The Room
Jillian Grant Shoichet
Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest 2026 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention, Fiction
She knew the days by smell.
In the small, dark room—where seconds became minutes, lengthened into hours, languished and dissolved into days, weeks, months—it mattered only if it was a day that smelled of blood, or semen, or milk, or hope.
She knew the women by scent, too. Maayan was the honey of almond blossoms and, early on, the iron of menstrual blood. Amal sweated beads of cinnamon. Zenia leached za'atar and always smelled faintly or strongly of urine. Dalia exuded loam, as if sun-warmed earth lived beneath her skin. Noa was citrus and, as days bled one into another, infection. Tamar smelled of old milk.
She couldn't determine her own scent—nor did she want to ask and be told it brought them no comfort. Or worse, that she had no smell at all, left no imprint in that stale, dark space.
She hoped that when they breathed her in, they found solace—as she did when she held their blended fragrance in her lungs.
In the beginning, she sought out Maayan or the cinnamon-scented Amal. The others were too pungent a reminder of their fragile circumstances: Zenia, with her desperate desire for water and her maddening need to excrete it. Tamar, whose body produced milk for a baby who was dead. Noa, whose damp bandages smelled of rot. Dalia, whose heavy, wooden countenance seemed at times to be sinking into the earthen floor: v'el a-far tashuv—to dust we will return.
Early on, she was ashamed that her preference for one woman or another could be reduced to body odour. But in hindsight, she knows she was lured by the possibility recalled in zephyrs of honey, whorled currents of spice: a remnant of sunlight beyond the heavy metal door, into whose distant glow they might all one day emerge and return to—what? Not life as before, but life as it might yet be.
*
The first day began with a sunrise.
The music ended at two, maybe three—a few hours before slim fingers tipped with the scent of desert sand began to creep across the ground, prodding shadows from the swaddled forms that dotted the landscape.
She looked over at Eyal, one arm flung out across the dry grass. She liked that about him: his full commitment to slumber, abandoning all inhibition, his limbs lengthening and extending beneath the star-flecked sky as if trusting that wherever the night carried him, he would arrive safely on the edge of morning. She nudged her instrument case with her hip, and Eyal's eyelashes vibrated with the movement of air that rose up from their shared sleeping bag, bringing with it the scent of the night before—wine and sex and sweat and hashish.
She rested a hand on her belly. Maybe.
A raven landed on the branch of a eucalyptus tree.
Two white lines traced a silent arc across the dawn.
An air-raid siren stuttered, broke off—then seared the air with a full-throated wail.
A second tower howled an answer, then a third and a fourth. In the sudden cacophony, a smoke of starlings rose into the desert sky and the morning erupted in automatic gunfire, the guttural roar of engines and a series of concussive blasts that sucked the oxygen from her lungs and replaced it with air that tasted of ash.
Eyal was instantly awake, pulling her behind him through the acacia, his grip on her wrist so tight that in other circumstances she would have cried out. But she focused on the pain and the sting of acacia thorns raking her bare thighs because she couldn't think about what she'd seen at the edge of the field as alarms pierced the dawn, where the bushes seemed to rise up on legs and emerge from the trees to pepper with bullets those still sleeping on the ground. Like the lagging soundtrack of a film, the rapid report of their death reached her only after she'd seen it happen. She stood, immobile, a pillar of stone in the rising sun as men set fire to the grass, not caring whether their still-shrouded victims bled or burned—
But Eyal dragged her away through the scrub and into the forest, which had seemed so lush in the desert air the night before but was now a meagre dusting of branches on a sun-bleached landscape: poor cover beneath the relentless white sky.
It was hard to get a full breath. She heard a muted scream, a harsh bark of laughter. She couldn't feel her fingers. But she continued to let herself be pulled along, stumbling at Eyal's heels in an awkward crouch.
Her gaze was fixed on the nape of Eyal's neck when a puff of red bloomed in a halo about his head. He pitched forward without letting go of her wrist and she fell on top of him, a fine, warm mist settling on her face and in her hair.
