Silence Is My Mother Tongue

by Sulaiman Addonia

  Eyob had come between them, she thought. He gave her a job, and the possibility to dream again, while at the same time he provided Hagos with a friendship he had never had. Eyob gave her and Hagos the chance to have some space from each other in this confined place. Saba remembered what Zahra had said. To see is not the same as to be seen. That was what kept her sane, how she managed mentally to create a distance for herself, by merely pretending at times to ignore others. And even herself.

  Saba drew her feet up and hugged her legs. But you are a traveller, Hajj Ali, her mother’s response came through the window. Saba had never heard her mother speak with such confidence.

  You might not realize it, but you are all eternal travellers, Hajj Ali responded. People from a place with continuous violence seek oases like nomads.

  Hagos stood up. Saba followed him with her eyes as he paced up and down. He picked up a stick and sat in front of her. He tried to talk. Saba leaned forward. His cheeks inflated. Words stuck in his mouth and his tears fell. Saba wiped at her brother’s face until clarity returned to his eyes. She tried to read the reason for his rage in them, understand his burst of emotion.

  Saba was born into his universe of silence. Hagos was simple, everyone told her. Innocent and without mystery. Like everyone else, she didn’t want to pretend otherwise and disturb the peace that he brought into her life. She had trusted her body with him because of his God-given innocence. Her legs lengthened, her breasts grew in front of this man who had the gullibility of a child.

  And this Hagos, the Hagos she imagined him to be, the Hagos she constructed in her mind, could not be a lie. He was as real as she and everyone else made him to be. Shokor Hagos. But sweet Hagos wanted to write now. He stabbed the ground with the stick, inscribing fury instead of words.

  Hagos, no, she said. No.

  He jabbed the ground with his stick again. The whipped-up sand filled Saba’s throat. She coughed.

  Hagos turned around and leaned against the wall. He dropped his head between his knees.

  Saba scrawled letters in the sand, hoping the wind would not blow. Come, she said, holding his hand. Come, let’s begin. We will both learn a new language. First, I’ll teach you the little I know. We will both start at the same level. No one better than the other.

  She read and reread every letter of the English alphabet out loud as she scribbled it in the sand. Hagos stared at the letters, then at Saba’s lips, then back at the letters on the moonlit ground. Saba put Hagos’s hand in hers. She guided her older brother to write his first word. First phrase. Register his footprint in the soil of the camp in English, a language that would be his first, as good as the tongue that abandoned him. Together they wrote their names:

  H A G O S

  S A B A

  The businessman emerged from the crowded square. He stood in front of the siblings.

  When the mother came out of the hut and saw Eyob, she embraced him. The businessman clasped his hands and said to Saba’s mother: The midwife came to see me, but I think there is a misunderstanding.

  He unwrapped the gabi from around his neck. He sighed and took the mother’s hand. Please understand, he said, kissing the back of her hand again and again. Saba is still young and despite what you heard, it was never my intention to marry her.

  People gasped. Why then did you befriend the mute? the athlete asked, drawing himself out of the crowd.

  Mr Eyob, her mother said, her voice audible to all. Mr Eyob, but you also need to understand that people have been talking. They see you come here every evening, bringing gifts, and they wonder why a middle-aged man, who is rich and from Asmara, would befriend a young man who is a poor countryside boy and mute.

  Eyob brought his hands together in front of his chest again. I am sorry if I gave you and everyone else in this camp the wrong impression. But–

  But what, Mr Eyob? asked her mother. Saba is a woman now and I want to protect her reputation. Honour is what we have left. I urge you not to come here again.

  Saba followed the businessman’s eyes as they settled on Hagos. Hagos’s hair quivered in the breeze. It was as if the moon and stars shone only for him. It was as if everyone else around him vanished. Eyob took a deep breath. Okay, he said to the mother, without looking away from Hagos. As you wish. I would like to ask for Saba’s hand.

