Tears of the Desert (18 page)

As I watched, I felt sick in my heart. I knew from my father what a pack of lies this all was. I knew what the people of the south were fighting for. Many were Muslims, just like us, and I knew that they were fighting for the return of democracy. Few of the students supported the National Islamic Front. All we wanted was to continue our studies in peace. Yet here we were being bribed and threatened into fighting an unjust and unholy war.

The video ended with scenes of officials handing out money and gifts to the mothers of the so-called martyrs. The security officer informed us that he and his colleagues were ready to sign up “volunteers.” In the deathly silence that followed there was practically a stampede for the door. We herded out of the lecture hall with downcast eyes. As we hurried away, we could feel the hostile stares of the security men boring into our backs. The very thought of it sent shivers up my spine.

There was only one thing to do now, and that was to get away as fast as possible. Back in the dorm many of the students seemed frozen with shock. What were we to do, they cried? Should we try to leave? Would they try to stop us? I told them to pull themselves together. We should all of us go, and as quickly as we could. The longer we stayed, the more risk that one or more of us would be forcibly taken to join this “plastic jihad.”

As quickly as I could I threw some essential items into a travel bag. Rania and I decided to travel to the station together, whereupon she would take a train north to her village, myself heading west toward my own. If anything happened on the way, perhaps one of us might be able to raise the alarm. As we hurried across campus, we could see uniformed men locking shut the lecture halls with massive padlocks and chains. It was such a depressing sight. My heart sank.

All my dreams of learning had been so suddenly shattered.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

University of Jihad

Four days later I reached home. I had taken the train to Hashma, and the truck back to the village. Of course my parents weren’t expecting to see me, and they were surprised, and more than a little worried. I explained some of what had happened, trying to gloss over exactly why the university had been shut down. My mother had anxiety in her eyes, and I didn’t want to make matters any worse. As I finished speaking she burst into tears.

“Look at you! Look at you!” she sobbed. “So thin, like a skeleton. Bad food and studying all the time—just look what it’s done to you.”

“I’m fine,
eya,
” I replied, giving my mum a hug. “I’ve just slimmed down a bit, that’s all. I was fat when I left the village.”

“Nonsense, Rathebe, nonsense,” Grandma cut in. “You think we want you wasting away to nothing? We need you to be healthy and strong and to do well at your studies—our doctor daughter! All that time away—what you need is some good home cooking!”

I was glad that Grandma seemed to have recovered her good spirits. But why were they all so keen to stuff me full of food? I didn’t even feel hungry.

“Look, I ate some bread and fruit on the truck . . .”

“You think you can survive on
that
!” my mother exclaimed. “So thin, so thin looking . . .”

I shrugged and gave a little laugh. It wasn’t food that I was lacking—it was my studies, my wonderful university studies that had been so unexpectedly cut short. If anything had made me thin and pinched-looking it was that. Still, my mother and Grandma wanted to do something for me, and fattening me up was the best they could think of. I would speak to my father later, and have a proper talk. He, I knew, would understand.

“Get your money and take her to the market,” my mother announced to my father. “Get her a plate of meat. She has to eat meat, so she can regain her strength.”

My father rolled his eyes at me, and hurried off to fetch his money from the hut. He went to start his Land Rover, but I told him that I’d prefer to walk. As we strolled through the village I started telling him exactly what had happened. I saw a shadow pass across his face. All of the universities were facing problems, he told me, and in some cases it was even worse.

We headed for the restaurant in the village marketplace. It was a simple, basic place of wooden uprights topped off by a grass thatch roof. The meat was prepared on a huge wooden block out front, which was buzzing with flies. I chose to have a plate of flash-fried camel liver, which was my favorite dish. If you tried cooking it through it would go hard as a stone, so it had to be eaten practically raw. We took a table and dug into our plates of spicy meat, together with a fresh onion and chili salad.

My father lowered his voice and leaned across the table to me. My cousin, Sharif—the young man who had many years ago driven me home from the wedding in his donkey cart—was at another university in Khartoum. That one had also been shut down, but the students had gone on to the streets to protest. The police had broken up the demonstrations, beating the students and driving many into the river. Scores had drowned.

