All the studies of them through the winter: oil sketches, lithographs, and then—
And so here you are, faced with the end of a way of life full of humor and cabaret, where it is natural to risk offence without the fear of violence.
It seems you are blinded by your own burning unbelief Mrs. Hirsi Ali and in your rage are unable to see you are just one more instrument of the real enemies of Islam.
— another failure.
How does it feel?
Mrs. Hirsi Ali I don’t blame you for this as a soldier of evil you are simply doing your job.
After some hesitation, Monsieur Ravoux rose to his feet and stole to the staircase to see if he could hear anything, yet all above him was hush.
Theo, seventeen, gaining on his bicycling teachers in his yellow Mini Cooper and splashing them as he swished past, then raising his hand in a gesture of nonchalant wonder suggesting he mustn’t have seen the culprit puddle approaching.
This letter is God willing an attempt to stop your evil and silence you forever may it cause your mask to fall off.
To hell with perspective.
And, without warning, Ayaan recounting to Theo mat-ter-of-factly how, when she was six, her father in jail for his political views, her mother absent for long stretches, her grandmother resolved she would respect the old traditions, and so she prepared a special table for Ayaan, her sister, and her brother in the bedroom.
I would like to begin by mentioning your recent proposal to screen Muslims regarding their ideology on job applications whose implementation has revealed the rotten face of your masters.
Sometimes that’s all you can hope for: one failure leading to others, interestingly.
Imagine the spring. The colors.
It is a fact that Dutch politics is dominated by many Jews the product of Talmudic Schools.
Look: Monsieur Vincent is lying very still on his mattress, arms by his sides, eyes shut, curious to see what he will dream next.
Ayaan’s grandmother, poisoned by what life had done to her, was unusually cheerful all week long.
A curved machete too.
The process of making us feel small in the right way, perhaps being one function of art.
When the day arrived, Ayaan recounted, aunts filled my house.
A curved machete and a smaller kitchen knife.
Your shadow summarized by the moon.
Some I knew. Some I had never seen before. The atmosphere was merry. I wasn’t frightened. My grand mother assured me I had been dirty. Now it was time to be cleansed.
This is the saying of Rabbi Simon ben Yohai—
Number 5, my parallelogram kingdom: up a winding flight of stairs, across a narrow landing, the first of two doors on the left.
They ushered me in, lifted me onto the table.
— even the best gentiles must be killed what do you think of that you are part of a Jew government that pleads for genocide.
The green and gray walls.
They eased me onto my back and three women held me down. That’s when I realized something bad was going to happen.
There will come a day when one soul will not be able to help another.
Twenty-four wooden planks comprising my floor.
My grandmother leaned toward me, telling me to spread my legs and grit my teeth.
A day of horrible tortures you wrote which will go together with the terrible cries pressed out from the lungs of the unjust and on that great day the atmosphere will be rife with FEAR.
I counted them, and I counted them again, just to be sure.
If God created us in his own image, Voltaire proposing, we have more than reciprocated.
There is one certainty of existence that everything comes to an end even the blade of grass sticking out of dark earth touched by sunlight and rain will ultimately rot into dust and disappear.
One cupboard. One chair. One steel-framed bed.
There was a man in the room: a scrawny blacksmith who wore a thin, scruffy beard. As my eyes fell on him, he produced a pair of scissors.
When the sun will be rolled up.
One pitcher. One washbasin. One chamber pot.
Everyone commenced chattering.
When the stars will fall.
One window set in the ceiling that ogles out onto brick wall and delft-blue rectangle.
I tried to writhe free, but couldn’t.
And when the sea will be brought to a boil.
A white sunlight splinter slicing across the floor.
The man stepped forward, reached between my thighs, and began jabbing and tugging at my clitoris as if he were milking a goat.
And when the girl who was buried alive will be questioned about every sin for which she was punished.
3,50 francs a day.
I howled in disbelief that they could do this to me, that no one was on my side.
And the pages will be flung open.
Linseed oil. Turpentine.
The scissors descending between my legs.
And Hell will be set aflame.
Cigar smoke.
The sound of gristle crunching.
On that day the soul will know what it has performed.
Smoldering coal from the stove in the Ravoux’s restaurant below.
The pain leoparding inside my skull.
On that day brother will flee from brother.
A delicate flatus of manure from the street.
It is just this once in your life, my grandmother whispered in my ear by way of encouragement.
And the mother from the father.
Bitter hay. Bitter urine. Baking bread.
Be strong, girl, she said.
And the woman from her children.
I read Hans Christian Andersen to my students to show them how to be dazzled.
My panic, my outrage, my shame cramming that room with noise.
And every one of them on that day shall possess an occupation which is enough for them.
Their favorite story: “What the Moon Saw”: how the world appeared from the point of view of an orbiting satellite.