Burned alive by Souad

Author:Souad [Souad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Women, Social Science, Religion, Women's Studies, Biography & Autobiography, Islam, Souad, General, Family & Relationships, Personal Memoirs, Abuse, Abused women - Palestine, Honor killings - Palestine, Political Science, Self-Help, Abused women, Law, Palestine, Honor killings, Biography, Case studies
ISBN: 9780446533461
Publisher: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Published: 2004-05-11T04:00:00+00:00

It’s a nightmare without end at night, lying flat on my back on this bed in the hospital. I am in total darkness, I see curtains around me; the window has disappeared. I feel a strange pain like a knife stuck into my stomach, my legs tremble. I am dying. I try to sit up but can’t. My arms are still stiff, two filthy wounds that are of no use. There is no one, I am alone. Then who stuck this knife into my stomach?

I feel something strange between my legs. I bend one leg, then the other, I try to disengage this thing that frightens me. I don’t realize, at first, that I’m giving birth. I feel around in the darkness with my two feet. Without really knowing what it is, I push the child’s body slowly back under the sheet. I stay still for a moment, exhausted by the effort.

When I bring my legs together, I feel the baby against the skin on both my legs. It moves a little. I hold my breath. How did it get out so quickly? A knife stab in the belly and it’s there? I’m going back to sleep, it’s impossible, this child didn’t come out all alone without warning. I must be having a nightmare.

But I’m not dreaming, because it’s there, between my knees, against the skin of my legs. They weren’t burned so I have sensation in my legs and my feet. I don’t move, then I raise a leg, the way you would with an arm, to brush a tiny head, arms that move feebly. I must have cried out. I don’t remember. The doctor comes into the room, parts the curtains, but I’m still in darkness. It must be night outside. I see only a light in the hall through the open door. The doctor leans over and he takes the baby away, without even showing it to me. There’s nothing between my legs now. Someone pulls the curtains closed. I don’t remember anything more. I must have fainted, I slept a long time, I don’t know. The next day and the following days, I am certain of only one thing: The child is no longer in my belly.

I didn’t know if he was dead or alive, no one spoke to me about it, and I didn’t dare ask the unkind nurse what they had done with this child. May he forgive me, I was incapable of giving him a reality. I knew that I had given birth but I hadn’t seen him, he wasn’t put into my arms, I didn’t know if it was a girl or a boy. I was not a mother at this moment, but human debris condemned to death. My strongest emotion was shame.

The doctor told me later that I had given birth at seven months to a tiny baby, but that he was alive and being cared for. I vaguely heard what he was saying to me, my ears had been burned

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.