Acts of faith (108 page)

Fields of Destruction

T
HEY WERE GOING
to cut off the serpent’s head, inshallah.

The yearnings in Ibrahim Idris’s breast for love and power would be fulfilled, inshallah.

Behind him, in a double file reaching so far back he could not see its end, five hundred Brothers rode, keys to Paradise around their necks, talismans hanging from their saddles, fluttering from their rifle barrels. Somewhere off to his left the militia column—a thousand men with mortars and light artillery—pressed forward on foot and in lorries. Spearpoints aimed at the infidel’s heart, a mighty host, the scourge of God upon Dar Kufr, the House of the Unbeliever.

So had spoken Colonel Ahmar, commander of all murahaleen, before the Brothers set out yesterday morning. Brandishing rifles, clutching the hotel keys blessed by mullahs to open the gates of heaven, the massed riders roared as one, Allahu akhbar! Allah ma’ana! In the past, Ibrahim had expressed more a hope than a conviction when he’d uttered the murahaleen’s war cry. This time it had been different. He had seen in a recent confluence of events the hand of Providence that his deceased nephew Abbas used to see in everything.

About a fortnight ago the slave-trader Bashir had appeared in Ibrahim’s camp. “I bring you one who can deliver Miriam to you and very much more,” he had said. This man was a Nuban Muslim who had deserted the rebel army with one hundred others. He had fled from New Tourom, the town where Miriam dwelled. Mindful of the agreement reached with Ibrahim long ago, Bashir had led the deserter straight to his camp. He demanded that Ibrahim uphold his end of their bargain.

“Let me see him and talk to him first,” Ibrahim said.

He was a tall thin man wearing a beard on his chin, named Muhammad Kasli. He surrendered himself and his men to Ibrahim, who took the precaution of disarming them and then afforded them the hospitality of his camp.

Drinking tea under the Men’s Tree, Kasli told his story. He had been no less than second in command of all the rebel forces in the Nuba mountains. It turned out that he had changed sides sometime earlier. To prove that his loyalties lay with the government, he had taken on a secret mission to assassinate his commander and stir an uprising of Nuban Muslims. Had it been successful, all those parts of the Nuba held by the rebels would have been restored to government control without a battle; but God had not willed it to be so. The attempt failed and Kasli was forced to flee. He and his men had traveled for several days, intending to surrender themselves to the army garrison at Kadugli; but moving at night, they’d gotten lost. Their path crossed with Bashir’s the next day. Now, said Kasli, he had information valuable to the government—information that, if put to proper use, would crush the resistance in the Nuba with a single blow, God willing. And what was this information? He had intimate knowledge of the rebel headquarter’s defenses, the numbers of the soldiers, their weapons and dispositions. He would say no more until he was presented to higher authorities.

Al-hamduillah!
Ibrahim said to himself. Praise be to God! A great prize had landed in his lap, but not by chance. God had guided Kasli’s footsteps to Bashir, and through Bashir to him. Ever on the lookout for his own interests, he immediately thought how to turn this situation to his benefit. Of late he had been intriguing to get the nazir removed from office and then to declare himself the best candidate to replace him. Were he to take part in a campaign to end the rebellion in the Nuba, the honor and fame could do nothing but advance his ambitions. And there was Miriam, now closer to his grasp than she had been since her escape. God willing, he would recapture her and make her a proper Muslim. He would make her his wife.

“There is a woman who lives in New Tourom. She goes by the name of Yamila. Do you know her?”

Kasli looked perplexed. Bashir had put that same question to him, he said. Of what significance was this woman?

“Do you know where she lives in the town? Describe her house to me. Show me where it is.” He handed Kasli a stick. “Draw a picture of the town and show me.”

Kasli smoothed the dirt near the fire and made a crude map—big squares representing an infidel church, a school, a souk, smaller squares for houses.

“She lives somewhere in here, the western side, near a wadi,” Kasli said, pointing with the stick. “In a house with a family of Christians. They took her in when she came to New Tourom. This house has a cross painted above its door, in green paint, and some pictures also and the words ‘God Bless This House,’ which are written in English. May I ask why you wish to know this?”

