Stella Gaitano Translated into English By Asha El-Said

From: Mother....I am frightened!
By Stella Gaitano
Translator: Asha Musa

Night dropped.
It was a deep dark quiet night except for a gunshot shattering the depth of the night from time to time and the dogs’ barking more like gloomy howling causing a mixture of melancholy and pessimism and driving away every feeling of peace and comfort. It was as if evil spirits were roaming the place seeking revenge!
The children got to bed. She hanged up the mosquito nets to protect them from mosquitoes, night insects, and huge rats running around the conic ceiling in search for food. She brought inside the sole chair, the mat, and the night potty. She then slipped in the middle of her children with a quivering heart fearing the night burglars and the random bullets, after closing the cheap zinc and wood door, which was decaying because of the moss and humidity. In the past, she would sleep fearless as she simply had nothing to fear losing or being targeted. But that night was different! There was almost a fortune in that iron trunk in her room. She waited impatiently for dawn.
She turned off her hand light and kept watching a firefly like a star twinkling here and there looking for a way out. It was the only source of light in the dimmed room. Eventually, she fell half asleep with one eye closed and the other open while listening to the rumbling of generators, the roar of drunkards, the shrieks of a woman severely beaten, and the crying of a nervous child suffering some form of deprivation.
At midnight or little before, she heard heavy footsteps outside and they were approaching nearer and nearer and nearer. She dismissed fear and bad expectations and told herself ‘it is only the passers-by.’ Her heart palpitated strongly when she heard low knocks on the zinc door. She crept out from the middle of her children and approached the door gently trying to listen. She could hear people whispering in a language her ears were not used to. Now they knocked louder waking up the children frightened and crying. The equally scared mother hugged them close trying to quieten them but the knocking continued aggressively and with more determination. Then suddenly one of them said, ‘’Open up or I will shoot at you and your kids through the door.’’
Her heart beats went faster and it sprang from her chest; she thought she could feel it in her throat. She called with fear and anger which came out as crying and shaking, ‘’what do you want؟’’
He said, ‘’Open and you know.’’
She said, ‘’No.’’
Suddenly a shot echoed near the door. She now shouted louder and her children cried with the horror of someone who witnessed killing before and knew it! She continued crying calling the neighbours. But no rescuers came.
No one would come out when they hear shooting. It is less tragic to lose a widow and her kids, than to lose a whole clan. It had been seen before that these night owls do not hesitate to kill all those who approach them.
So, with the knowledge of one who is specialized in wartime tactics, she laid down her kids on the floor ordering them not to move no matter what happened. She then crawled to the door, opened it and went out alone. She hit against them as they were close to the door and one of them blinded her with his hand light. They were masses of people all dressed in black as if they were night itself. They were pointing their fire arms at her while she was carrying nothing to draw at their faces except her ready motherhood to protect her children to the last breath.
One of them took her by the neck asking her knowingly about the money or they would enter and exterminate the children. She said, ‘’I’ll give you the money; just don’t frighten my kids.’’ One of them answered, ‘’we won’t frighten them, but will kill them if you don’t bring the money.’’
He said this and pushed her inside!
She entered; and went straight to the trunk, carried it and brought it outside crying silently as if she was carrying her missed husband’s corpse. Her heart was burning with wrath; she would have torn the bastards with her teeth if she could, or if she had a weapon to defend herself and her kids. There was no help, although she and her children shouted until they went hoarse. A bullet resonated inside her home but no one cared; no neighbours came, nor did the Police! They forced the bag and finally broke it open.
He took out all her husband’s harvest of the years; harvest of his soul, blood and sweat! The price of their yearning, deprivation, future and they went away with it unconcerned with her tears and her kids’ crying, as if they were not humans.
She embraced the shaking frightened children as she herself was shaking with anger. She felt the Earth giving way under her feet when she heard the youngest girl saying, ‘’Mother, I’m very frightened.’’
She left everything as it was. In the morning when the neighbours came seeking the news, just being curious, she didn’t pay them any attention. She didn’t even answer their questions. She had her own grief, her own wound, her anger towards all with no exception for the cowardice they staged when she needed them.
She was thinking of ways to raise money quickly; even if she has to sell herself. She does not want it for her children schools or for the monthly house provisions or to buy a Boda* but to buy a gun ...only a gun to defend herself and her children in a city dark and oppressive.



Juba, May 2015

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