Tears of the Desert (12 page)

One of the villagers had composed a song during the time of hunger. It went like this:

Grandma warned us that we could never know when the next big hunger might come. That’s why we should never waste any food.

My holiday flew past and soon it was time to return to the big school. My days in the village with my loving family had healed much of the hurt of my first term. I felt a renewed thirst to study and learn—and I hoped that everything would be all right this time. Catching locusts and avoiding Grandma’s beatings was all well and good, but I was hungry for some education once more.

My father decided to come with me to the school. It was unspoken between us, but I knew that he was doing so to demonstrate his support for me. He greeted all of the teachers, and to each he gave a small gift of money. Before leaving he went to see the dreaded headmistress, and gave a donation toward school funds. Grandma was a great believer in showing off your wealth, for it could convince even your worst enemy to treat you more respectfully. My father also knew this to be true, for money equaled power in Sudan.

I noticed an immediate change among the teachers, but it had little effect on my fellow pupils. Sairah would be sitting in her place next to Mona, and once again she would sigh and stick out her elbows and knees as I tried to squeeze past. She was gunning for trouble, and I knew that sooner or later I would have to make a stand.

Hashma was principally a Zaghawa town, so the Arabs were a minority. But at school they were the majority, both pupils and teachers. The Arab families came to Hashma from all over Sudan. There were traders from the north; there were the families of military officers posted to the area; and there were government employees from Khartoum.

Sairah’s father was a government official, and they lived in the exclusive part of town. I had walked past it with Mona. The houses were all grand, multistoried things, built in the English style with real glass in the windows. But wherever Sairah might live and whoever her parents might be, I kept telling myself that it didn’t matter. It didn’t mean that she was any better than me.

It was a week into my second term when things came to a head. During eleven o’clock break Mona and I had been playing sock-ball with Najat, Samirah, and Makboulah, our Zaghawa and Fur friends. I returned to class to find Sairah already at her place, and I had a suspicion she was deliberately getting there early. I asked politely if she might let me pass to my place by the wall. As she got up to let me by, there was the usual sighing and flouncing.

But as I squeezed past she forced her knees into the back of my legs. For a second I almost lost my balance, but then I caught myself on the desk and pushed back with all my might. Sairah got the shock of her life. She had no idea that a girl from the bush would stand up to her, let alone how strong we were compared to these soft city girls. I hadn’t spent my childhood carrying water, gathering firewood, and play-fighting, only to be pushed around by a spindly, spiteful Arab city girl.

“Hey! What’re you doing?” she cried. “Idiot! Clumsy village girl. Be careful with your stupid big . . .”

I turned on her, the very look on my face shutting her up.

“Don’t shout,” I told her, coldly. “And don’t try to cause trouble in front of the others. If you want to make something of it, I’ll meet you after school on Thursday, under the big tree. Thursday afternoon—I’ll be waiting. Be there. Otherwise, keep quiet.”

I didn’t want to make any trouble. I just wanted to be free to study, and to be treated the same as the others. But if it came to fighting, then Thursday was the best day. It was a half day, so all afternoon the school would be deserted. I only had a day to wait until our fight, but I wondered if Sairah would actually show up. She probably didn’t believe that a little black girl from the bush would really stand up to her. It was time to show her otherwise.

After school Mona, Najat, Samirah, and Makboulah gathered around me. They were all of the same mind: I had to deal with Sairah, or she would never let up on me. They pointed out that this was bigger than just a clash of personalities between her and me. She was an Arab daughter of an Arab teacher married to an Arab government official, yet I was at the top of the class. In that sense it was my friends’ fight, as much as it was mine.

“We’ll be there for you,” said Mona. “So don’t worry.”

“We’ll stand by the gates where we can see what’s happening,” Makboulah said.

“And if she comes with her Arab friends, then we’ll fight them,” said Najat.

“But she probably won’t even come,” Mona said. “Or if she does, she’ll bring her teacher mother to hold her hand . . .”

We laughed. It was typical of Mona to crack a joke to ease the tension. Knowing that I had my friends behind me stiffened my resolve. I couldn’t imagine what sort of trouble I’d be in if I beat a fellow pupil, and the daughter of a teacher and a government worker. But just as with Miss Ursah, I knew that I had no choice: I had to make a stand.

The following afternoon pupils streamed out of the school gates, while I went and stood under the big tree. I had my head buried in a book, as if I was waiting for one of my friends. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Mona and the others standing in a group by the gate. None of the teachers would realize what we were up to, I told myself. I waited and waited until the school seemed to be deserted. Perhaps Sairah had chickened out?

