Never Fear (11 page)

Qadir did not hesitate; he made Father
proud. He punched the militant guiding him to the truck right
beneath the chin. Had Qadir been bigger, it would have knocked the
militant out. Instead, the militant recoiled for a moment then
thrust the Kalishnokov’s muzzle into Qadir’s forehead.

The militant in the truck with the two
younger siblings grabbed both their arms while another shoved
Mother into the back of the truck.

“
We will find a use for
these ones, for sure. They will cook and clean or serve as
comfort.” A militant handed over a stack of dinar bills to one of
the soldiers.

Qadir screamed and lunged at the
militant; Mother screamed for her son. Sabra shielded Fahim’s eyes
once more. Qadir pulled at the Kalishnokov rifle while the soldier
pushed the boy away, not wanting to lose his money as soon as he
had earned it.

A knife flashed overhead and Mother
screamed. Blood shot into the air from the laceration in Qadir’s
chest. More blood followed as the militant ran the blade across the
teenage boy’s throat. The blade was dull, so the militant had to
press hard against Qadir’s neck before sawing his way through the
muscle and blood vessels of his neck. Qadir’s head fell back,
exposing the deep gash and the musculature of his
throat.

Sabra could not turn away. Mother
scrambled for her son, trying as she could to reach the boy, with
the futile hope she could save him. The soldier swung his rifle up
with a crack and Mother fell limp into the truck’s bed.

The militants and soldiers argued for
a moment, but Sabra did not comprehend anything they said. She
could not turn away from the sight of her older brother lying in
the sand, his head flopped at a sharp angle from his neck. The dry,
sandy road drank up Qadir’s blood. Sabra continued to hold a hand
over Fahim’s eyes. Her brother bawled; snot and tears soaked her
palms. She still could not turn away. One of the militants hopped
into the back of the truck and it turned back west into enemy
territory.

Mother awoke by the time they reached
the Islamic State compound: a large clump of buildings in the
middle of the Al-Anbar desert with a shared cement wall enclosing
their perimeter and a large courtyard with several cars and pick-up
trucks parked in an asymmetric motor pool.

A cheerless sky greeted Sabra when she
stepped from the canopied bed of the truck, the clouds ready to
weep when she could not. Fahim grabbed at Mother’s leg, his tears
exhausted and his eyes red with grief. Mother swayed, her head
still pounding and her senses muted after having a rifle butt
beaten across her temple.

The truck’s driver walked over to a
man who stood in the courtyard’s center looking over a notebook and
watching the other militants scramble about. The driver motioned to
Sabra and her family, or what was left of it. The man shut his
notebook and came over to inspect the three of them. Sabra pulled
her jacket tight around her to keep out the cold wind as much as
the man’s malicious gaze. The jacket pocket still held the
Christmas card. It reminded her that she still had a family. It
reminded her that her Savior was coming. It reminded her to
hope.

The man grabbed Mother by the hair and
pulled her face close to his.

“
Mama!” Fahim screamed,
clinging to her leg. Tears returned to his eyes.

“
No,” Sabra said to
herself. She ran to the man and pulled at his belt to get him away
from Mother. Father and Qadir had already been taken from her. She
could not lose Mother as well. That would make her the head of the
family, and she was much too young to lead even Fahim.

The man swung a backhanded fist at
her, splitting her lip and nose open and sending her tumbling
across the sand. Sabra blinked back tears and strained to regain
her senses so she could comprehend the muffled voices in her ears.
The harder she strained to come to her senses, the more severe the
pain became. Rather than rushing to Mother’s aid, Sabra bawled into
her jacket, curling into a ball on the ground.

“
Where did you come from?
Where were you going to?”

Sabra recognized the man’s
voice. The voice did not bring back memories of being back home or
going to school. The voice reminded her of Father’s severed head.
Sabra looked up and instantly recognized the young man standing off
to Mother’s side and the wicked man growling into her ear. It was
Rahman, the militant who had saved their lives at
Waleed
’s
home.

