Born a Refugee: A Novel of One Palestinian Family

BORN A REFUGEE

A Novel of One Palestinian Family

by

Dixiane Hallaj

OTHER WORKS BY DIXIANE HALLAJ

Caught by Culture and Conflict:

Illiteracy Among Palestinian Refugee Women

It’s Just Lola

(a novel)

Aunt Nellie B

(a novel)

The 5th Wish

(a children’s picture book)

http://www.dixianehallaj.com

Published by S & H Publishing, Inc.

at Smashwords

© Copyright 2009 Dixiane Hallaj

Introduction

Palestinians fought with the Allies in World War I to gain their independence and rid themselves of the rule of the Ottoman Empire. At the end of the war, instead of the independence they sought, they found themselves the unwilling hosts of an influx of Zionist Jews who came from Europe and elsewhere as settlers, sponsored by England and the United States. The Palestinians were powerless to prevent the partition of their small country, about the size of Massachusetts, into two even smaller parts. The part that formed the state of Israel was supposed to comprise 47% of the total, but after a series of wars 80% of the country lived under the Israeli flag. Thousands of Palestinians fled the violence and were temporarily housed in refugee camps, many in neighboring countries and many in the remainder of Palestine. In 1967 the remaining 20% of the country was occupied by Israel and became known as the West Bank and Gaza. Some of the original refugees fled once again, joining many new refugees fleeing yet another war. Many others stayed and continued to live under occupation in the original camps.

The refugees living under occupation are often seen as a political problem and an impediment to peace. These refugees are not merely annoying pawns in the game of politics—they are real people with real lives, real hopes, real dreams and, unfortunately, real pain. They are born refugees; they grow up and fall in love; they get married and have children of their own; they grow old, if they are lucky, and they die—still refugees.

The people in this book are not real people, but their experiences are real experiences. Their happiness is real happiness and their unhappiness is real unhappiness but most of all, their love for each other is very, very real.

Our story begins one afternoon, late in 1974…

Sketch of Historical Palestine

with current political boundaries

Chapter One

New York Times; November 24, 1974

UN General Assembly on Nov. 22 approved resolutions declaring that Palestinian people have right to independence and sovereignty and giving Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) observer status in UN affairs.

Ali darted into a narrow alley. As he ran, he listened. At first all he heard was the pounding of his own feet on the street and the rush of his own breath—in, out, in, out. Then he heard it—the thud of a single pair of combat boots behind him. Instantly he turned and dodged into the narrow space between two houses. As soon as he passed the house, he jumped over the low stone wall that surrounded its back yard. He looked around wildly for something that would give him cover. Finding nothing, he flattened himself against the door in the recessed doorway and slapped the door with his hand a few times. The noise was not loud and, with luck, someone inside would hear it. Luck was with him. He practically fell into the house when a woman opened the door.

Anyone else? she asked before closing the door.

Thank you, Auntie. Ali’s eyes and nose still burned from the tear gas. Judging by the expression on the woman’s face, his clothes still smelled as well.

Go wash your face and hands. She pointed toward a door. He hesitated, listening for sounds from the street outside.

Don’t worry, said the woman. If the soldiers come to the door I’ll make them wait until you’re done. She smiled at his startled look. He grinned back as he realized she was teasing. Grateful, he went to get the tear gas off his face and as much of the rest of him as he could. There was no shouting from the street, so he assumed the soldier that had been chasing him thought it more prudent to rejoin his companions than risk an ambush in the narrow alleys between houses.

One small boy wasn’t worth the risk—even if he was the ‘small friend.’ He smiled, remembering a soldier shouting at one of the other boys, asking about his small friend. He was proud that his rock throwing prowess had been noticed. He was shorter than most of the boys in his class, but his aim was better. He could tell the difference between original and replacement windows in military vehicles by the sound of a rock shattering the glass.

He walked back into the main room of the house. Water dripped from hair he’d just doused under the faucet. He shivered as a cold drop slid down his spine. The woman had set a glass of sweet tea on a small table by an empty chair.

So tell me why you came out to throw rocks wearing a red sweater? You must know there’s a reason soldiers dress as they do.

Ali liked this woman. She was observant and talked to him like a friend. When I left the house this morning I wasn’t expecting trouble.

