A Gift from Darkness Read online

  At dawn we had left the village that was now a prison camp behind us again, on the other side this time. But we were still very frightened at the idea of coming across a checkpoint or one of their patrols. And the lighter it grew, and the closer we came to the border, the more nervous we became.

  “Perhaps we should hide somewhere and only set off again in the evening,” Lami Ali said.

  “When we’re so close to our destination?” I looked around. Yes, she was right, I thought: we couldn’t afford to be frivolous. But where, for heaven’s sake, should we hide?

  So we decided to go on a little further and see if we could find a decent hiding place. Even the few trees and bushes didn’t really give us protection. We weren’t sure how far we still had to walk, and felt very tired. But we didn’t dare to lie down and sleep anywhere: anyone passing by would inevitably find us.

  By now it was morning. The sun was hot, and almost vertical in the sky. It was getting more and more dangerous to go on walking. But we couldn’t stop either. So we kept on walking straight through the bush. I had a silent conversation with my God: “Father, don’t let them find us,” I begged. “Please don’t do it to me again. I and my child and the other women have suffered enough!”

  Eventually we reached the river, which I knew marked the border between the two countries. It was the same one that flowed beyond Ashigashiya—or didn’t flow. Because normally it was, as I have said, dry. But now, so soon after the rainy season, it was a stream.

  “This is the end of Nigeria,” I said to the others. “Cameroon is over there.”

  They looked around suspiciously. I could understand what was happening in their heads. This stream in the middle of nowhere really didn’t look like a national border. There was no checkpoint, no barbed wire. Not so much as a flag waved on the other side.

  “Are you quite sure?” Blessing asked dubiously.

  “Yes,” I reassured her.

  Lami Ali was the first to believe me: “That means we’re at our destination,” she whooped, “thanks be to God in heaven!” She was about to fall on her knees and utter a prayer of thanks, but I held her back.

  “First let’s wade to the other side. OK?”

  “All right, then,” she agreed. She too was concerned that it might be risky. So they both took off their rubber sandals—I had been walking barefoot since we jumped over the wall—and we rolled up our skirts. Then we crossed the little river.

  It was only when we reached the other side that we fell into each other’s arms. Now we were sure of it: we had really done it.

  We went on walking on the other side of the border. The landscape barely changed. If I hadn’t known that Cameroon was on that side of the river, I wouldn’t have noticed that we had entered another country. There was just less agriculture here, fewer harvested fields. We were surrounded mostly by typical bushland with its wild grasses and scrub. The vegetation was the same as it was in Nigeria.

  I can’t remember how long it was before we reached a road. Did we dare to walk along it? If we had crossed the border so easily, then the Boko Haram fighters could do the same. And who could give us a guarantee that they weren’t active on this side of the border? On the other hand, the march through the bush was very difficult, and we were gradually becoming exhausted. We couldn’t wander around in the wilderness forever.

  “Let’s take the road,” I suggested to my companions, “it’s bound to bring us to a village.”

  “Isn’t that too dangerous?” Blessing asked. “What if the village is occupied?”

  I wasn’t sure myself. But did we have another choice? We urgently needed a resting place, water and food. Somewhere we had to find people that we could ask for help.

  While we stood there thinking about what to do, we heard voices nearby. Startled, we took refuge behind a big tree a little way from the road. Were they Boko Haram people? Or border soldiers who would send us back? We waited tensely as the voices came ever closer.

  Then we saw them: a group of ragged figures walking along the road. They were men, about half a dozen. But they didn’t look like Boko Haram fighters, more like farmers—or ex-farmers. They looked poor and gaunt, and their clothes were ragged. Perhaps they had escaped as well? We were very curious. We would have liked to talk to them and ask where they had come from, but didn’t dare to draw attention to ourselves.

  We waited until they’d passed. Then we dared to come out of hiding and follow them at an appropriate distance. Perhaps they would lead us to a village where normal people lived, we thought.

  We soon discovered that they had a different goal. It was further on, away from the road: hundreds of people were camping in the wilderness, clearly refugees like us. But they weren’t in tents, they had set up their camp on the bare ground. Some of them didn’t even have a mat on which they could sleep or sit.

  It was a strange sight, so many wretched, half-starving people all at once. They came, we soon discovered, from our home, from Gavva, Ngoshe, Pulka and the other villages of the Gwoza district that Boko Haram had attacked and occupied. They had probably run full pelt and then become stranded here, just beyond the border, because they couldn’t afford to travel on. It broke my heart to see my fellow countrymen like that. But I secretly hoped: perhaps I would find my family here again?

  My companions had already discovered the first familiar faces in the crowd—and the people there had discovered us. “Mama!” cried a little boy and ran up to Lami Ali. Her whole face beamed when she picked up her little son. He covered her face with kisses. And then still more children came, all clearly hers. “What took you so long?” an older girl complained to her mother. “We thought you weren’t coming back.”

  Lami Ali began to sob. “I would have been with you much sooner,” she assured her children. “But I couldn’t. I’ve missed you very much.”

  Blessing and I watched her and her children for a while, then we left too, to go in search of our own families. I wondered anxiously whether Ishaku had managed to get here. How lovely it would be to spot his face among all these strangers.

