Free Cut by Hibo Wardere Page B

what she said, try to
understand, and let her help me. There was no translator this time, perhaps because of what had occurred before.
    The sharp prick of the needle as the anaesthetic was injected into my skin was nothing compared to the pain I’d known all those years ago. There was a flowery curtain that separated the
couch I was on from the rest of the room, and so as she got to work, I focused on that, until a few minutes later the doctor looked up and indicated that it was done. She had opened me, just as
I’d wanted, not all the way, just an inch or so, but enough to expose my urethra so I could wee properly.
    As I lay there, a part of me hoped that the process of being opened would undo all of the damage – that somehow it might give me back the life I’d had before I was cut, and that it
might magically restore my relationship with my mother. As if by repairing what had been done to me physically, I could wipe away the psychological scars too.
    I rested on the doctor’s couch for over an hour after the surgery, waiting and recovering. Every so often she checked on me, making sure I wasn’t in any pain, asking if I was OK and
receiving my nod in reply. And then finally I asked to go to the toilet.
    Once the doctor had helped me down from the bed, I hobbled to the cubicle, pulled the string to turn on the light and shut the door behind me. Carefully I lifted my gown and slowly lowered
myself on to the toilet. And there, in that tiny room, I weed normally for the first time in twelve years. Out it came, in one great gush, a full flow at last. And suddenly, my mind took me back to
being six years old, of dashing in and out of the toilet as I had as a child, my mother chastising me for being too quick. ‘Go back in there and wash your hands!’ I heard her saying,
and I smiled then because I’d been given back a happy memory of a better time. For a second, I had my Hoyo back, and then she was gone. I let out a huge sigh, and several great sobs, as I sat
on that plastic toilet seat and felt a release that was both physical and emotional. I was one more step closer to freedom.

8
Yusuf
    T he man who came to pick us up from Leyton station was tall, slim, with a huge smile. His name was Yusuf, and this was to be the first
time I clapped eyes on my future husband. Not that I knew it at the time. Nasra and Habiba had been talking about us getting a place of our own for a few weeks now. Three months had rolled by in
the hostel, queuing up for our breakfast each morning and paying £1.70 for an evening meal. We got used to the rules of the place, that we had to be in before 10pm or we’d be locked out
by Melanie, who guarded the front door. Nasra said a place of our own would give us more freedom; we’d be able to cook together, come and go as we pleased.
    Margaret offered to help me fill in the forms for housing benefit, and Nasra had heard of some other girls who had found their own place. They’d had help from some Somalian guys who knew
an estate agent in Leyton, east London, so Nasra said she’d go and meet them for us, to find out if we could do it too. She arrived home that evening, not full of news about the house, but of
Yusuf, and when I saw him arrive at the station I felt heat race to my cheeks because I understood why.
    Yusuf was also to be the first Somalian man I’d ever spoken to without being chaperoned by my mother or an auntie. I had, after all, been warned that speaking to men would give me a bad
name, so even though I was miles from Somalia and its dusty streets, I was glad to have the other girls from the hostel there with me. Each Friday when I called my mother, it was always the first
question she asked: ‘Have you been talking to any boys?’
    Yusuf took us to the house he shared with two other Somalian men, which was just five minutes from the station along ordinary suburban streets where life peeped out from net curtains behind each
window. We went up to his room on a