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semperergoveritas2024 · 25 days

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Nobody Cried

Shaheen scrambled into the dark, dusty attic, taking in the musty odor of forgotten boxes and faded memories.

She and Ibrahim had taken over the house a few weeks ago. He’d been given a promotion at the Home Office and this house came with it. She knew it had been a Jew house as there were still the marks of the things they put on the doors – she had no idea what they were called or what the purpose was other than they easily marked the home of a Jew.

In the attic she had found the hidden door behind a pile of old boxes filled to the brim with tatty clothes and well-thumbed books. She would have to make sure it all got taken away and destroyed once she told Ibrahim what she’d found.

She tried to think back to a time when there were Jews in London, perhaps twenty-five years ago? She knew that something had changed back then, first in the ever-increasing protests and then the silent coup of 2025, after which the Grand Imam had proclaimed that the UK was now a part of the greater European caliphate, and everyone was subject to sharia law. She had known no different, it was normal.

Shaheen had no memory of her parents struggle to accept the new reality or how easily, calmly it had happened. The pro-Palestinian movement had grown and grown until it numbered in the millions and her mother had told her that many of the Jews had escaped to America, where there were still more Jews than Muslims, especially in Southern California. Israel was long gone, torn apart by an unwinnable war and an Iran that had been allowed to build nuclear weapons they were happy to use at the first opportunity. No one blinked an eye.

Still, she had a good life. There’d been no school to bother with and no one looked at her or bothered her. She only left home fully covered – she could have been a sack of potatoes with legs for all anyone knew.

And then Ibrahim came into her life when she was 14. Even though her parents tried to soften it, she knew what was happening. Arranged marriages were the norm and she was no different to any of the other girls that gathered in the park near her parents’ house and giggled the day away, being careful to watch out for the Religious Police so as not to get a beating.

The doorway was more of a small hatch though which a person might just squeeze with a little effort. She peered inside and shone her small torch around the space. It was a room cleverly hidden at one end of the eaves space of the house. Perhaps 3 meters on a side, with a raised, rough wooden floor that had a small rug placed in the far corner. There was yellowing insulation poking up between the floorboards and she spotted a lone light hanging from a rafter. She looked around for a switch. The light flashed on, casting a dim red light that barely touched the corners.

Then she saw the dark stains on the floor, black at first but then her torch picked out the faded red – it looked like dried blood, she thought. What had happened here? She shivered as she guessed that someone’s life ended here, in this tiny, bleak place.

Pulling back, she exited the attic, pulling herself quickly through the doorway, and ran to the kitchen, trying to catch her breath as her heart pounded in her chest. She didn’t know how long she sat there, numb, unable to comprehend that someone had died in the house, right above their heads.

The clock on the wall chimed 11 am and she snapped back to reality. There was only one person she could talk to about this – her mother.

She quickly dressed, covering her blond, shoulder length hair and leaving only her bright blue eyes as evidence of a human being wrapped in the black swaddle.

Her cousin, Adeel came as soon as she asked – he was a good man and very protective of her. He walked her to her parents’ house as he talked at her about nothing very much. He couldn’t see that she was upset, and she didn’t betray that feeling, staying silent, as was the custom, on the journey.

Her mother opened the door to their tidy brick house and Shaheen hurried in. Adeel went into the kitchen and waited for her. He sensed that she’d made it clear she needed some privacy with her mother, and he wasn’t going to get in between those two! He made himself a nice cup of tea, and sat at the ancient kitchen table, munching biscuits, thinking nothing very much at all.

Shaheen’s mother teased the story out of her as they sat heavily on an old brown sofa that had seen far better days.

Her mothers old name was Maude, but she’d been given a new name years ago. Aadila. She was told it meant honest and just. The local Imam had been given the job and appeared to get bored very quickly, handing out names at random. Still, she got used to it, eventually.

“You’re a very lucky person to have been given a husband like Ibrahim, he’s a great provider.”, she said quietly, sipping her tea. “And that house! Well, I’d have killed to get a house like that!”.

Shaheen was well aware that her mother was just the teeniest bit envious. Her father, a hard worker, never had a chance of promotion after the coup. White men were lucky to have a job at all. It was only his skill that saved him – plumbers were a vital resource.

“But what about the blood?”

“Are you sure?” her mother asked.

“I’m pretty sure,”, she replied, “I just hate to think that anyone could have died in that small space in MY house!”, she emphasized the ‘my’ as if to let her mother know that she knew how she felt.

“Anyway,” she continued,” I have to tell Ibrahim when he gets home. He’ll know what to do.”

Her mother looked at her and tears fell from her faded blue eyes. She bent her head and said in small voice, “I know who died in that house. Don’t tell Ibrahim anything, please.”

“What do you mean? How do you know about a random house? How can you know?”

“I knew the people that lived there, I visited many times. It was before the coup, when I was a nurse. I often went there to help.”

“Mum, you’re being crazy. What are you talking about?”

“There was a time,” her mother wiped her eyes and drank some more tea, “before all of this, when the country was still England and cream teas and days out and the Royal Family.”

Shaheen stared at Aadila as she became more animated.

“When we still had Jews and when the police protected all of us from harm until they started protecting those that would harm us. That was when the coup happened – when the police stood by and did nothing!” she spat the last, her voice full of spite and anger.

“It was a Jew house. Nice people, hardworking, quiet. They had children, a boy, and a girl. Beautiful children. The boy was a typical little scruff, always running everywhere, torn trousers, scuffed shoes. The girl… she really was beautiful, blond curly hair, deep blue eyes, and an infectious laugh. I loved that little girl. I was there when she was born and worked for the family, helping to look after you as the mother became quite unwell. Who could blame her?”, she said bitterly.

Shaheen had gone silent and sunk back into the sofa, feeling very small – this was all too much.

“What happened to them?”

“The blood you saw… it was theirs. They hid in that room because they couldn’t leave, and they weren’t able to get the children out.”

There was silence for a moment.

“How... “, Shaheen didn’t finish the sentence, didn’t want to.

“They shot them, in cold blood, laughing at them as they cowered in a corner, praying, covering the children. I was there, visiting when they came, and they made me stay and watch. Then they told me to get your father and clean up. Perhaps because I was a nurse, they thought I’d know how to do that or perhaps they were just too lazy to do it or simply didn’t care. I was shaking with fear and shame.”

“Later, maybe an hour or so, we came back. We decided to bury the bodies in the garden, near the end where there are trees now. When we moved the mother and father, we saw that the little boy was dead, but the little girl was not. She was breathing but unconscious, a bullet had grazed her head and there was blood. The men must have thought her dead or they would have certainly finished her off.”

“Mum?”

“Yes, you were that little girl. You were theirs and now you are ours. We couldn’t turn you in or say anything.”.

“Nobody cried for the Jews, and they weren’t going to cry for one little girl”, she hesitated, “but I did”.

#future #israel #jewish #truth #uk #am yisrael chai #jumblr #judaism #jews #semper veritas

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