How could she think that? Rahman had
not saved them. If he had wanted to save them, Father would still
be alive. He stood by and let an entire family be slaughtered. He
had not saved them. He had simply done nothing.

“
Please, stop. You are
hurting me,” Mother said through ragged gasps and tears. The man
put a hand around her throat and stroked at the graying streaks in
his beard. He wore military fatigues, unlike most of the militants,
and kept a pistol on his belt while the others carried
Kalishnokovs.

“
If you are not a
kafir,
then why will you
not answer me?” The man threw Mother onto the ground. Sabra knew
the voice then. She remembered the way Asadullah had called Father
a
kafir
. “She is
obviously a
kafir
or an apostate. Prepare her.” Two men came forward with
strips of cloth and bound Mother’s hands and blindfolded her. She
screamed and one of the men punched her to silence the noise. Sabra
hid her eyes and continued to sob into her jacket. Fahim screamed
for the woman who cared for him until a militant came and carried
the boy off.

After a minute, Sabra
looked up from her crying. Rahman stood still, watching Mother’s
pain, and Asadullah completed his prayer. Asadullah dropped his
pistol-belt to the dirt as he approached Mother. He continued to
undo the belt to his fatigue trousers while one of the militants
holding Mother pulled down the thin wool legging she wore beneath
her dark blue
abaya
dress to keep warm during the winter.

“
What are you doing? Stop.
Please! Why are you doing this,” she cried, straining to be free of
her bindings.

“
Why am I doing this?”
Asadullah said. “God wishes it. You do not believe in the words of
the Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him. It will bring you closer to him and
to God for our flesh to be made one.”

“
No. Stop. Stop!” Sabra
retreated back into the sanctuary of her jacket, shielding her eyes
from Asadullah undoing his trousers and lying down on top of
Mother. Mother screamed and the militants standing around
laughed.

Sabra’s face became wet with tears and
blood as her nose ran. She shook with fear, grief, and cold. More
than any of those feelings, Sabra hated herself for her
helplessness. A single punch had incapacitated her with pain. There
was no way she could help Mother. The men were twice her size and
had guns. There was nothing she could do. So she prayed.

“
Our Father in Heaven,
hallowed be Your name...” It was the first prayer she had been
taught, so the easiest for her to remember. Mother eventually
stopped her screaming and Sabra lost track of how many times she
recited the prayer. Asadullah quickened the cadence of his thrusts,
let out a long groan, and finished.

The militants’ leader
stood and dressed himself. The others undid Mother’s binds and left
her an exhausted heap of limbs sitting in the cold sand. She pulled
the skirt of her
abaya
close up between her legs to hide her shame. Asadullah began
another prayer session and Mother began her sobs anew. Sabra began
to pray again, a new prayer, thanking God and Christ that her
mother still lived. Mother began to pray, but her prayers were
meant to counter Sabra’s own.

“
Please, God, let me die,”
Mother wept as she crawled in the dirt. She stood and turned her
face to the cloud-covered sun. “Kill me, God!” she screamed. “Let
me die with my shame!”

A gunshot answered Mother’s
prayer.

Smoke drifted from the
chamber of Rahman’s rifle, the young man’s eyes wide and
frightened. Mother’s chest exploded outward with a brief spray of
bright red chunks. Bone splintered and her body fought quickly to
abate the damage. It was too late, though. Her body had abandoned
the fight by the time she fell to her knees. A dark puddle soaked
her already dark
abaya
, turning the blue to black. Mother’s eyes fluttered and she
fell into the dust from which God had made her.

Sabra howled.

She needed Father and Qadir. They
would know what to do. Father and Qadir were always calm when times
were rough. If they were here, she would not have to worry. She
could turn to her brother and her father to fix whatever was wrong,
or at least they would hug her and give her a kiss until the pain
passed, but Father and Qadir were dead. And so was
Mother.

