Free The Edge of Me by Jane Brittan Page B

outside wall, a gaping hole lets in a rush of icy wind. Someone has tried to patch it with bits of floorboards nailed across it and what look like bin bags. On top of the sour smell of shit that follows us everywhere, there’s a smell of rotting meat and vegetables.
    Something runs across the floor in front of us as we move towards the smell: a rat.
    It’s the first time I get to see some of my fellow inmates. All girls, in various states of undress, and it’s difficult to tell the age of most of them. All of them are quiet apart from the odd squeak or howl. They queue at a counterwhere two women in head scarves and filthy aprons dole out the bread, and they move forward with their eyes fixed on their feet.
    As soon as the girls are given their bread, they squirrel it under their arms and carry it away like a precious bundle. I’m pushed into the queue and they move back to accommodate me. Other than that, no one seems particularly interested in me.
    The person in front of me is behaving strangely – now and again spasms run through her body and her arms shake. She’s finding it hard to take the bread they offer and I realise they’re teasing her. The larger of the two women holds out the bread, waits for her to compose herself enough to get it and then pulls it away again. They shriek with laughter as the poor girl tries to grab the food.
    Then I hear her say softly, ‘ Molim? Please?’
    There’s so much sadness and dignity and humanness in those words. On an impulse, I snatch the bread from the old witch and give it to the girl. She looks at me and for a second I see the person she might have been. She’s small but I figure she’s about my age. A shock of short dark hair and violet eyes. She shuffles away quickly to eat the bread. I watch her go and move up to the counter. The crones are furious. One takes the bread intended for me and with fleshy fingers, she breaks it in two. Half rations.
    As I take it, I look her straight in the eye and say, ‘It was worth it.’
    I turn and walk over to one of the high windows that line the wall making the room even colder. I wantto see what I’m up against and how hard it would be to escape. As I bite into the dense earthy hunk of bread, I look down through the bars on the yard below: beyond the high wire perimeter fence, there are pine forests, and way off in the distance, snowy mountains. It’s a clear day and the peaks sparkle in the high wintry sun. It gives me a sort of hope that there is a world outside where I might be wanted after all.
    In the yard, there are a couple of mangy dogs tethered to a concrete post near the fence and a small outbuilding with a lightning sign on it in white paint which I guess to be the generator for the orphanage. As I watch, a young boy struggles across the yard. He’s carrying two buckets that look almost as big as him and probably weigh more than he does. I’m struck, firstly, by the fact that he’s wearing flip-flops and the temperature outside, if the temperature inside is anything to go by, must be around freezing; and secondly, by the fact that he’s a boy which means there are boys here. Which means Joe may still be here, still close. Lost in thought, I chew on the bread.
    Someone pinches me gently on the elbow and brings me back into the room. The girl I helped at the counter is standing next to me. In her hand she holds part of her bread. She points to me and gently gives me the bread, like some kind of religious offering, then steps back and watches me with red-rimmed eyes. I know what it means.
    She’s probably hungrier than I’ll ever be. The bread is life or death to her and she’s giving up half of it for me. And that gesture, like the sun on the snow, like thinkingof Joe out there, gives me hope. My eyes fill with tears and I nod to her,
    ‘ Hvala . Thank you’

10
    The girl smiles and it transforms her. She studies me intently, says something under her breath, and then I realise she’s noticed my odd eyes.
    I