Bakhita

by Veronique Olmi

  * * *

  —

  For that feast day, the child remembers, her mother took her to one side and braided her hair with tiny red, yellow, and blue beads. She strung around her girlish waist and wrists the same red, yellow, and blue beads; they had belonged to her ancestors and were the symbol of their tribe, their distinguishing feature, like patterns painted on bodies and faces, tattoos on eyelids, like their hairstyles and finery. These colors come back to her, fragments of childhood that resurface and in which she longs to believe. On that feast day, her mother had devoted time to her alone, and when she had finished she told her, You look beautiful. And the child thought her mother was her own precious jewel, and swore to herself that when she grew up she would be like her, be like this red flame that children followed.

  * * *

  —

  In the two years after the raid she believed that she would be married, she would have children and fill the great chasm left by her older sister. She would repair the sorrow. That’s what she would be. A repairer of sorrow. So that her mother could stop being this woman who stumbles, this constantly wary woman who tells them ten times a day not to stray too far, never to talk to strangers, never to follow people who are not from the village, even women, even youngsters, it has become a litany she no longer hears, her mother’s new form of song.

  * * *

  —

  She is seven now, and knows that beyond the hills her older sister and other girls and other boys have vanished and become slaves. Slave, she doesn’t really know what it means. It’s a word for absence, for a village set alight, the word after which there is nothing left. She learned it, and then she went on living, just as little children do, little children who play without realizing they are busy growing up and learning.

  * * *

  —

  She is seven, she takes the cows down to the river, never goes alone, never strays, ever, but she is needed and she likes that. She has her place. And her own personality too. They say she is a happy child, always cheerful, that she never sits still for a moment. Her mother says she is “gentle and good,” so even when she is angry, even when she is furious, she tries to be as her mother describes her, “gentle and good,” it contains her a little, brings her back to a more reasonable state, this child with so much imagination who invents new stories every day and tells them to the little ones, stories she acts out to bring them more fully to life. She likes doing this, likes the kids’ eyes gleaming in anticipation of the rest of the story, the squeals of pretend terror, their hands covering their mouths, the laughter of their relief. She enjoys giving them these moments of fantasy, the pride she feels in eliciting hidden emotions: Fear and hope.

  * * *

  —

  She is seven and she obeys her mother, who asks her one day to go pick grass on the edge of the village. She is not entirely alone, she is with her friend who is called Sira, she remembers a sweet name, so why not Sira. She strides out, swinging her hands and singing her funny song, “When children were born to the lioness,” a song she made up and sings to the little ones. It is about an old woman who remembers a time when children were born covered in fur and armed with teeth that they then lost as they grew up and became real humans. When she dreams things up, she sees herself as a spirit, a lost child, a warrior animal. Her own fear always subsides with the story’s happy ending.

  * * *

  —

  On this particular afternoon she walks side by side with Sira, they dawdle on their way to fetch the grass her mother wants, there is something indolent in the air, the wind is dropping, the sun has lost its hard edge, and it is perhaps this balminess that makes Sira and her so carefree and dreamy. They see the two men and are not suspicious. No powder, no rifles, no horses, just two men from a nearby village. Neighbors.

  * * *

  —

  They too have suffered raids. They lost everything. Perhaps they want to exchange one of these children for one that the slave traders took from them and whom they hope to recover. Perhaps they have become slave dealers themselves. Escapees from a raided village, trying to find a way to survive. And the two girls are alone. So young. Little girls command the highest price, better even than young boys. Children aged seven to ten are the most highly prized, and with this one, they can see she’s already beautiful, they can see it, she’s a beauty who will blossom and fetch a high price. A beauty worthy of a harem. They smile. Say hello, in a dialect not very unlike the girls’, wait a while, wait despite their impatience, then confer quietly and agree on how to go about this, they’ll take only one, they’re no longer young men and the girls already look sturdy, they can probably defend themselves like lions, just one would be less risky, the more beautiful one of course. Only one of the men speaks to her, so as not to frighten her, the other stands nearby, ready to intervene if there is any resistance.

