Читать книгу Dishonour - Helen Black, Black Helen Cecelia - Страница 5

I watch Yasmeen sleep, her breath shallow, her mouth slightly parted.

She is so beautiful.

Wherever she goes people stare at those eyes, heavy-lidded, flecked with amber.

At mosque, when she takes her usual place, her hijab secured tightly under her chin, I can see her lips move. They are garnet red as she murmurs her prayers.

Here, on the bed, I am dazzled by her all over again and I nearly change my mind. There’s still time. I could call an ambulance and they would inject her with drugs, attach her to machines.

I pull out my phone and my finger hovers over the number nine.

But no. I have made up my mind.

There was a time when I would have done anything for this girl and she would have done the same for me. In this cruel world we stood shoulder to shoulder against those who would torment us. When I lost hope she held my face in her hands.

‘God will provide.’

I wonder then why she has chosen to wreck everything. To bring this family to its knees. To crush me like a can.

Her chest rattles and I picture myself sitting here in Yasmeen’s bedroom, watching this girl I have loved so well. Watching her die.

Do I still love her?

With all my heart.

Yet I am immobile as her life creeps away.

She lets out a tiny gasp and a pink bubble forms on her lips.

When it bursts I know it is over and through my tears I whisper the words she cannot say for herself.

‘I bear witness that there is no God but Allah.’