Way of Escape

by Ann Fillmore

“She could be right, Devi,” said Halima, “you know that, you know we never underestimate the potential of these men for violence.” Halima leaned forward, “I thought though, that Fumilao and her daughters were doing okay, that they were ready to go with Rachel to the drug treatment center today.”

  “They are,” said Devi, “Dr. Bar-Fischer will be here around noon. I mean, these girls can’t be any safer than they will be up there on the hill. That treatment center was designed to keep in even the meanest Israeli Defense Force vets with posttraumatic stress and high on speed. It’s very tight security.”

  “Then let’s take a look at what’s going on with Fumilao. Is it just her,” asked Halima, “or are the girls upset too?”

  “The girls are upset ‘cause the mom’s upset, but only Mom wants to go home.”

  Dr. Legesse nodded and rose, “Come on, we’ll talk with them.”

  Esie and Jo, the two Makwaia girls, sat, legs dangling, on the high serving counter in the nearly empty dining room. Another mom, with three kids, was cleaning lunch dishes from her table and getting ready to take the kids to the playroom. She glanced now and then at Mrs. Makwaia, and smiled. She knew that nothing she could say or do would help, although she had been in that exact same emotional crisis herself, back at the beginning of her stay. The doctor would help, that she did know. She gathered up her children and left as Dr. Legesse and Devi entered.

  Esie, Fumilao’s younger daughter, was crying, sobbing, her tiny pixie face wracked with tremulous shivers. “Don’t go back, Mom, don’t go back. Jo will be cut, Jo will be cut! You can’t do that, Mom!”

  Jo’s face was of stone, her entire body seemed in rigor mortis, perhaps preparing herself for the ordeal of circumcision that she had, ever so briefly, thought she’d escaped. No words came from her. Her lips were stretched taut in fear.

  Fumilao Makwaia, her stout form quaking, paced back and forth, back and forth, brushing aside chairs. “What can I do? Your father’s brothers will kill me. They could kill you, kill you both. They will be so angry because I take you away. You will not marry properly, you have been taken from the family, you will be…”

  “Gone!” exclaimed Esie, “Gone far away! We wanted that, Mom, Jo wants that. She doesn’t want her private parts cut off. She wants to be a real woman. Don’t you, Jo?” The young girl screeched, “Not like you, Mom, she wants to be a whole woman!”

  Jo frozen mute nodded and at Esie’s words, Fumilao shuddered, hugging herself in pain.

  Dr. Legesse stepped in front of the pacing Fumilao. “Stop.”

  The Ugandan woman stopped, clenched her fists.

  “Sit,” ordered Dr. Legesse.

  Slowly, in profound emotional turmoil, Fumilao sat on a chair. Both Halima Legesse and Devi pulled up chairs and sat next to her. Halima looked at her watch, then looked at the clock on the wall. Both read ten minutes to one. Firmly, but with utmost kindness, the very tall black doctor took Fumilao’s black hands, “When you were back in the village, what happened at noon?”

  Gasping for a breath, Fumilao shrugged, “Oh, it is noon in Uganda. I…I…we…go to the mine, we take the men lunch.”

  “So,” continued the doctor, “about fifteen minutes ago, you suddenly panicked. The habit of going to the mines is strong, your body and mind were telling you it was time for the women to take lunch to the men. Is that right?”

  Comprehension seeped into the terrified woman’s soul. “Oh, oh, oh! Yes. Yes. Is that it? I feel I must go to the men, if I don’t go, I will be beaten.”

  “How many years has this happened?” asked Devi quietly.

  “Since I was a small child, for my father, now for my husband and his brothers. Thirty years.” Fumilao shivered. “Thirty years I have walked that path to the mine, taking lunches. Here I am, I cannot go. They will be furious and they will come after me and they will beat us.”

  “If you were there, that is what would happen,” Halima said softly. “But you are here and you are safe.”

  “Yes, I am here. Esie and Jo are here. The men do not know where we are. They cannot know. We were so careful to escape undetected. Judge Moabi disguised us.” She breathed. Long sighs of breath began to relax her.

  Devi scooted her chair closer and put an arm over the woman’s shoulders, “You must realize that this can happen for a long time, that you can have reactions like this. It’s called a flashback, okay?”

