The Unlit Path

“The highest result of education is tolerance.” –Helen Keller-

          The playground was quiet, only the sounds of the swings twisting and turning in the cool morning breeze could be heard. Samara looked down at her freshly polished shoes, studying her reflection in the dark sheen. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, her brow stripped of the traditional headscarf worn by the women of her religion, her culture. She held the thin piece of fabric, the thing that represented so much, in her hands, twisting it around her fingers, trying to come to terms with the decision she had made. She wondered what her father, dead now five years, would think of her decision.
         We are who we are, he would have most likely said.
         “We are who we are,” Samara muttered under her breath.
         She recalled the events of the past school year, the protests she had taken part in. It had been easier then, for the ban was not yet a reality. Now the ban was in place and others were following it, stripping away their headscarves, discarding generations of tradition for the laws of the land. Samara had made a conscious decision to obey her beliefs, to face the consequences no matter what they were. But the walk to school that morning was a long one, long enough for doubt to creep into her heart. The playground seemed a worthy refuge from the rest of the world, a place where she could think with a clear mind and not be disturbed. It had been so much easier when she was a child playing in the sandbox or swinging from the jungle gym. There were no politics, no moral quandaries, just the joy of being a child at play.
         “I waited for an hour,” someone said from behind her.
         Samara looked over her shoulder to find Eman standing there, her headscarf still in place, rippling in the wind. She was a beautiful sight; her powerful brown eyes filled with pride, her sharp features held in a look of determination, her bronze skin glowing in the soft morning light. Samara could not bear to behold her for long, not while the feelings of doubt were moving through her mind.
         “We’re going to be late, Samara,” Eman said, stepping forward.
         “Aren’t you afraid?” Samara asked, her words soft, barely audible.
         “Of course I am,” she said with conviction. “It is something to fear.”
         “But you don’t have any doubts,” Samara replied.
         “Why should I have doubts? This is who I am.”
         “I just can’t do it, Eman. I can’t stand to face …” Samara trailed off, her thoughts drifting back to her father, his powerful presence drooping now, his eyes filled with sadness, the pride he had for his family sapped by his daughter’s moment of doubt. “Please don’t look down on me, Eman.” The words were spoken to her friend, but meant for her father, the man she missed with every fiber of her being, the man she was now going to let down with her cowardly actions.
         “Samara, we’re going to be late,” Eman said, touching Samara on the top of her head, sinking her fingers into her soft black hair. “I would never look down on you.”
         Tears welled up in Samara’s eyes, the salty sting forcing her to squint, the squint liberating a single drop of the water, forcing it to roll down her cheek.
         “I’m not going,” she said, fighting against the lump in her throat, careful not to meet Eman’s eyes for fear that her emotions would take over.
         “You can’t let them determine your beliefs,” Eman said, her hand sliding from the top of Samara’s head down to her shoulder.
         “I can’t do this,” Samara said softly as she rose to her feet.
         “I have seen your strength,” Eman replied.
         Samara felt herself drifting further and further away from Eman, felt her long legs carrying her away from the refuge of the playground. She was running now, Eman calling after her, her powerful voice fading into the distance. Samara ran until the strength in her legs gave out. The playground and Eman were probably miles behind her by the time she stopped running and collapsed to her knees, gasping for air. She looked down at her hands, looked for the headscarf between her fingers, but it was not there. She looked back over her shoulder and watched as the breeze carried it away. She tried to regain her strength, wanting to chase down the liberated garment before it became soiled, but there was no power left inside her. She wonder if perhaps there really was strength inside her, but some part of her was glad that the object of controversy was removed from her life.
         “Are you all right, my dear?” the calm voice asked.
         Samara looked up into his serene blue eyes. She found it impossible to maintain her mask. Tears streamed down her cheeks and her body became wracked with sobs. She felt his hands on her, pulling her to her feet. Once she regained her balance, she looked at his face again. His blue eyes were set into a time worn face, a face that wore an inviting smile. She recognized him immediately as the bookseller who lived down the street from her, the man she had seen a million times over but never once spoken to.
         “Oh, dear, come inside for a moment,” he said, opening the door to his shop.
         Samara followed him inside, wanting desperately hideaway from the rest of the world. The shop was warm and smelled of fresh coffee. The shelves lined with books were a welcome sight to Samara. Reading was her one true departure from a world rife with intolerance and injustice. From books, she gained the power of thought, discovered the lengths which people will go to in order to achieve a righteous end. The bookseller pulled out a folding chair and set it up for her, gesturing for her to sit once it was erect. She hesitate a moment before settling into the chair. The man squatted down in front of her and touched her just above the knee.
         “You’ve gone and skinned your knee,” he said, blotting at the blood with a white handkerchief. His hands were gentle, as if he had mended dozens of skinned knees in the past. He seemed a fatherly type, perhaps having raised a dozen children of his own. “If you were in school, you would not have had this accident.” He smiled slightly and rose to his full height. He disappeared beyond the checkout counter for a moment, re-emerging a few seconds later with a box of band-aids and a bottle of peroxide. He returned to Samara and patched the wound on her knee. Samara was not uncomfortable as she would have been with most men of his advanced age.
