The Milk of Birds

by Sylvia Whitman

  It’s funny how people can be thankful for something that’s imperfect, like when Granny said, “I’m grateful for my health.” Todd talked about driving, so Mom said, “I’m grateful for seat belts,” but also “my children, who teach me more than I can ever teach them.” Steven said, “Ditto,” because Mom had told him about Grampers, but then he added, “I am thankful for the unexpected blessings that come from even irregular church attendance.” He was looking right at Mom.

  I went last. I just said thanks to you, Nawra, for sharing all your wisdom and reminding me that too much of anything makes it cheap, except for people.

  Love, K. C.

  Nawra

  DECEMBER 2008

  Because it is the last day, I sign the register with my name.

  “Your handwriting is very neat,” says Saida Noor.

  “Because my teacher beats me with a stick,” I say.

  “It breaks every time,” Adeeba says.

  Saida Noor laughs hard. Saida Julie asks, “May I hold your baby?”

  I wish I had wrapped Hamdu in a finer cloth. Saida Julie reaches across the table, and I lay him in her hands. She clucks her tongue and draws him close to her body, saying many words in a soft voice. I wish I could understand these words. Perhaps Hamdu does, for he smiles.

  When she passes him back, Saida Noor speaks for her. “He is a lovely baby, God protect him.”

  Then I cannot stop my smile.

  “This is your last letter,” Saida Noor says. “Stay near, for we have an announcement.”

  Adeeba and I sit as we did for the first letter, so close to the table we can see its strong, straight legs. I feel a squeezing in my chest. How can I thank K. C.? One year ago, her name was letters on a paper. Now she lives in my mind. There she will always remain a brown-eyed girl from a picture, even as she becomes a grandmother, inshallah.

  It is strange to think of all the people in the world. Most we do not know or ever see, but they grow up alongside us.

  I am still squeezing inside as Saida Julie stands, with Saida Noor beside her. “I am going home to my people,” Saida Julie says, “but Saida Noor will take charge and train a new khawaja. Together they will bring a new register and gifts from sisters in America.”

  Saida Julie looks slowly at us, one and then another, as if she is memorizing each face. “You are remarkable girls,” she says.

  Saida Noor says, “You know girls in need here. Bring them to our table with their mothers or their fathers or someone elder from the family if this is possible. Our register cannot hold more than fifty names, but we will help whom we can. You will have time to write after that.”

  We return to our section. A few girls do not want to come, but many have heard of the gifts from America, and mothers push their daughters forward. We meet Zeinab carrying water.

  “Where is your uncle?” I ask.

  “At the market,” she says.

  “And Hassan?”

  “Making mischief with the other boys.”

  “Tell Hassan to give you his dictionary and then find your uncle. The saidas have something to tell us,” I say.

  “She is too young,” Adeeba says as we wait for Zeinab.

  “Not too young for her uncle to find her an old husband,” I say.

  • • •

  We stand in the saidas’ line with Zeinab. It is very long. Saida Noor and Saida Julie ask each girl to tell about herself, her name and the name of her village and the family with her in camp.

  When Zeinab’s turn comes, Saida Julie says to Adeeba and me, “I know you two.”

  “Do you attend school in the camp?” the saidas ask Zeinab. She whispers that her uncle does not permit it. They ask her age. Saida Noor shakes her head. “We are looking for girls fourteen to twenty-five,” she says, “unmarried or widows.”

  “Zeinab is not fourteen, but she is old enough to testify before a committee,” I say.

  Saida Noor translates for Saida Julie, who looks at Zeinab and then at the line, girl after girl, her green eyes wide. She is thinking, How can I hear every story? How can I choose?

  “Zeinab is not a usual girl,” I say.

  We show the saidas Hassan’s dictionary with Zeinab’s drawings. “She will make a beautiful mark in your register,” I say.

  Saida Noor says to Zeinab, “You have a good lawyer!”

