This is the farthest we have ever been away from the camp.
We crouch beneath branches. We push aside thorns. Al-Bakura sits on the ground and rests his gun on his lap. He digs his hand into his crotch.
From inside his underwear, he pulls out a mobile phone and turns on the music.
“Ehn doro bucci / Don doro bucci / Doro Jazzy / Ehn doro boss . . .”
Isaac’s favorite song. Whenever it was playing on Papa’s radio, my brother stopped whatever he was doing and dipped his two hands into his pockets like a rich man, bobbing his head from side to side to the rhythm.
He used to say that he would one day become as rich as Don Jazzy, the singer, and then get married to Tiwa Savage. But I knew that he was only joking. Papa would never allow him to marry a woman who was not Hausa, not even if she was a famous musician.
I grab Zainab’s arm.
“Look!”
Her eyes, terrified, follow my finger.
Her eyes twinkle like a candle flame sprinkled with salt.
“Hallelujah!”
“Thank God!”
A baobab tree!
Zainab and I hurry toward the tree of life, knowing that today’s corn meal will be the most delicious of our lives. And if the ground underneath is free of sharp stones, maybe she will crouch while I stand to pluck some of its fruits. My tongue gets set for a trip to heaven.
Soon, we notice the smell. The nearer we go, the stronger the stench. Like the smell of a rat that has succumbed to Mama’s Superkill Action–laced crayfish. Like the smell of the cow entrails from Divine’s naming ceremony.
“What is that smell?” I ask.
Zainab covers her nose with her hijab. Her response is muffled in the mauve cloth.
And then I see it.
A vast hole beneath the baobab tree. A cloud of flies swimming above.
I retch.
I now know what became of the elderly soldier, Magdalene, and the girl who slumped during Quranic class.
Fertilizer
SITTING IN QURANIC CLASS and listening to Malam Adamu teach us how to become good Muslim women, my mind wanders to Papa’s bags of fertilizer.
Every farming season for the past few years, Papa and every other farmer in our village received a text message from the government on his mobile phone letting him know that the subsidized fertilizer was ready for collection.
Together, all the farmers traveled by bus to the local government office, where they were each given two bags at a third of the market price.
What will the government do with Papa’s share this year? Will the officials notice that he is absent? How many farmers from our village will also not be present to collect their fertilizer?
Tired
“I AM TIRED OF all these stupid prayers!” Zainab groans.
“Me too. But you’ll get into trouble if you don’t go,” I say.
Aisha stands quietly, saying nothing.
“I don’t care anymore,” she says. “Let Al-Bakura kill me if he likes. I’m tired.”
“Zainab, please, don’t do anything stupid,” I say.
“You can tell him that you’re on your period,” Aisha says.
Malam Adamu taught us that, while menstruating, we are unfit to talk to Allah.
Unless Allah reveals it to him, he will have no way of knowing that Zainab has told him a lie.
Bite off His Ears
EVENTUALLY, I DETECT WHAT is happening. I notice something I had not before.
The Boko Haram men who come into our sleeping area at night are not interested in the girls. They are only after the women.
All those they ask to come along with them in the middle of the night are years older than Zainab and me.
“Maybe we can escape before we are old enough to go with them,” I say.
“I will kill anyone who tries to touch me,” Zainab says. “I will bite off his ears.”
Aisha’s Turn
TONIGHT, IT IS AISHA’S turn to go with Al-Bakura. Her pregnancy probably makes them think that she is a woman.
“No! No! Please! Please!” Aisha screams. “I am a married woman! I am expecting a child!”
The rest of us lie silent, pretending that our ears are dead.
If only I could do something to help. If only I could inform Al-Bakura that he is making a mistake, that Aisha is not really a woman, that she is the same age as Zainab and me.
But no matter how much the tortoise may wish to fight, he has no fingers.
Aisha’s wailing gets louder and louder. Al-Bakura does not take her revolt lightly. A dull sound. A muffled cry. The end of Aisha’s resistance.
“Shut up or I will kill you,” he says.
This Is Not Islam
AISHA RETURNS JUST BEFORE dawn with her hijab askew. Zainab and I sit up beside her, gripping her shoulders and patting her head.
“This is not Islam,” she says once. “This is not Islam,” she says again. “This is not Islam,” she says over and over again.
Nothing to Do with Islam
I HAVE BEEN THINKING the same thing myself. And not just because I heard Malam Isa and Malam Shettima say as much during their goat-meat-pepper-soup argument. And not because I have closely watched Malam Isa and Aisha practice their religion.
I have been reflecting on the issue since we began Quranic classes, and the contradictions seem to increase by the day.
Could Islam, whose name Malam Adamu teaches us stands for peace and submission to God, encourage its adherents to work for the death and destruction of human beings?
Could the same Allah who asked his followers to give alms to beggars with jiggers in their feet also ask them to slaughter unarmed boys?
Every sura in the Quran that Malam Adamu reads out to us begins with “Bismillah.” Malam Adamu says that, similarly, any action by humans must start the same way. But how can you start your deeds with “In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,” and yet raze villages and destroy homes?
