The Milk of Birds (27 page)

“Quiet,” he said.

Zeinab swallowed her tears. Then he noticed her butterflies. He yanked them from her hair. “My daughter will like these,” he said.

“In the name of your daughter, leave us be,” Adeeba said.

“Definitely a rebel,” Long Gun said to his companions. He pushed the gun hard against the softness of Adeeba's breast, and one of the women cried out, “No.”

“We want a truck,” Long Gun said. “Instead we find you.”

Adeeba could feel death's breath, but she looked him in the eyes. “That which is lost in the desert's sands will not be lost on the scales on Judgment Day,” she said.

Long Gun took one step back, and for a moment Adeeba thought she had won the contest with the help of God.

Young Uniform said, “That one is not a woman but a man.”

Long Gun did not like it. As my brother Abdullah said,
Fear God, and fear those who do not fear God.

“I will show you these are women,” Long Gun said. With his gun he rammed Adeeba, and when she fell upon her back, he grabbed the leather water bag and violated her honor. He ripped the earrings from the younger mother. The men had their way with all and flung the women's
tobes
to the wind.

Until the men drove off, the women waited as they had been left.

The mothers stood up first, and the one said to her daughter, “Squat, so the seed runs out.” All five squatted naked in the sand and urinated. They chased their
tobes
. The young mother tied her torn earlobes together with grass.

“Leave the sticks and grass,” the mother of the daughter said. “We will say we were beaten and robbed.”

Adeeba did not like this, but she could feel the force of the mother who wanted her daughter to marry well.
A dishonorable thing is denied,
my grandmother said, God's mercy upon her.

Two hours they walked in silence. Adeeba held Zeinab's hand. When they neared the camp, they sat and waited until the sun had set.

“We were beaten and robbed,” the mother said again. “We are intact.”

They returned in the dark, to keep their faces hidden.

In the night, Zeinab cries out, so Adeeba draws her close. Except to nurse Muhammad, I hold Adeeba until the sun rises. I can feel Muhammad against my back and my breasts against Adeeba and my hand reaching Zeinab on her other side.

God has not been worshipped with anything better than comforting people.

Dear Nawra,

The weirdest thing: Just before dinner the phone rang—not Emily, but a man asking for Susan.

State police?
Mom mouthed, because they're always dialing us for dollars, but I shook my head. Mom had just put a roast chicken on the table, so Todd and I sat down salivating and finally picked up our forks and started banging them on the table. Mom hurried into the kitchen, still talking on the phone. She said, “The inmates are about to riot unless I dish up dinner.”

Mom put the phone back and returned to the table with a funny little swish in her step. Todd and I looked at each other. “Who was that?” I asked.

“Steven,” she said. “From church.” Her smile popped on like a floodlight.

“The gum-wrapper guy,” I said. Todd and I looked at each other and then stared at Mom, but she pretended not to notice as she served chicken and mashed potatoes and peas and sent me to the fridge for butter.

“And . . . ?” I prompted when I sat down.

“And what?” she said. We prodded her for the full story. This Steven, otter guy, is fifty-three, divorced, a planner for the county. God, if he marries Mom, we'll get nothing but calendars
for Christmas. I was right about the kids, a girl and a boy, nine and seven. Like Mom, Steven's got 85 percent custody. His ex-wife travels a lot on business.

Todd groaned. “So now I'm the only one in this family without a love life?”

“Love life?” Mom and I said at the exact same moment, so I said, “Jinx,” which is just a silly superstition.

“I can't speak for K. C.,” Mom said, “but I can always use a friend. Friends are important, don't you agree?”

I do, Nawra. I don't believe in angels, but I do believe in friends.

Love, K. C.

O
CTOBER
2008

As the camp stirs, Adeeba whispers that she will go to the clinic and bring Zeinab with her. All five from the gathering party can go together. They will show their bruises, and the nurse will write a report. Perhaps one of the
khawaja
can drive them into town, to the police station. They will report the crime. The police will track down the men and arrest them. She will stand in court and tell the judge what the men have done.

I do not like this plan.
Keep talk of your own relatives behind closed doors,
my grandmother used to say, God's mercy upon her. But Adeeba grew up far from the villages. Her father became her mother and filled her head with talk of justice. That is why many in the camp call her a strange girl. Adeeba knows this. And she knows that I am proud to call her my friend, although I do not always understand her.

I remind Adeeba of Ida, in our own section. Ida is like me, with a baby and no husband. The police in her city said no woman becomes pregnant without desire, and they threatened to charge her with fornication if she did not pay a fine.

“We have four witnesses—five, although Zeinab is too young to testify,” Adeeba says.

“Leave these men to God,” I say. “A crime is a dog that follows its owner.”

“Someone must say, ‘That dog bit me,' ” Adeeba says. “These men will only do worse. Look at all the women in this camp. Wrongdoers have burned our homes and crippled us with shame. We must speak against them. We must say the truth.”

“Truth is bitter,” I say.

•   •   •

We wait for daylight. When Adeeba stands, the aches stand with her. She speaks through cracked and swollen lips.

