The Milk of Birds (10 page)

“He does not give up!” she said one night. She will not admit it, but she has come to care for his learning. The student makes the teacher.

Zeinab and I have sticks too. But we are slower than Hassan.

Hassan and Zeinab want to sleep in our shelter, but I send them back to their uncle. “Whoever lives to know his father knows the wisdom of his grandfather. Go sleep beside your uncle. Adeeba and I are mud stuck on the feet,” I remind them, “but we will not become shoes. Each relative to his relative.”

Yet I am not sure I believe these sayings anymore.
Whoever has a back will not be kicked in his stomach.
The ax has fallen on many parents, and many backs have been broken. Often the children have no one at all.

In the dark, I am kicked in the stomach.

In the dark, I hear my father say it does not matter, for I am spoiled meat.

As my mother's silence pounds, I wonder how we will ever return to Umm Jamila.

In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate

30 July 2008

Dear K. C.,

Peace be upon you. How are you? Are you strong? And your mother? We say: He who has a mother around does not worry. And your father's family? How is Emily? A friend is God's gift.

And how are you, my sister? We ask because that is politeness, and the first answer is always, “Thanks, God, whatever our condition.” But sometimes people will answer with a smile or with a sigh, and if you ask again, you will hear a story. I am eager to hear your stories, K. C.

I am praying for your success in school. A stumble improves the pace, we say, for after a misstep a horse chooses its way more carefully. You will think me silly, but I am talking to your picture. Here we do not speak much of beauty because such talk can attract the evil eye. But I will say that where you see weakness and condemn it, I see a lion beneath your clothes.

And how is your health? I do not think sickness comes to a great country like America, but we are human beings, and all power and strength belong to God. Here the
khawaja
blame bugs. They say that if we put a drop of water under a special
glass, we will see bugs swimming. I am learning this from Adeeba, who has a job now as a teacher of women and young children in the camp.

Sometimes Adeeba gets short of temper with her students. It is true—write! What does she know? the women say. They forget that when you point one finger at another person, four others are pointing back in your direction.

Adeeba learned in school, from books of science and history. That is not the way to take camels to the water pool, I tell her. The only book most women believe is the Qur'an even though they cannot read it. The wisdom they trust is from their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers. I am so glad that the sayings please you, K. C. Adeeba's students do not believe tiny bugs can make a great illness, so she must say, A little shrub may grow into a tree. When these women complain they can do nothing, she must answer, You think you are too small to make a difference? Try sleeping in a closed hut with a mosquito.

Adeeba does not like me to tell her what to do. I say, Listen to the one whose advice makes you cry, not to the one whose advice makes you laugh.

How is your grandmother, K. C.? God spare her from the wet winds. With your grandfather gone, God's mercy upon him, it must be difficult if your mother's home village is many kilometers away from Richmond. My father did not like my mother to travel to visit her parents. After my grandfather died, he persuaded my mother's mother to come to us. My grandmother loved cloth, and my father bought her the brightest cotton and even silk.

Bribing became a game between them. After a few weeks,
my grandmother said, My daughter's husband, my back is sore. Let my daughter accompany me home so that she can fetch my water and my wood. Your children will take care of you now, as they will when you are old like me.

Then my father knew she wanted another present.

From my grandmothers, I learned many sayings and when to use them. Although my mother's mother loved children, she had no patience for those who did not listen to their elders. Do not abandon your old belongings, she always told us. Even if it is only firewood, use it to keep warm.

Adeeba is shaking her head.

You know what my grandmother would say about such a disrespectful girl? Cows are born with ears; it is later they grow horns.

But between those horns Adeeba has a mind, thanks be to God. Like her father. I have not met him, but we say, The son of a duck is a floater.

Adeeba says I do not need to tell you all this, but here, in this letter, I am the boss. Her father is in jail, but he has been there before and come home, beaten, yes, but alive. Any day he may be released,
inshallah
, and then he will find Adeeba here. If God brings your murderer, he will bring your defender.

I wish and you wish, but God does his will, Adeeba says.

Can you believe this girl, K. C.? She hides her sayings like a sword beneath her skirt.

She says, I had a village grandmother too. My mother did not listen to her, my father only pretended to listen to her, but I had no choice!

Like you, K. C., I receive papers in two languages. Adeeba
reads your letter aloud, many times, and what I do not understand, she makes Zaghawa. Then she puts the Arabic beside the English and tries to match the words. In this she reminds me of my sister Saha, who rubbed her thumb over a new stone clasped within her palm all day and then placed it carefully among her others at night, the speckled side by side with the speckled, the streaked by the streaked.

With my permission, Adeeba carries your letter. Whenever she sees a
khawaja
between tasks, she pulls it out, puts her finger under one of your difficult words, and says it aloud. Often the
khawaja
do not understand, but they always stop and look where she is pointing on the page. Then they smile and say the word, and Adeeba repeats it, and they do this several times, with much laughter.

How do I know? God is the great eye, but I am the little one.

