Chapter 2

Days, months, and even two full years passed, and the child became seven years old. I used to go to the orphanage on a weekly basis and notice this crying child standing at the door of the home, looking out in silence with tears streaming down her face. One day, I approached her and asked her why she was crying and why she was standing here at the entrance. Her answer was simple and automatic (Wait for my mother and father. They will come one day and take me so that we can return home. I made my friend write down everything I remember, here in my notebook so that I do not forget them, and I will tell them everything). I kissed her head and asked her to see what was written and that I would I was trying to find her family. I saw happiness filling her little eyes as she excitedly gave me the notebook.

I smiled at her and began to read what was below. I found newspaper clippings pinned in the notebook about a car accident that happened two years ago, and there were also books of her story, as if she was narrating what happened until tears came to my eyes. The accuracy with which she described the events from the child’s perspective makes one imagine what It happened, I told her after the copy of the notebook that I would go look for them and that she should wait inside with her friends and not stand at the entrance so as not to get tired from the sun, and she actually listened to me and hurried to return to the place of residence, which is a small one-story building with several rooms divided according to... Girls’ ages There are two entrances to this building. After I returned to my home, I began to record the girl’s description of the incident in my papers, and it was like this.

I was not young when I was placed inside this house. I was six years old. I remember the last thing about my family, which was made up of an older brother, a mother, and a father. We were in a car, and I held in my hand the piece of candy that my brother gave me. My mother made sure to put a seat belt on for me and my brother in the back. My brother He was five years older than me.

My mother’s singing and my father’s laughter with my brother would warm the car and fill it with love, tenderness, and warmth. He disappeared from my life in moments, when a speeding truck driver came and hit our car. The warmth in the car turned into coldness, and the sound of my mother’s singing and my father’s and brother’s laughter turned into screaming until the car came to rest. The huge car in front and their voices all disappeared, and the car was filled with smoke. I kept calling for my mother and she did not answer. I looked next to me and found my brother covered in blood, but he was looking at me and trying to extend his hand to touch me, so I extended my hand to him, but the door next to him opened and he was pulled out, and the last I heard of his words was, “Sister, my little girl, please bring her”

The car is on fire. The door opened next to me and a person wearing white clothes hugged me to his chest and hid his face under a semi-glass cover. I saw my mother and father for the last time lying on a portable mattress with things on their necks. Then they were put in a car and I was in another car with my brother and then no. I remember that I entered this house and my relationship with the world was cut off, except for two visitors who came with the hope that my parents or my brother were among them, and then they went and hope was cut off with them.

These were the words of the little girl, which were penned by one of her friends. I wrote them in this article and sent them to my newspaper, accompanied by newspaper clippings that I was able to access through the old newspaper library, hoping that her family would see them if they were still alive.

I took a copy of the article and the name of the journalist who wrote the article, then I went to the newspaper headquarters and looked for that journalist and took her address and then went to her house, and in mutual conversation she told me what happened after the article to the girl and said:

I continued to visit her later for a year, then I traveled to America after I obtained a scholarship to study postgraduate studies in media. Years and years passed and I was busy with my studies and then my work. After I returned to Egypt to live there and continue my professional life, I went to the place of the house where she was. The girl learned that the home had been closed permanently and the children and its workers were distributed to different places after a scandal of a major case that revealed the abuse of children and the falsification of their age papers. I was very saddened by the loss of any trace of the girl. Then I returned to my home, but the story did not end here. After several years, a surprise happened. I did not expect it when my older sister invited me to attend her daughter’s engagement party to the son of a senior officer who had retired from his job and now owned the largest chain of restaurants in the country. The party was truly beautiful, and during the party something happened that I could never have expected or even imagined.

Happiness moved to my heart as soon as I said her name, and my hands quickly embraced her face, then I hugged her tightly to my chest and whispered to her.

“My beautiful little brown girl, I cannot describe my happiness now. I searched for you a lot when I returned to Egypt, but I found that the house was closed. Sit next to me and tell me what happened to you, and where life has taken you?”

Before she could answer, a loud, angry voice came from behind her, making the girl’s body tremble, “Did you come here to work or to waste time by talking to the invitees? Hurry and go back to your work, otherwise you will not have a salary”

The girl did not speak and tried to move away, but I grabbed her hand and prevented her from moving, then I forcefully sat her next to me at the table. I looked at this speaker, who was the butler in the groom’s father’s villa, and I motioned for him to come closer, and as soon as he approached, I told him

“If one pound is deducted from it, you will lose your job. Go tell whoever hired you that Ms. Nihad Al-Rigdawi sat down one of the workers to talk to her.”

The man smiled gently and apologized for what he said and that he thought the girl was neglecting her work and harassing the guests, then he left. Rima sat next to me and looked at her eyes, which were filled with tears of sadness accompanied by a look of brokenness, then I whispered to her.

“Tell me everything about you, everything since you were young, about nine or ten years old, when I traveled abroad to work.”