Stone Kingdoms (23 page)

After almost a week had passed I was summoned again by Osiba, the head of the clan. As before, he sat with a group round the fire. When we approached he stood up and gestured to where we should sit. Then from inside the folds of his green jacket he produced a Bible, a small black Bible, and he held it up to me and flicked the pages carefully before speaking.

‘He wants to know if this is your holy book,' Nadra said.

I nodded my head, and he asked me to swear on it that I would answer all his questions with the truth. He held it out towards me and I placed my hand on it and swore. When he was satisfied he sat down again but I remained standing, watching him through the smoke.

‘Why do your people not come?' he asked.

‘I don't know. I think it must be because there is fighting in the capital and they think it's not safe to travel here.'

‘What do you know of this fighting?'

‘There are many clans who make war with each other. Many people have been killed. They ask the Agency for much money to allow them to bring food into the country.'

‘Will the Agency pay this money?'

‘If it can. But if there are too many people asking for money, there might not be enough to go round.'

‘Why do planes not come as you promised?'

I said I didn't know but I thought they would come soon. After my answers he discussed some things with those sitting closest to him but it was difficult to gauge what was being said, and then he asked me if I was important to the Agency.

‘Yes I am, very important,' I lied.

‘
They would not leave you here if they did not mean to come back?'

‘That's right. They will come back for me. They will come back to Bakalla.'

He broke off his questions to discuss my answers and as the exchange became more heated, with voices splintering into each other, Nadra whispered that some of the men thought they should make their way back to their old territories while others argued that it was too dangerous to move outside the camp and they should wait for the return of the Agency. As evidence Osiba held up the Bible on which I had sworn and waved it round the group. Finally there was an uneasy agreement. They would stay and wait, but a couple of the younger men would make the journey and report back on what they found. When the discussion was over, Osiba called for tea and we sat drinking while other business was sorted out. A widow came to ask for his approval of an offer of marriage for one of her daughters, two men sought arbitration over disputed ownership of some goats, and an old man presented an account of a dream he'd had for many nights which he claimed a holy man had interpreted as a portent of coming disaster.

As fireflies bled into the darkness and cicadas locked into their steady scream it seemed that all the business had been completed. But when I gestured to Nadra that we might leave she told me there was something else, and as I felt her hand touch mine I looked up to see a group of young men pushing and pummelling two stumbling figures into the firelight. One of the group carried a machete, another a cane. As they came closer, I saw that their two prisoners were Ahmed and Iman, and I could see also the cord that tied their hands in front of them and linked their ankles. It seemed to pull Iman's legs into even more of a concave bow as he scurried forward, each faltering step or hesitation punished by flat-handed blows to his head. Their guards pulled them into place before Osiba,
keeping
a tight hold of their arms, and in the light from the fire I could see the bruises on their faces. I went to stand up but Nadra pulled me down as Osiba started to pass his sentence.

They stood with bowed heads as Osiba shouted and pointed at them, his finger jabbing through the smoke of the fire. When I asked Nadra what he was saying she told me that he was telling them of all the punishments that might rightly be given to them, and as words burst about their heads the two boys leaned into each other, fear trembling through their bodies. Before Nadra could stop me I stood up, ignoring her whispered warning and the tug of her hand on my skirt. But I said nothing until Osiba had stopped and turned his focus on me.

‘Tell him I wish to speak for them.'

She shook her head and tugged again at my skirt, but I shouted at her to tell him and she did what I wanted. The two boys turned their heads and saw me for the first time before slaps drove their gaze to Osiba again. He beckoned me forward and silenced the shouts of dissent which came from some of those seated closest to him.

‘What is it you wish to say? They have admitted their guilt. It is right for them to be punished.' As Nadra finished his words she shook her head at me.

I tried to ask that he would show mercy to them because of their age, because they had no families. I told him how they had helped with the school and looked after the younger children, that I would take responsibility for their future good conduct. As Nadra translated, he shook his head slowly and turned his eyes from me to stare into the fire. I grew more desperate, started to promise things I couldn't deliver, talking as if the Agency would return at any moment, listing the special privileges he would receive. Finally I ran out of words and Osiba silenced me with a dismissive sweep of his hand. Some of those around him were shouting at me, plucking little handfuls of dust and throwing them into the space between us, while impatience bristled in the bodies of those guarding the boys.
The
young man with the machete turned it in the air, cutting the drifting smoke of the fire, and again Nadra pulled at the hem of my skirt but I remained standing.

There was more discussion, more argument, and sometimes shouting broke out between opposing factions. Ahmed tried to look at me again but received another blow to the side of his head and then I saw that Iman was crying, lifting his bound hands to wipe away his shame. Some kind of decision was reached and agreement ricocheted round the nodded heads, with those who were opposed either shrugging their shoulders in resignation or spitting on the ground in open disgust. I was called in front of the fire again. As Osiba stood, one of the sleeves of his jacket rolled down over his hand and he struggled for a second to fix it. The two boys were known thieves and had stolen food from the mouths of those who needed it, he said. Justice demanded that they be punished for their sins and that others know that they had received punishment as a warning and an example. I felt Nadra's hand touch my back as she told me that he had heard my words and that this time, but only this time, their crime would be punished by a caning. But there was a condition to this lesser punishment. I turned and looked at Nadra's face to confirm in her eyes what I had heard. ‘Do it or it will be worse for them,' she whispered. ‘Do it, Naomi, you must do it.'

In the corner of my eye, I saw the firelight edging the machete, saw the resolution in the tier of faces, and knew there was no other way. So I stretched out my shaking hand and took the offered cane as the boys were made to kneel in the dirt and darkness, their ragged shirts ripped from their backs.