  As we wait, we work on the letter to K. C. but put it away when Hassan brings his uncle. He sits with us, but he is not at ease. The brother of Zeinab’s father is not a bad man, one of those who give no mercy to others nor allow God to have mercy on them. But like many of the men here, he does not know what to do with himself. What is a farmer without land? He needs what the khawaja offer, but he does not like to accept it. Drinking what is in other men’s hands is thirst.

  Saida Noor asks girls like me who have finished the program to stand and say what trade we will learn now that our gifts are ending. Even Fayiza speaks, in a whisper. Most will be making soap, but ten will train with older women to build stoves. Umm Hayat, whose legs were cut off at the knee, will run a machine to grind flour for her village.

  “All the people in Darfur deserve help getting back on their feet,” Saida Julie says. She apologizes for having so little to give. She sounds sad. Then she calls fifty names.

  Zeinab is not among them.

  I wish and you wish, but God does his will.

  Then Saida Noor adds ten more girls, waiting in line in case some of the fifty leave the camp or break the rules. The last is Zeinab.

  Adeeba says, “You better stay unmarried in case you are called!” She says this to Zeinab, but she means it for the uncle.

  Dear Nawra,

  I’m so sorry. It sounds feeble—sorry! How many thousands of times a day do we hear that? But this is the deep-down wake-up-with-heartburn-forever kind. I’m sorry the Janjaweed and those other criminals running around Darfur ruined your beautiful home and made you want to wander off and die. I’m so sorry they hurt you and Adeeba.

  I should say I’m sorry for you, but I admire you too much for that. It’s us I’m really sorry for, all of us who say “sorry” when we knock over somebody’s Diet Coke but don’t even think about villages going up in flames. I didn’t know this was happening, but somebody should have made a big deal about it. Where are leaders when you need them? Somebody should have done something to protect you.

  You were right to testify. I will tell everybody I know. Maybe one day people will look closely at the world we have created and change it.

  Dear Nawra,

  I’m not going to mail this letter bundle yet. I hope you don’t think I’ve returned to my blow-you-off ways. Save the Girls is allowing me one last letter, as long as we pay to get it translated here, so I’m saving it—which isn’t easy, since there are so many things I want to tell you. I’m growing more patient, though, which isn’t something that I thought I could grow. Mom used to say that I opened my Christmas presents before she’d even bought them. But you told me patience demolishes mountains, so I’m giving it a try.

  I pull out your sayings all the time. It’s handy to have a little wisdom in my pocket.

  More later.

  In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate

  29 December 2008

  Dear K. C.,

  Peace be upon you. How are you? I cannot believe a year has passed since we met Saida Julie. Every day I thank you for your gift, K. C. Alms do not diminish wealth. I hope you have this belief. Offer on Saturday, and you will find on Sunday.

  Are you strong? Are you well? You say there is a lack in you, but still I see nothing but a lion beneath your clothes. Good will come of this doctor, inshallah, even if he charges much money. We say, Give the dough to a baker even though he may eat half of it. You have paid the expert; now do not fear what he may tell you. He will give you knowledge about yourself that you can use to make your way.

  Some people think knowledge is something you carry only in your head, but I think you also wear
it on your feet. My father had his cousin make me a pair of leather shoes when I began tending the herd. If you are wearing shoes, you do not fear thorns.

  Your mother, she is strong and well? You think she should be teaching a whole school and not just you, the class of one. But it is better to cover one’s own pot before those of other people. Listen to her about university. Do not be like the monkey; when he cannot reach the ripe banana, he says it is not sweet. You must stretch and stretch until you reach it.

  Adeeba says her parents told her many stories of their days at university, of the building filled with books and the students talking not just with their own professors but with all the wise ones who had come before. Khalid has returned there, and one day Adeeba will follow in his path, inshallah.

  She frets, How can that come to pass? There are school fees, and I have no money. There are entrance exams, and I have not done half the studies needed. I have become a girl of this camp.

  I tell her, Even if a log lies in the water a long time, it does not become a crocodile. You are in this camp in Darfur, but you are not of this camp, nor of Darfur. One day you will go to the capital, inshallah, just as I will go to my village.

