Acts of faith (111 page)

The Arab came in later under heavy guard, with an SPLA soldier holding each arm: a man of six feet, his black beard brushed with gray, his brown eyes piercing. A dirty turban girdled his head; his jelibiya, tucked at the waist into a leather cartridge belt with leather pouches, hung down to a pair of mud-spattered boots. He showed no fear, not even anxiety. Quinette hated him on sight yet couldn’t deny that he had an aura about him, the magnetism of a corsair, the appeal of evil.

“Salaam aleikum,” Ibrahim said in a firm voice to mask the tremors in his breast.

“Aleikum as-salaam,” the rebel commander replied in excellent Arabic. Ibrahim was struck by his height, more than two meters, and the span of his shoulders. “I am in command here. Lieutenant Colonel Goraende.”

“Ibrahim Idris ibn Nur-el-Din,” Ibrahim replied formally. “Omda of the Salamat. You may address me as omda, colonel.”
Show no weakness,
he thought.
Show him the brass of a cartridge.

“I will address you as I see fit. What is it you have to say?”

“I will speak to you soldier to soldier.”

“Soldier? You are a terrorist.”

Ibrahim ignored the insult. He would not let this black abid provoke or intimidate him. He was momentarily distracted by the woman sitting in a chair. The first American he had seen, male or female. Brown hair worn in Nuban plaits, and not what he would call good-looking. No, not good-looking, but an American he could have held for, oh, ten million pounds. Too bad. God had not willed it.

“This is my wife,” the commander said. “Do you wish to speak to her, too?”

Quinette felt the Arab’s gaze more than she saw it—a look that was a violation, a rape with the eyes.

“We have heard about her,” Ibrahim said.

“From Muhammad Kasli. We know he is with you. You are going to tell me what you propose, or do you wish only to have conversation?”

Ibrahim marshaled his thoughts—and his nerve. “First that this truce be extended to allow us to gather our dead and you yours. Next, that a peace be concluded between us, in writing if you wish. I will pledge that no Salamat, no man of all the Humr, will make war in the Nuba from now on. Next, that we be allowed to leave with our arms.”

The commander paused to take all this in. He said, “And that is all?”

“No. There is a condition. It is this—that a woman who lives here is returned to me. She is my serraya, my lawful property, and a fugitive. Do not tell me she isn’t here. I know she is. Kasli and others have informed me. Her name is Yamila.”

The abid commander said nothing. He looked baffled.

“If this condition is not met, then none of my terms apply,” Ibrahim said further. “We will kill the hostages, every one of them, and then fight you to the last man and last bullet. We are prepared for martyrdom.”

“You would do all that if a woman you took by force is not returned to you? You would kill so many people, you would sacrifice the lives of your men for that?”

Show him the brass cartridge
, Ibrahim thought, and said, “Yes.”

“That is impossible.”

Ibrahim saw that he was more experienced in the art and theatrics of bargaining than this slave boy who called himself a commander. “Very well. Then please escort me back to my men. Or shoot me dead on the spot if you wish. Or hold me prisoner. In any case, my men are instructed to set fire to the church if I am not back by sundown.”

“I have no idea if this Yamila is alive or dead. She might have been killed by you butchers. What then?”

Ibrahim detected weakness. The abid is open to the idea. “If alive, return her to me. If dead, show me her body.”

“I could pay you her worth.”

“I don’t want money.
I want her.
”

“What’s he saying?” Quinette asked as Michael, after the last series of exchanges, stood with his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels.

“Be quiet,” he told her. “This is between me and him.”

“I only wanted to know what he wants.”

“Yamila. He was the one she escaped from, and he wants her returned. Otherwise he burns the church down with everyone in it, and then he fights to the end. Now be quiet. I have no idea if she is alive or where she is.”

She could be still or she could speak. Quinette was aware that this was possibly the gravest choice she had ever faced. The words left her mouth, seemingly of their own will. “I do.”

Michael looked at her, startled, said something to the Arab, then took her under the arm and led her outside.

“What did you say?” he asked when they were some distance from the building.

There was no retracting her statement now. “I know where she is.”

“Where?”

She told him, and it was plain he wished she hadn’t.

She asked, “What happens if you do what he wants?”

“The truce goes into effect, he collects his casualties, we collect ours. Then, he says, he will sign an agreement, pledging that his tribe will no longer take part in attacks on the Nuba. The hostages are released. And then he and his men leave. There is a deadline—sundown. I keep thinking, there must be some other way.”

“God would show it to you if there was,” she said.

“I am so sick of this,” he said. “I am sick of doing what is necessary.”

“We are all sick of it, darling. I think that Arab is sick of it. Why would he propose a peace treaty if he wasn’t? Let’s end it now.”

He looked as if he were trying to see inside her. “We will go back now, and be still. I won’t tolerate your giving opinions in front of my officers and that Arab.”

“We will continue now?” asked Ibrahim when the commander returned.

“We will. My wife knows where to find Yamila.”

So that is what they had been talking about, Ibrahim thought. She was alive, she was here!
Al-hamduillah!

The commander asked, “Do you have any further proposals?”

“Yes,” he replied amiably. “I am a candidate for nazir of all the Humr.” This was something of an exaggeration. “I can promise nothing, but I could use my influence to persuade the other tribes to join in the peace accord.”

The commander trembled a little. He spoke through clenched teeth. “Very well, it is agreed. But now I have a condition. You and your men will surrender your weapons before leaving. As a sign that your offer of peace is genuine.”

“As a man of the Humr, my word is sign enough, my signature on a written agreement is more than enough. We must leave with our arms. We will be in disgrace if we return without them.”

“You are already in disgrace. I figured out what your plan was and held my men in position. We slaughtered your infantry, and those we didn’t ran like hares.”

