THE TALE OF SARAH

Chapter Two

"When did this happen?"

"On Tuesday."

"And where have you been staying?"

"In no particular place. I'll just work through out the day and then retire to the district mosque at night."

It was another Sunday. Luckily for Sarah, Madam Munirah came today for hairdressing. At her first glance at Sarah, she knew something was wrong with her, but Sarah being herself herself as usual, won't speak about it. But Madam Munirah knew her just enough to be able to fish out information from her.

Madam Munirah sighed. "I've been trying to talk Sa'ad, my husband into letting me adopt you but he is just too strong headed you see. He is adamant on letting me do anything like that because of the issue of trust. He had a partly rough past and combined with that is how dangerous our society has become with kidnappings and ritual killings spreading like wildfire. He has a point though. But I've been trying to make him understand that you're just an orphan who has been affected by insurgency and you're just surviving and you have no such intentions. He still insists that if I should bring you, then you'll be a worker."

Sarah tilted Madam Munirah's head slightly to weave a part of her hair correctly. "Oh no. You don't have to do that. I think I'll rather work too. Is there any vacancy?"

"I'll talk to the workers head now that I know you are interested."

"You are not in charge of your house workers?"

"Oh no I have been into this clothing business for sometime now but as you can see I'm not getting any younger I want to retire and be doing something less stressful and time taking, so I'll take charge of that also."

"Okay whatever job it is I don't mind. Thank you."

"No need to thank me dear child, its my duty to help my fellow humans."

They sat in a comfortable silence for the rest of the weaving after which Madam Munirah promised to get back to her and left.

Sarah stood up and walked back to the mosque where she ate her dinner which she bought with the money she earned and prayed. She prayed that there will be vacancy in Madam Munirah's household.

That night she saw herself in the same dream she had about a week ago and everything was the same except that she had started walking through the darkest part of the forest.

**********

The next day after Fajr, Sarah went back to sleep since she did not have to set out early for work. She woke up two hours after that, then she went to freshen up in the mosque's toilet and set out to buy food, when she bumped into a wide smiling Madam Munirah.

"Assalamu alaykum my dear."

"Wa'alaykumus salam, what brings you here this morning?"

"Dear child, I promised to get back to you didn't I? Thank God I found you! Common dear, there is vacancy. One of the maids just resigned this morning." She said holding her hand out in the direction of her car.

"Alhamdulillahi Rabbil 'alameen. Alhamdulillah alhamdulillah alhamdulillah." Sarah kept muttering strings of alhamdulillahs. God has started answering her prayer. "But I haven't eaten anything this morning!"

"I'm sure you'll be able to hold your hunger for this place is a twenty minutes drive from my place. Common!"

They entered the car and began the ride with the driver at the front and the two of them at the back with Madam Munirah constantly telling Sarah how happy she was to have finally helped her.