  That night, Saba listened to Hagos weeping until he fell into a restless sleep. The following morning, she opened her eyes to his stare, eyes that showed the same anger she remembered from those early days of her school life. Red eyes that pursued her as she washed her face, combed her hair, ate breakfast, put her books in her bag, and then walked to the gate and turned towards him to wave goodbye.

  Good morning, Hagos-ay, Saba said, now sitting up on her blanket. Adding the -ay, attaching Hagos to her, mine, my Hagos, mine like the air, mine like the skin around my bones. She was engaged but nothing was going to change between them. She wanted to tell him this, if he only would sit and let her talk to him.

  Many nights of crying, many silent mornings followed. And one morning, Hagos waited for her to wake up, a pen and paper in his hands.

  Do you want to continue our English lessons? Saba asked.

  He nodded, his head moving up and down in a rapid jerk, as if, Saba thought, a language could be learnt that fast.

  Let’s eat first, the mother said.

  Hagos shook his head.

  He hasn’t been eating for days now. Don’t you want to eat? Saba asked.

  Hagos, though, put the pen and paper in her hand. Okay, let’s start then, Saba said, leaving her own breakfast untouched.

  And when Hagos returned later that evening, he hurried past Saba and lay on his blanket, facing the wall without changing or taking off his shoes.

  Saba turned up the wick of the lamp. It was raining outside, yet Hagos was barely wet, as if he’d been sheltered during his walk.

  The silence inside the hut was broken by the occasional rumble in the sky. Saba sat up and pulled out the painting from Hagos’s jute sack and leaned against the wall. The closer she looked at the portrait this time, the more Saba discovered similarities between the white woman and herself. All the time it hung on her wall back home, all the time she held it in this camp ever since she discovered it, all this and it never occurred to her that this might have been her. That it could have been Hagos and not the landlord who’d painted this portrait. And that Hagos disguised her under an unblemished white skin.

  But the square face, the dimples on the cheeks, the long neck, the long, narrow almond eyes, the broad shoulders, the slender breasts, the wide hips all resembled her, Saba. The white skin was diversion, a buffer against possible accusations that a man had dared to paint his own sister naked.

  THE BROKEN LANGUAGE

  WHEN YOU LEARN A LANGUAGE AS AN ADULT, WORDS ARE LIKE RAZORS ON YOUR TONGUE. THE SENTENCES YOU SPEAK ARE SO WOUNDED THAT THEY FALL APART WHEN THEY LEAVE YOUR MOUTH.

  remember this i well hagos me fight had hagos do run follow i him field of landlord arrive sorghum tall me as clouds sudden come rain see i hagos run here there follow him i find he room to our landlord belong hagos in go to window go i take look high shelves everywhere books big now see i why this room close always no one in come workers told were hagos wet clothes off take on chair put he book lift this book notice i no words has pictures only cry want i never hagos see happy as this when i sudden voice hear degas name is hagos fell book to floor look for his clothes no wait say landlord at book by hagos feet point he on page open is woman like hagos naked see say landlord degas this paint i this painting see in paris i hereafter painter want become and wish i woman habesha paint like her me let eyes of hagos rest on woman in bucket bath landlord hagos hand holding still but say he landlord no girl from here find i who this accept all say no to hagos the landlord say this hagos i teach you paint really no need be literate or speak to draw but if i paint like this you me let hagos down head think landlord hand of hagos go let sorry say he how ask this could i of anothe
r man i no do this again hagos landlord hand back grab nod he you me let paint you hagos nod landlord cry i cry i watch hours as landlord hagos paint hagos me think learnt paint how so he me paint see this nude white me is hide me black in skin of Europe us free become think i when hide not art one day hagos paint me as me is black with all wounds

  FREE LOVE, FENCED

  Saba and Hagos joined a crowd watching a group of men fencing off Eyob’s three huts with thorn bush. Lightning flashed across the dark sky and Saba spotted Jamal on top of the hill. He was surrounded by oil lamps. She could see him clearly.

  Next to Jamal, the large white sheet tied to two poles blew in the wind, like a flag of surrender to passion, to that impossible desire that she, as many, were taught to never recognize, let alone express.