  “Fumilao,” said Halima, “sometimes these sensations can be so strong you can actually imagine your husband right here in the room. We will show you a technique tonight to help you through these moments. As soon as you get into the treatment center, Dr. Bar-Fischer will teach you. It’s called a desensitization procedure.”

  “Anything,” wailed Fumilao, “anything to make this fear go away. I cannot believe I considered going back. Oh, God!”

  Esie climbed off the serving shelf and threw her arms around her mom. “Mom, don’t scare us like that again. You gotta know, we wouldn’t have gone with you. Right, Jo?” She glanced at her sister who mutely nodded. “But we’ll stay with you here, we’ll be by your side.”

  Fumilao broke into sobs, hugging Esie. “I’m okay now. We’re okay.” Between sobs, she asked Dr. Legesse, “When do we go to the treatment center?”

  “In about an hour. Then, as soon as you learn how to do that desensitization technique, probably in a couple days, maybe as long as a week, you’ll be sent to Sweden.”

  “That will be a big shock!” laughed Devi.

  “Why?” the mother stopped crying. “The weather? It is much colder, I know.”

  Dr. Legesse grinned, “Nah. Because in Sweden women are equal to men. It will take some getting used to.”

  Jo timidly spoke up, “You mean I can continue with school? Both Esie and I?”

  “All the way through college if you want,” replied Devi.

  “Wow,” said Jo, the rigid face melting into a smile. “I want to be wildlife biologist. That’s what I’m gonna be.”

  “I’m gonna be an actress,” said Esie proudly. “I really am!”

  The tall black doctor got to her feet, “And so you shall.” She turned to Devi, “I must return to my office. Baron Hermelin should be calling in and I’m becoming worried about Mansur. He should check in with us soon to make arrangements for later this afternoon when they reach the American air force base in Kuwait.”

  “Nothing from him or Tahireh yet?” asked Devi.

  “No,” Halima shook her head. “Nothing.”

  At first she wasn’t sure whether the wind or the stillness was worse. Above, on the dunes, the wind screamed. The spitting sand tore at everything making it impossible to see the front camel of the caravan or the donkey at the end behind them. For hours, Jani had walked step-by-step in the haji’s wake, so close to him, she could smell the sandalwood fragrance of his robes. All around them the dunes moved, shifting like giant snakes. What little of her skin was exposed had been scraped raw. Entering the wadi was a shock. A silence as solid as the forty-meter high walls on each side of them descended like a thick golden-brown theatre curtain. The camels had to pass one by one through the narrow gorge and the walls grew higher and higher. The front camels began to scramble faster and their camel tugged on the rope in Habib’s hands.

  “Can you feel the moisture?” he asked Jani.

  She let the scarf and hood fall from her face. The water in the air was like perfume. “Ahhh, yes. It’s heavenly!”

  “Get ready, our camel knows its there. We may have to trot to keep up.” He smiled at her.

  Five minutes ago, she would have collapsed if he’d told her that. “I’m ready. Can we all jump in the water?”

  Habib’s laughter echoed along the canyon, “I wouldn’t recommend it. The camels all go in first.”

  “I might have known,” said Jani and skipped along faster.

  They came out of the narrow passageway as suddenly as they entered. The walls soared to the sky in glorious shades of red and gold and ochre and yel
low and covering nearly the entire lowest part of the great chasm was a vast pool of sheer green water. Sounds bounced from one wall to the other in a symphony of noisy camels yowling, donkeys braying, men shouting, women singing. Another group of Bedouins was at the far end of the canyon, settled, camels and donkeys lazing in the water, tents and cooking fires all organized. Women washing clothes in the higher streams. The greetings were joyous and uncomplicated. Before long the newly arrived group was comfortably arranged. It was all Jani could do to not look around for her daughter. She knew she mustn’t. She knew she must look exactly like the haji’s wife. She kept her head down and began unloading their camel.

  “Do we put up our tent?” she asked in a whisper.

  Habib shook his head. “You and I, in a couple minutes, take the duffels, here,” he handed her a heavy canvas bag, “and start walking toward that clump of palm trees. See them? Far up at the other opening to the wadi?”

  She nodded.

