Hidden Girl: The True Story of a Modern-Day Child Slave Read Free Page A

because we had no running water. For those reasons no one took long showers, although I often had to wait in a long line to use the toilet.
    When we slept, we had a blanket under us and a blanket over us. There were no pillows and no designated sleeping places. That’s why I always ended up sleeping in a different part of the room next to a different person. During summer months it got hot in that room, so hot that I could not sleep. I’d toss and turn, sticky with sweat, before getting up in the middle of the night to open our one window.
    I wore the same clothes for sleeping that I wore during the day. There was no such thing as pajamas in our family, and most times the next day I’d wear the same clothes I had worn the day, and the night, before.
    Then there was the rain. It seemed to me that there was a lot of it. And because our streets were not paved, the hard-packed dirt quickly turned to mud. There often were rivers of mud streaming down the street in front of our apartment. I hated that, because it meant I’d have more clothes to wash in my bucket and a lot more water to haul to wash the clothes in.
    But I had some fun, too.
    Some of my earliest remembrances are of playing marbles with my siblings out on the street. To play, we drew a circle in the dirt, or outlined a circle on the street with chalk. Then each of the players put some marbles inside the circle. When it was my turn, I’d take a slightly larger marble and try to knock some of the others out of the circle. Any marbles that I knocked out, I got to keep. I had a lot of marbles!
    I also had a good time getting dressed up in my dress to visit relatives. These visits were usually with members of my mother’s family. We had to visit secretly, though, as my dad forbade us to visit my mother’s relatives. Often we went on the train to Alexandria and then walked a long way to my grandparents’ house, but once in a while my uncle picked us up in his car. In either case, my mom would whisper to us, “Shhh. Don’t say anything about this.” We never did.
    My maternal grandmother and grandfather were warm and loving, and their delight in seeing us was evident. There was always a lot of food and laughter when we visited. My grandmother was the most wonderful, caring lady, and my grandfather always gave us money for the candy store next door. When he passed away from complications related to alcoholism, I was saddened beyond anything I had ever known. I couldn’t have been more than seven years old.
    There were many aunts, uncles, and cousins whom we visited at my grandparents’ house, although I no longer remember any of their names. We had many happy times there. When we visited, I felt as if everything was right in my world. And you know what? Everything was right. What it comes down to is that no matter how poor we were, how absent or abusive my father was, how hard I had to work, I was a happy child.
    Despite our poverty, I was happy. I understand that some of that feeling was the unbridled joy of being a child, but the other reason for my happiness was love. Even though by American standards I was a neglected child, in those days I loved and was loved. It was all I knew. My younger siblings and I had formed an especially tight bond, and I adored looking out for them and being with them. Life was good.

CHAPTER TWO
    My life with my family seems long ago, and my memories of that time feel far away. But there are details I will never forget. The way the dust flew up from the streets whenever a car passed, the feel of the hot dirt under my bare feet when I played outside, the sounds of the children in my neighborhood laughing, the way the colors on the clothes we hung outside to dry faded in the harsh sun.
    That is the thing about memories of my early life. Some moments are etched into my mind clearly, and I see them in my mind as if they happened just yesterday. Other moments are fuzzy and vague, and yet others I have no recollection of. I have learned