The Self-Combed Woman

When I was eight, I poisoned my father to death. He was a gambling addict. On the day I was born, he was at the gaming table and gambled away my eldest sister to a cripple from the neighboring village. That very night, the cripple took her away by force. My sister was only sixteen. In our isolated home, where the more children people had, the poorer they became, and the poorer they were, the more children they had, women’s lives were worth less than ants. Human trafficking at gambling tables was common. No matter how desperately my sister cried or how loudly my mother called for help, not one neighbor cared enough to get involved. The cripple was a sadist. In less than six months, he tortured my sister to death. The night she was taken away, my mother hanged herself.