She lay there, the thrum of her heart like a trapped butterfly against his back. Some part of her thought to stay, just like this, until the tightness in her chest subsided and the metronome beat in his resumed.
But a hand snaked through her hair and held her up to the sun: prey from a successful hunt. Her scalp began to tear, but she didn't cry out, didn't open her eyes. She knew what was coming. She had no desire to watch, nor add to their delight by begging for her life.
Yet when the blade came, it didn't slice through skin—her shirt fell from her shoulders and her nipples contracted in the open air to the men's rancid laughter: betrayed by her own flesh.
In the truck bed, she twisted around to see Eyal once more, before a spit of gravel from the back tires blotted out the sky and a last glimpse of his shirt.
There were three other women in the back of the truck, but only one of them was alive, her face ridged like the bark of a cedar tree. With a sun-spotted hand, the woman passed her the plaid shirt from around her waist.
Under the white sky, Eyal's blood dried in her nostrils, and the world she knew flatlined on the horizon.
*
After hours in the sun, the vehicle stopped. The two men on the tailgate kicked aside the bodies of the two dead women and pulled the two live women from the back of the truck, gesturing with their rifle barrels towards a hole in the ground.
As they entered the cistern, the woman with the cedar-lined face offered her name to the sky—I am Dalia. She heard the name, and remembered it, before a sharp jab from a gun stock propelled her down the ladder and the circle of sky above her shrank to the size of a tire, then a plate, then a coin—then winked out altogether.
The descent was long and dark. Once, she stepped on Dalia's hand. Her whispered apology got a knock on the head from above with the heel of a boot.
The air grew colder and heavier, weighted by the rise and fall of civilizations, a hundred thousand tons of disputed land. Her left hand was numb. Her thoughts slowed.
The man below gave a shout, and they stopped. Light flared. They were a few metres above the bottom of the shaft. The flashlight clicked off, and with an electric hum, a series of caged bulbs sputtered on, one after the other, illuminating the interior of a tunnel hand-hewn from the underbelly of the desert.
Below her, the first man pulled Dalia from the ladder. The two began making their way along the rough-walled passageway.
As the soles of her bare feet touched the dirt, the man above swung to the ground and grabbed a fistful of hair, pulled her head back into his chest. "Are you afraid?" he asked. He didn't wait for an answer but sank his teeth into her neck until she felt the skin break. Then he spat her own blood onto her cheek.
For many minutes the women stumbled ahead of their captors along the tunnel, until the first man called a halt. Set in the wall was a metal door, bolted at the top edge. The man slid aside the bolt with one hand and kicked the door open, shoving Dalia forward. He trained the gun on the open doorway.
She felt a sudden push against the back of her skull and fell into the gaping hole, landing on her knees. The door closed behind them with a dull clang, and the bolt slid home.
For several seconds she didn't move. Then she reached out, probing the darkness.
She touched someone's palm first, then a knee, an elbow, a shoulder—damp cheeks, cracked lips, dried salt, soiled skin. A whisper of fingers across her face.
In the dark, she found what was lost and what might yet be saved: these women whose scent she still dreams of, whose bodies she still reaches for in the deepest parts of the night.
*
After what seemed a long time, the deadbolt rang out again and the door swung inwards; a small girl entered. The square of white behind her framed an armed silhouette.
In the light, she could see the room was slightly wider than she was tall, and nearly three times as deep as that. The ceiling was at its highest near the door; from there, it sloped unevenly downwards to meet the rough, earthen floor.
For the first time, she saw there were seven of them. Seven of us, she corrected herself. She sensed their hungry attention as they committed this glimpse of each other to memory.
The girl moved through the room like a ghost: a bucket in the corner, a plastic two-litre bottle of water in the middle of the circle. Then the girl glanced up, a furtive movement half-concealed by a scarf, and retreated from the room.
