Ali’s small back, soaked in grime and sweat, shone under Madrid’s hot sun. He stared out the window, framed in chipping blue paint, while his mother drew a cool rag across his back with one hand and held a dying cigarette in the other. She smoked them until they were stingers, past the filter, frugal with each hit. She dropped her finished cigarette in the bathtub where Ali sat, crouched; the ash bounced from the water’s surface and stung his olive skin, but he sat calmly, unfazed, already melted by the heat’s tired haze. Ali scratched his legs, peeling back the dead skin, flicking it back into the ashy water. He shed his layers into the tub, skinning himself just to be rid of his tan skin’s permanent soil. His mother reached for the cigarette lying on the closed toilet seat. She lit it with one hand, her other always on Ali. She squeezed his skinny arms, rubbing off what dirt had been residing there, she rubbed the wet rag over his face, cleaning his small hooked nose and flushing his dark eyes with water. He held his breath and submerged himself fully into the bath of dead skin, dirt, and cigarette butts. Ali enjoyed the silence, but underwater, he still missed the smell of his mother’s smoke. It was sweet, resembling honey, and he never cared that the ash bit him when she put her cigarettes out on him. He never cared that the smell would always choke him, because he loved the feeling of his mother right by him. While she may betray him, she would always be his home, and Ali didn’t mind being her ashtray for as long as she needed. He budded the top half of his head out of the water, and he stared at her. “החיים שלי” My life, she called him. He sat unmoving with wide eyes, following her hand as it reached to her mouth, as she pursed her lips, sucked in, pulled the cigarette away, took a breath, and blew a cloud into his face. He sat unmoving with wide eyes. 

His mother had brought him home to Spain on her own, but she knew people like them were still not welcome. She did not care. When she left the building, she left her necklace behind, Ali held onto it. The pendant was small, but it felt big in Ali’s small hands. He did not go to school, knowing only the little spanish his mother had learned, and the little Hebrew she had held onto. She spoke little, and Ali was the same. They relied on few words, and preferred not to cloud their lives with fruitless words, but rather to be frugal with their language and speak meaningfully. 

Ali stuck his head between his knees while his mother ran her fingers through his thick coal colored hair. He covered his ears hoping to cut out the sound of the markets outside, the beatings in the street, the buzzing of bees, loitering under the hot blanket anticipating a sting. He waited eighteen seconds, wishing on good luck. His mother dropped another dying cigarette butt into the bathtub. He would have to wait more than eighteen seconds in 1840 to escape the sting.