Chapter 16

Yakhir lost the argument with Adilah. He tried to make his points with reason and intellect, never raising his voice. She stomped her foot, crossed her arms across her breasts and held her ground with growling, yelling and sun-blasted stubbornness. Maybe it was all of the death and loss he found surrounding him, but he acquiesced quickly and gathered a few volunteers. Thus at dawn Yakhir found himself inside the Shaheen compound wrapping the rank bodies or their parts in sheets from the beds and closets, and loading the bodies onto carts. When the house was cleared, he grabbed one of the donkeys lashed to the carts, guiding her to the cemetery where a mass grave had been excavated. They quietly placed each body into the hole, making sure to place the bodies rather than drop them under the careful eye of Adilah, who met them there.

They filled in the grave and took a moment in silence. Then everyone departed to repeat the same task for their loved ones and friends, this time with words and rites of farewell. All day they buried the dead to the sound of funereal wails throughout the town. New widows wrapped their heads in black veils while parents cried over dead children, younger and older. Men cried for their wives, mothers, and sisters. At the end of the day, Yakhir stood at the grave as Uncle Porat lowered his wife into the ground. There were more relatives to bury and they were forced to hurry in the dwindling light.

For a few poor hours, they could mourn, but that was all. Chaos threatened to envelope the town with revenge killings. The Council needed to show itself and restore order, without guns, knives and warriors. Tragedy touched many homes and every clan, and the need for recognition and mourning in these many homes took precedence over the homes of the Council and other officials.

As last dim glow of light was extinguished in the western sky, the Al-Taquir clan gathered at Porat's compound except those few who took first watch to patrol the neighborhood streets. The surviving aunts made hummous and eggplant salad, serving great bowls with vegetables and pita. In quiet conversation they ate, many keeping their own counsel rather than sharing their thoughts. The missing voices were sharp and painful in their memories.

As darkness chased away the heat and the nightly breeze brought cool and moisture from the west, Adilah drew Yakhir by the hand and led him to a back corner of the wall, far beyond the pool of light. Yakhir wanted to share everything in his heart but nothing would come out. They had been deliverers of their people with the great weapons of the past yet they felt no pride, only relief. They had killed many and the burden of their deeds, just or not, rested heavy upon their heads.

Yakhir had expected a final revenge upon his tormentors to feel sweet and filling; he felt nothing. Too many had died among the innocent and the guilty for him to take comfort in the demise of the clan of Shaheen. Yet he believed that he was supposed to celebrate the death of his enemies when what he felt most was a desire for the memory of their existence to simply vanish from the world.

Without fanfare Adilah announced, "I want to make children now. Marry me tonight and we will start."

Yakhir was taken aback by her request, wondering how she could be thinking of sex as they mourned the death of loved ones on all sides of their families. He could comprehend that rules of a standing house before marriage no longer applied, but still...

"I don't understand," he finally answered.

"For one so smart," she stated as she stroked his cheek, "you often don't understand the intelligence of the heart. Let me explain, lest you think I am cruel towards the memory of the dead. In the midst of this death, I want to reaffirm life. I want the cry of a baby to declare the day in this time of blood and violence. I want new life in our black world of near destruction. We need a baby; our tribe needs a baby. Do you understand?"

"I do and I don't," he admitted honestly. Yesterday's events rushed to the forefront of his memory, unbidden and unwanted. Nonetheless, he couldn't thrust the image of her charging her grandfather's house with the vicious determination of a maddened wild animal.

Yakhir finally answered, "I will marry you tonight, but only if you answer my question to my satisfaction. As scared as I was for our lives yesterday, what remains with me today was your utter ruthlessness with that energy rifle. Why? What were you thinking?"

Adilah leaned into him and placed her ear over his heart. "First, I wanted to save as many of our family as possible and that required more speed than Azzi was willing to use. I understood Shaheen madness; he didn't. He is a good man, a good captain even, but there was so little time to act."

She held back a sob, "I knew my birth clan was going to die, Yakhir. I knew it when I picked up that rifle, even before we knew what that weapon could do. I vowed that the least I could do for Shaheen is kill them cleanly and quickly so that none of them suffered. I didn't want them to suffer, even grandfather. Even grandfather," she repeated.

She was crying on his tunic. "I killed them, but they were going to die anyway. Their blood is on my hands," she wailed.

"And your blood would have been on their hands if they had had their way, but none of them would have mourned for you," Yakhir tried to sooth her. "At least the clan of Shaheen has someone to cry for them, which makes you more human than they ever would have been."

He let her cry for a long time. When her tears stopped and she straightened her back to wipe her tears he responded, "Yes, I will marry you tonight."

"Since we are asking the hard questions, Yakhir, you must answer mine before I bind myself to you," Adilah spoke as she blew her nose into a rag. Yakhir waited for her to ask what he couldn't possibly imagine.

"Were you and Janina lovers?"

Yakhir felt as if his heart stopped beating for a moment. Finally he managed to squeak out, "That was the rumor Shaheen spread in the market the day before."

"I know it was a rumor; I heard it too. It's just that... one of my first memories when I moved into your mother's house was that Janina arose in the middle of night and I thought I heard her pad off to your room. It may have been the painkillers that jumbled my mind but I wasn't sure," Adilah seemed lost in thought as if she was still trying to sort out those nights she lay in agony.