A Gift from Darkness Read online

  I watched her going from family to family and talking to them in turn. She was obviously looking for us. I nudged Ishaku.

  His eyes widened when he saw her. “I told her not to come,” he murmured, before getting to his feet and hurrying toward her. “Mother!” he said to her with a mixture of joy and reproach. “What are you doing here?”

  “My boy!” she cried, and performed a proper little dance of joy. “It’s so good to see you!”

  She hugged her son warmly. Now Lara was coming toward her with the children in tow. The mother-in-law was half out of her mind with joy. After Ishaku had told her on the phone where he was stranded, she must have got on the bus to come and visit us. “I just had to convince myself that you were all right,” she said, and patted the children’s cheeks. “Is everything all right? Do you have enough to eat?”

  Lara greeted her mother-in-law almost submissively, with all the respect that was due to her. I stayed in the background. As we hadn’t celebrated our marriage, I hadn’t yet met Ishaku’s mother. So I waited modestly to be introduced. But no introduction was forthcoming. Nobody seemed to be thinking about me at all.

  Ishaku sat down on a mat with his mother. Lara brought them bananas that she had hastily begged from a neighboring family. “This is a terrible place,” I heard Ishaku’s mother say. “You can’t stay here.”

  “I know,” he said. “But at the moment it’s all we have. We’re glad to have come away with our lives. Perhaps the situation will calm down soon.”

  “Let’s hope so,” she said, and sighed. “But still, this is no place for children. I wish I could help you.”

  “Isn’t there enough room for us where you live?” Ishaku ventured. “Just as an interim measure, I mean. Until we’ve found something else.”

  His mother thought for a moment. She seemed to be seriously considering his suggestion. I listened excitedly to hear what she would say. “Yes, you’re right,” she said at last. “I can’t leave you here.”

  Ishaku beamed. And I too was delighted at the prospect that our life in the open might soon come to an end. “Shall we come with you now?” my husband asked.

  She hesitated. “Your brother will understand,” she said as if to herself.

  “We won’t take up very much room,” Ishaku promised. “I’ll tell the women to pack their things. Oh yes…” He suddenly seemed to remember that his mother and I had never met. He called me over. “Do you know Patience?”

  His mother looked rather disheartened. She looked me up and down. Her eye lingered for a long time on my pregnant belly. “Is that yours?” she asked disapprovingly.

  “She’s my wife.”

  “Lara is your wife.”

  “My second wife.”

  “She’s staying here,” his mother said sharply.

  “But she’s pregnant!”

  “I can see that.” She got up and walked around in a circle. “Why is it that you men can never control yourselves?” she scolded. “Wouldn’t one wife have been enough for you? How, excuse me, am I going to explain that to your brother?”

  Ishaku lowered his head like a naughty boy getting a telling-off. And to some extent that was what was happening. He became very meek: “I will work and reimburse him for any expenses,” he promised.

  But his mother wouldn’t hear of it. “I’m taking Lara and the children with me,” she decided. “You and your sweetheart can stay here.”

  “But Mother!” he protested.

  “No backchat from you. Your brother hasn’t got enough room for so many people. If you can get her pregnant, you’ll be able to look after her, won’t you?”

  However much Ishaku begged and pleaded, his mother would not be swayed. She would only give shelter to Lara and her three grandchildren. When she said goodbye to us, she took the four of them with her. Ishaku looked glumly after them as they marched off along the road.

  Then there was just the two of us, miraculously just the two of us, as I had always wished. No, I can’t say that I was unhappy with his mother’s decision: now at least I had my husband all to myself again.

  Ishaku and I stayed in the bush. We lived in pitiful conditions, but somehow we got by. As often as he could, Ishaku took occasional work in the village. With the money he earned he bought oil, salt, vegetables or sometimes even eggs for us. He was always very proud when he could bring me something. And now that there were only two of us, it was usually enough.

