The Milk of Birds

by Sylvia Whitman

  Khalid greets my mother first, then me. He is one who calls me Umm Muhammad. “Where is the teacher?” he asks at last.

  My mother shows him the portions she has set aside for Adeeba and Zeinab. Before our eyes the light and humor drain from Khalid’s face.

  “I will scout the edge of camp,” Khalid says.

  Dear Nawra,

  You and Muhammad are alive and well! I am so happy. I handed your letter straight to Mom, and she read it out loud, and then I went outside and hollered, “Nawra made it!” All the birds took off to spread the news. Todd told me I was psycho, but he wanted to read your letter, so I let him. Then I called Parker, Chloe, and Florinda.

  At Blessings this morning I had to wait all the way through Concerns for Joys, and when Jack called on me, I said, “Nawra had a baby boy who’s the size of a guava.” People laughed and clapped. Since a bunch of once-a-monthers had missed my first message, Jack suggested I give a recap. He asked questions to help me along, so I told more or less the whole story, ending with the horrible rainy, smoky night and then your mom singing (someone started to cry, I swear) and why you picked the name Muhammad.

  Jack said, “Muslims call Muhammad the messenger of God and so this baby is too, bringing us a message of forgiveness and hope.”

  Maybe you can tell Muhammad that when he’s bigger.

  More later. I promise I’ll mail this bundle soon. I want to get my one envelope’s worth!

  Dear Nawra,

  Emily just called. I almost hung up, but I didn’t because my happiness for you would have a hole in it if I didn’t share it with Emily. She sends you her congratulations. That’s the handy English word we pull out when someone’s done a good job, but Emily and I agreed it doesn’t seem big enough to describe your having this baby and loving him under such terrible circumstances.

  I filled Emily in about my sick-at-heart day and how Todd walked in the door and sniffed the deliciousness of eggplant parmigiana and asked, “Am I in the right house?” Emily asked if we could trade moms; hers is thinking of moving to an ashram once Emily starts college.

  She apologized for being so tough on me while I was adjusting to a new understanding of myself.

  I said, “So you take back what you said about my being stupid and lazy—”

  “I did not call you stupid,” Emily said.

  “Not in so many words—”

  “Never stupid,” Emily said.

  “But lazy.”

  “Unwilling to face up to reality, to what’s required. Maybe not unwilling. Maybe scared.”

  We were having our argument all over again.

  As you once said, Nawra, I don’t think I’m scared, but maybe I am.

  Then I remembered something else you said, about listening to the person who gives you advice that makes you cry, not laugh.

  “Okay, I’ll look up my own words in the dictionary from now on,” I said.

  “You can always ask me for big-picture help,” Emily said. “It’s just I want to be doing stuff with you, not for you.”

  I have more to tell you and will write again soon!

  Nawra

  OCTOBER 2008

  Not long after dark, we hear voices. “Men beat us and stole our wood,” a woman says.

  I hand Muhammad to my mother and hurry from the shelter. People have gathered, bumping into one another in the dark, for there is no moon.

  The woman speaks again. “Stole our wood,” she says.

  Her voice sounds loud and hollow. “All for sticks,” she says. “They did not have to beat us; we offered them our wood. We are intact, thanks be to God.”

  “How far from the camp are these bandits?” someone asks.

  “Far,” she says. “We lost our way. You can imagine. All that way and they stole our wood.”

  I study the outlines near the voice. At last I see the tall Adeeba beside Little Zeinab.

  I cry their names. Thanks be to God. I round them in my arms, my worries tumbling over my relief. “Come,” I say. “Come eat dinner. Tell your story.”

  As we move away, the woman is still talking. “They beat us and stole our wood.”

  “You are lucky,” a man says.

  Although our fire has almost died, I see all in an instant. The heart sees before the eyes. Zeinab’s butterflies are gone.

  Others have gathered nearby, spreading the woman’s loud words, “beaten but intact.”

  “Zeinab!” Hassan shouts. He hugs her without thinking. The touch brings her tears.

  “I am sorry,” Hassan says. “Where were you beaten?”

