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Authors: Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
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were not much different from hers. Anna, on the other hand, had difficulty with the job. Although she was older than Mariam, she did not have the same strength, and the mud paste that she had to wear on her face and neck and hands made her exhausted with heat. After just a few hours, Anna sat down in the middle of the field. She tried to hold her face in her hands, but ended up smearing the mud concoction into her eyes and making them sting with the grit. She brought her knees close to her chest and hugged them tightly, smearing yet more mud.
âI feel so useless,â she said.
Mariam came to sit beside her for a moment.
âEven you children are stronger than I am,â said Anna. âWhat good am I to you?â
âYou are like a mother to us,â said Mariam. She took a corner of her veil and moistened it with her mouth, and then she carefully blotted the muddy mixture away from Annaâs eyes. Mariam felt badly for Anna. What must it be like for her to be living with this handicap? She couldnât shed her white skin, and she couldnât change her strange sore eyes or the way that people reacted to her. The experiences of the last few months had made Anna more bitter than the others, yet she tried to rein it in for the sake of the children.
As Mariam considered Anna and her situation, her eyes wandered down to the sickle that Anna had been using. No wonder she was having so much difficulty. It was long and sharp, but very heavy. Mariam reacheddown and picked it up. It was easily twice as heavy as the precious one that she was using.
âWould you like to use my sickle for awhile?â suggested Mariam. She didnât really like to have her motherâs tiny sickle out of her grasp, but Annaâs need was greater than hers.
Anna looked at Mariam with gratitude. âYou would lend it to me?â she asked.
âI donât have to be covered up like you, so Iâm cooler,â said Mariam. âBesides,â she added in her most convincing voice, âI think I might prefer a heavier one for a bit.â
Anna grinned. Mariam tried not to chuckle at the strange sight of Anna: white teeth and pink-rimmed blue eyes shining through a mud-streaked face.
Martaâs first day of work wasnât as gruelling as it was for those in the fields, but it wasnât exactly easy, either. She set Onnig to work weeding the garden as she peeled onions to add to the pot of vegetable stew that Amina Hanim had put on the roof to cook in the sun before leaving for the fields. Amina had also asked Marta to thinly slice a basket of apples and lay the slices out on the roof to dry. Marta could not do either of these tasks very efficiently. She started with the onions because chopping was easier than slicing, and she didnât have to use such a sharp knife. Her eyes streamed with tears as she peeled away the skins, and her nose got extremely itchy while she chopped them. She couldnât wait to finish so she could wash her hands and give her nose a good scratching.
She decided to peel and slice the apples outside so she could keep a better eye on Onnig. He was intently digging a hole with a stick in a bare patch of the garden, but she didnât know how long this would amuse him. She brought out a small carpet to sit on, and a wooden cutting board and a bowl for the apples. Amina Hanim had shown her which knife was the best for the apples, and it looked formidably sharp.
She stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and frowned in concentration as she tried to peel the first apple. Her mother had always made the apple peel a single long coil, but how? Marta held the knife and apple at armâs length. She didnât want to get it too close because she was afraid of cutting herself, but her peel came off in chunks instead of a thin ribbon. When she looked at the first peeled apple, she sighed in frustration. There was more peel and core than apple. Oh well, she would get
âI feel so useless,â she said.
Mariam came to sit beside her for a moment.
âEven you children are stronger than I am,â said Anna. âWhat good am I to you?â
âYou are like a mother to us,â said Mariam. She took a corner of her veil and moistened it with her mouth, and then she carefully blotted the muddy mixture away from Annaâs eyes. Mariam felt badly for Anna. What must it be like for her to be living with this handicap? She couldnât shed her white skin, and she couldnât change her strange sore eyes or the way that people reacted to her. The experiences of the last few months had made Anna more bitter than the others, yet she tried to rein it in for the sake of the children.
As Mariam considered Anna and her situation, her eyes wandered down to the sickle that Anna had been using. No wonder she was having so much difficulty. It was long and sharp, but very heavy. Mariam reacheddown and picked it up. It was easily twice as heavy as the precious one that she was using.
âWould you like to use my sickle for awhile?â suggested Mariam. She didnât really like to have her motherâs tiny sickle out of her grasp, but Annaâs need was greater than hers.
Anna looked at Mariam with gratitude. âYou would lend it to me?â she asked.
âI donât have to be covered up like you, so Iâm cooler,â said Mariam. âBesides,â she added in her most convincing voice, âI think I might prefer a heavier one for a bit.â
Anna grinned. Mariam tried not to chuckle at the strange sight of Anna: white teeth and pink-rimmed blue eyes shining through a mud-streaked face.
Martaâs first day of work wasnât as gruelling as it was for those in the fields, but it wasnât exactly easy, either. She set Onnig to work weeding the garden as she peeled onions to add to the pot of vegetable stew that Amina Hanim had put on the roof to cook in the sun before leaving for the fields. Amina had also asked Marta to thinly slice a basket of apples and lay the slices out on the roof to dry. Marta could not do either of these tasks very efficiently. She started with the onions because chopping was easier than slicing, and she didnât have to use such a sharp knife. Her eyes streamed with tears as she peeled away the skins, and her nose got extremely itchy while she chopped them. She couldnât wait to finish so she could wash her hands and give her nose a good scratching.
She decided to peel and slice the apples outside so she could keep a better eye on Onnig. He was intently digging a hole with a stick in a bare patch of the garden, but she didnât know how long this would amuse him. She brought out a small carpet to sit on, and a wooden cutting board and a bowl for the apples. Amina Hanim had shown her which knife was the best for the apples, and it looked formidably sharp.
She stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and frowned in concentration as she tried to peel the first apple. Her mother had always made the apple peel a single long coil, but how? Marta held the knife and apple at armâs length. She didnât want to get it too close because she was afraid of cutting herself, but her peel came off in chunks instead of a thin ribbon. When she looked at the first peeled apple, she sighed in frustration. There was more peel and core than apple. Oh well, she would get
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