So they had come for me early. So what? The country was burning. Children were being gang raped. Evil stalked the land. Sooner or later all of us Zaghawa, Fur, Massalit—all of us black dogs and slaves—were going to suffer. You might be lucky and live. You might be luckless, and die. It looked as if my luck had run out. So be it. At least God, let me die quickly. Please God, let it be painless. Please God, don’t let them torture my soul.
They took me to the far side of the village, to a military camp. We stopped at three huts, with a wire fence running around the outside. The soldiers dragged me out and marched me into the nearest one. It had a hard concrete floor and bare brick walls. The windows were barred, and closed with metal shutters. A single lightbulb revealed dark, blotchy stains on the floor. I didn’t want to imagine what they might be.
I stepped into the room, and without warning the beating began. I was kicked hard in the stomach. As I doubled up with the pain, further kicks and blows rained down on my legs, hips, and shoulders. I fell to the floor and tried to cover my head with my arms. A boot made contact with my face, a searing white light shooting through my eye socket. Another kick to the head, this one smashing into the fingers of my hand with a crunch of breaking bone.
The scrunch of soles turning on the bare concrete floor. The dull thump of booted feet slamming into my soft, fleshy parts. Then silence. Tensing myself for the next blow, but none coming. Just silence, as I lie there scrunched into a ball on the cold hard floor. Silence, and the sound of their breathless, excited, animal breathing. Silence—for a second, or a minute, or an hour? I am in too much pain to register such things. Why does killing me have to start with so much pain?
“You are the Zaghawa doctor!” a voice screams at me. “The Zaghawa doctor! We know who you are!”
“You speak to the foreigners!” another voice screaming. “You tell them lies. LIES! Why do you tell them lies?”
A hand gripped my hair, dragged my head upward. A series of savage blows to the face, whipping my head from side to side. A soldier crouches down, his face a mask of loathing, his putrid breath rank in my nostrils. His dead eyes are staring into mine, as he twists his fingers into my hair and drags my head higher off the floor.
“Listen—we know you gave information to the foreign people,” he rasps, his voice cold and laden with hatred. “Why did you do this? You signed a declaration. Or did you forget? You signed a declaration to keep quiet. You promised to. Why did you break your promise?”
“This time we will deal with you!” a voice off to one side, screaming again. “This time we will teach you a lesson you will never forget!”
The crouching man glances upwards. He smiles thinly at his colleague, the screamer. “Zenil wants to deal with you. In his own, particular way. Shall I let him? Would you like me to?”
“She speaks about rape!” The Screamer again. “This dirty talking! About rape! Lying to the foreigners! About little girls . . . She knows nothing of rape! Nothing . . .”
“Zenil wants to be your teacher.” The Croucher again, his voice slick with menace. “He’s offering to teach you. Would you like him to? Would you like him to teach you all that he knows?”
“We will teach you to shut your mouth!” A kick to the small of my back, a bolt of agony shooting up my spine. “To shut your mouth! Forever!”
“We have the power to make you do anything,” The Croucher hisses, his fingers still locked in my hair. “Anything, doctor. Anything we want. Don’t you know this?”
I feel the Croucher get to his feet, releasing his hold on my hair. My head drops to the hard floor. He turns and speaks to the third man, the driver, the man who’s taken no part in the interrogation so far.
“Ali, fetch some rope and tie her. Tie her firmly. I don’t want her going anywhere before we’ve dealt with her.” The Croucher turns to stare at me. “Put her in the detention hut. Let’s give her some time to think. Some time to consider her crimes, before we punish her.”
The Driver and the Screamer haul me to my feet and march me out. They shove open the door of another hut and fling me inside. With the Screamer kneeling his weight on me, the Driver binds my wrists together. He gets my arms and forces them up behind my back—up, up until I’m burning in agony. It feels as if they are being torn from their sockets. He binds them tight in that position, so tight that my joints are burning with pain. I can’t help myself now. For the first time since the assault began I start crying.
