{"id":1013,"date":"2021-11-09T15:59:40","date_gmt":"2021-11-09T15:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1013"},"modified":"2021-11-09T15:59:45","modified_gmt":"2021-11-09T15:59:45","slug":"for-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/for-sale\/1013\/","title":{"rendered":"For Sale"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The wind hurried through the village as if on its way to somewhere more important. It blew sand over the squatting men and silent women. The lane, where children peeked at the visitors, was of sand. The buildings were of sandstone. The distant mountains seemed to be towers of sand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            A woman holding a baby approached them. Despair was the lonely inhabitant of her eyes, misery the permanent resident in her exhausted face. She might have been any age between fifteen and fifty. She said something to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

            \u2018She\u2019s hungry,\u2019 Ellie\u2019s translator, Zahir, said. \u2018She wants money for food. None of the people here have eaten for two days.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The woman then pushed her infant towards the three outsiders, and said something in a quiet, sorrowful voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018What\u2019s she saying?\u2019 Ellie asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Zahir stared at the woman, then shook his head. The woman said the phrase again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018What\u2019s she saying?\u2019 Ellie insisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018She\u2019s saying, \u201cBuy my child\u201d, Zahir muttered. \u2018Come on. Let\u2019s go!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Buy my\u2026? Wait! Just\u2026 wait. Ask her what her daughter\u2019s name is.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Duit,\u2019 Zahir said, after putting the question to the woman. \u2018It means something like hope<\/em>. She\u2019s six months old.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Ellie looked around. The eyes of the village males were locked on her. In expectation? In mistrust?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Selling a child?\u2019 Ellie said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018The woman says her sister has already sold her daughter to a man from Herat for two hundred dollars,\u2019 Zahir replied. \u2018He wanted her so she could marry his son when he\u2019s grown. That\u2019s the story, anyhow.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Why does she think I would be interested?\u2019 Ellie asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Why indeed? Fifty years of age and married to the job: a war and disaster-area junkie. All those years talking to camera, explaining hostilities, death, suffering. Years of living in hotels, flying from Israel where she was based, to wherever there was a story: Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, now Afghanistan. Living off the wretchedness of war-victims, a carrion creature, single, focused on explaining to weary British tv watchers what was so exceptional about this<\/em> war compared to the other, similar ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            A child? The idea of motherhood had sometimes entered her thoughts on sleepless nights when distant guns and rockets popped and peppered outside the hotel. Relationships weren\u2019t for her. The life of an itinerant, well-fed, well-paid, drawn to danger like a dagger to blood: that was fulfilment. She was fulfilled, wasn\u2019t she? But a child? She used to fantasise about getting pregnant by an acquaintance, and retiring to rural Wales, forgetting about dying human beings, just her and her child. No, it was impossible: the practical difficulties, borders, keeping the story hush-hush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018I\u2019ve filmed the woman\u2019s offer,\u2019 Joe, the cameraman, said. \u2018Might be a suitable short piece. \u201cDegradation following the return of the Taliban.\u201d Okay?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Ellie was irritated. Just another story to Joe, another item of consumption for viewers. She caressed the child\u2019s cheek, then put some dollars in the woman\u2019s hand.             The wind continued to blow as the three witnesses from the west departed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The wind hurried through the village as if on its way to somewhere more important. It blew sand over the squatting men and silent women. The lane, where children peeked at the visitors, was of sand. The buildings were of sandstone. The distant mountains seemed to be towers of sand.             A woman holding a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[379,581],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-379","category-november-2021-never-give-up-hope"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-gl","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1015,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions\/1015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}