Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree
Page 12
Old Friend
ZAINAB PLAITS FANNE’S HAIR.
Fanne whispers into Zainab’s ears.
Zainab giggles.
Fanne gives Zainab an extra palmful of groundnuts.
Zainab does not share the groundnuts with me.
Thinking About Zainab
MY BLOOD BOILS.
My chest tightens.
My mind wishes she would trip on a stone and break her neck.
Maybe it is hatred. Maybe it is jealousy.
Maybe I just want my best friend back.
Paradise
THE CLASS IS SILENT while Fanne makes her announcement.
“Zainab, your husband wants you to be the first one to go to jihad. Will you accept this great honor?”
She smiles. Fanne smiles.
Now, I know for sure what I feel toward my friend.
Jealousy.
Zainab just seems to have all the good luck in the world. Here I am, stuck in the Sambisa forest for the rest of my life, with a husband who despises me and women who scorn me, while she gets to go with the men and see the outside world.
“Two of our bravest rijale will take you to the place,” she says. “Your husband will also go with you. He will give you the vest to wear and tell you everything you need to do.”
What? The vest that sends people to paradise?
I am not so jealous of Zainab anymore. I want to jump up and beg her to please not go!
Superstar
“WE ARE PROUD OF you,” some say.
“Congratulations,” others say.
“I always knew you were special,” yet others say.
From the little food we have left, Zainab receives the lion’s share.
Each time I approach her, she is surrounded by dozens of women, whose glares dare the blasphemer to come any closer.
I Must Try
THEIR GLARES DARE THE blasphemer to come any closer.
I ignore them and set my focus on Zainab.
Heart pounding, I rush forward and clutch her niqab.
“Zainab! Zainab!”
She turns.
“Please, don’t go! Please! You won’t—”
A slap on my face. Two more. Another on my back.
“Get away from her!” Fanne says. “You wretched infidel.”
Heartbroken
HAVING NOT SEEN HER for the past two days, I know she must have gone.
My best friend has left for paradise. Without bothering to tell me good-bye.
Boom
THIS TIME, I KNOW that it is not the clapping of distant thunder.
It is also not a nightmare, because the floor around me is not slimy with fresh intestines, and Papa and Isaac are not drowning in puddles of blood.
It is not the blasting of Boko Haram guns, either. It cannot be. My husband is right beside me on the mattress.
He leaps out of bed, grabs his gun from beside his laptop, and changes his mind about wearing his boots. However, he remembers to pull on his mask before scurrying out of sight like a cockroach caught napping under an old carton.
I am not sure whether to wait for his return or if I should get up and leave the tent without his permission or instruction.
Through the tarpaulin, men’s shadows dart to and fro like confused ghosts. I hear the bustling of running feet and the rustling of muttered exchanges. Then the muttering grows to a grumbling and the grumbling grows to a mighty rumbling. Soon, the entire camp is tumbling with footsteps and voices.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The blasts appear much nearer to my ears than before. I stand up, climb into my skirt, pull on my niqab. But I cannot get up and leave the tent without his permission. I sit on the mattress and wait.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
It sounds like guns. Like bombs. Like an approaching army.
But every army in the world is afraid of Boko Haram. Fanne told us so. Even seasoned soldiers drop their weapons and flee at the sight of the rijale. No military would dare penetrate the Sambisa to attack.
My husband dashes back in. I am relieved to see him. I was afraid that he might forget that I was still here. Without looking at me, he grabs his laptop and forces his feet into his boots.
“Pack everything,” he says. “We need to leave this place. Now.”
At last, I can get up and leave.
I gather his clothes and bedding into a bundle.
“Go and load everything in the truck,” he says. “Quick!”
I am unsure which of the dozens of trucks parked at the camp’s edge he has in mind. But I obey and run outside. Suddenly, I halt, turned into a pillar of salt. The sight that meets my eyes is even more shocking than the raw terror in my husband’s voice.
Great Boko Haram men, small Boko Haram men, lean Boko Haram men, brawny Boko Haram men, brown-skinned Boko Haram men, dark-skinned Boko Haram men, light-skinned Boko Haram men, veteran fighters and new recruits—all scampering about in panic, like bats disturbed from their cave. What could be alarming the rijale so?
Surely anything that makes a crocodile scamper in fear should be equally fearsome to a common lizard? I pick up my feet and run.
I am not the only woman rushing toward the trucks with an armful of domestic belongings. All around, children cry, or stand and stare.
