Tears of the Desert (26 page)

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 interrogated. 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.

My father shook his head. “Didn’t you know? We sent a message via Uncle Ahmed. Grandma’s gone. She’s passed away. She’s dead. Grandma Sumah’s dead.”

Grandma had passed away barely a week prior to my reaching home. My father had tried to get a message to me, via Uncle Ahmed and the radiophone in Mazkhabad. They had wanted me here for the funeral, but the message hadn’t gotten through. Her death had been quick and painless, my father told me, and it sounded like a stroke. It had happened in the middle of the night, and by early morning she had passed to the other side.

Just when I most needed her fighting spirit and strength, Grandma Sumah was gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A Long-Distance Wedding

For days on end I stayed in Grandma’s hut hiding from the world. I tried to mourn for her, but my own state of mind was such that I had little energy left to grieve for anyone other than myself. Yet I missed her terribly, and especially now. If Grandma had been alive, I felt certain she would have done something dramatic to avenge what had happened. She would have taken her revenge on any Arab that she could get her hands on, with no thoughts for the consequences. That was just how she was.

As for the rest of my family, each reacted in their own way. My mother’s response to what had happened was one of emotional collapse. My “little” brother—eighteen-year-old Omer—stomped around looking enraged and fiery. But what could he do? Whom could he fight? How could he strike back at them? He and Mo would need my father’s leadership to carry them, and my father’s intentions lay in a more long-term, considered approach. My father’s hopes lay in contacting the Zaghawa rebels.

It was on the day of my return that my father decided to join them. It was clear to him now that we had no choice. We had to fight, or die. No one could avoid the truth anymore. He had seen what they had done to me, and from Osman he had heard of the attack on the village school. He shared his plans with my brothers, and there was lots of fighting talk. Just as soon as they could he, Mo, and Omer would join the rebels.

The only people who knew what had happened to me were my family members, and they were determined to keep it that way. When people asked why I had come home, they said that I’d sought safety in the village from the war. Because I didn’t want to see anyone, they told visitors that I was resting after a long and difficult journey. I lay in Grandma’s hut hiding myself away and consumed by grief. The void of a deep depression swallowed me, wherein the loneliness and darkness seized hold of my soul.

After a month or so I started showing my face around the home. I helped my mother with the chores. This was as much as I could manage. I felt like a child again—a child at home doing childish things, and protected by my family. My favorite job was washing the clothes. It would take me the whole day to complete a basket of washing, and somehow I felt that with each I was making myself clean again. Sometimes I would catch myself scrubbing and scrubbing at my own skin—as if by doing so I might rid myself of what those men had done to me.

My father started being absent from the home for several days at a time, far longer than we were used to. No one talked openly about it, but I presumed that he had to be off making contact with the rebels. I still didn’t have the energy or the will to be interested. My daily interaction was limited to passing the time of day. A quiet, “hello, how are you?” and that was about it. Then I would go and busy myself with the daily chores.

In reality I was still in hiding: I was hiding away from my family, my friends, and from life in its entirety. The more it became obvious that I had stopped wanting to be part of my family, the more it hurt them. My father in particular was consumed by worry.

Four months after my return he came to find me in Grandma’s hut. He sat down next to me and held my hand. He knew that I was isolating myself, he told me gently, and he understood why. He knew that I feared rejection, rejection from all those who loved me. He knew that I was trying to protect myself, by rejecting them first. I was a victim, and nothing would ever alter his love for me. He would always love me dearly. He just wanted me back again.

My father said that I needed something to live for, something to bring me out of the darkness. And so he had taken the liberty of asking the parents of my cousin Sharif if they might agree to a marriage. If I was happy, Sharif had accepted the match. He had fond memories of me, and we were both university educated, so it would be a union of equals. Sharif was an educated, liberal man, one deeply involved in the struggle. Did I think I could accept him, my father asked? Would I agree to the match? If so there was much to organize . . .

I embraced my father, burying my head in his shoulder. He was so full of love for me: He was trying to drag me back from death to life. Most of the time that he had been away he hadn’t been meeting with the rebels at all. He’d actually been trying to play matchmaker. He’d been trying to find a man who might understand that I’d been horribly victimized, and not see me as the guilty party to some unspeakable, heinous act.

As terrible as it might seem, a victim of rape is likely to be treated as an outcast by their community, and even their family. And this had been preying so much on my mind. Who would want me now, I wondered? I should have been dead.
I was dead.
At least inside I was. But I didn’t want anyone marrying me out of charity, either. Rather death than that.

“Did you tell him?” I whispered. “Did you tell him the truth? Does he know? What did he say?”

“Don’t worry,” my father comforted me. “Don’t worry. You know Sharif. He works for the cause, the struggle. He has seen so much suffering, all across our country. He understands suffering. He knew that it would come to Darfur, that it was our inescapable fate. Don’t worry—he can accept you for who you are.”

It wasn’t an answer to my question, but it was enough for me. I hoped my father was right. I hoped Sharif was a good man, a man of enlightened understanding, a man who might understand that no woman ever invites rape. A man who might understand the unspeakable pain and trauma that I had been through, and care about it.

