When The Stars Fall To Earth. Rebecca BSL Tinsley
from elsewhere often came to consult him. That made it doubly important to Zara that this revered man thought her worthy of his time, insisting she go to school and fulfill his dream that she become a doctor.
Each day when she came home from classes, her grandfather would fetch one of the battered old schoolbooks from his hut—“the books my American friend Martin gave me,” he called them—reading to her in slow, simple English, making sure she understood. They sat in the shade of his preferred tree in the family’s compound, studying together for an hour or more, discussing what they were reading. Using a stick, he would write the new words they encountered in the dirt. She lost track of time, and her heart sank when her mother called, reminding her to go for firewood, thus breaking the spell.
Sheikh Muhammad had explained to Zara that in order to study medicine she must know English. Like everyone else in their region, they spoke the Fur language at home, while elementary school lessons were in Arabic, the language of their rulers in Khartoum.
“I like learning English,” she had assured him. “It’s easier than Arabic.”
“All well and good, but don’t forget that you only really appreciate the Koran when you read it in Arabic.”
Zara had nodded obediently, not fully understanding what he meant, but never doubting the wisdom of his advice.
Every week or so, as a reward at the end of their lessons, her grandfather would fetch his postcard collection and leaf through them, watching her eyes grow wide in amazement. The pictures were mostly of famous buildings in America, sent by a man the entire family knew as “Martin in New Jersey.”
To Zara the most astonishing card of the bunch was the Chrysler Building in New York City. She had never seen a house or a building more than two storys tall, and to gaze at the Chrysler Building was to experience a miracle. She loved the smooth lines and strange decorative metal birds and the millions of windows glinting in the sun like a mosaic. Her pulse quickened as she imagined a city filled with such structures, like perfect angular stalks of corn, crowded together and stretching up to the sky.
Most people in Zara’s world lived in mud huts with conical straw roofs. The only other buildings were in the towns, and they were ugly, squat cement cubes, dilapidated, unpainted and crumbling. By contrast, New York looked like a perfect, shiny paradise created by the all-powerful masters of the universe. I want to go there one day, she thought.
* * *
Zara opened her eyes once more, glancing up at the cloudless sky, the memory of her grandfather still vivid. She could hear no helicopters or military vehicles. Still, she thought, I’ll wait until the sun moves toward the west.
She scuttled forward, retrieving her pink flip-flop. Then she settled the back of her head against the rock face, and closed her eyes, willing her grandfather’s comforting voice to return.
CHAPTER TWO
Thirty-five years earlier, El Geneina, West Darfur, Sudan, 1969
Muhammad was waiting when the bus pulled into El Geneina, creaking and wheezing as it came to a shuddering halt. All morning the schoolboy had been practicing his words of welcome in English. Now, watching the passengers climbing down the steps, he felt elated when he spotted the one white face among them. Mr. Bennett, the teacher from America, emerged blinking into the sunlight, and Muhammad sensed he was about to begin the most important chapter in his young life.
Martin Bennett was relieved to escape the ancient, reeking bus. The twenty-one-year-old heaved his backpack into place, and surveyed his new home: El Geneina, the western-most city in Sudan, in the remote region of Darfur, right up against the border with neighboring Chad.
The streets were unpaved and rutted by the wheels of donkey-drawn carts. Men in long cream-colored robes and turbans sat on their haunches in the shade, many staring at Martin in open astonishment, gaping at the sight of the tall young man with unfamiliar white skin and shoulder-length hair who had just stepped off the bus.
It’s the Wild West, he thought. I’ve stepped back in time, but instead of cowboys and saloons there are black Africans and donkeys and mosques.
He wearily stumbled to the shade of a stunted tree, his head pounding from lack of sleep and dehydration. He had been traveling across Sudan for the previous five days. Why did I think this was a good idea? he wondered and then he recalled the rush of inspiration he had felt six years earlier, watching President Kennedy’s inauguration, hearing the call to serve. Like thousands of other young Americans, Martin had left the certainty and safety of home to teach overseas.
“Good afternoon, Sir,” said a voice in heavily-accented English.
Martin turned abruptly, finding a tall, slender young black man standing to one side, like a statue, perfectly still. It was hard to work out his age. His very dark skin was smooth and unlined, like a child’s, yet, his manner seemed too formal and mature for an adolescent. The young man’s long robe fluttered around his delicate ankles. Martin noticed he wore flimsy, scuffed, plastic sandals.
“My name is Muhammad, and I welcome you to Darfur,” he continued in English. The young man had sparkling, hazel eyes, a broad smile, and a set of beautiful white teeth in a crowded jaw. He looked relieved at having delivered his English greeting successfully.
Martin smiled, mopping the perspiration from his brow with a handkerchief now grey and stained from the journey, during which it never got cooler than 96 degrees.
“Do you speak Arabic?” the young man continued, abandoning English.
“Not very well,” Martin admitted. The version of the language of the Prophet that Martin had learned was a pure, elegant Arabic, taught by a Syrian academic back in the States. So far the local variation sounded like someone clearing his nasal passages.
“I bring respectful greetings to you from my school,” Muhammad continued in English. “I’m here to take you to your room.”
Pleased to have delivered his speech and been understood, the young man bobbed down and picked up the backpack as if it weighed no more than a pound or two. Slender but strong, he smiled again and asked Martin to walk with him. The American struggled to keep up with Muhammad on the rutted, stony path, in spite of his sturdy American desert boots. As Martin looked around, he saw no vehicles, no stores, no garages, no hotels or restaurants. There weren’t even any sidewalks or streetlights—just high walls and battered metal gates, shutting the world out of private compounds.
“We’re very happy to have you at our school,” Muhammad told him with another dazzling smile.
“Are you a teacher?” Martin asked.
Muhammad grinned, “I’m a student, and I got the top mark in English classes, which is why I have the honor of meeting you from the bus.”
“Thank you. How old are you?”
“Thirteen years old, Sir,” he replied in English, flashing another toothy smile.
Martin tried to hide his astonishment. He had been warned that childhood was relatively short in Africa because the harshness of life meant that young people matured quickly, but he was still taken aback by the young man’s poise.
“Where do you live?”
“I live with my uncle and his family, here in El Geneina,” Muhammad explained, reverting to Arabic. “My parents are in a village twenty-five miles away. They sent me to stay with my uncle in his compound while I get an education. We live with our extended families, many cousins and relatives, all together inside walled compounds like these,” he explained, nodding toward the high plaster walls along the street. He hesitated as they negotiated their way around a donkey and cart pulling sacks of dried beans. “I think it is different in America but here we have many half brothers and sisters because if your father has money he also has several wives. So, I’m very fortunate that my father has allowed me to go to school.”
Martin nodded, not sure he had understood all the information that Muhammad had offered