The Milk of Birds (15 page)

“I held them,” Adeeba says, “so my fingers could touch the pages hers had touched. I did not read them. I read my father's books. They spoke of the birth of empires, not babies.”

So the teacher becomes my pupil.

“When my time comes, open this kit,” I say, repeating what the
khawaja
have told us.

“Not now,” Adeeba says. “We must study it through the plastic so the bugs do not enter.”

“Open it carefully when the time comes,” I say. “You can save the plastic to hold your dictionary.”

“I will not be thinking of my dictionary,” Adeeba says.

“You are always thinking of your dictionary,” I say. “You are like Khalid and his water tank.”

She laughs. Then she says, “I do not know many English words about birth. If you tell K. C. about the child you are carrying, perhaps she will give us some.”

I put my hand on my belly. My baby does not kick anymore. Perhaps he is dying. Perhaps we will die together. Perhaps I should tell K. C. so that my death does not shock her. I have told her of the children seeking shelter from the wind next to my big belly, but Adeeba says she does not know.

“If I die, you must write the letter,” I say. “Thank K. C. for her kindness.”

“You will not die,” Adeeba says.

“Every soul will have a taste of death,” I say.

“You will not die now if I can help it,” she says. She shakes the plastic kit.

I like what it contains: soap, a plastic sheet, demuria cloth, string, and a razor blade. Only the plastic gloves I have not seen anywhere else but among the
khawaja.

“String?” says Adeeba.

“To tie the cord,” I say.

“And the razor blade?” Adeeba asks.

Surely she has seen a birth! But she has not, nor visited one who has just delivered. That is the loss of a girl who grows up without a mother.

I explain that she must cut a way through the scars for the baby.

Adeeba whispers, “I have heard, but I have not seen. I was not circumcised.”

I turn to my mother. Has she heard? Her back does not speak.

“My parents did not believe in it,” Adeeba says.

“Your mother?” I ask.

“Just the smallest cut, to satisfy her parents' people,” she says.

I look at my friend. She is not unclean. She is not immodest. Forward, yes, although I lay that at the feet of her father. It is the mothers who seal us, who tell us what is the lot of women.

“Circumcision is just a custom, Nawra,” Adeeba says. “My mother said it did not make sense, with what she learned in medical school, although other doctors did not think as she did.”

“She told you this?” I ask.

“My father,” Adeeba says. “He was shy to talk of such things, but he wanted to explain why he did not leave me alone with his mother in the village. Given the chance, my grandmother would have circumcised me herself.”

“Who will marry you?” I ask without thinking.

I am sorry before my lips even stop moving. There is safety in slowness and regret in haste.

Adeeba rises to her feet, her head almost touching the plastic, all that stands between us and the rain knocking above like an unwelcome guest. Even rain has a different character now, harsh and insisting. Perhaps it misses our crops. It is lost and searching for its purpose. Rain felt different under the thick thatch roof of our house in Umm Jamila. It drummed gently as we danced.

“Perhaps I will not marry,” Adeeba says.

Just then a shout moves through our section. “A car!”

“The
saidas
,” I say. Adeeba and I duck outside our shelter. I wave to Hassan and Zeinab, who join us as we move toward the meeting place.

This month their car has tires as tall as Hassan. All gather round to hear of their travels.

“It is a mighty vehicle,” says Saida Noor, “but in the contest the
wadi
often wins. The
wadi
has mud on its side. One day our tires sank so deep the car could not move, and we had to climb on the roof as the waters rose and lapped at the windows.

“There is no travel without wounds,” says Saida Noor.

“Next time, we are camping on the bank,” Saida Julie says. They laugh like one who has seen death pass the house and keep on going.

A
UGUST
2008

“Bad idea,” I tell Mom.

“Why?”

“Because Parker's not my type.”

“Why?” She reminds me of Wally in obnoxious little kid mode. “Why is grass green?” “Because of a chemical.” “What makes it green?” “The sun.” “Why?” “Because red would make everyone nervous.” “Why?” “Because we'd think the whole world was on fire, and whenever you got grass stains on your pants, your mother would think your knees were bleeding again. How about showing me your scar?”

Wally can drive me crazy. So can my mother.

Mom's waiting for me to say that Parker's not my type because he's smart, and then she'll say, “You're smart too. You just need to apply yourself.” But I don't say that because smart people—certain smart people—are my type. I like hanging around with Emily and Chloe. They have much more interesting things to say than the girls who spend all their time cutting people down on Facebook. Some of my classmates are so obsessed with their boobs they pay no attention to their carbon footprints. Hello, ladies—that's the measurement you should be worried about! Global warming is killing all the polar bears and causing droughts in Sudan.

I wish Nawra's letter would come.

I wish my dad had never met Sharon.

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

“All right, you can hire Parker,” I tell Mom. “But if I don't like him,” I say, drawing my finger across my neck, “off with his head.”

In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate

28 August 2008

Dear K. C.,

Peace be upon you. How are you? Are you strong? And your health? I am glad to hear of your happiness. We have a saying: The poor man eats with his eyes. I feast with my ears when Adeeba reads your letters.

We carry them everywhere now because the rains are heavy. The latrines have flooded, and muddy streams twist through the camp, even under the sleeping mats. At the clinic Hassan found us a discarded plastic, so we keep your letters there, with the dictionaries, under our
tobes
.

