The Milk of Birds (28 page)

Then the other doctor comes and bows with his hands pressed together. From his pocket he pulls a sweet wrapped in shiny paper and hands it to Zeinab. With a whisper, Zeinab passes it to me.

“She does not like candy?” the doctor asks through the translator.

“She is saving it for her little brother,” I say.

“He is too small for hard candy. He might choke,” the doctor says.

“This is not her brother,” I say, nodding to Muhammad.

“I know her brother,” says the nurse. “He is always here looking for paper.”

“Paper?” asks the doctor.

Adeeba tells of the dictionary. She gains strength as she talks. From another pocket, the doctor takes a tiny notebook with wire threaded through the top. He tears off the pages with his writing. The rest of the notebook he gives to Adeeba. Then he gives Zeinab another candy.

“Now you and your brother each have one,” he says.

•   •   •

We try to tell the girl and her mother about the pills to stop a baby, but the mother gives us the greeting a rat gives a cat.

Later we return, hoping to catch the girl alone. The shelter
is empty. Neighbors say they packed and left—for another section or another camp, no one knows.

The young mother shoos us from her fire.

“Go, before my husband sees you,” she says. “I have three children.”

•   •   •

“We must tell Zeinab's uncle,” Adeeba says.

“If he takes Hassan and Zeinab to another place, we cannot look after them,” I say. “No. He is not like your father. He is like mine.”

The words of a short person are never heard until the day gets hot. This time Adeeba does not disagree.

O
CTOBER
2008

“What are you doing, K. C.?”

“Pinching myself.”

“That's an expression,” Emily says. “You're not supposed to give yourself welts.”

“Maybe a
zar
's got her,” Chloe says.

I wish Nawra could see this. We're sitting in Emily's kitchen, where she and Chloe are poring over an encyclopedia of crackpot remedies. I asked Emily to look into herbs that exorcise bad spirits, so of course she wanted to know why, so I begged Chloe for permission to tell Emily about her brother, Nathan. We're all in the Darfur Club. Even Nathan.

Emily closes the encyclopedia and puts it back in the bookcase. “Nothing. But there's this Chinese bean seed called
ba dou
. . . .” She pulls a binder off the same shelf.

Turns out
ba dou
is toxic. “It can cause”—Emily pauses to read from the page she printed off the Internet—“explosive diarrhea.” She skims. “ ‘Hot and pungent,
ba dou
tonifies the function of the yang metal organ, the large intestine. . . . It's all about letting go.' ”

“Like when you swallow a penny,” I say. “It comes out in the poop.”

“So you're saying a big shit could cure Nathan,” says Chloe.
She still wears shirts with little lace collars, but she's got a filthy mouth. She likes to shock people.

“I don't endorse any of this stuff,” says Emily.

“Has your mother tried it?”

“Not
ba dou
—but castor oil, aloe, mandrake, almost all the purgatives.”

“Every day?” Chloe asks.

“Honey every day,” says Emily. “The others when she feels a . . . blockage.”

“And I thought my family was full of shit,” Chloe says. “No offense.”

They decide my family is the only normal one. Ha! Anyway, we have fun imagining how Chloe might sneak some
ba dou
into Nathan's food. It might work with Lucky Charms, which is the only thing he eats regularly, but the word “explosive” scares Chloe.

“If he likes knives so much, maybe he should go to chef school,” Emily says.

She is a genius. If Nathan were carving melons into swans, maybe he'd leave his thighs alone.

O
CTOBER
2008

“Wake up,” I say.

“I am tired,” Adeeba says.

“You have a job,” I say.

“Let me be,” she says.

I say many things, but I am talking to a stone.

I look at my mother, and she looks back at me, and many memories pass between us. “Go tell Si-Ahmad that Adeeba needs a few more days to rest,” my mother says.

When pressure proves difficult to handle, we say, lie down and sleep. But I do not think this is wisdom for my friend.

I take Zeinab and my son and walk to the schoolmaster. Boys of all ages are shouting and tussling and kicking up dust. Girls hum in small groups, like bees around flowers. They are fewer and younger than the boys, for there is water to carry and wood to gather, and some, like Zeinab's uncle, do not agree with Si-Ahmad and the
khawaja
that girls belong in school.

I am shy to cross through the older boys and teachers, but Hassan has joined us and leads the way. He likes to be at the front of any news.

People are coming and going around Si-Ahmad, who has many papers on his desk and slates piled against the wall. He does not hear me.

“Excuse me, sir,” Hassan says, not once but twice before Si-Ahmad looks up.

“Adeeba cannot come to teach today,” I say. “She needs to rest. She may need several days, but she will be back, sir.”

I turn to go with the children.

“Wait,” he says. “Can you take her classes?”

“I am an ignorant girl,” I say.

He asks my name. “Adeeba says you have given her good advice about her teaching,” he says.

I hide my smile with my hand. The praise of value is not what people say to your face but what they say behind your back.

“I tended my family's herd,” I say to Si-Ahmad. “I cannot read or write.”

“Now you can,” Hassan says.

“A few words,” I say.

“We are making a dictionary,” Hassan says. He tells Si-Ahmad of the project.

“You will be a writer, young man,
inshallah
,” Si-Ahmad says. “I have seen you many times here with Adeeba,” he says to me. “You have heard her lessons. Perhaps you could teach her morning health classes. For a few days. I will find someone else for the afternoon.”