What was gracious about taking girls away in the middle of the night? What was merciful about stabbing a girl who was singing about Jesus’s love for her?
Malam Isa and Malam Shettima were right. Boko Haram has nothing to do with changing the world. Boko Haram has nothing to do with Allah.
Boko Haram has nothing to do with Islam.
Education
THE BOKO HARAM MEN claim that Western education is taboo. They say it is haram for women to go to school.
If they hated Western education so much, why did they bother with guns and trucks, which you could learn how to make only by going to school?
Why did they drive Hilux vans and motorbikes, which could only have been invented with the knowledge of science and technology?
My Definition of Haram
STEALING CHILDREN FROM THEIR papa and mama.
Hitting a pregnant woman.
Tiptoeing into a woman’s sleeping area at midnight and commanding her to follow you out.
Open Secret
ONCE AGAIN, THE CRAMPS expose Zainab’s secret to the world.
Just like that, Allah reveals to Al-Bakura that she had faked her period the last time.
He refuses to swallow her insistence that a strange occurrence in her body has led to two cycles so close in time.
I shut my eyes and ears tight, but the sound of the koboko landing still pierces through.
Twenty-five lashes on her back.
Malam Isa
ALL THE BEGGARS IN our village hobbled to his front door on Friday afternoons like soldier ants on a sugar trail.
When they saw him returning from the mosque, they stretched out their cracked palms and cried, “Allah ya ba mu alheri! Allah ya ba mu alheri!” Then they muttered prayers for Allah to continue to make him strong and his farms to produce great harvest.
Whenever Zainab and I spent extended periods with Aisha during the holidays, I saw Malam Isa dip into the pocket of his caftan and hand out red and green naira notes to each of the beggars.
/> There was no instance when he hissed or frowned or shooed them away like flies hovering over his tuwo shinkafi lunch, not even when the rains were late last year and his groundnut, onions, and tomato crops did not yield as bountifully.
He was determined to obey the Quran’s instruction to give alms especially after Friday prayers at the mosque. Malam Isa was a good Muslim man, in happy times or bad.
Allah would certainly not be happy to have watched this good man be butchered like a Christmas chicken.
And here is Malam Adamu, one of those responsible for Malam Isa’s death, teaching us in Quranic class how to become good Muslim women.
Tales by Moonlight
“WE ATTACKED GIWA BARRACKS in Maiduguri and freed more than seven hundred of our brave fighters who were arrested by the Nigerian military,” Al-Bakura says. “Gwoza, Mafa, Dikwa, Banki, Baga, Monguno . . . all these towns and many others are now part of our caliphate. Boko Haram is in control and everyone there now lives under Sharia law.”
Above in the sky, the full moon gleams, the only visible beauty in this dark and frightening world.
Al-Bakura’s tales by moonlight are definitely not the same as Papa’s. His bring sorrow instead of laughter and learning.
Death
NO MATTER HOW MANY koboko strikes Al-Bakura lands on her, Jamila does not open her eyes.
Throughout yesterday, she stooped and spat, her entire body quaking with cough. But no slave in the Sambisa is entitled to medicine.
“When you get married, things will change,” Amira says.
Battle
AS SOON AS THE cooked meal is poured into the basin, the battle begins. No time to waste. Speed is key.
I shift forward and elbow a hand in my path. I dip into the basin and tackle some fingers that interfere with mine. I fill my palm with as much fluid as it will contain, then toss back my head and lap up the watery cornmeal. I dive in for another round.
I must act fast, plunge in and out as many times as possible before Aisha lifts the basin over her head and licks the last drops clinging to the enamel.
In the twinkling of an eye, mealtime is over.
And yet, I am still hungry.
After the battle is fought and won, my stomach continues to burn, as if a bicycle with square wheels is riding around inside.
To think that there was a time when I sat on the veranda waiting for Mama, imagining that I knew the true meaning of hunger.
One of a Kind
THE HUNGER IN THE Sambisa forest is different from the kind that stood with me on the veranda while I eagerly awaited Mama’s return from the market.
This hunger is unique.
It is the kind of hunger that is not satisfied with staying inside your stomach to sizzle your intestines. Soon, it migrates to your head and makes you feel as if you are dangling on the brink of a cliff off which you might fall any moment, stopping along the way to siphon all the strength from your muscles and bones. Henceforth, a snail may beat you in a race.
It is the kind of hunger that makes you think no other thought but the next meal. Each time the wind flaps the plastic sheets that provide some privacy for the area where you squat into a hole in the ground to obey nature’s demands, you sit up, imagining that someone might be approaching with a bucket of food. Each time a guard fiddles with the barrel of his gun while describing his most recent jihad exploit to another guard who is merely a new conscript, you stretch your neck, hoping that an enamel basin of food has indeed been set on the floor.
