I was getting ready to go to the gym when the phone rang. I figured it was Kate, as I had spoken with Cara at length already today. “Hey,” I sang into the phone, ready to hear Kate’s familiar voice. A different, somewhat recognisable voice spoke.
“May I speak to Lisa O’Toole?”
I knew that accent; it was Tenneh calling. But why was she being so formal? “Speaking,” I said, automatically matching her tone. Was she mad at me now?
“This is Hannah Dumbuya O’Keefe…I got your number from my sister.” I was so surprised I didn’t say anything. “I hope I haven’t interrupted anything.”
Hannah was a lot more serious than her sister, who would have been chatting away to me after hello. Maybe it was because she didn’t know me, but maybe it was because Tenneh was the outgoing one in her family.
“No, no, you haven’t,” I assured her. “How can I help you…I mean, it’s good to talk to you.” I didn’t want to be distant with her, speaking like I would to a client.
“I’m calling because I’m sorry that you and your sister were so upset last night.”
Oh, boy. She sounded so troubled! “It wasn’t your fault!” How would I explain the craziness of my family to her?
“I’m hoping we can meet to talk? You and your sister, Tenneh and me?”
I closed my eyes, wincing. How could I tell Hannah that my sister didn’t want to face her and her sister? “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but Cara doesn’t want to meet you…at least not yet.”
“Oh.” I heard her take a deep breath.
“I’m so sorry!” How long was I going to have to apologise for Cara’s behaviour, like she was a kid? But then, her story was not mine to tell. The whole situation was tying me in knots! “It’s complicated,” I managed finally.
“Oh,” Hannah repeated. “Well, why don’t you meet with me and Tenneh? Today, if you have time?”
“Oh, yes, I’m free today. I was going to go to the gym, but I’d much rather meet with you.” I realised I was babbling. “Look, there’s a lot going on with us. I hope we didn’t offend you, but my sister has some issues to deal with.”
“I see. No, you did not offend me. We are just worried.”
Hannah, worried about Cara and me? “Please don’t worry.” I knew what I was feeling was called white liberal guilt in magazines, but how could I not feel vaguely ashamed? I was freaking out because my adult sister had had an abortion, and here I was talking to women who had survived child sex slavery. I was tempted to call Cara and order her to go and meet Tenneh and Hannah, but I didn’t have the right to do that. And Cara would never listen to me if I did, anyway. “Where should we meet?” I asked Hannah, trying to keep a normal conversational flow going. I hoped she wouldn’t say the Beirut Café. I didn’t want to face Andy, after having made an idiot of myself.
“How about my house?” She gave me the address. “Around three o’clock? We can have tea.”
I agreed readily. I had time to go to the gym first, and try and work out some of my nerves on the treadmill. I wanted to kill Cara, but I quickly realised I wasn’t feeling apprehensive because of her. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting with Hannah because we would have to talk about her past. Rape is not an easy subject for women to talk about, as it’s a threat that’s always present, something we have to keep on our minds, whether we like it or not. I once took a training course for work, where they told us that confronting things was the way to resolve issues. Talking with Tenneh and Hannah would definitely be a way to dispel the ghost of their past from haunting all our interactions. Yes, you went through something horrible, but it does not define you as a person. After I hung up with Hannah, I reached for my gym bag. I had a lot of tension to work off!
Hannah lived out in Lucan, in a place where all the houses look alike. Thank God for GPS, because I never would have found her place otherwise. I had called Kate before I went, and we prayed together for strength. I prayed again before I got out of the parked car. The manners my mother taught me compelled me to bring flowers when I visited someone’s house for the first time; I clutched them like I imagined a warrior would hold his sword as he entered into battle.
I rang the bell of the pleasant semi-detached house Hannah lived in; Tenneh opened the door to me. “Lisa! Come in!” She hugged me, carefully avoiding the hand that was clutching the bouquet. She took the flowers and led me into the house. “Hannah’s upstairs bathing Johnny, my nephew. She’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Nephew? I fought to keep my face neutral. Was this the baby she was pregnant with in Sierra Leone? I quickly calculated the timeline, realising that was over ten years ago, and you did not need to bathe a child close to his teen years like you would an infant. Johnny was obviously not the child she was carrying back in Sierra Leone.
