The Milk of Birds

by Sylvia Whitman

  “I was asking him about words for the dictionary,” she says.

  “Ahh,” I say.

  “It is hard to find khawaja these days,” she says.

  “But not hard to find handsome young engineers from Khartoum.”

  “Stop,” she says. “His English is very good.”

  “His eye is very good,” I say. “He fancies you.”

  “He fancies his spider,” she says.

  It is true Khalid talks much of the water tank he is building.

  “How tall is the platform today?” I ask.

  “Nineteen meters,” she says, and we laugh, for Khalid is a man of numbers even more than words.

  “His pipes came on the same truck,” Adeeba says. “You must get this birth kit. There are not many, so you must hurry.”

  I think of Umm Ali’s bundle of needles and brown glass. Tools matter, but more the one who holds them.

  “You should go,” I say.

  “I have to teach,” she says. “Report to me tonight.”

  • • •

  It is a long way to section 27 in the rain.

  Dear Nawra,

  Now to your questions. Our house is made of brick. Last winter we had mice; Purrfect just watched Mom set traps. In our garden Mom plants veggies every spring, but she hates bug spray, so what we grow is mostly weeds and plants that can survive with half-eaten leaves, like zucchini, which grow into baseball bats if you don’t find them in time.

  Marriage customs. They used to be pretty simple: Guy gives diamond ring, girl buys white dress, minister says, “You may kiss the bride,” big party, honeymoon, house, baby, happily ever after. My granny and grampers did it that way. Granny was a nurse, and Grampers started out a roofer; one day he sliced his foot on some metal flashing, and she gave him the tetanus shot. “Been a pain in my you-know-what ever since,” Grampers always said, which isn’t exactly, “You are the sunshine of my life,” but the way Grampers said it, you knew that’s what he meant. Now everything’s all mixed up—sometimes baby first, or no guy, or two guys, or red dress, and most of the time the happy doesn’t last long into the ever after. I want kids, but probably I won’t get married; then they won’t have to go through a divorce.

  Sharon’s not mean to us. She treats us like houseguests—what do we want to eat, and do we have enough blankets? I’m not complaining! But we have to act like houseguests, tiptoeing around, making sure we straighten up the cruise ship brochures she has fanned out on the coffee table. Sharon never comes to our stuff, like eighth-grade promotion, though maybe that’s because Mom’s around. I think Sharon sees us as competition. Like this weekend Mom told Dad I needed ten hours of expensive tests, which I didn’t want until I heard him basically say I wasn’t worth it. I heard Sharon thinking, What about me?

  It’s not just me Dad treats cheap: He doesn’t want Todd to look at expensive schools. He says, “You can make good connections wherever you go. Just join a fraternity. I wish I had. But then I met your mother,” like Bad Connection Mom ruined his life. Sometimes I wish I could hop in a time machine and spy on my parents when they were dating—just the public parts, please! It couldn’t have been as bad as Dad makes out because he proposed, right?

  Once in a while Mom says something about their nonprofit days in D.C. when they were going to “save the world,” as if she’s making fun of these kooky people she once knew but missing them too.

  Probably inside Dad was like Todd, whining all the way.

  Okay, Nawra, it’s past midnight, and I’ve got to finish my homework, at least the part we have to turn in, since Mom’s going to look it over in the morning. Sorry for going on and on, but one thing I found out from the Save the Girls assistant director is that we have only a year to write letters, which sounds like a long time until you realize that I blew you off for four months. Maybe I can ask for an extension. That’s another thing I’m good at.

  One question from me: Have you ever heard of Linus Pauling? He’s a scientist right up there with Albert Einstein. Emily knew him, but only because he published some off-the-wall stuff about vitamin C, like it can cure cancer. Emily’s mom has gone totally herbal, so Emily keeps a big binder with clippings about supplements. It has three sections separated by dividers: Possible Merit, Harmless Poppycock, and Poison. That’s Emily. She labels everything and hangs up her shirts by color, like at the thrift store.

  Tell me more about those Janjaweed people. They sound scary.