The door closed. The bolt slid into place.
They were in darkness again.
"Water," croaked one of the women.
There was a shuffle of movement, a twist of a plastic cap, a swallow and an exhale. "Does anyone else want water?"
The bottle made its way around the circle, from one hand to another.
She took one sip before passing it on.
"I've lived a good life," said the woman who'd asked for water. "If ever there isn't enough, don't pass the bottle to me."
"I'm sure they'll give us water." But even as she heard herself say it aloud, she recalled Eyal lying beneath the acacia bushes, the two dead women in the back of the truck. Nothing was certain anymore. She wondered why she ever thought it was.
Dalia's wooden voice rose from the darkness. "The question isn't whether they'll give us water, but why they're giving us water at all. What are they nurturing?"
Despite the warmth of their exhalations, the air was cold.
Someone said, "I saw your hand. I'm a medic. Can I help?"
At first there was no answer, but then, in a breath that smelled of cinnamon: "Her name's Noa. I think she's in shock. What do you have?"
"Codeine. Antiseptic paste. They took my kit. These were in my pocket."
There was a faint rip of foil. A small tablet made its way around the circle, palm to palm.
The bottle of water followed.
There was a whimper, and then a soft singsong: soon, soon. Then, "How many do you have?"
"Ten. Nine, now. Take my jacket. If she's in shock, she'll need it."
In the silence that followed, the walls pressed in on them.
A new voice was tentative, as if its owner were testing the acoustics of the room. "I'm Tamar."
She fought a sudden urge to laugh. Were they all going to introduce themselves now, these women she never wanted to know?
But sudden understanding tightened around her chest like coils of chain. None of them had the luxury of anonymity now, a luxury that says, We don't have to know each other. We are part of each other's environment, but only like the rising and setting of the sun, the ebb and flow of the tide. I may glimpse you in passing, but then you'll go one way, and I'll go another, and nothing will have changed.
An exchange of names meant obligation: I'm giving you my name because we are imprisoned together in a small, dark room and I will soon know the shape of your nightmares. I may need you to carry my last words to my loved ones.
*
Today, and on most days now, she manages to lock memories of that small, dark room in a small, dark room of their own. But as she twists the lid of her travel mug between the fingers of her right hand and watches a young mother sway in the dappled shade of the plane tree on the far side of the playground, the door to the small, dark room opens slightly, and she knows she is bound to the others in the same way her soul is bound to her body.
*
In that smaller, darker room, the words rippled outward. "I'm Tamar."
"I live in the north, but I was visiting my mother in the south. She uses a wheelchair, so it was easier for me to come to her. She was in the bedroom with the baby when they entered the house. It was only after they started firing that the sirens sounded. At first, I was sure the noise was coming from my mouth: the siren wail of a grieving mother. That's the sound of the promised land: the lament of a hundred thousand mothers."
In the silence, she heard the slither of fabric and the pop of a snap. The air turned ripe with the smell of warm milk.
"She was a big eater," said Tamar. "She would have eaten many times by now."
The woman named Tamar milked her swollen breasts until the half-moon of earth around her was saturated. After that, the milk sat on the surface of the sandy soil, curdling the air.
As she milked herself, Tamar hummed a melody.
She imagined that the next time someone opened the door and shone a light into the dark room, they would find seven women sitting among a host of newly sprouted milk-white shoots, born of sour milk and song.
At some point, she fell asleep.
*
When she opened her eyes again, she thought, This is death, not knowing if I'm awake or asleep, whether I'm inside a body or outside of a body; soon, all the boundaries will dissolve, and I will be only thought.
Then, not even that.
She became aware of the smell of urine at the same time she recognized the soft metallic ring of a stream of liquid hitting the rim of the bucket. There was a soft sigh and the click of old knees as the woman rose from a squat.
"Water?" whispered the woman.
She reached out and felt the dimpled surface of the plastic bottle. "Here." A few mouthfuls slapped the inside.
