I no longer know how many weeks I've been waiting in my cell. It's two steps wide and maybe three long. The walls are made of coarse, cracked concrete. A small barred window high up on the back wall lets in glaring light that paints a square on the dusty floor in the afternoon. I'm wearing a rough, light brown cotton dress. It itches at the seams. No more hijab. They gave me simple leather sandals for my feet.

It seems to be the usual attire for death row inmates. I knew immediately that I wasn’t the first to wear these clothes. I saw the footprints on the leather soles. But it took me a little longer to recognize the bloodstains on the collar. When I saw them, I screamed and tore the dress off my body. A guard came in and beat me. She called me a whore and hit me with her stick until I put the dress back on.

I'm sure they do it on purpose. To torture me even more. I often think about her.

Why did she lose her head? Murder? Drugs? Apostasy?

Was she denied the blood money?

Did she scream when the sword fell?

Did many people watch as her head rolled?

They told me the executioner is professional. A single clean strike. It only takes a second, then the head is off. I heard it sometimes rolls more than two meters.

They also say a head lives on for a few seconds after it leaves the neck. Maybe five or ten. Is that enough time to realize you've just been beheaded?

I wish they would just shoot me. If they'd caught me with drugs, maybe they would have shot me—but for murder, the head rolls. Publicly. I tense my neck, only to relax it again a moment later, like every time I think about it...

In these endless hours, I’ve prayed so much. And again and again, I asked Allah why He must punish me like this. What did I do?

Until a year ago, I lived with my parents in Jakarta. I’ve been working since I was five. But it was never enough. As I got older, more and more men took notice of me. Some from abroad, too. They said I was cute. They offered me money. Sometimes a lot of money. But I refused. I couldn’t do it. But I felt so guilty for not bringing home the money we so desperately needed.

Then that man from the agency approached me. He said I looked very beautiful. At first, I thought he was just another one of those men who wanted to sleep with me for money. But then he told me he worked for an agency that arranged jobs abroad. He told me how much money I could earn working as a housemaid in another country for a few years. He said he’d take care of everything, if I just agreed. After successfully placing me, I would owe him a hundred thousand rupiah. But he said I’d be earning so much that I could pay it back within half a year. Everything I earned afterward, I could keep and send to my family.

I visited him the next day in his office and he arranged everything. In the end, he asked me if I spoke Arabic. Only a little, I said. Then he let me go.

Three months later, I arrived in the Kingdom. They picked me up from the airport and brought me to a villa on the outskirts of the capital. It was a palace. The family I worked for owned several construction companies and was very rich.

The father, Ibrahim bin Salman Al-Qahtani, was an old man. His wife, Noura bint Fahd Al-Harbi, was maybe forty, but very sick. They had three daughters. The eldest, Yasmin, is my age.

Shortly after I arrived, they took my passport away. Then they said they had paid my debt to the agency and that I now had to work to pay it off to them. They didn’t tell me how much or how long I had to work. I didn’t dare ask. I looked after the two younger daughters, cared for the mother, cooked, and cleaned. The worst of them was Yasmin. She often hit me, called me slave, and constantly threatened to burn my passport.

Then Noura died. She was already so weak, it was only a matter of time. She just didn’t wake up anymore. Yasmin accused me of killing her. She was also the one who convinced her father that I was to blame. I protested my innocence, swore it to them again and again, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. Yasmin grinned when the police took me away. Just before they took me, I fell to my knees in front of her. I sobbed that I hadn’t done anything to her. That I was sorry if I had made a mistake. But I swore by Allah that I hadn’t killed her. She just said I would now get what I deserved.

The trial dragged on for several days. My interpreter was a girl who spoke barely better Arabic than I did. One night, they woke me roughly and dragged me from my cell. They sat me at a table and ordered me to sign a document. It was a confession, I could make out that much. I swore to them I hadn’t done it. Then they beat me. I begged them, but they didn’t stop. Eventually a man came in with a case full of pliers, saws, and other terrible tools. I signed. Those tools scared me so much, I threw my life away.

The trial dragged on a little longer, then the verdict was announced. I was found guilty of murder. Death by the sword. Yasmin’s eyes lit up as the judge read out my death sentence. I said nothing. Shortly before the end of the trial, her father also died. So she became the representative of his family in the proceedings.

I wrote a petition for clemency, offering to pay the diyya, blood money. 400,000 riyals. I will never have that much money, I will have to work my whole life for it—but at least I will live.

