Wounded Read Free Page A

You can eat a bug, or worm, you can snatch a can of beans or a hunk of hard bread from a market stall. But to find water? It is not so easy. A bottle of water is heavy. It does not fit beneath the folds of a dress, or in a sleeve. You get thirstier and thirstier until it is like anger or hatred. Your mouth turns into a desert, dry and sandy and empty, your lips cracked.  
    I think this is why thirst is worse than hunger.  
    Aunt Maida dies of hunger, but really of a broken heart. She is old, and she loved my Uncle Ahmed for all of her life, since she was a little girl. He never hit her, like many men do their wives. He loved her. When he died, I think she did, too—it just took a longer time for her body to realize her heart and mind were already dead.
    I touch her face, and it is cold, so cold, and hard. Her eyes stare unseeing. She sees Uncle Ahmed in heaven, I think.  
    "Do you see Allah?" I do not recognize my voice, or why I am asking questions of a dead woman. "Is He there, Aunt Maida? Ask Him why He does not answer me!"
    She does not respond, of course, for she is dead.  
    I am just a girl, only fourteen, and my arms are weak, but Aunt Maida is so small, so thin like a bird that I can drag her from the house, still stiffened into a sitting position. An old woman watches from an open doorway. Her eyes are like brown beads, hard and cold, and she does not move to help me, or ask questions. I have no hijab on, and she curls her lip in disapproval. I drag my dead aunt through the street, as far as I can. I do not know where I will put her, what to do with her. There is no one to tell, I think. At least, I do not know who to tell. So I drag her as far as I can until my arms and legs and back are sore and empty of strength, and then I leave her, sitting awkwardly in an alley, amid the heaps of trash.
    I stand over her for a moment, wondering what to say to the dead body. In the end, I do not say anything. I whisper, "Goodbye, Aunt Maida," to her spirit, but that is after I am back home.  
    A dead body is just a dead body. Aunt Maida has been gone for a long time.
    I am worried about Hassan. I do not expect him to come back, but I keep hoping. I wrap my tattered and torn hijab around my head as best I can and set out to find Hassan, to bring him home and scold him being a stupid boy.
    He spoke of finding a gun.  
    I think of that day two years ago, in the wrecked building. I do not know where he got that rifle in the first place. I was gone, looking for food, and I found Hassan huddling in a doorway while gunfire racketed in the streets, dust kicking up, shouts echoing, English and Arabic.  
    I hid in a far corner, waiting for the shooting to stop, and when it did, I ran across the street to where he was hiding, tears drying on his face. He was not hurt, and I held him close when the shooting started up again. He was clutching something to himself against the wall, between his knees and his arms wrapped around it, his little body shaking. I was behind him, my arms around his shoulders, my fingers clutching his sleeves.  
    An American soldier trotted past us, rifle raised to his cheek. He paused, glanced at us, dismissed us, and continued on, loping away like a wild dog, threat clear in the way he ran, hunched down close to the earth. When he paused, Hassan tensed, and I could feel hate seething from him. They killed Mama and Papa, so he hates them. It is simple, to him.  
    I know the bullets that took their lives could easily have been ours, however. Stray bullets do not recognize American or Iraqi. They only know soft flesh and red blood. I cannot explain this to Hassan, though, for he will not care. I cannot explain why anyone is killing anyone, for I do not know the answer myself. Iraq has never been a safe place, but when the bombs began to drop, crumping in the distance and flashing like fireworks, it became even deadlier. The streets filled with men with guns, tanks, trucks with keffiyeh -clad warriors