I was just about to give up when I spotted a figure coming across the playground. It was Sairah and she was alone. She had neither her friends, nor her teacher mother, with her. She marched up to where I was standing. For a second we stood facing each other, as she tried to stare me down. She was a good half-head taller than me, but I wasn’t for one instant afraid of her. Finally, she glanced around at the tree and the earth and then back at me.

“What exactly did you want with me
here
?” she sneered. “Oh, I suppose you village girls are happier meeting under
a tree,
aren’t you? Feels so much more like home . . .”

It was all I could do to prevent myself from lunging at her and hurling her to the ground. I was dying to beat that arrogant sneer off her face. But I didn’t want to be the one to start the fight. I wanted her to make the first move, for at least then I would have some form of defense with the teachers. When I was marched before the headmistress, as I felt certain I would be, I wanted to say truthfully that it was Sairah who had first laid a hand on me.

“Why do you treat this as if it’s
your
school?” I countered. “It isn’t yours, any more than it’s mine or any of the other girls’.”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” she replied. “You’re just trying to cause trouble—like when you pushed past so rudely yesterday . . .”

“That’s a lie, and you know it! You treat that desk like it’s yours, just like you do the whole school.”

Sairah placed her hands on her hips. “You trying to start a fight, is that it?”

“Look, it’s about time you learned to share this school . . .”

“Oh is it—and who’s going to teach me?
You?
Ha ha! Good one!” She leaned forward. “You’re going to get a good beating!”

“You know what I think?” I said. “I think you act like you own this place for one reason only: Because your mum’s a teacher here.”

“Listen, I know all about you and your problems with the teachers. Refuse to clean the classroom, didn’t you? Job too lowly for a Zaghawa bush girl, isn’t it? Well, it’s news to me if it is.”

“They told you everything?” I gasped. “Your mother and Miss Ursah . . .”

Sairah reached out and started prodding me in the chest. “I know what a troublemaker you are. And don’t you think Miss Ursah’s forgotten. Or the headmistress. They’re going to get you. They’re going to get you . . .”

As she went to poke me again I grabbed her hands and forced them down to her sides. “Just stand there properly and talk to me respectfully,” I told her. “You think you can manage that?”

“Let me go!” Sairah cried. “How dare you! You let me go!”

I did as she asked and stood back. “That’s it! You asked for it!” Sairah cried.

She lunged for me, grabbing my shirt by the neck. I heard a sharp ripping sound as she tore at the cloth. I brought my arms up under hers, knocked them aside, and grabbed her shirt. She had made the first move, so now the fight was on. I shoved her backward hard against the tree. I could see the look of shock in her eyes as I rammed her into the trunk, trying to rip her clothes apart. But her shirt was of a far better cotton than mine, and it wouldn’t tear.

Sairah grabbed my hair and started tearing it out by the roots. A surge of anger rose up inside me, as all the frustration of my school days boiled over. I was blind to the pain. I brought my right arm back and punched Sairah, hard in the face. The force of it shocked her, and I seized the advantage. I tripped her, and as she fell to the ground I was on top of her, grabbing the scarf around her neck and twisting it. I was in a blind fury now. I heard a voice screaming over and over again, though I couldn’t quite believe it was me.

“I’m going to kill you! I’m going to kill you! I’m going to kill you!”

My hands twisted tighter, Sairah’s eyes bulging and her face growing ever more red. Suddenly, I glanced up and saw my friends all around me, cheering and cheering me on. Somehow, it brought me to my senses a little. Sairah was from an Arab tribe and she believed she was better than us.

The teachers had treated her with huge favoritism, and abused me in the process. But perhaps she didn’t deserve to die. Finally, I released my grip.

I got up and stood over her as she grasped at her throat, gasping for air. I could see a look of absolute shock and terror in her eyes. Whatever else might happen to me now, I had taught her a lesson she would never forget. And it felt good to have done so. I reached out and pulled her to her feet. She glanced at me for a fearful moment, and at my girlfriends, and then she stumbled off in the direction of the main school building.

I knew that this was the calm before the storm. I braced myself for whatever was coming next. Moments later Sairah emerged with her schoolteacher mother in tow.

