Silence Is My Mother Tongue

by Sulaiman Addonia

Saba sat on her stool outside the hut in the moon-bathed square. She had seen the scene in front of her many times before. Every day was a repetition of the previous one in this camp. Still, she observed what was unfolding in front of her, intrigued as though it were her first encounter. Saba couldn’t imagine doing otherwise. Couldn’t let boredom set in. So she smiled as she watched children racing each other, the athlete playing football with a sock ball, taking the opportunity to ogle Samhiya, painting her nails by the sideline, with every pause in the game. And when a dance began around the singer in a slow, endless circle, it seemed to Saba that their country’s dance was conceived in response to their history, marred by repetition of the same bloodied story over and over again.

  Come and join us, people urged each other.

  Let’s dance. Let’s dance.

  Saba took a stroll and found herself outside Jamal’s hut. The entertainer was sitting with the two old men, the Asmarinos in colourful cardigans and Zahra’s grandmother. The cinema-screen sheet, with a big square cut out in the middle, quivered behind them in the breeze. On the screen, the bees buzzed on the yellow flowers of the hibiscus tree, beginning the process of reproduction.

  The grandmother called Saba over. Come and join us, she said. We are talking about love.

  Among other things, said the white-haired man in a blue cardigan, laughing.

  Anyway, she is too young to join our conversation, said the bald, clean-shaven man wearing a pink jumper.

  She is the same age as Jamal, said the grandmother. But it seems to you a woman has to be double the age of a man before she matches his wisdom.

  Exactly, said the man in the blue cardigan.

  The man in pink nodded and, turning towards Saba, he said, Signorina, I am too old to stand up unaided. Please come and help me.

  How come this grandmother here would need no help and she is older than you? said the man in the blue cardigan.

  It is not the years that weigh one down, said the man in pink, but the numbers of lovers in one’s heart.

  The grandmother laughed. The weight of the one true love I had would outweigh all your encounters.

  After she helped him to stand up, the old man bowed his head at Saba and kissed her hand. Signorina, forgive this foolish old man for assumptions unnecessarily made under the duress of bad company.

  All this effort to say a simple thing, said the man in the blue cardigan.

  Indeed, said the man in pink. I am a man of my time, and in our time, we treated women like goddesses.

  Just treat us like human beings, said the grandmother, and that would solve the world’s problems.

  Saba sat down next to the grandmother, who took her hand. Anyway, let me go back to what I was saying, she said. The power of love erases all differences. It humanizes us and brings our energies, spiritual and physical, to one combined force. When we make love, we are meant to be one.

  The two old men shook their heads. Sciocchezza!

  Turning to Saba and Jamal, the grandmother asked, And how about you? What do you think about love and its fruits that ripen in the bodies of lovers?

  And now she is asking these two? said the man in pink. They don’t even know how babies are made.

  The two men chuckled.

  Saba and Jamal exchanged glances before looking away from each other.

  Ignore these old men, said the grandmother to Saba and Jamal. But for fairness, just as the old impart their wisdom, the youth must share the lyrics of their fantastical imaginations with the old.

  What are we going to do with these? asked the man in blue. At our age, what one needs is more sleep, not excess alertness.

  The man in pink lit a cigarette that he passed to the grandmother. Do the honour of passing the flame of love to the next generation then, Mebrat, he said.

  The grandmother took a long drag, to satisfy her young heart, she said, before passing the cigarette to Jamal.

  Jamal, tell me, said the grandmother. And don’t be shy, I have heard it all. As a farmer, I have sown the seeds of desire in my skin at the same time as I planted my land with pumpkin seeds.

  Saba turned to Jamal when she noticed him staring at her. He looked away quickly. He hooked a foot around the stool, put his hand inside his pocket and took it out again.

  I can’t say now, Jamal said, his voice shaking.

  I hope I will be alive when you are ready to talk, said the grandmother, chuckling.

  Jamal scrambled to his feet and went around to stand behind the white sheet.