‘You must do it with all your strength until you are told to stop. Do it, Naomi, or it will be much worse for them.' And so I cut the cane across their backs, cut it again and again until their screams mingled with the shouts of exhortation and my breathless, sobbing cries.

18

There
was a raised tracery of red weals fanning across their backs, and they winced and squirmed face-down as we tried to salve them with cream salvaged from the clinic. On Ahmed's back one of the ridges had slit open where several strokes had fallen across the same line, blood oozing out as I tried to clean it. His whole body stiffened under my touch and all the time I kept saying, ‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' trying to make my touch light and expressive of what I felt. Iman turned his head away as Nadra worked but I could see the shiny slither on his cheek where his tears slid into the dust. Their wrists and ankles were rubbed raw, making it look as if they wore manacles. I kept willing a face to turn to me, a face like Daniel's in the doorway, which would draw me in and smile up at me and tell me that everything was all right. But there was no absolution, only the constant flinch and tightening of broken flesh. And behind her mask, Nadra's mother sat rocking, cocooning her spirit in some incantation of the past, the low drone of her voice unrelenting and unforgiving.

In the morning I went with Nadra to one of the wells and stood in the long line which had already formed, hoping to miss the heat of the day. I wore her clothes, the head covering and mask, and for the first time I was glad because it served to hide me from the world. Sometimes young children chased each other through the queue and were shouted away as they threatened to topple the containers, but we held tightly to our silence, shuffling forward slowly over the threadbare earth.

It was when we were close to the well that we heard the
sound
of approaching trucks. At first in my confusion I thought it was the return of the Agency, but then we heard the shots fired and as Nadra pointed, I saw three vehicles moving slowly through the camp towards the compound. The first one was what they call a technical – a small truck with a machine-gun mounted on the roof of the cab, the sunlight bouncing off the brown and gold belt of bullets which trailed like teeth from the gun's mouth. Behind the cab huddled four men, their arms draped across each other's shoulders. They wore a mixture of army uniforms and T-shirts, with either black berets or baseball caps on their heads. Behind was a larger truck, crowded with more men, all hanging on to whatever support they could find as it bounced over the potholes and rutted pathways. Among them we saw the two young men who had been sent to scout their former homeland. Some of the soldiers fired Kalashnikovs into the air and there was laughter on their faces as children scrimaged to retrieve the spent shells. Last came an open jeep with another tight hive of men hanging on to each other for balance. When they pulled into the compound they jumped down and while some guarded their position, pushing the barrels of their guns through the holes in the fence, others pressed forward into the clinic, buildings and tents. Slowly, and with a mixture of caution and curiosity, the people of Bakalla walked towards the fence, led by the excitement of the children. The shooting had stopped and the faces of the soldiers seemed to invite the people forward. Some of them called for water and as it was poured through the fence they drank it greedily and splashed it over their faces or doused their heads, shaking off the excess with sharp flicks of their necks.

They were young mostly, a couple still probably in their teens, and the black sheen of their weapons contrasted with the ragged variety of their clothing. I watched with Nadra from the back of the growing crowd as an older man in a tailed beret came out of the clinic and climbed on to the back of a truck to address the camp-people, shouting through cupped hands to
make
himself heard. They brought no harm to anyone, they were friends of the people. They had come to give protection from those who had done things like at Baran. They would hunt them down and punish them like the dogs they were. He talked of the future, the need to build a strong country free from foreign influence and control, told them that the Agency had deserted them, that they must rely on themselves from now on. That the foreigners sought only to make them weak and divided.

When he had finished the people stood motionless, staring impassively, as if they were still straining to hear his words. He turned for a moment to speak to those who had carried out the searches, and his frustration was obvious when it became clear that the compound held nothing but empty buildings. Then, calling for the leaders of the camp to come forward and meet with him in the clinic, he warned the people that they must be on their guard against the renegades who had attacked Baran, that an attack could come at any moment and they needed to be alert and report anything suspicious that they saw or heard. When he climbed down he was replaced by one of the younger soldiers who sprayed a burst of automatic fire into the air then held the weapon in one hand and punched it into the sky. Some of the crowd cheered, but others shrank into themselves before drifting away.

When the leaders of the clans reported back it was to tell the camp-people that a tithe of food was required, and was to be brought to the compound that evening. There was a list of other things that were required in the way of equipment. That night the compound was lit by a large fire over which a goat was roasted, and as the flames and smoke scuttled skyward they revealed the silhouettes of guards perched on the roof of the clinic, their arms and chins resting on the guns they cradled in their laps. Later, as the fire started to subside, some of them came into the camp looking for women, content at first to persuade with promises of food and money, but when this
failed
there was the sound of screams and shouting as women were taken by force. Once a clatter of gunfire ripped the night, a final angry assertion of will, and when later all fell silent the camp drifted into a sleep haunted by dreams and memories of Baran.

In the morning, smoke still curled from the ashes of the fire and on the roof of the clinic a solitary figure hunched in sleep, his body skewered by the line of his gun. From the frayed edges of the camp began the first slow run of families, their possessions strapped to their backs or balanced on their heads. Small children carrying their own weight struggled to balance themselves. At times, something would slip, opening a gap in the line as the straggler sought to redistribute his burden and scurried forward to make up ground. Others stood in motionless groups, watching the departures, their thoughts lost in the frieze of faces. More families appeared from various parts of the camp, heading in different directions but all distinguished by the same sequence and rhythm, their slow progress tainted by resignation and uncertainty. Sometimes the lines and directions intersected, weaving a pattern across the open plain that spoke momentarily of purpose and order, but then the lines would circle or suddenly collapse in a huddle on the ground.