“Bring some rags,” the Screamer orders. “We need to stop up this black bitch’s mouth. No one wants to hear her dumb crying.”
A dirty piece of cloth is jammed into my mouth and tied tight around my head. The Screamer gets off of me now. I see the two of them make for the door. The Screamer turns.
“Don’t go away now,” he sneers. “We’ll be back later. For your first lesson.” He turns to the Driver and leers. “They don’t call me Zenil the Teacher for nothing . . .”
The driver sniggers. The door is slammed shut. I hear a key turning in the lock, boots crunching away. Then silence. It is dark in the hut. Pitch dark. I am alone in there—apart from the mice and the rats. I can’t see them, but I can hear them. Up in the rafters, and scrabbling across the floor. They can smell my blood and my fear. I crab myself backward in an awkward, agonizing motion until I am tight against one wall. I face outward. I kick with my legs to let the vermin know that I’m still conscious and alive, that I can still hurt them. I’m not a corpse yet. Not yet for the eating.
I know what is coming now. It is rape and death, rape and death. Death I can accept. It is the violation by these devils that I cannot face, that I cannot allow. Is there a way out—a way that I can kill myself? There must be a way. There must be something in that room with which I can end my life. My body is a mass of cuts and bruises, and I am racked with pain. But if I can only get free of these ropes, there must be some way in which I can kill myself. If I untie the ropes, perhaps I can hang myself from the rafters.
I try. I struggle to free my hands. I twist my arms and strain my muscles, but each time I try to break free it just causes me more pain. Eventually, I am too exhausted to continue. I lie there, the fight gone out of me. I lie there with my face on the dirty concrete floor, and I cry. I cry and I pray. I pray that God may save me from the Driver, the Croucher, and the Screamer. I pray to God to give me sweet release, to give me death, to take me away from this life of pain and hurt. I pray for sweet release.
My God, release me. My God, release me. My God, release me.
That night they come for me. It is dark outside. I can see this when the shadowy figures unlock the door. One of them lights a lantern. But it is not the Screamer, the Croucher, and the Driver anymore. It is three strangers, all in dirty army uniforms. As they approach me, I see the evil and the lust burning in their eyes. One of them grabs a handful of my hair and kneels his weight on me, crushing my chest into the floor, forcing my arms farther behind my back. I can see him laughing, as he reads the agony and the terror in my eyes.
The second one grabs me by the legs. I see the flash of a knife blade. I feel the rending of material as he starts to slice my trousers off of me. But my legs are unbound and free, and with all my might I kick out at him, slamming him back against the wall. A cry of rage issues from his unshaven, brutish, idiot features. He lunges forward and drives the knife blade deep into my thigh. I cry out in agony, but the cloth stuffed deep into my throat chokes my cries. I try to kick out again, but the third man pins my free leg to the floor.
“Hold her legs! Hold the black bitch’s legs!” the knife man urges, as he slices my trousers to the waistline. “She’s a strong one this one. Real strong . . .”
“Strong enough for all of us?” the one kneeling on my chest calls.
“For sure! For the whole damn regiment maybe!”
The kneeling man laughs. “Here, this’ll make the black dog keep still.”
He pulls something out of his pocket. It is a cutthroat razor. He flicks open the g
leaming blade, holding it up to the light so that I can see it properly. He reaches out and slices open my blouse. He smiles. Slowly, very slowly, he brings the blade down, and then slashes at my exposed flesh. I feel a searing stab of pain in my breast, followed by a warm gush of blood. He moves the blade across and places the cold steel against my other breast. I close my eyes and pray and pray and pray and pray.
“That’s it, relax,” he sneers. “Fight it, and you’ll get more. Pity to spoil them both, isn’t it? Lie back and take it like the black slave you are . . .”
Below, the knife man is astride me now. I tense my muscles and try to resist, but the two of them are down there, forcing my legs to open. I feel a searing agony as the knife man thrusts himself inside of me, ripping me apart as he does so.
