Maike Braun was born in Germany, studied in US and England, married an American, and is now living in Hamburg, Germany. Writing short stories in German and in English.

The Exam (April 20, 2010. Issue 16.)

Her two No. 2 pencils sharp and ready, a ruler, an eraser, and some scrap paper in front of her, Rabia sat at the wooden desk. She watched the teacher hand out the exam, trying to gauge from her expression whether the questions would be difficult. But the teacher’s face was bland, as if she was afraid to single out any of the students--didn’t want to scare where there was potential; didn’t want to encourage where there wasn’t any hope.

Finally, she reached Rabia’s desk and glared at her. Someone giggled. Rabia started to sweat under her headscarf. What did the teacher know? She repressed the

urge to suck on her lower lip and instead pushed her index finger against the pencil’s sharp tip. The teacher lingered. Rabia looked up.

“Your hands are dirty,” the teacher said.

Rabia glanced at her right hand. The beds of her middle and ring fingers were encrusted with rusty-colored grit. Rabia hid her hand in her lap.

“It’s a great honor to be allowed to sit for these exams. You could at least show some respect,” the teacher said, and moved on to the last row of tables.

It took Rabia a few minutes before she could think straight. She had paid a high price to be in this room with these forty-nine other ten- to eleven-year-old girls. Multiplication tables didn’t come easily to her; she sometimes mixed up her cases. She needed all her wits if she wanted to pass this exam, if she wanted to earn her entry into secondary school.

Her mind drifted back to the farm, to her three older brothers, to her father who only talked to her when he wanted his slippers or more tea, to her mother. She pressed her finger hard against the second pencil. She felt her skin rupture, saw the droplet of blood, quickly wiped it on her pants. So fresh; so red. Soon it would turn brown and fade away like life on the farm with her brothers and her father, and her mother.

But only if she passed this exam. So she’d better get her act together. The multiplication tasks were easy, nothing that she couldn’t answer; the spelling questions were trickier. The declination tables made her fidget. To think of the word mother in all six cases proved difficult; to her mother, from her mother, all she could think was: without her mother.

She glanced at the clock on the wall and realized she’d run out of time. The bell rang, and she got up to hand in her papers. The teacher seemed to have forgotten her dirty fingernails and smiled at her in the same way as at all the other girls.

Rabia lingered. She didn’t want to think about what was waiting for her. She didn’t want to think about going back to the farm, to the kitchen, where – if it were up to her mother - she would spend most of the day peeling potatoes or plucking a chicken.

“What is with you?” the teacher asked. “Do you want to stay here until school starts again next year?”

She shooed Rabia out of the room. The two police officers who had escorted her to the school–-a man the age of her father and a stocky, glum-looking woman--were still waiting outside the door. The woman gripped her by the upper arm.

“Where are you taking me? Surely, not home?”

The policewoman shrugged her shoulders.

Rabia tugged at the other officer’s sleeve. “I can’t go home. They will beat me.”

Every time her mother had caught her with a school book, she’d struck out at her. Rabia didn’t even want to think about facing her father when he heard about the exam.

“You deserve to be beaten,” the officer replied without turning around.

Rabia stamped her foot. “I deserve to go to prison; I want to go to prison, anywhere but home.”

She held up her hand in proof and plopped herself down onto the corridor’s dusty floor.

The policewoman mustered Rabia as if she were some stray animal she couldn’t place. Her partner told her to stop wasting time and call into headquarters.

“Orphanage for the time being, I guess,” she said, and slid her cell phone back into her pocket. The male officer nodded at Rabia to get up and wouldn’t let go of her until he had shoved her into the back of the police car.

Once seated, he turned around and asked: “Why did you do it?”

“She wouldn’t let me take the exam.”

“But shoot her? Couldn’t you have talked to her?”

“She does whatever my father says,” Rabia answered.

“Maybe you should have shot your father, instead,” the policewoman murmured.

Rabia caught her glance in the rear mirror, a look of recognition.