Acts of Faith

THEY RODE IN a wadi, four abreast. Braids of brown water trickled through the wadi, and the wet sand between the braids muffled the clop of hooves, as the trees on both sides masked the riders from view. Under the morning stars Ibrahim and Hamdan, his staunch friend and ally, whiled away the tedious hours in the saddle with talk about cattle and women, the only topics that interested them. The two were bound together—the man without cattle was also without women. Young men riding behind them sang:


Carry the rifle whose fire burns the liver and sears the heart,

For I need a slave boy from the land of the blacks.

Hey! You sons of the Ataya,

You are the burning iron rod.

We long for the land without a people,

We long to live by the rivers of the south.

They were eager for the coming battle and the chance to capture cattle and women, though some, the zealous ones, were eager for martyrdom. As for himself, Ibrahim was eager to have it over with. Rocking with Barakat’s easy gait, he thought, This will be the last one. Then it would be a life of ease. A nazir’s house, his own lorry, and in the soft light of the cow-dust hour, Miriam would rub his legs with liquid butter.

When it grew brighter and he and Hamdan had finished speaking about wives and concubines, calves, milk cows, and breed bulls, Ibrahim removed from his cartridge belt the paper Kasli had written for him. He was memorizing the English letters painted on Miriam’s house. G-O-D B-L-E-S-S T-H-I-S H-O-U-S-E. Those letters and the green cross, the Christians’ symbol.

Kasli and his fellow deserters trudged on foot alongside the murahaleen, who regarded them with the special contempt horsemen reserve for those who cannot ride. When the time came, however, the Nuban turncoats would become passengers in the saddle, mounting up to ride double into the attack.

The radio carried by the militiaman alongside Ibrahim hissed, a voice came out, and the radio operator answered.

“Ya! Ibrahim,” he said. “It is Colonel Ahmar. He will soon be ready to begin shelling. He wishes to know when you will be ready.”

This was the first time Ibrahim had been issued a radio. He found it an annoyance. The colonel was always calling him about one thing or another. “Tell him soon.”

Today was the Christian Sabbath. Kasli had said the rebel soldiers would be relaxed, the townspeople would be not in their fields but drinking marissa in their houses. No one would be expecting an attack from the ground in the rainy season. Still, the colonel was not taking any chances. According to Kasli’s intelligence, the rebel garrison was unassailable. Except for a single narrow gap, it was locked on all sides by steep, well-defended ridges. To seize the garrison, the ridges would have to be taken first; to take the ridges, the defenders would have to be decoyed into leaving their positions. This was to be accomplished, inshallah, by Ibrahim’s murahaleen. They would attack New Tourom, which was on ground suitable for cavalry. The town was very important to the rebel commander—so Kasli had spoken—and he would rush men to meet the threat against it, creating breaches in the ridges’ defenses. The second column—the militia infantry marching a few kilometers away on Ibrahim’s left—would pour through the breaches and seize the ridges, then swoop into the valley and destroy the garrison.

The murahaleen would be given their usual license to loot and to capture women and children. No other prisoners would be taken, except for two—the rebel commander and his foreign wife. They were to be turned over to Kasli, who had asked for the privilege of executing them. That was to be his reward for his services.

Ibrahim was curious to see the foreign woman. Kasli had talked about her a good deal—a spy for the Americans, he’d said. What the Americans had to do with anything, Ibrahim didn’t know, but he intended to talk the Nuban out of executing her and give her to him. An American woman would be a very valuable prize, fetching a high ransom.

Clouds were forming, high clouds like horse-tails, portents of a storm. Hamdan noticed them too and frowned. As cattlemen, they prayed for rain; as fighters, for dry weather. They heard an odd sound in the distance, a ringing. Kasli came over and said it was made by the bell of the Christian church in New Tourom.

“We are close enough. You should make ready now.”