Just as I dump my husband’s property into the back of the nearest truck, its engine growls to life. A bunch of Boko Haram men clamber and scuffle aboard. They step on each other’s feet. They stare into each other’s fear-stricken eyes. They hold each other’s hands and pray. These men are capable of feeling the same kind of terror they inflict on others. The same way they can also feel grief at a loved one’s death.
Some Boko Haram men are more concerned for their lives, scrambling aboard every available truck and van and motorbike. Some do not want to leave behind their wives and the other women and girls they got as slaves. They drag them along into the trucks.
A hand grabs my arm. I jolt.
My husband.
“Get in the truck,” he says.
Right there and then, I wonder why I never clawed out his eyeballs with my nails while he snored soundly. I wonder why I never smashed in his skull with his laptop. I tear my arm out of his grip and run.
“Salamatu! Salamatu!” His voice fades into the background. “You can never run away from me! Wherever you go, I will come and find you!”
More and more of us are tearing ourselves away from the Boko Haram men and running. Some of us head toward the deserted tarpaulin tents. Some head toward nearby trees and shrubs. With each sprint, I keep expecting to feel his grip around my arm or neck.
Fanne and some other wives are inside the trucks, happy to go along with their men. But when the vehicles are too full to take everyone, the men begin to push some of the women out of the truck.
And then the stones begin to rain.
The first one whizzes past my left ear. The second one strikes my shoulder.
“Ow!”
I stop running and crouch.
The air around me is crammed with screams. A child yelps and drops to the ground. A woman holds her baby to her stomach and wails, then doubles over to protect the child. A quick glance confirms what I already suspected. The rijale are pelting us with stones.
They would rather stone us to death than leave us behind alive.
By the time the Boom! Boom! Boom! is close enough to force the Boko Haram men into their trucks and away, many of us are lying with swollen eyes or bruised shoulders or broken heads squirting blood.
By the time the first armored tank with a green-white-green Nigerian flag draped in front appears, I am convinced that any hell outside must be better than life in this camp.
I forget about the aches on my arms and legs and fly toward the tank. Three girls have already flung themselves on the flag ahead of me.
. . . And I must not omit to say
That in Transylvania there’s a tribe
Of alien people who ascribe
The outla
ndish ways and dress
On which their neighbors lay such stress,
To their fathers and mothers having risen
Out of some subterraneous prison
Into which they were trepanned
Long time ago in a mighty band . . .
—Robert Browning, “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”
English Words
UNITED NATIONS.
International Committee of the Red Cross.
Believers’ LoveWorld.
The first English words I have seen in a long time.
White People
TALL, SMALL, LEAN, BRAWNY.
Black hair, brown hair, white hair, golden hair. One with red hair, even!
Short sleeves, long sleeves, T-shirts, white coats. Colorful flat shoes with laces.
Tens and dozens, everywhere I look within the church premises converted into a camp for refugees.
Why are so many white people here, so close to Borno?
What are they doing in this place?
What business do they have with us?
What business do we have with them?
His Voice
“SALAMATU! SALAMATU! YOU CAN never run away from me! Wherever you go, I will come and find you!”
His voice plays in my head when I lie down on the warm blanket that I have been given by the woman in a white T-shirt that has UNICEF written across the chest.
His voice plays in my head while I sit amid the hundreds of women and children on the floor of the refugee camp in Yola, all of us rescued by the Nigerian army. Some I recognize from my recent home in the Sambisa forest. Others I recognize from my previous home in the Sambisa forest.
The mere skin covering our bones and the plantations of insect bites make it clear which of us are from the forest and which are doctors and nurses and sundry good people who tell us through interpreters that they are here to help us.
“We will make sure you are in good health and that you are well taken care of,” they say. “And we will also help you find your families.”
I keep scanning the sea of faces for Zainab, craning my neck and waiting until the girl in a hijab raises her face or turns around in my direction. Maybe, just maybe.
Instead, I see Amira.
My heart stops, then starts banging like a drum.
But what do I have to fear from her?
Nothing. Not anymore.
I take in a deep breath.
The baby is sleeping peacefully in her lap. A white woman with International Committee of the Red Cross written across her back is stroking Amira’s hand while she sheds tears into the edge of her hijab.
I wonder if she decided to stay back or if her husband pushed her out of the truck.
His voice plays in my head while one of the nurses in a blue uniform holds my hand and leads me behind the white sheet with which a section of the church hall has been cordoned off. The doctor’s fingernails have no speck of dirt. He lowers his head gently and speaks in a soft voice while he pokes my chest and searches my throat and digs my belly and draws my blood.
The first white man I have touched in my life.
