The Accident
School December 18th, 2007
They walk across the playground like men: arms around shoulders, feet locked in step, jackets open to the wind. This is the first sign that something is wrong; six year olds resist organizing principles as a matter of course. I have seen soldiers move this way, and firefighters on tv, but never children. In the middle of the line, someone is crying.
I cannot see who it is at first. I run to them, but they do not break ranks. Abdul-Rahim’s face swims into view, dripping with blood. I crouch down in front of him. “Abdul-Rahim, are you okay?” He shakes his head, and bubbles of blood burst against his chin. Mucus and tears drip through the blood, staining his throat and the front of his sweatshirt. He pulls his hood over his eyes. There are no bones exposed, no broken flesh, no swelling on his face. A stray hand print of blood rests around his left eye. I make my decision.
“Can I pick you up?” I whisper to Abdul-Rahim. He nods, and holds up his arms. I lift him as gently as I can onto my hip; he buries his face in my headscarf, and rests his head on my shoulder. I rub his back with the palm of my hand. In my arms, he is heavy as a bird.
“He fell down the slide,” Nadim tells me in his quiet, authoritative voice. “Yousef pushed him!” yells Ahmad, while Abdul-Rahim sobs harder. Yousef shakes his head, and waves his hands. The whites of his eyes are shiny with fear. “No. NO!” The boys begin to crowd around, all but Ammar, who has gone pale. “It was Ahmad H,” yells one boy. “It was an accident,” says another. Their voices ring in my ears, shrill as crows.
“Line up,” I tell them. My voice is hard, almost mean. From the direction of the swings comes the sound of chains brushing against metal poles. The girls have left their positions, and are rushing against the cold, dark mulch toward us. I gesture with my chin at the girls. “You. Line. Up. Now,” I speak slowly. I hold their stares with my own, until they turn around. Now it is just Abdul-Rahim and me.
“It’s okay,” I whisper to him. “I want to go home,” his voice is weak, like a wail from a kitten. “Okay,” I tell him. “You can go home. When we get inside, I’ll call your mom. You’ll be fine, honey. She’ll come get you.”
I walk, holding him, over to the fence. The line waiting there is unsteady. It threatens to split, as children step from their places to see Abdul-Rahim’s face. I feel a flash of anger in my breast. Dimly I am aware of fluid soaking through my hijab, wetting my neck, streaking the black velvet collar of my coat. The voice that speaks then does not remind me of my own.
“Fix your line NOW.” The boys and girls step back into their lines, and a chorus of hands shoots into the air. I walk backwards in front of the lines, leading them across the soccer fields toward our building. “Put your hands down,” I tell them. “You have blood in your hijab,” Yara calls out. Then Eshan starts to shake. “I have never seen so much blood in my whole life,” he says.
Abdul-Rahim crumples in my arms like a tinfoil boy. I can feel his ribs shaking. “No talking,” I snap. “Your job is to walk, without talking, back to our building. I try to soften my voice. “It is not a big deal,” I say. “Abdul-Rahim will be fine. He’ll be totally fine. Sometimes when you bunk your head, there can be a little blood. Your head has a lot more blood in it than other parts of your body, so even if you just have a little accident, it can bleed a lot. Like when you lose a tooth. That can bleed a lot, and it doesn’t even hurt at all.” We round the edge of the soccer fields.
Fourth graders play kickball on the flat pitch between the fields and our building. I watch the gym teacher orchestrate their game, and part of me wants to call out to him. “It will just take longer,” I tell myself. “You can’t leave your students with him, anyway. He already has the fourth graders to watch. Keep going. Keep going.”
Abdul-Rahim’s heartbeat thumps against my body. It moves so quickly that I am afraid. I want to distract him, to amuse him. I switch to Urdu. There is very little that I can say in Urdu which is not related to food or classroom management. I wrack my brain. “Tum mere dost ho,” I sing to him. “Tum mere dost ho, billi k gosht ho.”
He has stopped moving much in my arms. His heart slows down, and as soon as it does, I miss the rhythm of its race. He folds his arms around my neck, and settles down, as if to sleep. I can barely feel his weight.
