Never Fear (10 page)

“
Mohammad,” Father said.
The boy looked up from his pouting to Sabra’s father. “It does not
matter whether we have a tree or
koleicha
. These are things created
by men. What matters most, come Christmas, is that good people like
your family are willing to help and protect poor people like my
family. This shows true love, and this love is the greatest gift
which has been given to us by Jesus Christ. If not for that gift,
we would never have been brought together to celebrate
in—”

The unmistakable sound of a truck
speeding across a desert road crept into the room. The families had
had one scare already, when an Islamic State patrol nudged its way
along the river before turning back.

“
Go,” Waleed said. Father
snatched up Fahim and grabbed Sabra’s hand, running out the door
into the small courtyard where Waleed’s goats and sheep
scurried.

Waleed, Father, Qadir, and Mohammad
hurried to roll away two petrol drums from alongside the mud home’s
wall. Waleed had sheltered a fleeing family before and dug out the
hiding place for them. That family had not stayed as long as
Sabra’s, though. They stopped, rested and resupplied off Waleed’s
kindness, and continued onto Baghdad. Father and Waleed, with the
militants so close and patrolling along the river, thought it best
to wait until the Army launched a counterattack. The Army never
came.

The family crammed themselves into the
dirty cavern dug beneath the house. There was barely enough room
for the five of them. The cramped quarters did not bother Sabra so
much as the fear of spiders and scorpions hiding in the hole as
well. Those creatures could be just as deadly as the militants and
did not care if they were Christians, Muslims, or Jews.

Their hosts rolled the petrol drums
back into place and Mother began her prayers. Sabra prayed as well,
asking God to send the truck past them, hoping it was nothing more
than a farmer out running errands despite the warplanes
sporadically circling the skies. The truck screeched to a halt
outside the courtyard walls and Qadir clasped a hand around Fahim’s
mouth before the child could cry.

“
As-salamu
alaykum
,”
Waleed
said. Sabra heard men
jumping from the bed of the truck and talking to each other. They
rushed into the courtyard, sheep and goats bleating and scattering.
“Be careful! You will chase my herd off. What is it you
want?”

“
Where are the others?” a
man asked.

“
What others?”
Waleed
said.

“
Do you know who I am?”
the man said, his voice deep and calm, just like Sabra remembered
of her grandfather before he passed away. A moment of silence held
between them, punctuated by the herd’s continued cries. “I am
Asadullah bin Bahdur.” The name added to Sabra’s fear. She did not
know who he was, but one was not named “The Lion of God, son of the
Warrior” by a father intending to raise a weak and merciful
son.

“
Welcome to my home,
Asadullah. How may I, a simple farmer, assist you?”

“
I will ask again, where
are the others?”

“
And I will ask once more,
what others?”

“
You have two children and
nine places set for dinner. You may be a simple farmer, but I
suspect you know how to count.”

A goat scurried up to the petrol
drums, sniffing at the ground.

“
I did not know how many
you would be bringing for dinner,”
Waleed
said, “so I had my wife set
all the extra plates we had. Come, your dinner is getting
cold.”

The goat began stomping at the ground
and bleating loudly.

“
Shoo, get out of here,”
Qadir whispered. He tried to throw a rock at the animal, but he did
not have enough room to move his arms.

“
What is that animal so
interested in?” Asadullah shouted. One of his men plodded toward
the petrol drums. Sabra fought harder and harder to keep from
screaming as the footsteps came close. Instead of coming from her
throat, her fear forced its way from her eyes in a stream of tears.
Mother pulled Sabra close to her bosom, a prayer to St. Michael the
Archangel whispered on her lips. Sabra had not learned the prayer
yet, but she tried her best to add her voice to Mother’s
whispers.

“
I am here. Wait. I am
coming out.” Sabra reached out and grabbed onto Father’s hand as he
shouted and wormed his way out of the hole and between the
barrels.

“
No,” she squealed
quietly. “Do not go. Please.” Father peeled her fingers away and
crawled out of their hiding place.

“
Show me your hands! Do
not move!” the militant shouted a moment before dragging Father
from the hole completely.

“
Well, that accounts for
one place setting. Where are the others?” said
Asadullah.

“
My family has moved on. I
sent them ahead.”

“
Now why would you be
hiding someone from me, simple farmer?”

“
They were not hiding me.
They took us in and fed us because we were hungry and cold. They
were giving us charity.”

“
Why would you be in need
of charity? It sounds to me like you were attempting to flee the
Caliphate. Why would you be fleeing from the Caliph’s rule? Do you
fear God’s law?”

Another moment of silence hung in the
air, Father thinking carefully of his answer. He knew his children
would hear his answer. They had not fled their home only to deny
their faith now.

“
I will not pay the
jizya
,” he
said.

“
A
kafir
?
Abd-al Meseeh
,” Asadullah said,
accusing Father of being a “slave to the Messiah.” “You have been
hiding a non-believer?”

“
Waleed
did not know I am
Christian. He merely did his duty by giving me charity.”

“
Why else would you need
to flee unless you were a
kafir
? And why else would you hide
a
kafir
from us
unless you were an apostate. There is only one way to deal with
these crimes.”

A burst of gunfire ripped loose and
Sabra screamed into Mother’s hand. Mohammad, his mother, and
brother screamed briefly and then went silent.

“
...be our protection
against the wickedness and snares of the devil,” Mother continued
to pray while smothering Sabra’s screams with her hand. Qadir did
likewise, one hand over Fahim’s mouth while his other arm held the
younger brother tight to keep him from flailing.

Father and
Waleed
shouted at the militants and Sabra heard them struggle with
their attackers until the unmistakable sound of a rifle stock
against a skull quieted
Waleed
.

