Seventeen November 1971 #2
“I’m not exactly sure that what you were attempting to do here is legal. You are a threat to public safety, so, until we get it sorted out, we’re going to take you down to the police station.”
“This is crazy. I have helped more women give birth under this tree than you could count. There is nothing wrong or illegal about it,” Kiju said, as one of the other officers pulled her arms behind her and placed handcuffs on her wrists.
The one who still had me by the arm took my other arm and swung it behind my back, snapping the cuffs on hard.
“Why are you doing this? This isn’t a crime.” Kiju was almost in tears. “You are barbarians.”
“Big word for such a little woman,” Moustache said, then nodded his head at the men who held our arms, the men who had cuffed us and now pushed us ahead. The moon had edged its way over the tree and the shape of the thin, bare branches on the very top cut into its light and it looked incomplete.
I have never wanted to hit someone as much as I did just then. I tried to break free, but the police officer had a hold of my cuffs and pulled me back. Something popped in my shoulder, and I screamed in pain.
“Leave her alone or so help me,” Kiju said. She was ahead of me, her body an outline in the dark.
“So help you what?” I could hear the smirk in the policeman’s voice.
“I’m okay, Kiju,” I said, wanting to reassure her.
I told them about Paulina’s son in our house and they said they would pick him up and take him to his mother in the hospital.
The back of the car smelled of cigarette smoke and sweaty men.
They took Kiju in the other car, and as they pulled away I saw her face, not looking at me but at the floor of the police cruiser, defeat and sadness written all over it.
I wanted to kick my seat, to kick these men, to drown the milkman in his own milk.
I wanted to get out of this car and run back to the fields where the apple pickers were sleeping and let them know what was happening, let them know that one of our women had been stolen from us when she was at her most vulnerable.
I wanted to see them stand up and I wanted to watch their anger become as big and wide as mine.
I wanted them to march into town and free Paulina and her baby, to follow the police cars and demand justice for Kiju, someone who had brought so many of their children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews into the world.
But I knew they were gone, they had returned home for the winter.
We were alone and no one knew what was happening, no one was going to come to our rescue.
I kicked the back of the seat hard and then slumped down, refusing to make eye contact with the men in the front.
I looked out the window and watched the world go by as my shoulder began to swell and the skin on the palms of my hands blistered from the burn.
Kiju and I were told to sit quietly in two hard chairs outside the police station’s main office. They took our handcuffs off, and I noticed the bruising around Kiju’s wrists. She was rubbing them and looking at the floor.
“Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
“I’m okay. Sad is all, sad down into my bones.”
Then she noticed my burned hands and took them in hers. She looked up and saw my tears.
“Oh Aliet, what have they done?”
“It’s only a burn. It will heal.”
I sat with Kiju in silence and placed my head on her shoulder. We sat that way for a long time, the voices of the men muted behind the closed door. I was about to remark that they must have forgotten about us when the door opened, and Moustache appeared.
“You two can go home. No charges this time. But you are forbidden from conducting this . . .” He seemed at a loss for words. “. . . witchcraft anymore. It’s a violation of public health rules and we can’t allow it. Do you understand?” He handed us a letter. “Signed by the judge.”
Neither one of us said a thing.
“Do you understand?” he said it louder.
“We understand,” Kiju said in a quiet voice. She snatched the piece of paper from him.
He nodded and smiled, proud of himself.
Kiju stood, balled up the paper and threw it at him before she turned and walked toward the door. I stumbled as I got out of the chair to follow her.
“I can give you a ride home. And I am going to pretend you didn’t just do that.”
“You can take your drive and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.”
Kiju let the door close behind us and we turned toward home.
Paulina and her son came back a week later, her baby boy in her arms. We went to greet them, to give her the leather wrapping we provided for all the new babies. She cried when she saw it.
“They strapped me to the stretcher. At the hospital they put a needle in my arm and gave me medicines. I don’t even remember him being born. I had to fight to feed him. It wasn’t what I wanted. I can’t even give him his birth story. And the first words he heard were not mine.”
I put out my arms and she let me take the boy.
He was perfect. I gazed down at him as Kiju hugged Paulina and didn’t let go.
In a moment like this, it seemed best to stay quiet.
Nothing anyone could say would change what had happened.
Reliving it only makes it harder to put it behind you and find the joy that waits for you ahead.
I’ve learned this, but after many years of ignorance. So many happy times missed.