  When the sun grew hotter and hotter in the course of the dry season, he bought fabric in the market and used it to make an awning, which he supported on a structure of branches. It gave us the shade we needed. We slept under it at night, and I liked that because it was like a cave. “When we’re back in Gwoza, I’ll build us something better,” Ishaku promised me. But I must admit that I wasn’t dissatisfied with our makeshift solution.

  By now my pregnancy was sometimes troublesome. It wasn’t as easy as it had been for me to collect firewood or fetch water. Every journey took longer than usual, and left me thoroughly exhausted. It couldn’t be long until my child came into the world.

  I was always very curious about the little creature that had been with me for so long, surviving all the exertions that I had imposed on it. Would I bring a boy or a girl into the world? Either way, I knew it would be a very special person.

  Ishaku treated me with great attention and affection. When we lay together at night, he often stroked my belly. Then I knew that he was looking forward to his child, and waiting impatiently for the birth. He had completely shed his initial suspicion: he acted as if I had never been away from him. And I too tried my very hardest to forget the bad period in my life.

  But it wasn’t as easy as that, because Boko Haram’s horrific realm was only a few miles away from us, beyond the unguarded border. Again and again people managed to escape their reign of terror and join us at our camp. The new arrivals told us terrible stories about conditions at home. According to their accounts, Boko Haram had turned several villages like Gavva into prison camps. Some of them also told us about massacres of people who were no longer needed. Things were supposed to have been particularly bad in my home village of Ngoshe: the Christian inhabitants there had first been forced to dig graves. Then the men had been made to stand beside the graves and wait until they were beheaded, one after another. That was what we were told by survivors who had managed to escape.

  These reports were particularly hurtful to me, as I had received no further signs of life from my family in Ngoshe. No one could tell me what had happened to my father and uncle, and whether my brothers and sisters were still alive. So I feared that they were among the victims.

  Boko Haram’s headquarters was based in Gwoza, we were told. That was where their leader Shekau was said to live, that madman who I had met at the very beginning of my abduction in Ashigashiya, when he delivered a speech to us. He had renamed the town “the seat of wisdom.” He was said to rule the whole area like a warlord. In these circumstances, the idea of returning was of course completely impossible. It was hard for us to make any plans for the future.

  But our greatest concern was that the terrorists would eventually cease to restrict themselves to Nigerian territory. They knew where we were. So what if they took it into their heads to pursue us all the way here? There were no Nigerian or Cameroonian soldiers to protect us if they decided to attack our camp.

  People were well aware of that. And many of them were afraid, particularly since we were all unarmed. Ishaku had bought a knife with the money he sometimes earned. I used it when cooking. But would it be much use to us if it came to the crunch? What good would a kitchen knife be against machine guns and machetes?

  A few times I talked to him about whether we should think about moving somewhere else. But the government of Cameroon didn’t make it easy for us to head further into the interior of the country: the supplies of grain and water that we relied on so much were given only to refugees who stayed in the border zone. Anywhere else we would have been thrown ba
ck on our own devices, and would have had neither a place to sleep nor anything to eat. Since we had no papers we would also have been illegal immigrants.

  “It’s not such a bad thing to stay nearby,” Ishaku said, introducing other reasons. “What would we do abroad? After all, when everything’s over we want to get back to Gwoza as quickly as possible.” In his mind, this was all very temporary. But I was becoming increasingly concerned, particularly about the impending birth. If we were soon to be a proper family, we would need a house, not an awning. And what would become of us in the rainy season?

  “By the time the rainy season comes we’ll have been at home for ages,” he said. “After all, we have to tend to our field.”

  I looked at him doubtfully.

  “This horror won’t last forever, believe me,” he said. “I’ve heard that the government is planning a major offensive to win the north back.”

  “I hope they do it soon.”

  “Yes, very soon,” he said, firmly convinced.