“Girl! You there! Girl!” Sairah’s mother cried out, her face a mask of rage. “Look what you’ve done! How dare you!
How dare you!
”

I felt my friends move closer, as they formed a protective group. Sairah’s mother arrived in front of us, her daughter peering out from behind her shoulder. Sairah had a mass of leaves and mud stuck in her hair, from where I had forced her into the ground. The very sight of it cheered me and strengthened my resolve.

“Ripped her shirt . . . Half strangled her . . .” her mother gasped. “You’re like an animal!
An animal!
You get back inside that school, right now!”

“Miss, your daughter started the fight,” I told her. “She ripped my shirt. That’s how she started it. So she only has herself to blame.”

“Get back inside the school!” she screamed. “I’m not discussing it here! Get back inside!”

I stood my ground. “No. It’s the end of school and I’m going home. Your daughter started the fight. It’s her fault, not mine. If you don’t believe me, ask them.” I gestured to my friends. “They saw it all.”

Sairah’s mother glanced around the faces of the other girls. Mona, Najat, Samirah, and Makboulah nodded.

“Halima’s right, Miss,” Mona said. “Sairah started it.”

“You can’t blame Halima, Miss,” said Makboulah.

“Look at the state of Halima’s shirt,” Samirah said. “All ripped up . . .”

“She was only trying to defend herself,” said Najat.

Sairah’s mother glared at us. She was silent for a moment, her mouth tight and angry. Her mind was working overtime, trying to decide what to do next.

“Well, we’ll just see, won’t we?” she declared. She stared at me with ice-cold rage. “You’re in trouble, girl.
Big trouble.
Beating a teacher’s daughter . . . This is something for the
headmistress.
I’ll be giving her a full report.
A full report.
Come Saturday, we’ll see what happens. See if your friends can help you then!”

With that, she turned on her heal and she and Sairah were gone. As for me, I had a sense that my troubles were only just beginning.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Resistance for Grandma

I sat in class on Saturday morning with a fearful heart. My bravery and defiance beneath the big tree had all but evaporated. Sairah was nowhere to be seen, so I knew that one way or another, trouble was brewing. My tutor, Miss Shadhia, arrived, and the first thing she did was take me aside for a quiet word. I was wanted in the headmistress’s office, she told me. I liked my tutor, and I knew in my heart that she felt the same about me.

“Will you come with me?” I asked. “I don’t want to go on my own.”

“I’ll come,” Miss Shadhia said. “But first, tell me what happened. The truth. Why did you start this fight?”

I explained that I hadn’t started the fight, Sairah had. And she’d been provoking me for weeks and weeks on end. I had beaten her, that was true. But what else was I supposed to do? It was self-defense. Miss Shadhia told me that if that was the truth, then she would stick by me. As she led me across to the staff office, I felt my resolve stiffen and defiance growing in my heart. If Miss Shadhia would stick by me, it would be all right.

She took me into the headmistress’s office, and there ahead of us was Sairah and her mother. As soon as Sairah saw me she burst into tears.

“There she is,” she wailed. “That’s the one who beat me . . .”

“You know, she hasn’t slept for two nights,” Sairah’s mother added, throwing dark looks in my direction. “She’s traumatized, and she can’t stop crying. Is that any way for one pupil to behave to another, to beat her so savagely?”

The headmistress glared at me, her face like a death mask. “Do you have
anything
to say for yourself? You can start by saying sorry to this poor child. Your behavior is horrific, and quite shameful. You must apologize, and tell her you will never do such things again.”

“I’m not saying sorry, Miss,” I replied. “Sairah started the fight. I didn’t. I was only trying to defend myself . . .”

“You will say sorry when I tell you to!” the headmistress thundered. “That’s an order.
Say sorry.
Now! Or d’you want to make things even worse for yourself?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m not apologizing. I didn’t start it. She did. If you don’t believe me ask the other girls . . .”

“Look! Look! Can you see now how rude and arrogant she is?” Sairah’s mother cried. “Can you understand how she set upon and savagely beat my daughter?”

The headmistress stared at me. “Everyone is to leave,” she announced, in a low, icy tone. “But not you, Halima.
You
will stay here. I’ve never known such barefaced defiance . . .”

I felt Miss Shadhia stir beside me. “Headmistress, I’m afraid I must object,” she announced, quietly. “You have to listen to Halima’s side. I’m her tutor, and I have never known her to cause even the slightest trouble. In fact, quite the reverse is true. There were witnesses to the fight. If anyone’s to be punished, surely you must hear their side?”

“Whatever the truth might be, she’s a rude, impudent girl!” the headmistress snapped. “She’s shown that by defying my authority!”