Sand slid along the floor as the woman moved closer.
"I'm Zenia," said the woman after recapping the bottle. "I used to have two kidneys. Now I have one."
"What happened to the other?"
"I gave it to my grandson a long time ago. He has lupus; I was a match. Now he's married. One day I may have a great-grandchild. Not a bad trade, a kidney for a great-grandchild."
She wondered what she would trade.
Zenia seemed to read her mind. "It wasn't a difficult choice. I was healthy then. There's no family history of diabetes. I lived more than thirty years without any trouble." Zenia patted her hand gently, as if she was the one who needed comforting. The skin of the older woman was like parchment.
"The irony is that I trained as a nephrologist. I know about excretory systems—what needs to go right, what can go wrong. But I was more interested in creating the human form than treating it. I became a sculptor. When I needed money, I illustrated medical textbooks. I can paint a kidney that looks so real you'd think you could lift it off the canvas and plunk it in." Zenia sighed. "Unfortunately, that's not how it works."
She felt Zenia's hands moving up her arms to her face, tracing her cheeks with dry fingers that trembled slightly against her skin.
"You have interesting bones," said the older woman. "May I sketch you?"
"When?" she asked.
"I have a pencil in my pocket."
"Isn't it hard to draw in the dark?"
Zenia was silent, and then a deep-throated chuckle sprouted and grew in the space between them. "I'm blind, love. I've been blind for almost three years. I didn't even know we were in the dark."
*
The next time the girl came, Tamar tugged her shirt over her nursing bra, but the room still smelled of milk. From the doorway, the girl peered into the shadows, her gaze lingering on Tamar's stained shirt, her expression difficult to interpret.
The girl emptied the bucket and returned it to the corner, still soiled and fragrant. Then she collected the plastic water bottle from the floor and left a full one in its place.
Dalia reached out but stopped when the armed figure in the doorway tensed. "We haven't eaten. We need food," said Dalia.
The girl turned and gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head. Fingers signalled: Wait.
The girl left the room. The bolt shot home.
The smell of milk was very strong.
"I knew from a young age I would never have children." Dalia's words seemed to fill the room. "My parents weren't surprised: it was the seventies, the decade of refusal. They escaped the ghetto in Riga. They chose their own destiny. They could hardly complain when their youngest child did the same. But they were disappointed on principle. In the last months of her pregnancy, my mother visited a seer. The seer told her that her youngest child would be fertile and productive. So my mother chose the name Dalia, the bough of a young tree. The meaning in Lithuanian is also important. In my mother's motherland, dalia is fate. My parents believed the youngest branch of the Litvak tree was destined to produce many fruits, maybe more than all the other Litvaks combined. When I told them I would never have children, they said, Why did we waste such a name on you?"
In the dark, Dalia stretched her legs. "When I was eighteen, I travelled to India. I studied under a guru in the southeast. He heard the seer's prophecy and told me I should travel north, to Assam, and find a man called Payeng. I was skeptical: it was the eighties, the decade of skepticism. But all my life I'd rejected trends, so I rejected my skepticism and travelled north and found a man named Jadav Payeng. I don't know if he was the Payeng I was told to seek, but I believe he was the Payeng I was meant to find. He was younger than me but older in some ways, too, already with a wife and young child.
"Jadav Payeng lived on the banks of the Brahmaputra River, where years of logging had eroded the soil. There was no shade, no animal life. Every morning, Jadav Payeng would drink tea under the corrugated metal awning of his mud-brick house and watch the land fall into the river.
"One morning, Jadav Payeng started planting trees.
"The afternoon I met him, we took a wooden boat to a sandbar in the middle of the Brahmaputra. The tallest of his trees came up to my waist. We watered them by hand that afternoon, and every day after that. When I left Assam three decades later, I left behind Jadav Payeng and his many children, and a forest. Today, the Molai Forest is the largest forest in India, home to elephant, rhinoceros, tiger, and thousands of birds.
