Wounded (16 page)

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She shrinks away from me. “Why? What have you done?”

“No. For…what you have been through.”
 

“Oh.” She shrugs. “I have survived. It is enough.”

“Have you ever been happy?” I ask.

She looks at me as if I’ve sprouted horns. Like I’ve suggested an irrelevant and foreign concept. “Happy? I don’t know. Maybe when I was a girl. Before the war. Before Mama and Papa were killed. Before the other American.”

“The other American?”

She doesn’t answer for a long time. When she does, it’s in quiet, slow Arabic. “When I was a girl, during the first war with the Americans and the other soldiers, my brother and I were hiding. An American came. Hassan had a gun. He was only protecting me, but the American, he wasn’t a soldier. He was a picture-taker. But he had a gun, a pistol.” She’s going back and forth between English and Arabic as she tells the story. “Hassan shot him, and missed. He shot back and hit my brother. I…picked up the gun and killed him. The American. Hassan ran away to be a soldier, and then my aunt died, so I had no one. I managed for a while to live. And then there was no food, no money, no work. I begged a soldier for food, and he gave it to me. And then he made me have sex with him.”

“He raped you?” I ask this in English.

“No. Not…not really. He told me he would only give me the food unless I agreed to let him have sex with me. I had not eaten in days. I was so hungry…”

She trails off, and I feel wetness seeping through the thin fabric of my wife-beater tank top. It’s a non-reg piece of gear, and I was busted several times for wearing it. She’s crying into my shirt.

Crying for her lost childhood.

“Shitty choice,” I say in English.
 

She doesn’t answer, and I just hold her. Let her cry for a long, long time. Eventually she stands up and goes to the bathroom, readies herself. I look away. Watching her get ready has turned into a ritual. I watch her put on the uniform, the makeup, the blank face, the hard eyes, the seductive smile. I hate it. She becomes Sabah, and Rania, the kind, vulnerable girl I know is gone.
 

“Don’t go,” I say.
 

She stares down at me, all Sabah now. “I must. Abdul is coming.”

I’m confused. I thought he came during the afternoon. It’s nearly dark outside now.
 

She sees my confusion. “He sent word. He is coming now, not tomorrow.”

I’m never sure how she arranges her appointments. It’s clear she has a client list that comes to her. She doesn’t work the streets. She has a number of regular johns who visit her, and they seem to always just show up, but she knows when to expect them. She doesn’t have a phone that I’ve seen, or a computer, or anything. But still she knows. It’s a mystery to me.

“He hurts you,” I say.

“He can. He is powerful.” She shrugs, seeming fearless. I see the fear lurking behind her eyes, though.

She leaves then, and my gut churns. My instincts are telling me something bad is about to happen.
 

I prepare myself for pain.

I prepare myself to kill.

ELEVEN

RANIA

Terror hounds my every heartbeat as I wait for Abdul. He will hurt me again. Make me do something awful. I sit on the mattress and wait. I will not welcome him. Will not pretend or play games with him. He is a monster, and all I can do is try to survive him.

He comes. As he swaggers through the door belly first, his hard beady pig eyes rake over me, going first to my breasts.
 

“What, no kiss for your lover?” he asks, laughing as if he has told an uproarious joke.

I do not answer. Just wait, staring at him. He licks his lips, then draws off his belt with the gun holster, pulls the gun out of the leather and holds it at his side. His demeanor changes, and I know it has begun.

“On your knees, whore.”
 

I move to my knees, facing him, hands resting on my thighs.

“Take your clothes off. All of them.”

I strip, and then kneel naked in front of him. My legs shake, and my skin is clammy, cold, and sweating all at once. My heart is a mad drum in my chest, and I could vomit, if I did not know it would anger Abdul. This is about survival, I remind myself. Not about pride.

“On your knees, whore.”

“I am,” I say, not arguing, but calmly pointing out facts.

“No! Like a dog. Like the bitch dog you are. Face away from me.”

I swallow hard and move to comply, shaking so badly I can barely move. I have done many vile things as a prostitute. I have faced fear. I have been beaten, threatened, injured. Forced abortions. Raped.
 