  Love, K. C.

  Nawra

  AUGUST 2008

  I try to give the kit to my mother, but she shakes her head. Sitting on her mat, she turns her back to me.

  He who has a mother has no worries, my grandmother used to say. I no longer believe that. Perhaps that is why so many women are silent in this camp. Their wisdom belonged to the village; we drank it like pure water from the wells. But the devils poisoned the wells. In this camp, we need another wisdom, about bugs and birth in the dark.

  In this strange place, perhaps my mother is eager for me to die, and the baby in me. Then she will have her memories to herself. Adeeba will bring her water and buy the vegetables for her mulah, but I am sure my mother will stop eating. She will lie down and close her eyes and wait for the day the horn is blown and the heavens split open and all stand before God.

  Many people asked Abdullah about the day of judgment. He urged them to do good. Abdullah recited the sura about paradise: It has rivers of unpolluted water, and rivers of fresh milk, and rivers of wine, delicious for the drinkers, and rivers of strained honey. They have all kinds of fruits therein, and forgiveness from their Lord.

  I think my mother hears those rivers running. She will not say this is suicide, which is haram. But I do. We must not deny death, but neither should we invite it.

  “This kit is for your hands,” I tell Adeeba.

  She is trembling.

  “You are the girl who climbed up and down through Jebel Marra without a companion!” I remind her.

  “Walking I know how to do. You put one foot in front of the other,” Adeeba says. “Delivering babies is another thing.”

  “You use your hands, not your feet,” I say.

  My friend does not smile.

  “Your mother was a doctor,” I say.

  “She did not deliver babies in our apartment,” Adeeba says. “Even if she had . . .”

  Her words pull up short, like a spooked horse.

  “What?”

  “I cannot even remember her face,” Adeeba says.

  I hug my friend. The loss of a mother marks a child. I saw it even in the village.

  I would have liked to meet Umm Adeeba. Adeeba has told me many times how she followed her mother up the stairs to their apartment in a building taller than a tree. I picture my friend as she must have been as a child, talking, talking as they climbed.

  “Since when did these stairs turn into a mountain?” Umm Adeeba said.

  Adeeba cannot remember her mother’s face, but she will never forget those words. The heart sees before the eyes.

  But her mother smiled. This tiredness, this sickness in the stomach, this swelling in the belly—they could mean only a brother or a sister for her little talker, Adeeba. The test of blood said no, but Umm Adeeba did not believe her own science. Her happiness deceived her.

  I wish and you wish, but God does his will. In the end, the doctor became the patient. It was not life growing inside Adeeba’s mother but death.

  “You read your mother’s books,” I say.

  “I held them,” Adeeba says, “so my fingers could touch the pages hers had touched. I did not read them. I read my father’s books. They spoke of the birth of empires, not babies.”

  So the teacher becomes my pupil.

  “When my time comes, open this kit,” I say, repeating what the khawaja have told us.

  “Not now,” Adeeba says. “We must study it through the plastic so the bugs do not enter.”

  “Open it carefully when the time comes,” I say. �
�You can save the plastic to hold your dictionary.”

  “I will not be thinking of my dictionary,” Adeeba says.

  “You are always thinking of your dictionary,” I say. “You are like Khalid and his water tank.”

  She laughs. Then she says, “I do not know many English words about birth. If you tell K. C. about the child you are carrying, perhaps she will give us some.”

  I put my hand on my belly. My baby does not kick anymore. Perhaps he is dying. Perhaps we will die together. Perhaps I should tell K. C. so that my death does not shock her. I have told her of the children seeking shelter from the wind next to my big belly, but Adeeba says she does not know.

  “If I die, you must write the letter,” I say. “Thank K. C. for her kindness.”

  “You will not die,” Adeeba says.

  “Every soul will have a taste of death,” I say.

  “You will not die now if I can help it,” she says. She shakes the plastic kit.

  I like what it contains: soap, a plastic sheet, demuria cloth, string, and a razor blade. Only the plastic gloves I have not seen anywhere else but among the khawaja.

