11 LEMUR THE ELEVENTH THE VILLAGE OF ZAWIYAT, EGYPT (ZAYNAB, 11 years old, HAFSA, 7 years old)
Hafsa, I won’t let you go. Don’t go. I won’t let you!
I was also sent for when I was your age, to visit a woman, they said, who would do my hair because it was disheveled. Mum came along, too. And grandma. And aunts. They wore hijabs, but I would have a new haircut, like the actress Anushka on TV, I thought.
I also meant to tell them to leave only this part on the back, and to cut the front, so Husani would like me.
They took me far away, over there behind that large house of old Kafele, the blacksmith.
I hurried along, pulling their hands. I wanted to see. I’d never been so far away from the village.
Then they pulled me aside and took me into a room. The dark.
When a lantern was lit, an o