At Ibrahim’s arm signal, the riders wheeled out of the wadi, spurring their mounts up the bank and onto a rolling plain behind a low ridge, rocky and treeless. The town, Kasli informed him, was beyond the ridge, less than one kilometer away. Hidden by the rise in the ground, the murahaleen formed into battalions according to lineages and clans. Ibrahim’s lineage, the Awlad Ali, were in the foremost ranks. He looked back and was moved by the sight—mounted warriors massed on the plain, Kalashnikovs braced butt-first on their thighs, the manes of brown, black, and white horses ruffled by the breeze, talismans flapping from rifle barrels. He turned to the radio operator. “Tell the colonel we are ready.”

As he waited for the shelling to begin, he knew the battle would not follow the tidy plan—he had been in too many fights to believe otherwise—but if God were with him and the Brothers, they would prevail. The muted crack of mortars came from his left. The bombs burst atop the ridge, close enough to shower dirt and rocks on the murahaleen. Horses shied and whinnied. Barakat, accustomed to such noises, remained steady.

“Ya Allah!” he said to the radio operator. “Tell those fools they almost hit us!”

In a nervous voice, the militiaman delivered this message. A long silence preceded the next reports of mortars. Ibrahim heard the bombs thudding somewhere to his front—on the town, he assumed. The bombardment went on for some time, and he beseeched Allah to spare Miriam from harm. The radio spoke again.

“The colonel says he will now stop the shelling on the town and move it to the ridges,” the operator shouted, though he was barely more than an arm’s length away. “You are to attack now.”

Ibrahim held the chestnut stallion to a walk as he mounted the rise. The Brothers followed at the same pace, and the massed horsemen flowed over the crest. Ahead the land rose gently toward New Tourom. A few houses showed through the trees and the smoke from burning roofs. Ibrahim glimpsed people in flight. He almost laughed when one group came running straight toward him, and then, seeing murahaleen descending on them, turned tail. An automatic rifle rattled, bullets spurted in front of him—lousy shots, these blacks. Halting Barakat, he raised his rifle, and standing in the stirrups, his rear end thrust out, he looked back and yelled, “Follow my ass, O Brothers! Follow my ass!” “Allahu akhbar!” they yelled. He slacked the reins and gave the stallion his head.

 

THEY WERE RETURNING home from church, sweating in the oppressive April air, pestered by swarms of mosquitoes. Michael was not a regular churchgoer, but Quinette had pleaded with him to attend and offer prayers for forgiveness. At the service Fancher had introduced St. Andrew’s new minister, a Nuban he had trained. The man’s homily had met with general approval—the congregation applauded, as if it had been a political speech. Quinette had understood not one word and afterward asked Michael to give her the gist of it. In the midst of his summary, they heard a boom, softened by distance, and then several more, one after the other. Hearing no more, they walked on warily and were approaching the gap in the hills when mortar shells crashed into the town behind them. The bodyguards closed ranks around Quinette and Michael and virtually swept them down the path and through the gap toward the headquarters building. Just as they arrived, two shells banged into one of the ridges above the garrison, while another landed in the village of camp followers and soldiers’ families. In moments, people were streaming out of their tukuls, carrying children, pots, and blankets. Off-duty soldiers, some wearing only their undershorts, flew out with their rifles, looking for someone to tell them what to do.

There was pandemonium inside as well, a radio operator talking frantically, officers gathering documents, apparently with the intention of burning them if necessary. A mortar landed nearby. Shrapnel clattered on the tin roof, pinged against the stone walls. Negev pushed Quinette down into a corner, and as she huddled there, her husband issued commands to the officers and into the radio. He put the handset down and turned to her.

“You have got to get out of here. Murahaleen are attacking the town, hundreds of them. If they break through to here and see you—” He left the rest unsaid and repeated that she must leave. Negev would guide her to a safe place. Murahaleen—she reacted to that word as would any Dinka or Nuban, with terror. Negev grabbed her by the hand. “Come, missy, hurry.”

 

A MACHINE GUN opened fire. Horses to one side of him pitched forward, spilling their riders. “Allahu akhbar! Allah ma’ana!” Riding without his hands on the reins, Ibrahim fired his AK-47, spraying trees and houses. At full gallop, the murahaleen slammed into New Tourom, a shock wave of living flesh. The momentum of their charge broke against the town. Huts, animal pens, fences, panic-stricken goats, cows, and people shattered the horsemen’s mass into individual bands. Each one went about its own business, looting houses, seizing livestock and captives. It was this way on every raid—a melee.

