Who Fears Death Read Online Free Page A

there on her back, her garments open, her pummeled and bruised midsection exposed to the sun. She listened for breathing, moaning, crying and for a while, she heard nothing. She was glad.
    Then she heard Amaka shout, “Stand up!” Amaka was twenty years Najeeba’s senior. She was strong and often a voice for the women of her village. “Stand up, all of you!” Amaka said, stumbling. “Get up!” She went to each woman and kicked her. “We’re dead but we won’t die out here, those of us still breathing.”
    Najeeba listened without moving as Amaka kicked at thighs and pulled at women’s arms. She hoped she could play dead well enough to trick Amaka. She knew her husband was dead and, even if he weren’t, he’d never touch her again.
    The Nuru men, and their women, had done what they did for more than torture and shame. They wanted to create Ewu children. Such children are not children of the forbidden love between a Nuru and an Okeke, nor are they Noahs, Okekes born without color. The Ewu are children of violence.
    An Okeke woman will never kill a child kindled inside of her. She would go against even her husband to keep a child in her womb alive. However, custom dictates that a child is the child of her father. These Nuru had planted poison. An Okeke woman who gave birth to an Ewu child was bound to the Nuru through her child. The Nuru sought to destroy Okeke families at the very root. Najeeba didn’t care about this cruel plan of theirs. There was no child kindled in her. All she wanted was to die. When Amaka got to her, it took only one kick to get Najeeba coughing.
    “You don’t fool me, Najeeba. Get up,” Amaka said. The left side of Amaka’s face was blue-purple. Her left eye was swollen shut.
    “Why?” Najeeba said in her new voiceless voice.
    “Because that’s what we do .” Amaka held out a hand.
    Najeeba turned away. “Let me finish dying. I have no children. It’s best.” Najeeba felt the weight in her womb. If she stood up, all the semen that had been pumped into her would splash out. She gagged at the thought and then turned her head to the side and dry heaved. When her stomach settled, Amaka was still there. She spat on the ground next to Najeeba. It was red with blood. She tried to pull Najeeba up. The pain in Najeeba’s abdomen flared but she kept her body limp and heavy. Eventually, frustrated, Amaka dropped Najeeba’s arm, spat again, and moved on.
    The women who chose to live dragged themselves up and walked back to the village. Najeeba closed her eyes, feeling blood seep from a cut on her forehead. Soon there was silence again. Leaving this body will be easy , she thought. She’d always loved traveling.
    She lay there until her face burned in the sun. Death was coming slower than she wanted. She opened her eyes and sat up. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the bright sun. When they did, she saw bodies and pools of blood, the sand drinking it up as if the women had been sacrificed to the desert. She slowly stood, went over to her satchel, and picked it up.
    “Leave me,” Teka said minutes later as Najeeba shook her. Teka was the only one alive among the five bodies. Najeeba sat down hard beside her. She rubbed her aching scalp where her assailant had pulled her hair so brutally. She looked at Teka. Her cornrows were encrusted with sand and her face grimaced with each breath. Slowly Najeeba stood and tried to pull Teka up.
    “Leave me,” Teka repeated, looking at her angrily. And so Najeeba did.
    She trudged back to the village, only going in that direction out of habit. She begged Ani to send something along to kill her, like a lion or more Nurus. But it was not Ani’s will.
    Her village was burning. Homes smoldered, gardens were destroyed, scooters were aflame. There were bodies in the street. Many were burned, unrecognizable. During these kinds of raids, the Nuru soldiers took the strongest Okeke men, tied them up, doused them with kerosene, and set them