Hidden Girl: The True Story of a Modern-Day Child Slave (6 page)

I have wondered many times where life might have taken me if that customs official had questioned me, detained me, or sent me back to Cairo. Would I have ended up back with my family? Or would my parents have sent me back to my captors? If so, would my captors have tried again to get me into the United States? Of course I will never have answers to those questions, but for many years I batted those ideas around in my head.

•    •    •

My captors’ new home was in an exclusive gated community in the city of Irvine, but it was nothing like the home they had left in Egypt. Instead of five floors this stucco home had only two. Instead of many acres, there was only a small lot. Rather than endless bedrooms, this home had only four: the master, a room for the two oldest girls, a room for the twins, and a smaller room for the youngest daughter. I slept in a tiny, windowless storage room in the three-car garage.

My room had a queen-size mattress that sat on a low metal frame. There was no place for my clothes, so they stayed in my suitcase. Because there was no heat or air-conditioning in the room, it was either uncomfortably hot or freezing cold. There was little air circulation, which made it hard to catch my breath, even when I left ajar the door that opened onto the garage. I have never seen any other house with that kind of setup in the garage, and I now wonder if my captors had the room built for me after they purchased the house and before I arrived.

At first there was a light in my tiny room, but after a few months the bulb burned out. I was far too short to replace it. The room was very dark after that. Lying there in the stuffy darkness became a thing for me to dread, and to this day I always leave a light on at night. Total darkness brings back to me those terrible hours I spent in the garage, and those are memories I would rather not have.

The Mom’s relatives, Nebit and her husband, Sefu, lived in a house that was right next door. They had made the trip with my captor family, but there was no room for them in this house. Nebit came over almost every day, and she and The Mom spent a lot of time together, just as they had in Egypt. Nebit and Sefu did not have a servant of their own, so my job was to be sure both houses were kept spotless, as well as being a nanny for the twin boys.

When I first arrived, members of the family, including The Mom and The Dad, were somewhat kind to me. The kids were doing some regular chores, such as keeping their own rooms tidy. I was told that my only job was to clean all of the bathrooms. But what I was supposed to do and the scope of what I actually did were two different things.

In the morning I got up early, before anyone in the family. No one had ever given me an alarm clock, and in Egypt another servant had awakened me. Now I was expected to wake up on my own. I never slept well, but on the rare occasion when I wasn’t up by dawn, one of the twins came to get me.

When I woke on my own, as I almost always did, I usually had to knock on the door that led from the garage to the house, as the family often locked that door at night. Having the door locked made it difficult for me, as I used a bathroom that was just inside the house, next to The Dad’s office. If I had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, I couldn’t. I had to wait until morning.

Once both twins were up, I ironed the clothes they were going to wear to school that day. I made sure the twins got cleaned up, and then I woke the youngest daughter. After she had chosen her clothes for the day, I ironed those. Then I made their breakfasts—and their lunches—before I sent them out the door to school. It never crossed my mind that I should be going out that door with them. I was Shyima, the stupid girl, the slave.

By then the two older daughters, who were both in high school, would be up. My first words to them each morning were, “What can I do for you?” Then I ironed their clothes and made them a breakfast of coffee, juice, eggs, cereal, and bacon.

By this time I would have been interrupted at least a dozen times. One daughter would claim I hadn’t ironed something right, and the other would ask me to hunt down her purse or her keys.

After the older girls left for school, I started on the downstairs. I first cleaned the family room next to the kitchen, because when The Mom and The Dad finally got up, that was the first place they’d go. The Dad’s office and bathroom were next, followed by two living rooms that no one used. But The Mom made sure I vacuumed and dusted them every day. She often said, “I didn’t pay good money for the furniture to be dusty.”

Right after noon The Mom and The Dad would get up. My first task when that happened was to run The Mom’s bathwater. Then, before the twins got home in the afternoon, I had to pick up, dust, and vacuum four bedrooms
and
clean Nebit’s house next door. The Mom and Nebit often had women they had met at their mosque over to The Mom’s house. They didn’t do much but chat away in Arabic (The Mom spoke no English and Nebit only a broken version), but when the women came over, everything had to be even more spotless.

The work was never ending. When I was in Egypt, I’d had the help of the other workers, but I was the only worker/slave my captors had brought to the United States. At ten years of age I had responsibility for all of it.

When the twins got home, I got their snacks ready, and because The Mom always wanted me to cook something, I started getting dinner ready. Only on rare occasions did she cook. When dinner was over, when the family was done eating, I could finally eat my single meal of the day.

Then it was time to get the boys ready for bed. I got their pajamas out and turned down their beds that I had made earlier in the day. I even put toothpaste on their toothbrushes. At midnight, long after the family members were asleep, I was still doing dishes and picking up the worst of their mess. Some nights I was up until two, three, even four in the morning. Then it started over again.

•    •    •

There were some variations to my routine, however. My captors often had visitors from Egypt. Most were family members, and when they arrived, the kids would double up in their bedrooms to free up space for the guests. Because it was such a long trip, the visitors usually stayed for longer than a weekend. While my captors were happy to see their relatives, it meant that I had that many more people to cook and clean for, that much more mess to pick up, that much more laundry to wash, iron, and dry. I was always glad when visitors left.

