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ARTS AND CULTURE

The girl who stole her brothers' honour

  • 25 August 2015

Sacred

The medics have haloed Mohammed's head. Eyes closed, he lies still as a marble saint in a medieval cathedral. Arms outstretched, the technician steadies a metal plate ready for the Xray photograph eyes intent on the large lamp lighting upon Mohammed's torso. All life is sacred whether you are friend or foe in the field hospital at Kandahar. The woman carries an aid box on her head

Dressed in a shapeless abaya she is neither very young nor very old. The cardboard box has moulded to the shape of her black-veiled head — she holds it steady right arm extended, narrow wrist exposed, fingers at full stretch. Her face is uncovered and her gaze is calm unhurried, as she turns to the camera, eyes slightly narrowed against the light. Behind her in the photograph — men walk along an ancient road towards the open gate of the refugee camp. The men wear jeans and warm jackets. Some have hoods pulled up around their faces others are bare headed. All are empty handed. If it weren't for the cardboard box and the aid jeep and the way the men are dressed, the scene might belong in a book of bible stories. The story in which the woman goes to the well balancing a ewer of water on her head. The one where she meets a Good Samaritan. Sing your landay

In the dark cage of the village a woman's voice sings of the girl who stole her brothers' honour. They shaved her black curls, closed her green eyes, scooped the body into a sack — threw it into the cold river. Come back into the world girl with black curls and green eyes. Put on your wedding shoes. Let your hennaed fingers beat the hand drum. Sing your landay — over and over.

Moya Pacey, a Canberra poet whose first collection The Wardrobe (Ginninderra Press 2009) was runner-up for the ACT Poetry Prize, has since published Always Me (Burmac 2013).
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