The Milk of Birds (26 page)

Dear Nawra,

You and Muhammad are alive and well! I am so happy. I handed your letter straight to Mom, and she read it out loud, and then I went outside and hollered, “Nawra made it!” All the birds took off to spread the news. Todd told me I was psycho, but he wanted to read your letter, so I let him. Then I called Parker, Chloe, and Florinda.

At Blessings this morning I had to wait all the way through Concerns for Joys, and when Jack called on me, I said, “Nawra had a baby boy who's the size of a guava.” People laughed and clapped. Since a bunch of once-a-monthers had missed my first message, Jack suggested I give a recap. He asked questions to help me along, so I told more or less the whole story, ending with the horrible rainy, smoky night and then your mom singing (someone started to cry, I swear) and why you picked the name Muhammad.

Jack said, “Muslims call Muhammad the messenger of God and so this baby is too, bringing us a message of forgiveness and hope.”

Maybe you can tell Muhammad that when he's bigger.

More later. I promise I'll mail this bundle soon. I want to get my one envelope's worth!

Dear Nawra,

Emily just called. I almost hung up, but I didn't because my happiness for you would have a hole in it if I didn't share it with Emily. She sends you her congratulations. That's the handy English word we pull out when someone's done a good job, but Emily and I agreed it doesn't seem big enough to describe your having this baby and loving him under such terrible circumstances.

I filled Emily in about my sick-at-heart day and how Todd walked in the door and sniffed the deliciousness of eggplant parmigiana and asked, “Am I in the right house?” Emily asked if we could trade moms; hers is thinking of moving to an ashram once Emily starts college.

She apologized for being so tough on me while I was adjusting to a new understanding of myself.

I said, “So you take back what you said about my being stupid and lazy—”

“I did not call you
stupid
,” Emily said.

“Not in so many words—”

“Never
stupid
,” Emily said.

“But
lazy
.”

“
Unwilling
to face up to reality, to what's required. Maybe not
unwilling
. Maybe
scared
.”

We were having our argument all over again.

As you once said, Nawra, I don't think I'm scared, but maybe I am.

Then I remembered something else you said, about listening to the person who gives you advice that makes you cry, not laugh.

“Okay, I'll look up my own words in the dictionary from now on,” I said.

“You can always ask me for big-picture help,” Emily said. “It's just I want to be doing stuff
with
you, not
for
you.”

I have more to tell you and will write again soon!

O
CTOBER
2008

Not long after dark, we hear voices. “Men beat us and stole our wood,” a woman says.

I hand Muhammad to my mother and hurry from the shelter. People have gathered, bumping into one another in the dark, for there is no moon.

The woman speaks again. “Stole our wood,” she says.

Her voice sounds loud and hollow. “All for sticks,” she says. “They did not have to beat us; we offered them our wood. We are intact, thanks be to God.”

“How far from the camp are these bandits?” someone asks.

“Far,” she says. “We lost our way. You can imagine. All that way and they stole our wood.”

I study the outlines near the voice. At last I see the tall Adeeba beside Little Zeinab.

I cry their names. Thanks be to God. I round them in my arms, my worries tumbling over my relief. “Come,” I say. “Come eat dinner. Tell your story.”

As we move away, the woman is still talking. “They beat us and stole our wood.”

“You are lucky,” a man says.

Although our fire has almost died, I see all in an instant. The heart sees before the eyes. Zeinab's butterflies are gone.

Others have gathered nearby, spreading the woman's loud words, “beaten but intact.”

“Zeinab!” Hassan shouts. He hugs her without thinking. The touch brings her tears.

“I am sorry,” Hassan says. “Where were you beaten?”

“Everywhere,” Adeeba says.

“I will bring Uncle,” Hassan says.

Adeeba and Zeinab stand as if they have lost their way.

“We have your dinner,” I say.

They stand until Zeinab's uncle comes. “Thanks be to God,” he says.

“Let the child sleep here tonight,” my mother says. “We will care for her.”

The uncle leaves. Hassan, too, has disappeared.

They sit by the embers. I wet a cloth to wash their faces. Zeinab sits close to Adeeba, as if she wishes to crawl into her skin. Neither reaches for the baby.

“Eat,” my mother says.

They drink much water but pick at their food.

“We are just so tired,” Adeeba says.

I wish to leave no stone unturned, but instead I pass the cup of water. I do not ask about Zeinab's butterflies.

Soon Hassan leads Khalid to our shelter.

“Are you well, Adeeba?” Khalid asks in the dark. “And Zeinuba?”

“Thanks be to God, whatever our condition,” she says.

“You two gave us a scare.”

“Not like the one the militia gave us,” Adeeba says.

We are quiet for a moment. K. C. asked me once about life in
Umm Jamila, and I told her what was there. But just as important was what was not there, the fear these years have brought.

