Mud City Read Online Free

Shauzia said.
    “Sit somewhere else.”
    Too tired to argue, Shauzia and Jasper got to their feet.
    The woman took their place. “Help me,” she
     begged to a passerby, who ignored her. “Just one or two roupees?” she called
     to another.
    “Do you make much money that way?” Shauzia asked.
    “Maybe ten roupees a day.”
    “Is that a lot?”
    “It’s enough to keep my children hungry.”
    “Maybe if you lifted your burqa so people could see who you are...
     ” Shauzia suggested.
    “What do you know?” the woman replied angrily. “I keep
     my face covered when I beg so that no one can see my shame. I was an office manager in
     Afghanistan. I’ve graduated from university. And now look at me! No, don’t
     look at me! Go away!”
    Shauzia stood there for a moment feeling awkward that she’d hurt the
     woman’s feelings, and angry that the woman had made her get up just when she had
     gotten comfortable. Finally, since she didn’t know what to do with either her
     awkwardness or her anger, she just walked away, and Jasper went with her.
    The woman had scared her. If someone who had been to university was
     reduced to begging, what hope did Shauzia have?
    She knelt down beside Jasper and pretended to fuss
     with his leash. She kept her head low so no one could see her crying.
    “I don’t like it here,” she whispered. Jasper licked at
     her tears. Shauzia hugged him close. Then she stood up and kept walking.
    There were a lot of beggars in the market. Some were women, covered and
     uncovered. Some were sick people with twisted limbs. Others were children her age.
     People walked past the beggars’ outstretched hands as if they were invisible.
    “The people they’re begging from look as poor as they
     are,” Shauzia said. She turned away. It was all too awful to watch.
    They walked through the market again.
    I’ve got to ask someone for a job, she thought, but each time she
     got close to approaching a shopkeeper, she felt too shy to do it.
    “You can’t possibly manage on your own,” Mrs. Weera had
     said. Shauzia remembered how everyone had laughed.
    She took a deep breath and headed to the nearest shop, a bookstall.
    “Give me a job!” she demanded of the man behind the stack of
     books.
    She was quickly ordered out of that shop, and away
     from the four other shops she went to.
    The day slipped away. The market stayed open after dark, but the bare
     lightbulbs hanging here and there from poles and wires created weird, frightening
     shadows in the streets. Shauzia and Jasper squeezed themselves into an alcove between
     shops. She could tell from the smell that they were sharing the space with decomposing
     fruit and other garbage, but at least they were out of the way of people, cars and
     shadows.
    She leaned against the wall, missed Mrs. Weera’s snoring, and fell
     asleep sitting up.
    Shauzia woke to a gray predawn morning, her head pillowed on a pile of
     rotting cabbage. Jasper was already awake, chewing on something he had found in the
     garbage.
    She got up and they went to a water tap she’d seen in the market.
     She threw water on her face, and she and Jasper had long drinks. The water filled up her
     belly – for awhile.
    She spent the day looking for work. Many of the shopkeepers told her she
     was too dirty towork in their shops. Others already had all the
     help they needed.
    The sun was starting to go down when she passed a butcher shop, almost
     empty of meat, full of dirt and dried blood.
    “Your shop needs cleaning,” she said to the butcher, who was
     sitting on a stool just inside the doorway and drinking a cup of tea. “I could
     clean it.”
    The butcher swallowed a mouthful of tea, looked her up and down and said,
     “This is a man’s job. You’re a small boy. Go away.”
    Shauzia didn’t budge. “I can clean your shop,” she said
     again. She put her hands on her hips and stared right at him. She was hungry and tired
     and not in the mood for nonsense.
    The man