The Milk of Birds (4 page)

Their beauty lies not in their form but in their deeds. The coins have brought my mother healing herbs. And I am grateful for those days I do not have to walk beyond the camp with my fear, looking for firewood.

Why does Madame K. C. Cannelli not write? I do not think Saida Julie has told her of my dishonor. Perhaps she prefers to aid a smart girl like Adeeba.

We are still arguing when we hear, “
Ayah
!” The cry moves through our section, but it has no panic. Words soon embroider it with joy. “The
saidas
' car!”

Adeeba grabs my hand, and we run toward the meeting place. Beside us hurry even those who grumble in their jealousy, who say that the
saidas
are wasting their money because doing a favor to women is water that has missed its stream. We hunger for news, especially good news, but anything to reshape the sameness of the days.

Sand has scoured the
saidas
' car, no longer white but gray. It moves slowly on its big tires as silly children jump at the closed windows.

At last the driver stops. I am relieved when Saida Julie steps out and waves to us. But her smile does not come from her heart.

Khawaja
surround the
saidas
like bees.

Opening the car from the back, the driver pulls out the metal table with its legs folded underneath. He is not the same driver as last month. Suddenly he slams his hand against the car. “How can I set up with all these people here?” he asks.

Saida Noor touches Saida Julie on the back. “Please make room for the girls in our program,” she says to the crowd.

No one moves.

“They walk naked in a country that is not theirs,” Adeeba says to me.

“Please,” Saida Noor says. Her lips tremble, and her eyes tell us she has not slept. When first she came to the camp, she wore a
tobe
, but today she dresses like a
khawaja
, in pants.

“Why do you come late?” a man calls.

Saida Noor looks down, then draws breath to tell us the story. Men in uniform turned them away from the fourth camp on their route. These soldiers said that camp residents had killed three government workers.

Let us in,
Saida Julie said to the soldiers.
We have no guns. We come only to help girls
.

Why do you want to help any of these rebels?
the soldiers said.
We care for your safety.

We care for theirs,
said Saida Julie.

The men laughed and made ugly jokes, and the driver insisted that the
saidas
leave.

Saida Julie insisted that they look for African Union troops.
They are supposed to be here,
she said.
They are neutral. They can prevent a massacre.

“But we did not find protectors,” says Saida Noor. “We did not find anyone. We did not find anything but villages with empty houses.”

The
saidas
slept sitting in the car rather than lie down in a house where the roof had been cut off, like a head from a body.

The next day Saida Julie spotted smoke.
People must be cooking,
she said.

As they got closer, the smoke thickened.
Where are the houses?
Saida Julie asked.

As Saida Noor speaks, several women weep. “Where? What is the name of that village?” a woman calls.

“I do not know,” says Saida Noor. She speaks softly. The crowd has grown quiet. “We did not see anyone to ask. We saw only charred rings where houses must have stood and inside—”

Saida Noor does not have to finish because we all know what was inside. Most of us have seen the blackened bones. We know the smell that rides the smoke and seeps into your clothes and your hair and your skin. Even if you find water, you cannot wash it off.

They left the village. Then Saida Julie remembered her camera, so she made the driver turn back. Saida Julie took many pictures, some far, some near, stepping carefully where the ground was still hot, pointing at the bones.

Adeeba is nodding. “Give the story a human face,” she says. “That is what my father did.”

I do not tell her that bones have no face.

Saida Noor says that when the driver blew the horn, Saida Julie grew angry. But Saida Noor told her it was right that they should leave. Whoever did this might come back.

Whoever did this had government backing,
Saida Julie said.
Look at those craters. Someone dropped a bomb. That requires a plane, or a helicopter.

So they drove and drove, sleeping little. Once they stopped to share food with a group of people walking. Outside one
town, a new settlement had sprung up, and they found a patrol of five protectors.

When they told the commander about the burned village, he said,
What do you want me to do? My mission is to protect civilians. Those people are dead.

When they told him about the camp, he said,
Last week militias grabbed six women near here as they gathered firewood. Only four came back, blood running down their legs. Tell me how five troops are supposed to protect all these thousands of refugees. Tell me how seven thousand troops are supposed to stop a civil war.

Saida Noor turns her head sharply, as if a hand has slapped her face. When she looks at us again, tears run down her cheeks. “What could we do?”

As they headed toward Zalingei, the winds came out of nowhere, creating a huge red cloud from ground to sky. Riding ahead of the
haboob
were three men wrapped in white.

The
saidas
did not know if they were Janjaweed. Saida Julie made sure that their driver could reach his gun but told him not to stop the car. Yet he had to stop because he could not see the track through the dust. The riders passed in front—farmers, kicking their donkeys as they hurried home from the fields with cloths drawn across their faces.

Saida Noor smiles. “We are glad to be here,” she says.

“And we are glad that you are here,” says a man.

It is Si-Ahmad, chief of the school. Adeeba has asked him for a job. He has been walking through our section, urging parents to send their children for lessons.

Si-Ahmad says, “We are relieved that you are safe and that
no Janjaweed ride near here. ‘Whoever relieves his brother of a trial or a difficulty in this life, God will relieve him of a trial in the next life.' So said the Prophet, peace be upon him.

