The Milk of Birds

by Sylvia Whitman

  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 y
ou 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.

  I am a wall, I said.

  You are a crazy person, she said. Yes, you did say that. Write. But next thing, Adeeba led Fayiza beside me, and Umm Hakim beside her. Soon we were one big wall of women side by side around the children and the water. Even with the sand a whip on our backs, it felt good to be part of such a circle. When the men pray in the mosque, they stand tall in a line. We were just women sitting hunched in a circle in the dirt. Yet it felt to me like a prayer, and the prayer itself became an answer to a prayer.

  After the worst we searched and searched, but we lost much of what the wind had stolen.

  We will get more plastic, the khawaja said.

  As we say, From every setback there is a way out.

  In my section an old woman died because she could not breathe, and everywhere people were coughing and spitting. The children complained about the crunch between their teeth.

  Walida tried to cheer them up. She said, Mmm, what a meal. At last I have something to chew on! Then the day for Saida Julie passed, and then another, and another, and we thought she was not coming.

  She needs a camel, not a car, some said. A car is no match for the haboob.

  They might have been kidnapped, others said. Everyone knows she carries money.

  Rumors can make you as sick as invisible bugs.

  Please, madame, whatever your condition, just send me your mark on a paper.

  Your sister, Nawra

  K.C.

  MAY 2008

  I could write a book: The Survival Guide to Being Grounded.

  1. Look really sorry.

  2. Sharpen your pencils in public.

  3. Clean the toilet. Mornings are best, especially if you get into the bathroom first and everyone notices as they’re doing the cross-legged dance in the hall. If your mom somehow misses this, tell her you’re getting low on that gunk you squirt under the rim. Get the green apple flavor because it makes a cool tie-dye effect when it runs down the bowl. Apply lots. Gunk takes some of the disgustingness out of scrubbing off the water stains and crusted poop with the little brushie. What’s truly gross, though, is wiping the back of the seat where your repulsive brother has overshot the rim. Last time I was babysitting, Mrs. Clay had bought Wally these decomposing rings you toss in the toilet so he can try to make a bull’s-eye while he pees. I suggested this for Todd, but Mom said it’s too late.

  4. Never gripe. That just lengthens your sentence.

  5. Ask your mom if she needs a back rub. Remember that you have nothing better to do.

  6. Say yes to everything, even chicken livers and onions.

  7. Listen to your music so low that you can hear your mother on the stairs and stash the MP3 player before she reaches your room. Murmur as you try to figure out what the heck you wrote in your social studies notebook: Improt check balences no brunch gets to powerfull keep Presdent in line

  As if presidents ever have to wait in line.

  “Mom!” Act surprised when she barges into your room. “Wouldn’t it be cool to have Secret Service agents help you cut . . .”

  My words drip off into nothing at her expression. Mom’s holding a letter, and her hand’s shaking so much that the paper rustles.

  “Katherine Cannelli,” Mom says. Uh-oh, the full name. This is it: I’m repeating eighth grade.

  She thrusts the letter at me. It has come to our attention that you have not been corresponding . . . It’s a whole long letter, but I get the gist.

  I haven’t failed the SOLs! Yet.

  I’ve just failed Mom. Again.

  “What’s the story?” she asks.

  The story is . . . your daughter is a loser. Of course, I can’t say that aloud. Mom would tsk-tsk and give me her usual line: “ ‘Loser’ is a self-defeating word.” Officially I’m at risk. But everybody knows what that means.

  “You got me into this,” I say.

  “What was in those envelopes?” she asks.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? You mailed empty envelopes to Sudan?”

  “I didn’t mail them.”

  “You threw them out?”

  “Recycled them.” I may be bad, but I’m green.

  “I hope you haven’t ‘recycled’ the letters from that girl,” Mom says in a voice that has no hope in it at all.

  I have the letters. I swear I have them. I dig them out of my sock drawer along with the wicker box of stationery. December through March. Letters! I show her.r />
  After Mom reads them aloud, we have a long moment of silence. Life sucks for this Nawra person.

  But what am I supposed to do about it? I can’t even pass the practice test in world geography.

  “Remember what I told you about Darfur?” Mom asks.

  Time for the quiz. Behind her back Dad calls her the Schoolmarm, which is actually nicer than what he used to call her when they were getting divorced. Now that he’s remarried, he’s a lot nicer to everyone. Todd says it’s new sex (sex is Todd’s answer to everything, since he’s not having any), but I think it’s the way Sharon worships my dad, like it’s a privilege just to make his bed, grind his coffee beans, pick up his shirts from the dry cleaner’s, keep track of his papers, etc., etc. I don’t know what it was like when Dad and Mom first got married, but Mom hates housework and Dad was a lot of work around the house.

  “Remind me again,” I say.

  She tells me the first civil war in Sudan was about religion, Muslim north versus sort-of Christian south, more or less, but this one’s in the west, in Darfur, where pretty much everyone is Muslim, so they’re fighting about water and land—kind of like the old Wild West, with the farmers against the newcomer cowboys. The leaders in Khartoum back the cowboys, who are mostly Arab nomads, against the farmers, who are a little bit of everything. The farmers say the government has neglected them, so the government calls them dangerous rebels. Pretty good trick. The capital has hired some outlaws called Janjaweed to ride around on horses and camels to cause trouble.

  “These Janjaweed militias are teaming up with government soldiers to drive farmers off the land by destroying their villages,” Mom says. “That’s probably how Nawra ended up in a camp.”

  “Camp?” The word makes me think of log cabins, s’mores, bathrooms with puddles and spiderwebs in the corners. I quit Girl Scouts after fifth grade, but I miss telling ghost stories and collecting pinecones.