Slave by Mende Nazer

Author:Mende Nazer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780786738977
Publisher: PublicAffairs

19

Hospital Horrors

One day, Rahab and Mustafa were having yet another dinner party. A dozen or so families were coming. After cleaning the whole house, I spent the day in the kitchen with Rahab. We cooked beef and chicken curry with rice and lots of salads. I also made fresh juice—by squeezing oranges, grapefruits and guavas. At around seven, a stream of people started arriving. First, the guests had drinks out on the patio. Dinner was to be served later, in the formal dining room. Once they had sat down to eat, I stayed in the kitchen to clean up the mess. But I kept getting interrupted by the guests’ children.

“Give me more juice! I want another Coke! Give me some more chips!” they demanded.

Soon, there were at least a dozen children climbing all over the furniture and trying to grab things off the kitchen surfaces. I couldn’t clean up and control them all at the same time. Their parents seemed to make no effort to control them at all. “It’s great,” I heard one of them say, “Rahab’s house is so large, there’s lots of room for the children to play.” As far as they were concerned, it meant they could have a nice peaceful evening without their children pestering them.

By the time I’d started to serve tea to all the guests, the kitchen had become the focus of the children’s activities. They were climbing all over the chairs, opening cupboards and pulling out the contents. It was dangerous and I wanted to make them stop. But I knew that I wasn’t allowed to discipline the children. Once, when I had found Hanin jumping off her bed, I had told her off. Rahab had overheard me and came storming into the room. “Don’t you dare scold my children,” she’d yelled at me. “If you see Hanin doing something naughty, you come and tell me.” So now I just took Hanin to one side and spoke to her quietly.

“Please Hanin, calm down,” I said. “Take the children into the living room to play.”

“I’m not going! I’m not going!” she started yelling at me. “I want my cup.”

“I’ll get your cup for you.”

“No! I want to get it myself.”

“But if you all keep climbing over the chairs and tables you’ll fall and hurt yourself,” I reasoned with her.

“I won’t fall. I won’t.”

There was nothing more I could do. So, I turned back to the sink. But suddenly there was a crash and a scream. I spun around, only to see that Rahab’s youngest, Usra, had fallen off the table and hit her head on the floor. She’d been following Hanin’s lead, reaching for her cup. I ran to pick her up and I could see that she had cut her lip. It wasn’t serious, but there was a lot of blood and Usra was wailing loudly. The children gathered round, as I held her and tried to comfort her.

“What’s happened! What’s happened?” Rahab asked, as she came rushing in from the patio. Then she saw Usra.

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