  * * *

  —

  The man asks Sira to walk away. Walk a little way away. A little farther. Farther down there. Sira steps back, not looking behind her, steps back again. He keeps waving his hands, and she obeys. She stops near the river. The men are amazed at how easy it is, the girls make no protest, they are not far from the village, just one scream and they would have fled instantly. Then the man turns to her and tells her to walk in the opposite direction, toward the banana palm. She does not move. Looks disoriented, almost a half-wit. He points to the banana palm, tells her she must go fetch a bundle, she does not understand. She looks at the tree. And then at her friend. Sira is hopping from one foot to the other, on and on, and her eyes are huge. The man raises his voice now. “He’s not from our village, a stranger.” She thinks this, the thought like an arrow. Her friend jigs faster from one foot to the other, and her wide eyes stare at her, spilling tears. She can smell fear. Is caught in the web of fear communicated from the men to Sira and from Sira to her. Her ears buzz and her vision blurs. The man grins, she can see his yellow teeth, the impatience in his smile, and the other man, still with one hand on his hip, breathes heavily, irritably. The man keeps his eyes open, the village is close by, someone could walk past, it is the end of the afternoon, they’ll be bringing in the flocks, this kid is beautiful but stupid. She can feel time distorting and weighing heavily. She can’t see the bundle. Can’t speak. Doesn’t want to scream. Doesn’t try to run away. She can tell she’s slipping, falling in some way. But doesn’t know how. Sira is now bent double with both fists rammed in her mouth, watching her, her body looks as if it might sink into the ground. The world is silent and furious. The wind has dropped, the white sky is overtaken by a single cloud, vast and motionless. The man gestures again. She looks at the tree he wants her to go to. Without knowing why, she complies. Walks toward the tree. Both men follow her, they join her cautiously under the banana palm. The sound of her heart. Like a tom-tom calling for a gathering. The man who had his hand on his hip takes out a dagger and puts it to her throat, covers her mouth with his other hand, “If you scream, I’ll kill you!,” it’s such a big hand, it covers her whole face, it smells bad, and the tom-tom is hammering inside her head, her chest, her stomach, and her legs are shaking. She doesn’t know what made the men so angry. They’re now shouting in their dialect, and the dagger is pressing hard against her neck, she thinks maybe they eat little girls just like people in her village eat gazelles. They drag her like a dead gazelle, she’s naked, like all children in her village. They walk away, dragging her behind them. Olgossa grows farther and farther away. Collapsing even more quickly than it did in the flames.

  She walked with them until it was dark. Did not hear people from her village come after them. Did not hear the bush drums beat. Did not see her father loom out of nowhere, powerful and fearsome. She kept on walking for a long time, the day dwindled, and still she waited for them. They would be worried, they would walk quickly, they would run to find her. But they did not come, and so there was the sudden terror, the realization of what she had set in motion. S
he pictured her village in flames. Thought that was why they hadn’t come to rescue her. A child is taken and the village burns and the inhabitants are busy fighting the destruction. That’s what she had done. She had disobeyed, had triggered catastrophe, and now calling for her mother, reaching out her arms was, once again, pointless. No one would hear her now.

  * * *

  —

  She waited. Did a lot of waiting. And a lot of walking. Night fell, and then…What happened then she has never told anyone. As if she has never managed to remember it. As if it never happened. It is not a wonderful story. Storia Meravigliosa. For a story to be wonderful, the beginning has to be terrible, of course, but the misery must be acceptable, and no one can emerge from it tainted, neither the storyteller nor those listening.

  * * *

  —

  Night fell. She was alone with her abductors. How to describe what she wishes she had never experienced?

