The Milk of Birds (9 page)

More later.

J
UNE
2008

I search for the brother and sister. So many new have come to the camp. Even if I put my hands over my ears, I hear their animals' rough breathing, as if they are dragging stones over stones. The united countries of the world give us oil, salt, beans, flour, even a little sugar, but nothing for the animals.

When I gather firewood, I tie a handful of grass in the end of my
tobe
and drop it later by a donkey. Is this a kindness or a cruelty? Only death truly brings an end to their suffering.

I search and ask, and at last an old woman points me to a shelter, which is empty. She knows of the children. Zeinab and Hassan. They live with a man—their uncle, the woman thinks. Every day the children go with him to the market. She has heard he buys sheep and goats from people as they arrive at the camp, before they know the animals' worth. He butchers the animals and sells the meat.

We talk of food for a moment. The ration is less now than in the winter months. Many grumble that hunger is the fault of the newcomers, but I do not say this. “Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fatted ox where there is hatred,” I say.

She nods. The
khawaja
blame the bandits who stop and steal the trucks. Sometimes the bandits steal the drivers, too, or beat or kill them, the ones who cannot run away.

“He who is not ashamed does what he wants,” she says.

When I return to our shelter, Adeeba is not happy. “Why do you look for trouble?” she says.

She thinks Hassan and Zeinab are like the other children, trying to snatch her pen. Now she sleeps with it beneath her back.

In Umm Jamila, it was possible to hold something private, but not here, where we live as jumbled as trinkets in a trader's sack. Once I hid from Meriem a doll I was making. With the knife I carried when following the sheep, I carved the body from acacia wood. From the animals I gathered wool for the hair. Whenever I came back to the village, I hid the doll in a hole under a rock. How Meriem clapped when I surprised her on the Eid!

I did not think in those days of the feeling of the doll, alone in her dark hole. I carry her in my mind now, and would not bury her again.

•   •   •

Two days pass before Zeinab and Hassan return to our fire. I beckon them.

“You should be shooing them away,” Adeeba says.

The children move not forward but closer together.

“A book needs a reader as much as a writer,” I say.

“This dictionary is for me!” she says.

“What is a dictionary?” Hassan asks. He speaks loudly, but not rudely, to cross the distance. He has clear eyes with lashes like a camel's that brush his cheeks.

Zeinab shushes him. Adeeba studies K. C.'s letter.

“You are a teacher,” I remind her.

“Of health,” Adeeba says. “Go wash your hands, children.”

“Tolerance is the master of good manners,” I say.

Still the children do not move, and Adeeba does not speak. Finally she says, “A dictionary is a hearth for words. It is where they gather to tell their stories.”

She looks up at the children. “Sometimes a dictionary speaks in one language,” she says. “There each word recites its family history and reveals its character.

“A word has a twin in every country, so a second kind of dictionary introduces them. They shake hands and say their names in two languages.”

Hassan nods. Looking at Zeinab, I pat the ground beside me.

As the children sit, I glance at my mother, but I cannot tell what she is thinking. When we lie on our mats, it is different. Sometimes in the night I cannot sleep for the pounding of my mother's silence.

“Which dictionary are you making?” Hassan asks.

The embers hiss as we wait for Adeeba to answer. Zeinab leans against my side, as my sisters used to do. I feel happy and sad layered like the air after a rain, warm and cool. With my fingers I start tugging apart the snarls in her hair.

I reach past my mother for the brush I bought with K. C.'s gift. Zeinab's hair has matted like roots of grass below the ground. In Umm Jamila I never saw such a mess—even on an animal. Once someone said that my father's sheep always looked dressed for a wedding, and I was pleased at the notice. The herd complained less than Meriem, who used to carry on at the slightest pull.

Zeinab does not flinch.

“Someone needs to do this every day,” I say. Already I am thinking that when K. C.'s next gift comes,
inshallah
, I will buy this child a brush.

“My uncle does not know how to brush hair,” Zeinab whispers.

Adeeba says to Hassan, “I am making the second kind of dictionary. I take a word in English and search for its Arabic sister.”

“I will make the first kind then,” Hassan says, “where the word reveals its character.”

Adeeba looks up. “Can you write?” she asks.

“No,” Hassan says.

Adeeba snorts.

“You can teach me,” Hassan says to Adeeba. “Tata Nawra said you are a teacher.”

Adeeba turns to me, and her eyes carry spears.

Dear Nawra,

Here it's June, and I'm still reading your April letter. I wish I could fill up your jugs with clean water from our faucet. God knows we waste so much water—so much everything—here. My brother, Todd, takes these hour-long showers that steam up the whole upstairs. Mom calls him the Human Humidifier.

I know that sometimes you can't do anything but be with someone. My friend Chloe has an older brother who cuts himself. ON PURPOSE. It is so weird. He always wears long basketball shorts and pants, so nobody noticed for the longest time. Then one day Chloe spotted blood on the toilet seat, and she and her mom traced it to Nathan. He was carving a maze on his thigh. I think maybe he wanted somebody to see it, so that's a good sign, right? Of course his parents flipped, and now the whole family goes to a counselor. I'm the only one in my class who knows about Nathan, and I haven't told anyone, except my mom, which Chloe said was okay. Keeping this from Emily is hard, though.

