The Sacred Cut

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It was nine months now since she’d slipped out of Iraq, six hundred dollars in her pocket, knowing instinctively what she needed: men who owned boats and trucks, men who knew the way to places she’d only dimly heard of and who could take a little human contraband there for the right price. There’d been no work, no money at home, not since Saddam’s soldiers came from Baghdad and took her father away, leaving them alone together in the damp, cold shack that passed as a farm, with its dying crops wilting under the oil smoke of the fields outside Kirkuk.

She’d watched the dry, dusty lane that led to their home every day for hours, waiting for him to come back, wondering when she’d hear that strong, confident adult voice again, bringing hope and security into their lives. It never happened. Instead, her mother went slowly crazy as the hope ran out, wailing at the open door for hours on end, not cleaning anything, not even talking after a while.

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