  * * *

  —

  The walking went on for two days and two nights. She did not know where the big river was, or the villages, what lay on the far side of the hill, the far side of the trees, and the far side of the stars. But she tried to remember, so that she could retrace the route and go back home. She was afraid and she remembered. Was lost and she recited: The little stream. The pen with four goats. The dune. The bushes. The wells. The banana palms. Some thornbushes. A yellow dog. A donkey. Two donkeys. A dwarf palm. An old man sitting on the ground. Acacia trees. The dune. A field of millet. She hears the hyenas’ shrill calls. The heat has turned to ice in the gathering dark, the wind is quick and cold. The countryside fades. She is in the middle of this invisibility.

  * * *

  —

  The outskirts of a village. A small beaten-earth path, a few huts, skinny dogs, and the echoes of a far-off life. There are men here, talking among themselves, halfheartedly, without passion. They greet her two abductors and go back to their meandering discussion. They are accustomed to stolen children, see them everywhere, all the time, always have. They do not look at the little girl, there is neither pity nor curiosity. Just an ordinary evening.

  * * *

  —

  Her captors open a door. They throw her in. She falls. Onto hard, ice-cold ground. They close the door with a large key. She is terrified, and the word “mama” is all she can remember, the only thing that really exists. The word inhabits her head, her chest, her whole body. It blends with her pain, her huge fear at what was done to her, at what she doesn’t understand, it is the only name that stays with her. Another has gone missing: her own. On that first night the two men asked what her name was. She was too afraid to look at them. Eyes lowered, she could see the dagger. Gleaming and cold. What was her name. What did her mama call her. What was her name. What did her father call her when he talked to the moon. One of the men put his hand on her thin legs scratched by acacia thorns on their journey. What was her name. She left her name beside the river. She left it under the banana palm. It described how she came into the world. But she doesn’t remember how she came into the world. She cries in panic. Only her mother’s name remains. It is all around her. And it can do nothing for her.

  * * *

  —

  There is no daylight in the locked room where they have thrown her, and night never falls. There is no sun. No moon. And no stars. The outside world appears feebly, through a hole gouged at the top of the wall. She stays there a long time. Perhaps a month. A time with no rhythm to it, a time paired inextricably with dread. She calls for her mother and her mother does not come. She begs her so tenderly. Asks to be forgiven: Sorry, I shouldn’t have, sorry, I won’t do it again, punish me, take me back, I’m sorry. Occasionally her mother appears in her dreams and her delirium, apparitions that connect her to her family. Does her mother get up in the night to listen for her? Does she beg her father to go find her? Does she curse her for digging farther into the deep wound of her sorrow?

  * * *

  —

  She sometimes thinks she will stay here her whole life, kept by the two captors who come every evening with some bread and water, and their violence, too. She will grow up like this. Is that possible? Does that happen? Being forgotten by everyone, except these two men? Existing only for them?

  * * *

  —

  She is in the dark of night, and there is nothing after this night but the start of this same night all over again. She smells the rats, feels the nits in her hair, everything is invisible and threatening, she is dirty and assaulted on all sides, she wears a new body, full of pain and shame. Now no one comes near her other than to hurt her. Any presence is a threat. It will be a long time before she learns not to start if someone comes close to her, before she stops being afraid of an outstretched hand, an overconfident eye. A long time before she calms the instinct of a prey animal on the alert, even in moments of joy or in her sleep.

  * * *

  —

  She sleeps curled like an unborn child, sucks her thumb, and sometimes sings her song “When children were born to the lioness,” resting her hand on her chest, to feel her skin reverberate as her father’s used to. Her voice quavers like the air in the midday sun, and her skin rips. Cockroach stings and mouse bites draw burning ideograms that she traces with her fingers.

  * * *

  —

  One morning she decides to escape. Finds within her the strength to hope, to believe in something, and to disobey. For days on end she scratches at the ground, and at the clayey hole at the top of the wall. Standing on tiptoe, straining up, she claws as best she can. She is small, she is thin, but she decides to scratch away at it all the time, every day, and then the hole will grow, and she will go home. She discovers she has a stubborn, dogged strength, a will to live, what is called the survival instinct. There are always two people in her: one at the mercy of the men’s violence and the other, strangely spared, who refuses this fate. Her life deserves something different. She knows this.