"I came home because my father was dying. On the last day, my father took my hand and said, Who's the most productive Litvak of them all?"
For a long while, the words of Moses Litvak hung in the air.
Then the woman who smelled of cinnamon said, "If the seventies were the decade of refusal, and the eighties were skepticism, what came after?"
"The decade of fear. After that, I stopped naming them."
"Hope," said Zenia. "Now we're living in a time of hope."
*
She woke again to the explosion of the deadbolt. Heart thrashing against her ribcage, she squinted into the light.
The young girl floated into the room, just as before; emptied the bucket, just as before. But then the girl reached into the front pocket of her dress and pulled out a damp, oily square of linen, set the package on the floor and pulled back a corner of the material. The scent of warm pita filled the room. The girl seemed about to say something, but then she picked up the empty water bottle from the floor and left a full one in its place.
The door closed behind her. The darkness was perfumed with olive oil and fresh bread.
"Seven," said Dalia with satisfaction. "One for each."
"Keep the linen," said the medic.
The pitas were large enough that her shrunken stomach was painfully full by the time she finished. But she sucked the last of the oil from each finger and waited for the water bottle.
"Do you need more codeine?" asked the medic.
"Please," said Noa.
"Who has the linen?"
"I do," said Dalia.
Unexpectedly, a match flared in the darkness.
She saw her own astonishment mirrored in the faces circling the flame.
Dalia laughed, a low and musical sound, the lines of her face softening in the light of the match. "They took my cigarettes, but I just realized I still had these. The box is nearly full." She dropped the match to the floor, where it fluttered a few seconds more and went out, scenting the darkness with sulphur.
"Could we light another? I want to see that wound."
"Of course."
By matchlight, the medic peeled back the shirt cuff. Noa cried out.
By silent, mutual agreement, they used half the water that remained to clean the wound. They held Noa as she screamed, sinking their thumbs into her flesh to distract her—and themselves—from what the flickering light revealed. Half her fingers were gone. In some places, shards of white bone gleamed like teeth.
When the wound was clean, the medic wrapped a strip of linen around the damaged hand, finishing the job in the dark as the match went out. Noa fell back against the cinnamon-scented woman's chest and wept.
The medic used another few teaspoons of water to rinse her hands. Then she spoke. "My name is Maayan. My unit was stationed on the border. We suspected something. We wondered if the commander was even reading our reports. We're an all-women unit; we thought he wasn't taking us seriously. One of us wanted to speak to an elder brother with a unit on the coast. Others wanted to deal with it on our own.
"The morning of the attack, I left the room. The others said, Don't be long, you always go pee when things get dull, that kind of thing.
"I was gone two minutes. I heard the gunfire from the bathroom stall. By the time I ran back, they were all dead. Lior cut a man's arm before she was shot—the wound was deep, and he was holding the skin closed with his other hand. He needed someone to sew him up, so I stitched his arm together while they drove to the border. I don't know why they didn't kill me. But don't worry. The hostages always get rescued."
No one replied. Noa had fallen into a restless sleep. The woman holding her cleared her throat.
"My name is Amal. Noa's my seatmate in the National Youth Symphony. I'm first violin. She's second. But she's a much better musician than me.
"Since she came last year, I've felt something eating me from the inside. I age out of the orchestra in six months. The moment I'm gone, Noa will be first chair. But two months ago, the conductor told me he wanted Noa as first chair now, even before I leave. He'd already told Noa, but Noa refused to take my place. The conductor accused me of threatening her; he couldn't think why else someone would reject first chair. But Noa never mentioned it to me, and I never told her I knew what she'd done.
"The morning we were taken, Noa and I were at the back of the bus. Noa got shot. My first thought was Good, now she'll never be first chair."
In the silence that followed, there was the pop of a snap; Tamar began to milk her breasts onto the floor.
*
Once, she woke to what she thought was the sound of a rodent—a faint scratching on the far side of the room.
