The confrontation began when a man arrived in the square holding a bag of miswak sticks and declared his price for each teeth-cleaning twig.
Can’t you see people are standing in front of the aid centre? a mother with a child said.
This is business, the man said. I am not a charity.
Don’t be callous, said a woman to the seller. I saw you climbing the peelu tree deep in the bush.
Men surrounded the miswak seller, telling him the twigs belonged to everyone in the camp.
A man snatched the seller’s bag. The struggle ensued. The judge arrived. A trial was called at the judge’s hut.
Saba didn’t attend the trial but the verdict reached her: No one owns anything in the camp, the judge had said after listening to the seller and residents of the camp. We all share everything.
We share everything, Saba repeated to herself as she sat next to Hagos while he lit the three-stone stove over the ground. He placed a pot with water on the fire. Saba saw the bag full of flour by his foot. He opened a jar of tesmi. It was empty. Hagos furrowed his eyebrows. Saba understood he was making ga’at porridge but that he didn’t have ghee. Telling Hagos to wait, Saba took a bag of lentils from their jute sack and ran to Zahra’s hut, returning soon with the ghee she had swapped for the lentils.
Four girls carrying buckets stood nearby on their way home from the river. They laughed as Hagos stirred flour into the boiling water to make the porridge. Curse on you, one of the girls said to Saba. Why are you making him cook?
Saba waved them off with her hand. The girls walked away, now and then turning their heads back to stare at Saba. Hagos, unperturbed, scooped some of the porridge onto a plate, adding ghee and chilli.
Saba watched as a queue formed outside the aid centre. Aid workers with long sticks kept order. Here, adults were disciplined too. An eagle flew over the camp and landed on the thatched roof of the aid centre. An old man waiting in the queue aimed his stick at it. We have nothing. Go away. Go.
Saba gasped as the large bird sailed over the old man’s head, its claws gliding past his white turban, and snatched a piece of sardine from a young girl feeding her younger brother.
As Saba joined the queue, she noticed men with naked wrists. Watches probably broken, she thought, or batteries dead or saved for a place where time mattered, when one often heard I don’t have the time or I will be there pronto or what time do you call this? Batteries saved for when there was an office to go to, a school to attend, a doctor to visit, a garage to open, a police station to manage. Saba wondered how something you had in abundance, relative to others, lost meaning. Time faded into insignificance.
An anguished scream shot through all other noises in the square. Laughter ceased. Babies hushed. Arguments postponed. Where is the midwife? My son is dying, called a man, stumbling across the camp and carrying a boy who had vomit down his shirt.
The children who were playing hide-and-seek deserted the game. Their shadows disentangled behind them as they ran off in different directions to search for the midwife. From her place in the queue, Saba’s eyes roamed the square. The midwife was nowhere to be seen. The camp had no medical centre and so the midwife, who specialized in herbal medicine and basic nursing alongside her usual duties as a midwife, was in constant demand. As she brought life into this world, she was now tasked with sustaining it.
The midwife was the only woman consulted by the committee of elders, and she no longer had to cook, wash or clean. Every patient she treated vowed to her a lifetime of servitude.
I saw her at my neighbour’s hut, his child is ill too, said a man, pointing to the south of the camp, as he joined the queue next to Saba.
No, she is in the north attending a pregnant woman, said another.
But the midwife was already running barefoot towards the sick child. Saba spotted herbal medicine tied in one part of her scarf, and the sand coiling in the air behind her made it seem as if she was transformed into a storm. Saba shut her eyes.
The light-skinned midwife was born to two of the darkest people in their border town. God has forgiven all our sins, her tearful parents declared at her arrival, setting their fair-skinned daughter on a path of strict upbringing. Saba was captivated by the midwife’s green eyes, lush even at times of drought, and by the mole under her nose, the only dark spot on her body that linked her to her parents. But what most astonished young Saba was that the midwife always smelled of fresh incense. She later discovered that the midwife tied frankincense gum in her scarf which she chewed throughout the day and that every evening she draped a thick sheet over herself to bathe in the sandalwood fumes of an incense burner. As well as making her skin glow, the incense made her sweat, increasing her appetite. Her husband had loved her voluptuousness.
The boy didn’t die.
But death came soon after, dressed in yellow.