“
You bastards! God sees
your crimes! He sees your sins!” Father shouted.

“
No,
Kafir
, he sees our righteousness. He
sees us punishing the non-believers and traitors for their sins.
You feared the Caliph’s laws? I will give you a reason to fear
those laws. Bring me a knife,” Asadullah commanded.

Father shouted and
Waleed
whimpered, then he screamed, then he fell silent. Sabra heard
a torrent of blood splash into a muddy puddle. She gagged as
Mother’s hand kept her from ejecting the vomit rushing from her
throat. The bile shot back down her throat and she retched again,
the warm fluid squeezing out between Mother’s fingers.

“
No!” Father struggled.
Sabra could hear him fighting against the men holding him. He
shouted and cursed like Sabra had never heard him before.
“
Ayreh feek. Kess
ikhtak!
” Father’s curses and demeaning
commentary of Asadullah’s sister ended in his screaming. His scream
lasted longer than
Waleed
’s, the militants taking
their time with the
kafir
. Soon enough, the screams died
down and the same gush of blood declared Father’s death as it
had
Waleed
’s.

Sabra stopped crying, she stopped
trying to scream, and her brain stopped trying to think. It was as
if she were asleep, unable to move or speak but unable to close her
eyes. She could not pray everything she had heard was a bad dream,
her mind too cluttered, too numb to wish she would awaken and be
safely away in her bed on Christmas morning.

“
Rahman!” Asadullah
shouted. “Quit standing there like a fool. Go and check on the hole
this
kafir
crawled from.”

Qadir and Mother both cursed as
footsteps stopped beside the petrol drums. The militant kicked the
curious goat aside and groaned when he rolled one of the heavy
barrels aside. Fahim’s weeping pried Sabra from her emotionless
trance.

She looked up and saw a young man, a
pathetic attempt at a beard spotting his cheeks and a Kalishnokov
rifle slung over his back, looking down at them. The man’s eyes
were tired, not from too little sleep, but from seeing too much of
the worst mankind could offer in too few years.

“
Please,” Mother whispered
to him, clenching her hands in prayer. “Mercy.” The man paused, the
consternation plain in his eyes. He did not have the look of
someone capable of killing.

“
There is no one here. It
is empty,” the man called back to Asadullah.

“
Come, Rahman. Let us go
then. The
kafir
said his family has moved on. We may still be able to find
them.”

Rahman put a finger to his lips. Then
he stood and ran to his leader’s side.

The family waited until the truck had
sped off. Qadir crawled from their space first and helped Mother to
her feet before pulling Fahim out from the dirt. Sabra, her senses
recovered, crawled under her own power from beneath the house that
had once been their sanctuary.

A soft scream grew within Mother’s
throat. She ran beside Father’s corpse and collapsed. Qadir cursed,
throwing rocks at the goats lapping at the blood-soaked mud. Sabra
covered Fahim’s eyes, but could not tear her own sight away from
the scene before her.

Waleed
and Father both lay in the blood-soaked mud,
their heads resting on their chests, their eyes closed restfully,
but their mouths still twisted in agonizing screams. It took a
moment for Sabra to recognize Mohammad, his brother, and the
mother’s bullet-strewn bodies cluttering the home’s doorway. The
cold, emotionless trance fell over Sabra once more and she pulled
Fahim closer just to make sure he was still real, to make sure he
was still alive. As she did so, she felt the Christmas card in her
jacket press against her skin. She had lost her father, but she
still had her family.

“
Sabra. Fahim. Come on. We
have to go. Gather what food and water you can. We still have to
make it to Ramadi just like Father wanted.” Qadir was the man of
the house now. He could not take a moment to grieve. Father would
look at him with shame if he put his own emotions before the
well-being of his family. Qadir grabbed Mother’s hand and helped
her to her feet. Sabra pulled at Fahim, leading him into the house,
stepping over Mohammad’s corpse, refusing to look into her friend’s
eyes for fear of vomiting once more. She grabbed an empty flour bag
and threw the remnants of their meal and a jug of water into
it.

The younger siblings emerged from the
house, stepping back over Mohammad’s body. Mother still knelt over
Father, her eyes closed and her lips moving silently. She finished
her prayer, pleading to God for the salvation of the man who had
raised her three children, and stood.

“
Qadir, lead
us.”

*

After two days, they exhausted their
food, so they rejoiced when they stumbled upon the Army checkpoint
that morning. Three soldiers stood behind a barrier of sandbags and
concertina wire. Clouds had rolled in shortly after their arrival,
trapping the day’s heat, so not only did the family get to drink
purified water from bottles instead of drinking river scum, but
they sat together in safety without shivering.

“
I see the truck now,” one
soldier said. “They will be here soon and you will all be on your
way.”

The family smiled. Sabra had no idea
how Mother could go on after seeing Father’s murdered body, but she
insisted Qadir lead them onward. Though Qadir was head of the
family now, he could not disobey his mother.

The Army truck pulled up to the
concertina wire and both doors opened. The driver and passenger
hopped out with their Kalishnokovs, while another man jumped from
the covered back. None of the men wore uniforms, which confused
Sabra.

The passenger greeted the
Army corporal with a hug. The man wore running pants, sandals, and
an ammunition chest rig over a soccer jersey. His beard was close
cropped and he wore a red-and-white checkered
kefia
scarf around his
head.

Two soldiers coaxed the
family to their feet, taking Sabra and Fahim by the hand and
leading them to the truck. Sabra looked back at Qadir, an
expression of unease on her brother’s face. Why did the soldiers
not wear uniforms? Why had they come from the west when Ramadi was
to the east? As Sabra and Fahim climbed into the back of the truck,
the black and white
shahada
flag of the Islamic State hanging in the truck’s
bed answered her questions.