Burning Red Moon #3
“One of my paternal uncles, Tammam, was a merchant who often traveled and brought presents back for us children, small amulets he’d gather along the road.
I loved him and always looked forward to his return, because he was good at telling stories about the faraway places he’d seen.
He spoke of mountains that moved, crystal palaces, and other wonders, but I most liked to hear him talk about Barhout, the Well of Hell in the middle of the Al-Mahra Desert, in the east of Yemen.
It was an enormous hole, almost four hundred feet deep and a hundred wide, and had been there forever, millions and millions of years without anything entering, not even the rays of the sun.
Nor did anything come out of there except noxious vapors, as if the planet were farting.
Uncle Tammam would draw a great circle in the sand, and say: Look, that’s what it’s like, but a thousand times bigger, and round as the moon at its fullest, and deep as the tallest tower is high.
It’s horribly empty and reaches the center of the earth, it’s the navel of the world, umbilicus orbis.
According to locals, the depths used to hold people in chains, because the great hole of Barhout was a demons’ prison.
Uncle Tammam believed this to be ignorant talk.
And he’d turn to me, place his hand on my head, and ask: Tell me, Zahra Bayda, you’re such a smart girl, what do you think is in the great hole of Barhout?
I knew beforehand what he wanted to hear, and said: There’s nothing in the great hole, esteemed Uncle Tammam.
Then he’d say: Well said, Zahra Bayda, that’s almost right, but not completely, in Barhout there isn’t simply nothing, what’s there is Nothingness, which makes it even more disturbing.
You see, Bos Mutas. I’m telling you this story about my Uncle Tammam so you’ll understand me: After the day I was raped, I sank, I kept sinking deeper and deeper into a Nothingness like the great hole of Barhout.
You understand? I lived in that deep hole.
I turned into nobody, or merged with that Nothingness.
Even today, I still occasionally end up there, in the depths, and when that happens it’s hard for me to get back out.
If you see it happening, don’t try to help me, Bos, you’ll only be frustrated.
I’ll eventually rise back out of there on my own. ”
“Let’s go back to the moment when the men left you lying in a pool of blood,” I ask.
“I was there for some time—I don’t know how long—wishing the sand would swallow me, I think that’s the state I was in, just like that, nothing else, with no urgency, no fear.
Until I remembered the sheep; where were my sheep?
I looked up, didn’t see them, and anguish buzzed at me like a wasp and wouldn’t go away, it kept humming at me and shaking me, keeping me from sliding away on the river of sleep.
Where were my four sheep? Could they have gotten lost?
Had they been stolen? I got up as best I could.
I had to find my sheep. I walked for a long time, calling to them, but they were nowhere to be found.
I didn’t want to go home without them, for fear of punishment.
How could I explain that I’d lost them? I think I cried more over the sheep than myself.
I have no clear memory of the days or months that followed.
Something in me had closed, like a door slammed shut by a gust of wind.
What those men had torn and broken was sealed under lock and key, and that tumult stayed enclosed inside me, like a corralled horse that won’t stop kicking until it destroys everything from within. ”
At some point her abusers returned and picked her up, took her to their own village, and kept her there for some time. They used her however they wanted and only let her go when she became pregnant. At that point the girl Zahra Bayda really did have a reason not to return to her family.
“I was scared of my own people. The loss of the sheep ended up being the least of my concerns. The worst part was that my rapists belonged to an enemy clan. I couldn’t go home pregnant, no family wants its enemies’ offspring, and of course my family didn’t either.
In Somalia, rape isn’t only an act of aggression against a woman, but also an act of war against that woman’s clan.
Men rape to offend, to harm, to dishonor.
That’s why a child born of rape is considered so unwanted, so dangerous; the baby will have enemy blood and must not be allowed to live.
I had no choice but to leave. I walked and walked, for days and days.
I joined other people who were fleeing too.
I walked at the edge of a wandering crowd, a vast million-footed animal that pushes forward without knowing where it’s going, only knows it has to go.
I fell behind when the pregnancy kept me from being able to continue, and when my strength failed me, I stopped.
I gave birth to my daughter in the rain, on the side of a muddy road, with no one to help me.
But my daughter was born far away and that was good, far enough away, that was all that mattered to me.
Luckily I was able to raise her even farther away, where my people could never find her.
They don’t even know she exists; if they had known, she wouldn’t be alive. ”
“Why don’t you ever talk about her?”
“My daughter is my joy and my secret.”