  Why is he building this fence? asked a man behind Saba. She looked away from Jamal and brought her attention to Eyob’s new fence.

  It is not as if we are wild cattle that he needs to keep at bay, said a man, kicking at the fence made of thorn bush with his shoe. Maybe he has a secret to hide.

  The brother and sister stood in front of the gate. The workers left. Eyob sat on his chair. Oil lamps lit up the compound, making it look like an oasis of light bathing in a sea of darkness.

  Soon she would live in this compound. Hagos too. It was Saba’s only condition for accepting Eyob’s proposal. She didn’t want a dowry. She wanted Hagos. His presence around me is worth more to me than a gold ring on my finger, Saba wanted to tell them. He is a crown on my head, a lush white dress around my body. His smooth skin is mine in place of what you burnt on me. He is my peace that you took away. He is not forbidden, because as the religious men had said, he’s heaven and in heaven all is allowed.

  Hagos smiled his quiet smile. But Saba could hear a storm between his ribs as the bones of his chest strained when he hugged her.

  How could she have underestimated the impact of their separation on him, even if she was only moving from one part of the camp to another? They were twins. Born from the same womb in different years but bound together by circumstances, the war between their parents’ countries and the one waged on their bodies.

  Yes, it would be my absolute pleasure, indeed, if Hagos moves in with us, Eyob said, promising to build a new hut for Hagos.

  But when Saba requested a fence be built, the businessman raised his eyebrows as his eyes scanned Saba, as if lost in a maze of thoughts. Saba curbed the temptation to explain the need for confinement within a confined camp, for exile within exile. There was no need. The businessman would understand in time.

  Okay, he said. If you want a compound, I’ll set it up.

  And here, in this compound, Saba would live with her husband, Hagos and Tedros. All the huts next to each other. Fenced. At the foot of a hill, where Jamal had started constructing his cinema.

  Tedros emerged from their new latrine, a hole in the ground located at the back of the compound. Saba followed him with her eyes as he fetched a towel from the clothesline and strode behind a small wall made of thatch, sewn with ropes, the gaps blanked out with leaves. Complete privacy. Only God could see this shower room from above.

  In weeks, after her wedding, she too would disappear with a bucket of water into that tiny shower room, on her own. She had long craved moments like these. When she stood instead of hunching up inside a bucket. She imagined her wet body under the sky, the direct sun, the wind, the rain, the stars and the moon.

  Soapy water streamed from under the thatched wall of the shower room. Tedros came out with a towel wrapped around his waist. He jumped over a puddle and stuttered into the hut without a glance at the throng outside the compound.

  Saba waved back at Eyob, at the same time as her brother, as if the businessman’s wave was intended for both, as if he too finally understood that they were each other’s double, two who only made sense together.

  THE WHITE CLOTH

  Saba arrived in the area north of the camp. Hajj Ali’s daughter pastured their animals on the grass of the hill. His wife stirred a pot over a stove with one hand while shaking a goatskin bag tied between two logs with the other. Her eyes were half closed as if in deep contemplation.

  The smell of butter hung in the air. Saba greeted the woman with narrow eyes, the woman whose own husband had described to her mother as empty of love. The woman, though, stood up and hugged Saba, pouring into her ear words that had aged with the milk she fermented in her travels: Love, my daughter, is the cradle in which our wisdom churns.

  As Saba was about to leave with three eggs and a spoonful of butter that she paid for with her earnings at Eyob’s, Hajj Ali held her hand. And tell the idle businessman I will come soon to see him, he said.

  She nodded, freeing her fingers from his grasp.

  I am not sure a husband like him is capable of doing anything except taking evening walks, said the nomad, laughing. That’s not what a young woman needs.

  Saba turned to look at his wife, who had again closed her eyes, returning to her daydream as her hands worked, rocking side to side, as if she was cradling her lonely heart.

  Evening. Full moon. Twinkling stars. Music bellowed from a small radio outside Azyeb’s bar. Saba sat behind the shrub and peered through its leaves. The drinkers sat under a hanging oil lamp.