  Let me tell you this story, said the grandmother. On my wedding night, when we retreated to our bedroom, my husband dimmed the light and stood naked in front of me. He expected to jump on me. I said to him, I want a lover. So I made him lick my toes that night. And my fingers the next evening. And the third night he spent discovering the length and width of my back. Like this I made him make love to every bit of me. There is no virginity, I told him. No one is a virgin only once. With every new lover, we turn virgin again. Because it is not a hole you make love to but a body, a mind and a heart. And I did the same. I remember when I parted his buttocks, how he protested, God bless his soul. You don’t fuck me. We fuck each other, I said to him. To be honest, he dropped his guard with one gentle stroke. Men are like that, they have no idea of the treasures on their bodies. If they did, they would not go around forcing women with violence.

  The grandmother and the men left soon after, but Saba stayed behind. She tilted her head and observed Jamal, who stood behind the makeshift screen sheet. It was like watching a film in the way he appeared to her through the square hole on the white sheet. It was strange to her that it was she who fed his desires. She could see it in the softness of his skin, the lean shape of his body.

  Saba felt the urge to enter the screen and reach Jamal, fulfil his fantasy because it was hers too. And as she stood up and put one leg through the screen – the cinema yet to open its doors to the public – her body shook as if she was back on top of the camel during her journey to the camp. Come, said Jamal, extending his hand towards Saba. Come. Saba. Sabbina. Come.

  I still recall that summer evening inside Cinema Silenzioso when a naked Saba crouched on my face. My eyes travelled across the long back of this woman I had loved since the first night in the camp. Above her arched neck, the stars glimmered around the moon. The call to the last prayer of the day was being announced via the plastic megaphone.

  Saba rearranged herself, spreading her map of love over me.

  This is our time, she said. This is my time.

  I wanted to speak but I was breathless.

  Saba caressed my face as I inhaled the scent of her, the scent of her history, the battles she had won and lost, her rage, her frustrated dreams, the violence on her thighs, the rivers of desire inside her womb.

  She let go.

  She filled my mouth from her rivers, so warm that as it slid inside me through my throat, I felt riches invading me, gushing towards my soul, the White Nile and its water running between my ribs.

  The strings of the singer’s krar played a mournful song nearby. The forest whistled. That impious breeze of the summer wafted against my cheeks. Like a famished soul, I tried to grasp the warm air, my hands fluttering at my sides. Saba pushed down with her weight, screwing the lock of my existence to her being even more. North and south finally reunited, Saba erasing the boundaries that have separated us for so long.

  THE GOAT

  A lizard scurried across Eyob’s compound and up the wall of the kitchen hut. Saba gathered her hair and tied it into a knot at her nape. Her silhouette curved against the bundle of coloured clothes she’d yet to wash. She dipped her hands into the bucket and washed Eyob’s gabi. The goat bleated. It jumped and kicked. Tedros stormed out of his hut, with the white cloth still tucked into his shirt pocket. He screamed at the animal: Shut up, I need to sleep.

  The goat continued its bleating. Tedros flung himself towards it and knocked it to the ground with a punch. Saba jumped over the bucket and ru
shed to the animal. Tedros grabbed her by her arm and dragged her inside the latrine.

  Remember the spit on my face because of that goat? You will now pay for it. I am going to spoil you before my father even touches you.

  Do it. The wedding night will be interesting when the white cloth you carry remains white and your guests have nothing to celebrate.

  I always knew you were a slut. Just like my mother.

  I will be your stepmother in days.

  So you are happy to marry an old man for his money. Here, have a look at this, he said, pulling down his trousers. You will never see its equivalent.

  I have seen it, Saba said. Masturbating while you scream my name.

  Tedros spat at her.

  We are even now, said Saba. Let me go, stepson.

  Stop calling me that.

  And you stop holding my neck.

  Tedros turned her around. Now, I can have your other hole and nobody, not even my father, will know I had you. I heard you girls love doing it before your wedding, anyway. It’s probably as big as your mouth.

  It is for your small dick.

  I am not small.

  Saba laughed.

