“This is why girls go there,” said Erelle. “It’s the dream of a good life. They are persuaded that it’s a paradise and that they don’t have any future in Britain or France and they won’t find good husbands and can never be good Muslims surrounded by infidels. Bilel told Melodie she could have a beautiful life, a big apartment and lots of children.”
Very soon, Bilel wanted to talk to her in person, on Skype.
“I didn’t see the face of a man who would kill or rape — he boasted that he had killed ‘dozens’ of infidels — and those first few seconds were unforgettable,” she said. “He was staring at me and when I looked back into his eyes I saw nothing, no religion, no feeling. He is not a good man.”
She was not sure she could get away with posing as someone 10 years younger, but Erelle is small and slim and once she had put on a hijab and minimized her makeup, it seemed to work.
“It was very strange to act nice with a terrorist, to be cute and to be saying, ‘Hey, tell me about your day!’ I thought I would feel uncomfortable in a hijab, but the costume helped. When I put it on, I wasn’t me anymore.”
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