To help me forget his loss, I withdrew into my dreams. Dreams of water-not of rivers, but the ocean. I’ve always wanted to be like a sea turtle so that I could stick my head underwater. I have never seen the sea. With my colored pencils, I would draw waves in my little notebook. I imagined they were green or blue.

“They’re blue,” my girlfriend Malak informed me one day, looking over my shoulder.

Malak and I had become inseparable. I had met her in the Al-Qa neighborhood school, where my parents had finally agreed to register me. During recess, we often played marbles. Out of the seventy pupils-all girls-crammed into the classroom, she was my best friend. I’d done very well there my first year, and had just begun my second. Malak would stop by in the morning to get me and we’d go off to school together.

“Blue? How would you know?” I asked her.

“For vacation my parents take me to Al-Hudaydah. It’s by the Red Sea.”

“What does the water taste like?”

“It’s salty.”

“And the sand-it’s blue, too?”

“No, it’s yellow, and it’s so, so soft, if you only knew…”

“And what’s in the sea?”

“Boats, fish, and people swimming.”

Malak told me that she’d learned to swim there. I had never even dipped my toe into a kiddie pool, so I was fascinated. No matter how hard I tried to understand how she managed to stay on the surface of the water, I could never figure out that mystery. All I remembered is that in Khardji, Omma would always shout a warning at me when I went too near the river: “Watch out-if you fall in, you’ll sink!”

Malak said that her mother had bought her a bathing suit in pretty colors, and that she herself could even build sand castles with turrets and grand staircases that then melted away into the waves. One day she held a big shell she’d brought back from Al-Hudaydah up against my ear.

“Listen, and you’ll hear the sea.”

“The waves, oh, I hear the waves!” I yelped. “It’s unbelievable!”

To me, water was, above all, rain, which is becoming very scarce in Yemen. Sometimes we would be startled by hail in the middle of summertime. What happiness! We children would dash into the street to collect the little hailstones in a basin. I’d count them proudly, because at school I had learned to count from one to a hundred. When the ice had melted, we’d have fun sprinkling the cold water onto our faces to cool off. Mona had been fairly glum since coming to live with us in Sana’a two months after our hasty departure from Khardji, but even she would sometimes join us in our revelry after those extraordinary hailstorms.

Mona had arrived with the husband who had so suddenly imposed himself on her life, and as the years went by, she gradually recovered her natural smile, her mocking air, and the sense of humor that so often exasperated Omma. Mona brought two pretty babies into the world, Monira and Nasser, who filled her with joy. Our family and her husband’s wound up growing closer, and to reinforce this union, they talked about marrying my big brother Mohammad to one of his brother-in-law’s sisters, following the tradition of sighar.

But it was too good to last. One day, Mona’s husband vanished from the scene, and so did my big sister Jamila. Had they, like Fares, run away in the hope of making their fortune in Saudi Arabia, and perhaps bringing us back some electronic toys or a color television? In my parents’ room, there was much whispering about the two of them, but we children were strictly forbidden to ask any questions. I remember only that right after their mysterious disappearance, which I would come to understand only much later, Mona became capricious and moody again. Most of the time she was melancholy and depressed; then, all of a sudden, she would burst into laughter that would revive her natural beauty, enhancing her big brown eyes and delicate features. Mona really possessed lots of charm.

Whether she was having a good day or a bad one, though, Mona was always particularly sweet to me, even protective-sort of a maternal instinct. Sometimes she’d take me with her to window-shop on Hayle Avenue, famous for its clothing stores. Gazing enviously at the window displays, I admired the sequined evening gowns, the red skirts, the silk blouses in blue, violet, yellow, and green. I imagined that I was changed into a princess. There were even wedding dresses, which looked like movie costumes or magical fairy-tale gowns. So beautiful. The stuff of dreams.

One February evening in 2008, when I’d just gotten home, Aba told me he had some good news.

“Nujood, you are about to be married.”

3. The Judge

Judge Abdo cannot conceal his surprise. “You want a divorce?”

“Yes.”

“But… you mean you’re married?”

“Yes!”

His features are distinguished. His white shirt sets off his olive skin. But when he hears my reply, his face darknes. He seems to have trouble believing me.

“At your age? How can you already be married?”

Without bothering to answer his question, I repeat in a determined voice: “I want a divorce.”

I don’t sob, not even once, while speaking to him. I feel trembly, but I know what I want: I want an end to this hell. I’ve had enough of suffering in silence.

“But you’re so young and frail,” he murmurs.

I look at him and nod. He starts nervously scratching his mustache. If only he’ll agree to save me! He’s a judge, after all. He must have lots of power.

“And why do you want a divorce?” he continues in a more natural tone, as if trying to hide his astonishment.

I look him straight in the eye. “Because my husband beats me.”

It’s as if I had slapped him right in the face. His expression freezes again. He has just realized that something serious has happened to me and that I have no reason to lie to him. Point-blank, he asks me an important question: “Are you still a virgin?”

I swallow hard. I’m ashamed of talking about these things. It’s deeply upsetting. In my country, women must keep their distance from men they don’t know. And this is the first time I’ve ever seen this judge. But in that same instant I understand that if I want to win, I must take the plunge.

“No. I bled.”

He’s shocked. Abruptly, I have the feeling that of the two of us, he is the one who’s flinching. I can see his surprise, see him trying to conceal his emotions. Then he takes a deep breath and says, “I’m going to help you.”

I feel strangely relieved, actually, to have been able to confide in someone at last. My body feels so much lighter. I watch him grab his phone with a shaking hand. I hear him say a few things to someone who must be a colleague of his. As he talks, he waves his other hand all around. He appears determined to try to rescue me from my misery. If only he can solve the problem once and for all! With a bit of luck, he’ll act quickly, very quickly, and this evening I’ll be able to go home to my parents and play with my brothers and sisters, just like before. In a few hours, I will be divorced. Divorced! Free again. Without a husband, without that dread of finding myself alone, at nightfall, in the same bedroom with him. Without that fear of suffering, over and over, that same torment.

I am celebrating too soon.

A second judge joins us in the room, and he dashes my enthusiasm to bits.

“My child, this might very well take a lot more time than you think. It’s a delicate and difficult case. And unfortunately, I cannot promise that you will win.”

This second man is named Mohammad al-Ghazi, and according to Abdo, he’s the chief judge. Mohammad al-Ghazi seems embarrassed, ill at ease. In his entire career, he says, he has never seen a case like mine. They both explain to me that in Yemen girls are frequently married off quite young, before the legal age of fifteen. An ancient tradition, adds Judge Abdo. But to his knowledge, none of these precocious marriages has ever ended in divorce-because no little girl has, until now, showed up at a courthouse. A question of family honor, it seems. My situation is most exceptional, and complicated.