You should know better than that. When you live in the Occupied Territory trouble is a way of life. He heard laughter in her words. Drink your tea and I’ll see if I can find a brown shirt you can wear without tripping over it. She disappeared into another room.

I may be small, but I have a good arm. They’ve even noticed me. I heard a soldier ask one of the boys where his small friend was.

Sometimes it’s better not to be noticed. She shook her head. "You have a name and you wear red. She returned with a dark shirt and sat down with her own glass of tea. So tell me, Small Friend, do you think you can win this war by throwing stones?

Ali took a sip of his tea before he answered. She’d opened her door to him and deserved a serious answer. He wasn’t sure where to begin. How naïve was she to ask that question? You watch television? It was a statement, not a question. The woman nodded. What do you see about Palestine these days?

I see boys like yourself throwing rocks at soldiers armed with rifles and tanks. That doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. As I said, do you think you can win this war using stones?

If you’re asking if we can defeat the Israeli Army with stones, the answer is no, of course not. No matter how many stones we throw we can only be annoying. He looked into his tea glass, searching for the right words. Palestinians call 1948 Nakba for a reason. Nakba means catastrophe, and Palestinians experienced a catastrophe the likes of which few societies have ever suffered. He didn’t say this. She already knew. What could he say that wouldn’t sound patronizing? Did you know that during the Nakba, 85% of our population left their homes? Or that 50% of the villages were destroyed?

No, I didn’t know the numbers were that high.

"Ever since 1948 we’ve been waiting politely for the world to solve our problem, but the world forgot about us. People forgot we existed and nobody was even trying to solve our problem. In a straight bullets versus stones battle, bullets win every time, but there’s another war that we’ve ignored for decades. This is the war for attention. He paused to see if she was really listening. She nodded and he continued. We just got observer status in the United Nations. We didn’t get that by sitting and waiting; we got it because we made noise, and people are noticing."

Those are mighty big ideas and smooth words for a small friend. Are you sure those are really your words? Or are you just repeating the words of others?

Ali felt his face redden—partly from embarrassment and partly from anger. I’m sixteen, Auntie. I look younger because I’m small, but I’ll finish high school next year. I listen and I learn. I listen to the news; I listen to the men in the shops; I listen to the men arguing in the coffee houses. My friends and I talk politics all the time. We read all the pamphlets. He realized he sounded defensive and his voice was getting louder. He took a deep breath and continued in a calmer voice.

Maybe you’re right, some of the ideas and the words I use aren’t mine, but I’ve thought about them—a lot. I make up my own mind. What harm is there in using other people’s ideas as long as you’re convinced they’re right? If they can say something better than I can, why not use that as well?

"And are you convinced?"

Yes, I am. For some reason Ali felt it was important that he convince this woman he was right. Maybe because she listened, which was more than his brother, Layth, did when he talked about resisting the occupation. He didn’t even want to think about the arguments he’d had trying to convince Layth that what he was doing was useful. He turned his attention back to the woman sipping her tea.

You cook grape leaves, don’t you? The woman nodded. Was it your idea to roll the leaves around rice and meat? Or did you learn it from your mother? Do they still taste good, even though it wasn’t your idea? Why should political ideas be any different? Just because I didn’t think of this myself doesn’t mean I can’t use the argument, or that I shouldn’t believe it.

I’m not talking about your ideas of justice and injustice, I’m talking about the way you think it should be solved.

A few weeks ago I was reading the subtitles on the English news for my mother, and they were asking regular people what they thought of the situation here. Most of them said silly things like we’d been fighting here for thousands of years, but one man said something very different. He said that when he saw young boys and girls throwing stones at tanks and soldiers with machine guns, he decided there must be a real injustice somewhere. He decided to find out more about Palestine—and the more he found out, the more he found our cause to be just. I know that’s only one man, but he’s the one that got on the camera. More people are noticing us now. These people will ask their governments why no one’s trying to help us. When enough people start asking, something will happen.

Are you sure about that?

I think it’s our duty to make the world hear us now. Should I let others risk their lives to make this happen without doing my part? Why did it matter to him what this woman thought?

You quoted statistics, what’s the biggest export of Palestine?

Ali was surprised by the question. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with what they’d been discussing. I don’t know. We grow stuff. Maybe oranges or something? No, I bet it’s olives or maybe olive oil.