         “I never want to go back there,” she said, the tears reappearing in her eyes.
         “I can understand why,” he replied.
         Samara was somewhat shocked by his reply. She didn’t think anyone could possibly understand her hesitation, especially someone of opposing beliefs. The man was a Jew, as everyone in the neighborhood knew. She remembered watching him when she was a girl, watching him leave his home at night with a book clutched to his breast. She remembered asking her father what the book was and where the man was going. Her father would reply, “He is Jewish, on his way to synagogue. I believe the book he carries is the Torah.” The memory of the conversation was so vivid simply because it had been Samara’s first experience with another religion. As a naďve child, she had believed that everyone in the world was like her, that they all shared the beliefs she and her family shared.
         “You’re staring,” the man said with a smile.
         “I do not mean to,” Samara said, casting her eyes down.
         “What is your name?” he asked.
         “Samara,” was her reply.
         “And how old are you, Samara?”
         “Sixteen.”
         “For many, sixteen is a wonderful age,” he said, some amount of regret in his voice, “When I was sixteen, the world was a very different place.”
         “Different how?” she asked, wanting to take the attention of her own situation.
         “I lived in Germany when I was your age. A man called Adolf Hitler was in power then.”
         “And you are a Jewish,” she blurted out, feeling the embarrassment afterward.
         “Yes, I am a Jewish,” he retorted, smiling to show he was not offended by her sudden comment. “Fortunately, I do not have the look of a Jew.”
         “Fortunately?” Samara couldn’t understand why not looking like other people of your culture was a blessing.
         “When I was sixteen,” he began, “war was in the making. The outside world had no idea what was happening in Germany at the time. I had seen my neighbors removed from their homes two at a time, had seen the crippled and weak shot in the streets. My father, he had the look of a Jew. My mother, she had the look of a so-called pure blood. I took after her in most respects.”
         The man rose to his feet, his knees creaking as he stood. He walked behind the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee. His eyes surveyed the books that surrounded him. Then, he continued to speak, “It was books, you know. They helped me to realize that the world was not all bad.” He paused for a long moment, his eyes growing misty. “My father and mother sent away before it got too bad. I went to live with a German family, the Gehrings. They were wonderful people and showed me great kindness, but I was miserable. Not miserable because we had no food and ratty clothes, miserable because I could not pray as I wanted to, miserable because I had to deny who I was. For those two years with the Gehrings, I could not let it be known that I was a Jew. If I slipped even once, it would have been tragedy for myself and the Gehring family.”
         Samara shifted in her seat. She knew of the holocaust and had read some blurbs about it in her history books, but she had never encountered anyone who had suffered because of it, had never realized the human cost until that moment.
         “It was a painful time,” he continued, “but I did survive. My mother survived, as well. My father was sent a concentration camp. After the war, we looked for him, but never found him. It wasn’t until 1973 that I heard news of his death. A man who had been in the camp with him came to see me in this very shop. He noticed immediately that I sold no books by Jewish writers. I did not understand why that would be a concern of his until much later in life. Many of us hid during those days, many of us died during those days. When the war ended, many of us continued to hide. I hid from my past for years. As an old man, however, I have rediscovered my faith. I realize that hiding who you are is not really living, it’s simply hiding and a life in hiding is no life at all. You must remain true to who you are, you must remember that the outside world does not determine your beliefs, that is up to you.”
         Samara sat in silence for a moment. She did not know what to say. She did not have strong enough words to say anything. The feelings she was having were more apparent in her mind than ever. There would be consequences for sticking to her beliefs, but her beliefs would not be affected by those consequences. No matter what anyone said, no matter what anyone did, she would always be who she had always been and she did not want, could not want, to hide her beliefs.
         “The hour is late, Samara,” the old man said, tapping his watch. “I think if you leave now, you’ll be able to get to school on time.”
         Samara still felt the fear in her heart, but there was more strength inside her than before. She said her goodbyes to the old man and stepped out of the shop. She looked down the street, toward her school. Eman was standing on the sidewalk a few meters away, looking for her. Samara whistled, getting her friend’s attention. Eman approached, holding Samara’s headscarf in her hands.
         “You dropped this,” Eman said.
         Samara now realized that she had not dropped the headscarf, she had tossed it away. She had come dangerously close to abandoning everything she believed because of some silly statute that was merely a tool of intolerance.
         “Samara, please come to school,” Eman said, tears now in her eyes. “I can’t do this without you.”
         “We’re going to be late,” Samara said, putting her headscarf on.
         Together, Eman and Samara made the long walk to school. Passing through the gates of the schoolyard, they heard the first bell ring. Samara swallowed hard and gripped Eman’s hand. No matter what the price for obeying her beliefs would be, she would pay it in full. Hiding who she was would no longer be an option.

© 2004, Matthew M. Devlin