Anna was standing in the middle of Askerød. I had fled, the police had arrived, and in the midst of all the confusion, one of my people told her, “There are three guns in the apartment. You need to get rid of them.”
In that instant, Anna realized that there was a more dangerous side to the man she loved than she had been willing to see before. She rushed back into the apartment, found the guns, and put them in her bag. Then she hopped on a bus and switched to the train to her family’s house, where she hid them under her bed. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but she did it anyway out of love for me. When I finally called her to let her know I was safe, I was in Jutland with my father, and I wanted her to join us there.
The next day, she took the train to Fredericia, where I was waiting to pick her up. I was a fugitive from the law. The story of the seventeen-year-old suspected of two counts of attempted murder had hit the national media. She still came regardless
During the escape, I learned that Samir and his friend had both survived, but Samir had nearly died. His lung collapsed, and the doctors spent the entire night trying to save his life. I hadn’t stabbed him with intent to kill. I had just desperately wanted to get him to let go. I still considered Samir my friend. Bekir was the puppet master behind that whole incident, and we were all being manipulated. Nevertheless, it will always be a fact that I was the one who stabbed Samir and his friend, and only fate and a few millimeters prevented me from becoming a murderer.
I both loved and hated my father and Bekir, but during my time as a fugitive, I had nobody else to turn to besides my two deeply flawed father figures. First, I visited Århus to find my biological father. Where else was I supposed to go? I wasn’t going to turn myself in because I was still hoping to deal with the matter internally between the families. My plan was to return to Hundige and hand Samir’s family a knife. I would tell them that they could do as they saw fit, and then blood would be repaid with blood.
My father couldn’t find me a place to stay, but Bekir did. He called and said that I could stay with some of his connections in Vollsmose. I understood I was eventually going to jail, but I had a plan I wanted to carry out first.
Anna and I met at the train station in Fredericia, and the two of us drove to Odense with my father. Anna asked what had happened, and I told her that the unfortunate stabbing was done in self-defense. She didn’t doubt my story. She knew that I was going to jail, and she decided to grant my big wish: for a long time, I had wanted us to have an Islamic wedding, and now she was ready.
To me, it meant everything. She wanted to prove to me that she was not going to desert me. That was the only reason to do it. When I met her in Fredericia, she was wearing this light shirt and black jeans and a long, black jacket. She wasn’t dolled up or anything, but she was as beautiful as she had always been to me, and the situation made me love her in an entirely new way because she was by my side when everybody else had turned their back on me.
In Odense, some of Bekir’s criminal connections helped us out, and we sat down in the apartment in Vollsmose and waited for an imam to come marry us. Anna was asked if she acknowledged God and his scriptures, and she said yes. He asked me if I believed in Allah and his messengers, and then he asked if she would have me, and I her. We were married in front of three witnesses, and then she was my wife and I her husband. I gave her a ring and a dowry of $150. But those things were mostly symbolic because they’re mandatory elements of an Islamic marriage settlement.
After the ceremony, my father went to bed. The plan was for me to turn myself in after we were married, but first, I tried to call a friend who knew both me and Samir. I still harbored hope that Samir and his family would punish me for my actions.
His friend shot down the idea of reconciliation. “What you have done to Samir will never be forgiven,” I was told.
Everyone I reached out to said the same thing. No one in Hundige had ever attempted to kill anyone. They belonged to different groups and sects, but they were all from Hundige, and they were all immigrants. I had crossed a line I never should’ve crossed that day.
Anna and I walked down to the local McDonald’s to have our private wedding reception, donning our wedding rings. After that, we took a walk to a nearby forest, where we carved a big heart in a tree and wrote our initials A and S inside. On the way back to the apartment, Anna sensed that something was wrong.
“These creepy guys are watching us,” she told me, but I brushed it off.
When we got to the house, something was wrong with the elevator. We kept pushing the button, but the elevator never came. When it finally did, a Somali family was standing in there and rode up with us. When we got to the second floor and opened the door, twelve men in combat uniforms armed with machine guns rushed all of us. The officers pulled the Somali family out of the elevator and grabbed Anna by the hair.
“You’re under arrest!” one of them shouted.
“What the hell am I under arrest for?” Anna yelled back.
I pushed the officers away from Anna. “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked. I had changed my clothes so no authorities would recognize me at first glance. Or so I thought.
“It’s him!” one of the officers shouted.
“Don’t hurt Anna!” I yelled at them.
In the end, Anna wasn’t arrested, but she was shocked by the episode. Was her new husband really this dangerous?
There were twelve cops with machine guns and gas masks as if they were trying to catch The Punisher or something. Anna screamed and panicked as they took off with me.
The newly married, infamous fugitive Sleiman was transferred to Odense Detention Center, where Anna got to see me one last time before I was incarcerated. I met her in this long, white hall, where we kissed and held each other. Then she said, “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna leave you or anything. I’ll be waiting when you get out.”
My dad was waiting in a little room next door. He knew how bad the situation was. He didn’t fear the Danish judicial system, but he did fear retaliation from Samir’s family. At the same time, he was hoping for a swift revenge. As long as I didn’t die, a swift revenge was preferable because then we wouldn’t have to spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders. We would have paid the way tradition dictated. At one point, my father reached out to Samir’s father and said that the family had the right to take revenge. But Samir’s family had no interest in getting my blood on their hands.
Anna and my father drove back to Askerød. They had met before, and Anna was familiar with my family’s violent history, yet the two of them got on well. When Anna went back home to her parents’ house, she vomited. She had tried to hold it all together for as long as she could before it physically caught up to her.
I believe that the police tapped my phone. During the escape, I had made the mistake of inserting a new phone card into my phone to call a friend from Askerød. That might’ve been how the police got wind of my whereabouts. It’s also possible that Anna’s phone was being tapped. But that wasn’t how the story was told in the Arab village of Askerød, where gossip spread once again.
Some folks fabricated rumors that Anna was the snitch because she always tried to keep me away from the streets. Shortly after, my mother invited her over. Anna had a meeting with my people and defended herself against the allegations before I confirmed she wasn’t the one who snitched on me. Man, relationships are hard work.