On the morning of the colourful funeral, Saba and Zahra arrived at Samhiya’s hut to take her with them to fetch wood. Samhiya was filing her nails. Sit on the bed, ladies, this will take me some time, said Samhiya. I still need to paint my nails.
Why? asked Zahra. We are just going to fetch wood.
A city girl has her secrets, Samhiya said, laughing.
Saba gaped around the room and felt as if she had stepped back in time. Samhiya’s hut had two beds, a big mirror, make-up, a wardrobe, shoes, chickpeas, onions, potatoes, shoro, kitchen equipment, knives, a chopping board, cups, plates, coffee-making materials. They too had escaped the war, yet they managed to bring all this.
The more she looked into other people’s huts, the more Saba noticed differences in mindset. Some fled with mattresses and pillows, others with coffee machines or cooking utensils or clothes. And Saba suspected it might not have been the lack of money to pay the smuggler for extra possessions that prevented her mother from fleeing with more, but rather that their mother had left valuable belongings so that they would always think of returning home. Memories alone were not enough to tie someone to a land, they faded with distance and the passage of time.
But Saba wondered too if her mother had worried that some of the neighbours staying behind would talk and place a curse on the family if they were to see her taking not only her children but also her belongings, while they couldn’t afford to take themselves out of the war zone.
Finally, the girls arrived at the forest. The bush was less threatening, it had lost some of its density, the vastness that had made it seem so impregnable in the beginning. Without charcoal, the camp’s residents relied on the bush’s wood for fuel.
The grass underneath Saba’s feet shifted in the wind. She rubbed her scalp with her index finger so she wouldn’t loosen the bandana that Hagos had rolled and wrapped around her head, pulling her thick hair up into a tight bun. Ahead of her, Samhiya, in a floral dress that hugged her curves, observed a flower emerging from the cracks between the rocks.
The breeze brought the aroma of the city from Samhiya’s perfumed neck to Saba. Saba inhaled, as if Samhiya’s fragrance was something she could carry to Hagos like she carried the water on her head, the firewood on her back. Saba smiled at the thought.
When they had collected as much wood as they could carry, they helped each other tie bundles on their backs using their scarves.
Zahra stooped over the green field and picked wild spinach leaves for her grandmother.
As Saba bent next to Zahra, the bundle of wood on her back rolled to her nape, cutting into her skin.
Vafanculo.
Language, ladies, said Samhiya.
Only a well-maintained lady like you minds her language, said Saba, pressing leaves on the fresh wound.
I think someone is jealous, said Samhiya. I shouldn’t have shown off my snake skin.
The girls burst out laughing.
Saba gave some of the bundle of wild leaves she had collected to Zahra.
Saba, are you all right?
Yes.
Silence.
Saba, you talk less and less. It must be hard living with Hagos.
Hagos is not mute to me, said Saba. Maybe if you ever listened to him you would hear him too.
I’m sorry, Zahra said.
Hagos is not mute. But the world is not prepared to listen.
Saba swayed as she pushed herself up. Zahra held her arm. They rose together. I will learn to listen to him then, Zahra said as she applied more leaves to the wound at Saba’s nape. The blood stopped.
I could smell rain in the air, Samhiya said.
The trees around them shuddered. The incipient whistle of the forest brought music that echoed in the valley.
As they trudged back home Zahra told the story of the day her mother had left for the trenches. I was eight, she said. It was early morning, my mother and I hadn’t slept all night long. My mother sat against the bed and I rested my head on her chest and cried. When the morning came, I had never hated the sun as much as that day. I hoped it would disappear, that our life would be one long night.
The three girls resumed walking in silence, their young backs arching under the heavy bundles. A raindrop landed on Saba’s forehead. The wind blew harder. They hurried on the pathway that was now obscured by whirling sand.
And then the rain poured down.
Let’s take cover under the tree, Saba said.
They joined hands to support each other against the wind and rain, their shoulders pushing against the invisible wall. The firewood squeaked against their backs. Once in the shelter of the eucalyptus tree, they stood panting. Saba looked in the distance where the rain had cleared the red sand off large rocks.
Samhiya took off her wet dress and hung it over the nearest branch. Can you wipe my back, bella? she asked, passing her scarf to Saba.
Saba gaped at the curvy body in matching bra and pants. She chased the drops of rain on the flesh that clung to Samhiya’s hips. Saba thought of Hagos, and hooked her fingers into the side of Samhiya’s underwear. Samhiya twitched.
