One Child by Jeff Buick Page A

mine?"
    Halima nodded. "Yes. A big piece of metal was sticking out of my leg. My father pulled it out with his bare hands. He said it was very hot and burned his hands."
    "Did it feel hot?"
    Halima thought about the question. "No, not really." That surprised her. It was the first time she'd really comprehended that the metal that had been embedded in her leg was too hot for her father to grasp. She hadn't thought about it until she said it out loud. "It hurt a lot."
    "My brother lost a leg when he stepped on a mine," the nameless girl said. "He used to be a tea-runner but he can't do that anymore. He sits at home now and doesn't go outside much."
    "My uncle was driving to visit his sister in Helmand Province about a month ago and he hit a mine in his car," Jahenn said.
    "What happened to him?" Halima asked.
    "He died," she replied. There was no emotion in the words. The tone was the same as if she was asking a merchant for two apples. No spark fired in her eyes. No anger at her uncle dying in a mangled wreck of twisted metal on a road to nowhere. No hate for the men who had planted the bomb under a thin covering of sand and rocks with the sole intention of killing or maiming a completely random person.
    "The shells that don't explode scare me," Ramin said. "I crawled in a bombed-out building and I saw one. A big one. It was jammed between two stones. I wanted to touch it but I wasn't brave enough."
    "You don't have to be brave to touch them," her sister said. "Just stupid. The boys like to touch them."
    "Boys are dumb," the other girl stated.
    A man appeared in a doorway and yelled at the girls that it was time for school. They wished Halima a speedy recovery and asked her to say hello to Safa. Then they scampered off and picked up their books and pencils and fell in behind the man as he walked briskly down the street.
    Halima clutched her canvas bags. "And I have to do some shopping at the market," she said to the deserted street. She was surprised at the feeling of emptiness that swept over her when she thought about the other girls attending school. On rare occasions she thought about sitting in a classroom and working on lessons. Learning to read and write and add numbers together to make bigger ones. Passing exams and becoming a teacher, then standing in front of the class as the children stared at her with inquisitive eyes. She knew it was a dream, and when the thoughts floated through her mind she chastised herself for wasting time. Nothing tangible was to come of such farfetched thinking. She had other things to do. Shopping for the family was a job. A real job with great importance attached to it. Something she took very seriously. Halima started down the street.
    A tiny wave of pride surged through her as she walked. Maybe this was how the shopkeepers felt when they stood behind their piles of rugs or goods and customers strolled past looking at their wares, ready to buy. Working and making money. She wasn't tending a stall like the merchants - she was only taking money to the market and spending it on things, but to her it was a job. Without her effort, the family would go hungry and thirsty. Which gave the job a tangible importance.
    The sun was high enough now to find its way into the cracks between the single-story buildings on either side of the street. It was already blistering hot, a precursor of what was coming. When September rolled around it would cool down and her daily outings to the well for water would be easier. Two women in burqas passed her and Halima wondered how uncomfortable it was inside the garment. It must be awful. Already her father was talking about buying her one and seeing which boys were available for marriage. She didn't want a burqa and she certainly didn't want to get married. Boys made no sense to her. They played silly games and they all wanted to carry guns. None of her girlfriends were interested in guns. Only the boys. They wanted to shoot things. Some of them wanted to shoot