"Immy," Fayza called out, moving slowly through the dark and blurred home around her. Still, she recognized the short narrow hall, the bathroom always left ajar for her fingers to instinctively tug to a quiet close in her passing, and the couches to her left as she paused by her bedroom door. She called out to her mother, feeling suffocated by the impending feeling that this would be her last time. "Immy," her voice shook as she pushed the door open and stepped into the space.
Within the unlit room, the girl let her eyes roam over her wardrobe and stripped bed. Where were her sheets and blankets? Why was her pillow no longer at the head of the mattress? Before she could find an answer to her questions, Fayza's ears caught a hushed voice speaking quietly in the room with her.
She turned at the familiarity and asked again. "Immy?"
"I am here, my soul," her mother sat, speaking to the open window and stretching night sky in front of her. Fayza remained in her place, watching her mother's subtle movement and the creak of the aged wood beneath her. Not once did she turn toward her daughter. "I can hear you, Fayza. Don't be afraid."
She could not move, her legs as stiff as wood beneath her at her mother's voice. How long it had been since she saw the dip of her mother's shoulders and heard the love of her voice? "Immy," Fayza whispered. "I am here."
"Come back to me, my daughter. Come back to your mother's arms," she heard the pained sigh buried in each word. Pain she had caused on her family.
"I cannot...," she breathed, her voice thickening and pouring a quiver into her chin at her own weakness. "Forgive me, ya Um Muhsin. Forgive me for what I have done to you and my siblings."
Her mother shook her head. "I forgive you until the end of times, ya qalbi."
"Immy-," tears swelled in the girl's eyes as she watched her mother, seeing her before her eyes but feeling as if two separate worlds stood between them. So many years of her life she'd stood beside her mother and not held her hand, smiled at her mother but not hugged her, all those opportunities to have felt the touch of the only person who given Fayza her entire life and asked for nothing in return. "Immy," she lifted her hands to wipe her tears as they fell.
Her mother's voice grew even softer. "Eh, ya rouhy?"
"I have nobody, Immy... I'm scared."
"Don't be scared. My daughter cannot be scared."
Fayza dropped her head forward, lifting one hand to cover her eyes as her tears poured from deep within her broken heart. Her cries tore through her throat in the silent room around them, echoing in the darkness and spanning into the never-ending night. She did not try to wipe her tears as they rolled between her fingers and splattered onto her dirtied, bruised bare feet. If she tried to compose herself, she would only further shatter the already broken child within herself. Her lungs contracted for breath and, the moment they were satisfied, pushed through another sob that scratched her throat and relieved the suffocating weight that continued to pull her down.
"Where have you gone, ya Fayza?" Um Muhsin asked curiously into the night, not hearing her daughter's soul-crushing tears behind her. Her question only made the girl cry more because it reminded her how far from her mother she really was. She wanted to utter a word to tell her mother she was right here, but Fayza could not muster it anymore.
All the strength she'd held within her for the past eight years had blistered apart and crumbled to her feet, no longer able to be forged into a pretend determination. She could not withstand the weight of the unjust world that had torn her from her mother's arms when she was just a teenager and thrown her into years of torment away from the only love she'd ever known.
"I am here, my soul. I will not leave you."
After years of an unforgiving drought, she'd felt the merciful rain of her mother's gentle voice and never-ending love. How could she still hold herself together with her feigned bravery? Even if both worlds kept them apart, just the sound of her mother's voice was enough to break every bone in Fayza's body and begin to sew it back together so that her will may carry on.
A gentle hand brushed her cheek, wiping her tears away and Fayza hiccupped. She lifted her head but did not find her mother standing before her nor did she find herself standing within her bedroom.
"You're awake?" A light-skinned woman gasped with eyes filled with wonder. Fayza swept her eyes slowly over the dim room that surrounded her. It was one of white walls, a hanging television, and a sink beneath medicine cabinets. It was not the prison cell; it was a hospital.
She wasn't sure when the nurse had left because with her regained consciousness came the memories of the moments before she'd lost her awareness. Fayza's entire body ached as it laid against the thin mattress of the hospital bed, covered by the white sheets placed over her. Her arm laid across her chest wrapped in a thick white cast that spanned from above her elbow to her fingertips.
The fingers of her other hand were not wrapped, but she saw the metal tied around her thumb to keep it straight and the healing stitches between her the knuckles of her pointer and middle fingers. A thick bruise and raw skin drew a thick, red line around the bones of her wrist.
