Free Cinnamon by Emily Danby

everything else seemed insignificant. By the morning, the children’s faces would have become swollen red lumps, which they scratched at, night and day, until the lumps bled and turned into little brown pimples. As a preventative measure, their mother would smack their scratching fingers. But there was something about the situation that the children didn’t understand – something which made them lose control and attack their own skinny bodies. They would flee the house to the corners of the alleyways, where most of the other neighbourhood children came to scratch too, having escaped from their mothers. The children chose a corner far from view to hold their scratching parties and when they were finished, they returned home, their faces covered in blood and their eyes heavy with drowsiness. Aliyah was always afraid of leaving traces of blood on her face or on her legs; she knew that if her mother caught sight of the broken skin she would come at her with that strange, strong-smelling substance and dab it on the red patches. The ointment stung so strongly that she would kick out, jumping up and leaping about, until her mother pinned her to the floor and covered her body with the horrid ointment.
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    Aliyah tried to kick as she hobbled along on her high heels. ‘I won’t go back!’ she insisted through gritted teeth.
    She kicked the ground, then came to a halt. Swearing incomprehensibly, she lashed out at the pebbles on the side of the road, pummelling the stones like her father used to pummel her on those nights when one of his children started groaning or humming. The earth sent dust rising up around her, the whole place remaining deathly silent. She sneezed, then putting her bag down beside her, she continued to lash out at the ground. Surely the window would be open now, she thought. Aliyah recalled the faces of her brothers and sisters, frightened and packed in together at her side, with barely enough space to breathe. The children would stare, their eyes glistening bright like those of cats, terrified of the expressions they might transmit during their father’s kicking sprees.
    At night, Aliyah and her siblings would hide to escape their father’s beatings, climbing under the woollen covers which their mother had woven from old jumpers. With the children’s assistance, she spent the winter nights winding the thread of old garments into a ball, then re-weaving the wool into colourful patches. After completing several pieces, she would join the patches together with threads of thick wool, until the rug grew and became a warm blanket big enough to cover their bodies.
    The family used the small inner room for cooking, washing and doing their business. There was a black pit to urinate in, framed by white cement. By the door they stacked the dishes on top of a stone basin, which they used for washing the crockery and pans. In the opposite corner was a large gas stove; every Thursday it was used to heat the bathing water. To the children, wash day was torture. Not only would they be shivering from the winter cold, but they would have to wait patiently in line for everybody else to finish washing. For the unfortunate child who was still bathing when the father decided he wanted a coffee, it was even worse. He wouldn’t wait until they had finished pouring the small cups of water over their heads, but would kick the door open instead, barking at their mother to make him a coffee. Everybody froze still, their knees knocking together as they waited for the coffee pot to boil.
    As the children grew up, there was no longer enough space for them to all bathe at once, and their mother extended wash day to a two-day event. After her lightening-speed wash, Aliyah would sit and roll between her fingers the short brown threads which peeled away from her skin when she rubbed it. It was Aliyah’s great pleasure to see the threads of dirt and dead skin on her body. She would watch them with pride,