But this, what Abdul is doing to me…this is different. Little causes me true terror anymore. But now, my knees digging through the thin mattress into the hard ground, elbows and arms barely able to support my weight for the trembling, now I know terror as never before.
 

I know he will push me to a certain place, and then I will refuse, and he will kill me. And then it will be over.
 

I hear him behind him. I hear the signal, the jangling belt, and my mouth goes dry. I hang my head, arch my shoulders and my back, preparing for his brutal entrance. Instead, he slaps my backside so hard I cannot help but yelp in pain.
 

Again and again, he slaps my backside, until I scramble away.
 

“Get on your knees, whore!” he screams. “I’m not done with you.”

I force myself back into position, fighting tears of pain. And now he slaps the other side of my bottom, again and again, until my backside is stinging, burning as if on fire.

He laughs. “Look at you, whore. Your little ass is red. You are ready.” He caresses my backside, absurdly gentle after his abuse. “I am going to fuck you in the ass, whore. You are going to like it. Do you understand?”
 

I feel the cold metal barrel of his pistol against the back of my head. I cannot move. I know this is it. That is my one hard line. I would not let any man do that to me. I have been beaten for it before, but I have always refused. And I will refuse now.

It takes several tries to swallow enough saliva that I can speak. “No.” It is a small, fierce whisper.

“What did you say?” Abdul’s voice is low and deadly.
 

“I said no.” My voice is louder now. I am ready for death. “You will not do that. I will let you do whatever else you want. I will let you fuck me. I will suck you off. I will not fight you. But you will not touch me there.”

I am still on my hands and knees, I realize, and I move to turn and face him. He is too quick. He grabs my hair by the root and jerks it, hard. I scream. He jabs the top of my head with the butt of his pistol, brutally hard. I see stars, and a knife of pain shoots through my head. Something hot and wet trickles down my scalp and across my forehead.

“Let go!” I scream. I am committed to fighting him now.
 

He jerks my hair again, and I am lifted off the ground. His knee gouges into my spine, and I am left breathless. His pistol butt jabs into my side, my kidney, and now I cannot even stay upright for the blinding agony, cannot even breathe to cry.
 

He forces me down to all fours, his hand still fisted in my hair. His knees shove my legs apart, and now I feel his manhood at the crease of my backside. Panic flares through me, spurring me to writhe and flop against his grip, shrieking, screaming. I kick backward, and my bare foot meets soft flesh. He roars and his grip on my hair loosens, but not enough to let me get free. He jabs his fist into my kidney again, and the pain stills me against my will. Something hard and hot pokes at my backside, but does not penetrate, stuttering and stabbing, nearly ripping the delicate flesh there. I am screaming as best I can despite the pain stealing my breath, fighting. Fighting.
 

I wish, fleetingly, that Hunter could save me, but he cannot.
 

Then Abdul is gone, and he is yelling, roaring. I flop to my back, and through the haze of tears see Abdul backing away, clutching his hand. I scramble backward away from Abdul, see something wet and red sluicing between his fingers. Sticky hot blood drenches my back and my hair. There are pink things on the ground at his feet. Fingers, dismembered. Abdul is screaming. His pants are around his ankles, and he is struggling to get free of them so he can move to fight.

Hunter stands lit by the dim candle flames. His face is a mask of rage, blood-spattered. His knife is held in one fist, low near his waist. Blood drips from the blade onto the tile floor with a slow
pit-pit-pit
sound. Except for that, silence reigns, now that Abdul has stopped screaming.
 

The men face off. It is almost comical, Abdul being naked from the waist down, but it is not. The gun lies on the floor, out of reach. I cannot move, frozen by the violence. There is no warning. Hunter is standing, and then he impacts with Abdul, swifter than a striking snake. I hear the crunch of bodies colliding, and Abdul stumbles backward, bleeding from the stomach.
 

I want to be sick, but even that reflex is frozen.
 

Hunter is not trying to make this quick. Abdul is upright, clutching his stomach with his fingerless right hand. He bleeds, bleeds. He is mortally wounded, I think, but Hunter is not done. He has not said a word.

