Dear God! She will suffer in the city, she will serve and toil, but she will not complain.. Perhaps her tears flowed in silence, like darkness into darkness, without complaint, without moan, between her and herself, between her and her Lord... God be with you, Aliyya. God be with you!!.
*
She threw herself on the bed and could not stir...
"You are tired. Tired. Tired".. her own self said, speaking to her..
She undid her braids and let her hair fall loose and free upon her shoulders..
Alas for her soul, how it yearns to complain, like a child orphaned by fate!. Alas for her heart, how it tries to release the sighs imprisoned in its depths!.
She promised not to complain, and she will remain strong, a keeper of promises..
She talks to her mother sometimes. Talks to her in silence, as her own self talks to her. No sound leaves her throat, no tremor stirs her lips. She closes her eyes and opens her heart and sees her mother as if she were with her...
— Today she set before me a mountain of clothes, and my back nearly broke from bending. Yesterday she raised her hand to slap me, then drew it back to her side. I will not bear the humiliation of her slaps, and she did well to draw back her hand...
Yesterday the two of them argued and quarreled over me — or rather over the holiday dress they would give me.. He said with anger and vexation: "She is a human being like us; she has a right to life and a right to rejoice in the holidays as we do! If you will not buy the dress, I will. Do you understand?"
He wiped away her tears with the palm of his hand, then looked at the ground.
— "I promise you, by the sanctity of this soil, that I will come for you as soon as I have gathered enough money.. Go now with your father and work hard, and the days will pass like the winds"..
— "I will go and I will wait.. I will not tire, I will not complain — I will only wait." And his eyes kept following her as she moved away with the light, the sunset wrapping her round like a phantom departing into the distance where dreams dwell..