  Adeeba does not like to talk of our parting. She says I must go to the capital with her.

  What would Hamdu and I do there? That is not our place.

  Far from your eyes, far from your heart, we say. But I no longer believe this is true. There are many I no longer see, and will never see again, but I think of them often, and my eyes are as full as if they were standing here before me. A loyal friend, we say, is before a real brother, and so I will never forget Adeeba when the day comes that we must seek our separate destinies. Just as I will never forget you, K. C., although I have seen your face only in a photograph.

  And how is your brother? You talk of racing, and I see myself beside Muhammad, running for home after we had spent many days with the animals in the hills. You will eat my dust, I said, but in truth it was I who fell behind, for Muhammad’s legs were slender and fast as a gazelle’s. Sometimes when we were very hungry we ran until we had reached my mother’s side, for she always set aside our portions.

  How is your father and his second wife? Whatever your father has done, try to forgive him, K. C., as I am trying to forgive mine. Otherwise what is in your heart will defeat you.

  This month Save the Girls sent three Sudanese sisters to our camp to make soap. It was a demonstration for all who have written our names in the register for one year. They put on gloves and big glasses that made them look like bugs, so we laughed, but they said, Safety first. Making soap is a serious work that requires study. They will come back, they said, and teach a class.

  The demonstration took three days. They made the ingredients, palm seed oil and alkali, which they filtered from cooking ashes. Then they weighed and boiled them together for two hours. At the end they added plant oil for aroma and fibers for roughness. They spread out the mix, and after it dried overnight, they pounded and pressed the soap, cutting it into cakes.

  All who finish the class will receive a pot with gloves, goggles, and a scale inside. First they will sell the soap to the khawaja for the camp. When they return to their villages, they can sell it to neighbors or make a business to sell it to stores in the capital or even in the USA.

  After this demonstration, my mother was very excited and talked of which of her flowers and herbs might make the soap soothing on the hands or sweet to the nose.

  You could press in hibiscus blossoms, Zeinab said. Like Saha, she has an eye for color and beauty.

  I hope you do not think me ungrateful, K. C., but I did not feel excited to grow flowers and filter ashes and sit by the fire stirring a cookpot. Then I remembered that money can make even an ugly thing look beautiful.

  Today Saida Julie and Saida Noor asked what I thought of making soap. Thanks be to God, I said, and Hamdu smiled up at me from his wrap. With this skill I will be able to provide for my son, I said. The best for us is what God chooses for us.

  Saida Noor said, Perhaps God has chosen something else for you.

  I did not know, but last month Si-Ahmad spoke to Saida Julie. He said that I have a gift for teaching and a way with animals. He asked if the khawaja provide training in this area. They do. It is for men, but when the veterinarian comes to this camp, I will have a place in the class. We will learn the common sicknesses and remedies and even give medicine with a needle. They will call us community animal-health workers, and we must settle one per village so that we can keep many herds healthy and do not become rivals.

  God said, If you are grateful, I will give you more. Abdullah recited that many times, and it is true. I did not know how we could return to Umm Jamila, where the wells hold only sorrow now. But if I succeed in this training, I am sure that somewhere my mother, Muhammad, and I will be welcome. Man has only to think and God will take care of him.

  Saida Noor is collecting our letters, K. C., so I must say good-bye. You have given me so much. The seeds will grow from your letters for many years, and I will give them to my son. Perhaps one day I will read them myself, inshallah.

  Peace be upon you always. Peace is the milk of birds.

  Your sister, Nawra

  Dear Nawra,

  I got your last letter. How cool that you’re going to be a community animal-health worker! I don’t think I could give shots. Mom says when she was little, doctors used to give shots, but now pediatricians make their nurses do it so kids won’t hate them. No animal could ever hate you, though.

  I wish I knew what I wanted to be.

  My mom’s going to be a tutor. On Dr. Redding’s recommendation, one of his molls—whose name is Molly!—is tutoring me in reading. I feel like I’m back in first grade: “Say the sound. Write it in the air.” For eighty bucks an hour!