  Tedros started another jar of tej against the pleas of Azyeb. You are going to kill yourself, the barwoman urged him. Stop.

  Leave him, said the praise poet. His father asked him to be his best man at his wedding to Saba, his sweetheart.

  How cruel, said the athlete. Fathers know children can’t say no to them.

  Tedros took a piece of white cloth from his shirt pocket. Saba bowed and she thought of the night to come in a few days, when Tedros would pass this white cloth to his father before they entered their marital bedroom, a test of the bride’s virtue. Saba wondered if she had enough blood left inside her to mark the white cloth.

  Forget Saba, the athlete said to Tedros. Go to Mariam. I heard, my dear gentlemen, that since her divorce she’s been giving it away for free.

  We call her the aid centre, said the praise poet, laughing.

  I think she married that man so she could get it over with, said the athlete. Now she no longer has her virginity to guard, she can live as she always wanted.

  Actually, said the praise poet, her husband said she came to him spoiled.

  How does he know? Azyeb asked.

  Well, said the praise poet, the poor man couldn’t draw blood out of her.

  Why are men so obsessed with a woman’s blood? said Azyeb. Not all women bleed the first time. I didn’t and nor did my sister. Or my cousin. Girls’ livelihoods are being destroyed because of your failure to understand.

  A woman is too complex for a man, said Jamal. That’s why we reduce her to simple matters.

  No, said Azyeb. It shows how much violence there is against women, if even love has to be equated with drawing blood from a woman.

  Azyeb fanned her open furnace. The charcoal embers glowed. Saba squinted.

  Haleeb haleeb haleeb.

  The voice of Hajj Ali’s daughter, selling milk, rang out.

  Tedros called the girl carrying a pot of milk on her head over to him.

  Are you going to drink milk and beer? asked the athlete.

  A man’s wounded heart needs a cocktail of extreme variety to survive a moment like this, said the praise poet.

  THE DANCE

  Saba entered the camp from the forest carrying firewood one afternoon, and paused outside Jamal’s hut. The entertainer was behind a large white screen planting a wild yellow hibiscus tree. The twigs of wood that Saba had tied to her back with a scarf squeaked as she sped away. When she arrived at the bottom of the hill, she stood on her toes and peeked over the thorn fence of Eyob’s compound. Men were painting blue the mud wall of the new hut the businessman had built for Hagos. Her brother’s hut was to be filled with furniture Eyob had bought from Nasnet. Hagos’s new bed would be the bed of the sex worke
r. The bed with the thick mattress that Nasnet brought with her when she was evicted from the city because the comfort of being on top of that material compensated for the duress of being under the weight of a man. Nasnet got a cheap angareb – a wooden framed bedstead – as a gift from one of the aid workers instead.

  Once home, Saba dropped her load by the mogogo stove and went inside the hut. She leaned against the door frame and buried her head in her hands, her lips resting on her bruised palms.

  Saba heard a bleating. She looked through the window. Tedros stood holding a goat on a leash. The white cloth – the imminent test of her purity that he carried with him around the camp – popped out of his shirt pocket.

  I bought this from Hajj Ali, he said, caressing the black and white animal. It’s for your wedding.

  I no longer eat meat, Saba said.

  You will soon be the meat for my father, he said, sniggering.

  Saba gathered her saliva and spat into his face. The goat pawed the ground, kicking up clouds of dust. You will pay for this, Tedros said, wiping the side of his face with the white cloth.

  He pulled the goat behind him as he left. When Saba sat inside the bucket for a bath, some of the water splashed out onto the floor. As she squeezed inside that tiny place, her body felt as suffocated as her soul, and her dreams felt trapped in this camp. Saba shuffled in the bucket, the water underneath tickling her skin. Out of the thatched roof, a moth descended. It rested on her chest, its wings spread on her breast. When Saba stepped out of the bucket, the moth soared away through the window. As she loosened the towel around her hips, she noticed papers scattered on Hagos’s blanket, papers on which she had written and taught him what she in turn had learnt from the Khwaja.