Beside her, Dalia lit a match. In the light of the flame, she saw Zenia sketching on the far wall, seven figures emerging like clouds of smoke from the tip of her pencil.
*
Another time, the door opened, and two men dragged Maayan into the corridor by her legs and raped her.
As the tunnel echoed with Maayan's screams of rage, then her cries of pain and then her silence, those on the other side of the locked door waited in the dark, listening to the sounds of a woman breaking.
*
Today, and on most days now, at the encouragement of her therapist, she writes about the women in the small, dark room. She's written and rewritten so often that sometimes the days in the room are just words on a page. She rearranges the words, revises, rewrites, until she can read them without horror.
But when she wrote the rape of Maayan, she doomed Maayan to be broken, again and again: a sacrificial offering on the altar of her own narrative creation. She became one of the rapists—repositioning the camera, retaking the shot. She struggled to "get it right"—and then felt revulsion that she was trying, over and over, to get it right.
She stopped writing the rape and instead wrote what happened afterwards.
*
When the door opened, Maayan fell into the room, illuminated briefly—thighs streaked with blood, hair matted with semen—before the door shut and darkness closed around them like a fist.
They tore the pita linen into strips. Zenia washed between Maayan's legs and Dalia removed Maayan's shirt and cleaned saliva from her breasts. Amal and Tamar combed through Maayan's hair, washing each strand and twisting each curl around a finger before setting it aside. Noa stroked her cheek.
She cleaned Maayan's feet, focusing on the weight of each foot in her hand.
They washed Maayan's body as if it were the body of a dead woman—which, in a way, it was. The woman who'd been dragged from the room no longer existed; they mourned the Maayan who had been.
After a long while, Maayan spoke, her words taking shape slowly in the darkness. "I didn't go to them, you know. When I heard the gunshots, I hid in the bathroom. I prayed no one would find me. But they kicked in the stall door. They walked me down the hall to show me the bodies. The floor was red with blood. They said I was one of the fortunate ones, that it could have been me on the floor in the blood. But instead, I was alive."
*
Much later, she woke to Dalia's voice. "Her skin is very hot."
There was a whisper of sand. "Can I have a match?"
In the wavering light, Maayan's assessment was quick. "Infection," she said.
When the door opened a short while later, Maayan stood. "The wound's infected. She needs a doctor."
The man said nothing, then nodded once.
The door closed. The bolt rang.
For a long time, they listened to Noa's troubled breathing.
Then the bolt slid back, and the door opened.
"Bring her."
"Did you find a doctor?" Maayan stood up again, slowly.
The armed man stood aside. In the tunnel was another silhouette.
"Perhaps the doctor could come here," said Dalia.
The man in the doorway hesitated, but the doctor pushed past him.
Noa was on her side, facing the back wall where the ceiling met the floor. The doctor twisted her head and shone a flashlight into her face. Beads of sweat stood out across her waxen forehead like jewels. The doctor pulled open her shirt and passed the beam along her naked torso. Then he lifted the tattered sleeve. Spider-fingers of red flared up Noa's arm.
"Sepsis," said the doctor.
"She needs antibiotics," said Maayan.
"Yes," the man agreed. He reached for his waistband.
With a sudden cry, Dalia threw herself towards Noa's body.
The gunshot was so loud that afterwards she heard only the ringing in her ears, her own shock illuminated in the faces of the others. The doctor stuck the flashlight between his teeth, kicked Dalia's limp form out of the way and dragged Noa's body from the room by her legs.
In the tunnel was another burst of sound. The door closed. The bolt clicked into place.
The room smelled of burnt metal and cordite and, faintly, citrus.
*
Today, and on most days now, she marks the passage of time by number; that's how the world outside of the small, dark room counts time. At nine o'clock on Wednesday, yom revi'i, the fourth day of the week, she boils an egg for 2 minutes and 45 seconds, so it is perfectly cooked. She stands at the stove, in a pool of sunlight that moves in millimetre increments across the apartment floor, transferring the weight of her growing belly—29 weeks, 31 weeks, 35 weeks—from one foot to the other.