  Tedros pushed Saba aside and stormed out of the latrine. When she hurried outside, Saba saw Tedros approaching the goat, a knife in his hand.

  Fuck your wedding, I will kill it now, he said.

  He wrestled the goat to the ground. The animal’s cries fell to gurgles as Tedros slit its throat. Blood splattered everywhere. The white cloth in his pocket turned red. He turned the goat on its back and cut off its testicles and said, his voice rising so that his father, inside his hut, would hear every word: Here, feed these to Hagos so he can get some balls on him.

  Tedros threw the bloodied white cloth at Saba and said, Wash it and iron it properly. I want it back as good as new for your wedding night.

  CINEMA SILENZIOSO

  Saba’s eyes rested on the white screen and the coloured plastic chair inside it. Behind the chair, the camp bathed under the bright sky. The smoke of firewood rose between the randomly dotted huts and coiled around the thatched roofs. Hurry up, start the show, boys, urged Jamal. But the show had already begun. Anyone could enter the screen and sit under the moon and the stars to sing, dance, talk, fall silent, tell a story, reminisce, undress, dress, shave, do whatever he, she or they wanted. But no one moved.

  A gust of wind blew through the camp. The audience kept their heads up, as if they were watching a storm in a film made somewhere else. Saba squinted as the yellow dust of the square and the red dust of the hills intermingled and rose above the thatched roofs of the huts. She observed the disappearance of the camp in the cinema. For a moment, the camp existed in sound and smell only. The cacophony made it appear that the opera singer, the first of them to die in the camp, had risen from her grave. Her ghost danced through the wind. This camp was singing her presence from beyond the grave.

  Silence. Until a man in blue overalls stepped inside the cinema. He danced. His hands stretched here and there, as if he were the wave of the Red Sea, of their country’s sea, bringing its riches to their laps in exile. One might leave a country, said the dancer, but a country never leaves you.

  He inhaled and exhaled. Saba smelt stale sardines on his breath.

  The next performer, a boy, stood inside the screen, his face gaunt, his eyes half closed. Saba remembered him. He was the boy she had seen in the square on the first night, with a baby strapped to his back. His back was empty now. But he still hunched forward, as if carrying his little brother, he still rocked as if he wanted to put him to sleep. Please sleep my sweet little brother, he sang. Please sleep.

  From his pocket, the boy pulled out a balloon that, he said, his father had bought for him as he sent him and his brother to safety after the death of their mother.

  As he blew up the balloon, his cheeks inflated. Fattening on his brother’s memory. A gush of wind pulled the balloon out from the clutch of his lips, launching it into the sky of the camp. The same sky which, after many long months saturated with the pollution of grief, began to clear in patches, normality appearing in pockets, while sadness like potholes continued to be scattered everywhere.

  After a lull, Tedros stuttered forward with a jug in his hand. The screen wobbled as he entered through the gap in the sheet rather than going round the back. He sat down on the coloured chair, his red eyes piercing through the screen. Saba didn’t blink.

  This is not fair, he said. He paused. Taking a sip of his beer, he wagged his finger at the audience: The world forgot us, you say, but we too forgot each other. To survive in this place you have to forget your humanity.

  For a drunk person, you are wise, said a spectator, bringing laughter to the cinema.

  Tedros picked a yellow flower from the hibiscus tree next to him and put it into his pocket next to the white cloth. He breathed in, his chest expanded. His arms slumped by his side. His jug fell. A splash of beer hit Saba’s arm through the screen. He sang a love song:

  Saba Sabina, Saba Sabina, Saba Sabina, Saba Sabina

  Aney wey aney, Aney wey aney

  His voice trailed off. Behind Tedros, Saba could see the businessman’s compound at the foot of the hill. Saba jumped to her feet.

  Sit down, spectators shouted at Saba from behind.