Saida Julie permitted her to keep a pen, which Adeeba guards so tightly I call it Little Sister. Now she and Little Sister scour the camp for empty paper. Even when paper has no place left for words, the
khawaja
rip it up to take with them to the latrines. But when Adeeba finds a bit too small for the
khawaja
to use, she brings it back and writes down her word in English, then in Arabic for the sound, then in Arabic for the meaning. She is making a dictionary.

This evening we will read your letter again and again, and then Adeeba will fly like a bee from word to word.

Professor Adeeba has evening students as well. I am one, with two children from our section, Zeinab and Hassan. When Hassan has written his word many times on the ground, Adeeba permits him to ink the letters on paper. Then he passes
Little Sister to Zeinab, who makes a tiny picture in place of other words her brother does not know yet.

Since your letter, K. C., I look for everyone's gift, and for Zeinab it is drawing.

For Adeeba it is ordering people around. We say, He who taught me one letter, I became his slave.

But I admit I am grateful for the company. Where there was only my mother's silence, we have now the scratch of sticks on the ground and the pen on paper and the recitation of the dressed-up words we are learning.

More people arrive at this camp every day, K. C. Many arrive with nothing, as we did, and the
khawaja
give them soap, a cookpot, a plastic mat. Some bring their cows and donkeys, but those die quickly, for people have no strength left to look for grass.

Adeeba thinks I care more about donkeys than people. That is not true. We live in a world created by people, not animals. Then I am glad to think of the place Richmond and K. C., who is a dark-eyed girl like me. When I close my eyes, I see two kites dancing across the sky on the breeze.

Your sister, Nawra

(This is my mark that goes in the register.)

J
ULY
2008

“Do not deceive your mother.” Mom looks up, her brown eyes spooky huge behind her Walmart reading glasses. “Anything you want to tell me?” she says.

“I love you.” That makes her smile. “I guess my empty envelopes shocked Nawra,” I say.

“They shocked me,” she says. “Sort of.”

We laugh. Thank God she never caught a whiff of Jimmy Ladd. “Tell me when I ask too much of you,” she says.

“Summer school is too much.”

She pats her lap, and I lean across the sofa and lay my head there. She strokes my hair slowly, pushing it back from my forehead and curling it behind my ear. When I do that to Purrfect, it sounds like I have a cement mixer in my lap. I wish I could purr.

Finally Mom says, “I don't care a whit about your grades. Or school. Lots of education happens outside of school. But school is a means to an end. You graduate from high school, from college, you have a lot more choices. Diplomas are just pieces of paper, but they can help you be the person you want to be.”

I purr silently. “Are you the person you want to be?”

Mom doesn't say anything for a bit.

“I always wanted to be a mom, and I got two great kids,” she says. “But work . . . I guess I thought I'd be doing something . . . bigger.”

“You help people get jobs,” I say.

“Temp jobs,” she says.

“Jobs are pretty important,” I say.

“They are,” Mom says. “Especially these days. Paychecks are important.”

“If you could have any job, what would it be?”

Mom keeps stroking my hair. She half laughs and says, “Schoolmarm.”

“You'd make a great teacher.”

“Think so?” She sounds wistful.

Better than picky Mr. Hathaway.
The right way is the Hathaway,
he always says.

“Just do it, Mom.”

“I'm not certified,” she says. She stands up. “The water must be boiling by now. Why don't you write Nawra while I cook supper?”

“Tomorrow.”

“We're going into D.C., remember? And then you're at your dad's.”

“I'll do it in the morning.”

“We're getting up early. If you write Nawra tonight—”

“Could I please have one night without homework? Just one night with no nagging. Please. One night.”

Silence. Finally Mom says, “Okay,” but it's all steeped with disappointment as usual. “Penne or spaghetti?”

“Spaghetti,” I say, flumping down on the sofa cushion. It's still warm from Mom's butt. Writing! It just never ends.

J
ULY
2008

A girl screams.

•   •   •

I remember Meriem screaming and kicking and slapping. My mother called me in because she and my grandmother and Kareema could not pin my sister's thighs and arms and soothe her too. My mother had sent Saha to our neighbor, but I was pleased that my mother had chosen me to stay.

“She must be still,” my mother said. Meriem was turning her face from side to side, so I held it between my hands and fixed her eyes on mine. That was how I calmed a frantic animal in the herd, hands on the body, my voice low and steady.

“She will hurt me,” Meriem wailed.

“The cut will hurt,” I said, “but soon it will be over, and the midwife will stitch you closed. Then you will be a girl with honor, and all the mothers with sons will keep their eyes on you.” I described the fine camels that families would offer for her dowry. For a moment Meriem laughed beneath her tears.

•   •   •

The girl screams again. I doubt my mother and Adeeba sleep. Yet we lie silent in the dark.

I do not remember screaming at my circumcision. I remember watching Umm Ali unroll her cloth bundle of tools, a knife
and scissors and thick pieces of brown glass. I wondered what had been in that brown bottle, if she had drunk it or poured the liquid on the ground before smashing the bottle on a rock.