Tahir? Tahir, is this the camp?
The driver didn’t answer. He squinted as he leaned forward. His chin rested on the steering wheel. The lorry veered and as he swerved to avoid a pothole, branches of an acacia tree scraped over the vehicle’s side.
The driver sped up. Thick-kneed birds straggling over the slope of a hill scattered away. Saba looked at the sky above the birds’ spotted wings. The sunset gathered intensity and traces of fading amber clouds blotched the horizon.
Saba searched for company in the side mirror. Dozens of lorries had set off at dawn from the city in which they had arrived while fleeing the war. Yet their lorry alone was on the road now. Her mother, sitting next to Saba, prayed. The same prayer she had been repeating since they had left home. Her brother, Hagos, sat at the back of the lorry, among the few belongings with which they had escaped.
My Lord, please brighten our way to safety.
Night fell over the sloping valley. The headlights of the lorry descending downhill dissolved the darkness. A flat surface dotted with huts glowed. But aren’t refugee camps built with tents? Saba thought.
She was worried that if she blinked everything would be erased again. That the vastness of the journey that started on camels many days ago would return. Saba held on to the dashboard and focused on the image in front of her. But as Tahir swerved to avoid another pothole, the lorry hit a bump. The jolt threw the driver back into his seat and Saba grabbed the steering wheel. When it came down on the road, the vehicle jerked, and its light beams shifted from the cluster of huts to shrubland, and back again. Tahir braked.
We have arrived, Tahir said, fixing his turban. Saba, this is your camp.
Saba held her nose.
Dung.
Dung everywhere.
Tahir turned off the engine. The silence made the place feel more remote and deserted than she’d ever imagined. She looked up. There were no fighter planes, only a half moon that hung in the sky like the gold crescent ring her grandmother wore in her nose.
Saba examined the hut in front, which was illuminated by the lorry’s lights. Her mother mumbled prayers and cried. Saba couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her mother smiling or heard her laugh.
Tahir climbed down from the cabin and limped to the front of his lorry. As he opened the bonnet, smoke billowed out. Saba stepped out into the darkness. They were the first in the camp, she thought. There was no one else, not even an official to receive them. Saba wanted to ask Tahir about this when a flash of light from behind distracted her. She looked at the back of the lorry, where Hagos sat on jute sacks. His torch lit up a round hand-mirror which he was peering into, studying his face from every angle.
When Saba had wanted to pack her books, her mother refused. The smugglers demanded money for every extra bag, so while she managed to wear clothes in many layers, including underwear, she couldn’t do the same with the books. So Saba stayed up days and nights before their departure, memorizing her favourite passages from the books she would leave behind.
And yet Hagos had brought that fragile thing the smugglers warned refugees against taking before they embarked on the camel journey. Even people break on the road to safety, said the smugglers, let alone mirrors.
Hagos climbed down from the lorry into Saba’s embrace. The scent of jasmine on his skin rose between them as she held him tighter. She pressed her hand into her brother’s and looked at the round hut with its cone-shaped thatched roof. It was bordered by some shrubs. A moth rested on one shrub, the circles on its wings fluorescent in the lorry’s headlights.
A distant hum grew into a growl that broke into a roar when one lorry after another pulled up into the camp. Noise erupted around Saba. Children shrieked. God was called upon. Ululations clashed with sobs. And as the lorries spread out and lit up various parts of the camp, the place glowed in fractions that looked like reflections of each other, one part duplicating itself here and there, clusters of huts casting shadows everywhere.
Saba watched as people disembarked from their lorries. Their shadows projected against the huts. Men and women like ants ferrying belongings on their backs and heads. Jute sacks. Clothes wrapped in scarves or gabis. Clay cooking-plate stoves. Children strapped to their mothers’ backs. One man carried on the back of a woman, his legs around her waist, his arms wound around her neck. The woman panted as she trudged past Saba.
Before he drove away, Tahir took out a pen from his pocket. Hagos, he said, you remind me of myself when I was your age. I used to be silent too until I found a pen.
Hagos, though, didn’t reach for the pen.
My son can’t write, read or speak, their mother said.
Tahir looked at twenty-something Hagos. Is this true, Hagos?
Hagos stared ahead, away from Tahir.
Saba nodded. Yes, it’s true.