  I knew he was mistaken. Perhaps he knew it too and was only talking like that because he wanted to keep my spirits up. But conditions near the border were getting worse and worse. We heard of bombs going off in Cameroonian markets. There were lynchings wherever the refugees sought refuge. With their insatiable bloodlust, Boko Haram seemed actually to be following us into this neighboring country.

  I was becoming more and more nervous. Perhaps my state of mind was down to the approaching end of my pregnancy. At any rate, I felt very unsafe so close to the border.

  One night I was woken by faint noises. Even before I could work out what was happening, I noticed that metallic sound again, the sound of guns. I shook Ishaku awake.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Something’s happening in the camp,” I whispered.

  “Stay very calm, I’ll go and check.”

  “No!” I begged. I didn’t want to be left alone.

  Then we heard the screams, screams of death. Within seconds I understood what was going on. The Islamists were attacking our camp.

  “Run!” I said to Ishaku. “Quickly!”

  I couldn’t run myself. It was simply impossible in my condition. So soon before giving birth I felt as heavy and immobile as a hippopotamus. Ishaku didn’t hesitate for a moment. But then he worked out that I had no chance of escaping.

  “Look after our child,” he whispered. And before I could say anything he was gone. He ran for his life with the others.

  But I stayed lying where I was. I crept under my cloth and listened to the noise of the battle raging around me: the trampling feet, the cries of Allahu Akbar, the shouting. Meanwhile I prayed quietly: “Lord, make me invisible. Keep your protecting hand over me and my child.”

  I was incredibly frightened. I lay there like that until morning. The noise gradually subsided. Eventually it grew lighter and I peered out from under the cloth. There was complete chaos all around me: mats, cloths, overturned wood-burning stoves and lost shoes lay scattered around on the ground. The whole area looked like a battlefield. In their panic the people had left behind everything that they owned. Behind a bush nearby I spotted a pair of legs lying motionless. I was filled with terror when I realized that the man lying there was dead. “Jesus!” I whispered.

  When I looked more closely around, I saw more and more bodies lying motionless amid the chaos. Everyone who hadn’t been able to run quickly enough had been either shot or beheaded. The place felt ghostly: apparently I was the only living soul who had been left here.

  I didn’t know what to do—and I didn’t dare to go in any particular direction. Boko Haram people could still be nearby. So I just stayed there, under my cloth, and waited. I hope Ishaku will come back to me soon, I thought.

  But he didn’t come. In the course of the morning some people appeared in the camp. They were looking for their relatives, and calling out their names. Clearly Ishaku and I weren’t the only ones who had lost one another amid all the confusion.

  I asked everyone who came if they had seen my husband anywhere. But nobody could tell me anything. At last I went in search of him myself. I searched the bush, which was filled with traces of the previous night’s flight: flattened grass, broken branches, sometimes a shoe that someone had lost while running. But worst of all were the corpses, which you suddenly stumbled over in the most unexpected places. It was a very strange sensation. As the day progressed and the sun did its work, they began to rot, and you could smell them even in the distance. I barely dared to go over and look at them: I was terrified that one of them might be Ishaku.

  I moved further and further away from our camp. There was no sign of Ishaku. Eventually I bumped into a group of men who were also scouring the bush. I had seen Ishaku with some of them before; they had gone to the village together to ask for work. I asked them if they had any idea where he was. They looked at each other meaningfully. For a long time none of them said a word.

  “What’s happened to him?” I urged. “I’m his wife. I need to know.”

  One of them cleared his throat. “He’s back there,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “There, behind the trees.” He pointed toward a place behind a clump of trees where some people had gathered.

  Without even thanking the men I hurried away. As I did so I kept a look out for Ishaku. But I couldn’t see him anywhere. As I got closer I noticed that the people were all strangers. They gave me an odd look as I hurried toward them. And then once more I smelled that strangely unpleasant smell, the smell of death. “I’m looking for my husband!” I said.

  “Do you mean one of these?”