Wrong on all counts. It’s people. We export educated people. There are Palestinian doctors and engineers and teachers all over the Arab World and beyond. These people send money back and help their families. Without this money we’d be a lot worse off than we are today.

Is this another stay-in-school-and-study-hard lecture? I get those from my brother all the time. Ali was angry at himself for not being more grateful for her hospitality, but he was angry at her for taking advantage of his position. As a guest he had to listen and be polite, although he knew his reaction was in the almost-rude category.

No, son, she said softly. It’s a please-be-careful-and-don’t-waste-our-resources lecture. I know that we need to do something so people notice us. Yes, I watch the news, and I read my own subtitles. I listen to the men argue. I’ve even been known to do some arguing myself. I know our only weapons are words and stones, but for God’s sake, don’t throw yourself away for one more broken window in a military vehicle. It isn’t worth your life. Ali was surprised by the passion in her voice. She looked away, but not quickly enough to hide the tears in her eyes. Ali suddenly understood. With a surge of sympathy he asked if she’d lost someone. She nodded and they were silent for a minute. He murmured the stock phrases of condolence. Even as he said them, he realized the inadequacy of any words to console a mother who had lost a child. She turned back to him with a smile. Things seem quiet now. Go home before your mother gets any more gray hair worrying about you.

Ali thanked the woman again and left, promising to return the shirt in a couple of days. He didn’t expect to see soldiers in the neighborhood and he was right. In fact, the streets were nearly empty. He walked toward the stop for the buses to Kalandia, picking up small stones and throwing them at light poles or signs or bits of trash in the street. He listened with satisfaction to the various sounds they made as they hit the different targets. This, he thought, is why my aim is good—practice, practice, practice. He felt curiously light as he walked along.

He stopped dead in his tracks when he realized what it was—his book bag. Where could it be? He tried to think through the day. He’d left home at the usual time and arrived at school with the bag. Then what? He’d gone inside. Had he put down the bag? The soldiers had arrived that morning along with the last of the students, before classes started. He remembered catching a glimpse of the soldiers talking to the principal at the front door while teachers got the boys out of the building by the other doors, pushing and shoving when they didn’t move fast enough.

Ali smiled as he thought of the principal standing in the doorway—a cowering lump of a man while the soldiers demanded to enter the school. The principal was a strange person in Ali’s eyes. He threw his weight around the school all day, flying into a rage if anyone crossed him, but when soldiers appeared, he seemed to shrink into himself. At least, thought Ali, today he’d turned into a lump that blocked the doorway and delayed their entrance. Maybe, thought Ali with a flash of insight, that look of fear was an act for the soldiers. Maybe the principal was looking meek to make the soldiers react with impatience rather than anger at his delays.

Ali tried again to remember where his bag might be. There’d been a bit of panic among some of the teachers that spread to a lot of students. Now he remembered—he’d been swept out the back door in a press of students. Some of the boys took off for home as fast as they could, but the rest of them started gathering stones and moved toward the front of the building and the soldiers. He remembered now—he’d tossed his bag somewhere in the back of the school. A backpack really spoils the aim—and the speed if one needs to make a quick retreat.

Should he take a chance and go back to the school and try to retrieve his bag or should he go home without it? His preference was to go home and hope the bag was still there in the morning. He didn’t intend to open it tonight anyway. But what if Layth came home tonight?

Ever since their father was killed, his older brother had decided that his sole purpose in life was to ride herd on his younger brothers whenever he was around. He had one sound track and he played it over and over. Study hard, do better, study hard, do better. Ali amended that thought—maybe Layth just wanted to make life uncomfortable for him. The younger boys didn’t have any problems jumping through hoops if Layth asked them to. He groaned and headed for the school. He’d rather take a chance on meeting soldiers than face the lecture Layth would deliver if he came home and found Ali without a school bag—or, worse yet, if the bag disappeared and he had to ask for money to replace the books. Thinking about that turned Ali’s walk into a jog. Asking his brother for money would be humiliating, even without the lecture.

As Ali got closer to the center of town, he was relieved to see people going about their normal business. That probably meant that most of the soldiers had left once they’d disbursed the stone-throwing boys with their tear gas. He wondered what they’d wanted in the school that morning. Had they been looking for someone in particular or just throwing their weight around? He’d probably never know.

