Who Fears Death Read Online Free

she felt something give from deep in her throat. She’d later realize that this was her voice leaving her forever. She ran in the opposite direction from her village. But the Nurus made a wide circle around them, herding them back together like wild camels. As the Okeke women cowered, their long periwinkle garments fluttered in the breeze. The Nuru men got off their scooters, the Nuru women behind them. They closed in. And that was when the raping began.
    All of the Okeke women, young, prime, and old, were raped. Repeatedly. Those men didn’t tire; it was as if they were bewitched. When they spent themselves inside one woman, they had more to give to the next and the next. They sang as they raped. The Nuru women who’d come along laughed, pointed, and sang, too. They sang in the common language of Sipo, so that the Okeke women could understand.
    The blood of the Okeke runs like water
    We take their goods and shame their forefathers.
    We beat them with a heavy hand
    Then take what they call their land.
    The power of Ani belongs to us
    And so we will slay you to dust
    Ugly filthy slaves, Ani has finally killed you!
    Najeeba had it the worst. The other Okeke women were beaten and raped and then their abusers moved on, giving them a moment to breathe. The man who took Najeeba, however, stayed with her and there was no Nuru woman to laugh and observe. He was tall and strong like a bull. An animal. His veil covered his face but not his rage.
    He grabbed Najeeba by her thick black braids and dragged her several feet from the others. She tried to get up and run but he was on her too fast. She stopped fighting when she saw his knife . . . shiny and sharp. He laughed, using it to cut her clothing open. She stared into his eyes, the only part of his face she could see. They were gold and brown and angry, the corners twitching.
    As he held her down, he brought a coin-shaped device from his pocket and set it beside her. It was the sort of device people used to keep the time, the weather, to carry a file of the Great Book. This one had a recording mechanism. Its tiny black camera eye rose up, making a clicking and whirring sound as it began to record. He started singing, stabbing his knife into the sand next to Najeeba’s head. Two large black beetles landed on the handle.
    He pulled her legs apart and kept singing as he bore into her. And between songs, he spoke Nuru words that she couldn’t understand. Heated, biting, snarling words. After a while, anger boiled up in Najeeba and she spat and snarled right back at him. He grabbed her neck and his knife and pointed its tip at her left eye until she grew still again. Then he sang louder and bore more deeply into her.
    At some point, Najeeba went cold, then numb, then quiet. She became two eyes watching it happen. She’d always been like this to an extent. As a child, she’d fallen from a tree and broken her arm. Though in pain, she’d calmly gotten up, left her panicking friends, walked home and found her mother, who took her to a friend who knew how to set broken bones. Najeeba’s peculiar behavior used to anger her father whenever she misbehaved and was beaten. No matter how hard the slap, she wouldn’t make a sound.
    “This child’s Alusi has no respect!” her father always told her mother. But when he was in his usual good mood, her father praised this part of Najeeba, often saying, “Let your Alusi travel, daughter. See what you can see!”
    Now her Alusi, that ethereal part of her with the ability to silence pain and observe, came forward. Her mind recorded events like the man’s device. Every detail. Her mind observed that when the man sang, despite the song’s words, his voice was beautiful.
    It lasted about two hours, though to Najeeba it felt like a day and a half. In her memory, she saw the sun move across the sky, set, and come up again. It was a long time, that’s what matters. The Nurus sang, laughed, raped, and, a few times, killed. Then they left. Najeeba lay