  Mom decided she needs a gig like this, so she signed up for a course at Dr. Redding’s office. By next summer she’ll be a certified tutor. Not of me! She promises she won’t subject me to that. But once she graduates, Dr. Redding’s office will refer students to her. Maybe after three years she’ll make back the tuition for her class.

  Even for a baker, Dr. Redding makes an awful lot of dough.

  Dear Nawra,

  You should have seen Sharon’s face when Todd suggested Dad buy him a Nikon D300 for his birthday. Todd’s like your brother Muhammad with the camels, only not such a good salesman.

  I’ve been working on the forgive-Dad piece. After Mom laid into him a few months ago, Dad started asking me about my friends. I’ve been giving him a hard time, though, making stuff up or zipping my lips.

  But he’s trying. That should count for something. Now he always asks if Emily’s mom has heard of any good herbs lately. I told him about saw palmetto, which supposedly slows baldness, but Emily says there’s only one good study. Parker says he’ll wait.

  Whenever I mention Parker, Dad raises one eyebrow, which is one of his skills, and I have to say, “Dad, it’s not like that!”

  Except maybe it is.

  Dad asks a lot about you, so this weekend I read him your letters. It gets easier after I’ve heard them a couple of times. He said you sound like an inspiring mom. The way he said it reminded me that he’s like Adeeba with this chunk of mother missing from his childhood. War is overkill because there’s already more than enough car wrecks/cancers/dust bowls/tsunamis/earthquakes/etc. to go around. It’s not like we need a new supply of misery.

  Dad told me that in college he once spent spring break building a school in the Dominican Republic, which shares an island and a lot of misery with Haiti but produces a lot of really good baseball players. Todd was hanging around, sulking about the camera he’s not going to get, but somehow from the DR we got onto the subject of elegant water filters and photography and chemistry. When Todd mentioned Kent State, Dad said, “Interesting.” Which isn’t “No.”

  Dear Nawra,

  I’m a special ed person. I hate it. I duck into the office like a spy, checkin
g that the coast is clear so no one sees me. We all want to be special, right? Just not that way.

  But this kind of special doesn’t mean I get the spa treatment or any break in grading. The school just has to find a way to give my brain equal access to what’s going on, the way doors have to be wide enough for someone in a wheelchair to get into a classroom. This means that after Ms. DB’s class, Frieda Goldberg hands me her notebook and the special ed office makes a copy for me. You should see Frieda’s notes; they’ve got little bullets and numbers, and she leaves half the page blank to write in questions when she reviews them. Move over, Emily.

  The best thing I get is extra time. Whenever I take tests, I’m allowed to sit apart, and nobody’s hounding me with “fifteen more minutes,” “ten more minutes,” “finish up.” Last week Ms. DB handed back a quiz: C+. I almost fell out of my chair. Cell phone, here I come.

  Dear Nawra,

  I won! I won the 1,000 meters at today’s meet! Okay, a small flu epidemic in Richmond public schools sidelined most of the competition, but it’s still not bad for a freshman. As I was running, I said, “Eat my dust,” and I imagined a big haboob behind me.

  Mom’s going to let me go out for outdoor track this spring.

  Sometimes Chloe and Emily help me practice. They stand on the sidelines, timing me on their cell phones and shaking their heads in wonder.

  Dear Nawra,

  Mom and I tracked down a stove person to speak to the Darfur Club. He couldn’t light a stove in a classroom, of course, but we passed it around. It’s really just a bucket with holes in strategic places, isn’t it? He even managed to bring some assida and mulah made by a Sudanese friend, but since it was cold, most people stuck to the brownies.

  Except Milton Stanley, of course. He had seconds.

  After that the Darfur Club was all fired up: Let’s raise money and buy some stoves! We came up with all the usual ideas—bake sale, car wash, ribbon pins. Which are fine, but what do cupcakes have to do with Darfur? For all most people care, we could be raising money to buy new pom-poms for the cheerleaders.