  “As we pass the donkey boys, Tahireh and Zhara will make their way along the same path. You three will go get the Land Cruiser started. I must make ritual farewells to the chief of the tribe. It is required to show our gratitude.”

  “I should imagine so,” said Jani. “They risked their lives.”

  “It all comes round. One day they will need the EW’s services and we will be obligated to help, which we will do gladly. The Bedouin are resilient people, but their culture is under a lot of pressure to change from nomadic to urban. Those tribespeople who have given up and gone into the cities usually perish quickly.” Habib carefully finished unloading the camel and covered the tent and equipment for retrieval by the tribespeople he’d borrowed them from. He grabbed up the second duffel, looked casually around, and began walking. Jani, staggering with her smaller canvas bag, did her best to keep up.

  Habib was taking one of the many grooved paths leading along the edge of the water. Since her head was down, properly down, Jani did not realize they’d come to the donkey troupe until a sudden movement and Jani felt the weight of the bag lifted. Tahireh had taken it. Glancing furtively behind her, Jani saw the two dirty, waifish creatures and marveled at the calmness of her daughter. Not a hint of girlishness escaped from that little urchin with the matted hair and sand-bitten face. Her walk had become the splayfooted sandal stride of the donkey boys and on her belt were a knife, tin cup and bowl, a leather quirt, and a small bag. She had a long, woven tie-down rope neatly coiled and slung over her shoulder. If challenged to pick her daughter from other donkey boys, Jani would have failed. This is good, Jani thought.

  Habib led them onto higher ground along the north wall. So many millennia of footsteps had gone along these paths that the grooves in the sandstone were often as much as a foot deep. They moved through the first Bedouin camp quite rapidly. Habib stopped only momentarily to ask the whereabouts of the chief and being told the man was in the second camp, the foursome moved on. Few Bedouins noticed them pass. Here and there, a woman looked up from cooking and raised a hand in acknowledgement. The rich smells of saffron rice, stew, and warm homemade beer made Jani’s stomach growl with hunger.

  They were almost to the end of the second encampment before Habib motioned Tahireh to his side and nodded, without a word, toward the grove of palm trees. He handed his duffel to Jani and Zhara reached out and grabbed it, smiling. The three women set off single file along one of the many sandstone grooves with Tahireh in the lead and Jani and Zhara doing their best to carry the heavier duffel. As they reached the sand along the shore of the water, they dropped the long duffel to the ground and dragged it. Their long journey was beginning to tell on soft muscles and untrained bodies.

  Jani once looked over her shoulder. A glimpse was all she had of him there high up against the cliff edge. She felt a sudden chill and a giant rift as Habib, his dark brown abba billowing about him, hiked steadily toward the second camp and the chieftain’s tent. More than anything, she wanted to clasp onto him, hold him with her, keep him from going up there. That’s silly, she thought, we are within a mere kilometer of reaching the Land Cruiser. We’ll be trundling across the desert toward Kuwait and headed for the air force base in another few moments.

  On this end of the canyon, the cliffs were not so high, perhaps twenty meters, but the shade of the north wall already covered the palm trees in shadow so deep it seemed invisible when viewed from the bright sunlight. Not until they were inside the brushy perimeter and within arm’s length of the Cruiser was a vehicle barely recognizable under the camouflage netting and layers of palm leaves and brush. It was almost chilly in the darkness of the grove. Birds squawked and scattered as the women beat through the tall brush. The green leaves closed behind them leaving not a trace of their passage. Here and there a stray goat scampered away. Insects hummed and an occasional lizard skittered into the leafy groundcover.

  “Come help me,” ordered Tahireh, sighing as she set the duffel down near one corner of the netting. Zhara and Jani dropped the larger duffel. Tahireh undid the thick rope holding the netting in place and motioned for the two women to start rolling the netting back. It took considerable effort as the netting had been intertwined with brush and palm fronds. “Pull the fronds out, put the brush to one side,” Tahireh instructed, “we want to be able to fold up the net and take it with us.”

  Zhara did not hesitate, standing next to her mother, she jerked on the palm fronds as Jani held the net taut. Jani smiled at Zhara and with a gleam of fierce pride in her eyes, Zhara smiled back. Jani’s heart soared. Her daughter had been transformed. In the space of twenty-four hours, Zhara had cast off her princess’s arrogance. If the worst happens at this very moment, thought Jani, all the fear and terror will have been worth it. My daughter has grown up.