  “String?” says Adeeba.

  “To tie the cord,” I say.

  “And the razor blade?” Adeeba asks.

  Surely she has seen a birth! But she has not, nor visited one who has just delivered. That is the loss of a girl who grows up without a mother.

  I explain that she must cut a way through the scars for the baby.

  Adeeba whispers, “I have heard, but I have not seen. I was not circumcised.”

  I turn to my mother. Has she heard? Her back does not speak.

  “My parents did not believe in it,” Adeeba says.

  “Your mother?” I ask.

  “Just the smallest cut, to satisfy her parents’ people,” she says.

  I look at my friend. She is not unclean. She is not immodest. Forward, yes, although I lay that at the feet of her father. It is the mothers who seal us, who tell us what is the lot of women.

  “Circumcision is just a custom, Nawra,” Adeeba says. “My mother said it did not make sense, with what she learned in medical school, although other doctors did not think as she did.”

  “She told you this?” I ask.

  “My father,” Adeeba says. “He was shy to talk of such things, but he wanted to explain why he did not leave me alone with his mother in the village. Given the chance, my grandmother would have circumcised me herself.”

  “Who will marry you?” I ask without thinking.

  I am sorry before my lips even stop moving. There is safety in slowness and regret in haste.

  Adeeba rises to her feet, her head almost touching the plastic, all that stands between us and the rain knocking above like an unwelcome guest. Even rain has a different character now, harsh and insisting. Perhaps it misses our crops. It is lost and searching for its purpose. Rain felt different under the thick thatch roof of our house in Umm Jamila. It drummed gently as we danced.

  “Perhaps I will not marry,” Adeeba says.

  Just then a shout moves through our section. “A car!”

  “The saidas,” I say. Adeeba and I duck outside our shelter. I wave to Hassan and Zeinab, who join us as we move toward the meeting place.

  This month their car has tires as tall as Hassan. All gather round to hear of their travels.

  “It is a mighty vehicle,” says Saida Noor, “but in the contest the wadi often wins. The wadi has mud on its side. One day our tires sank so deep the car could not move, and we had to climb on the roof as the waters rose and lapped at the windows.

  “There is no travel without wounds,” says Saida Noor.

  “Next time, we are camping on the bank,” Saida Julie says. They laugh like one who has seen death pass the house and keep on going.

  K.C.

  AUGUST 2008

  “Bad idea,” I tell Mom.

  “Why?”

  “Because Parker’s not my type.”

  “Why?” She reminds me of Wally in obnoxious little kid mode. “Why is grass green?” “Because of a chemical.” “What makes it green?” “The sun.” “Why?” “Because red would make everyone nervous.” “Why?” “Because we’d think the whole world was on fire, and whenever you got grass stains on your pants, your mother would think your knees were bleeding again. How about showing me your scar?”

  Wally can drive me crazy. So can my mother.

  Mom’s waiting for me to say that Parker’s not my type because he’s smart, and then she’ll say, “You’re smart too. You just need to apply yourself.” But I don’t say that because smart people—certain smart people—are my type. I like hanging around with Emily and Chloe. They have much more interesting things to say than the girls who spend all their time cutting people down on Facebook. Some of my classmates are so obsessed with their boobs they pay no attention to their carbon footprints. Hello, ladies—that’s the measurement you should be worried about! Global warming is killing all the polar bears and causing droughts in Sudan.

  I wish Nawra’s letter would come.

  I wish my dad had never met Sharon.

  I wish and you wish, but God does his will.

  “All right, you can hire Parker,” I tell Mom. “But if I don’t like him,” I say, drawing my finger across my neck, “off with his head.”

  In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate

  28 August 2008

  Dear K. C.,

  Peace be upon you. How are you? Are you strong? And your health? I am glad to hear of your happiness. We have a saying: The poor man eats with his eyes. I feast with my ears when Adeeba reads your letters.

  We carry them everywhere now because the rains are heavy. The latrines have flooded, and muddy streams twist through the camp, even under the sleeping mats. At the clinic Hassan found us a discarded plastic, so we keep your letters there, with the dictionaries, under our tobes.