As he approached the school, he breathed a sigh of relief —no sign of military presence. He was surprised to see a group of boys playing soccer in the schoolyard. After declining an invitation to join the game, Ali began to look along the walls of the building and the wall around the yard. He had only a vague memory of tossing the bag toward a wall. There were a couple of dozen bags still in the yard—mute testimony that the soldiers had used tear gas. No student would abandon his bag under ordinary circumstances. He located his bag within minutes.

He picked it up and hurried toward the bus stop, thinking that he wasn’t the only one who’d be in trouble if books needed to be replaced. Even the lousy paperback books that fell apart before the year was over cost more than many boys could afford. As much as he fought against his brother’s control, he knew that he was very fortunate. Many boys his age couldn’t afford to go to the free government high schools. Free was a relative term. There was no tuition fee, but after the students completed junior high in the UN schools in the camps, they had to use public transportation to go to the high schools in town. It wasn’t just the cost of the textbooks, it was also the cost of transportation to and from town, and what Layth called the ‘opportunity cost’ to the family of having them as consumers rather than earners.

Layth never mentioned the guilt of the student, knowing that every coin used to take a bus to school was one less coin that went toward food for the family—the guilt of taking when he was perfectly capable of giving.

As much as Ali loved his brother and appreciated what he did for the family, his resentment was sometimes so strong he nearly choked on it. His brother’s motto was, ‘Work twice as hard so you can spend half and save half, ’ and he pounded it into his brothers. He taught by example as well as by repeating the same thing over and over. He followed his own advice and they all saw and understood that—yet he would not let Ali apply it. It grated on Ali every day that his brother refused to let him take even a part time job to help pull his own weight. Why couldn’t Layth understand how it made him feel? His brother was killing himself working and Ali was just living off of that work.

He stared out the window of the bus as they approached the Kalandia Camp. Most of the houses in Kalandia had solid roofs now. Very few still had the corrugated steel that had sheltered the refugees the first winter they were there. Some houses had even added a second story and often the original family moved upstairs, leaving the bottom level for the oldest son and his family. The camp had been here since 1948 when the state of Israel was formed by the United Nations. He still couldn’t comprehend how the world could just take 46% of his country and give it to someone else. When the shooting stopped and the dust settled, the Israelis had taken even more land and what remained was less than one fourth of their tiny country—and that was given to Jordan. Of course, he hadn’t even been born in 1948, but he knew that his parents had fled the war zone, leaving their land, their house, and everything they owned. Carrying baby Layth, they had walked until they reached Jordan.

Ali did remember the 1967 war. He’d only been a small boy but he remembered. Israel had taken the rest of the country—and he’d lost his father. He still remembered his mother telling him that he had to be brave so his younger brothers wouldn’t be afraid. He was proud to be put in charge of his brothers. Selim had been four and Muhammad was barely walking but Ali took his responsibilities seriously.

He remembered waking up in the night being really frightened because he heard his mother sobbing. He’d known, even then, that she was being brave for him the same way she told him to be brave for his brothers. He’d wondered where Layth was because his little eight-year-old reasoning said that if he was responsible for his brothers, Layth must be responsible for their mother. But Layth was gone because he was being responsible for the family. Layth left before dawn each morning to help unload vegetable trucks in the market. He’d assumed the role of breadwinner for the family and had still managed to stay in school for the last year of high school—but everyone knew that going any further was impossible. Now he wanted Ali to live the life he’d wanted for himself—to fulfill the dream of attending university that he had dreamed.

Ali knew there was no way he could disregard his brother’s wishes. Layth had worked so hard for all of them, how could he not do the one thing he’d been asked to do? The bus came to a stop, and Ali slung his bag over his shoulder, resolving to get some serious studying done that night.

Layth’s jaw hurt from clenching his teeth. His fingernails dug into his palms. How could the world turn upside down so quickly? Just this morning he’d felt full of hope. Full of hope, he mumbled bitterly, I should’ve known better. Since when have I ever had anything but ashes and sackcloth? He gave a vicious kick to a rock that was lying on the sidewalk and was startled by an angry exclamation.

Hey, man, if you’re going to kick something that hard, either join a soccer team or yell out a warning. You nearly broke my shin bone. Layth looked up to see a young man standing on one leg and trying to balance himself as he attempted to examine the shin of his other leg.

Sorry, it’s been a bad day, muttered Layth in apology. He took in his surroundings and realized he must have been walking for hours. He’d walked all the way to Kalandia from town.

