Tears of the Desert (27 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The Devil Horsemen

It was five months after my return from Mazkhabad when they came to attack our village. It was the morning of December 23, just two days prior to what I now know and celebrate as Christmas Day. I was helping my mother prepare a breakfast of
acidah
mash. My father, my brothers, and my little sister were sitting nearby waiting to eat, before spending their day in the fields, or in my sister Asia’s case, attending the school.

I stirred the
acidah
mash, peering into the pot to check on its consistency. Too thick and it would stick to the bottom; too thin, and it wasn’t possible to scoop it up with one’s hand and throw it into one’s mouth. In the far distance I caught an odd sound—a faint thrumming in the air. I listened hard, as the strange thwoop-thwoop-thwooping grew louder. It had to be some sort of airplane, but it was unlike any that I had heard before.

Little children ran out into the streets, jumping up and down excitedly and pointing in the direction from where the noise was coming.

“
Khawajat! Khawajat! Khawajat!
” I heard them singing. They clapped and danced about in time to thwoop-thwoop-thwooping. “Plane Number Three! Plane Number Three! Plane Number Three!”

I smiled, reflecting on how they were still singing the same songs that I had sung as a child. “Plane Number Three. Plane Number Three.” Why did we say that, I wondered? And why was it that we always presumed aircraft had to be full of
khawajat—
of white people?

I turned back to the pot and started to dish out the mash. I had a tray set before me from which we would eat communally, scooping up the maize mash with our fingers. I saw my father get to his feet. He stood, gazing into the distance, shading his eyes against the rising sun. The strange noise grew louder—the thwoop-thwoop-thwooping sounding as though it was going to pass somewhere close by the village.

I could hear the children calling out to each other: “Airplane with a fan! Airplane with a fan! Airplane with a fan!” That is the phrase that we used for helicopters.

My father could see the aircraft now. A fleet of five helicopters was coming speeding out of the sun. He tried to make them out more clearly. He couldn’t be certain, but each seemed to be painted in the dull khaki of military green. The atmosphere in the village began to change, as all around us people started to sense that this wasn’t right somehow. I glanced up from the breakfast tray, feeling a growing tension and panic. I jumped to my feet. We gazed at the onrushing air armada, trying to work out exactly where they were heading.

Suddenly, the lead helicopter banked low over the village and there were a series of bright flashes and puffs of smoke from under its stubby wings. An instant later, the huts beneath it exploded, mud and thatch and branches and bodies being thrown into the air. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I told myself that my eyes had to be playing tricks, that it couldn’t be happening. But while my heart refused to believe it, my head knew that it was all too real.

They were attacking the village! They were attacking the village! They were attacking the village!

All around us people were waking up to the fact of the attack and crying out in alarm.

“
Kewoh! Kewoh!
”—Run! Run!

“
Souf! Souf!
”—Hide! Hide!

For an instant I was frozen with fear, before my father grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Run!” he cried. “Run! Take your brothers and sister and run! To the forest! Hide! And don’t come out until we come for you. Run! Run! There’s not a moment to lose . . .”

“I’m not going!” Omer yelled. “I’m staying! I’m staying to fight!”

“Don’t you dare disobey me!” my father thundered. “I’m your father and you do as I say! Go with your mother and sisters, to protect them. Now—do as I say! GO!”

Mo and Omer were wide-eyed with fear, but my father’s face was calm and stern as he prepared to face the enemy. He seemed so resolute and so in control, gripping his dagger as he ordered us to flee for our lives. My brothers’ fear—and especially Omer’s—terrified me. It was as if the village had become a vision of hell so terrible that even my warlike little brother was petrified. But my father—my father was firm like a rock, and I drew strength from him being so.

I took one last look at his face, then tore my eyes away. I grabbed my sister and my mother by the hand and we turned and ran. We raced out of the gate, joining a mass of people scurrying through the village. They were screaming wildly, as they ran and ran as fast as their legs would carry them. My brothers ran after us, leaving my father standing firm and alone.

In the distance beneath the helicopters a massed rank of horsemen swept forward, firing their guns and screaming as they smashed into the village.

The
Janjaweed
! The
Janjaweed
were coming!

Asia, my mother, and I ran. The village women were all around us, little babies clutched in their arms; older brothers ran with their younger siblings slung across their shoulders. Everyone was screaming in terror, and racing to get ahead of the person in front of them.

“Run! Run!”

“Run! Don’t let the
Janjaweed
catch us!”

“Don’t let them kill us!”

“God save us! God save us!”

The
Janjaweed
urged their horses forward, tossing blazing torches onto the huts, the dry thatch roofs bursting into flames. I kept glancing behind in fear at the flashes of gunfire and the flames that were sweeping through the village like a wave of fiery death. I could hear the devil horsemen screaming like animals, a howling wave of evil and hatred tearing our village asunder. As they got closer and closer I could make out the individual Arabic phrases that they were chanting, over and over and over again.

“We’re coming for you! To kill you all!”

“Kill the black slaves! Kill the black slaves!”

“Kill the black donkeys!”

“Kill the black dogs!”

“Kill the black monkeys!”

“No one will escape! We will kill you all!”

“Kill them all! Kill them all! Kill them all!”

Up ahead I could see the helicopters circling, turning for another attack run, and then there were further flashes and smoke, and bullets and rockets were tearing into the fleeing women and children, ripping bodies apart. Omer grabbed my hand and dragged my mother, my sister, and me to one side, out of the murderous path of their onslaught. We wove and dodged and raced ahead for the safety of the forest, passing bloodied heaps that had once been our village neighbors and our friends.