I wish Emily and Chloe liked each other more. Emily thinks Chloe's a snob, but if she knew the whole story, she might change her mind. Chloe's family is really rich—they've got a ski house AND a beach house AND a housekeeper, so even though
her mom works, there aren't piles of laundry all over the living room. People are always telling her, “Ooh, I wish I could have a balcony off my bedroom.” They don't realize that Chloe's dad has locked all the doors and windows on the second and third floors, 'cause he's scared Nathan might jump.

When I think of you and Nathan, I'd rather be you.

Easy for me to say, right? Actually, at the moment I'd rather be me. Tomorrow is the last day of school! Good-bye, earth science and writing samples and the locker I have to thump shut with my fist! Adios, Hardston Middle! Hello, Washington-Jefferson-Lincoln-Lee High!

That's right—the principal just called Mom, and we have to go in for a meeting. I failed the writing part of the SOLs, and math of course, and we don't know history and social studies or science yet, but Mom promised I'd retake them after I go to summer school.

Again.

Mrs. Clay is as disappointed as I am because she's having a baby in August, and she was counting on me as a full-time mother's helper, and now I can work only afternoons.

“As long as it doesn't interfere with your homework,” Mom says.

Summer and homework—it's like ice cream with lima beans on top. Dad thinks Mom's a homework Nazi, especially when I could be making money. I get very little sympathy from Emily, who's all excited because she's going to live in a college dorm for three weeks as part of this special summer camp where they make shampoo from scratch and reinvent the United Nations and whatever else you do when you're gifted and talented instead of brainless and clueless.

Meanwhile I have two weeks when I don't have to worry about equations or run-on sentences or anything except which kind of jam to spread on my toast. Tomorrow Dad is driving me and Emily to the really good mall, and we're going to look for more cool stationery!

Plus, I'm going to spend a lot of time with Wally, probably most of it in his neighborhood pool. All the pregnant women come out of hiding in the summer. I try not to stare at them in their bathing suits, but their bodies are so cool. Mrs. Clay lets me feel her stomach. The first time I was shocked: I was expecting squishy, like fat, but it was hard as a bowling ball! Sometimes when the baby's kicking, you can see her tiny feet under the skin. Unless the sonogram missed something, Wally's going to have a little sister. I call her Abby Whompback because at this rate she's going to be a great soccer player.

I can't wait to have kids. Of course when I say that, my mom always says, “You can wait—you better wait!”

She doesn't have to worry. I don't even have a boyfriend. Do you—did you, before? Is it okay to talk about all this, Nawra? I don't want to burden you with my happiness.

Love, K. C.

J
ULY
2008

Tonight Hassan brings a square of paper.

“Where did you get that?” Adeeba asks.

“From the clinic,” he says.

Adeeba takes the paper and turns it over. It is white, with only a little printing on the top on one side. “Did you steal this?” she asks.

“Stealing is
haram
,” Hassan says. “One with plastic fingers gave it to me.”

“What were you doing with the nurse?” Adeeba demands. “If you are sick, you must stay away from Tata Nawra.”

Adeeba guards me as I once did my goats.

Hassan says, “The
khawaja
said any child who does not have a card must go to the clinic. A van came from many miles with a special medicine to keep away the disease of the dots.”

“Measles,” Adeeba says.

“The
khawaja
said if we did not take the medicine, we would burn with fever and our eyes would scream in the light,” Hassan says. “I told my uncle.”

“What did he say?”

“He does not like the
khawaja
because they interfere in the market. But I am a believer,” Hassan says, “and the believer is trustful of others.”

“Who told you that?” Adeeba asks.

“My father,” Hassan says.

Zeinab shivers by my side.

Adeeba studies him. “Did the shot hurt?” she asks.

“Yes,” Hassan says, “but I did not cry. Zeinab did, a little. All the babies were crying. Many cried as they got near the table, but I was glad.”

“Why?” Adeeba asks.

“The needle was fast and interesting, so I preferred it to the line, which was slow and boring. Do you know they carry the medicine in blue chests, to keep it cold?”

“Who told you?” Adeeba asks.

“I asked,” Hassan says. “When the
khawaja
opened a chest, they moved very fast.”

“A woman fell to the ground,” Zeinab whispers.

“She was not dead,” Hassan says. “Just too hot.”

“They should have put her in a chest,” I say.

“The medicine was more important,” Hassan says.

“You are a good reporter,” Adeeba says. “Maybe when you grow up, you will write for a newspaper.” She holds her words. “But it is safer to be a farmer.”

I say, “There you are mistaken, my friend.”

I look to my mother, but she is not with us. In body, yes, but memories plug her ears.

“You must go,” Adeeba says to the children.

“How can I be a reporter if I cannot write words?” Hassan asks.

“Even a reporter cannot write in the dark!” Adeeba says.

•   •   •

Now every evening while I brush Zeinab's hair, Hassan writes beside Adeeba. With a stick she writes a word in the sand and he copies it, first large, then smaller and smaller. At first she did this to buy quiet to do her own work. She did not look at Hassan's writing until he finished, and many times she erased it and made him copy the word again.