Beneath The Veil

A New Boy Out Of The Girl

"I found the night scene to be of no special appeal. Women solicited anyone they could stop with their promises of things I was then too young to know of. I went directly back to the curtained wall. I yanked it down forgetting about the sick girl behind it and saw what automatically made me regret ever being so angry."

“The boy was again in the lap of the girl. This time he was sobbing quietly, it was barely audible. I looked as closely at the girl as I could with out the aid of any candle stubs. I saw that she was clearly blue from the pale she was earlier. This girl had died and my loss of my mother flared up all over again, but as it never had before. I screamed all the obscenities I had been newly taught by the widow. I screamed of her innocence and the cruelty of it all. I cursed man kind, I was close to cursing Allah (God) as well, but he had my mother and now this young girl whom I never even knew."

“The boy was watching me all along, by the time I had noticed, I was crying myself. He stood and wiped his dirty little face. Such an innocent face he had. He then did something else I didn't expect. He walked close to me, looked me in my eyes and without a word or breath passing between us he fell against my chest and sobbed."

"I spent the entire night with the boy. I learned that the girl was his sister. Their mother died giving birth to him. Their father sold the daughter until she was unable to be penetrated any longer because of all the scar tissue she had suffered from being ripped apart since the age of four, by old, unclean, perverted men. The boy's name was Aladdin, and his dead sister was believe it or not Jasmine. She was sick for a long time he said. They had finally escaped their father when he pulled out the girls teeth to sell them since her body was no longer useful. Aladdin packed up his bloody sister and made the crawl space in the wall. He was only five, she was just turning ten."

"We washed his sisters body and I saw marks that I could not identify with all over her body. Her thighs were missing meet in the middle near her vagina like some one pried her legs open with an Arabian sword. I cried while we bathed her, wrapped her in the blanket and then screamed when Aladdin lit the last stubby candle and set his sister on fire. He looked at me coldly and started to walk away into the freezing night."

“When I caught up with him I wanted to ask him why he had gone against our culture by setting Jasmine on fire, but I just didn't have the heart. Instead I asked him where he was going. He responded to his fathers house. He saw the disgust on my face and then smiled as he recited darkly a line from the Qur'an which when translated means, you have the right to take a life in place of a life but it is better for you to relent. I knew Aladdin had no intentions of relenting."

“I offered to go with him saying that it was too much to do himself, he was too small. He spat at my feet and told me to go home. I followed him any way, but he started to run and I could not keep up. I hadn't had any water all day. I called after him that I would wait for him in the markets. He replied Inshallah (God willing)."

“The sun found me the next day being scolded by an old shop keeper. ‘Up up' he said. 'Young boy like yourself should be home studying or helping round the house. You wanna end up mutilated and lifeless like the young boy on the way to his fathers house this morning? A boy that small shouldn't have been out that time.'

“I felt that his father was his murderer. I was left believing all fathers were the devil. I didn't know what mutilated meant, but I knew plenty about lifeless. I ran to where the ashes of Jasmine had been blown away by the frosty wind of the morning. I didn't cry. Instead I became enraged. I think I was already accustomed to people leaving in a day's time."

“More out of rebellion than hunger I stole all I saw. I didn't care who saw. Most of the men laughed at the ‘cute little boy' but then I ran right into the old shop keeper that found me with the rising sun. He stopped me and held me by my scrawny arm. He said that to work for my food would be more pleasing to Allah than me stealing it. I couldn't have cared less what Allah thought, but then the old man tossed me a broom and I realized I had my first job."