“My God she’s tight!” the knife man cries. “Real tight! They make these Zaghawa ones tighter than the others . . .”
“Well, loosen her up for the rest of us,” the kneeling one calls over his shoulder. He turns back to face me. “So, now you know what rape is, you black dog. Now you know.”
The three of them took turns raping me, one after the other. Once the third had finished, they started over again. And while doing so they burned me with their cigarettes, and cut me with their blades. They raped me until I lost consciousness. When I came to my senses I was alone in the hut. I was curled into a ball in one corner. I wished I were dead. There was nothing more that anyone could do to me. My life was over.
The second day they came for me again. This time it was the Driver and the Screamer. They raped me until I fainted, they raped me until one animal assault merged into the next. On the third day the door of the hut opened once more. Light flooded in from the bright outside. Please God, please—not again, not again, not again. The Croucher came in. He was alone. He walked over to where I was curled into a fetal position against one wall. He sank down on his haunches and stared at me in silence.
“You know what we’ve decided to do with you?” he announced, quietly. “We’re going to let you live. We’re not going to kill you. Get it? Not die. Not die. Live.”
I said nothing. I barely responded. I was in a place where no one could reach me. I was beyond words.
“You know why we’re going to let you live?” he added. “We’re going to let you live because we know you’d prefer to die. Isn’t that clever of us? Aren’t we clever, doctor? We may not have your education, but we’re damn smart, wouldn’t you agree?”
I stared at him with dull, unseeing eyes. I saw nothing. I was in a faraway place where my god had taken me, a place where they couldn’t reach me anymore. I was safe there. It wasn’t death, which is what I’d asked for and begged for and prayed for. But it was the next best thing—the next best thing that my god could do for me in the circumstances.
The Croucher shrugged. “Anyway, go. Go. It’s over, for now. You know what rape is, so go. The Teacher and the others—they’ve shown you. As for me, I wouldn’t touch a black dog like you if my life depended on it. Anyway, go. Go and tell the world. For the rest of your life you’re going to have to live with it. Go and tell whoever you want to what rape is.”
Sometime later I found myself at Osman and Mounah’s place. I had no idea how I had got there. As soon as Mounah laid eyes on me, she knew that something terrible had happened. My clothes were ripped and dirtied, my face a bloodied mess, my trousers and blouse horribly stained. She took me inside and tried to make me wash, and eat and drink. I hadn’t eaten for days, but I had no hunger. All I could do was sit and stare into the fire, rocking myself backward and forward as I cried and cried.
Eventually, Mounah managed to get the story out of me. Once I’d finished talking she warned me never to go back to Aisha’s house, or the clinic. If I did they might be waiting for me, and they might take me again. I had to go back to my village. It was the only place where I might be safe from them. I was to wait here until Osman came home. He was away on business, but expected back shortly. Osman would help me escape.
Late that night Osman reached home. As quickly as she could, Mounah explained what had happened. Osman agreed that I had to disappear. Those who had attacked me would never forget or forgive, and it would never be over, not until they said it was. Osman told me that he owed me a debt of life. I had saved his son, Ibrahim. He would repay that debt by saving my life. He needed twenty-four hours to prepare my escape. We would leave the following night. In the meantime I was to remain hidden in the house.
The following evening, as darkness descended over Mazkhabad village, Osman saddled up his camel. He’d got Abakher and Aisha to pack my green metal trunk with my clothes, sleeping blanket, and some other possessions. He slung it onto the camel’s back, along with some provisions for the journey. Osman planned to stick to the remote desert tracks and the mountains, and we would need to be able to feed ourselves and bed down along the way.
Osman mounted the camel and helped me to climb up behind him. It was difficult and painful, and I needed Mounah and Aisha’s help to do so. Just sitting on the hard saddle was agony. God only knew how I was going to survive the journey. But I didn’t care. If I died along the way, so be it. I just had to get away from Mazkhabad—to get away from my tormentors. With a few whispered goodbyes, we threaded our way silently through the sleeping village and out into the desert and the bush lands.