These are the handles for a man to carry me to bed with, Samhiya said, laughing.
As if that man was Hagos and Hagos was her, Saba firmed her grip on Samhiya’s sides.
Ouch, Saba, stop it, said Samhiya. It hurts.
Saba let go. Hagos, like a brief sensation, fleeted away from her thoughts. Her heart quietened. She shuffled to adjust the weight of the bundle she carried. Samhiya’s oiled back glistened in the sunlight breaking through the clouds. Saba touched Samhiya’s silver necklace. Where did you get this? she asked.
I can lend it to you, but only if you get married before me, Samhiya responded.
You can keep your fancy necklace. I am not going to marry before I finish school.
School? In this camp? Please tell us this is a joke, Saba.
I asked the English aid worker and he told me school was coming soon, Saba said. They have already allocated the field in the south of the camp.
Aid workers promise anything to get rid of people, Saba. Do you know how many people queue to ask questions and request this and that? You could build a palace in the air out of their promises.
Saba swerved around Samhiya and pushed through the rain.
By the time they had returned to the camp, the sky was clear and the soil had dried out in the blazing sun. As they entered the square they went their separate ways. Close to her hut, Saba noticed a woman dressed in a long yellow gown standing in the square, the woman whose jerrycan Hagos had saved from the river. Saba waved. The woman closed her eyes and started singing an aria in both Italian and Tigrinya, her voice rising as if to silence the waning thunder. Saba dropped the firewood by her hut. She was drenched in sweat. Her dress, having lost a few buttons and its lustre a while back, stuck to her skin. A few threads pulled away from the bottom of the dress. Her body felt as torn.
The woman hugged herself, digging her long yellow nails into her skin. She shook, fell to her knees and collapsed.
Saba ran to find the midwife, bringing her back to a crowd that had gathered outside their hut, where Hagos had carried the woman. The midwife entered but exited moments later. Our daughter left us, she said. God bless her soul.
There was a long silence.
She’s dead, the midwife said.
The elders bowed their heads. Saba wondered if death in this place that was supposed to be safe caught them by surprise too. She had bought the illusion that escaping the war meant escaping all forms of death. Otherwise, why go through the pain of exile to come here?
Many women wept, mourning the passing of a beautiful woman who arrived at the camp wearing the colour of the sun. When the athlete came with a shovel borrowed from the aid centre, the elders didn’t move. They had yet to decide on a burial site. The athlete said he knew a large swathe of flat land, south of the camp. We need to cut the grass and it will be ready, he said.
No, not that place, it is where they will build the school, Saba said, shouting above the wailing mourners. It is not for a graveyard. It is for our future.
The midwife pulled Saba by the hand and shoved her inside the hut where the dead woman was laid out on her blanket.
The morning after a rainy night. The morning after the death. Rays of sunshine fell on the camp. On Saba’s face. The crowded square. A man lathered the face of another with a soaped brush in front of a broken mirror hanging from the wall. Saba was blind to her fragmented reflection in the mirror, but noticed a half-white, half-black face, head tilting to the side. A razor pressed against the cheek. A trickle of blood. A woman hung dresses, trousers, shirts, a jellabiya and vests on the clothesline as a girl ground grain into flour on a stone. Cries. Laughter. Moaning. And mourning. The fragrance of incense drifted from another hut. A girl’s toes polished in red stuck out of the dung-fed mud wall. When Saba turned, the imam and the priest bumped into each other in a lane where only one could pass. Both men raised their hands in supplication. Saba walked on. A scream. A woman having sex. Hagos stormed her mind as she peeked through the window as the man’s thing drowned inside the woman. A woman’s inside is made of sea, Saba thought. Seaweed. Fish. Balloons. Bags. Love letters in bottles floating endlessly. Sadness. Laughter. This woman’s inside contains her womb, the seeds of a future and now his dick. How deep was a woman? Saba asked herself. A man wept: I found God, his tears fall on the holy book. I too, a woman. Me too, a girl. We too. We too. A family. God proliferating in a place abandoned by humanity. Chants. Igziabeher. Allah. God. Rebbee. Credo in Dio. Ululations. Elelelelelelel. Too much to take. Too much. Saba held her head in her hands. Dizziness. Vomit gushed out of her. She closed her eyes. She fainted.
Where is the midwife?
Has anyone seen the midwife?
It was Hagos stirring in his sleep who revived her.