Yeah? Tell me about it. The young man added a string of curses. And now I’ve got blood on my good pants. What kind of impression am I going to make now—limping into a store with blood running down my leg? He didn’t seem to be talking to Layth. He was just complaining to the universe in general.

Layth felt sudden compassion. What had he been doing the last few hours but complaining to the universe? The universe didn’t listen to complaints. He should know; he’d sent out his own share of complaints over the years and it had never done any good. And now he’d made the universe a little less fair to a fellow refugee—one who looked much too young to have any idea just how much misery the universe could heap on one person. And he had made it a little worse.

Come on, he said, putting his hand on the young man’s shoulder, my mother’s house is right over there. He pointed in the general direction he’d been walking. We can at least get the mess cleaned up. The boy looked him up and down, and Layth knew exactly what he was thinking. He looked out of place the middle of a refugee camp with his (now scuffed) Italian loafers and his tailored wool suit. I know. Layth grimaced, gesturing to his clothes, All decked out for my big day—but things didn’t go exactly as planned. To his surprise the boy laughed.

I was thinking the same words exactly. The boy turned and began to walk beside Layth, favoring his bleeding leg. But I’d guess by the way you kicked that rock that you stepped in something really nasty.

Layth nodded. His jaw still ached and now his foot hurt, too, but he welcomed the distraction of someone else’s problems for a moment. Tell me what you’re dressed up for, he said before the boy could ask any questions.

Today’s my last ditch effort to stay in school. Suddenly he had Layth’s attention. The guy I work for told me he needs a full time worker. He likes my work and wants me to stay, but I’ll have to start working full time instead of only before and after school. My father says it’s a good opportunity, but I really want to finish high school. I decided to take today off work and visit every business in town trying to get a job where I could still go to school. I’m not picky about what I do.

Sounds tough.

Yeah, my father’s a day laborer in construction and he can’t always make enough to keep us going. The money I bring in helps keep food on the table. He gestured to his leg. Maybe this is a sign that I should just get practical and take the offer. He shrugged. It’s not a bad offer, I guess.

They reached the house and Layth rang the bell. Ali opened the door.

Hey, Layth. Hassan—great to see you. Ali’s face showed surprise but he recovered quickly. Welcome. Come in, please.

Hey, Ali. Layth grabbed his younger brother and thumped him on the back. You two know each other?

Sure, we’re in the same class at school. The three crossed the tiny courtyard and Ali stood aside to let the others enter the house first. He noticed that Hassan was limping and then saw the blood on his trouser leg.

What happened to your leg?

Your brother happened to my leg. He kicked a stone and nearly broke my shin bone.

You did that with a stone? Man! Where were you at our last demonstration? You could knock the snot out of… Layth gave his brother a dark look and Ali quickly turned to introduce Hassan to his mother and younger brothers. Neither brother wished to open the can of worms that always appeared when Ali brought up demonstrations. Not today, and not in front of a stranger.

Ali, their mother said, find Hassan something to wear and bring those pants to me. I’ll get the blood off before it sets into a stain. She turned to Hassan. Tell me if it’s still bleeding.

When the two boys had left the room, Mother turned to her eldest son with a concerned look on her face. You’ll stay the night, of course, she said quietly. He nodded. His feet had known where he needed to go long before his brain had resumed any semblance of rational thought.

She took a basin of water and Hassan’s trousers and went out into the courtyard to wash them and hang them out to dry. Ali put on the kettle before sitting near his brother.

Where’d you find Black Hassan?

Black Hassan? Why do you call him that?

He works in a tire shop repairing tires and doing retreads and stuff. He works before school, and by the time he gets to school his clothes are black and his hands always have black on them. He can’t scrub it off—so we just started calling him Black Hassan.

I didn’t notice black on his hands.

He must’ve scrubbed them with kerosene or something today. I’ve never seen him look so clean.

So I guess he struggles in classes if he works before and after school?

Are you kidding? He’s the best! The geometry teacher calls him Professor Black. Ali stopped talking and burst out laughing. Hassan had emerged from the bathroom using his hands to hold up a pair of Ali’s pants that barely reached his ankles. Ali took the belt off his own waist and handed it to Hassan. You need this more than I do right now. Hassan grinned, looking down at his own lanky frame.

