'Two Sisters' follows a father trying to bring his two daughters home from jihad in Syria
Immigrant communities wash up in the seemingly strangest of places. There is, for instance, a significant Yemeni population in Hamtramck, Michigan. Oklahoma City can boast a large number of Vietnamese. Likewise, there is a gathering of former residents of the self-proclaimed Moslem nation of Somaliland in and around Oslo, Norway. It is a long way to Oslo from Hargeisa, capital of Somaliland. (No shame 鈥� look it up in an atlas.)
Somaliland may be invisible in the eyes of the international nation-states, but it is a very real place to the northwest of Somalia, east of Ethiopia, and south of Djibouti, at the pinch-point entrance to the Red Sea. There are few opportunities for making a living in Somaliland, so immigrant communities spread about Europe and farther afield are inevitable. Some industrious Somalilander discovered that there was a chance of employment in Norway, or that Norway was particularly amenable to asylum seekers.
Word made it back to Hargeisa, to the family of Sadiq and Sara and their baby daughter, Ayan. They moved to a town outside Oslo 鈥� out of the frying pan and into the icebox 鈥� and Sadiq found work and they raised a family. By the time we meet them in 脜sne Seierstad鈥檚聽Two Sisters,聽the family has grown with the addition of Ismael, 18; Leila, 16; Jibril, 11; and Isaq, 6. Sadiq is on disability due to an accident at his workplace and Sara is a housewife.
Although they come from a family of nonpracticing Muslims, Ayan and Leila (perhaps more than a little in her sister鈥檚 footprints) are first drawn to the religion and then catch the jihadist impulse. Readers will not learn the reasons behind this radical conversion. Seierstad 鈥� a Norwegian journalist turned bestselling international author 鈥� suggests 鈥渢he search for identity, meaning, and status; the desire to belong; the influence of others; excitement; the need to rebel; and romantic notions," or maybe a combination, or pure fervor. Readers will never meet the girls in "Two Sisters"聽after they have left,聽except through electronic communication, sporadic and mostly uninsightful, with their family.
What we do know is that they have flown Oslo in the dead of night and made their way to Syria during its short-lived caliphate period. The story thread here is Sadiq鈥檚 attempts to bring the girls home. But Seierstad has told it in the form of living theater and, as such, the book has all the momentum of Thomas the Tank Engine. There are long sections of aimless messaging between Ismael and Leila, and time slows as pieces are moved around the board as in a draw-bound chess match.
From pages describing one contact鈥檚 attempt to snatch the girls: April 9: 鈥溾�榃e鈥檙e leaving for Raqqa [where the girls are living]聽in two days鈥�.... April 11: 鈥楾he tank truck left Deir al-Zour this morning.鈥櫬燗pril 12: 鈥楾hings are going according to plan.鈥櫬燗pril 13: 鈥榃e are ready to make our move.鈥櫬燗pril 14. 鈥榃e鈥檙e standing by. They鈥檙e bombing the roads鈥�.... April 20: 鈥榃e鈥檙e standing by to punch, punch, punch.鈥櫬燗pril 21: 鈥楾he plan is being put into action in one hour.鈥櫬燗pril 22: 鈥楻aqqa here. Nothing to report.鈥欌��
The desperation of Sadiq鈥檚 task is compounded by the fact the girls don鈥檛 want to be found and return to Norway. 鈥淲e did this 100% for Allah鈥檚 sake. Not for any boyfriends of anyone else.鈥� They didn鈥檛 go to fight: 鈥淚SIS did not allow women near the front line鈥� 鈥� until it became convenient to use them as shields later on 鈥� 鈥渢he privilege of the men.鈥�
They went to establish the caliphate, or protect Islam, or out of duty and identity, you name it, but what they became was 鈥渉ousewives鈥�: for the unmarried women who arrived at the caliphate, 鈥渢hey married, which as a rule they did quickly, often immediately after arriving.鈥� Mothers, too, for the caliphate needed citizens, and both聽Ayan and Leila add their contribution.
Of course, most every life has some excitement or story worth relating, and there are a number in "Two Sisters":聽Sadiq鈥檚 initial attempt to reach his daughters, in which he winds up in a blackened cesspit awaiting beheading, is certainly one, and there is a interregnum in the story that flashes back to the girls' earlier years in Norway that provides a slice of the surrounding circumstances in which they lived and developed.
To make the story yet more dumbfounding are the ambiguities (one town was 鈥渁 quagmire of organized crime, strict Islamic control 鈥� and anarchy鈥�) and when, in what apparently springs out of a hollowed-out Sadiq鈥檚 fever dream, we read that the young women decide to come home and abandon their quest, only to learn, on the turn of a dime, that no, 鈥淭he truth was: They had chosen a life without him. They were making pancakes in Raqqa. With sugar topping.鈥� Talk about beating a dead horse. Who needs more misery when what Seierstad has delivered is a good dose of raw, slow agony on one hand and raw, unaccounted ecstasy on the other, and, to all appearances, never these two shall meet.