  How is your mother? She reminds me of Saida Julie, how she calls me a survivor as if there is honor in the word. There are many women here who feel shame to be alive. That is why I want my mother to hear your letters too. My mother does not say anything, but I hope that she is listening.

  How is your brother? Even in America then, the son is the crescent of the house. In his ablutions Abdullah was extravagant with our water too.

  You just washed for prayer, Meriem used to complain, for she did not like to walk to the well.

  But my mother told her to be grateful for a brother as pure as Abdullah, who would bring us all closer to God.

  We say, Parents cover forty-four mistakes for their children. When baby Ishmael pulled up one of my mother’s bean plants, she laughed. When she replanted it, he did it again. As he shook the stem, soil fell from the roots, and he laughed. Then my mother handed Ishmael to me as if I did not have goats to milk.

  Thanks to God, your brother does not cut himself like the brother of your friend. In Umm Jamila, men did not like the sight of their own blood spilled but went running to their wives and mothers. But it is true that the zar cause strange behavior.

  Adeeba is shaking her head because she does not believe in spirits. But I have seen the misery they inflict unless we soothe them.

  Next to one of my uncles lived an old woman wise in the ways of zar, and the unfortunate came to her, even from other villages. We called her Shaykha. She healed many with her ceremonies.

  Such a face Adeeba makes. Next she will tell me that the sharia forbids such things! That is what some of the men said. I think that was because a woman is supposed to have broken wings, but Shaykha was free as a starling.

  They asked Abdullah for a verse of Qur’an. If God touches you with affliction, my brother said, none can remove it but he. But my father made Abdullah look again and even search the hadith because he liked Shaykha, who sent families to us when they needed a sheep to sacrifice.

  Shaykha cured my cousin, whose mother died soon after her marriage. Because of the zar, my cousin could not bring child
ren, and her mother-in-law was telling the son to divorce. The girl’s aunts brought her to Shaykha, and they danced and shed many tears. Within a year the girl gave birth to a son.

  The benefit is in the belief.

  And how is your father? Well, inshallah, and his second wife. You have not yet told me about the rest of your people. Is it also true in the United States, K. C., that the khal [translator’s note: mother’s brother] advises his nieces and nephews like a second father? It was Khalee Amin who first assured my father that I could manage the herd with Muhammad, and Khalee Ahmad who gave me a water bag of the softest leather. Relatives are a dense forest, and among them we find shelter.

  Even as Adeeba writes, drops follow her pen. Rain that we once welcomed has now become our enemy. It raises the worms that disturb the children’s sleep. For all the water that falls from the sky, we do not have enough to drink, and some women walk many kilometers to the wadi to fill their cans. Two boys drowned there last week. The khawaja counsel new mothers to give babies nothing but milk from their breasts, for wells have collapsed and the floodwaters carry many bugs. Also we must keep the mosquitoes from our skin.

  Engineers are trying to improve how the drinking water moves through the camp. Now pumps pull water out of the ground and push it through many kilometers of pipes to many tap stands. But sometimes the fuel for the pumps does not arrive, or not enough arrives, for fuel is expensive even for the khawaja, so the pumps work just a few hours a day. So the engineers are building a platform, very high, for a water tank to sit upon.

  Hassan calls this tank the spider. One of the engineers drew a picture for him. To this tank engineers will attach many pipes. The pumps will pull the water up and then quit, and from the tank the water will flow down the spider’s legs to the tap stands, like streams from a mountaintop.

  Who is this engineer who can build tanks and draw with a stick in the mud? His name is Khalid. Such a strong young man, K. C., with a mind open to the world and patience with Hassan’s many questions. He is just twenty-one and almost finished at the university. The students come here to help their countrymen during a break in their studies. He knows English as well as engineering. When Adeeba cannot find khawaja to translate words for her dictionary, she looks for Khalid spraying the latrines or hammering nails. And I will say these are the questions this young man looks forward to the most.