“We are alive, thanks be to God,” Adeeba says, “although their slaps have left us uglier than monkeys.”

“That I cannot believe,” says Khalid.

His tone is flat, but I feel the ardor beneath his words, like the bump of a pea beneath its pod.

“Let us find a nurse,” he says.

“We know they prefer the day, like the black flies that bite chickens,” Adeeba says. “How goes the platform?”

For a moment he talks of the spider and the progress of his team. Soon Khalid bids us good night.

“You must rest tomorrow,” he counsels Adeeba.

“I have class,” she says.

“Si-Ahmad came looking for you,” I tell her.

“To dismiss me?”

“He was concerned,” I say.

Hassan returns to his uncle, but Zeinab stays with us. We visit the latrines, easy to find even in the dark because of the stink. Then we lie down.

Dear Nawra,

Emily googled some baby proverbs, and we found one for you by Carl Sandburg, who got a lot of congratulations for his poetry. He said, “A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.”

We've been brainstorming all this stuff we could do with each other, like dressing up as Green Eggs (Emily) and Ham (me) for Halloween, which is this holiday where everybody puts on costumes and pretends to be someone else while they eat a bucket of candy. Then we came up with a truly awesome idea: We're going to start a Darfur club at school! We're still working out the details, but the big things are we'll educate people and raise money to buy donkeys and fuel-efficient stoves. At least then I'll feel like I'm doing more than sending you ballpoint pens and stickers.

Dear Nawra,

I wish I could send you a donkey. Parker has a laptop, so one day we were splitting a blueberry muffin at this coffee place with wi-fi and just for fun looked up donkeys at a site called FreeHorseAds.com. They're expensive! The cheapest was two hundred and fifty dollars, but another was two thousand dollars. The one I liked was named Gracie and came with a little black colt, for your baby, but together they cost seven hundred and fifty dollars. I'm guessing your dad lost his herd, but we'd like to set you back up in the animal business. Mom says that's not such a crazy idea because a man called Muhammad Yunus—another good Muhammad—started giving small loans to poor women, who turned out to be great at business. They'd buy chickens and sell the eggs, and some even bought cell phones, and then their neighbors paid them to make calls. How about that, Nawra? Then I could call you. Of course I'd have to quit school first and get a job to buy my own phone.

“Now everyone thinks the answer to world poverty is microfinance,” Mom said.

“You don't?” I asked.

“I don't think there's ever one answer to anything complicated,” she said.

I should write that on a test sometime. “How about raising my allowance?” I asked. “I'm a poor woman.”

Mom scowled.

“Or giving me a smartphone?”

She scowled deeper.

“I know, I know,” I said. “I'm lucky. I'm grateful—really I am.”

Then Mom did a smowl, which is a scowl that turns into a smile that turns back into a scowl because she suddenly suspected I've been eavesdropping on her griping about her self-centered children. Which is why I think she signed me up with Save the Girls, so I could be grateful I'm not in your situation. It's worked. Even though high school is just killing me, I look at Mr. Thrasher, who's even worse than Mr. Hathaway, and think,
At least he's not Janjaweed
.

My head's about to fall onto my keyboard. It's almost one a.m. Gotta finish this later.

O
CTOBER
2008

Outside, snores and cries bump heads between shelters. From the breaths, I can tell my mother sleeps first, then Zeinab. Muhammad suckles, then his lips fall away. But Adeeba is awake. I sense her wakefulness in the dark.

Beneath silence lie great disasters.

“They hurt you,” I whisper.

She begins to cry. I roll away from Muhammad and hold her in my arms. She cries for a long time.

Adeeba sleeps some, then wakes, but I am there, my arms around her. “You can tell me,” I whisper. “There are no secrets from God and your friend.”

“It took us so long to find wood,” she whispers, “that when we did, we clapped and carried on like neighbors who had known one another a lifetime.”

They were five returning, Zeinab and Adeeba, plus two mothers and one daughter, older than Zeinab. The younger mother had left her three children in the camp. She talked about the mats she would weave with the long grasses she was carrying with her wood. People buy them to sit and sleep upon, and with the coins she buys beans to fill her children's bellies.

The girl pointed in the distance. “Is that a car?” she asked. “I
would like to ride back to camp. I have never ridden on the soft seats of a car.”

“Hush,” her mother said.

They quickened their pace, and tears ran down Zeinab's face. She did not think of soft seats when she saw a car.

It was an open car, so they could see it held four men. The women kept walking as if it were not there, but it pulled across their path. For a moment they could not see the car because of the dust. Three men stepped out. Two wore uniforms, but with no pride. One had a long gun, and he knocked the sticks and grass from the women's heads with the tip. Zeinab sobbed, and he slid the tip of the gun down her cheek and under her chin, lifting it up.