At 9:30, the phone will ring. It will be Eyal's mother or hers: one of them checks in every day. After the call, she will leave the house at 5 minutes to 10:00 and catch the 10:20 bus to the main station in Netanya, which is 15 minutes away.
When the coffee whistles on the stove, she turns off the gas, pours the liquid into a travel mug and adds milk.
Eyal liked music in the mornings, but now she prefers to listen to the growl of the street and the throaty pulse of pigeons on the sill—soon, soon—and the mouthfuls of conversation that rise from the sidewalk below.
Before her appointment, she spends an hour in the park a few blocks from the clinic.
Why the park? This is what her therapist asks her.
To meet Tamar. She sings the baby to sleep beneath the plane tree.
The baby who died?
Of course not. This is her new baby.
The therapist looks thoughtful and makes a few notes in the book in front of her. After the baby falls asleep, they walk to the clinic, and the two women make plans to see each other again, the next week.
What week will that be?
Thirty-seven, she says. She rests her good hand on the top of her belly.
The therapist doesn't look up but jots something down in her book.
After the appointment, she will pick up some cucumbers and tomatoes, a lemon, some sparkling water and a bottle of white wine. Dalia and Maayan are coming for dinner on the balcony, where the scent of the sea is stronger just after the sun sets.
You still see them?
Of course. She can't imagine life without them.
The therapist inclines her head, as if waiting.
But she doesn't say anything else. It's Greek salad. It's dinner on the balcony with friends. What more is there to say?
How's Maayan? Have you written more?
She hesitates. With difficulty, she opens the lid of her travel mug with one hand and takes a sip, the coffee now cold. Maayan is damaged. But she is a survivor.
The therapist nods and makes another note in her book.
Tomorrow, she will go to the hospital.
Oh? Why is that?
Amal and Zenia called. Noa's surgery went well. She's ready for visitors.
The therapist raises her eyebrows.
Yes. I was mistaken, after all. It's a happy ending: Noa didn't die in the small, dark room. Noa's going to be fine, maybe she'll even play music again, though probably not.
The therapist is silent for several seconds. Then she closes the book and stands up.
Same time next week?
She gets up from the chair, which is more difficult now, with her belly so big. The therapist opens the door.
But as she steps out into the hallway, she turns back. She knows the therapist doesn't see her the way she sees herself. The therapist doesn't see a healthy, pregnant woman close to term. The therapist knows the same news story as everyone else. That she was found face down in a tunnel at the bottom of a cistern, in front of the metal door to a small, dark room, dehydrated and undernourished, her left hand missing three fingers, barely attached at the wrist, with the beginnings of sepsis and two recent gunshots to the back: one bullet had passed through her left kidney; the other, lodged in her uterus, had killed a four-month-old fetus.
On one of the walls of the small, dark room was a drawing in pencil of seven women, but the room held evidence of only one. If she'd been found a few hours later, she wouldn't be alive.
She tried right away to set the record straight. She told them about the honey and the cinnamon, the forest planted by hand on a barren island in the middle of the Brahmaputra River, the new white sprouts in milk-damp soil. She recounted how they'd bound Noa's injured hand, nursed the memory of Tamar's hungry baby, washed the semen from Maayan's hair by matchlight. She told them of the timid, gentle ghost who brought them food and water and emptied the toilet bucket.
To the therapist standing in the doorway of the clinic, she wants to say, We're all hostages. We're all prisoners in that small, dark room. We survive because of each other.
But in the end, she says nothing. She walks down the hall with her cane and steps out the clinic doors into the mid-afternoon sun. Someday soon, she will wail the lament of a hundred thousand mothers. She will mourn her hand, her kidney and the baby who died before she got to hold him in her arms.
But today, she's one of the fortunate ones: she's living in a time of hope.