Ibrahim rode on with his own band of twenty-odd men. They over-ran the rebel machine gun, killing two abid soldiers. Then he saw it—a round Nuban house with a green cross over its door and the letters G-O-D B-L-E-S-S T-H-I-S H-O-U-S-E on an outer wall. Barakat vaulted a stick fence surrounding the garden. A man’s body lay among the plants. Cries came from inside. Ibrahim dismounted and ducked under the low doorway, his rifle leveled. It was almost too dark to see. “Outside! Outside!” he said, grabbing people by their clothes and shoving them through the door. Two women, five kids, an old man. “Yamila! Where is she!” The idiots did not understand Arabic, or were pretending not to. He offered a language lesson by shooting the old man in the chest. The women shrieked. He cracked one in the face with the back of his hand. “Where is Yamila!” She shrieked again. It was no use. Ignorant savages. He ordered a Brother to tie them up. Farther on he saw the same letters and cross on another dwelling, and on yet another, and both were empty. That damned Kasli—G-O-D B-L-E-S-S T-H-I-S H-O-U-S-E was written on half the places in this town.

The snap of incoming bullets gave him something else to think about. They were taking fire from their left, heavy fire. To the inexperienced ear, the sound of the bullets would be indistinguishable from the crackle of the flaming grass roofs. A wounded horse screamed. Ibrahim rallied his band and joined up with another. “This way, Brothers! Follow my ass!” They rode forward, then wheeled to charge through an orchard, toward what Ibrahim believed to be the enemy’s flank. Before them, on open ground, stood the infidel church and several other buildings, two on fire. Rebel soldiers had taken cover behind one of the buildings that was not burning. The murahaleen galloped down on them, AKs blazing. Surprised to be attacked from the side, the abid broke and ran, some pausing to shoot at their pursuers. A horse and rider went down, another, and then the Brothers were in the middle of the retreating enemy, shooting at point-blank range. Some, their magazines empty, slashed with pangas and swords. They swept through as a wind through the grass and came to the far end of the town, where Ibrahim halted. Ahead was a tent-camp, burning and empty of people. Kasli had mentioned this—a settlement for refugees. Beyond it rose one of the ridges encircling the rebel garrison. Ibrahim saw the gap, the gate to the valley, but it was so narrow he could pass through it only single file, which would be suicide. Nor could he take horses up the ridge.

He commanded the Brothers to turn back. As they did, in a confused, jostling mass, the air came alive with bullets, swarming like angry bees. A mortar bomb burst among the horsemen. Wounded mounts made a horrible sound, and one ran off, trailing its guts and dragging its rider. Ibrahim whipped Barakat with his quirt. “Ride, Brothers! Ride out of here! Back into the town!” Suddenly he flew over Barakat’s head and landed on his belly. The wind was knocked out of him. He thought his chest was crushed, but it wasn’t. He rose to his hands and knees and saw the fallen stallion, blood pumping from the holes in its shoulder, its fierce golden eye still. A great horse, but there was no time to mourn him now. As he stood, Hamdan came alongside. Ibrahim grabbed the back of the saddle and, with a strength born of fear, vaulted onto the horse’s back. Riding double, he and Hamdan pressed forward and escaped the withering fire. Returning to the Christian church, they came upon a great many murahaleen guarding the captives, possibly two hundred altogether. Ibrahim leaped off the horse and looked for the radio operator but could not find him. Kasli was there, however, standing over the bodies of two men whose light skin marked them as foreigners.

“Who are these?” He had to shout to be heard—the battle for the ridges was reaching a crescendo.

“Spies!” Kasli yelled back. “Americans! I shot them! There are two more foreigners over there!” He pointed at the crowd of captives, among whom the foreigners were easy to pick out. “A doctor and a nurse. I spared them because I thought they could be of use.”

“Have you seen the radio operator?”

“No.”