Hunter lunges again, and I see the telltale wince flash across his face that tells me he is still feeling the pain, but he is refusing to let it stop him or slow him. The knife flashes across Abdul’s chest, and the general stumbles backward farther yet. Hunter’s lip curls in disgust and contempt.
 

He crosses the intervening space and knocks Abdul to the ground with a brutally hard blow. Hunter stands over him, staring down with a grin of victory, but then he sways, blanching, pale and dizzy, hobbles backward to retain his balance. He does not see Abdul’s hand stretching, reaching, grasping the pistol. I scream a warning, but it is too late. The pistol cracks with a flash of fire, and Hunter grunts, spins aside, and falls.
 

Someone is screaming…me, I think. Abdul rolls away, grabs his pants and stumbles away, dripping blood.

He will not die, but he is very badly hurt and will not be back soon, I think. It is not an end to my troubles with Abdul, but it is a reprieve, for now.
 
I let him go and scramble to Hunter’s side. The bullet hit him in the side, and I know enough to realize this is more serious than all his other wounds. An organ may have been hit, or something. I do not know. I only know it is a serious wound.
 

I am crying, pressing my hand to the crimson-seeping hole. Hunter reaches with his hand and tugs weakly at my shirt, which lies near his hand, tries to press it to his wound, but then faints. I am bawling, crushing the shirt to his side.

I do not know what to do.
 

I shake him, shake him. He wakes up.
 

“What do I do, Hunter?” I beg him.

“Need…a doctor. Surgeon. Someone.” I understand his English, thank Allah.

There I go again, calling on Allah, in whom I have not believed since I was girl.

I pull on my skirt, dart next door for a shirt to cover myself, then run for the clinic where I get my birth control and disease checkups. It is several blocks away, but I make it in record time. I have blood on my hands.

The doctor whom I know best, a man named Hussein, is on duty. “Sabah! What happened to you? Are you hurt?”

I shake my head. “No, not me. A—a friend. Please, come with me. He needs help.”

Hussein eyes me warily. “What are you involving me in?”

“Doctor, please. You know me. I have been coming to you for years. Please help my friend.
Please
.”

Hussein’s expression changes, and I know this will not be free. I usually pay Hussein with money, but I know by the lecherous gleam in his eye that he will claim more than
dinar
, this time. He will claim me.

“You will get what you want, Doctor Hussein. But please, come.”

He nods, once. “Very well, Sabah. Let me get my bag.”
 

I lead him to the mosque, but stop him before we go in. “Doctor, before you see my friend, I must ask…please, just keep this between you and me. It is important.”

Hussein’s eyes narrow. “Something tells me I will not like this. But I am here, and I took the Hippocratic oath.”

“The what?”

He shook his head. “An oath to help those who need help. But I will not endanger myself or my family, Sabah.” I nod and lead Hussein into the mosque. He halts in his tracks when he sees Hunter. “An American? Are you mad, Sabah?”

I cannot answer, except for a whispered, “Please.”

Hussein searches my face. “Allah help me, Sabah. You
are
mad. You love him.”

I shake my head, but I am not sure if I am denying what he is saying, or refusing to answer. Hussein only blows a gentle sigh between thick, fleshy lips, scratches his thick beard, and then kneels next to Hunter. He pushes Hunter’s shirt up past the wound, examining it before doing anything. He probes the wound with his finger, then pulls Hunter up to look at his back.

“Well, it went straight through, so there is no bullet to extract. Without any equipment, I cannot say if the bullet hit anything important, but judging by the placement, I would say your…friend, should be okay, eventually. Of course, he has lost a lot of blood already, and he has a number of other wounds.” He glances at me. “Your American is very resilient.”

He examines Hunter’s other wounds, cleans and re-bandages them as well as the new one, then digs in his bag. “These wounds on his leg are growing infected. He will need antibiotics.”

“Do you have them?” I ask.

Hussein glances at me, a smirk touching his lips. “Yes, but they are expensive.”

I sigh. “I understand.”

Hunter, whom I thought was unconscious, grabs Hussein’s wrist. Hussein pales and tries to pull away, but I know well the power in Hunter’s grip, even weakened.