Soldiers of Islam, it seemed full of danger and also adventure and I imagined some excitement which might finally stir up my boring life in the village.
Then Baba said we should all go for a family picnic before the weather got too hot. It was already late May and even in the village the days were getting sticky. Higher up the mountain, there was a good place for picnicking. The grass was lush and springy alongside the stream, which came tumbling down from the peak. There was an old gnarled tree, even older than Baba and his father before him and his father before that. Baba used to tell how his parents took him there when he was a boy, along with all the Uncles who were also boys and even the blood Aunties who were still young girls like me and not yet married off to men in other villages.
Mama had been sickly since Ramadan last year. Baba instructed her not to fast. No one told me why but I knew because I’d seen it all before. She was sweaty and pale and moaned on her cot at night. I could tell she was dreaming about a new baby crying to be born and worrying that this baby, like so many of her others, apart from me and my big sister, Marva, would die before it ever saw day. All those months later, her stomach was as big and hard as a watermelon and to my mind that was the real reason Baba planned the day out, to lift her spirits.
The morning of the picnic, Marva was ill with fever and knife pains in her legs. Mama sat with her arms wrapped round her, her fat belly bumping them apart, and the two of them whimpered and sighed. I set to work massaging Marva’s legs until the pains eased and then I helped the Aunties to prepare the eatables, with fresh bread and tomatoes and all manner of chopped salads and a basket of first season plums and apples which I’d helped to pick from the orchard just the day before.
I am thirteen now but even when I was very young, I was forced to be responsible for Mama and my big sister both. Sometimes I feel that Baba and I are the real parents and my mama is just another girl, like Marva, and they both need looking after. As Allah has chosen, that’s the sort of family I have. Mama is sweet and gentle, it’s true. Marva says Mama was once so lovely to behold that when she went walking, birds fell out of the trees dead at her feet on account of craning to get a closer look.
But Mama lacks spirit. All those dead babies, one after another, have sucked her dry and left her as brittle as a dead reed and plagued by nerves, and even a rush of wind is enough to knock her right over and start her crying about some small thing or other. The Aunties say some women are born with character and some are born with beauty but very few have both. My mama was doled beauty.
Jamila Auntie is the other way about, plain but strong. She’s Baba’s first wife and Baba only married her because he hadn’t yet found Mama and as soon as he did, he took Mama as his new wife and forgot Jamila Auntie altogether.
As for my sister, Marva, she has an affliction. It is the wish of Allah for her to have withered legs on account of an illness she had as a little girl, even before I was born. I’ve told Baba that I don’t understand why Allah would want her to be stuck all day every day in our compound, pulling herself about on her belly like a snake, but he tuts and says, ‘Hush, Layla, don’t question the will of Allah. It is not for us to know everything and sometimes there are things we don’t understand but must nonetheless accept.’
Baba wears wire-rimmed spectacles and uses words like ‘nonetheless’ and ‘whatsoever’ because he is a man of learning. He teaches me everything, just as if I were a boy. He says that when the boys in the village shout after me in the street and call Marva names, like ‘crazy cripple’ and ‘freak of nature’, I must bear it with dignity and I must not shout back, even if I think of smart things to say, and I must not pick up sharp stones and throw them at their heads. That, he says, is not any way for a girl to comport herself.
Baba and the Uncles harnessed the donkey and loaded up the cart and Mama and the Aunties, carrying the youngest cousins, all climbed onto the back and sat, their legs hanging over the edge, as the donkey strained and pulled and complained until finally the struts creaked and the wheels turned and we all set slowly off up the steep hillside towards the stream. Girls like me and boys and men like Baba walked along behind.
The mountainside was still, the sky streaked with white cloud. The sun was hiding behind the rocky edge of the mountain, waiting to jump out and surprise us as we climbed further up. The boys ran ahead, whooping and playing chase and the girls walked in wavy clusters, holding each other’s hands and giggling into each other’s ears. I walked near Baba. The light breeze dusted off my skin and kept me cool and fingered the scarf around my face. With Jamila Auntie and Baba and the Uncles and their wives, the Aunties, and all the cousins coming and going, there were too many of us crammed into that compound and, despite its size, it was very shouty and bothersome to a young girl like me, who wanted a little peace and quiet sometimes, but was always shut up in the sweat and clamour of all those people.
After we reached the place and finished our picnic, the Aunties sat bunched underneath the twisted tree, gossiping, and the older boys took off their sandals and waded in the stream, splashing rocks about, building a dam or some such and the toddlers, nearby on the flat grassy bank, tried to throw pebbles into the clear water and barely made a ripple, their judgement was so poor. Baba and the Uncles stood together by the water’s edge, looking up and down the stream and talking in low voices. I sat propped up against Mama, plucking at the tufts of grass under the tree and wondering, not for the first time, why other girls of my age were so silly and boys so stupid.
The strangers appeared suddenly as dark shapes against the rocks. They climbed sideways down the steep mountain towards us. Baba and the Uncles stiffened and turned to watch. The knowledge of their arrival moved through the Aunties, one by one, and they too turned to look and fell silent. Some pulled at their headscarves to cover their faces and others called to their children to come here, quickly. Mama tensed at my side.
There were four of them, all dressed like the other men I’d seen, in flowing black kameezes with rough woollen hats and thick beards. They looked full of purpose, closing the distance between us with sure strides. The sunlight flashed on long-nosed guns at their sides.
The men descended to the flat bank of the stream. Baba and the Uncles stepped forwards and greeted them politely, putting their hands on their hearts: Salaam Alaikum. Three of the men were young, strong boys with loose limbs and jaunty muscles. The fourth man was older. He turned and looked across at the girls and women as we shrank together under the tree. I knew him at once from his crooked nose. He was the same man who had brought the notices and ordered the men to nail them to our trees. His eyes were hard as if they had seen many terrible things.
The men spoke in low voices. Hamid Uncle, the head of the family, spoke first and then the stranger and then Hamid Uncle again. Mama’s leg, pressed against mine, was shaking. The men were still speaking, back and forth, and, although I couldn’t make out the words, I heard the threat in the stranger’s voice. The three young men standing around him cocked their guns and raised them as if they were planning to fire. One of the Aunties let out half a cry, then strangled it dead.
The stranger spoke again and, as he did so, one of the young men swung around and aimed his gun at the donkey, which was tearing up grass beside the stream, the only creature in our party unaware of the danger. A crack. The donkey crumpled, rolling its head sideways with surprised eyes, its ears flapping. Blood spurted from its side. It gave a high-pitched scream. After a moment, the scream faded and the donkey crashed onto its side and lay, shuddering. Its blood made a dark stain on the grass. The silence which followed was full of the memory of the scream. It was only broken when the young men laughed and the fourth man turned and scolded them until they too were silent.
I stared, shaking, at Baba and the Uncles to see what they were going to do. They just stood there and looked as the donkey stopped twitching. Its eyes were open and it looked as dead as if it had never lived. The fourth man turned away and led his fighters briskly on down the edge of the mountain towards the village. While