We push through the front door the school, and the secretary springs from her desk. I freeze the first graders with my eyes. “Wait,” I tell them. “Sister Daania is going to help Abdul-Rahim get cleaned up. The lines begin to weave and whisper, but I ignore them. “What happened?” Sister Daania asks as I hand Abdul-Rahim to her. She sets him on the ground, and kneels at his feet. “He fell down the slide,” I speak softly. Our eyes meet over his head, and hers are dark with worry. She holds Abdul-Rahim’s hand, and presses it between her fingers. “That’s okay. Let’s go wash your face, Abdul-Rahim,” she says lightly.
I mouth my thanks to her over my shoulder, and she waits for me to move my students into our hallway. They are silent all the way to our room, and they take their seats like mourners at a funeral.
I stand in front of them. My coat is sticky, so I hang it on a peg on the back of the door. “Now,” I tell the students, “we are going to do three things. First, we are going to make du’a. Then, we can talk about what happened. After that, we can make get-well cards for Abdul-Rahim. Sounds good?”
Dark heads nods, and the children cup their hands to pray. “I will lead our du’a in English, because that is the language that we speak in our classroom, okay?” Nadim agrees, and the others follow suit. I try to clear my head, but the sound of bees roars in my ears. I close my eyes for a moment to breathe. Now that we are here, I can feel the fear which I did not notice before.
“Auzo billahi min ash-shaytan ar-rajim. Bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim,” I recite the invocation softly.
Then louder:
“Praise be to Allah, Creator of the World.
Ya Allah, thank you for everything you have done for us.
Ya Allah, please bless our Prophet Muhammad with your peace.
Ya Allah, please be with us today.
Ya Allah, please be with our friend Abdul-Rahim.
Ya Allah, please keep Abdul-Rahim safe.
Ya Allah, please don’t let Abdul-Rahim feel pain.
Ya Allah, please keep all the first graders safe.
Ya Allah, please be with Abdul-Rahim’s family.
Ya Allah, please bless our school.
Ya Allah, please bless our community.
Ya Allah, please make us strong and patient.”
I am running out of words. I pause, and look at the class. “Do any of you want to add something?” I ask them. Yara raises her hand. “Please send Abdul-Rahim to Jannah,” she says. My heart turns over. “Thank you, Yara.” I raise my voice.
“Ya Allah, someday in a long, long, long time when Abdul-Rahim dies, please send him to Jannah.” I look up again to see if anyone else wants to add anything, but the children are deep in their prayer.
“Ya Allah, please send all of us to Jannah,” I conclude. “Ameen.” The first graders say ameen. Some bury their faces in their arms, and some look at me. No one talks, and no one moves. They seem to wait for something, and it takes me a moment to remember. I said we were going to talk about what happened. “So,” I begin, “no matter what, no one is going to get in any trouble. When Abdul-Rahim fell, it was an accident. That’s all. Please don’t worry.”
“Let’s make a list of everything we know about Abdul-Rahim,” I say. “Then we will be able to make him really good cards.” I pick up a white board marker. It is blue, with a mashed tip. When I write with it, it leaves a broad, mushy line behind. The stain it leaves on the board reminds me of something, and I look down at the edge of my headscarf.
The lilac fabric, hemmed with ribbon, is stained with patches the color of rust. I tuck the edge of the scarf into my cloak; out of sight, out of mind, I hope. Ammar, Abdul-Rahim’s best friend, speaks first. “Abdul-Rahim like Texas Toast,” he says. “Very good!” I write “What Abdul-Rahim likes: Texas toast” on the board. This time, Eshan has his hand up. “He like red juice.” “Thank you sweetheart,” I say. “You’re sure right about that. Abdul-Rahim really likes red juice.” I write “Red juice” underneath “Texas Toast”.
Yara raises her hand. “Pokemon,” she says. “Abdul-Rahim likes Ash the best.” “He also likes Brock,” Ammar says. “He likes Brock a lot.” I add “Pokemon, Ash and Brock” to the board. From the back of the room, Bilal raises his hand. “Abdul-Rahim likes Ammar,” he says. “Ammar’s his best friend.” The children nod, and Ammar looks at his table. “That’s right, Sister Anna,” he says after a moment. “Abdul-Rahim is my best friend.” “I know honey,” I tell him. “Abdul-Rahim loves you a lot.” I put “Ammar” on the list.
