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Rape, Death and Anger. a short story
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10:57 PM March, 13 2024 سودانيز اون لاين طه جعفر-تورنتو..اونتاريو..كندا مكتبتى رابط مختصر
RAPE, DEATH AND ANGER
A deluge of memories streamed her at the sight of the whiteness of the grass-snowflakes covered; it was a replica of the sand landscape of her village Eastern Jabal Marra. The fat geese droppings were a reminder of the excreta of the goats, donkeys and camels of her village. However, nothing had ever aroused memories of the Arabian horses in her grandfather’s stockyard. Suddenly, in a long time she thought about them. She remembered their laughter as they rode them. Horse riding in her village was a popular game for adults unlike here where it is reserved for the famous and wealthy. She felt nostalgic. The memories were sweet yet bitter. They brought happiness and a heart ache at the same time. She tried to bar them but she could not. She was lost in thought for a long time. Her home land was a land of pain so far in reality yet in her intellect, it was closest than anywhere else. On the eighth floor, she leaves the elevator and ######### to her apartment. the door opens directly into the hall, jam-packed by a seat kit of a big sofa, a love seat and a single chair. To her right is the kitchen. It has two doors leading to a working surface with a sink basin for dish washing in the centre, a four plate electric stove with an oven and a large fridge. There is a corridor with wall mounted cabinets. Her bedroom is to the right of the hallway and the bathroom is at its end. She headed straight to the bedroom and stared at herself in the mirror. As if he was right there speaking to her, she heard Isaac’s words, “you have to look like the girls of Toronto”. She smiled, her face illuminated with a light that hid sorrows. She likes what she is seeing. The beauty of her eyes which she is aware of, the appearance of her face and the view of her well placed beautiful teeth. Then she looked at what uses the audacity of a bra to flee with her blue blouse to a far horizon, “her breasts” erected as a hidden treasure in the mind of a dreamy adventurer. Her apartment was warm, so she took off her clothes still standing in front of the mirror of her dressing table. She then gave her body a close look starting at the legs then up her thighs. She then turned around and looked at her buttocks, “they are so charming in the under wear but more delicious without it”, she muttered to herself. On a closer look, hot chills crept all her body. The sight of the scars and remnants of wounds on her lower back and thighs was unbearable. When she saw the enormous cicatrices on the upper end of her genitals, a big lump developed in her throat; she wept. With the chills almost blowing away her existence, she fell on her bed nude and crying. Memories of the aggression encumbered her brain and nearly grabbed her hairs one by one. Her head was crammed with the calamitous jingle normally followed by the headache that always conquers her tranquility. In a voice that stickiness of the saliva in her throat had broken, she painfully managed to say “Oh Mother”. She went down the memory lane till she decided to buck what the doctor and Isaac say, asking herself, “What do they want from me, those memories.”
She remembered their faces, covered with fear behind the dusty masks and the turbans of the cowards aggressors. She remembered the firing of goats, camels and hens. She remembered the smell of burning wood, the hay and the huts. She remembered the bodies of her people covered with blood. She remembered the cries of women and girls. They pierced her ears. Her headache tightened its stronghold on her. The aggressors were on horses, some of them on land cruiser trucks or the Thatcher cars as they are called there. She had learned the name of such cars from her father at a previous occasion before the incident of his death in front of them all; her sisters, mother, two aunts and grand mother. The aggressors were crying; Allah Akbar Allah Akbar Allah Akbar (god is greatest) Some of them were laughing, running in all corners of the place. There was dead silence everywhere. Only guns talked as they intermittently fired shots. There were explosions in all directions. Car engines roared and helicopters thundered loudly as they bombed the school, medical center and store of Ateem’s sons. She remembered her father moving his daring stick in the air, running towards his death. the shots pierced his body but he continued walking towards them. The shots were shaking his shoulder but he went on repeating “Oh My God…God revenge on you…Sons of bitches.” Nothing could turn him back, not even my mother’s loud cries before her death. He died standing on his feet right in front of her. The aggressors killed him. She remembered the sharp whistling and the high echo in her ears…the smoke and falling of bodies on the ground…they were all killed lying cross stretched on the ground.” Me a girl of fifteen, secondary school student was there holding the only wood pillar that remained of the women’s shelter of our house, our home”, she remembers. There were bodies all over the ground, dead…ALL OF THEM DEAD, no one on their feet, not even an animal. There were only the aggressors talking in a strange, angry and speedy tongue… Words like “It is over…After this we should withdraw”. There was uncontrolled laughter behind me and the sentence “Woman of Fur”. “Drag her, push her on the ground”. All passed as if what they were saying didn’t concern her. She is thrown to the ground but her soul died moments ago with her people. There were disgusting smells, kicks and hits. That is all that she felt, sand and dust in her mouth. He used his finger nails to rip her underwear off, the same ones that mutilated her. Nasty smelling dirty breaths wafted around her nose…Mouths smelling like an old barbeque mixed with sweat and automobile exhaust and dirt were what surrounded her. The entire place smelled of a burning fire. Then he threw the weight of his body on her thighs. Her joints pained her as her body was under a heavy millstone. The pain tortured her. Then she felt death, she smiled, she preferred to die but the desired death did not come.
