"By the time we're through with you, you'll be glad to don the veil, slut," Zahid said, confidently, to Amal. The boy moved a small, silvery pocket knife in front of the terrified girl's eyes.
"Don't hurt me," she pleaded. "Please don't hurt me."
"We're not going to hurt you much," said Zahid. "We're just going to cut you from your ear to your mouth."
"That," agreed Taymullah, "or you can admit you're just a slut and let us all fuck you. Your choice."
That was no better a choice than being cut. Again, tears pouring down her face, Amal sobbed, "Please don't hurt me. I'll wear a veil. I promise."
"Your word's no good, slut," Zahid said. "Only way we can be sure you'll follow the law is if we cut you. Then you'll be too ashamed to show your whore's face."
"DON'T HURT ME!"
"We have no choice."
"I'll do anything you want; just don't hurt me," the girl begged, head hanging in hopeless and helpless shame.
Once more, Zahid flashed his knife by her eyes and then moved it as if to slash her cheek. He didn't cut her though. Instead, he brought the knife down to her shirt and began to cut it away.
The police car that took Gabi to the hospital didn't flash its lights or blast its siren. Instead, it went only as fast as the traffic would bear. It could have used its sirens and lights of course, but the woman sitting in back was so nearly hysterical that the two policemen up front thought that they'd only make things worse.
"What happened? What happened? What happened?" Gabi kept asking. Neither cop had an answer. They knew the woman's daughter had been hurt and was in the hospital, but that was all they knew . . . about the daughter. The policemen recognized well enough the artist woman who'd been so prominent in the papers and on television a couple of years prior.
One of the policemen helped Gabi to walk on unsteady knees from the patrol car into the emergency room. Surprisingly, a doctor and another policemen, this one in mufti, met them near the door. He led them to a small alcove, not too private but as good as could be procured on the spot.
"Your daughter was attacked," the doctor said, even before Gabi could ask a question. "She's hurt . . . badly, I'm afraid. And, yes, she was raped."
Gabi sank into herself, weeping and cringing at the thought of her sweet and innocent baby attacked by animals.
"We don't know who did it," the plainclothes policemen added. "She was in a neighborhood where this sort of thing happens a lot. Usually they leave German girls alone unless the girls have some connection with the Muslims."
Gabi said, between sobs, "My daughter . . . had an . . . Arab . . . father."
"That might explain it," the policeman agreed, "assuming she looked the part."
Gabi swallowed, forced herself to be calm, and asked, "There's more, isn't there?"
"Yes." The policeman looked at the doctor as if begging him to take this burden.
Hesitantly, the doctor said, "Ms. Von Minden . . . after they raped her . . . maybe before . . . maybe even during . . . they beat her pretty badly. She has several broken ribs and a broken arm. She's concussed. One knee is dislocated."
At each addition to the injuries Gabi shuddered as if struck. She looked at the doctor through her tears. "There's more, isn't there?"
The policemen put his finger to his cheek and drew a line down to the corner of his mouth. "It's a Moslem thing," he said. "They slashed her face open so she'll have to wear a veil for the rest of her life."
Gabi stood. Her fists clenched in front of her face. She felt feelings she should never have felt, thought thoughts she should never have had. But this was no abstract principle. This was her daughter, her flesh and blood, who had been hurt. She began to speak, coherently at first and then rising to a scream. "We should have gassed them . . . we should have gassed them . . . we should have gassed them . . . WE SHOULD HAVE GASSED THEM!"
Chapter Nineteen
But when it comes to this disaster, who started it? In his literature, writer al-Rafee says, "If the woman is in her boudoir, in her house and if she's wearing the veil and if she shows modesty, disasters don't happen."
—Sheik Taj Din Al Hilaly
an-Nessang, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,
1538 AH (4 November, 2113)
Cursing herself for a fool, Petra ran toward the edge of the town. I'm an idiot, an idiot, an idiot! I've lost my damned communicator and now Hans and John are both probably frantic.
She stopped where the woods ended, looking right and left for any sign of people, especially policemen or janissaries. She saw none. Heart pounding, she released the folds of the burka she'd gathered up so she could run through the woods. She looked again for signs of people. Seeing none, and still gripping her submachine gun, she sprinted—as best she could, given the constraints of the burka— across the frozen field and for the shadows of the town. That few towns in Germany had streetlights anymore, an-Nessang not being among those that did, helped.