“Who else from the church is working in this network?”
“A teacher in a school in Wad Madani. She is not a nun. The risk she suffers is great, but she is dedicated, most fervently, almost fanatically. And she is kind, the kindest heart I have ever known. A woman of great and good spirit. I fear for her safety every day,” she said.
Folding her arms over her chest, for comfort against the subject, he guessed, she frowned, her head down, her hips moving back and forth as she pushed a stone around on the ground, using one foot, then another. Speaking without looking up, she said, “I don’t feel comfortable talking about this. Perhaps it is better you do not know, better for everyone. You have become a valuable member of our mission. Moving doctors and medicine as and when needed has made our clinic better, we can help the people more than we have in the past. I certainly do not want to jeopardize that. And the government probably watches the plane. The diocese tells me they are asking for copies of your schedule. The bishop believes they may want them in advance to monitor where you fly within Sudan at least. We are afraid they will try to stop you altogether if they suspect something, anything. If they send in soldiers to stop you, it will be dangerous.”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“In Sudan, anything’s possible. Can we walk back? I’m tired and starting to chill.” Arms still folded, she started back, stopped before him, looked up, searching for something in his face, it seemed, then smiled. “What good there is in Sudan is found in the hope still alive in many of its people, mostly in the children. We can till the soil and grow crops, dig wells for water or oil, build new roads, build new buildings. All that is meaningless unless we are successful at raising the children to be good, to be kind and generous and loving adults. To be leaders. I see these things in the adults here still, loving and caring. I see it in you, in your eyes. What you are doing here makes a difference. To us, it makes a difference. If it makes any difference to you, well, that is up to you. The paying of a debt of any sort is a personal obligation. It means different things to the people involved. I believe you will recognize when you have met your obligations, the ones you feel in your heart, the ones that seem to haunt you. You are a good man, Monsieur, and good men always find their way,” she said and then walked on.
The sounds of the night, the sounds he had not noticed as she talked, grew loud around him, the leaves of the trees, their paper noise as they brushed together, the crickets and frogs, the silence of the birds, the movement of the unknown. The clamor of the country, more subtle than a city but as insistent, pushed on him. Watching her walk away, he was struck with the feeling that she was, as he had suspected, the person he needed to find, the person that would tell him what he needed to know. But that was wrong too, for now he was beginning to think she wouldn’t tell him what he needed to know; she would show him.
19
The fine dirt of the floor pressed into her nose, so she tried breathing through her mouth and choked. The man on top of her, smelling like a goat, was the third and she knew he would not be the last. Rifle bullets from the bandolier around his chest pressed against her spine, the pain as bad as the pain below. The helplessness was the worst. Nothing, no one would stop this.
Taught by older women not to scream or resist, Aisha felt the calloused hand pressing down on her neck as she was penetrated from behind. After the second man had finished, she was rolled onto her stomach as the third man hissed instructions and mounted her immediately. There were at least five men in what had been her family’s gottia, keeping her after driving her mother and two aunts from the village.
She prayed to Allah to let her live, but she knew there was little chance of that. There was nothing left of her village in Northern Bahr El Ghazal but the scorched rings that were once the foundations of the one-room homes of her family and friends. Most of the people had fled the area and the Baggara militias as they advanced. The government gave support and protection to the Baggara and gave none to the people of western Sudan. She had returned to the village with her mother and two aunts, hoping to retrieve any family belongings they might find and search for food. A small group of militias came upon them and seized her when she attempted to flee. Ignoring the other women, the men immediately set about molesting her. They were practiced and efficient.
The man with the odor of a goat pushed down on her shoulders so hard, she thought they would separate as his pace increased. He finished inside her and used her back to push himself upright, spitting on the back of her head as he rose. As another prepared to mount her, gunfire stopped the assault, her assailants crouching around her. Shouting at each other, the men ran to find better cover in the brush nearby. She heard their guns boom as they shot toward the incoming gunfire. Aisha started to sit up, trying to push her toab down, but as she did, the pain in her
