Submitted to: Contest #316

Being Nobody

Written in response to: "Write a story from the POV of someone who’s hiding a secret."

Creative Nonfiction Drama Inspirational

This story contains themes or mentions of sexual violence.

It's approaching 6:30am already, I'll need to get up soon, even though I don't want to; but I don't really have a choice. I need to get to work on time. In this day and age; I'm as replaceable as a nearly empty toilet paper roll. But this week has been particularly difficult. I don’t know why, but I haven’t been feeling like myself, I’ve been feeling quite useless in all honesty. I’ve been questioning the meaning, or lack thereof, of all of my actions.

I lethargically carry myself out of bed and head to the bathroom. As I cross the hallway distance, I have to jump over the sleeping bodies of a couple of women, there's never enough spots, and it’s hard to say no.

I head to the kitchen afterwards, boil the half a dozen eggs left, wash some fresh vegetables, lay the milk, honey and cornmeal on the small kitchen table, I eat a boiled egg and some cheese, I get dressed, my hair is a mess, so I wear a leopard print scarf, and I leave the house.

The route to work isn't too bad now that the summer's coming to an end. I watch the other 8 passengers of the collective taxi. Does anyone else see the misery in their eyes, or have I just gotten too close? I wonder what they think of me, do they think of me? I still have to walk for a few minutes after the last drop off point, but I don’t mind, Lac 2 is a good place for a morning walk.

I head to the office kitchen to make coffee and say hi to Salma, the finance manager, she says hi back and goes back to her desk. I head the admin department at an international NGO in Tunis, which means I get paid good money. Those around me don’t really know that, see everyone assumes working for charities pays pennies, but if you’re a certified professional on an international contract, things are different, as I said, those who know me don’t know this, I guess there's a lot they don't know.

It takes me between 2 to 4 hours to actually finish my work on daily basis, and I spend the rest of the time looking busy and unapproachable. Appearances are important. Now before you judge me, hear me out, I need a lot more money than these people can possibly pay me; but more importantly, I really am busy, the real work I do after hours is dangerous, requires a lot of research time and knowing how to make the right friends in the right places. That itself is expensive and time consuming.

I’m sure my office colleagues gossip about me, nothing harmful, just that I’m peculiar, which isn’t particularly untrue. They know nothing about my life back home, or here for that matter, I made sure to keep the distance, by creating the persona of a lonely, woman with no long-term plans who wants to be left alone and so it was. It was difficult to do that at first; but as new people came and old ones left, it got easier, it became more understandable that I wanted to keep a distance from the new arrivals, as they too will leave sooner rather than later. After all, this isn’t uncommon in the sector.

I never go out for lunch, I have a drawer filled with protein bars and snacks, so I grab something and refill my stock as it drops down. I leave the office around 4pm, it takes me another half an hour to get home, Miriam starts making dinner shortly after I arrive, there are 6 women in the house excluding the both of us, one of them is pregnant, and there are 2 boys: both under 2 years old. I was lucky enough to rent the house from Mme Samia 4 years ago; she’s a sweetheart, she spends most of her time in France, so it wasn’t too difficult to hide people in the house over the years. She panicked when my utilities shot through the roof the next fall, but I told her I’ll have family members and friends visiting all year-round; she did a couple of sudden drop-ins and let it slide as long as I was paying the bills on time.

I go take a shower and make a few phone calls to make arrangements for the weekend. I’m taking Hesham and Nour out to a club in Gammarth, Hesham works for the national guard, and I keep my enemies close, some would say too close, but I’ve found that people are far more likely to believe what they already think is true than look for the actual truth.

Didi is the pregnant one, and she’s been feeling more fragile than usual this week. She never said it, but this is a rape child, I don’t know if she was raped by someone back home or a smuggler or the border control. I don’t know if it was one or a group of men. And it doesn’t matter, she hadn’t attempted to get rid of the baby, and it’s not my place to ask these questions. It’s already dangerous enough to be a pregnant illegal migrant here, accusing anyone, let alone a government official of rape would be a real threat to your life.

Marwa is my focal point for these kinds of situations, she an Egyption midwife who came here after she married a Tunisian engineer she met in college. They got a divorce a few years later, they didn’t have any children, and she decided to stay here. She worked for AlAmen clinic for years, then retired and opted to do house calls only. A smuggler actually connected me to her a couple of years ago, said she’s discrete and pure-hearted; by which he means she helped women and girls around here get rid of unwanted pregnancies safely. How many women have I brought to her over the years? The ones who wanted her to make it go away, and the ones who wanted her to make sure it was delivered safely, the ones who sent the children to orphanages and the ones who kept them in spite of impossible journey ahead, did I do the right thing? Did it ever mean anything?