  Meanwhile, Tahireh lay down in the sand and slid under the chassis. When she wriggled out, she had a magnetic key box in her hands. “We’ve got a go,” she laughed, holding up the tiny box before opening it. “The Cruiser looks to be in good shape and the keys were right where we left them. Here,” she said, grabbing the middle of the heavy roll of netting, “throw it onto the floor in back.” She held the roll on one knee as she unlocked the back hatch door. They wrestled the netting into the Cruiser and then put the duffels on the jump seats. “There,” said Tahireh, slamming the hatch door shut, “this way we have access to the net on a moment’s notice. Now, deep breath everyone,” she went to the driver side door and unlocked it, which unlatched the other doors, “while I get the engine started. You two, sit in back so I can sit up front with Haji Mansur. He’ll want to drive.”

  She switched on the key. The engine coughed and sputtered in agonizing complaints. She tried again. And again.

  “Damn,” Tahireh swore loudly, shocking Jani. Zhara giggled. Tahireh tried again. And again. “God, I hope the battery is all right.” She looked at the meters. “It seems to be fine. Water is fine. Damn, I hope we don’t have a bad starter motor, I hope it didn’t get sand in it!” She reached down and unlatched the hood and stepped out.

  Jani grabbed her daughter’s hand. Zhara looked up at her mom and said, “I’ve forgotten most of the words to most of the prayers we were supposed to learn.”

  “Me too,” admitted Jani, “the thought better be what counts!”

  As Tahireh tinkered under the hood, Jani peered out the side window. The smallest of holes in the brush allowed her to have a pinpoint, telescopic view and she was amazed at how far away the second encampment was, at least a kilometer away, perhaps closer to one and a half kilometers. She couldn’t believe they’d walked so far in the last hour.

  Just barely she could see, near the big tent on the edge of the encampment, three brown-robed men like little ants, tiny against the vast canyon wall. They were exiting the camp and starting toward the palm trees. She thought the middle figure was Habib, but the resemblance of one man to another was striking. All had brown abbas, all had gray beards and white turbans with white face scarves, and all walked with the slow deliberate gate of experi
enced desert dwellers. She thought the middle one was Habib because of the way he raised his head to glance toward where she and Zhara and Tahireh were hidden.

  Abruptly, all three men jerked their heads upward to stare into the narrow slit of visible sky. Jani couldn’t see anything because of their cover of heavy brush and palm trees, but she suddenly felt the powerful thumping of helicopter blades reverberating and echoing throughout the canyon. The three men turned and hurried back toward the camp.

  “Tahireh!” Jani screamed out the window, “A helicopter!”

  “Shhh,” said Tahireh as Zhara clutched her mother’s arm. Slowly, cautiously, Tahireh went to where the brush met the water and looked up. Jani, from her pinhole view saw a giant black shadow swoop over the camp. Tahireh rushed back and lowered the hood carefully, pushing it to latch it. She leaned into Cruiser and hissed, “Now! Get out, pull the camouflage back over and throw as much brush and palm fronds onto it as you can. Keep your heads down. Do it now!”

  Without hesitation, both Jani and Zhara slid from the back seat and opening the hatch door only enough to pull the netting out, quickly doing as Tahireh ordered.

  “Who is it,” asked Zhara, “in the helicopter?”

  Tahireh shouted loudly enough for both women to hear, “Saudi military, probably an elite search team!” She ferociously jabbed the discarded pieces of brush and the palm fronds into the netting as fast as Jani and Zhara tied down the net ropes. No more than three minutes had passed before the Cruiser was invisible again.

  “Inside,” Tahireh said, motioning and the three women squirmed under the netting and into the Cruiser. “If we’re very, very lucky, they won’t know we’re here.” She twitched around in her seat, “Tracks…did we leave tracks?”

  Jani put one hand to her mouth, “Oh! Oh! I don’t believe so. We came down that sandstone gully and that little stretch of sand…? It was wet from the camels and donkeys…”

  “…and we dragged the duffel, see?” Zhara blurted out, pointing to Habib’s sandy-bottomed duffel.