The Orphan Girl (A Story)

Farewell, Mother — the time has come for me to break the cruel bond, and to be true to myself and to the one I love in this life.

Farewell, Mother — you whom I loved, and who were harsh to me; from you came a misery that shattered the dreams of my childhood and dried up the wellspring of life in my frail being.

Was that out of deference to that man you took as a husband, thinking he would be a father to me after my father, and a support, after death with its cruel hand had struck down my true, tender father?

I do not know!

Or was it perhaps weakness on your part before his harshness, submission before his arrogance, and love of peace in his clamorous world?

I do not know that either. I heard you quarrel with him at times, and I understood — young as I was — that it was because of me. But you surrendered in the end, and it was as if a thick fog wrapped your being, carrying you away and turning your gaze from me. I was blotted out of your world, and I lived like a stranger in your care.

Had it not been for this, I would today be another person in my strength and in the depths of my soul.

I hid my anguish and my fear in my small heart, and I would flee to my room, hiding on a seat in one of the corners, whenever I saw that man coming through the outer door into the house — sometimes whenever I heard his voice, or whenever terror swept over me at the hour of his coming.

Yes, I would hide my small existence in the darkness of some corner, in dread of the specter of assailing care, embodied in all its horror in his looming figure.

And how many memories crowd now in my imagination, filled with fear and pain and anxiety — and with soft, beloved waves of happiness. They caress the sides of my soul, and cannot spare me their stubborn, cruel pursuit.

I do not reproach you, Mother, for loving my little sister and indulging her — whether that was love of her, or a courting of her father, who loved her — for I too loved her with all my heart.

Do you remember, in the days when I was still new to the loss of my father, and the loss of his love and his care, when the man who had taken his place called me, a box of sweets and sugared almonds in his hand, and put in my plate every broken, misshapen piece, then called my little sister Nihad and put in her plate the finest the box held? With my small mind I compared what was in the two plates. And before I knew it, I found myself flinging my plate to the floor in front of the supposed father, and running off wailing. Then you followed me, Mother, scolding and rebuking, unaware of the wound dealt to my small, innocent dignity.

He errs, Mother, who thinks the child does not perceive and notice what grown-ups perceive and notice. Rather, children are often more sensitive, and probe more deeply into the obscurities of passing events, than grown-ups.

And years later, Mother, when I fell into that long illness — did I not pass my days alone in bed while you were heedless of me, leaving my care to the little maid, who was not good at nursing and tending me, but hurt me without knowing it?

You came one single time, with an overflowing love in your eyes; you looked into my eyes and asked me:

"How are you, Mama?"

I answered: "Well, thank God."

No sooner had you laid your lips on my burning forehead than I felt the tears dripping into my heart and rasping in my throat. Scarcely had you left my room when I buried my head in the pillow and began to weep. I wept long, Mother, not knowing whether my weeping was from a joy that flooded me or a sorrow that had seized me. But I felt that I needed love and tenderness in my sickness, my weakness, and my loneliness.

Oh, that love which I missed, and hoped for from you then — how precious it was, and how far away!

Every morning my sister Salwa and I would go to school — she provisioned with kisses of tenderness and love, and I with the lump that weighed on my chest; and on the horizon of my imagination, his looks of hatred and your look of indifference — you, the mother who had no mercy on a sensitiveness that broke the little orphan's heart.

The school marks would come to you both, and I would be truly afraid when I learned the vast difference between my rank and Salwa's rank in our class. For I was always first, and she always fell short in one subject or another.

This was one of my sins, for which I earned looks of spite from him and the withholding of encouragement from you. How many times the orphan earned rebuke, and sometimes blows, without knowing that she had sinned or done anything deserving punishment.

Once my sister's rank in the class came seventh, and for that a party was held at the house, attended by the teachers and many of the pupils. Her success was the talk for a while — until the next term's marks came, showing that Salwa had dropped far below her rank.

How many times I pretended to sleep in my bed until everyone in the house was asleep, then rose to study by the faint street light coming in at the window, so as not to turn on the light and let you and him know I was studying, and earn thereby a bitter punishment.

And how often I heard the two of you praising the beauty of fair-haired Nihad, glorying in it, repeating in my hearing:

"Tomorrow, when she grows up, we shall not be able to escape the pursuit of the suitors — they will fill the house!"

And I would look in the mirror and not see the glow that shone from my sister's blue eyes, from her rosy color and her gilded hair.

I saw the pale white of my face, the black of my hair and of my two wide eyes. And the orphan would say: "Lord, do not make me ugly."

Often I gazed long into that mirror, which would not tell me the truth, but told me only what lay at the bottom of my own soul: the belief that the orphan's share of beauty was scant.

This tore at my soul, and pained me most sharply.

Only two years ago did the mirror tell me the truth. It was when Salwa's birthday party was held. She was fourteen, and I seventeen.

We entered the hall together, and I felt looks of admiration aimed at me. Everyone repeated phrases of praise for my beauty. Signs of astonishment appeared on your face, Mother, and meanings of hatred on his.

And in my heart a spring of gladness welled up: God had answered the orphan and accepted her prayer. I went straight to the mirror to consult it — and it was truthful.

Of all the events that have passed with me, which now follow one another like a moving-picture reel before my eyes, I see the one most painful to my soul — a picture of the orphan. I do not know whether my days of happiness will ever be able to erase it as the days go by.

It was when my sister fell down the stairs of the house and her sobbing rose. I ran to her from my room, and you rushed up with him, panting, out of breath. As for him, he was like a raging beast. No sooner did he see me lifting her from the floor than he struck me across the face a blow whose cause I do not know to this day.

I was fourteen then, Mother — a young girl who felt the greatness of her soul, the dignity of her years, and the pride of distinction at her school.

And I thank God that school repaid me, in dignity and confidence, what the orphan lost in your house and before your eyes.

So now, after peace of mind has enfolded me in my new home, I forgive you, Mother, and wish you every good.