"Do you know where you are?" A white-coated man asked her from his place at the end of the bed, not allowing himself to hold her dazed gaze for longer than a few seconds at a time. Fayza hardly heard much of what he said to her.
Some things she picked up while he spoke to the nurses accompanying him in his language. Like his diagnosis of severe hearing loss in her left ear and how many weeks it would take for her broken arm to heal: seven. He also told them to keep from engaging in unnecessary conversation. The door, he instructed them, would remain locked. Key access had to be granted by him or the soldiers standing outside.
She may have been in a hospital, but it did not mean Fayza was out of her detainment. The two uniformed men she saw standing outside every time the door opened revealed just as much.
Fayza spent most of her time in silence and solitude, abandoned by the medical staff whose shadows she saw cross the obstructed window as they curiously tried to peer in. When she tried to rise to cleanse herself and pray, a debilitating pain shot up from the base of her spine and thundered against the inside of her skull. There was no movement for her. They did not have to chain her to the bed because they were aware the damage they'd caused on her body was enough to keep her down.
No matter how many hours she considered it, Fayza could not understand their reasoning for bringing her to receive medical attention. They always left her to struggle alone of the floor of her cell until her body repaired herself. Had her body not been able to this time?
Had the damage been too destructive? Had they raced to revive her so they could wreak more havoc on the girl's failing body?
When the younger and wordless nurse entered to wrap a plastic glove around Fayza's left arm, the silent girl finally spoke up. "How was my state?" She asked, turning her head to meet the eyes of a nervous woman who did not seem any older than her. "When they brought me, was I living?"
The nurse met her gaze with eyes that wanted to speak but, when their eyes met, quickly averted her attention as if fighting the urge to reply. Fayza continued to watch her. When this person lifted her arm to take her blood pressure and placed the thermometer between her lips, she did not seem condescending or violent.
She was young. Within Fayza, she saw a young girl just like her.
Perhaps, that was what urged her to answer. "Critical. You coded four times. Very bad," she whispered. Her accent seemed unfamiliar and the look of her dark shade of her skin with the knots in her hair was not one Fayza often saw with the Occupation and its colonial people.
A defeated breath left Fayza's lips at the woman's words and she lowered her head back onto the thin pillow behind her, her eyes lifting to the ceiling above them. "You saved me... so they can continue killing me," she breathed, her words shaking tiredly and tears blurring her eyes. "I wish you would have let me die."
"No," she said as if the thought of letting Fayza die might be crueler than what she had to withstand. Never could she understand the violence and torment Fayza had beared within the walls of their prison, victimized by the same people who claimed to defend her and their democracy so bravely. "You are okay. Now, we take care of you," she reached forward, wiping a tear from Fayza's temple and offering her a sympathetic smile.
When the machine beside her beeped loudly with its results, the woman pulled the sleeve from around Fayza's arm and gently placed it down at her side, smoothing her blanket. "What is your name?" Fayza asked, watching the kindness and care in her expression. How could someone like her allow themselves to live under such vile leadership?
"I am Lerato," she smiled.
"Lerato?"
She nodded. "And you?"
Fayza's lips parted as she began her reply, but she hesitated, worried by what the knowledge of her identity might bring on the woman. They would move her back to the prison or to another hospital if they discovered her nurse had learned her name under strict rules not to interact. She did not know what they might do to the woman who did not seem to be like the rest of them. Fayza knew well how the diversity of others terrified them.
The woman lightly lifted her finger, placing a small clamp on its edge. The small machine beeped with changing numbers. "Do not be scared," she offered. "It will be secret for you and me."
"Fayza," she whispered close to the woman's ears. "I am Fayza."
Lerato smiled, her full lips parting to reveal bright teeth that further illuminated her expression. For the first time in months, Fayza found her heart settling calmly in her chest at the sight of another's compassion.
That night, Fayza laid in silence, finding her mind absent as she stared at the black television hanging ahead of her. First, she wondered how these people could sit back and enjoy television in the homes they had stolen and forced her people out of. She could never imagine herself in their position. How could she ever live contently knowing the land she stood on belonged to a people before her that had to be slaughtered, exiled, and erased for her own luxury? How could these people live in such comfort?
Their humanity must be dead.
Their guilt must not exist.
They must not know what it is to feel shame.