Tenneh had her back to me in the kitchen, pouring a mug of tea. She had read my mind, try as best I could to keep my thoughts to myself. “Johnny is her son with her husband, Miles,” Tenneh explained, handing me the cup of tea and filling a vase with water at the sink. “Miles is working today, on a special construction project but will be back by dinner time. For Saturdays, he gets paid double!”
I was itching to ask if Hannah had other children, but I fought the impulse. I would ask her when she came down. I disgusted myself by wanting to know where the child from her teenage pregnancy was, but the curiosity burned in me. Again, Tenneh seemed to know what I was thinking, and she smiled gently at me. She didn’t say anything, and put my flowers into the vase. I sipped at the tea, which was red bush tea, not the strong black Irish tea we dump loads of milk in. I felt like I was drinking hot water, but didn’t say anything.
I heard Hannah come in. She looked somewhat like her sister, but so very different at the same time. She had the same smile, which she beamed at me.
“Welcome to my house! I’m so glad you could come!” She too gave me a warm hug, also avoiding the hand that was holding something like Tenneh had. “Come sit in the front room.” She motioned me towards the sitting room, but stayed in the kitchen. “Tenneh, you shouldn’t have given her red bush tea! The Irish don’t like that!” I heard a cupboard being opened as I went to the sitting room, blushing. Tenneh joined me, and we sat down on the sofa.
“She’s making you Irish tea,” she giggled. “Sorry, we drink bush tea when we are together!”
“It’s fine,” I lied. Tenneh shook her head and took the mug from me.
“You don’t have to be polite. Miles doesn’t like bush tea either!” She brought the mug into the kitchen, where I overheard a brief snatch of conversation between the sisters; Hannah was scolding Tenneh. She came back out, laughing and shaking her head.
“I have lived here for so long, but I still don’t understand you Irish and your tea customs!” She sank on to the sofa. “Hannah is making proper tea, as Miles would say, and getting biscuits and things. She has put Johnny down for a nap, even though she knows he will be up all night now!”
The situation was familiar to me as an aunt; I too often would wonder why Trish and Muiread put their kids down for naps when they later complained to me about them being awake in the night. From my sisters I had learned that children need naps, even if it does disturb their night time pattern. Keeping them awake only caused tantrums and misery.
“I also have a nephew named Johnny,” I told Tenneh. “He’s twelve now. How old is yours?”
“He’ll be two in two months,” Tenneh answered.
“The terrible twos,” I said conversationally. My mind was reeling with calculations. The child Hannah was carrying when they escaped captivity would be as old as my nephew Johnny; where was that child?
Hannah came in, a few moments later, bearing a tray of teacups and biscuits. “I think those terrible twos have already started,” she said as Tenneh helped her lower the tray to the coffee table. “Johnny’s favourite word is already mine!”
She sounded like she had experience with two-year-old children. “Do you have other children?” I asked, hoping my tone was light and casual.
It wasn’t. She and Tenneh exchanged a glance. “No, Johnny is my first.”
First? I concentrated on my teacup, not trusting my expression. Tenneh put her hand over mine.
“It’s okay, Lisa. It’s nice of you to try and avoid the topic, but Johnny is my only nephew.” She looked at her sister, who nodded, pouring out the tea. Tenneh looked back at me. “Hannah aborted the baby she was carrying from her forced marriage.”
I tried not to react with shock, but it was the second abortion I had learned about in a matter of days, and I couldn’t be relaxed and sophisticated about it. The fact that it happened to a teenage rape victim made me visibly shudder. I didn’t want to look at Hannah with pity, so I concentrated on her hands as she set out the teacups. “I am so sorry,” I whispered.
She put the teapot down and reached out to me. I didn’t trust myself not to cry, so I clutched her hand and Tenneh’s hand and breathed deeply. Hannah squeezed my hand.