“But she’s a gifted pupil,” Miss Shadhia objected. “She regularly is at the top of my class. She is an example to others and a pleasure to teach. Surely, it isn’t fair to let an incident like this blight her academic career, especially when you haven’t heard her side?”

The headmistress held up a hand for silence. “Enough! I’ve made up my mind. Whatever your academic gifts, you, Halima, are clearly an impolite and rebellious girl. You are expelled from this school until further notice, or until your parents can explain your behavior to me.”

As I stepped out of the headmistress’s office, I caught sight of Sairah smirking at me. I made my way back to the classroom, knowing that I had only escaped a beating because of Miss Shadhia’s defense of me. But being expelled from school was even worse. It was as if the dream that my father and I cherished were being ripped away from us.

Back in class my friends gathered around. “What happened?” Mona asked. “Did she beat you?”

I tried a brave smile. “No, they didn’t even touch me. I don’t know how I escaped, but I did . . .”

“Wow! You weren’t punished at all?”

I glanced at the floor. “Well, I
have
been thrown out of the school . . .”

“What? They can’t do that!” Mona cried. “You weren’t the one who started . . .”

Just at that moment Miss Shadhia returned, with Sairah in tow. As Sairah made her way to her seat, I heard the other girls hissing under their breaths. She plunked herself down on the end of the row, and as she did so Mona jabbed her in the ribs.

“Snitch!” Mona hissed.

“Teacher’s pet!” another said.

“Snitch, snitch, snitch . . .”

“Quiet down everyone!” Miss Shadhia ordered. “Open your notebooks. Eyes on the blackboard . . .”

That evening I confessed to my uncle all that had happened. He is my father’s youngest brother, and he is a tough, proud Zaghawa man. Even so, I didn’t know how he was going to react. He listened quietly to all I had to say, and then he told me how angry he was that I had been treated so badly. It would take days to get a message to my father, and for him to come. If I was okay with it, my uncle would have words with the headmistress. He was looking forward to showing her what we Zaghawa are made of.

The following morning I found myself back at school. Sairah and her mother were inside the headmistress’s room. They had come to witness my humiliation, or so they thought. Uncle Ahmed was invited in. I listened outside the door as he explained that my father lived in the village, and he was my guardian. The headmistress told him that I had misbehaved, and that he would have to punish me. She wanted to know the details of how he would punish me, in order to assess if she could allow me back into the school.

“There will be no punishment,” my uncle announced, quietly. “There will be no punishment because none is called for. Halima has done nothing wrong. As you know, I am not her father. But she lives with my family as if she is our daughter, and we know her to be a good girl, from an excellent family. She has told me what happened. She has told me what this other girl did—first provoking and then attacking her. I think perhaps you need me to repeat it all, for all your benefit?”

“How can she say such things?” Sairah’s mother blurted out. “Such lies! Was she the one who was half-strangled?”

“You should keep your girls under better control,” my uncle continued, ignoring Sairah’s mother. “And part of doing so should be to treat them
all
fairly, and with an honest hand. It seems to me that you call me in here to deal with your own problems—with children fighting. Children will fight. They do so. Why make it such an issue? Is it because you can’t do your job properly? I don’t want you calling me in here again.”

I could hear the headmistress spluttering, as she tried to find the words to respond. “There is no discipline problem in
my
school, let me tell you. And if you’re trying to imply . . .”

“Fine then,” my uncle cut her off. “Fine. Then punish the girl who is the cause of the wrong. If you won’t do so, my daughter has a right to defend herself. This girl was bad to Halima, so she defended herself. That is not wrong. Punish the girl who started the trouble. That is the end of the matter. I do not expect you to call me in here again. For what do we pay the school fees, if you cannot keep fair and good discipline?”

“Rest assured, your fees are fair for the service provided,” the headmistress snapped.

“Indeed, so I hope,” my uncle replied. I heard a chair scraping on floorboards, as he got to his feet. “Now, we’ve all wasted enough of our time on this issue. I am not going to demand to know the punishment for this one, this one who started the fight. I am going to leave that in your capable hands. Likewise, I will leave it in your hands to treat my daughter fairly. I hope very much that I shall not be needed again. Now, good day to you all.”

I stepped back from the door. I couldn’t believe how well my uncle had defended me in there. The headmistress had been rendered speechless. Uncle Ahmed was my hero. He came out of the room, gave me a cheeky grin, and wandered off to find the restroom.