"How do you feel, Fayza Awad?" Lerato asked during her next time in to take the same information on Fayza's vitals. The question filled the girl's mind before she caught on something else. When her eyes widened in wonder, Lerato smiled proudly. "I put your name on internet and found you in news. You are famous."
Fayza repeated. "I am famous?"
"Not in good way," she added, lowering her voice before she continued. "They say Fayza Awad is terrorist and wants to kill innocents because of their country. This is false. I think you are sweet girl."
Her smile softened as she watched the girl pull the sleeve apart, wrapping it carefully around her left arm. "And I think Lerato is kind," Fayza replied, feeling her nose sting when she spoke. The nurse lifted her gaze to grin at the compliment but caught the emotion rising in the girl's throat. "You treat me like a human. Thank you."
"No crying," Lerato brushed her fingers across Fayza's cheek. "You have good and strong heart, Fayza. They lie about you because they know we will love you if we see your truth. You are like my little sister, Zola. Her eye is honey like you and her smile is ea sebele."
The next day, when the door opened at the same hour as it always did, Fayza lifted her head off the pillow but did not find Lerato pulling her tall machine with her. Instead, a pale skinned and masked man came in, not offering her a single word as he pulled Fayza's arm. He tightened her sleeve around her arm, positioned the small box at her finger, and took her temperature. She did not say anything then.
Two days after, the same man came in.
That time, the soldiers who stood at the door entered with him and stood in the room until he collected his information and left. The sight of their green uniforms and all the weapons tucked away at their sides planted within her stomach a familiar dread that made her nauseous.
In the night, while Fayza eyes drifted closed in exhaustion and open in a refusal to lose awareness, she heard the door click open. She lifted her head to find a familiar figure hurrying in beneath the protective cover of darkness. Atop her head, sat a large bun that Fayza had come to recognize as her only source of comfort in the strange place. "Lerato," she lifted her head.
"Fayza, I come quick. They do not let me see you anymore," she whispered quickly, her broken language awkwardly trying to speed up while remaining comprehendible. "Doctor said you are stable. In three days, they take you back from here. I heard them say it."
"What?" Fayza's brows knit in worry as her fingers clasped onto the woman's wrist. "No, don't let them take me again. They have no mercy, Lerato. They are evil. I can't... I can't go back. Help me."
Lerato shook her head. "I know you are innocent. I will help you away from them. Trust me, I will make plan to save you, but I have to go before they come. Stay silent and trust me."
That night, after the door closed on her hurried visit, Fayza found herself filled with fear and dread. She carefully lifted herself off the bed, ignoring the pain rocking against her bones and held herself against the sink. She only wet her hands a few times, using them to cleanse herself as best she could. Then she returned to her bed and prayed.
The next day, she prayed every hour she remained alone.
After that, she prayed even when the doctors and nurses entered on her, speaking amongst themselves and watching her curiously as she held her hands onto her chest and closed her eyes in focus. Every word she felt. Every plea and desperate need that grew in her chest and sat heavy on her tongue.
Then the evening came and the soldiers stepped into the room with the new nurse who took her vitals. "Take them well," they ordered the man who quietly did his job. They predatory eyes landing on Fayza's as she glared over at them. "These will be the last ones you're take. Tomorrow, this patient will be discharged," he leered villainously.
For a moment, Fayza wondered if killing herself before they could take her again would be sinful. Would her Lord understand? Or would He tell her that she only needed to trust Him?
All throughout the night, Fayza announced her trust in Him. She begged that He would not turn her away in disappointment. He was The Most Merciful after all. How could she be shy to ask the One who is too shy to not accept her prayers?
When her fatigue finally got the better of her, Fayza could no longer keep herself aware. Her entire body remained on edge but her brain demanded a few moments of rest after so many days of forced alertness. In her unusual exhaustion, the girl recognized something unusual in her drowsiness, as if she'd been sedated to make her consciousness impossible.
Then she heard the door open and she dragged her head for one last look at the men entering with their green uniforms and protective helmets, their masks drawn threateningly over their faces. She strained, her entire body tensing with one last attempt to fight and resist. Her lips parted but even her attempts to shout came out as a weak moan.
One of them pressed his hand against her lips and lowered her back against the pillow, sliding his fingers over her eyes to close them. The simple gesture drowned her in her weariness so Fayza could no longer fight.
Before the darkness settled upon her, her ears allowed her to hear his words, spoken in tender Arabic. "Do not resist anymore, Fayza Awad. With God's permission, you have been rescued from the hand of the wrongdoers."