What was going on? What was he supposed to do? Hold the town? Withdraw? A Brother brought him a riderless horse. Ibrahim mounted, deciding that the wisest course would be to regroup as many murahaleen as possible and wait to see what happened. As he pulled bands of men from here and there, the noise of the battle subsided and soon ceased altogether. The quiet, after so great a racket, was unsettling. He’d no idea what it meant—victory or defeat or merely a lull. His lungs burned from breathing smoke; he judged that he’d lost more men in this fight than in any other. Dead Brothers were sprawled on the ground beside dead horses and dead Nubans, while wounded men pleaded for water. He could use some water himself; his throat felt scorched.

He mustered about half his force and was rounding up more at the western end of the town, where the attack had begun, when he saw the side of a ridge to his right dotted with figures: tens and tens of figures, running downhill in his direction, firing as they ran. Rebel soldiers, counterattacking. In moments more gunfire erupted at the opposite end of the town, mixed in with the detonations of rocket-propelled grenades. Once again bullets pierced the air, and men and mounts were falling everywhere he looked. He was enlightened. He understood. The rebel commander had not fallen for the ruse; he had held his men in position and stopped Colonel Ahmar’s assault, and now Ibrahim and the Brothers were trapped. The colonel had abandoned them to draw fire and thus cover the militia’s retreat.

Wheeling, he rode back to the church. In the desperation of the moment, an idea had come to him, a gamble that could get him out of this fix or get him killed. It would be win all or lose all. At this point, he wasn’t sure if he gave a damn which way it went.

 

“RUN, MISSY, RUN!” Negev cried, holding her hand, dragging her behind him.

Well ahead, files of people were moving over the grass-covered knolls and knobs. She clutched for breath, her mouth was dry, her dress soaked with sweat. Negev urged her to run still faster. She stopped to take off her sandals, thinking it would be easier to run barefoot. She was wrong—rocks cut her feet. Negev flung himself to the ground, taking her with him, as mortar shells burst a hundred yards away. Now they heard the hammering of machine guns and automatic rifles.

“Negev!” she said, raising her voice over the din. “It’s all open ground ahead. I know a better place.” She pointed to the pinnacles, off to their right. “They’ll never get horses up there.”

They made for the high rocks. Never had she run so far so fast. But what was this doing to her baby? An embryo, probably no bigger than her thumb; yet she was aware of it in a physical way and slowed to a quick walk, afraid that more violent exertion would cause her to miscarry.

Negev nearly jerked her arm out of its socket. “No walking! Running!”

And so she ran again. They had picked up a following—a score of women, most with children and infants. The uphill path went from dirt to solid stone, on which Quinette’s feet left bloody prints. Far above the valley the path leveled off and led them to the small granite plateau. All of them fell to their knees around the cistern, dipping their heads to drink like wild beasts at a water hole.

“In there,” Quinette gasped, gesturing at the grotto. They all crowded inside. That this had so recently been the scene of pleasure and joy seemed impossible. Quinette’s head throbbed, her slashed feet burned. She crawled out to the cistern and plunged them in. Healing waters. As she crawled back, she saw that Yamila was in the group. Clad in a barega, she was examining a scrape on her arm. She shot Quinette a quick glance, its meaning opaque, if it had a meaning.

Explosions and gunfire echoed from the town, hundreds of feet below, hidden from view by the tall pinnacles. The air smelled as it did at the end of the dry season, when grass fires were lit.

“A very big battle, missy,” Negev said, guarding the grotto’s entrance. “If murahaleen try to come up here on foot”—he slapped his Kalashnikov—“one by one I kill them.”

He stood and moved off.

“Where are you going?”

“To look to see what is happening,” he said.

Curiosity, or perhaps the inability to wait in ignorance, compelled her to follow.

Lying side by side in a cleft between two of the finger rocks, they peered almost straight down to see, through torn sheets of smoke, Arabs on horseback, shooting, grabbing people, dragging them by ropes. It was like a scene from the fourteenth century, though the slavers of that time would not have been armed with assault rifles. Murahaleen. The raiders she had heard of so often and now saw, like mounted ghosts in their white robes and turbans. Pale riders. The church was directly below, still intact, but the tailor shop had been blown up, and the school’s roof had collapsed in flames, leaving a jumble of charred beams speckled with embers. She felt such a helpless fury.