  Did the rest of the audience witness the setting of a story yet to be told? Saba wondered. And as she sat back, she noticed her brother and the businessman entering the compound. Hagos, Saba mumbled. The two men sat on Eyob’s bed outside. Hagos’s beaming face overshadowed everything around it. Perhaps it was because of him that Jamal had set his cinema in that spot, Saba thought. Why else, she wondered to herself, did Jamal call his cinema Cinema Silenzioso? Hagos, the silent man who never uttered a word, yet could captivate the audience with his mere presence. A Signora, at attore cinematografico.

  But this cinema was another way to tell a story rooted in their tradition, their life. What she was watching was reality, not a film made in the West. What was unfolding before her eyes in the compound she was staring at through the cinema was part of her own life, made in the camp. Two Habesha men gazing at each other, two Habesha men who intertwined their fingers as they kissed in Cinema Silenzioso.

  THE MAP OF THE COUNTRY

  The morning after the opening of the cinema, Saba was at Eyob’s compound. She dipped her hands into the bucket full of Tedros’s clothes from the previous night. Hajj Ali came through the gate holding a gift.

  Saba bumped the bucket as she stood up to welcome him. Water spilt over the clothes she was about to wash, the ones her fiancé and his best man were to wear on the wedding night.

  This is my gift to your man, said Hajj Ali. His hand rested on hers, heavy like a rock, as he handed her a bag of meat.

  Where is the businessman? he asked.

  Saba pulled her hand away. He is resting, she said.

  A businessman who seeks rest has forfeited his calling, Hajj Ali said, laughing. Our hope rests in you. When will you reopen the shop?

  Soon, Saba said. Adding, as if to calm his impatience, God willing.

  Indeed, in Him we trust, said Hajj Ali, clapping his hands and calling on Eyob to come out. Get up and show this young lady your vitality, old man.

  By the time the businessman emerged in his tunic, Saba had prepared tea.

  Eyob didn’t talk, as if, when he kissed Hagos the night before, he had swallowed all the silence on her brother’s tongue.

  Finally, Hajj Ali put an end to this silence by revealing information about the village he and his family had stayed in before they arrived at the camp. Information he’d been withholding since his arrival. His eyes on Saba, he said, Although it took us a long time to get here with the animals, I would say it is ten hours by foot. I am sure as a businessman yourself, brother Eyob, you will agree with me that in a camp like this, every piece of knowledge about the outside world is priceless.

  Saba, though, was certain Eyob no longer wanted to leave the camp, escape
its remoteness, its scarcity, now that he had found love that grew in a camp, love he couldn’t find at his villa in Asmara, in his own country. Hajj Ali’s information was for her.

  Saba raised her eyes above the bucket with dirty clothes, looking at the man who had asked for her hand before Eyob.

  What a village it is, brother Eyob. It has a fantastic school.

  Saba slowed the movement of her hands. So the village is only ten hours away? the businessman asked, in a whisper. Really? Saba was sure that he had conveyed a note of excitement only out of politeness.

  Yes. Maybe a bit more, said Hajj Ali. But this village is reachable with His grace, and the rest of this country and even the world is accessible from that point on.

  Hajj Ali smiled at Saba. Her mind, though, was occupied by the same thing that enlivened her heart, the thing that had kept her awake at night back home. What does it take for a dream to die? Saba wondered to herself.

  I thought the next town was so far away that it wasn’t even worth thinking about, said Eyob. But that is what happens when they drop you here in the middle of the night.

  Tedros came into the compound with a jug of beer. He had slept at Azyeb’s bar. Is the white cloth ready? he asked Saba. We will need it tomorrow.

  He was drinking his life away because he had lost her, but he never had her in the first place, Saba thought. Yet he was grieving over love he had conceived in his head and had imagined would be reciprocated.

  Tedros picked up the white cloth from the pile by Saba’s feet and threw it into the bucket. Saba looked at her fiancé. Eyob shuffled on his stool. Some time passed in silence before Hajj Ali brought the conversation back to the village, pressing the same point that was of interest to Saba.

  And, Hajj Ali continued, before I came here, they apparently opened the new road that connects the village to the capital, with the best university on our continent. So no one here with the ambition to finish their education should let distance discourage them, not with this new road. The future is bright. But we all have to pay a price to be part of it.