It is the kind of hunger that takes over your body and soul, forcing your eyelids shut and stealing your attention from Malam Adamu’s Quranic lessons. The longer he speaks, the faster the suras go in my ear and make a U-turn right out of the same ear. When we pray to Allah, I summon enough strength to beg Him to send me some food. What I want most in the world is a hefty meal, after which I will put my head down on anything, hard or soft, and snooze until the world comes to a happy end.
It is the kind of hunger that follows you right into your sleep. It teases you in your nightmares and taunts your appetite with impossible meals. Sometimes, the aroma from my dream lingers after I wake, wetting my tongue with a stream of sour saliva.
It is the kind of hunger that bars you from caring about anyone else. Your belly is your only sister and friend. When the new batch of girls arrived after two days of trekking from their village through the Sambisa to our camp, I did not care about their blistered soles and bruised skin. I did not care about their trancelike stares. I did not care about the girl still wearing remnants of her wedding dress. From the flower and spirogyra patterns painted on their arms and feet with lalei dye, I could tell which of the rest were her close friends and bridesmaids.
My only concern was that these girls were here to shorten my ration, that their coming meant more fierce battles around the food basin. And sure enough, the cornmeal has been all the more watery since they arrived. To feed more mouths, the broth must become less solid.
Democracy
“DEMOCRACY IS THE SYSTEM of infidels,” Malam Adamu says. “Having anything to do with it is unbelief.”
I wonder if Boko Haram has now managed to invade any more than the three northeast states from the fraction of the Nigerian map that Malam Zwindila shaded on the board.
I wonder if they have come any closer to toppling the democratically elected government of Nigeria.
I wonder if I will soon forget the definition of democracy, and everything else I learned in school.
God Forbid
WHAT IF BOKO HARAM attacked Mama on her way to or from Jalingo?
What if Mama is also dead?
I Have Lost Count
I HAVE LOST COUNT of the number of evenings and mornings we have been here. My mind has since stopped weighing me down with thoughts beyond one day at a time.
I arise each morning with no strength to think of tomorrow morning or the morning after tomorrow. I retire at night with no courage to think of tomorrow night or the night after tomorrow.
It strikes me like a hammer that Aisha could very well bring her baby into this world right here in the Sambisa forest. We could be here to see Malam Isa’s first child begin its life without a father to give it a name.
We could be here till our bones turn brittle and our heads turn hoary.
We could be here until Jacob no longer remembers who I am.
Rain
IT DROPS.
It pours.
It floods.
Soon, the dense branches, potent against the sun’s rays, are powerless to shield us from the sky’s tears.
For the first time since I came to the Sambisa, water washes the dirt from my body and from my clothes.
I am cold but clean.
Conversations with Zainab
SOMETIMES, I WANT TO tell her to swat the fly perched on her lip, but I decide that there is no need.
Sometimes, I want to tell her that the cornrows I weaved on her head many days ago are shedding strands, but I realize that it does not matter.
Sometimes, I want to ask her if the baobab seed we planted together in her backyard may have sprouted by now, but I remember that it is no longer our business.
Sometimes, I want to show her that Al-Bakura has forgotten to zip up his fly, but I worry that the two of us might get our throats slashed for giggling.
Sometimes, I want to call her name to check whether she is sleeping or dead, but I fear that she may never answer.
Rare Praise
“WELL DONE,” MALAM ADAMU says. “You’re now ready to go on to the next step in becoming good Muslim women.”
Even the worst student in the class is certified.
Snake
AISHA SEES IT FIRST.
“Ahhh!” she screams.
It is slithering a footstep or two away from her bare feet, its long, green body almost blending with a nearby shrub.
“Snake! Snake!” we scream.
Women hop. Girls skip.
Everyone seems
to think that the snake’s brothers and sisters could be cocking their tails beneath their feet.
Quickly, I reach ahead for a branch and yank it from the nearest tree. But it is too straight. The snake could slide right up and inject its poison into my hand.
I reach for another branch, one with a forked end this time. Some girls grab stones big and small.
Within minutes, the beast is as flat as a massa cake, its head and tail several centimeters apart.
“This must be what I saw in my dream,” Aisha says. “I dreamed that a big snake came and swallowed me whole, then it took my baby away and became its new mother.”
What if another snake is hiding in the bushes?
What if it creeps out and swallows us while we are asleep?
I decide not to share my terror with her.
The Leader
IT IS CLEAR WHENEVER the mad man has returned.
The fresh flood of motorbikes.
The extended rows of trucks and Hilux vans.
The higher laundry pile of bloodied shirts and trousers.
The young men with hands and feet bound tightly with twine. Those of them who agree to join the Boko Haram jihad are taken away alive, still bound, in trucks or armored tanks. The others hear “Allahu akbar!” before their throats are slit in front of us by Al-Bakura, batch after batch, day by day.
But there is one sign that only the captives catch.
It is a sign that makes you almost wish that the Leader would stay in our camp forever, despite his fondness for a dagger.
Whenever the Leader is around, Al-Bakura and Malam Adamu do not tiptoe into our sleeping area at night. They leave the women to slumber in peace.
Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree Page 8