There is Only One Sin

“There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. Do you understand that? When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. Do you see?”

This is one of many lessons learned by the protagonist in Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner. My mind often wonders back to that book, and to this quote in particular. I question the validity of this assertion, of boiling the entire world’s injustice down to one fundamental wrong. And, most days, I find reason to agree.

Sister Martha came to my door today and told me that a lady would come by the monastery looking for Layla, one of the girls who lives here. She carefully explained that I should tell the woman that Layla was in the church in Jerusalem and wouldn’t be back for days. In essence, a nun asked me to lie. My surprise must have been transparent, because she told me that I would understand her request when I understood the girl’s life outside the monastery walls. Layla, a pretty little girl who makes good grades and loves to draw, seems like most other eight year olds. Now that I know what her life has been like, I marvel at her normalcy. She is smiling every time I see her. I would never have guessed that her childhood has been stolen from her.

Since she was an infant, Layla has endured physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her father. She has suffered burns from being put into a hot oven, a broken nose courtesy of her father’s angry fist, and routine beatings that left her small body covered with bruises. Relief should have come when the man abandoned his family for another woman, who bore him the son he wanted Layla to be. But things just got worse. Her mother is a prostitute, but her graver fault is cowardice. Her cowardice and blind familial loyalty have stolen her daughter’s innocence. The woman’s brother first sexually abused Layla when she was six. The mother refused to believe the child’s accusations, even though medical exams and her behavior were clear indicators of abuse. After essentially paying the father to sign over his custodial rights, Sister Martha took Layla away for treatment for several months and the girl finally achieved a sense of security and normalcy.

Unfortunately, she is still legally bound to the mother, who often sends her to her uncle’s house while she ‘works.’ Of course, these visits launch the girl into psychological and physical seclusion yet again. Thus, I have joined the nuns in a game of hiding and lying. As far as the child’s family is concerned, school never ends. And when it does, Layla miraculously ends up in Russia for the summer before anyone has time to object (this is actually legal, thanks to the father’s avarice and/or lack of concern). The mother’s protests are usually silenced with a negligible amount of money. I suppose lying and paying people off are sins, things one would least expect from nuns. Yet, it is as Sister Martha says, every lie she tells she does so with a clear conscious, knowing that she is giving a young girl back a portion of what has been taken from her.