“Yes, I know. However, we murahaleen have retained our honor. We did not run. But we would lose honor if we returned without our arms. I will suffer the death of a martyr, but not that. Colonel, all I am asking for is the return of my lawful property. But in the meantime, the sun journeys through the sky, and—”

“Shut up!”

The slave boy sat on the edge of a table covered with maps and papers, which he tapped with his walking stick.

“You Arabs are fond of speeches, aren’t you?”

“Yes. It is a beautiful language. We enjoy the sound of it.”

“I will withdraw my condition and demand one other, and about it there will be no discussion,” he said, stepping up to Ibrahim, looming over him. “You are prepared for what you call martyrdom; so are we. I am prepared also to sacrifice all those people merely for the pleasure of killing you myself. Here is the condition. You will hand over Muhammad Kasli to me.”

I have done it!
Ibrahim thought. What do I care about that Nuban defector? Betrays one, he will betray another. “You people can make speeches as well,” he said. “Agreed.”

“Very well, Ibrahim Idris ibn Nur-el-Din. My soldiers will escort you back. You will order the hostages released. Then you return here with Kasli. Him for her. We will attend to the other business when that is done.”

“Peace be with you,” Ibrahim said.

“And unto to you, peace.”

As the Arab was ushered out, Michael turned to Negev. “Take a couple of men with you, bring Yamila here. Tell her . . . tell her . . . anything . . . but—”

“No,” Quinette interjected, with the slightest of smiles. “Tell her Michael wishes to see her.”

Everyone assembled outside to await the exchange. Quinette watched for signs of dissent over her husband’s decision. If there were any, she did not notice them. Yamila, after all, was a stranger here, a stray.

The Arab was the first to arrive, with his SPLA escort and Major Kasli, blindfolded, wobbling and bleeding from the forehead, hands tied. A soldier shoved him face-down onto the ground and stood over him, rifle barrel pressed to the base of his skull. In a little while, he would be in that same position and someone would pull the trigger.

Some twenty minutes later Negev and two of Michael’s bodyguards came in with Yamila. The fierce, half-naked woman was walking with her customary stride but stopped short when she saw the Arab—the face she must have thought she would never see again. A civilized woman in her position would have sensed that something was terribly wrong but would not have listened to her instincts; she would have paused to assess, to reason things out. Yamila knew instantly the danger she was in, saw that she’d been tricked; but with her there was no barrier of thought between the perception and the emotion, between the emotion and the reaction. She bolted, quick as a sprinter off the starting block. A guard pursued and caught her, holding her in a bear hug until she bit his hand. He let her go, she fled, he chased her again and tackled her. Another guard grabbed her ankles while the first seized her arms, she writhing, shrieking, spitting. It took a third soldier to fully subdue her. Michael looked very distressed. He spoke to the Arab, who then turned and walked away, followed by the three men, carrying Yamila like hunters a bagged trophy. Quinette listened to her cries and howls slowly diminish, knowing they would echo in her memory for some time to come. But those too would diminish, till she heard them no more. She had made friends with the stranger who was herself, with the woman she’d become. She had come full circle. Yamila’s fate was shameful, yes, but the multitudes of women she had redeemed from slavery had to be balanced against this one she’d sent back into slavery by speaking two words, the same two, curiously, she’d uttered in her wedding vows.

Michael turned from the figures walking in the distance, bent over as if he were sick, and took Quinette’s hand. She threaded her fingers into his and squeezed to assure him that it was all right. God would forgive him, and God would forgive the woman she now was as He had so often forgiven the one she’d been. Jesus was still her friend. Jesus loved her.

Small True Facts

PLANE CARRYING JOURNALISTS SHOT DOWN IN SUDAN

KHARTOUM DENIES RESPONSIBILITY
,
BLAMES REBELS

CRASH OF SEARCH PLANE NOT RELATED

T
HERE WAS NOTHING
like the deaths of Caucasians to give the war more than two seconds of air time and four paragraphs in the newspapers. And there was nothing like the deaths of three of their own to whip the media into a froth. CNN gave the story big play—their woman in Africa, blown out of the sky in the line of duty. Curiously, the network had nothing to say about what she had been working on.

A press trip was organized to bring correspondents and cameramen to the scene. Fitzhugh and Pamela Smyth secured places for themselves on the plane. Pamela was seeking what she called “closure”; so was Fitzhugh, though of a different kind. He was willing to entertain the possibility that in this instance the Sudanese government was telling the truth.

The trip was delayed a few days by the fighting in New Tourom. When it was deemed safe to travel, the press plane flew to Malakal, where a chartered helicopter delivered its passengers to the crash site, ringed by SPLA soldiers. Michael was on hand, eager to give interviews. Troops were filmed and photographed holding the perforated wing while he pointed at the bullet holes, each about the size of a golf ball, with a rim of bent metal around it. A 12.7- or 14.5-millimeter antiaircraft machine gun, he informed the reporters, one of whom asked if he would comment on Khartoum’s version of events. The usual nonsense and propaganda, he replied. The government had failed to subdue the Nuba, had failed to isolate it by bombing its airfields, and now resorted to terror to stop aid from reaching the mountains.

With Michael on board, the helicopter brought the journalists to New Tourom for a tour of the destruction wrought by the attack. He had insisted on this to present further proof of Khartoum’s perfidy. Quinette joined her husband as guide, offering an eyewitness description of murahaleen thundering through the town on horseback, her account underscored by the stench of rotting horseflesh that still lingered in the air.

As the group trekked back to the airfield for the first leg of the trip home, Michael handed Fitzhugh a sealed envelope for delivery to Douglas—a letter of thanks, he said in an undertone. “Without the assistance you people brought to us, we would have lost this battle and all the Nuba with it.”