Читать книгу A Brighter Fear - Kerry Drewery, Kerry Drewery - Страница 11

With time on his hands, and with danger everywhere, Papa insisted on walking me and Layla to school, taking turns with Ali.

Before the war, I used to love the walk to school, even on days when I had an exam. Strolling by with Layla and her brothers, the sounds of a city coming to life, the smells from the bakeries, the morning sun prickling out sweat on our brows as we gossiped about fellow students, moaned about homework or bad grades or miserable teachers. I didn’t have to be taken to school every day in fear of kidnapping, attacks or rape.

Now, as we walked with Papa, we dodged through rubbish piling up on streets, counted bullet holes in abandoned cars; Layla’s brothers jumped over charred marks on the pavements where something had exploded or been set on fire.

And as it soon came to be that females daren’t go outside without a male escort, so it came to be that we could no longer dress as we liked.

This was our liberation.

I called for Layla one morning, and felt the change at my shoulder. It followed me, shadowing, eating and destroying, threatening everything I held precious. I looked at Layla and barely recognised her.

She always wore jeans, she always wore her dark hair pinned a certain way, but now? I looked at her, a long abaya covering her body, a hijab covering her head. “Why?” I whispered.

“My mother is worried,” she told me. “She doesn’t even want me to go to school. Not even with an escort. This is the only way she’ll let me out of the house. She says it’s safer.”

I thought about her answer, staring around as we walked. I saw the girls, the women. Not one female without a male escort, most with two, all with their heads covered, some wearing abayas, covered to their feet.

How long has it been like this? I asked myself. Have I been walking around with my eyes closed? Why have I not noticed?

I turned back to Layla.

“Think about it, Lina,” she said.

Think about it, I repeated in my head. If I’d said it aloud, the incredulity would’ve been so heavy I wouldn’t have been able to take another step. I didn’t want to be told what I could and couldn’t wear. I didn’t want to wear a hijab, I wanted to feel the breeze blowing at my long hair.

At school that day, I was the only female with her head uncovered. Whatever the religion, the upbringing, the faith, the girls were united by a hijab. At lunch I sat behind a group of girls who were debating something in hushed whispers. Briefly Layla leaned towards me. “They’re talking about Anita. She was kidnapped yesterday. If her family don’t pay the ransom by tonight, she’ll be killed.”

Anita had been my partner in maths class for a year. She had lived down our street when she was younger. She had a large family, three brothers, a sister and a multitude of aunts and uncles. Her mother had asked her and her brother to go to the market. Only the brother came back.

I felt sick. What was happening to us?

It was unbelievable. And there were more and more stories like that. Where was the freedom and democracy we were promised? This wasn’t freedom. Not being able to walk to school, to go to the market, to have a head uncovered, to be proud to be Christian. Layla, my best friend, who I’d shared everything with for so many years, was scared to sit next to me in class or at dinner, because I was a Christian, and went with my head uncovered.

I felt anger and frustration grow in me. My head ached with it. I wanted to scream and cry. Stamp my feet like a two-year-old until somebody promised it would all stop.

When Ali came to talk to Papa the next day, I listened at the doorway. He said we could no longer walk to school together, they could no longer be seen associating with us, us Christians, he couldn’t risk them being persecuted.

Persecuted by who? I wondered. Not the Americans. By our fellow Iraqis? Extremists? Fundamentalists? I didn’t know where these people had come from – it was as if they had been locked away somewhere, and when the Americans came, they brought the key to let them out.

Something else had been taken from me. Something so simple: a walk to school with a friend. There were no words in my head to argue. There was no explanation.

Before the war most people knew little of who was what religion; Sunnis would marry Shia and live alongside Christians. I didn’t understand why it had changed but I knew Christians were not wanted nor welcome in the city; they were attacked, homes ransacked, death threats given. Employers told them to leave, afraid of what might happen if they were seen to be friends with one. We lost friends, smiling neighbours and respect. And it seemed I had lost Layla.

But I did understand her father’s fears.

A few days later, while I was out with Papa, and wearing a pair of trousers and a shirt, my hair blowing around, we stopped at a second-hand shop. I don’t remember the excuse he gave, but I knew what he was looking for as he peered through the dusty glass.

I heard someone shout behind me and I turned. A face running towards me, something in his hands. I frowned, confused as to what was happening, not understanding who he was shouting at, who he was running for. But it was me. And suddenly I was on the floor, trying to figure out what had happened.

I felt the wetness seeping through my shirt, felt it clinging and burning at my skin, the pain eating at me as Papa dragged me through the streets. And as Papa pulled me back home, ordered me into the bathroom, I realised acid had been thrown over me. Why? Because of how I was dressed? Because I’m Christian? I didn’t know. A warning maybe? I was lucky – only my scalp was burned, my arm blistered. My face had not been touched – I had turned in time. And Papa removed my shirt in time. But I trembled as I stood in the bath, pouring water down my front over and over again; I could still see his face, that look in his eyes.

When I re-emerged, Papa handed me a long skirt and a hijab. And I didn’t argue.