“Because she belongs to me, and you are going to help me find her,” Ibrahim answered.

He and Kasli journeyed by lorry to Colonel Ahmar’s headquarters in Babanusa town. The colonel spoke to Kasli at great length, to make sure that his surrender wasn’t a trick. One could never tell, these abid switched their allegiances back and forth, and Kasli might have had another change of heart. Satisfied that the Nuban’s defection was genuine, he asked Ibrahim to remain and assist him and his lieutenants in planning the battle. “You did well to bring him here,” the colonel said. “We are going to chop off the head of the snake, inshallah, and you and your boys will have the honor of firing the first shots.”

Y
ES
,
THE INTRUDER
was here. The Enemy was whispering to him that he had done the unforgivable, lying to him that God’s love was not infinite. The intruder was here in their house, trying to steal him from her, a different sort of rival than Yamila but a rival nonetheless. “Darling,
please
not now,” she said, then realized she’d sounded sharp, selfish, and unfeeling and reached out to stroke his cheek. “I’m sorry.”

He sat with folded hands, thumbs joined to press his brow. “I wish I could get it out of my head.”

“You will in time.” She moved to sit next to him, an arm around his waist. “You prayed for forgiveness, like I asked?”

“Oh, will you stop that.”

“But you must. You
must.
And you must believe that God will give it to you. You have to believe there are no limits to Christ’s love, no limits to his grace. You must believe that, darling.”

“The missionary speaks to the native. The missionary tells him what he must do.”

“Please, no sarcasm,” she said, seeking words to banish this trespasser who dwelt in his mind, this despair implanted by the Enemy. “I know one thing—there was no way we could have known it was Tara. It was supposed to have been Dare, and he betrayed us, just as much as Kasli and Suleiman did. He was probably paid to do it, he’s so greedy. And that woman, that bitch. She didn’t care how much damage she did, how many lives her story would cost. We’re fighting for survival here.”

“Do you think you are telling me things I haven’t told myself? But I gave the orders, not you. It’s on my conscience.”

“Mine, too. I didn’t object to your orders, and I could have. Do you think I haven’t agonized about that? But Dare and that woman were collaborators as far as I’m concerned. It was done for survival and so much more. For every soul in these mountains. For him”—she placed Michael’s hand on her stomach—“so he can grow up in peace. Do you think Christ doesn’t understand that? Of course he does, and he forgives. He forgives and forgives. Seven times seventy-seven.”

“How very nice it must be to believe that. Do as you wish and then ask for forgiveness and everything is fine.”

“Between what’s necessary and what isn’t—that’s the choice. You said that. Christ knows you did what was necessary. He knows that nobody warned you it was Tara flying Phyllis in here. Tara was an unfortunate accident.”

“She was a good woman, I was fond of her,” he said. “How can I call myself a soldier now? A murderer, that’s what I am.”

Tears came to his eyes. She had never seen him cry before. He was weeping for Tara and for his own soul, damned not by God but by himself. His sorrow only made her more determined to break the Enemy’s grip on him.

“All right, a murderer, but even murder is forgivable,” she said in a stern voice. “The only thing that’s unforgivable is to think you can’t be forgiven. You really must do what I told you, or this will get the better of you, and you won’t be able to carry on. The people need you, Pearl needs you, I need you. We need you to be strong, Michael.”

He rose and stood by the door, looking out into the courtyard. At the moment she couldn’t bear the sight of his back turned to her. She got up and went to him, folding her arms around him, laying a cheek between his shoulder blades. “Would you come with me? To our secret place?”

He stiffened. “What are you suggesting? At a time like this?”

“Not for that, darling. To show you what I’ve been telling you.”