“Oh, with one of the big machine guns, I could kill all of them from here,” Negev said.

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

“Come, missy, down. Maybe someone will see us.”

Seated again in the granite sanctuary, she gazed at the forlorn women, cradling their children, whispering to them. Her thoughts flew to the refugees in the tent-camp, in flight again, or killed, or taken prisoner. She was physically and emotionally spent; a deadness was in her heart.

 

IBRAHIM DISPERSED HIS men to form a perimeter around the church and its outbuildings, ordering the Brothers to fight on foot. They crouched behind dead horses and live ones, pulled down to lie on their sides. All the while bullets popped overhead, but nowhere near as thick as before. The rebel soldiers seemed to realize that the captives and the murahaleen were now bunched together, and they feared killing their own people. He ordered Hamdan to bring the captives into the church and to post men inside and out. His friend grinned through his beard, grasping what Ibrahim was up to. His first duty had always been to preserve his Brothers’ lives, for to preserve them was to preserve the future of the Salamat, of all who belonged to Dar Humr. He didn’t know the number lost today, but he would save the rest—and get what he wanted in the bargain. Inshallah.

As Brothers prodded the captives with rifles, shouting “Move, move, inside,” Ibrahim flew about the perimeter, shouting to his men to cease firing. Under the circumstances, it struck them as a strange command. Some obeyed, others did not, but gradually they stopped shooting. And when they did, the enemy did.

“Ya! Kasli, I may need you,” he said, finding the Nuban near a fire-blackened building, huddled behind a pile of tables and sewing machines. Ibrahim took off his guftan, tied it to his rifle barrel, and raising it high, waved it back and forth.

“You fool!” Kasli hissed. “What are you doing? They won’t take us prisoner, they will kill us all.”

“They are going to kill us all regardless. Be quiet. I am getting us out of this.”

A voice called out, “You Arabs, do you surrender?”

“Ah, I will not need you after all, Kasli. That one speaks Arabic.” He peered over the mound of sewing machines and spotted a man crouched beside a house, red on his shoulder—an officer.

“Ya! You,” he yelled. “I am Ibrahim Idris, commanding these murahaleen. No surrender. A truce.”

“You shall have it. The truce of the grave.”

“Esmah! We have a great many of your people captive in your church. There are two foreigners with them, a doctor and a nurse. If there is no truce, we will burn it down with all who are in it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“No? Will you believe me if I show the foreigners to you? Or do you prefer to see for yourself? Come alone. I promise your safety. We know our situation.”

Several minutes passed, then Ibrahim heard the officer speaking in Nuban.

“What is he saying, Kasli?”

“He is speaking to the commander on the radio, telling him what you have said . . . Now he is asking what he should do.”

In a short while, the officer came forward, cautiously.

“Kasli, escort him into the church. Show him.”

When this was done, the officer approached Ibrahim. “What is it you want?”

“As I said, a truce. And to present my terms to your commander and to no one else.”

The man left, had another conversation on the radio, and then called, “Ya! You will come alone and unarmed.”

“I have a guarantee of safety?”

“Yes.”

“If I am harmed, not one hostage will see the end of this day.”

“Stop talking and come to me, without your rifle.”

Ibrahim took the guftan off the rifle, tied it around his head, brushed the dirt from his jelibiya, and straightened his cartridge belt. He would present himself as a man of the Humr, omda of the Salamat, commander of proud murahaleen.

“Ya, Kasli,” he said. “Tell Hamdan that if I have not returned by sundown, kill them all without hesitation. Allah yisalimak.”

Ibrahim stepped forward, the longest and riskiest step of his life. Win all or lose all. Whatever Allah wills, he thought, so it shall be done.

 

“WHAT TIME IS IT?”

Negev turned his wrist toward her. One o’clock. Services had let out at ten-thirty. Already that seemed like days ago.