All that night we pushed onward, crossing flat desert plains and dry riverbeds. Just before dawn the route climbed into the rocky mountains. Osman knew all of the secret ways, for his life as a trader had taken him along each and every one of them at some point. Now and then we passed by a sleeping village, but Osman gave them a wide berth.
Dawn showed in the east, the sky shot through with rods of burning steel. Osman looked for a hiding place. He found what he wanted high among some tumbled rocks. There was a patch of trees with a commanding view, somewhere where the camel could graze and we could keep watch without being seen by others. We dismounted and took cover in the bush. Osman handed me some dry bread and dates and told me to eat. I should sleep as well, for I needed my strength for the journey. He would keep watch.
I knew that Osman was right, and I lay down and tried to rest. But there was a raw and burning ache in my pelvic region, and I didn’t doubt that I was infected down there. The pain was made all the worst by the hard, jolting camel ride. I knew that Osman was worried about being followed, and that was why he was taking the most difficult, least traveled ways. He was a brave man, and whatever happened I would be forever in his debt. I slept fitfully, a sleep menaced by dark nightmares. I woke often in tears.
Two days later we reached my village. The pain in my pelvis was worse now, but all I cared about was seeing my family. In any case, the physical pain was nothing compared to the pain deep inside me—the pain of loss and defilement. Life as I knew it, the life that I had dreamed of, was pretty much over. I couldn’t hide what had happened. And no Zaghawa man would want a woman who had been gang-raped by Arab soldiers. I had my education, and that would enable me to survive—but as to having a husband and a family . . .
We had traveled through the night and we rode into the village just as dawn was breaking. As we approached my house the first person I spotted was my mother. She glanced up, did a double take, and then realized it was me. She knew immediately that something was wrong, and she came running out to meet me. I came down from the camel and dissolved into her arms. The tears just poured down my face as grief engulfed me.
My mother kept asking what was wrong, but I could find no words to tell her. My father came and hugged me tight, his face a mask of worry. Finally, Osman suggested that they let me rest. He needed to leave almost immediately. But he could stay for a short while to speak with my father. My mother led me across to Grandma’s hut, showed me to my old bed, and bade me rest.
Osman spoke to my father. He told him that I had been helping my people at the clinic, and I had been targeted by the police and the military for doing so. I had been beaten and inte
rrogated. He, Osman, had taken it upon himself to help me escape, riding through the secret and unknown places to reach our village. My father thanked him from the heart. For what he had done for me they would never forget. Osman told my father that he had owed me a debt of life. I had saved his son’s life. Now that debt had been repaid.
Osman said his farewells, mounted his camel, and rode into the bush. He had omitted telling my father about the rape, because so many women would try to keep such things secret. But I couldn’t do so. Later that morning my mother came to talk to me and I broke down. I confessed all. I asked her to tell my father, for I was too embarrassed to do so. My mother tried to comfort me, but at the same time she was so very angry. The war had finally come home. Before it had been all around, but now it was in our home.
Later, my father came and joined me in the hut. Upon hearing from my mother what had happened he’d been possessed by a terrible rage. Now, he was ashen-faced with shock. I had never seen him looking so shaken or so careworn. He took my hand gently in his and told me not to worry. I was home now, and I was safe. It didn’t matter what had happened. Nothing mattered. All that he cared about was that I was home.
He looked me in the eyes then and promised to find the people who had done this to me. He would find them and kill them all. I felt so guilty. I felt as if I should have fought those men off, or died trying. But the one thing that was keeping me alive was the knowledge that I knew the faces of those who had attacked me. They were burned forever into my mind. I knew them and I could try to find them and kill them. I imagined plunging a knife into them—and that was the hope that was keeping me alive.
“Where’s Grandma?” I asked my father. I hadn’t seen her anywhere, and I felt as if I needed her strong spirit by my side.
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