Sharif was all right, my father assured me, but he’d been arrested and questioned, which meant that he was now a marked man. The secret police would have a file on him, which was a big worry. Several times now Sharif had traveled to the south of the country, my father explained. He’d gone there to see for himself the reality of the war. He had even met the rebel leader, Dr. John Garang.

Sharif wanted to ascertain if the students might take up the fight in Khartoum. And if so, what help might Dr. John be able to provide. I was amazed. “Dr. John” was the legendary black African leader of the southern peoples. How was it that Sharif, the village boy with the donkey cart, could be moving in such circles? He was older than I and he had been at university longer, but even so it was quite a turnaround for the boy from the bush.

My father’s worry now—and that of all of Sharif’s family—was that his arrest might prompt the secret police to probe more deeply. If they did, they might discover his contacts with the rebel leader, and his visits to Dr. John’s camps. And if that happened, Sharif was as good as dead.

My father finished his food and left me in the café to enjoy some sweet mint tea, while he went to find a couple of choice goats for Grandma. Grandma’s constitution wasn’t what it used to be, and my father reckoned a couple of nice animals might bolster her spirits. The mint tea arrived in a little glass, together with a box of sugar cubes. I took three and dropped them in. They lay on top of the mint leaves, dissolving slowly. As I watched them disappear, I wondered what on earth was happening to our country.

On my way through Hashma I’d been forced to wait for the truck for several hours, so I had gone to see my old school friend, Mona. She had a little baby daughter now, which had made her very happy. But in a frightened voice she had explained to me how the soldiers had been around her part of town, trying to force the men to go and fight in the jihad. Her husband had gone to hide in his village, leaving poor Mona with the baby.

And then there was Sharif. My country cousin had grown into a young man with dreams to lead a rebellion. How had that transformation taken place? And what sort of country was it where universities—places of learning—became the breeding grounds for armed revolt? Part of me felt proud of Sharif, and I was more than a little intrigued as to what he might be like now. Surely, he must be so different from the boy in the white robes who had eagerly offered us a ride home in his donkey cart? Perhaps one day I might find out.

As I considered the risks that Sharif had taken, part of me felt guilty—guilty that I was doing nothing to stand up to those who were destroying our country. When they had closed our university I had fled home to my village. Had some of the other students tried to make a stand? Had I deserted them? I kept telling myself that this wasn’t my struggle. I was a woman, and all this politics and war was for men. More important, my priority was to study. I wasn’t about to give up on that just because we had a bunch of madmen running the country.

My father returned, and he showed off the two strong goats that he had with him. I finished my tea and we set off on the walk home. But the larger of the goats didn’t appear to be very happy. It was digging its hooves in and shaking its head from side to side, as my father pulled the string. A tug of war ensued, which neither side won. Finally, my father grabbed the stubborn goat by its horn and handed me the string of the more cooperative one.

“Rathebe, you still remember how to hold a goat?” he asked, his eyes twinkling.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I retorted, in mock anger. “Why on earth wouldn’t I?

My father shrugged. “Well, big city girl soon to be a doctor and all that . . . I was just checking.”

We laughed. My father wrestled the troublesome goat into a submissive stance and started dragging it along by its horn. For a few minutes it tried to struggle, before realizing that resistance was hopeless. As we wandered along I started to feel somber again: My father’s joking had raised a laugh, but it had also hit on a sore point.

“
Abba,
d’you really think I will be?” I asked, quietly. “D’you really think I will be a doctor?”

He stopped, and gazed at me with his gentle eyes. “What d’you mean, Rathebe? Of course you will.”

“But they’ve shut down the university. It’s closed until further notice . . .”

My father reached out and took my hand. “Don’t worry, Rathebe, they can’t keep it closed forever. They need doctors and lawyers and engineers in this country and they know it. So don’t worry. By the end of the summer they’ll be forced to reopen, you’ll see.”

I nodded. My father’s words had cheered me up a little.

“Now look what you’ve done,” my father declared. “You’ve dropped your string and the goat’s wandered off. . . . Lucky it’s the well-behaved one. Think you can manage this devil-goat, while I go fetch it?”