“This family! These people!” I heard the headmistress declare. “
Look
at how they behave! These Zaghawa!
Who do they think they are?
Do they think that no one can punish them?”

“You know, you handled that very badly,” Sairah’s mother remarked. “Very badly! We should have beaten her while we had the chance. Now you called the family, and there’s nothing we can do!”

“You’re blaming
me
?” the headmistress retorted. “
Me?
It’s your daughter who started this trouble in the first place . . .”

With Sairah’s mother and the headmistress having a heated argument, I stole away from the door. I laughed to myself, thinking how my uncle had turned the tables on them. In him I truly had a champion.

The other children in the class were amazed at how I had turned on Sairah. I’d been quiet as a mouse until then, and I was seen as being something of a class goody-goody. However well I did in my exams, I knew that each of them would think twice before crossing me in the future. I had shown that deep inside, I was a Zaghawa warrior. In their different ways Grandma Sumah and my father would have been proud of me.

From this moment onward I and the other black girls decided we would take no more abuse. “Arab
hagareen,
”—the Arabs treated us like animals—we told each other. From now on if anyone tried to abuse us, we would band together and act as one. No matter whether they were pupils or teachers, we would stand together against them.

The first test of our new resolve wasn’t long in coming. There was an Arab girl in secondary school that we’d meet each afternoon on the path. She must have been thirteen or fourteen years old, and she just marched ahead as she saw us approaching and shoved us aside. Several times we’d tried saying “hello” to her, but she’d simply scowl at us.

“Hey, you—hold up a minute!” Mona announced, the next time we saw her. “Have you ever looked in the mirror? You have a donkey’s face!”

That stopped the girl in her tracks. “
What
did you say? I hope I didn’t hear you properly!”

“Why don’t you ever bother to return our greetings?” I countered. “Don’t you know how rude that is? You see us on the path but we don’t exist, is that it?”

“You bad, impolite girls!” she exclaimed. “What rubbish d’you think you’re saying?”

She reached out to grab Mona, but before she could do so we picked up sticks and clods of earth and started to pelt her. She cried out, more in shock than pain, and started to run. We chased after her, cheering, until she had disappeared around the corner. That was our second victory, but our triumph was to be short-lived. Unfortunately, the Arab girl lived next door to one of our teachers. Once she had described her attackers, the teacher knew exactly who we were.

The following morning at assembly the headmistress announced that six girls had beaten a girl from the secondary school. We each had to step forward, as she gave us six cracks on the back with a stout stick. It really hurt, but none of us so much as let out a cry or a yelp. We knew if we did the others would hear it and laugh. I stood up straight as I walked back to the line. I noticed that some of the Arab girls were sniggering. I looked them right in the eye—letting them know that I’d seen them and wouldn’t forget it.

After my tutor, my favorite teacher was a young Arab lady called Aisha. She taught English to the older girls, and I was really looking forward to starting her lessons. Often, Mona and I would walk part of the way home with her, and she was always chatty and kind toward us. One day Miss Aisha had a big pile of notebooks, and we offered to help her carry them. This time we went all the way to her house, and it turned out to be one of the posh, English-style homes in the exclusive quarter.

She invited us in. She flicked a switch on the wall, and as if by magic lights in the ceiling lit up. We washed our hands with running water, before being treated to a slice of cake and some pop. As we ate, I looked around me at the smooth walls, and the smart, glossy furniture. The walls of my uncle’s house were of rough, homemade mud blocks, whereas here they were of bright red bricks. In the rainy season we would add a fresh layer of mud to the outside, in the hope that it would prevent the walls being washed away. But there was no danger of such a thing happening to this building.

As I looked around at Aisha’s beautiful house, I realized that we inhabited separate worlds and lives, ones that only ever collided at the school. Each of these houses had electricity and water, things that the rest of the town’s inhabitants could barely dream of. I wondered why these houses seemed reserved for Arab families. They were a minority in Sudan, so how was it that the best homes and the best jobs were reserved for them? I remembered what my father had told me—that the British colonists had given all the power to the Arabs. Well, from what I could see little had changed since then.

Each of these “Arab houses” had a team of servants cooking and cleaning. Invariably, those servants were black Africans. The Arabs did little work themselves. Often, the women wouldn’t even go to the market: They each had a driver, and they would send them with a shopping list. They had a life of indolent luxury, and that was the life that Sairah’s family led. So when I had turned on her at school, it must have been almost as if one of their servants had done so. That is what had made it so unbearable for them.