The battle subsided. Random gunshots, an isolated explosion, and then total silence. Negev climbed again to the lookout, returned, and stated that he had seen a number of murahaleen surrounding the church, but a greater number of SPLA surrounding the murahaleen.

“I think we win,” he said.

Quinette stood. A breeze blew through her sweat-matted dress, chilling her. “I’m going to find my husband.”

“No!” Negev said. “I don’t know who is win, only think it is us.”

“If we’ve won, then the danger’s over; if we’ve lost, Michael is either dead or taken prisoner, and then I don’t give a damn what happens to me. I am going to find him.”

She started off, hobbling on the sides of her feet. Negev came behind her, muttering what she assumed were curses. He had more reason to curse later on. The climb down had so injured her feet that she couldn’t walk any farther. He carried her piggyback toward the headquarters. His fidelity to her and to his duty touched her—it was an affirmation of humanity amid so much inhumanity. They passed a tukul that had been struck by shellfire. Two torn bodies lay outside, covered with flies. Negev came across a pair of discarded sandals and set her down, sighing with relief. She didn’t think twice about wearing a dead person’s sandals. They were too big, but she managed to keep them on by squeezing the thong between her toes.

“Looks like we won,” she said, pointing at the SPLA flag, with its green, red, and white stripes and yellow star, flying above the headquarters building.

“Yes, missy. This time.”

Dozens of soldiers were gathered outside in an atmosphere of tense expectancy. With Negev, Quinette went inside, where Michael, his back to the door, was conferring with his officers. The sight of him, alive and injured, sent an electric current through her. An officer called his attention to her. He turned and looked, wearing his battle face, blank and affectless.

“What are you doing here?”

“I had to see you.”

He scolded Negev, then rebuked her. She should not have taken such a risk, not knowing the situation. She should realize she wasn’t one any longer, she was two. She took her spanking, apologized, and dropped into a chair. When Michael saw the condition of her feet, he summoned a medic, who swabbed the cuts with rubbing alcohol. The sting made her grimace, which softened her husband’s expression.

“I hope we never see another day like this,” he said, inclining his head. “But if we do, you will go where you are told and stay there until you are told that it is safe. For now, I think you’re as safe here as anywhere.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, as the medic taped gauze to one foot. “Is it over?”

“I don’t know. We have several hundred Arabs trapped in town, but they are holding a great many hostages inside the church. Manfred and Ulrika, too.”

“No!”

“I am afraid so.”

“Fancher? Handy? What about them?”

“Dead,” he replied, almost with indifference. “Executed. By Kasli, I’m told.”

“Kasli?”

“He’s with them. An officer reported it to me.”

These two pieces of news struck her viscerally. Whatever had been holding her in one piece these past three or four hours gave way, and she wept.

“Stop crying!” Michael said almost savagely. “A lot of people died today. More may die. The murahaleen commander has asked for a truce. He is being brought here. We will see what he has to say. You might as well stay.”

The Arab came in later under heavy guard, with an SPLA soldier holding each arm: a man of six feet, his black beard brushed with gray, his brown eyes piercing. A dirty turban girdled his head; his jelibiya, tucked at the waist into a leather cartridge belt with leather pouches, hung down to a pair of mud-spattered boots. He showed no fear, not even anxiety. Quinette hated him on sight yet couldn’t deny that he had an aura about him, the magnetism of a corsair, the appeal of evil.

“Salaam aleikum,” Ibrahim said in a firm voice to mask the tremors in his breast.

“Aleikum as-salaam,” the rebel commander replied in excellent Arabic. Ibrahim was struck by his height, more than two meters, and the span of his shoulders. “I am in command here. Lieutenant Colonel Goraende.”

“Ibrahim Idris ibn Nur-el-Din,” Ibrahim replied formally. “Omda of the Salamat. You may address me as omda, colonel.” Show no weakness, he thought. Show him the brass of a cartridge.

“I will address you as I see fit. What is it you have to say?”

“I will speak to you soldier to soldier.”

“Soldier? You are a terrorist.”

