The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari Read Free Book Online Page B

arm in a great handshake.
    “Daoud,” he said. “Fatah. So it’s all true—you have come back.”
    “Fatah,” I replied, trying not to smile also.
    He took me into the sun, away from the low voices of the women. He knew of all my adventures, every detail of every job and every jail, every narrow escape. It was crazy of me to think I would have anything to tell him. The goats and the family donkey came up to nuzzle him as he spoke.
    Ahmed looked older but excellent. He now took care of several entire families whose men had died.
    “Let me take you to Father,” he said after our brief visit. I gave my greetings again to my mother and my sister and the other women, and he led me out into the village, his long arm draped over my shoulders.
    In this I felt at home. I had been feeling like a visitor in Darfur, even in my old village—like someone from another world. But Ahmed’s arm on my shoulder was the gentleness of home.
    “It’s very, very good to see you, Daoud,” he said several times. I told him that the sheikh had sent his regards and had warned of an attack soon.
    “Yes, an attack I think will come in a few days,” Ahmed said. “Not tomorrow, but maybe soon after that. We are almost ready to move the people out. You can help get some people ready, if you want to do that,” he said.
    “Of course,” I answered.
    We approached a group of old men talking under an old tree.
    “Fatah,” I said to the eldest of them, my father. He was in his eighties, which is unusually old for this land. He stood with the help of his herding stick, opened his arms, and gave me a long embrace.
    “Fatah,” father whispered into my hair. “So, you have come back from all your adventures,” he said. “We have learned much of the world and its prisons from following the news about you,” he chided me in good humor.
    “Praise heaven you are home safely, but I think you have come just in time for some more trouble for you,” he added. “May God keep you safe.”
    The other men stood to shake my hand and embrace me. We visited an hour before I went to look for Ahmed, who had escaped the old men to continue his preparations. I found him in front of his family enclosure, talking to more than twenty men, mostly thirty-five to forty-five years old. They were planning to move the old people and young children in the next two days. Because they also talked about preparing their guns, I later asked Ahmed what this group was going to do.
    “We are the village defenders,” he said. “We will stay behind to slow the attack if it comes before everyone has left. It is what we are trained to do, and you are not.”
    He told me that most of the younger men had already gone to the rebel groups. There were other defenders in the mountains from other villages who would come when they were called.
    In the old days, the sultan of an area had a great war drum. Actually, some of these drums still exist. They are so big that ten men can beat them with great clubs. The sound of this drum—I heard it more than once as a child—will carry over the desert the distance of a two- or three-day walk. In the rain time, when there are low clouds, it will carry even farther. In this way, all the villages in the sultan’sreach would know that there is a sad problem that must be solved with fighting. The sultan would send representatives to the omdas, and the village sheiks would go to the omdas to get the news and learn the strategy. Perhaps, for example, Arabs had stolen some cattle and would not pay. There was no higher court to take the problem to, so there would be a battle at some agreed-upon field of honor. As I have said, it would be far away from the women and children.
    We boys would have to go find the strongest of the male camels so that our fathers and older brothers would have good mounts for the battle. Guns and swords would swing from their saddles as they left the village without a word of information or consolation to the children or