Tahir left. And Saba already missed the smell of the lorry’s cabin, the sun-baked fruits on the suede dashboard, dates that his parents harvested at the bend of the Nile. She missed the generosity that flowed from Tahir’s hand. The same hand that gave her oranges, water, and gesticulated as he recalled his childhood memories under British rule, when he had to dip his tongue in cold water as if the only way to speak like the people of the North was to freeze his roots. He had also taken with him the way he spoke Arabic, in which every word stretched, each syllable extending its life on the tip of his tongue. In the camp, it would be rare to hear this accent again. Her thoughts darkened as more lorries departed.
Saba stared at the wooden door, its cracks visible in the light of their torch. Stench filtered through it. And darkness. Hagos held her hand as he pushed the door open. Her chest tightened. She turned around gasping for air. A nail protruding from the low door frame pulled out the pin holding her hair. Her sweaty locks tumbled down her face, concealing her eyes.
This is where we will live, said their mother, fastening her scarf around her waist to relieve the pain in her lower back, which had started to ache when the family of three started their journey hunched on a mattress tied on the camel’s back.
Hagos gathered Saba’s long, thick hair and tied it back into a bun. Saba followed him inside the hut that reeked of dung. He shone his torch around. Insects teemed out of the thatch. She watched the flight of a moth, its wings flapping in the heavy air. Hagos passed the torch on to Saba and went outside.
Saba contemplated the wooden pole made from a thin twisted tree in the middle of the hut. It went all the way to the apex, supporting the roof. She hoped she would not bump into it.
Hagos returned with jute sacks, his face bathed in the floodlight streaming from her hand. As he placed the sacks against the wall, Saba tried to compose herself too. They needed to make sure their mother could get some rest. Saba understood that when Hagos took out a blanket from one of the sacks. She followed his movements, wondering if she could ever care for their mother the way he did.
The thin blankets would be their sleeping pads, for now, their mother said.
Saba and Hagos held each end of a blanket. They beat it up in the air and laid it on the bare ground next to the wall, coughing in chorus. Saba dusted off her black dress as Hagos helped their mother onto her blanket. Her bed. He folded a scarf into a pillow and placed it under his mother’s head. He kissed her forehead and used his gabi, given to him at his cleanness party by the midwife who doubled as a circumciser, as a cover for his mother.
Saba spread out the other blanket on the opposite side of the hut. Here, Hagos and Saba would sleep. Share dreams. And a new life. This would be a place of reunion. They would spend nights talking. Laughing. Singing. Sharing stories from back home. And recounting childhood memories. Here, Saba would make up for the years she neglected Hagos. Years when she could see nothing around her apart from her textbooks. War had brought her closer to the person she had opened her eyes to first. Their mother often told her how, at only a few hours old, baby Saba had searched for milk on Hagos’s chest. Hagos was also the first name she ever spoke. Hag. The other letters – o and s – came later. And like his name, his presence in her life would be realized piecemeal.
Saba peered through the window. She saw a group of men entering the square, their oil lamps flickering and their shadows merging into one amorphous body. Heavy and slow.
The group had gone out to search for the river. According to the lorry drivers, it should have been to the west of the camp. But they had turned back without success. There had only been bush.
We need to go back in the morning, said a man in a white jellabiya and black waistcoat. All we kept hearing was the hissing of snakes. We don’t know what else is out there.
Scorpions. Antelope. Crocodiles. Elephants. Lions. Since Saba didn’t know in which part of this country they were, she feared all its wildlife existed here. A camp in the middle of the bush.
The crowd swelled, reaching Saba’s hut. Are you sure the river is to the west of the camp? asked a young boy with his baby brother swaddled to his back. Our driver said it was that way.
The boy pointed towards the opposite side from where the men had come. He was no more than twelve, Saba thought, watching him rock his brother. Please sleep, my sweet little brother. Please sleep.
The men, armed with sticks and oil lamps, split into four groups to venture out in all directions. Saba and Hagos joined the group led by an athletic-looking young man in a tracksuit.
The athlete, though, separated Saba’s hand from Hagos’s. This isn’t an adventure for girls and women, he said.
Saba pushed past him, hooking her arm back around Hagos’s. A hand pulled her back. Please let them go, said the boy with the crying baby. My little brother is thirsty.