  A middle-aged man now came up to Blessing. He didn’t look very friendly, but she still seemed pleased to see him. “Father!” she cried. She hurried toward him and tried to hug him, but he kept her at a distance.

  “Where have you been?” he asked reproachfully.

  “In Gavva. I was taken prisoner.”

  “Nothing happened to you?” he asked. “I mean…” He looked her contemptuously up and down.

  “No, Father. It’s all fine,” she reassured him and looked at me despairingly. I quickly took my leave.

  Now I was suddenly all alone among these people. No one paid me any attention. It was as if everyone was preoccupied with themselves and their own families. The camp was like a big village, except that there were no walls. Everything that people did—eating, sleeping, cooking or washing their clothes—they did in the open, and in front of everyone. They seemed to have got used to it. They didn’t notice one more strange face among the many faces around them. At least that was how it seemed to me as I wandered among the people who were lounging about here. I noticed that the heat and the exhaustion were slowly making me feel dizzy. What would I do if I didn’t find anyone from my family? Would anyone help me?

  On the ground, beside the mats of a large family, I saw a canister of water. The mother, a tall, plump woman, kept filling little cups and giving them to her children. I felt terribly thirsty. Where had she got that water from? Could I ask her for a sip?

  Because I didn’t dare speak to her, I looked around for a well. But of course there wasn’t one out here. They must have got hold of it somewhere else.

  Then I suddenly felt someone tugging at my skirt. It was a little boy with bright eyes and a lot of dust in his hair. I had to look at him twice, but then I recognized him: it was my husband’s oldest son. “Yoshua,” I cried with delight and picked him up. “Are your parents and brother and sister here too?”

  He nodded shyly.
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  “Where?” I asked excitedly. “Can you take me to them?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Yoshua ran on ahead. I could see that he was already very familiar with the camp. He guided me resolutely through the sea of people and mats. Then he suddenly stopped by the back of a man sitting on the ground in the shade of a big tree.

  “Patience is here, Dad!” said Yoshua.

  The man turned round. It was Ishaku. When he saw me, he clearly thought he was seeing a ghost from the past. At any rate he didn’t speak a word of greeting.

  But I burst into tears of joy and relief.

  Dying and living

  My husband ignored me. I think that was the shock. Now he had lost me and found me again for the second time. He couldn’t cope with it. Or perhaps he thought I was playing some sort of game to surprise him.

  He didn’t say a word to me all day. Lara treated me with the same indifference with which she had always treated me since I burst into their lives unexpectedly. She had probably thought she was rid of me once and for all, and wasn’t particularly pleased that I’d managed to escape again. But she pulled herself together. She gave me something to drink, and let me sit with them.

  Her three children gave me the warmest greeting. Little Tabita in particular was very pleased to see me: she climbed into my lap—and immediately noticed the swelling in my belly, which didn’t match my otherwise gaunt body. She rested her little hands on the spherical shape, which probably felt very hard. I didn’t think she had any idea what was hidden behind it. In her eyes the swelling was probably just something new. Her mother looked at both of us with suspicion.

  The two boys skipped excitedly around me. Yoshua soon lost his initial shyness and fired questions at me. “Where have you been, Patience?” he wanted to know. “Why didn’t you come with us?”

  I smiled sadly. “I would have loved to,” I said. “But bad men took me prisoner and kept me there.”

  He looked at me wide-eyed. “What sort of men?” he asked. “What did they do with you?”

  “Well, you can see the answer to that one,” Lara muttered under her breath.

  I ignored her. But her remark made me very nervous. What sort of unpleasant game was she playing? Was she going to persuade Ishaku that the child wasn’t his? She knew I was pregnant before I was abducted the first time.

  Ishaku had clearly heard her words as well. He glanced at my belly and only now did he seem to notice my condition. But I didn’t say a word.

  My family had already made themselves reasonably comfortable in the makeshift camp, and they owned a few of the things needed for daily life: mats for sleeping on, a few blankets and cloths, a piece of soap, a sack of millet, a bottle of groundnut oil and a wood-burning stove, for instance. I didn’t know exactly where our modest equipment came from. But I assumed that Ishaku had bought it. Perhaps he had managed to take some money with him when he escaped, after all. He wouldn’t have told me or Lara in any case, because we might have started making demands on him. Money is a subject that African men prefer to keep from their wives.

  On the wood-burning stove Lara prepared dinner for us. The pot of millet smelled delicious as ever, and reminded me of the first few months of our marriage. It seemed to be a long time ago. She gave me a small portion as well, and I devoured it hungrily.

  After that there wasn’t much to do in the camp. The men sat together in groups and chatted. The women cleaned the cooking pots and looked after the children. Then they all lay down on the mats. Of course I didn’t have one of my own, so I just lay on the ground.

  When it was dark, Ishaku came to me. He brought me a sheet to wrap myself in. But he made it clear that he was only doing it out of duty.

  At last he broke his silence. “What sort of stories are these, Patience?” he demanded to know. “How could you let those people catch you again? Wasn’t once enough?”