Since she can only decide when she turns twenty-one whether she’ll accept the money, I have to wait for months for her birthday. And then she will decide whether to spare me or let my head roll. She knows I have no money. And even if I did, she wouldn’t care, she has so much more… But she knows I’m innocent. She can’t… she just can’t… She can’t deny mercy to someone who is innocent…

Days pass. Then suddenly, my cell door opens. Two guards enter. I know it's serious, because they don’t shout. They’re completely silent. A man in a white thawb enters with them. It’s the imam. He says it is time. His voice is calm, almost compassionate.

I ask if I may pray. He nods. I pray two rak’at, then they tie my hands behind my back and pin my hair into a bun. The imam finally washes my neck, then they lead me through the corridors to the prison yard. There they load me into a car. We drive for a few minutes, then arrive at Deera Square.

They pull me from the vehicle and lead me to the center of the square. It is cordoned off with a few ropes. Behind them, spectators have gathered, mostly dressed in white thobes. Many are silent, some murmur softly. Most stand in the shade of the buildings, others press closer to the barrier to get a better view.

As they lead me to the center of the square, a monotone voice blares through a loudspeaker, reading my name, my crime, and my sentence. I don’t listen. I only stare at her. Yasmin. She is waiting for me in the middle of the square, arms crossed. She wears a black robe and brown sandals, tapping impatiently on the ground. Like me, she wears no headscarf, letting her dark hair—hair I combed so often—fall freely down.

They lead me to the white square chalked on the ground—where I’m supposed to kneel. Just before we reach it, I notice the small drainage groove above the chalked square, leading into a dark grate. My knees buckle and I collapse. The two guards on either side drag me forward. Yasmin stares at me with her pitch-black eyes as I’m forced to my knees, right within the white lines.

I gasp for breath, then start stammering in my poor Arabic:

“Please… please… you know I didn’t do it… Allah is my witness…”

She looks down on me, a grin slowly spreading across her face.

“…now you finally get what you deserve, slave!”

“Take the money… I beg you… I can work. I can work my whole life for you… just let me live…”

Her grin grows wider. She’s enjoying it. She’s enjoying seeing me like this. The executioner steps behind me. I can’t see him, but I feel that he’s a big, strong man. He senses that she’s tormenting me and wants to finish it quickly.

“Yasmin bint Ibrahim Al-Qahtani, do you accept the blood money, or shall the sentence be carried out?”

With feigned nobility, she raises her eyebrows and says, “For what you did to my family, I want to see your head roll!”

I look up at her in horror. I cannot understand her cruelty.

“Allah will judge you…” I whisper, as tears of fear well in my eyes.

“And yet it is your head that rolls now…”

Then she nods to the executioner.

I immediately lower my gaze, stare at her feet, and fear that he will behead me at once.

Suddenly someone touches my hair. It’s one of the guards. She blindfolds me. Everything is black. A strong hand grips my neck and bends me slightly forward. I obey. Then I hear a scraping sound. The sword… he has drawn it.

I tremble blindly on my knees and whisper the Shahada. Again and again.

La ilaha illallah… La ilaha-

The words get stuck in my throat. Something ice cold touches my nape. Then it lifts again. The blindfold soaks up my tears. I can feel him raising the sword above my neck. I continue to whimper…

La ilaha illa-…

A terrible wet squelch sounds—brief and muffled.

I fly… but not all of me. Only my head…

It hits the ground with a dull thud. I feel myself rolling across the dusty tiles. Suddenly I come to a stop. My cheek lies in the dust, like my tongue. I want to pull it back in, but I can’t. My neck feels so strange… so empty… so wet…

***** 

The executioner struck with a short, practiced blow and hit Aminah with his saif at the top of her cervical spine. The blade, which he had sharpened that very morning with a whetstone, sliced cleanly through spine, windpipe, and esophagus. Aminah’s head fell from her neck immediately and rolled all the way to Yasmin’s feet, while her decapitated body spouted dark blood like a fountain and collapsed forward.

Yasmin’s gaze darted excitedly between the severed head and the beheaded body. She was amazed how far Aminah’s head had rolled but hadn’t moved a step, not even when it almost touched her feet.

A soft hissing came from the girl’s open neck, spraying her blood in strong jets into the dusty gutter. It slowly drained away, staining the pale stone dark red before finally seeping into the drain.

For a moment, everyone watched as the young body pressed more and more blood from its arteries, then a doctor stepped up to the headless corpse and felt the pulse at her bound wrists.

“She’s dead…” he said.

Yasmin still stood motionless, staring with her mouth open at the young head at her feet…