“Come, my friends,” Si-Ahmad continues. “Leave these ladies to their good work. If you have not already, bring your children to the schoolhouse. Daughters as well as sons. Remember the words of the Messenger, ‘The search for knowledge is an obligation upon every Muslim man and Muslim woman.' We all must rise to meet our future.”

Slowly those who have no business with the
saidas
wander away. Already they are repeating the story of the government soldiers come to root out rebels from the camp. There are guns here, too, people say, in the section where you can buy anything for a price.

Like a calf, the table soon stands on its unfolded legs, and we line up to sign the register. Today I am behind Fayiza, the one-armed girl who does not speak. She draws a stone.

The envelopes with coins now have our names on the back in Arabic and English letters. Saida Julie keeps the envelopes in a metal box that locks with a key, which she wears on a rope around her neck.

When she gives each of us our gift, she smiles and says in schoolteacher's Arabic, “We must take care of one another.” Or, “God willing, the future will be better.”

Then Saida Noor checks in the box to see if we have a letter from our sister in America.

There is none for me.

“You are sure?” I ask.

Saida Noor looks again. She speaks with Saida Julie.

“The sisters give their money for the year,” Adeeba whispers, “but they must send their letters month by month. Saida Julie is going to ask the organizers in America why your sister has not done her duty.”

“I do not want to make trouble for her,” I say. “Tell Saida Julie.”

“Saida Julie will not make trouble,” Saida Noor says. “She will remind Madame Cannelli that her voice matters.”

In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate

29 April 2008

Dear Madame K. C. Cannelli,

Peace be upon you. How are you? Are you strong? I pray that you are well.

Adeeba says I should tell you more about our troubles, which started long ago in the time of hunger. As I grew, I heard stories of women walking to cities to sell their jewelry for food. With her aunts and sisters, my mother spent many weeks wandering, gathering rice and grass and
mukheit
berries. Perhaps that is why she so loved the garden around the house my father made for her. All she needed grew by her door.

Arab nomads began fighting farmers over water. The government called those who sided with farmers rebels and sent soldiers and Janjaweed [translator's note: devils on horseback] to fight them. Adeeba will write their names. The Sudan Liberation Army blames the government for giving weapons to the Arabs. The Justice and Equality Movement says the government favors Arabs and keeps oil money and progress from Darfur.

If you offered me a cup of milk or a cup of oil, I would choose milk, but Adeeba says oil can bring more milk and roads and schools and hospitals.

Thanks to God, we did not have such rebels in my village. What did we know of a government far away? It is true that some men argued but not with a gun in their hands. When they did not listen to their elders, it was because they were lazy and did not want to work, or greedy and did not like their family's choice for their bride.

My grandfather, God's mercy upon him, told my father to stick to his livestock. Hot water is not a playground for frogs.

Adeeba says the water was boiling in El-Geneina because it was near the border. Government soldiers and Janjaweed were fighting the rebels, who were sometimes fighting one another. Some from our neighbor Chad were helping Justice and Equality, although perhaps they were just helping themselves. The friend who spoils your life is a clear enemy.

Adeeba's father was watching the lines to see who crossed where, which could make a war between countries.

I think the animals have it right because they do not draw lines across the land; they know only that all belongs to God, who makes the grass sweet.

But when elephants fight, the grass suffers.

At first Adeeba's father visited those who had fled the villages. He did not have to travel far because they camped near El-Geneina. They were like one who seeks protection from scorching heat with fire, for the Janjaweed rode into their settlements at all hours of the day and night. Janjaweed even came into the city and pulled a shopkeeper from his bed and
beat him because he did not want to unlock his store so they could empty his shelves.

One day these yellow leaves will fall from the tree, Adeeba's father wrote, and all knew he was criticizing the leaders in the capital. So the head of the newspaper told him, Go to your relatives before you are destroyed. But Adeeba's father feared to take to the road with a daughter because of the evil abroad.

Perhaps it is better I have had no letters from you, Madame K. C. Cannelli, for the
haboob
that just swept through our camp would have blown them away. At first the wind teased us. Sleeping mats began to flop and bowls began to roll, and mothers sent the children chasing. The wind picked up Umm Hakim's
tobe
drying on a pole. As it flew, with little Umar jumping and trying to catch it, I remembered how my brothers and cousins loved to chase the kites they made from sticks and worn cloth.

But the wind was not playing. It split the straw and tore the plastic sheets off poles. Then it began to beat us with what the
khawaja
have given us: spoons, soap, even the flat plastic jugs we use to carry water. Pots spilled with a hiss, and hot charcoal hopped from the cookfires. The children were crying and slapping their arms because the sand was stinging like mosquitoes, and everywhere the
khawaja
were running and yelling, Cover the water!

When I was a child, my brothers and sisters and I ran inside and sat side by side with our backs against the wall, waiting for the storm to pass. I am baked earth and you are only sand, the wall said. You cannot sting me.

So I decided to be a wall. I sat down with my back to the
wind. I loosened my
tobe
and I waved children to come, sit between my legs. I had four against my belly—Umar, Ishak and his baby brother Yassin, and little Fatna. I lifted my arms so my
tobe
hung down, and I told them to tuck it tight around them. I said it was magic cloth so tough that it could stop a spear. I made up a story about a man who traveled to the jungle to buy this
tobe
woven from thread spun from the tusks of elephants.

What are you doing? Adeeba yelled into the wind. We must protect the water.