“There was a French doctor at the Red Cross centre who was so upset about my situation,” Hannah began gravely. “I was pretty far along in the pregnancy, but this doctor performed a late term abortion.” Hannah looked at Tenneh, who was silently crying. “My sister and I fought about that, and we still argue about it now, but that doctor was merciful. I wanted to have a child that would be loved, and I would not have loved that baby. I would have cared for it as a mother, but in that child I would have always seen that man and what he did to me.” Tenneh covered her face with her hands as Hannah kept talking, and Hannah took my hand, the hand that Tenneh had let go.
“I killed that baby, Lisa,” Hannah told me bluntly. “I let the doctor perform the abortion…he cried with me afterward. I would not have loved the baby we aborted, and every child should be loved. Tenneh tried to argue that I should give that baby to be adopted, but who would adopt that baby? A child whose father was a terrible man and whose mother abandoned him?” Hannah’s voice shook as she looked at her sister with narrowed eyes. “A child not even you would take?”
There was something going on between the sisters. I didn’t understand what Hannah was saying, how she expected her thirteen year old sister to take in her niece or nephew. I looked from Hannah to Tenneh, who was sobbing silently, her hands pressed to her face. Hannah let go of my hands and sat beside Tenneh, taking her into her arms. She murmured something in their native language, and the two sisters embraced. After a moment, Tenneh pulled away, and wiped her eyes. She turned to me with a brave imitation of a smile.
“My sister and I fight about this because I can never have a baby,” Tenneh explained in a tight voice. “I too got pregnant from my so called husband. This monster of a man liked to drink, and when he was drunk, he did terrible things. He made a bet with one of his horrible friends that my baby was a boy, but he didn’t want to wait until it was born to find out if he was right. He cut me open…I don’t know how I survived that, but my baby did not. My husband won his bet, though…it was a boy!”
Tenneh told me the awful story in such a quiet way, as if she were describing something she had seen in a movie, a comedy or romance, not a horror movie. I clapped my hand over my mouth, to keep from screaming or vomiting, I don’t know. Hannah scolded her sister in their language, coming over to embrace me. I pulled away, not wanting to face her or Tenneh. I stood up, not sure if I wanted to run screaming from the room or just hope the ground would swallow me up. I felt so stupid and spoiled, whingeing over little things when I was in the presence of two women who had survived such unbelievable evil. I pulled at my hair, wanting to feel some pain as Tenneh’s and Hannah’s story sank in.
“Why does God allow things like this to happen?” I asked, pulling hard on the hair at my temples. The kind of things Tenneh and Hannah had lived through shouldn’t even happen in a book. I pulled harder, and strands came out.
Hannah stood beside me, and pushed my hands down. “I do not know,” she told me, keeping me from grabbing my hair again. “People do terrible things to each other, all the time. God loves us, and forgives us…we need to do the same.”
I looked from her to Tenneh. “How can you love or forgive the men who did this to you?” I asked. “You couldn’t love that baby!”
Hannah looked down, her eyes full of tears. “I do not want to live with hate,” she said quietly. “I did not want my child to live with the hate that created him.” She looked at me, then at Tenneh, tears flowing down her face. “I killed my baby, but with him I killed the hate. I could forgive that man then…and I hope that God can forgive me.”
Tenneh jumped to her feet. “He does,” Tenneh said to her sister, coming over to hug her. “You have a beautiful child now, a baby made in love.”
Hannah pulled back, looking at her sister. “And you, Tenneh? What do you have?” Hannah asked her sister, frowning gravely.
“I have a beautiful nephew,” Tenneh replied with a big smile. She kissed her sister’s forehead. “I have told you many times I cannot judge you because I did not have the choice you did. I might have loved my baby, but probably I would have hated the sight of anything in him that would have reminded me of his father. You knew I was glad that he died…not the way it happened, but that he was spared that life. I understand how you felt when that French doctor helped you. Maybe if I could have a baby, I wouldn’t keep arguing with you. Please forgive me.”
Hannah grasped Tenneh firmly to her. “Of course I forgive you!” She kissed Tenneh’s cheek. “You will have a baby. You will adopt one…a white baby!”