  “Everywhere,” Adeeba says.

  “I will bring Uncle,” Hassan says.

  Adeeba and Zeinab stand as if they have lost their way.

  “We have your dinner,” I say.

  They stand until Zeinab’s uncle comes. “Thanks be to God,” he says.

  “Let the child sleep here tonight,” my mother says. “We will care for her.”

  The uncle leaves. Hassan, too, has disappeared.

  They sit by the embers. I wet a cloth to wash their faces. Zeinab sits close to Adeeba, as if she wishes to crawl into her skin. Neither reaches for the baby.

  “Eat,” my mother says.

  They drink much water but pick at their food.

  “We are just so tired,” Adeeba says.

  I wish to leave no stone unturned, but instead I pass the cup of water. I do not ask about Zeinab’s butterflies.

  Soon Hassan leads Khalid to our shelter.

  “Are you well, Adeeba?” Khalid asks in the dark. “And Zeinuba?”

  “Thanks be to God, whatever our condition,” she says.

  “You two gave us a scare.”

  “Not like the one the militia gave us,” Adeeba says.

  We are quiet for a moment. K. C. asked me once about life in Umm Jamila, and I told her what was there. But just as important was what was not there, the fear these years have brought.

  “We are alive, thanks be to God,” Adeeba says, “although their slaps have left us uglier than monkeys.”

  “That I cannot believe,” says Khalid.

  His tone is flat, but I feel the ardor beneath his words, like the bump of a pea beneath its pod.

  “Let us find a nurse,” he says.

  “We know they prefer the day, like the black flies that bite chickens,” Adeeba says. “How goes the platform?”

  For a moment he talks of the spider and the progress of his team. Soon Khalid bids us good night.

  “You must rest tomorrow,” he counsels Adeeba.

  “I have class,” she says.

  “Si-Ahmad came looking for you,” I tell her.

  “To dismiss me?”

  “He was concerned,” I say.

  Hassan returns to his uncle, but Zeinab stays with us. We visit the latrines, easy to find even in the dark because of the stink. Then we lie down.

  Dear Nawra,

  Emily googled some baby proverbs, and we found one for you by Carl Sandburg, who got a lot of congratulations for his poetry. He said, “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.”

  We’ve been brainstorming all this stuff we could do with each other, like dressing up as Green Eggs (Emily) and Ham (me) for Halloween, which is this holiday where everybody puts on costumes and pretends to be someone else while they eat a bucket of candy. Then we came up with a truly awesome idea: We’re going to start a Darfur club at school! We’re still working out the details, but the big things are we’ll educate people and raise money to buy donkeys and fuel-efficient stoves. At least then I’ll feel like I’m doing more than sending you ballpoint pens and stickers.

  Dear Nawra,

  I wish I could send you a donkey. Parker has a laptop, so one day we were splitting a blueberry muffin at this coffee place with wi-fi and just for fun looked up donkeys at a site called FreeHorseAds.com. They’re expensive! The cheapest was two hundred and fifty dollars, but another was two thousand dollars. The one I liked was named Gracie and cam
e with a little black colt, for your baby, but together they cost seven hundred and fifty dollars. I’m guessing your dad lost his herd, but we’d like to set you back up in the animal business. Mom says that’s not such a crazy idea because a man called Muhammad Yunus—another good Muhammad—started giving small loans to poor women, who turned out to be great at business. They’d buy chickens and sell the eggs, and some even bought cell phones, and then their neighbors paid them to make calls. How about that, Nawra? Then I could call you. Of course I’d have to quit school first and get a job to buy my own phone.

  “Now everyone thinks the answer to world poverty is microfinance,” Mom said.

  “You don’t?” I asked.

  “I don’t think there’s ever one answer to anything complicated,” she said.

  I should write that on a test sometime. “How about raising my allowance?” I asked. “I’m a poor woman.”

  Mom scowled.

  “Or giving me a smartphone?”

  She scowled deeper.

  “I know, I know,” I said. “I’m lucky. I’m grateful—really I am.”