“We are going to the clinic,” I say to my mother. I tie Muhammad to my body and walk with Adeeba and Zeinab to look for their companions of the day before.

The mother with the daughter shoos us away. “We have no need of the clinic,” she says. “You think this is the first time a woman has been beaten? I tell you my husband did worse. Once he broke a pot on my head. Ha, ha, ha.”

“No wonder she is crazy,” Adeeba whispers as we leave. Zeinab smiles, and I am glad and squeeze her fingers, for she has spoken not a word since her return to camp. The other mother lies on her back upon her woven mat, even as her children scream and play nearby. A fly walks where her torn ear has bled across her neck, and I shiver, for I saw such a body once on the sand, only dead, with the woman's children climbing over it as a game.

The woman stirs, and the fly takes off.

“Leave her be,” a neighbor says. “The baby cried much of the night, and her husband goes early to work on the kilns.”

Next, we cross to the shelters of the school. Si-Ahmad looks at Adeeba's face and clucks his tongue. “Thanks to God, you are well,” he says. “You must see the nurse. No teaching today!”

Adeeba starts to speak, but he sends her on her way. “Go before the line gets too long!”

She says to me, “He did not ask what happened.”

“He does not want to know,” I say.

She is deep in her silence as we walk to the clinic. Perhaps I knew this even before she did, that it is one thing to speak the truth and another to get people to listen.

The line has already formed at the clinic. One day I will describe the changes for K. C. When we arrived at this camp, there was no clinic. Then came a chair, and a shelter. Now there is even a special place for the very sick, although many times the workers there send people back to the line.

We stand to advance and sit to wait, a line of people rising and falling. At the table sits a clerk. Usually it is a woman, but this day it is a man. Still the question is the same: “What is your complaint?”

“Rape,” Adeeba says softly.

The man frowns as if Adeeba has stepped on his foot. I do not know whether to clap my hands or hide my face. We do not speak of such things. But as we say, A monkey has a neck; why tie it by its waist?

“The little girl?”

“Both of us,” Adeeba says.

“And you?” he asks me.

I shake my head.

He writes a few words on a piece of paper and sends us inside, to one of the rooms with walls of straw. There is a table but no chairs.

The nurse comes in with two
khawaja
, a man and a woman,
and a young Sudanese man a few years older than Khalid. He explains that the three of them have come from the sky, for the roads are too dangerous.

“We know of dangerous roads,” says Adeeba.

The
khawaja
man leaves, and the woman asks if she may stay. She says she is a doctor and is writing a report about the violence against women in Darfur. She apologizes that she needs a translator. She says nice things about the young Sudanese, who looks down as she makes him repeat them, so we know he comes from good people. He turns his back to us and faces the wall.

“I am the doctor's ears,” he says. “What you say is between you and her and not a tale for me to tell.”

The doctor says that she is from Australia and the man is from France and they work with a group called Healers of All Nations.

I hold Zeinab while Adeeba goes first. The nurse is quick with her exams. The doctor takes notes, but she does not say anything until all is finished. She asks Adeeba what happened.

Zeinab listens, and I stroke her hair.

I am glad Adeeba's father is not here. But perhaps he would have walked with us to this clinic and demanded justice. I have wondered sometimes if the journey we have made from Umm Jamila would have softened my father's heart. That is the mystery of living, that while we walk and breathe, anything is possible,
inshallah
.

“You are very brave,” the doctor tells Adeeba. “It is hard to find women who will report their injuries.”

Adeeba asks if the
khawaja
will give us a ride into town to the police.

With sorrow in her face, the doctor from Australia explains that they do not have a car. A whirlybird will come for them, but they cannot stop in town and then bring Adeeba back.

“No, no, do not go,” the nurse says. “The judges are mean old men. You are very lucky. The
khawaja
have brought a special pill, and if you take it, you will not have a baby.” She brings the pill and a glass of water.

“For the little girl, too,” the doctor says. “Just in case.”

“May I bring one to the other girl?” Adeeba asks.

“She must come to the clinic,” the nurse says. “We must see her take the medication. We do not have enough, and if we give them, people sell them.”

“I am sorry,” the doctor says.

“What of the wasting disease?” Adeeba says. “Do you have a pill to prevent that?”

“Were your attackers sick?” she asks.

“I do not know,” Adeeba says. “But one man said if last time did not cure him, this time will.”

My heart stumbles. This sickness never reached Umm Jamila, but we heard it eats the flesh beneath the skin.

“Some people believe,” Adeeba says. Then she stops. The translator facing the wall understands and finishes her sentence. I do not know what he says, but probably he knows what some people say, that taking virgins will cure the wasting disease.

My friend covers her face with her hands, which become a cup for her tears.

“We have eaten bread and salt together,” I say to Adeeba. “You are not alone.”

“We will take care of you,” the doctor says.

I do not understand how she will take care of Adeeba if she is leaving in a whirlybird in three days.

The doctor tells Adeeba to return to the clinic in three months. It will take that long for the sickness to show in the blood. She promises to return with medicine.