They both laughed, and I joined in. “I will marry an African, and we will adopt a white baby!” Tenneh joked. She and Hannah screeched with mirth, but then she shook her head. “No, all joking aside…there are many orphaned African babies who need a home. When God gives me a husband, we will find a child from our home continent who needs a family.” She grinned mischievously. “Then maybe we will adopt a white baby!”
There was laughter all around and they invited me to sit down again, and Hannah clucked that the tea had probably grown cold. “Cold tea is not the end of the world,” Tenneh reasoned. Hannah took the teapot out the kitchen anyway, and I could hear her programming the microwave. Tenneh took my hand, and asked me if I was all right.
“I can’t tell you why Cara can’t meet with you…it’s not my story to tell,” I told her, patting the hand that held mine. After what I had just heard, Cara’s story seemed so silly to me. I didn’t agree with what she had done, but in the face of what Tenneh and Hannah went through, it didn’t seem like anything carry on about. I would be ashamed to look them in the eye, too, but they would forgive her. I sighed, thinking it over. “We Europeans must really annoy you,” I said to Tenneh.
She looked surprised and drew back, as Hannah came in with the warmed up teapot. “What do you mean, Europeans must annoy us?” she asked for her sister.
I helped her put the teapot down. The cups were full of cold tea, which Hannah began to gather up. She and Tenneh were still looking at me questioningly. I shrugged.
“We think we’re so smart, that everyone has to come to us for a solution to their problems. We caused almost all of those problems…we invade other countries, we colonise and enslave you, and then we support dictatorships and supply everyone with arms. All the time we moan about our problems, and act like they’re so much more important than yours.” I stood up and took the teacups from Hannah, shaking my head. “We’re really annoying like that.”
As I turned to go into the kitchen, Tenneh and Hannah surprised me by bursting into laughter. I turned back, confused.
“Yes, you white people are annoying,” Hannah said, gasping for breath between peals of laughter. “But so is everyone! We all think our problems are so important!”
“You think Africans don’t have stupid little problems as well?” Tenneh asked. “You should go to an African beauty salon, and listen to silly girls cry and complain because their hair won’t straighten out properly!”
“Why do they want straight hair?” I asked, thinking of the African models I had seen in glossy magazines, who had closely cropped hair adorning their beautifully round majestic heads.
Tenneh and Hannah screamed with laughter in response. Hannah took the teacups from me, trying to shush her sister. “You’ll wake Johnny!” she hissed, rushing to the kitchen sink.
“You white girls have no idea!” Tenneh told me, shaking her finger at me.
Hannah returned with empty cups. “An African woman’s greatest struggle is with her hair,” she said. “We go through war, famine, rape…but we want our hair to look good!” She sighed, and ran a hand over her straightened hair, grimacing.
Tenneh poured me a new cup of tea. “Do you still think Europeans are the only ones with silly problems?” She winked at me, and I had to laugh.
“So don’t you pull at your hair like that again!” Hannah admonished me. She clicked her tongue. “Why do we women punish our hair like this? I torture mine with chemicals and irons, and Lisa tries to pull hers from her head. Maybe the Muslims are right…we should just cover our heads and forget about it!”
“Covering our hair gets too hot and heavy,” Tenneh declared, sipping at her tea. “Besides, I like variety. Sometimes I can wear a scarf, sometimes not. I don’t need a man telling me what to do with my head!”
“I know plenty of unmarried Muslim women who cover their hair,” Hannah countered, offering me a biscuit. “It is not always a husband who forces a woman to wear a veil!”
Tenneh made a face at her sister, like Cara would at me when she was losing an argument. “OK, so it’s her father or brother who does!” Hannah opened her mouth to contradict her, but Tenneh made another face. Hannah sighed resignedly, and turned to me. “Speaking of husbands…you know Andy, from the Beirut Café? You liked him…he has an unmarried brother…”
I expected Tenneh to cackle with laughter again, but she put her cup down and smiled at me. “You should meet,” she said ominously.
I said nothing, just biting into the biscuit Hannah had offered me.