt dizzy.
“Stand up,” he said.
She did, hands trembling as she smoothed out her robe.
He made a circular motion with his hand. It was obvious what he wanted her to do.
Disrobe.
Shaking, she took off the robe, stood there, in just the roomy panties and ragged camisole the women had given her.
He seemed as surprised as he was interested. “Where are your clothes?”
“They were filthy. I washed them out and hung them to dry while I bathed.” Hopefully they were still in the bathroom.
He nodded with apparent satisfaction. “Come here.”
She took quivering steps toward him.
He made another motion with his hand.
Doing her best to control her breath, she removed her top.
“Stand up straight, woman.”
She straightened her back.
“Arms back,” he said. “Don’t be shy.”
She drew her arms back.
“Hmmm,” he said.
She’d heard the stories of the rapes. Best if it were one man, and best if he liked her, at least a little.
“Good,” he said. “That’s enough.”
She didn’t quite understand. “I’m sorry?”
“Get dressed,” he said, sounding impatient.
He didn’t have to ask twice. Besma quickly pulled her camisole and robe back on.
“Sit,” he said.
She did.
He got out his mobile phone and made a call. She assumed he was going to sell her, but the stories she’d heard said they took you first, passed you around like a doll before you were sold to some greedy man who could only think about getting his money’s worth before he sold you again.
“Darwish,” Hassan al-Hassan said to a man he was obviously on friendly terms with, “praise Allah, I wish to speak to Abu Nadir’s secretary.”
Even Besma knew that name. Abu Nadir was the highest Islamic cleric presiding over Mosul, now in the hands of Jihad Nation, where Sharia Law was strictly enforced, with public beatings, beheadings and floggings the norm. His sermons drew thousands and he was treated almost as a god himself. He was responsible for governing the entire region that had fallen under the jihadists. Her father had told Besma a story of how Abu Nadir had ordered a shopkeeper to have his hands chopped off for not closing his business in time for prayers.
Hassan al-Hassan was put on the phone with Abu Nadir’s secretary. After a lengthy exchange of formalities, Abu Nadir’s secretary appeared to question Hassan al-Hassan harshly.
“Yes, Sayid,” Hassan said. “I know that the French police have captured Kafka and that he was not able to shoot Dara. But rest assured I have the situation well in hand.” He listened for a moment before he replied. “Please dispel your fears, Sayid. You see, we have something important to Kafka. Two important things actually—his mother and father. Yes. Right here in a cell, in this very camp. As we speak.”
Abu Nadir’s secretary spoke again.
“Sayid,” Hassan said. “I am confident that, although he is a traitor, Kafka won’t see his parents beheaded. I promised him video of the very same if he were to divulge anything about Abraqa.” Another pause. “Yes, I realize that the caliph is not pleased. Which brings me to another point.” He cleared his throat and looked at Besma with a smile as he spoke. “I have something for the caliph Abu Nadir. An exceptional bride. Yes. Striking. Blue eyes. Slender. Beautiful. No older than fourteen. And she knows the Koran.”
Hassan nodded while Abu Nadir’s secretary spoke on the other end of the phone.
“Of course she is untouched, Sayid. This young woman would make a fine wife. She’s not like his others and he would find much to like in her. And it would be my deepest honor to present her to the caliph as a gift.”
Besma shuddered as Hassan’s words reverberated in her ears.