How is your mother? She reminds me of Saida Julie, how she calls me a survivor as if there is honor in the word. There are many women here who feel shame to be alive. That is why I want my mother to hear your letters too. My mother does not say anything, but I hope that she is listening.

How is your brother? Even in America then, the son is the crescent of the house. In his ablutions Abdullah was extravagant with our water too.

You just washed for prayer, Meriem used to complain, for she did not like to walk to the well.

But my mother told her to be grateful for a brother as pure as Abdullah, who would bring us all closer to God.

We say, Parents cover forty-four mistakes for their children. When baby Ishmael pulled up one of my mother's bean plants, she laughed. When she replanted it, he did it again. As he shook the stem, soil fell from the roots, and he laughed. Then my mother handed Ishmael to me as if I did not have goats to milk.

Thanks to God, your brother does not cut himself like the brother of your friend. In Umm Jamila, men did not like the sight of their own blood spilled but went running to their wives and mothers. But it is true that the
zar
cause strange behavior.

Adeeba is shaking her head because she does not believe in spirits. But I have seen the misery they inflict unless we soothe them.

Next to one of my uncles lived an old woman wise in the ways of
zar
, and the unfortunate came to her, even from other villages. We called her Shaykha. She healed many with her ceremonies.

Such a face Adeeba makes. Next she will tell me that the
sharia
forbids such things! That is what some of the men said. I think that was because a woman is supposed to have broken wings, but Shaykha was free as a starling.

They asked Abdullah for a verse of Qur'an. If God touches you with affliction, my brother said, none can remove it but he. But my father made Abdullah look again and even search the hadith because he liked Shaykha, who sent families to us when they needed a sheep to sacrifice.

Shaykha cured my cousin, whose mother died soon after her marriage. Because of the
zar
, my cousin could not bring
children, and her mother-in-law was telling the son to divorce. The girl's aunts brought her to Shaykha, and they danced and shed many tears. Within a year the girl gave birth to a son.

The benefit is in the belief.

And how is your father? Well,
inshallah
, and his second wife. You have not yet told me about the rest of your people. Is it also true in the United States, K. C., that the
khal
[translator's note: mother's brother] advises his nieces and nephews like a second father? It was Khalee Amin who first assured my father that I could manage the herd with Muhammad, and Khalee Ahmad who gave me a water bag of the softest leather. Relatives are a dense forest, and among them we find shelter.

Even as Adeeba writes, drops follow her pen. Rain that we once welcomed has now become our enemy. It raises the worms that disturb the children's sleep. For all the water that falls from the sky, we do not have enough to drink, and some women walk many kilometers to the
wadi
to fill their cans. Two boys drowned there last week. The
khawaja
counsel new mothers to give babies nothing but milk from their breasts, for wells have collapsed and the floodwaters carry many bugs. Also we must keep the mosquitoes from our skin.

Engineers are trying to improve how the drinking water moves through the camp. Now pumps pull water out of the ground and push it through many kilometers of pipes to many tap stands. But sometimes the fuel for the pumps does not arrive, or not enough arrives, for fuel is expensive even for the
khawaja
, so the pumps work just a few hours a day. So the engineers are building a platform, very high, for a water tank to sit upon.

Hassan calls this tank the spider. One of the engineers drew a picture for him. To this tank engineers will attach many pipes. The pumps will pull the water up and then quit, and from the tank the water will flow down the spider's legs to the tap stands, like streams from a mountaintop.

Who is this engineer who can build tanks and draw with a stick in the mud? His name is Khalid. Such a strong young man, K. C., with a mind open to the world and patience with Hassan's many questions. He is just twenty-one and almost finished at the university. The students come here to help their countrymen during a break in their studies. He knows English as well as engineering. When Adeeba cannot find
khawaja
to translate words for her dictionary, she looks for Khalid spraying the latrines or hammering nails. And I will say these are the questions this young man looks forward to the most.

But do not get the wrong idea, K. C. Khalid already has a wife!

Adeeba says my jokes are heavy as a rug left in the rain, and I must explain. Here in the camp, engineers ride bikes, for they cover many kilometers back and forth between the latrines and pumps and tap stands. Some of the
khawaja
brought fancy bikes with many chains but cursed them because they do not work in the sand. So they copy the Sudanese and buy a Phoenix, black and plain with tires as wide as my arm. This has driven the price even higher. Khalid calls his Phoenix his wife because it took all his money to pay her dowry!

Hassan begs to ride on the handlebars. The children run from their shelters to chase them.

Adeeba tells me I talk of everyone but myself. Is this letter
not long enough? I talk too much already. With the herd I spent many days without words. A doer is never a great talker.

Adeeba says, You are not like Halima, a leather bag with a little water that shakes frequently!

I tell her shush.

Words have a greater power than guns, Adeeba says, when people are not afraid to speak the truth.

I did not think I was afraid, K. C., but perhaps I am.

How is Mrs. Clay? Has she delivered her girl? Adeeba is very pleased to learn the word for the picture of the baby inside. Saida Julie told her it means the writing of sound. I do not understand how what we can hear becomes what we can see, and yet that is the way of writing, too.

I have a baby in my belly, K. C., but I do not want a picture.

I am not afraid of birth, for I have seen it many times. Adeeba will be my midwife. She tells me she cannot do this, but I remind her that an honorable person's promise is a debt. She will not be alone, for all power and strength belong to God.

I will be the midwife too, for nothing scratches your skin like your own fingernail. I have learned from my animals. When the pains come, animals do not lie down but walk.