Sometimes the kids had friends over, and when that happened, I was told to stay in the kitchen out of sight. At first I thought the family was ashamed of me and didn’t want to be embarrassed by me, but then it dawned on me that my captors knew that here in the United States my position in the household was not acceptable. That was brought home even more when, on occasion, I was told to hide in the pantry. I both liked and hated this bit of downtime, time when I could rest and relax, but I knew that the work I was responsible for still had to be done, knew that every minute I spent hidden away was another minute I would not sleep that night.

Another reason I hated the pantry was because there was no airflow in there. It was hot and stuffy, and I had to work to relax myself so I could breathe.

Even though I didn’t like the time I spent in the pantry, I had a lot of motivation to go in there. At one point The Mom told me that if anyone outside the family or their visitors from Egypt saw me, I would be beaten, my family in Egypt would be beaten, and I would never see my family again. I soon learned to hide myself if others came into the house. Once in a while I didn’t get hidden quickly enough, or I didn’t know someone else was in the house, and a guest caught a glimpse of me. When that happened and people asked who I was, they were told that I was a cousin who was visiting from Egypt.

Despite all this, I was trusted enough to take the boys across the street to a small park. There was a slide and some swings among other playground equipment, and the twins, who were now about seven, had a great time there. I was not allowed to play, however, and instead had to sit on a bench and watch the boys. I wonder if my captors knew how odd that looked. I was ten, but I was small and looked much younger. I was a kid who should have been playing with the other children, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d played.

This was the first time I had ever been to a park. When I was with my family in Egypt, we played only in the streets or in vacant lots. I am not even sure if my area of Egypt had anything similar to a park.

The first time I took the boys was the first time I went outside my captors’ home. It was quiet, and that surprised me. There were few cars on the road and even fewer people walking by. At my captors’ home in Egypt I had expected the outdoor silence, because they’d lived on a great estate with no other buildings nearby, other than the servants’ houses. My only other living experience had been in the middle of town, and there was always a lot of noise and activity there.

Sometimes moms or nannies who supervised other children who were playing asked about me. One lady in particular took special notice. She was a beautiful Asian woman, and after watching me for a time, she said something to me. I didn’t speak English, so one of the twins said, “She is a sister from another mother. She lives in Egypt.”

I was terrified, and my heart felt as if it were beating through my shirt. I didn’t know if the lady suspected anything or not. While I wanted out of that household, my fear of what might happen to me—and to my family—if the lady said anything was so huge that I could barely breathe. I began to gather our things and asked the boys to come with me back to the house, but they weren’t ready, they wanted to stay and play. With my heart still thumping, I gave them each a bottle of water and sat back down to wait for them.

The boys must have seen the long, speculative look the woman gave me and must later have said something to The Mom. After that we were allowed to go to the park only after The Mom glanced across the street and saw that no one else was there.

Next to the small park was a much larger park with a swimming pool. In the summer I often took the boys there to swim. The fact that I stayed on a lounge chair with the towels and food did not make me stand out, because many other people sat near the pool rather than going into it. The twins often invited me into the water, but I didn’t know how to swim, and I was sure that The Mom and The Dad wouldn’t approve.

I did not have any “nice” clothes to wear to the pool, and I was always somewhat self-conscious about how dirty my clothes were. Once in a while I caught people looking at me with odd expressions on their faces, and that made me feel bad. I still didn’t speak any English, although I had picked up the stray word or two from the twins and from observing other kids at the park and at the pool. “Hi” was one of those words. I often wondered how I would get help for the twins if something happened, because I couldn’t convey the nature of an emergency to anyone. I then debated what I would say if anyone approached me. But no one ever did. Everyone was too busy. They were excited about the pool and didn’t pay any attention to me. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

Because I could not understand any of the conversation around me at the pool, I began studying people—the way they walked, their body language, the way they interacted with one another. Even though I was ten, my interactions with groups of people had been limited. With my biological family I’d mostly interacted with my younger siblings and my mother. With my captors I rarely saw anyone outside the near or extended family. That’s why going to the pool became such a fascination for me.

From my chair I’d often glance away from the twins’ antics in the pool to watch how teenage girls were with one another. I’d watch as a boy and a girl walked together, to try to find out if they were brother and sister, friends, or boyfriend and girlfriend. I watched older women, couples, and the lifeguards—who were, in actuality, older teens in a position of some authority. I watched grandmothers, people of different races, and young children.

While relationships between people were still somewhat of a mystery to me, those trips to the pool went a long way in developing my social skills. Even though I could not communicate verbally with anyone who did not speak Arabic, I could now better understand what people were saying with their eyes, their smile, the way they walked, and how close they stood to the person next to them.

These trips to the park and to the pool were fun for the boys, but I was still expected to get my work done. On days when I took the boys out, I worked far past midnight. If I ever thought that my duties would be lessened because of the boys’ activities, I was wrong. I never brought this up to The Mom or The Dad, though, because I didn’t want to be yelled at or, worse, slapped. My feelings didn’t count, never counted. I was just Shyima, the stupid slave. I didn’t exist.

One day I came down
with a terrible upper respiratory infection. I don’t know if it was a bad cold, the flu, or strep, but I felt miserable. I had a high fever, I was coughing, my nose was running, my entire body ached, and I was weak and light-headed. I told The Mom I wasn’t well, but she just said, “Oh, everyone gets that” and dismissed my concern.