Sumaia helps as well, she’s a Libyan OB/GYN who took on more difficult cases. She donated money and medical supplies whenever she could, we technically only met once in person, she delivers the money and donations through friends and colleagues traveling between Tunis and Tripoli or Tunis and Benghazi, and when things got so complicated I needed her to intervene, she would give me the contact of a doctor or a clinic or a house where someone who can take care of things is waiting.

I’ve lost count of those who had passed by my small house in La Marsa, but Miriam was my first. I became friends with a group of Italian and French expats in my first year here in Tunis, we got together a few times a week for dinner or wine, went clubbing in the weekends, planned camping and swimming trips to Hammamet, Kelibia and Bizerte. It was great, I felt like I was on top of the world, everything was perfect, until I met Wael. It’s almost silly I guess, how can one conversation change the world?

Wael came to Tunisia to do an investigation for the Guardian on the migration route to Europe, and he had to stay in Tunis because the authorities in Sfax were suspicious of him. Emma, the head of our organization back then, introduced me to him on one of our nights out. Sfax is home to the largest informal settlement of sub-Saharan illegal migrants in Tunisia. Over twenty thousand men, women and children lived there, but no foreign press, charities or UN agencies were allowed inside. I’ve heard whispers here and there about such places and the treatment of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Tunisia and Libya, I knew someone in my organization was doing some work related to the topic, but that was the extent of my knowledge. See, I have come to understand that in a place like this, information is so fragmented, so well hidden and encrypted, it’s so easily ignored. The people high up are so carefully chosen that they make sure you only know what they want you to know; they make sure the system is so well kept on the outside, it would be impossible for you to ever do anything of real value to make it work right for those who need it the most.

Wael met Miriam on the route back from Sfax, she was thrown on the side of the road, he tried to take her to a hospital, but she refused, understandably so, she didn’t want the people who left her to die know she’s still alive, she stayed at his house and he tried to get her registered with UNHCR, but their solution for her included sending her back home, which was something Miriam would rather die than do. He invited me to meet her at his place.

Miriam helped connect the dots, she remembered the names and faces and routes she’d taken, she told us about the EU officials involved, the UN and NGO workers, the smugglers and of course the local authorities. She told us horror stories that introduced me to a world I didn't know existed right around the corner.

It’s been over 3 years since then, Wael went back home shortly after, and we stayed in touch for a while, however, Miriam and I grew closer. My group of friends started changing, growing bigger or smaller depending on the season. I am not sure when I decided to take on this role or secret identity, I am not sure I decided, but as the weeks passed, I hosted random women and children, some for a few days, and some for over a year. Some worked their way back home and others got on a boat to Europe, while others stayed and got sucked into the night of Tunis.

I continued to go to work. I needed the money, and it was good to have at least one constant thing amidst all of the changes. Miriam took care of the guests, she cooked and cleaned, but more importantly, she helped them figure things out. I invented many characters to hang out with different groups around Tunis, from Libyan militia heads to diplomats or prostitutes. I shape-shifted so many times it got increasingly difficult to look into a mirror and remember who I was, when I told Miriam this, she removed all of the mirrors from the house. Much more practical than I’d ever be.

Marwa advised that Didi takes some Iron supplements. And that we call Dr. Sumia early on, this could be a preemie. I also called Laila from the SoS. In case Didi decides that’s the best option for the baby. Whenever she’s ready. None of us knows what could happen tomorrow. I’ll be trialed under the new anti-terrorism law if I get caught, which is actually better than what would await me back home. I don’t know what would happen to the guests.

I sit in our little garden as the sun starts sitting, Miriam brings a plate of food and a tea kettle for after. She draws a white plastic chair and sits next to me. It’s a breezy evening which is not typical for this time of the year. I tell her about my plans with Hesham on the weekend. She listens and talks about how the boys were extra today.

It gets darker, and a bit louder, soon there will be more traffic and party noises. Miriam looks up at me and tells me I’m doing a good job; I tell her that’s a strange thing to say out of the blue. She says it isn’t out of the blue; she wants to remind me we’re doing the right thing.

I look into the horizon, where I can see the lights of Sidi Bousaid in the distance, where I know the Mediterranean lies majestically at its feet, with tall palm trees lining the pavements that hundreds of thousands of people cross every day, each with their own story, some I’ll get to know, some I’ll never even imagine and some that may change the world one day.

Posted Aug 17, 2025
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