The righteous men

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Monday, 5.13pm, Darfur, Sudan

The night of the thirty-fifth killing was almost silent. In this heat, and with so little food, people were too listless to make much noise. The call to prayer was the only loud sound to be heard all day; the rest was moans and whispers.

Mohammed Omar saw the heat-wave shimmering on the horizon and reckoned sunset would be only a few minutes away. That was the way it was in Darfur: the sun would sneak up without warning in the morning and disappear just as quickly at night. Maybe it was like that everywhere in Sudan, everywhere in Africa. Mohammed did not know: he had never travelled beyond this rocky desert.

It was time for his evening tour of the camp. He would check in first on Hawa, the thirteen-year-old girl who had, too young, become a kind of mother to her six sisters. They had fled to the camp two weeks ago, after the Janjaweed militiamen had torched their village. The little girls were too scared to talk, but Hawa told Mohammed what had happened. In the middle of the night, terrifying men had arrived on horseback, waving flaming torches. They had set everything alight. Hawa had scooped up her sisters and started running. Only once they got away did she realize that her parents had been left behind. They had both been killed.

Now, in the corner of a hut made of straw and sticks, she held her three-year-old sister in her arms. By the doorway, on the ground, stood a battered pot. Inside, a meagre ration of porridge.

Mohammed walked on, steeling himself for the next stop on the tour: the 'clinic', in reality another frail hut. Kosar, the nurse, was there and her face told him what he did not want to hear. 'How many?' he asked.

Three. And maybe one more tonight.' They had been losing three children a day for weeks now. With no medicine and no food, he did not know how he could stop the dying.

He looked around. An empty corner of desert, sheltered by a few scrubby trees. He had not meant to start a refugee camp here. What did he know of such things? He was a tailor.

He was not a doctor or an official, but he could see what was going on. There were columns of desperate people, often children, walking through the desert, searching for food and shelter. They spoke of village after village destroyed by the Janjaweed, the men who burnt and killed and raped while government aeroplanes circled overhead. Somebody had to do something — and, without ever really thinking it through, that somebody had been him.

He had started with a few tents, two of them stitched together on his old Singer machine. He collected a few axes and gave them to the men to get firewood. They struggled.

One, Abdul, was desperate to help but the burns on his hands were so bad he could not hold an axe. Mohammed saw him, his hands so scorched he could not even wipe away his own tears.

Still, they chopped enough wood to start a fire and, once it burned, it worked as a beacon. More refugees came.

Now there were thousands of people here; there was no time to count them precisely. They pooled what meagre resources they had. These people were farmers; what little could be conjured from the earth, they somehow teased out.

But there was not enough.

Mohammed knew what he needed: outside help. In the few hours of sleep he snatched each night, he would dream of a convoy of white vehicles arriving one bright morning, each one loaded with crates of grain and boxes of medicine.

Even with just five vehicles — just one — he could save so many lives.

It was then he saw the headlights, shining through the dusk.

Strong and yellow, they were coming his way, their light wobbling in the heat haze. Mohammed could not help himself.

He began jumping up and down, waving his arms in a wild semaphore. 'Here!' he was shouting. 'Here! We are here!'

The truck slowed down until Mohammed could get a better view. This was not an aid team, but just two men.

'I come in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ,' the first man began in English, rapidly translated by the second.

'Welcome, welcome,' said Mohammed, grabbing his visitors with both arms in gratitude. 'Welcome, welcome.'

'I have some food and drugs in the back. Do you have people to unload it?'

A crowd had already assembled. After the interpreter had spoken, Mohammed nominated two of the strongest teenagers, a boy and a girl, to take the boxes off the truck.

He then summoned a couple of men he could trust to stand guard: the last thing he wanted was a food riot, as hunger and desperation sparked a stampede.

'Do you think we could talk?' the visitor asked. Mohammed answered with a gesture, ushering his guest towards an empty hut. The man followed, carrying a slim, dark briefcase.

'It's taken me a long time to find you, sir. Am I right that you are in charge? This is a camp you started?'

'Yes,' Mohammed said, unsure whether to look at the translator or his boss.

'And you have done this all by yourself? No one is paying you to do this? You don't work for any organization? You did this purely out of the goodness of your own heart?'

'Yes, but this is not important,' Mohammed said through the interpreter. 'I am not important.'

At that, the visitor smiled and said, 'Good.'

'People are dying here,' Mohammed continued. 'What help can you give them? Urgently!'

The visitor smiled again. 'Oh, I can promise them the greatest help of all. And it won't be long to wait. Not long at all'

He then clicked the two side-locks of his briefcase and produced a syringe. 'First, I want to say what an honour it is for me to meet you. It is an honour to know that the righteous truly live among us.'

'Thank you, but I don't understand.'

'I'm afraid I need to give you this. It's important that a man such as yourself should feel no pain or suffering. No pain or suffering at all.'

Suddenly the interpreter was gripping Mohammed's arm, forcing him onto the ground. Mohammed tried to escape, but he was too weak and this hand too strong. Now, towering over him, was the visitor, holding the syringe up to the light.

He was speaking in English, lowering himself closer to Mohammed. As he did so, the interpreter was whispering directly into his ear.

'For the Lord loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones.

They will be protected forever, but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off.'

Mohammed was writhing, struggling to break free. And still the voice was speaking, its breath hot.

'The wicked lie in wait for the righteous, seeking their very lives; but the Lord will not leave them in their power or let them be condemned when brought to trial. The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord; he is their stronghold in time of trouble.'

Finally he felt the needle break the skin of his arm and, as the sky darkened, he heard the words of a prayer, until the voice grew distant and all was silent.