Probably a day later, she opened her eyes. There were no more fires, not a standing wall nor a hut or even a little room. It was utter destruction. Burned bodies of her people were scattered around her. She shut her eyes again. She lifted her head but she could not move. Her clothes were torn. The horrible pains resumed in her body like heavy stones. Her soul was fading when she heard two voices crying. It was a mixture of wailing and whining. She then saw them; her uncle and brother, crying. It was the first time for her to see her uncle cry. He cried uncontrollably like a child. The place was now emptied of the dead bodies. Her uncle took her like a corpse. No one talked, not even the camels made a sound. It appeared like they shared with them the same distress. This place once named after its people (the Fur), is now in ruins. It is full of death and burning fires. They stopped at the well. The sand there was reddened by the blood of bodies dragged and thrown into the well. They moved again silently, she became unconscious. She opened her eyes and saw her aunt next to her. With difficulty, she said in an obscured voice “this is not my aunt’s”. She then understood that she was in Al Fasher Hospital. This time she managed to speak with a clear voice as she asked “aunt did my mother die؟ Did my father die؟” There were no response only tears in her aunt’s eyes, no answer. She fainted again. When she regained her senses, she was in her aunt’s house in El Fasher. She heard them talking about the Janjaweed. They were crying, the house was full of the smell of death and many words about the army and the Janjaweed. They were saying the security forces of El Fasher forbade them to cry and mourn the killed people. They were protesting in whispers, here inside their town in her aunt’s. She then realized and understood the reality of all that had taken place. She remembered the long days of painful walking to refugee camps in Chad, she still feels that pain. She then decided to take the pills DR. Beatrice gave her. She went to the fridge, took one of them and swallowed it with a cup of water. The pill was tasteless. She slept. She usually sleeps for long hours after taking the pills. When she woke up, she was nude, hungry, and lonely in an icy remote place. She went to the kitchen and warmed for herself a chicken stew. She washed and cut vegetables to prepare mixed salad. She also threw some bread in the microwave to warm. Usually, the kind of salad that she prepares is synonymous with her mood; therefore a good salad means a good mood and vice-versa. That then determines whether she is to take the pills or not. She remembered that it was a Friday. She became happy and shouted “so it is a weekend.” She remembered her stay and what she had so far achieved in Canada. She thought of the ESL classes and the CLB8 that she obtained. She is about to complete what is required of her to join university. She thought about her teacher Lillian in the LBS program. She remembered the lecture she had given them on genetics. How cells of human beings usually keep a copy of the parents. She remembered DR Beatrice’s face and her words, “I am waiting for the day you will come to me and say, I do not need your pills anymore”. She vowed that it was then. “Today I have decided that I will have children, who will be like her late parents”, she said. She finished her meal and immediately phoned Isaac. “Isaac, I love you. I want to marry you and have children; boys who will be like my father and girls who will be like my mother.” Isaac jumped up in the air with joy on hearing those words .Will the planet and homeland have a space for such heroic lovers؟
Written and published in 2011 the story was translated by Elham, and Srella Numbai and myself >>>>>>>>>>>>>> I will also put the original tect down
Taha Jaafar Mar 13/2024
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