  * * *

  —

  Every day she scratches and says “Mama Mama” over and over, the name contains her, she is held within the tempo of this repeated word and it becomes an order. Very soon her fingers bleed. Scabs form and then are torn open, how to make the hole bigger, with what? One morning she throws mice up at it, to get them to help her. But those that don’t fall back down, slip out through the hole without nibbling at it. Those that fall squeak shrilly and this calms her fear. Make me tiny! she asks the moon one evening, even though she cannot see it, Get me out! She cries and can feel herself disappearing, can feel life abandoning her. Then she sits herself up again. Something draws her, wakes her from her despair. She looks at the hole and speaks to it. It becomes her friend. Her enemy. An animal to be tamed. A spirit to placate. She keeps her eyes trained on it even when they are closed. Keeps her mind trained on it even when she sleeps. For a whole day she rubs at it with her hair. Her hair shreds. The hole grows no bigger. Every day, standing on tiptoe, she measures it with her outstretched hands. It is three hands wide. And never more.

  * * *

  —

  So then she finds another means of escape. It is now to herself that she tells her stories. She sometimes imagines the little ones listening to her, remembers their eyes gleaming with fear and hope, she starts the story and never finishes it, doesn’t know where it ends, everything slips through her fingers, she is gripped by fever and is suddenly immersed in her former life, immersed in a time when she heard calls to bring the flocks in for the evening. Her mother’s calls when it was time to eat. The old women’s croaky voices as they chatted in the sinking sunlight. She can hear and see it all. She sets it all out around her, turns the scorpions, rats, and ants into people she loves, names them, and watches them live. For a time this alternative reality saves her. And then the despair returns. She sees where she really is. Knows she is no one now. Howls like an abandoned animal. Screams and cries in a half-dream, half-waking st
ate, journeying between the imaginary and the real, between childhood and the end of childhood. She balls her fists. The hole in the clay is an eye watching her. It is high up. It does not deliver her.

  * * *

  —

  One morning one of her captors opens the door and drags her out, the light is like a knife. There are voices. There are men. A dense hubbub in a language that is not her tribe’s. She immediately grasps that the people who have come are not from her village. Her disappointment is as violent as the sunlight. She feels the men’s hands on her and opens her eyes, white needles dancing, nothing else. One of the men opens her eyelids and says she is sick. Then the captor takes her chin in his hand and forces her to open her mouth and show her teeth. Someone throws a stick for her to run and fetch, at first she does not understand. Does not fetch it. He slaps her and throws the stick again. She runs. The man spits when she falls. Her legs cannot carry her, she is supported by two gnarled pieces of wood. She does not understand what is expected of her. Is panic-stricken. Does not know what they want. She is inspected. All over. It hurts and she cannot understand why people keep wanting to hurt her. She cries because she doesn’t understand, cries with dejection, and this infuriates her captor, he shows the dealer her muscles, her calves, her arms, and most of all keeps saying that she is beautiful. Djamila. This is the word that refers to her. Djamila. The discussions start, the arguing and the laughter freighted with scorn. Her eyes grow accustomed to the light. Behind the haggling she can see some men and women. A small group waiting. For what she does not know. She listens to the negotiations in an unintelligible language. Will she be sent back into the hole? She has a fleeting hope that these men were sent by her father, then she sees money passed from their hands to the captor’s. Clearly sees the coins. She does not want to go back in the hole, to stay with her captors, would rather leave here with these people, wants to leave with them. She listens and understands a few words, saying she is about seven years old, saying her name is Bakhita. The captor puts the money in a small pouch and pushes her toward the waiting group. She is terrified but leaves her prison. She does not know that Bakhita, her new name, means “Lucky One.” Does not know she has been sold to Muslim slave dealers. The truth is, she knows nothing about what all this means.