Wounded Read Free

there are faint yells and screams. It is the constant sound of death. I hear the whump-whump-whump of American helicopters, the high howl of jets, the rumble of tanks and the things that carry many soldiers, like tanks but without the cannons. It is all far away now, though.  
    Hassan's arm heals slowly, and he burns with anger, and with impatience to join the fighting. "I am a man!" he yells. "I will kill the Americans, as they killed Mama and Papa. As soon as I am well, I will go and kill them."
    I beg him to stay here, where it is something like safe. Aunt Maida just sits at the table, staring with blank eyes at the wall, and she does not say anything. After her husband, my Uncle Ahmed, died she began to drift away in her mind, so that she will not have to miss him anymore. She will die soon, I think, and then it will be only me and Hassan in this world.  
    Aunt and Uncle and Mama and Papa each had very little money, and now it is only Aunt Maida. Life continues, despite the war, despite the death all around. Shops open in the morning to sell food, the stalls with their hawk-eyed vendors. I try to beg for food, to steal it, but I get little. Hassan is hungry, and so am I. Aunt Maida says nothing, does not move, but I think her body is eating itself to keep her alive, and soon there will be no more body to eat, and she will close her eyes forever.  
    I pray to Allah to save her, to wake her up so she will take care of Hassan and me, because I am just a girl and I do not know how. I pray to Allah to protect Hassan, to keep him away from the fighting. I think of the dying American and how his praying did not save him. Uncle Ahmed called on Allah to save him, and he died. I prayed for Allah to spare Mama and Papa, but they died, too. I am beginning to wonder if Allah hears me. Maybe because I am only a child he does not listen. Perhaps he only hears the prayers of adults.
    I do not think I will pray anymore if Aunt Maida dies and leaves us alone.

    *   *   *
    Iraq, 1993
    I wake up to early morning sunlight streaming in through the boarded-up window, piercing the gloomy gray of our small house. It is still, too still. I sit up, adjusting my dress on my shoulders. My head covering, or what is left of it, is on the ground beside me, but I do not put it on yet. My hair is long and loose and tangled, glinting black and almost blue on my shoulder. I should brush it, but I do not have time, because I must continue to search for food for Aunt Maida and Hassan and me.  
    I look around without standing up. The house is so small I can see it all from where I sit on my bed beneath the window, next to the door. There is the kitchen, a stove and an empty refrigerator. There is the couch, threadbare and ripped, empty. Hassan is gone. I feel panic in my belly, knowing he is too young to understand what he is doing, but I cannot go after him yet.  
    Something else is wrong. I find Aunt Maida in her chair by the little black and white TV, now always off. She is still sitting straight up, her hands folded in her lap, staring at the wall, but her thin chest does not rise and fall as it has for so many weeks now. I managed to feed her for a while, some soup heated on the stove, then some bread and beans I bought, found, or stole. Then she turned her face away and would not eat anything. She would let me pour water into her mouth, so at least she would not die of thirst, which I think is worse than dying of hunger, although I do not know why I think that.  
    Perhaps it is because hunger is only a dull ache in your belly, growing sharper as the days move past. You grow more hungry, always more hungry, like a hole in your belly growing ever larger until you think it may swallow your ribs and your heart and your liver and whatever else hides behind the skin of your chest and belly, parts I do not know the name of.  
    Thirst, however...it is a desperation. You would do anything for one drink of water. To be thirsty is worse than to be hungry.