  I couldn’t believe that he was throwing accusations at me. “I couldn’t help it,” I said in self-defense. “They put down nets. Didn’t you see that?”

  “Did that man have anything to do with it?”

  “Which man?”

  “The one I caught you with in the field.”

  He meant Petrus. The whites of his eyes gleamed in the dark as he gave me a hostile look. “I should—” He raised his hand. I ducked out of the way, because I was afraid he wanted to hit me. But he lowered his arm again.

  “He has nothing to do with it. He saved me,” I implored him.

  “You’ve told me that before,” he said. “But why did he take you prisoner again—because he got you pregnant, is that it?”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Of course I mean it. What husband wouldn’t be interested in what his wife is doing with a strange man?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Ishaku’s accusations were so absurd that I was speechless. I started crying quietly. “I swear to God that it isn’t so.”

  “Oh, really? Lara says…”

  “Yes, of course she thinks something else! But it’s a lie, she just wants to get rid of me!”

  I had spoken quite loudly. Lara, who was sleeping only a few yards away, had probably heard every word. But it didn’t matter: if she wanted to destroy my life, I had the right to defend myself even if she was the first wife and the older of the two of us.

  “Psst, hold your tongue!” Ishaku raged. “Or do you want to wake the whole camp? Do you want everyone to hear what you’ve been up to? Is that what you want? To damage my reputation?”

  His words sounded harsh. But I could feel quite clearly that I had made him uncertain. Ishaku liked me, I knew that. But now he was fighting with his pride as a husband. Lara doubtless wasn’t the only one who told him these things. The whole camp was probably talking about us kidnapped girls—and imagining what the men had done to us. That meant that we were being abused twice: once by our abductors, and many more times in the heads of the people who talked about it for their own secret amusement. The mere thought repelled me. Yes, that was how it was, and there was nothing we could do about it, I thought bitterly.

  “I told you I was pregnant before I was kidnapped,” I reminded Ishaku.

  “I know nothing about that.”

  “Then you’ve forgotten. It’s your child! Believe me!” I pleaded with him.

  “So no one touched you.”

  “No one,” I lied.

  For a while Ishaku said nothing. He was battling with himself. With the voices in his head that were whispering one thing to him, and the others whispering the opposite. I could practically listen in to them. I silently begged Jesus to make the gossiping tongues fall silent.

  “In that case, fine,” Ishaku said at last. “I trust you, Patience.” He rested his hand on my belly. “So this is my child.”

  “Yes, your own flesh and blood,” I confirmed.

  I kissed him and he returned my kisses. I assume that Lara, lying on her mat, was biting her hand with fury to keep from shouting out loud when she heard us making peace that night. After that I belonged entirely to Ishaku. Once again.

  Life in the camp in the middle of the bush made huge demands on the whole family. Every day was a new challenge to us, camping out under the open sky and taking charge of our everyday life there.

  The children in particular suffered from being constantly exposed to the weather. Luckily the rainy season was over by now. But the harmattan caused us difficulties, the fine desert dust that blew in our direction from the Sahara and covered our bodies and our hair. We could all have done with a good wash.

  And some good food. We were given basic food, chiefly grain, by the government of Cameroon. Every time the truck came there were fights among the men, who were all trying to grab hold of some food for their families from the new cargo. The canisters of water were also brought by truck, because the water from the half dried-up river nearby was undrinkable. It could be used at best for washing clothes. Either way, it wasn’t enough: neither enough water nor enough food.
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  So Ishaku often walked with the other men to the nearest town to make some money as a day laborer. They loaded trucks, carried boxes around at the market, did some cleaning work or weeded the fields. They took any job they could get to improve our situation. Ishaku never told us what he earned. Usually he immediately converted it into something we could eat.

  But one day he came back to us looking very pleased with himself. He was carrying a gourd that he had bought in the market. We would live on it for at least two days. That would have been reason enough to be happy, but Ishaku had something even better to report: he had charged his mobile phone and managed to speak to his mother.

  That was actually good news, because we had heard that her village had also been attacked and occupied. We hadn’t heard anything from Ishaku’s family for a long time. “She’s in Cameroon as well and living with my brother,” he told us happily, and named a village perhaps twelve miles away.

  “Oh, they’re living in a village?” I asked. It sounded more comfortable than our life here.

  “Yes,” Ishaku said thoughtfully. His brother had probably rented some kind of lodging there. “They say they’re fine.”

  “I’m glad,” I said. I secretly hoped we would soon manage to escape our situation as well. Living without a roof over our head was becoming more and more difficult as my pregnancy advanced: by now I had quite a fat belly, and the heat was becoming a problem for me. But I was also concerned about the lack of hygiene. How could you look after a baby in this environment, if we didn’t even have enough water to wash every day?

  We had visitors a few days later. One late morning, when the sun was already quite high in the sky, suddenly a middle-aged lady appeared in front of us in the camp. She wore a freshly washed yellow and blue floral patterned dress, decent shoes and even bracelets around her wrists. Among all these dusty figures she was like a glowing apparition. But what struck me most about her was her face: her nose and eyes were startlingly like my husband’s. This must be my mother-in-law.