  Then Mom did a smowl, which is a scowl that turns into a smile that turns back into a scowl because she suddenly suspected I’ve been eavesdropping on her griping about her self-centered children. Which is why I think she signed me up with Save the Girls, so I could be grateful I’m not in your situation. It’s worked. Even though high school is just killing me, I look at Mr. Thrasher, who’s even worse than Mr. Hathaway, and think, At least he’s not Janjaweed.

  My head’s about to fall onto my keyboard. It’s almost one a.m. Gotta finish this later.

  Nawra

  OCTOBER 2008

  Outside, snores and cries bump heads between shelters. From the breaths, I can tell my mother sleeps first, then Zeinab. Muhammad suckles, then his lips fall away. But Adeeba is awake. I sense her wakefulness in the dark.

  Beneath silence lie great disasters.

  “They hurt you,” I whisper.

  She begins to cry. I roll away from Muhammad and hold her in my arms. She cries for a long time.

  Adeeba sleeps some, then wakes, but I am there, my arms around her. “You can tell me,” I whisper. “There are no secrets from God and your friend.”

  “It took us so long to find wood,” she whispers, “that when we did, we clapped and carried on like neighbors who had known one another a lifetime.”

  They were five returning, Zeinab and Adeeba, plus two mothers and one daughter, older than Zeinab. The younger mother had left her three children in the camp. She talked about the mats she would weave with the long grasses she was carrying with her wood. People buy them to sit and sleep upon, and with the coins she buys beans to fill her children’s bellies.

  The girl pointed in the distance. “Is that a car?” she asked. “I would like to ride back to camp. I have never ridden on the soft seats of a car.”

  “Hush,” her mother said.

  They quickened their pace, and tears ran down Zeinab’s face. She did not think of soft seats when she saw a car.

  It was an open car, so they could see it held four men. The women kept walking as if it were not there, but it pulled across their path. For a moment they could not see the car because of the dust. Three men stepped out. Two wore uniforms, but with no pride. One had a long gun, and he knocked the sticks and grass from the women’s heads with the tip. Zeinab sobbed, and he slid the tip of the gun down her cheek and under her chin, lifting it up.

  “Quiet,” he said.

  Zeinab swallowed her tears. Then he noticed her butterflies. He yanked them from her hair. “My daughter will like these,” he said.

  “In the name of your daughter, leave us be,” Adeeba said.

  “Definitely a rebel,” Long Gun said to his companions. He pushed the gun hard against the softness of Adeeba’s breast, and one of the women cried out, “No.”

  “We want a truck,” Long Gun said. “Instead we find you.”

  Adeeba could feel death’s breath, but she looked him in the eyes. “That which is lost in the desert’s sands will not be lost on the scales on Judgment Day,” she said.

  Long Gun took one step back, and for a moment Adeeba thought she had won the contest with the help of God.

  Young Uniform said, “That one is not a woman but a man.”

  Long Gun did not like it. As my brother Abdullah said, Fear God, and fear those who do not fear God.

  “I will show you these are women,” Long Gun said. With his gun he rammed Adeeba, and when she fell upon her back, he grabbed the leather water bag and violated her honor. He ripped the earrings from the younger mother. The men had their way with all and flung the women’s tobes to the wind.

  Until the men drove off, the women waited as they had been left.

  The mothers stood up first, and the one said to her daughter, “Squat, so the seed runs out.” All five squatted naked in the sand and urinated. They chased their tobes. The young mother tied her torn earlobes together with grass.

  “Leave the sticks and grass,” the mother of the daughter said. “We will say we were beaten and robbed.”

  Adeeba did not like this, but she could feel the force of the mother who wanted her daughter to marry well. A dishonorable thing is denied, my grandmother said, God’s mercy upon her.

  Two hours they walked in silence. Adeeba held Zeinab’s hand. When they neared the camp, they sat and waited until the sun had set.

  “We were beaten and robbed,” the mother said again. “We are intact.”

  They returned in the dark, to keep their faces hidden.