Their bodies had been torn apart by the bullets from above. Some of them were still alive, crawling and staggering forward. They cried out to us, holding out their hands and pleading for help. But if we stopped, the
Janjaweed
would be upon us and we all would die. So we ran, abandoning the wounded and the old and the slow and the infants to the terror of the
Janjaweed.

My mother was slower than the rest of us, and I could tell that she was tiring. She urged us to leave her—she would run at her own pace and catch us up in the forest. But we refused to do so. Together with Mo and Omer I half carried and half dragged her forward. I cried out for God to help us, to help save us all.

We ran and ran, each step taking us farther from the hell of the village. I was terrified for all of us, but half of my mind was back in the village with my father. With no weapon but his dagger he had chosen to stand and face this terrible onslaught. I knew why he had done so. Those who had chosen to stay and fight did so to stop the
Janjaweed
from reaching the women and children
—to buy us some time.
They stayed to save their families, not to defend the village. They did so to save us from the
Janjaweed.

Finally we reached the safety of the deep forest, where the helicopters could no longer hunt us down from the air. We hid among the cover of the trees. Everywhere I looked there were scattered groups of villagers. Mo, Omer, Asia, my mother, and I were breathless and fearful. We crouched in the shadows and listened to the noise of the battle raging on—trying to work out if it was coming closer, and whether we had to run once more.

Finally, the noise of the helicopters faded into the distance. From the village I could hear gunfire and yelling and the booming echo of the odd explosion. All around me was the wailing of little children. Tiny voices were crying and crying. Why had these men attacked us and destroyed our village, they sobbed? What wrong had we done to them? Desperate mothers sought news of their children. Many had lost little ones in the mad rush of the flight from the village.

Mothers began beating themselves and wailing hysterically, so guilty were they at having left little ones behind. We tried to quiet them, in case their cries betrayed our hiding place to the
Janjaweed.
Some wanted to return and search for their missing loved ones, but we had to hold them back—for to do so would mean death, of that we were certain.

Hour upon terrible hour we waited. The atmosphere was hellish. Exhausted from weeping, women and children stared ahead of themselves, their faces blank with shock. Now and then the dull hush of the fearful quiet was torn by the crackle of gunfire. With each gunshot children jumped, wailed, eyes searching in terror for the enemy. Had they somehow found us, and were we all about to be killed? But mostly my mind was back in the village on my father. I prayed to God to protect him and to keep him alive.

An hour or so before sunset the noise of battle died to a deathly quiet. A thick column of smoke rose in the distance, where the village was burning. No one had come to the forest to fetch us, and my father had ordered us to stay here until he did. But we just had to hope that he and the other men were busy in the village with the injured. If they were, it was my duty as a doctor to be there with them. Fearful eyes met fearful eyes, as we wondered what was best to do. Should we stay in the forest, or risk returning to the village?

There was a murmur of fevered whispering. Could anyone hear anything? No, it was all quiet. What did that mean? Did it mean that the enemy had gone? Maybe it did and maybe it didn’t, who could tell? Maybe the
Janjaweed
were hiding, ready to ambush us. The only way to find out was to sneak back to the village. Finally, a collective decision was reached. Slowly, carefully, stopping every minute to listen, we retraced our way through the darkening forest until we reached the outskirts of the village.

As the first huts came into view, people couldn’t hold back any longer. They ran toward their homes to seek out their loved ones. I raced through the choking smoke, my mother and brothers and sisters at my side. Fires glowed red all around us, the crackle of the flames thick in the air. At every turn I could smell burning, and death. Bodies were everywhere. Somehow, I navigated my way through this scene from hell to our house. The fence had been smashed down and our possessions lay scattered all around. But I didn’t care. I cared only for one thing
—my father.
My father!
Where was my father?

I rushed to my neighbor’s house. Perhaps my father was there, helping one of Kadiga’s relatives? One of her sisters had just given birth to a little baby girl, and I had helped with the delivery. I pushed aside the door of her hut, only to find a body slumped on the floor, the ground around it soaked in blood. Beside the dead mother was a smoking fire, a tiny, charred body lying among the ashes. The
Janjaweed
had shot the mother in the stomach and thrown her baby daughter onto the fire. The smell in the hut was sickening.

I turned away and sank to my knees, the nausea rising and gagging in my throat. As I bent to vomit, I heard a chorus of cries coming from the center of the village, a wailing crescendo of gut-wrenching grief. Women were screaming that they had found the men of the village! The men of the village were there! Together with my mother and my brothers I rushed toward the source of those grief-stricken cries. We reached the open area at the marketplace with the darkness of night settling over the burning village.

The ground was littered with shadowy corpses, women kneeling and keening over their loved ones. They were crying out the names of the fallen, beating their heads on the bloodied ground in their grief. But among the dead were one or two who were still alive. I searched frantically, my mind screaming. Where was my father? Where was my father?
My father? My father? My father!
Where was he? God let him be alive. Let him be injured, but let him have lived.
Let him be alive! Let him be alive! Let him be alive!

I saw my brother Omer stop. His features collapsed in on themselves as he sank to his knees, his hands grasping at his head and tearing at his hair. He bent to embrace a fallen figure, his arms locking around the body, his face buried in the face and hair. He was sobbing and wailing and shaking like a wounded animal. I fell to the ground myself.

I knew it was my father. I knew it was my father. I knew it was my father. I knew it was . . .