His voice plays in my head while a woman in a white T-shirt hands us chunks of fresh bread as thick as a child’s head. When I am down to the last few delicious bites, I worry.
What if the next meal never comes?
Still Alive
WHY DID I NOT take his life when I had the chance, blow his brains out when he was fast asleep or stick a knife into his throat?
How will I ever sleep easy knowing that he is out there somewhere, still alive, looking for me?
I Still Remember
ABRAHAM,
Elijah,
Caleb,
Isaac,
Jacob . . .
The names of all my brothers.
Mathematics,
English,
Integrated science,
Social studies,
Religious knowledge . . .
The subjects I learned in school.
The acronym for:
Brackets,
Orders,
Division,
Multiplication,
Addition,
Subtraction . . .
BODMAS: a useful reminder on the procedure for solving mathematical equations.
Government of the people,
For the people,
And by the people . . .
The definition of democracy.
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those
Who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil . . .
Our Lord’s Prayer.
The Man in the Mask
COULD HE BE THE man handing out plastic bottles of water?
Could he be the man setting up tents with white plastic sheets?
Could he be the man placing the babies on a scale before replacing them in their mothers’ arms?
Could he be the man driving the truck with a water tank?
Could he be the man arguing with the army officer, telling him that this camp is too full to take any more refugees, any more of the women and girls who disappeared?
Could he be the man asking each girl and woman her name, age, and village, and recording the information in a laptop?
I still do not know what my husband looks like in the daytime.
He could be any one of the men all over the place, pretending that, like them, he is here to help.
Free Medical Test
PAPA WAS RIGHT. THE free health check people bring bad news.
Terrible, horrible news.
They tell me that I am pregnant.
Better Life
HOW WILL THE MOTHER of a child with bad blood lift her head high among normal human beings?
Life in the forest might have been better for me.
New Dreams
I HOPE MY BABY will be a girl.
I do not want a boy who will grow up to be a rijale like his father, or a child who will look like him instead of like me.
Tablets and Capsules
THE TODDLERS ARE GIVEN a different combination with their meals.
The women and girls are given another combination with their meals.
The pregnant women and girls are given yet another combination. One gets stuck in my throat and I cough it out into my hand.
I am about to throw it back in my mouth when the nurse speaks softly.
“Go ahead and swallow it,” she says. “It will be good for your baby.”
I stare at the fat, oval, yellow capsule in my palm. I want to fling it in the sand and crush it with my toe.
But the nurse is watching.
I throw the capsule back inside my mouth and gulp.
Next time, I will hide it behind my molar until she moves on with her tray of tablets and capsules, on to the next girl who is pregnant with the child of a Boko Haram beast.
But
WHAT IF A DOCTOR’S child does not bother going to university to learn? Will it automatically also become skilled in treating complicated diseases?
Why, then, is the case of Boko Haram children different?
How is it possible that they inherit their parents’ beliefs?
The Pink Van
MY EYES FOLLOW THE pink van as it moves into the camp premises. Hardly a head turns as the woman in the shiny braids parks her Keep a Girl in School van.
She parks it beside the International Committee of the Red Cross van.
Which is beside the UNICEF van.
Which is beside the Médecins Sans Frontières van.
Which is beside the Save the Children van.
Which is beside the Amnesty International van.
Which
is beside the Murtala Muhammed Foundation van.
Which is beside the Human Rights Commission van.
Which is beside the National Emergency Management Agency van.
Which is beside the State Emergency Management Agency van.
Which is beside the Christian Association of Nigeria van.
Which is beside the European Union van.
Which is beside the BBC van.
Which is beside the CNN van.
Which is beside the Al Jazeera van.
Which is beside the Nigerian Television Authority van.
Which is beside the water truck.
Which is beside the Nigerian military truck.
My turquoise satchel that has “UNICEF” inscribed from one strap across to the other already contains two full packets of sanitary pads, which I will sadly not need for the next few months; nevertheless, I stretch out my hand and grab the pink packet that the woman passes to each girl.
I raise the packet to my nose and sniff.
I am overwhelmed by a strong desire to be seated at my desk in school, to be flipping through my textbooks or answering one of Malam Zwindila’s many questions.
Rescue
A MAN WALKS UP to me and squats by my side. I shudder. Could this be my husband, without his mask?
“I am from the Bring Back Our Girls group,” he says in Hausa. “We have been campaigning to make sure that all the girls stolen by Boko Haram are returned to their families.” He gestures toward his left. “This woman here is from the United States of America. She wants to ask you some questions.”
That is when I notice the tall woman by his side.