When we reached home Grandma was overjoyed to be presented with the two strong goats. She immediately declared that we should slaughter one of them and prepare a feast to welcome home our “doctor daughter.” I tried to object that I was a long way from being a doctor, but Grandma was having none of it. Mo and Omer were called, and Grandma passed them the devil-goat to be taken away for slaughter. Mo would hold the goat down, while Omer administered the cut to the throat with his sharp dagger.

As they led the goat away, I reflected on the way Grandma had changed since Grandpa’s death. For most of her life the very idea of slaughtering one of her precious goats for a spontaneous feast would have been unthinkable. She would have seen such behavior as unforgivably profligate and wasteful. Now all that had changed. I remembered when she had made us eat the goats that had died from an unknown disease. That was about the height of generosity with the old Grandma. It would take me awhile to get used to this softer, kinder version.

Grandma, my mother, and I jointed up the meat with a big machete and a couple of sharp daggers. There was never much blood, as the goat had been bled to death after having its throat slit. This was the way that an animal had to be killed, to be
halal—
acceptable—for a Muslim. It may sound horribly cruel, but I knew that Omer would have talked to the goat and said prayers over it, calming it down before he dispatched it to the afterlife. He had a gentle, natural way with animals that belied his warlike nature.

“You never used to slaughter your goats like this,” I ventured, taking a peek at Grandma. “What’s got into you?”

Grandma shrugged. “This life doesn’t last forever.” She was slicing up the goat’s liver into bite-size pieces. “I know when I was your age I thought it did, but it doesn’t. So, best make the most of it while we’re here, for you’re a long time dead afterward. Now, take this goat’s liver, fry it in some spices, and go serve it to your father . . .”

With the summer holiday drawing to a close my father’s predictions came to pass. The national emergency was declared over and the universities reopened. I said my goodbyes to my family and traveled back to Khartoum, my hopes riding high that all would be as it was before. Upon arrival, I was overjoyed to see Rania, Dahlia, and my other friends. We had an excited, gossipy reunion. But there were a handful of bunks that remained empty. We soon learned that these were the girls who had gone to join the jihad. In the boys dorm there were yet more bunks that were empty.

Much as we tried to, it was hard to recapture the joy and the spirit that had possessed us during our first term. There was a shadow hanging over us: in part it was the memory of the forced shutdown of the university; in part it was the ongoing absence of those students who had gone to fight the plastic jihad. We knew that there was nothing to stop the authorities from doing the same again, and this time the methods used to “recruit” for this war of deception and lies might be far more forceful.

The campus had become a heated rumor mill, and every week there were reports that yet another student had died fighting. Some of the Arab students became angry at the blacks and the southerners for bringing death into their lives. I tried to keep out of it, to keep my head down and to study.

After the baking summer came the rainy season, and the cool downpours were very welcome. They took the heat out of the campus, both physically and in terms of our anger and confusion over the plastic jihad. Gradually, we tried to forget all that had happened. But the rains brought other, unexpected problems. One afternoon in October a huge swarm of insects blocked out the sun. Within minutes a thick carpet of giant locusts had settled upon every inch of the ground. This was a plague of biblical proportions.

Dahlia and the other Arab city girls were totally horrified. As for Rania and I, we had to resist the temptation to collect up handfuls of the insects and fry them for dinner. We could just imagine how the other girls would react if we did. The swarm stripped the leaves from the trees and the grass from the ground, and when all the green matter was gone they turned their attention on the university buildings themselves.

In no time at all they were munching away at curtains, seating, and even our bedding. It was impossible to sleep without a mosquito net, and it was impossible to wash without first clearing dead and dying locusts out of the water tank. Finally, the city girls decided they could take no more. The locusts were making them ill, they complained. Scores of them went home. In no time Rania and I were pretty much alone in our dorm.

We had a
khawaja
from Germany teaching us chemistry, and he became obsessed by the swarm. On the one hand, he hated walking among the clouds of insects that rose at every footfall; on the other, he was fixated by the locusts’ ability to chomp their way through the entire campus, stripping it bare. Ten days after the arrival of the swarm an aircraft flew over dropping a fine mist of chemical spray. We stayed inside the dorm to avoid the nasty, choking ammonia smell. The German professor was equally amazed at the piles of dead locusts that now littered the ground, and he started to photograph them.