  In the night, Zeinab cries out, so Adeeba draws her close. Except to nurse Muhammad, I hold Adeeba until the sun rises. I can feel Muhammad against my back and my breasts against Adeeba and my hand reaching Zeinab on her other side.

  God has not been worshipped with anything better than comforting people.

  Dear Nawra,

  The weirdest thing: Just before dinner the phone rang—not Emily, but a man asking for Susan.

  State police? Mom mouthed, because they’re always dialing us for dollars, but I shook my head. Mom had just put a roast chicken on the table, so Todd and I sat down salivating and finally picked up our forks and started banging them on the table. Mom hurried into the kitchen, still talking on the phone. She said, “The inmates are about to riot unless I dish up dinner.”

  Mom put the phone back and returned to the table with a funny little swish in her step. Todd and I looked at each other. “Who was that?” I asked.

  “Steven,” she said. “From church.” Her smile popped on like a floodlight.

  “The gum-wrapper guy,” I said. Todd and I looked at each other and then stared at Mom, but she pretended not to notice as she served chicken and mashed potatoes and peas and sent me to the fridge for butter.

  “And . . . ?” I prompted when I sat down.

  “And what?” she said. We prodded her for the full story. This Steven, otter guy, is fifty-three, divorced, a planner for the county. God, if he marries Mom, we’ll get nothing but calendars for Christmas. I was right about the kids, a girl and a boy, nine and seven. Like Mom, Steven’s got 85 percent custody. His ex-wife travels a lot on business.

  Todd groaned. “So now I’m the only one in this family without a love life?”

  “Love life?” Mom and I said at the exact same moment, so I said, “Jinx,” which is just a silly superstition.

  “I can’t speak for K. C.,” Mom said, “but I can always use a friend. Friends are important, don’t you agree?”

  I do, Nawra. I don’t believe in angels, but I do believe in friends.

  Love, K. C.

  Nawra

  OCTOBER 2008

  As the camp stirs, Adeeba whispers that she will go to the clinic and bring Zeinab with her. All five from the gathering party can go together. They will show their bruises, and the nurse will write a report. Perhaps one of the khawaja can drive them into town, to the police station. They will report the crime. T
he police will track down the men and arrest them. She will stand in court and tell the judge what the men have done.

  I do not like this plan. Keep talk of your own relatives behind closed doors, my grandmother used to say, God’s mercy upon her. But Adeeba grew up far from the villages. Her father became her mother and filled her head with talk of justice. That is why many in the camp call her a strange girl. Adeeba knows this. And she knows that I am proud to call her my friend, although I do not always understand her.

  I remind Adeeba of Ida, in our own section. Ida is like me, with a baby and no husband. The police in her city said no woman becomes pregnant without desire, and they threatened to charge her with fornication if she did not pay a fine.

  “We have four witnesses—five, although Zeinab is too young to testify,” Adeeba says.

  “Leave these men to God,” I say. “A crime is a dog that follows its owner.”

  “Someone must say, ‘That dog bit me,’ ” Adeeba says. “These men will only do worse. Look at all the women in this camp. Wrongdoers have burned our homes and crippled us with shame. We must speak against them. We must say the truth.”

  “Truth is bitter,” I say.

  • • •

  We wait for daylight. When Adeeba stands, the aches stand with her. She speaks through cracked and swollen lips.

  “We are going to the clinic,” I say to my mother. I tie Muhammad to my body and walk with Adeeba and Zeinab to look for their companions of the day before.

  The mother with the daughter shoos us away. “We have no need of the clinic,” she says. “You think this is the first time a woman has been beaten? I tell you my husband did worse. Once he broke a pot on my head. Ha, ha, ha.”

  “No wonder she is crazy,” Adeeba whispers as we leave. Zeinab smiles, and I am glad and squeeze her fingers, for she has spoken not a word since her return to camp. The other mother lies on her back upon her woven mat, even as her children scream and play nearby. A fly walks where her torn ear has bled across her neck, and I shiver, for I saw such a body once on the sand, only dead, with the woman’s children climbing over it as a game.