Ibrahim ignored the insult. He would not let this black abid provoke or intimidate him. He was momentarily distracted by the woman sitting in a chair. The first American he had seen, male or female. Brown hair worn in Nuban plaits, and not what he would call good-looking. No, not good-looking, but an American he could have held for, oh, ten million pounds. Too bad. God had not willed it.

“This is my wife,” the commander said. “Do you wish to speak to her, too?”

Quinette felt the Arab’s gaze more than she saw it—a look that was a violation, a rape with the eyes.

“We have heard about her,” Ibrahim said.

“From Muhammad Kasli. We know he is with you. You are going to tell me what you propose, or do you wish only to have conversation?”

Ibrahim marshaled his thoughts—and his nerve. “First that this truce be extended to allow us to gather our dead and you yours. Next, that a peace be concluded between us, in writing if you wish. I will pledge that no Salamat, no man of all the Humr, will make war in the Nuba from now on. Next, that we be allowed to leave with our arms.”

The commander paused to take all this in. He said, “And that is all?”

“No. There is a condition. It is this—that a woman who lives here is returned to me. She is my serraya, my lawful property, and a fugitive. Do not tell me she isn’t here. I know she is. Kasli and others have informed me. Her name is Yamila.”

The abid commander said nothing. He looked baffled.

“If this condition is not met, then none of my terms apply,” Ibrahim said further. “We will kill the hostages, every one of them, and then fight you to the last man and last bullet. We are prepared for martyrdom.”

“You would do all that if a woman you took by force is not returned to you? You would kill so many people, you would sacrifice the lives of your men for that?”

Show him the brass cartridge, Ibrahim thought, and said, “Yes.”

“That is impossible.”

Ibrahim saw that he was more experienced in the art and theatrics of bargaining than this slave boy who called himself a commander. “Very well. Then please escort me back to my men. Or shoot me dead on the spot if you wish. Or hold me prisoner. In any case, my men are instructed to set fire to the church if I am not back by sundown.”

“I have no idea if this Yamila is alive or dead. She might have been killed by you butchers. What then?”

Ibrahim detected weakness. The abid is open to the idea. “If alive, return her to me. If dead, show me her body.”

“I could pay you her worth.”

“I don’t want money. I want her.”

“What’s he saying?” Quinette asked as Michael, after the last series of exchanges, stood with his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels.

“Be quiet,” he told her. “This is between me and him.”

“I only wanted to know what he wants.”

“Yamila. He was the one she escaped from, and he wants her returned. Otherwise he burns the church down with everyone in it, and then he fights to the end. Now be quiet. I have no idea if she is alive or where she is.”

She could be still or she could speak. Quinette was aware that this was possibly the gravest choice she had ever faced. The words left her mouth, seemingly of their own will. “I do.”

Michael looked at her, startled, said something to the Arab, then took her under the arm and led her outside.

“What did you say?” he asked when they were some distance from the building.

There was no retracting her statement now. “I know where she is.”

“Where?”

She told him, and it was plain he wished she hadn’t.

She asked, “What happens if you do what he wants?”

“The truce goes into effect, he collects his casualties, we collect ours. Then, he says, he will sign an agreement, pledging that his tribe will no longer take part in attacks on the Nuba. The hostages are released. And then he and his men leave. There is a deadline—sundown. I keep thinking, there must be some other way.”

“God would show it to you if there was,” she said.

“I am so sick of this,” he said. “I am sick of doing what is necessary.”

“We are all sick of it, darling. I think that Arab is sick of it. Why would he propose a peace treaty if he wasn’t? Let’s end it now.”

He looked as if he were trying to see inside her. “We will go back now, and be still. I won’t tolerate your giving opinions in front of my officers and that Arab.”

“We will continue now?” asked Ibrahim when the commander returned.

“We will. My wife knows where to find Yamila.”

So that is what they had been talking about, Ibrahim thought. She was alive, she was here! Al-hamduillah!

The commander asked, “Do you have any further proposals?”

“Yes,” he replied amiably. “I am a candidate for nazir of all the Humr.” This was something of an exaggeration. “I can promise nothing, but I could use my influence to persuade the other tribes to join in the peace accord.”

