The night grew weary and the crowd grew thin as the market approached its closing hour. The lights were going out and the loud chatter slowly dissipated. Suddenly, a woman came up to me and asked, “Did you lose your sister?”
I nodded. She looked like an angel. The way she smiled reminded me of my late mother—and then there were her distinct features: large eyes, thin and tall figure, soft voice…all of which resembled my mother’s features. I felt saved.
Everything was going to be all right.
***
“Where did my sister go?” the boy throws out the same question, this time he is directing it at me.
This is the first time he has ever addressed me directly. Perhaps he was trying to adjust himself to his surroundings, or make sense of what is happening — and now he realizes he’s got nowhere else to go and I’m the only friend he has.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve lost my sister as well.”
The boy thinks about this for a moment, and then: “Why did our sisters disappear? I have a friend who also lost a sister, just like you and me.”
What friend, I want to ask him—but I keep my mouth shut. There’s no one else here but us, and besides it’s too dark for us to see anything.
“Do you think they got tired of us?” the boy continues.
The comment shocks me. My sister would never leave me. Not like this.
A couple of years back, when my mother died, we were almost removed by social services to an orphanage. We were so little, it seemed like the most appropriate thing to do. But my sister wouldn’t have it. “It’s hell!” she said. Her voice trembling. “You remember Umira who went there last year? She died after the people who work at the orphanage raped her.”