The group of men left in search of the river. Saba stood still. Her eyes combed the dark border of the camp, which crept nearer as some oil lamps died out. Darkness brought thoughts in her head. What if a snake or a scorpion bit her brother? A crocodile swallowed him whole?
She unwrapped her scarf from around her shoulders. A warm breeze caressed her neck and enveloped her heaving chest, not giving it much reprieve. She was sweating.
Dots of light appeared to her left. A flickering glow of oil lamps bounced around as the men arriving from the west of the camp jumped and yelped. They had opened a route through the wilderness of grass, stones, shrubs and hills. The river is far, but at least we have water, said the athlete, his voice growing louder.
Saba was convinced it was Hagos who was the first to find the river. He wore a familiar look on his face, the pride of discovery, like when he had found an image of their grandmother being decorated by Emperor Haile Selassie. His sealed lips stretched wide and thin as he clenched his hand into a fist. But it was the athlete who reaped all the praise: You are a fearless lion. Because of you our children will not die of thirst.
Women ululated.
Saba hugged Hagos and wrapped her scarf around his shoulders. They walked back to their hut, fingers interlaced.
The camp set off to the river. Lamps and torches were held low, lighting up the ground, the habitat of dangerous creatures. The throng trampled over grass and shrubs and, as they filed through a pathway, the smell of foliage gave way to the scent of overripe cactus fruit. But soon the odour of human sweat overwhelmed the air.
Saba huddled up to Hagos. She clung to him, the fearless man whose bravery made sure that children, men and women would not die of thirst. She couldn’t see his face, but knew he smiled at her whispering. As he always did.
Saba heard the river rippling, murmuring against the rocks. She breathed in fresh mud. The river must have flooded not long ago, she thought.
She stood as people placed their oil lamps on the ground behind them and lined up on the edge of the water. The river glistened between their legs, darkness enveloping the rest of the landscape. Saba clutched her yellow bucket to her chest, listening to containers clamouring and jerrycans hitting against each other. The silver bracelets of a woman in front of her tinkled as she dipped her jerrycan into the water. As the woman bent deeper, the bright colours of her adalkana dress bloomed around her hips like a rainbow against the pitch-black sky. The woman lost her grip and the river tugged away the jerrycan. Hagos scurried into the water. Lamps were lifted high and torches were directed at him. Why is he doing this? asked a man. Because the smallest of items have value now, said another. Hagos slipped. The river swallowed him, its shining golden layers swelling. Saba remembered the last time her brother had jumped into a flooding river back home to save a man who was escaping dergue soldiers. Facing up to danger was often his way of getting noticed. And Saba did what she always had done. She jumped in after him.
The brother and sister vanished underneath the water. It seemed an eternity before their heads surfaced again. Almost at the same time. And straight into the glow of the torchlight.
When Hagos stood in front of the woman, with the jerrycan returned and now filled with water, she placed her henna-clad hand on his shoulder. Thank you, the woman said. It was brave of you.
You are welcome, said Saba standing next to her brother. He is happy to help.
Back from the river, wet and shivering, Saba found her mother muttering to herself outside their hut.
How can you throw yourself in the water? she asked.
It wasn’t dangerous, Saba said.
The danger was in the men’s eyes.
I have survived bigger dangers, Mother, and you know it.
Do you know what Rahwa is saying about you now? The mother’s voice broke. Her fingers trembled as she fumbled with her scarf.
The midwife is here? Saba turned away from her mother and kicked her foot in the air. Dust flew.
Saba was about to enter the hut when she noticed Hagos holding his mother’s hands, kissing them into stillness.
God bless you, my sweet child, their mother said.
Hagos helped their mother inside the hut, while Saba watched from the door, still in her soaked black dress. Hagos sat by their mother’s side, massaging her arms. Saba went behind the hut to change into her nightgown. The torch she placed on the ground made an eerie glow on the hut opposite. She noticed that the door stood open. A foot emerged in the fringes of the torchlight, which curled around an ankle. I can be seen everywhere, Saba thought. Inside and outside.
She retreated inside the hut. Hagos rolled himself to one side of the blanket. Saba stepped over her brother and squeezed herself in the tiny space next to the wall made of dung. They lay down so that her face was next to his feet. Small stones pierced the thin blanket. Saba spooned herself between the curved wall and a curled-up Hagos.