Free One Secret Summer by Lesley Lokko

silence. Maddy felt her knees give way. She sat down on the edge of her bed. Her head felt heavy and there
     was an unfamiliar tightness in her chest. She couldn’tspeak. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Shame flooded her senses. Her dirty little secret was
     out. ‘I … I’m …’ she stammered, unable to look up.
    ‘Look, Maddy … you don’t have to explain. I know what’s going on. My mom’s a shrink, remember? You need help. Quitting’s not
     the answer.’
    Maddy’s eyes flooded with tears. Help? How could anyone help her when even she didn’t know what was wrong? ‘I …’ She tried
     to speak. ‘I … I’m OK,’ she stammered, wiping furiously at her cheeks. ‘I’m fine. I … I’m just a bit tired, that’s all. I
     don’t know what you’re talking about.’
    Sandy’s eyes narrowed. She looked searchingly at Maddy. Finally she lifted her shoulders, spreading her hands out before her.
     ‘OK. Fine. Whatever.’ She gave her another piercing glance and then left the room. Maddy was suddenly alone. She looked down
     at her hands. They were shaking. Her whole body felt as though it was on fire. She’d come dangerously close to being found
     out and it was all her own fault. She’d made the mistake of allowing someone to get too close to her; she’d been careless,
     she’d let her guard down. She had to make sure it would never happen again. As much as she liked Sandy and as grateful as
     she’d been to have a friend in this cold, lonely city, she simply couldn’t afford to let anyone come any closer. She was on
     her own again, just as she’d always been. It was safer that way.

10
    NIELA
    Vienna, January 1992
    Without a shadow of doubt, it was the waiting that was the hardest part. From the mile-long queues that formed before dawn
     at the store where the food packs were handed out to theinterminable wait for their visas to come through, each and every day was spent in anxious anticipation. Niela could no longer
     remember what it was like
not
to wait. But it was astonishing how quickly they adapted – Niela herself had grown so accustomed to the routine of watching
     her father leave every morning and return empty-handed with no new information that it had become normal to her. It was almost
     as if he was going to work. He rose before sunrise, dressing himself in the dark without a sound. He stepped outside the tent
     to pray; then her mother got up, fumbling her way in the darkness to the box of matches that sat on top of the radio. In silence
     she lit the stove and prepared his breakfast in the way she’d once ordered her own servants to. She served him coffee and
njera
, the sour, flat Ethiopian bread that Niela had grown to hate. He ate quickly, pausing only to wipe his mouth and pat down
     his beard, and then he set off on his daily journey to the UN offices, where he waited all day for the interview or the request
     for information that would take his family a step further in the long, arduous process of leaving. Only he knew what pride
     he’d had to swallow in order to make that three-mile round trip, sitting patiently in front of college students barely older
     than his daughter, answering their questions and demands with the correct aura of humility and the right amount of subservience
     that would ensure he would get his family out, intact and alive.
    One morning, about three months after their arrival, Niela was squatting uncomfortably on her haunches trying to slice onions
     with a not-too-sharp knife when she heard the commotion. She opened the flap of the tent and peered outside. People were running
     down the dusty track towards the tent. She looked up at her mother.
    ‘Keep slicing,’ her mother instructed her briskly, holding back the flap to look herself. She worried constantly about men
     catching a glimpse of Niela – as if anyone would look at her, Niela often thought to herself with half a smile. From the three
     or four showers