“So, Rathebe, is that a ‘yes’?” my father prompted. “Can I tell his family you agree?”

I nodded. I gave a tearful half smile. I felt my face crack as I did so. It was the first time that I had smiled since those men had done those things to me. My father had brought a smile to my face at last. I loved him so dearly. My father went on to explain that there was one complication with the marriage: Sharif was no longer in Sudan. He had fled to safety in England, because the security services were after him, too. He and I were both survivors—survivors of the madness and evil that was burning up our country.

“You are a rebel yourself, Rathebe,” my father said. “Whether you like it or not, it is in your blood. Sharif is just the same. You are both born rebels.”

I smiled again. That name again
—Rathebe.
It was so long since I had heard it. My father had been right to give me that nickname—for it embodied the person that I had become. And he had been so right to give me my birth name, Halima, after the medicine woman of the village. Both names defined me now: I was the Zaghawa doctor, the doctor rebel.

My father left to deliver the good news to Sharif’s parents. I tried to imagine what he would be like. My last memory of him was the thirteen-year-old farm boy driving us home in his ratty old donkey cart. I had an image in my mind of the man that I’d always wanted to marry. Yet my right to choose the man of my dreams had been taken from me by rape, and now I was to wed an almost stranger. Yet in spite of this, my father’s news was like a rebirth for me. I was a phoenix rising from the ashes of my shattered dreams.

The following morning my uncles and aunts came to visit. They sat with my father and agreed upon the date when we would make the special readings from the holy Koran so that Sharif and I could be declared man and wife. After that we would have a modest celebratory feast. My groom would be absent, of course, but once it was safe for him to return to Sudan I would have a proper traditional Zaghawa wedding.

The day of my marriage was a low-key affair. I sat with Sharif’s relatives and received their congratulations. They told me that they were proud their son was marrying a medical doctor. It was such an honor for their family. Sharif’s mother gave me the gift of a cow, so that I could drink its milk and grow strong while I waited for his return. It was very different from my childhood dreams of my wedding. But I didn’t mind. I just hoped that my marriage to a distant Sharif might give me the will to go on.

I decided that my days of hiding away were over, and that I wanted to do something again. A health clinic had been started in the village. A charity run by some
khawajat
had been to check what medical facilities the village had. The traditional medicine women had each been given a few days’ medical training, and a stock of basic medicines. Each day one of these women would staff the clinic, and they were paid out of a community fund that had been raised by the village elders.

I went and offered up my services. The clinic was a shelter made of wooden uprights with a grass thatch roof, and a couple of tables inside. It was basic, but it served its purpose well. The medicine women were my fellow villagers and friends of friends, and I was able to chat and laugh with them as we worked. They appreciated having a doctor around to handle some of the load.

An old woman came, complaining of headaches and weakness. I checked her over. She had swollen hands and feet and alarmingly high blood pressure. I told her there was nothing we could do for her at the clinic. She would have to go to the hospital, where they would give her tablets to control her blood pressure.

The woman glared at me. “You give me a pill to make it better! I saw you give one to our neighbor—what about me?”

“You need a different sort of pill,” I explained. “We don’t have them here. Plus you need some proper tests.”

She shook her head in disgust. “Ah, this doctor—anything you say, even a headache, she just tells you to go to the hospital.”

Many of the women who came to see us were expecting mothers, and they wanted to know when they were going to give birth. This I could help with. I’d feel their tummy, have a listen with the stethoscope, and tell them what I thought. I loved this side of the work. Gradually, I grew more contented. I was helping my people, and I could laugh with them and feel at home. I felt happier here, and I felt as if nothing could harm me.

Of course, there were lingering fears in the back of my mind. I had fled from Mazkhabad and I had effectively disappeared. But it wouldn’t take much for someone to work out where I had gone. A brief scan of my hospital records would reveal the location of my village. But I didn’t dwell on this. I was desperate to put my troubles and horrors behind me.

And it was the marriage that had been the key to me breaking my self-imposed isolation.

I now know that marriage is not the end—it is simply another beginning. But at this stage of my life I was deeply immersed in my culture, and I felt as though it was everything. After the horror and the guilt of the rape, my marriage was like a rebirth. But at the same time it was as if a death sentence was hanging over me. I didn’t know if Sharif knew the full truth—so there was always a chance that my new life might be taken from me again.

For a while I considered keeping the darkness a secret from him, but I knew that it wasn’t something that I could ever hide. I knew in my heart that I had to tell him. I would await his return to Sudan, and then I would ask him to accept me as I was—a damaged woman and a victim of rape, but a woman all the same.

In the meantime I would hope and pray that he and I could build a life together in our country. I dreamed of a family, of children, of the type of life that had seemed lost to me after the terrible things that had happened. I dreamed of happiness, of the love of my husband and my children. I dreamed of my parents becoming grandparents, and of the joy that would bring. I dreamed a dream that my loving father had made possible for me.

Unfortunately, my dreams were about to be irrevocably shattered.