The militants had forgotten about
Sabra when they turned their attention to Mother’s defilement. One
came over and picked her up. She did not fight. She hoped they were
taking her to her death.

Sabra fought back her tears for a
moment. She could not die yet. Fahim still lived. If she died,
Fahim would be alone and there would no longer be a family. She had
to live, and so did Fahim. They were all that remained of Father,
Mother, and Qadir. The two of them had to live so the family could
live.

They took her into one of the
buildings, down a hallway to a steel door. One of the militants
undid a padlock on the door. A wave of odors assailed Sabra’s
nostrils as they pulled the door open and dragged her inside. They
dropped her into the middle of the dirt floor and left, locking the
padlock behind them.

Sabra was not the only one
sniffling in the room. Fahim snorted and clung to a woman dressed
in a black
abaya
with a white
hijab
wrapped around her head. She looked to be
Mother’s age but with soft, hazel eyes. Four other children sat in
the dirt watching Sabra. They ranged from half Fahim’s age to a
handful of years older than Sabra, all boys.

“
Come, child, everything
will be okay. Come. Your brother needs you,” the woman cooed. Sabra
pushed away on the dirt, backing herself against the steel
door.

“
No, do not be scared.
Fahim, what is your sister’s name?”

“
Sabra. Sabra.” Fahim
reached for his sister. Sabra looked at the woman. The woman seemed
just as scared as she was. She looked to her brother reaching
toward her for comfort. Sabra led the family now; she could not let
her brother be scared. Father and Qadir would never let her be
scared and she could not disappoint them. They were watching from
heaven. Sabra ran over and embraced her brother, who let out a
torrent of tears and weeping, his hands clutching at her
jacket.

“
Sabra, you must be
thirsty. Let me get you some water.” The woman grabbed a small cup
and dipped it into a tall metal can originally used to store
cooking oil. Sabra gulped down mouthfuls of the cold water, never
having realized how thirsty she was.

“
I am Madihah,” the woman
said, refilling Sabra’s cup and wiping the blood from Sabra’s face
with the skirt of her
abaya
. “They keep me here so I can
be the mother to the children they bring. I know I cannot replace
your mother, but I hope we can learn to trust each other. We are
all we have now. God has given us hardships, and now he has given
us each other.”

Madihah handed Sabra the cup and the
girl hesitated, unsure what to think of the possibility of a new
mother. No, no matter what, she and Fahim were family. They still
belonged to Father, Mother, and Qadir.

“
You are Chaldean, yes?”
Madihah asked. Sabra glanced up at her, wondering how she knew
their secret. “Fahim told me you are Christian. Your holiday is
tomorrow, yes? I forget what it is called. Can you tell
me?”

“
It is Christmas. Is it
really tomorrow? I forgot.” Sabra pouted. How could she have
forgotten Christmas? She had waited all year for that day. Father,
Mother, and Qadir would never have forgotten.

“
Yes, I think it is. The
twenty-fifth, yes?”

“
Yes,” Sabra
said.

“
Then tonight is the
night. I am sorry, young one, but I do not think we will be eating
any
koleicha
tonight. Just rice, I think. I do not think our guards will
be making us any special treats for dinner. It is just another day
to us, I am afraid.”

Several men shouted
outside and Madihah and the boys jumped to their feet. They
gathered around the water can, taking turns to wash their hands,
faces, and feet. Once washed, Madihah led the boys in facing the
wall away from the room’s entrance, and then in reciting the litany
and in the kneeling motions of the evening
salat
, the fourth of the five daily
prayers.

Fahim crawled into his sister’s arms
and the siblings watched their Muslim cellmates offer reverence to
the Almighty. Sabra wondered how they knew in which direction Mecca
lay. She did not know which way was home or even where they were
anymore. The steel door rang out, struck from the other side, and
brother and sister jumped with fright.