Don't Tell Me You're Afraid

Начало книги

THE MORNING THAT Alì and I became brother and sister was hot as blazes, and we were huddled under the skimpy shade of an acacia.

It was Friday, a holiday.

The run had been long and tiring, and we were both dripping with sweat: from Bondere, where we lived, we’d come straight to the CONS (Somali National Olympics Committee) stadium in Mogadishu without once stopping. Seven kilometers, making our way through all the side streets, which Alì knew like the back of his hand, under a sun scorching enough to melt stone.

Our combined age was sixteen: We were both eight years old, born three days apart. We couldn’t help but be brother and sister, Alì was right, even if we were from two families who weren’t even supposed to talk to each other yet lived in the same house, two families who had always shared everything.

We were under that acacia to catch our breaths a little and cool down, covered up to our behinds with the powdery white dust that swirls up from the roadbeds at the slightest puff of wind, when all of a sudden Alì came out with that bit about being his abaayo.

Читать дальше →