The commander trembled a little. He spoke through clenched teeth. “Very well, it is agreed. But now I have a condition. You and your men will surrender your weapons before leaving. As a sign that your offer of peace is genuine.”

“As a man of the Humr, my word is sign enough, my signature on a written agreement is more than enough. We must leave with our arms. We will be in disgrace if we return without them.”

“You are already in disgrace. I figured out what your plan was and held my men in position. We slaughtered your infantry, and those we didn’t ran like hares.”

“Yes, I know. However, we murahaleen have retained our honor. We did not run. But we would lose honor if we returned without our arms. I will suffer the death of a martyr, but not that. Colonel, all I am asking for is the return of my lawful property. But in the meantime, the sun journeys through the sky, and—”

“Shut up!”

The slave boy sat on the edge of a table covered with maps and papers, which he tapped with his walking stick.

“You Arabs are fond of speeches, aren’t you?”

“Yes. It is a beautiful language. We enjoy the sound of it.”

“I will withdraw my condition and demand one other, and about it there will be no discussion,” he said, stepping up to Ibrahim, looming over him. “You are prepared for what you call martyrdom; so are we. I am prepared also to sacrifice all those people merely for the pleasure of killing you myself. Here is the condition. You will hand over Muhammad Kasli to me.”

I have done it! Ibrahim thought. What do I care about that Nuban defector? Betrays one, he will betray another. “You people can make speeches as well,” he said. “Agreed.”

“Very well, Ibrahim Idris ibn Nur-el-Din. My soldiers will escort you back. You will order the hostages released. Then you return here with Kasli. Him for her. We will attend to the other business when that is done.”

“Peace be with you,” Ibrahim said.

“And unto to you, peace.”

As the Arab was ushered out, Michael turned to Negev. “Take a couple of men with you, bring Yamila here. Tell her . . . tell her . . . anything . . . but—”

“No,” Quinette interjected, with the slightest of smiles. “Tell her Michael wishes to see her.”

Everyone assembled outside to await the exchange. Quinette watched for signs of dissent over her husband’s decision. If there were any, she did not notice them. Yamila, after all, was a stranger here, a stray.

The Arab was the first to arrive, with his SPLA escort and Major Kasli, blindfolded, wobbling and bleeding from the forehead, hands tied. A soldier shoved him face-down onto the ground and stood over him, rifle barrel pressed to the base of his skull. In a little while, he would be in that same position and someone would pull the trigger.

Some twenty minutes later Negev and two of Michael’s bodyguards came in with Yamila. The fierce, half-naked woman was walking with her customary stride but stopped short when she saw the Arab—the face she must have thought she would never see again. A civilized woman in her position would have sensed that something was terribly wrong but would not have listened to her instincts; she would have paused to assess, to reason things out. Yamila knew instantly the danger she was in, saw that she’d been tricked; but with her there was no barrier of thought between the perception and the emotion, between the emotion and the reaction. She bolted, quick as a sprinter off the starting block. A guard pursued and caught her, holding her in a bear hug until she bit his hand. He let her go, she fled, he chased her again and tackled her. Another guard grabbed her ankles while the first seized her arms, she writhing, shrieking, spitting. It took a third soldier to fully subdue her. Michael looked very distressed. He spoke to the Arab, who then turned and walked away, followed by the three men, carrying Yamila like hunters a bagged trophy. Quinette listened to her cries and howls slowly diminish, knowing they would echo in her memory for some time to come. But those too would diminish, till she heard them no more. She had made friends with the stranger who was herself, with the woman she’d become. She had come full circle. Yamila’s fate was shameful, yes, but the multitudes of women she had redeemed from slavery had to be balanced against this one she’d sent back into slavery by speaking two words, the same two, curiously, she’d uttered in her wedding vows.

Michael turned from the figures walking in the distance, bent over as if he were sick, and took Quinette’s hand. She threaded her fingers into his and squeezed to assure him that it was all right. God would forgive him, and God would forgive the woman she now was as He had so often forgiven the one she’d been. Jesus was still her friend. Jesus loved her.