They climbed the steep, stony path to the refuge. It was behind the pinnacle rocks rising above St. Andrew’s church—a grotto facing a granite slab into which untold ages of weather had carved a cistern, its sides as smooth as a potter’s mold, its ten-foot depth filled with water in the rainy season. A strict prohibition had forced them to choose this secluded spot for a rendezvous. Among the Nubans, sexual intimacy was forbidden while new life grew within a woman’s body; they believed it made the baby impure, and that a couple who violated the ban would be punished by the illness or early death of their child. Quinette had seen expectant girls leave their husbands to live with their parents; she’d heard stories about men who had been caught secretly visiting their pregnant wives and suffered such scorn that they had to move to other villages.

Michael did not believe in the taboo, but he had to keep up appearances and insisted that she move into the empty tukul between the one they shared and Pearl’s and Kiki’s. She hated the arrangement—sleeping in separate rooms, like some Victorian couple—and had hoped he would come to her at some late, discreet hour. Fear of disgrace restrained him: the bodyguards standing watch outside the compound walls might hear them and spread malicious gossip. It was no wonder Nuban men took several wives. Quinette trusted the mind-heart half of her husband; it was the physical part she did not trust. Its hungers could eventually drive him to seek satisfaction with another woman, and she feared who that woman might be. She’d taken the initiative, telling him that she couldn’t bear the abstention, and was there some place they could be alone together? “I know of one,” he’d said, his look telling her that he was grateful she had broken the ice.

“Now what is it you are going to show me?” Michael asked.

Without a word, she removed her kanga and sandals and hopped across the granite—exposed to the sun, it was hot underfoot—and launched herself into the cistern. The water was tepid at the surface but grew colder as she dove to the bottom. Touching it, she arched her back and kicked back up. It was delightful. The grime on her skin seemed to peel away, like a sheer wrapper.

She braced her elbows on the cistern’s rim and looked up at Michael. “Come in.”

“But you know I don’t swim.”

“Just lower yourself in and hold on like I am.”

This he did, an anxious look on his face. It was odd to see him vulnerable.

“Now let me duck your head. Hold on tight with your hands and I’ll duck your head.”

“No.”

“Please.”

He slid his forearms off the edge and clutched it with his fingers. Treading water behind him, Quinette put both hands on his shaved scalp and pushed him under, holding him there until he began to struggle. Sputtering and spitting, he lunged out and sat down.

“Were you trying to drown me? Is that what you want to show me? This is what it is like to drown.”

“I wanted you to trust me. I want you to think of this pool as God’s grace. You don’t fight it, you immerse yourself in it with trust in your heart. And it washes you clean. Trust me, Michael, and trust in God. You are forgiven. I know because I prayed for forgiveness, and it was given.”

He offered his arm to help her out. They sat for a while, drying in the sun and wind. The cool water had tightened his skin and muscles, giving them the chiseled look they must have had when he was a young wrestler. An onyx statue come to life, she thought, and said on impulse, “You are a beautiful man.”

“And look at you.” He held her arm next to his. “Brown as an Arab. And all over, too.”

At least she had gotten him to talk about something other than Tara. “It’s those treatments Pearl and Kiki give me. Lying naked in the sun, coated in lemon and sugar.”

“And what will our child be? Brown or black?”

“Black. I know it.”

The word seemed to strike him in a peculiar way; he winced when she said it, and then he was off again, into the depths of his inner space.

“I think it is not forgiveness I want,” he said after a silence. “It is forgetfulness. I keep seeing her when the men brought her and the others to the airstrip.”

“It must have been horrible,” Quinette said.

“No more horrible than other things I’ve seen. All the same, I still cannot get it out of my head.”

Words had not evicted the interloper. Her body and her love would, though she had said that wasn’t her purpose in coming here. She leaned forward to kiss him, her hand falling between his legs. The life blooming within her gave her a sense of female power; she could get him to do what she wanted, to make love, to forgive himself. Rising, she entered the grotto, trailing the kanga behind her. She didn’t look to see if he had followed her; she knew he would. She spread the kanga on the flat rock floor and sat down, holding her arms out to him. “Let me help you get it out of your head,” she said.