Ali went toward the kitchen, answering the call of the tea kettle, as his mother came in with the empty pan. By the time we have a glass of tea they’ll be dry.

So tell me a little about yourself, said Layth as his mother began to pour the tea.

What’s to tell? You live here…lived here…uh…you know what it’s like. Hassan floundered.

Layth knew he was wondering what a guy in a tailor-made suit was doing sitting on a mat in a refugee camp. Where are you from?

Sareece. At least, you know, my dad was born there. He was a kid when the family fled. He smiled and pointed to the large iron key hanging on the wall. We have one of those on our wall, too, but there’s no door left for the key. Dad says my granddad died of a broken heart when the Israelis razed the village. Dad was in the fourth grade, but he quit school and went to work. He’s been totally focused ever since on feeding the family from one day to the next. I guess that’s why he thinks it’s so great that I have a chance to get a full time job, so he can stop worrying so much about the next meal.

Layth nodded. The boy was right. There wasn’t that much to tell. Significant details differed, but no one with any job skills had settled in the refugee camps. The United Nations had defined the people eligible to receive aid as those who had lost both home and livelihood in the conflict resulting from the creation of Israel. The refugees who became residents of the camps were mainly families who had been dispossessed of their small family farms. They had little or no education, and their job skills were of little use without land.

Layth felt his anger rise again as the thought of the day’s events came back in a rush. He struggled to concentrate on Hassan and push his own problems to the back of his mind. He wasn’t ready to deal with them yet.

How much do you bring home from your job? If Hassan was surprised by the question, he didn’t give any sign of it. It was hard to keep secrets in the camps and how much a person made was not usually something anyone felt compelled to hide. After a few minutes of conversation about school, Hassan said he wanted to get to town before everything closed.

Layth gestured for him to stay seated. Mother, you won’t mind checking if Hassan’s trousers are dry, will you?

Of course not. She got up and went to get the pants off the line. Layth smiled. There were advantages to being raised in a house with two rooms connected by a paper-thin door. You got to know your family really well. He knew that she understood he wanted some of what passed for privacy in the overcrowded conditions of the camp.

Ali, did you check your brothers’ homework yet? It took Ali a bit longer than his mother but, as he opened his mouth to say that the homework was still being done in the other room, he realized that he too was being asked to leave the room.

Alone with Hassan, Layth began to speak. Are you familiar with the Palestine Market near the buses to Jerusalem?

Hassan nodded. I go by there almost every day. They sell mainly fruit and vegetables, don’t they?

Yes, they do—and ‘they’ is really me. If you want to work there, I’ll give you a job with the same hours and for the same pay you make now. I’ll give you a one-month trial period. Just show up in the morning and I’ll put you to work.

Layth watched the play of emotions on the young face in front of him. Hassan’s eyes lit up, but then a frown appeared. He seemed to be having an internal argument. Finally he spoke. That’s great, but I have a problem.

What is it?

It’s my old boss. He’s really backed up with work now, and that’s why he wants me full time. I told him I needed a day off to make up my mind. I can’t just walk out on him when he has all this work. You know how it is—if he doesn’t get the work done on time, people will begin to go somewhere else. He hired me a few years ago, and he’s been good to me. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I owe him some notice.

Good, said Layth. Tell him tomorrow that you’ll keep working for another week, to give him time to get someone. If he finds someone sooner, then you come sooner. I don’t have a problem with that. In fact, I’ll expect the same kind of loyalty from you in the future. Hassan gave an infectious grin and reached out a hand to shake.

Not so fast, said Layth with a smile. I have conditions. Hassan’s smile faded and he withdrew his hand slowly.

Conditions?

Yes. Assuming we get past the first month trial period, I’ll want to see your grades. You only keep the job if you keep your grades up.

That’s not a problem. You had me scared for a minute. Sure you can see my grades. In fact, I guarantee you’ll be pleased.

The next condition is that after the first month you get a small raise, but I keep the money. Once again Hassan’s thoughts were easily read on his face. What kind of raise is that where the boss keeps the money? During exam time you cut your hours in half or less and you take home the same amount—from the raise that I keep for you.

Really? You’d do that for me? You don’t even know me.

Layth thought he knew the boy better than he knew himself. He’d been faced with the same choice—education or family welfare. Hassan seemed willing to put forth the same kind of