“I have an empty head, sir. I do not know the names of the bugs that make you sick,” I say.

“Neither do your students,” he says.

“My baby,” I say.

“He comes with you, of course,” says Si-Ahmad. “We like to have all the children in school. It keeps them out of mischief.”

He laughs very loud at his own joke, but I cannot smile. I know my people. That is why I prefer to work with animals.
Some women are like Halima, quick to remind you that they had more before, although we all have nothing now. Others make fun of what they do not understand.

I believe what the
khawaja
tell us about our health because fewer are dying than when we first arrived at the camp. But I am scared that students will not accept me as the messenger of these truths. A naked man often laughs at one with torn clothes.

“I can hold Muhammad,” Zeinab whispers.

“You see, you even have an assistant,” Si-Ahmad booms.

Then he becomes serious. “Every day more people arrive at the camp,” he says. “They can think only of what they have lost. I do not have to tell you this. They do not know what to do. They do not know where to go. ‘What will become of us?' they say. Their children run wild.

“So we build a school. It gives people someplace to go,” he says. “It gives them something to do. Does it matter that they remember the names of the bugs that make them sick?”

He does not wait for an answer.

“What matters is we remind them to be clean,” he says. “What matters is they sit and learn together. They work together. Then they begin to remember: We can help ourselves.”

“A hand on a hand throws far away,” I say.

Si-Ahmad smiles. “You will be a good teacher. You know the place? Your class is waiting.”

“You will pay her, sir?” Hassan asks.

“Shame,” I say.

“We all must earn our bread,” Si-Ahmad says. “I will pay Adeeba's salary through the week until she is on her feet again. I will pay you for these days too.”

“You are very generous,” I say.

“You have not seen your pay!” he says. Again he laughs at his own joke.

Si-Ahmad looks at Zeinab. “And I will pay your assistant.”

“Money for Zeinab!” says Hassan.

“You I will keep my eye on,” Si-Ahmad says. He asks if Hassan is in school.

“I will come see your uncle this evening,” Si-Ahmad says. “We have classes in the afternoon for boys who work. We must make sure teachers are keeping that mind busy.”

•   •   •

The women whisper and stare. I look at Muhammad, holding Zeinab's thumbs and smiling as she dips her face toward him. He will heal her,
inshallah
, as he is healing me.

Sometimes I cannot believe that such a light, God protect him, came forth from my body. In my head, I hear Saida Julie say,
You can do anything
. A strange feeling comes over me, that despite all the bad, some good has come. Who in Umm Jamila ever thought that Nawra bint Ibrahim would stand in a school as a teacher?

But it is not enough to stand in the front. You must know what to do there.

“Where is our teacher?” calls a student.

It is clear that I am not a teacher. What am I?

Spoiled meat.

But I remember something else. My father had been complaining because the elders always came to him when someone poor was in need of meat. “On Judgment Day you will be glad of the help you give,” my brother Abdullah said. “As the Messenger
said, God's blessings upon him, ‘Each one of you is a shepherd, and each one of you shall be asked for his sheep.' ”

My uncle said, “If it is sheep that God is counting, I am putting Nawra in charge of mine!”

These students are my sheep. I know how it is with animals; they do not like to be bossed around. They like to feel that they are in charge. The trick is to make them want to do what you want them to do.

I tell my students that Adeeba is ill and they should teach me what they have learned. So the first class passes with much conversation and the students correcting one another's mistakes. I try the same on the children who come next. How happy they are! Who does not like to teach the teacher?

•   •   •

“Saida Julie is here,” I say.

Adeeba does not move.

“Who will write the letter to K. C.?” I ask.

“You,” says Adeeba.

“Words I can write. A letter is another work.”

“Saida Noor will find you another scribe.”

“What will I say?”

“When God created Sudan, he laughed in delight.”

“I do not like your tone,” I say. “You mix your words with
mukheit
berries.”

“Truth is as bitter as
mukheit
,” my friend says. “Soak it, water it down, or it will kill you.”

“We eat
mukheit
after three days. You have been lying here for twelve.”

“I forgot. The shepherdess can count,” Adeeba says.

In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate

30 October 2008

Dear K. C.,

Peace be upon you. How are you? Are you strong? Are you well? Your letter as you say is like a pillow. When we lay our heads against it, we rest, and then we dream.

I cannot say I understand all you write, but we will read it many more times, Adeeba and I together,
inshallah
, and then in bits with my mother and the children. We read all your letters again and again, and each time they reveal something new.

I did not know your great country had a civil war, but Adeeba had heard of it. She said brother killed brother because one wanted to own slaves and the other did not.

How can one person own another? Hassan asked.

You can control a body, I told Hassan, but not a spirit. If you live by force, eventually your stick will break.

But that stick will break many spirits first, Adeeba said. Egyptians long made slaves of our people, she said, until the British passed a law against it. Then the British replaced slavery with their own rule. Now that the British are gone, our leaders have done no better by us.

I admire the Americans who said slavery was wrong. Yet it takes more than a disagreement of ideas to start a war between brothers. There is envy perhaps, and hardships, and of course guns.

Even in this camp, there are many guns. My father, God's mercy upon him, used to say,
Fire and women never have a small stage.
But I say,
Guns and men never have a small stage.

The
khawaja
hold meetings and tell the young men to turn in their weapons. The young men say, How will we defend ourselves? We are few, and we must protect so many women and children and old men.