Marid grows restless in his seat. A year older than the other students, he is the chief instigator of trouble. “Transformers!” he shouts. “Abdul-Rahim likes transformers.” I am adding “Transformers” to the list when my assistant, Sister ‘Abal, appears. “I will watch them,” she says. “They need you in the office.”
I smile at the class as my hands go numb. “Sister ‘Abal is going to help you with your cards,” I tell them. “I will go see how Abdul-Rahim is feeling. As-salaamu alaikum.” My footsteps seem quiet in the hallway, and I realize that another sound is drowning them out. I look out the window. Just outside of the school door, a police car sits with its engine on; up the long road to the school, an ambulance creeps.
I enter Sister Daania’s office to find Abdul-Rahim slumped over in his mother’s lap. “We have to keep him awake,” the principal is saying. I sit down on the floor. “Abdul-Rahim,” I start, “We were just talking about you in class. The other students were making a list of things that you like, so that they can make cards for you. They told me you liked transformers, but I couldn’t remember if you like the Autobots or the Decepticons better. Which ones do you like?” Abdul-Rahim coughs up a chunk of blood. “Autobots,” he says slowly. “The other ones are bad. They want to destroy the world.” A policeman pushes through the door of the school.
“Now about the Pokemons,” I begin. “Some kids in our class thought that you liked Ash the best, and some people though maybe you liked Brock.” Abdul-Rahim opens his mouth to tell me what he prefers, but he is interrupted. An officer stands in the doorway, tall and broad, and looks down at us. Behind him, the paramedics roll a stretcher through the school doors. The sound of the door slamming shut behind them makes the walls of Daania’s office shake.
In fifteen minutes, they have him strapped into the stretcher. In twenty minutes they are gone. I walk back down the hallway, toward my class, and wonder what to tell the students now. I stop outside of our door to listen. Sister ‘Abal is spelling words for them. They sit, pens in hand, working on their cards.
I will tell them, I decide, about when God created the pen.
December 19th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Assalamu alaikum
That was just lovely! You really should write more often.
Eid Mubarak to you! And to your kids. Please do write about what you did with the kids for Eid.
December 20th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
as-salam alaykum.
very moving, especially so because abdul-rahim is also my brother’s name. please let us know how he is doing.
December 21st, 2007 at 4:23 am
Salamu alaykum!
Is this a true story?
What happened to Abdul Rahim? Is he ok?
Wasalam
December 21st, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Wa alaykum as salaam dearest Brothers and Sisters.
Thank you for writing. Jazakum Allahu khayran.
The little boy is fine, Alhammdulilah. We’ve been doing quiet paper crafts at recess, like origami and snowflake making. So far, so good. Regrettably, I taught them how to make paper airplanes recently in math, and now they make them at every opportunity.
Alhammdulilah. That’s interesting about your brother’s name, ABD. I changed the children’s names for the story, and chose “Abdul-Rahim” from a list. It’s a beautiful name.
Take care, everyone, and enjoy the snow. Barak Allahu feekum.
best regards,
Anna
ps. Mark, if you are out there, I’d like to say a belated happy birthday to Isaac.
Luke, how lovely to hear from you! I’ve always thought Washington DC was a lovely city, and I hope that you are enjoying it. Did you go back to Iowa for the holidays? If you find yourself in Boston, please drop me a line.
December 24th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Thanks! One of these years I need to start uploading baby videos to YouTube.
December 25th, 2007 at 5:01 am
[…] A most moving account of an accident in school. Abdul-Rahim’s heartbeat thumps against my body. It moves so quickly that I am afraid. I want to distract him, to amuse him. I switch to Urdu. There is very little that I can say in Urdu which is not related to food or classroom management. I wrack my brain. “Tum mere dost ho,” I sing to him. “Tum mere dost ho, billi k gosht ho.” […]
December 29th, 2007 at 6:44 am
What a beautifully told account of something awful that happened. I love the humanity of first graders, and cringe (sometimes) at their seemingly inhumane behaviors, too. What a challenge it is to be a first grade teacher, requiring so much patience, warrior-like strategy, and love.
Thank you for sharing this.
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:14 am
I just stumbled onto here from somewhere else and, well, you’ve got some kind of talent.
I can’t remember the last time held a smile this long and this honestly.
thank you.
ma’assalaam
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:17 am
Good post. I just found this Origami-inspired Twitter icon at Digg, which you can use on your blog if it is running WordPress.