  They pointed to the grass. Seven men’s bodies lay there—and their severed heads. I stifled a scream when I saw Ishaku among them. First of all I recognized his clothes, the shirt and the trousers that he always wore. His head was slightly further away, to the side. I thought I was going mad when I saw him—and he seemed to look at me. No one had closed his eyes. His empty, lifeless gaze penetrated my soul. I will never forget him for as long as I live.

  I can’t say with any certainty what happened next. I was probably too shocked. I felt as if time had stood still.

  I can remember only a small amount. I see Ishaku’s head and the knife I found beside him in the grass: the tool of the killer, who had probably thrown it away after his work was done, or lost it when his people had beaten a hasty retreat. Before anyone could stop me I picked it up and hid it under my robes.

  Otherwise I didn’t see or hear anything else, the outside world had stopped existing. All the other people around me were just shadows whose words and gestures didn’t reach me. I stood there completely alone.

  Eventually they sent me away. The men who cleared the corpses didn’t want us women to watch. So I left.

  I wandered through the bush. I think I tried to find my way back to the camp. But I was too numb to do it. Tears kept pouring from my eyes, and my mind was in a state of utter confusion.

  When I had completely lost my bearings I went into labor. The first pain hit me like a jolt, and dragged me back to reality. It was like a wake-up call: with startling clarity I suddenly became aware of my situation. I was all alone in the wilderness. I couldn’t bring a child into the world like this! “Not now!” I begged the little creature. But resistance was pointless: it had already made its decision long ago.

  I stumbled forward. Perhaps I would make it back to the camp, where at least there were some women who could stay with me during the birth. But, as I said, I had no idea where to go, so I ended up going round in circles. The pains were getting more and more intense, and I had to sit down.

  I was dizzy, and I was sweating all over. No, I wouldn’t be able to walk anywhere at all, I knew suddenly, and became terribly frightened: no one would help me. I was left entirely alone with this difficult task ahead of me.

  “Pull yourself together,” I said to myself. “Other women have had children, after all.” But I wasn’t sure how the process worked.
I had never been present to witness it. I’d heard the cries of the women, and also seen that they had a piece of wood put in their mouths so that they didn’t make so much noise. Now I was slowly working out why they behaved like that. The pain was almost unbearable.

  “You’ll manage,” I said to myself, trying to keep my spirits up. I had to do it. After all, I hadn’t spent months hiding my child and protecting it from death for nothing. I had done that to give it life. This was the moment I had been yearning for. So giving up now was out of the question. Not least because the creature inside me didn’t give me a choice: how could I have given it up? Even if I resisted, it was desperate to leave my body.

  The pains were becoming unendurable. Soon the labor pains that I had felt right at the beginning felt harmless. They were nothing in comparison with what came next. With every new push I thought I was going to die. I urinated and threw up. It felt as if an enormous brick in my belly were pushing its way out. Slowly, very slowly. Meanwhile the sun set and night fell. I was surrounded by darkness. For the first time I didn’t feel that loving affection that I had felt for my child since the beginning. What sort of ruthless monster was this, raging inside me and trying to use its superhuman strength to force its way out of me?

  As it was clear to me that there was no other solution, I pressed the brick in my abdomen. It had to come out somehow, I knew that. But how on earth was it going to happen? First I stood with my legs spread wide, then I crouched down. But in every position my own body felt far too narrow and delicate for another human being to pass through it. It was simply impossible. I would burst!

  I pushed and pushed. My vagina dilated as the child’s head pushed against it from above. It was a terrible, terrible pain. I felt as if I was being torn in two while fully conscious.

  Eventually, when I was completely exhausted, I felt something hard at the entrance to my vagina. It was the head of my child, peeping out a little way. I could feel the fluffy hair on its head. Wailing with pain I pushed on. Inch by inch the baby’s head emerged. A little infinity later, with one last violent push, out came the rest of the child.