THE ANIMALS BEAR WITNESS TO THEIR CRIMES
C. Christine Fair
Many thanks to @collaterallitjournal for publishing my three recent poems/essays titled “THE ANIMALS BEAR WITNESS TO THEIR CRIMES” available here:
https://www.collateraljournal.com/nonfiction/fair
I. The Old Lagoon Dog Bears Witness to the War’s Atrocities
Whelped behind an old Hindu temple on the road linking the beach of Mullaitivu and the lagoon, she was the lone survivor of her pack, easily recognized by her light brown coat, perky ears, pointed snout and delicate feet.
The others — her children, siblings, sires, foes and friends — had died in the war or in its genocidal aftermath, from bombs, gunfire, mines, starvation, thirst or illness.
She hunted alone, trying to avoid eating those bodies strewn on the beach even though they were as omnipresent as her hunger.
She knew these Tamil humans by their scent, their voice, the colors they wore before becoming this etiolated bloat. Some fed her. Others kicked her. She followed them to school, to temple, to market. They were her familiars.
She watched as the Sinhalese soldiers — The Others — closed in on them. She cowered from the inescapable thunder of the mortars, the hissing of missiles, the shrieking of jets passing overhead, whose bellies were heavy with bombs. Her ears rang with the cries of mothers wailing, clutching their dead children.
She crouched low in the dirt, watching the Tamil Tigers knock on doors, rip the terrified children from their families and foist the guns into their puny arms to fight The Others.
She smelled the offending odors of The Others’ sex whose scent lingered on the female humans she once knew before they became empty.
She felt the rumbling of the war machines before they could. She barked, whined and pawed at them.
She tried to tell them to get into the trenches so many had built for such moments.
In that madness, they had no patience for the noisy bitch. Some threw discarded coconut shells at her or brandished sticks or stones. She slinked away, tail tucked, in sad confusion.
One by one, she watched them die. With the planting seasons abandoned, she could not mark time.
New humans came, speaking like The Others. They erected new buildings upon the carcasses of old. The town was not familiar now.
Her eyes became marbled clouds. Her hearing diminished. Hips ached. Unable to hunt the chipmunks, they frolicked in front of her with increasing impunity.
Her body trembled from starvation and illness. Mange sunk deep into her flesh.
She pondered her loneliness and why she had survived these atrocities. She sought the comfort of sleep and nested in the dirt alone some distance from the Vaddu Vakal Bridge.
In the early hours of no-morning-in-particular, The Others’ truck sped over her frail body. She took one last look at her beloved Nanthi Kadal lagoon, unable to move and in a pain she could not endure. She closed her tired eyes.
She had not yet given up her life when the clatter of hungry birds descended upon her soft belly to pick out her pink entrails.
Too weak to move, bark or whimper, the last witness was no more.
II. The Goat of Ghundi Kala village
She was young with a wobbly head and the uncoordinated gait of a kid. Her youth spared her from this year’s Eid sacrifice.
During the day she’d root for discarded scraps of vegetables or fruits. Yellow melons, musty and limp in the searing heat, were her favorite.
Water was always scarce. She liked stumbling upon a pile of watermelon rinds which gave up their moisture as she chewed them.
She nuzzled chickens roaming around and played with the old bitch’s young pups who survived the cull.
When she was first separated from her mother, she quivered and shrieked with fear when the Noise happened.
Then the explosions ceased to terrify. The mysterious men, packed into the back of the small pickup trucks that crisscrossed the Waziristan landscape like busy ants, became familiar.
The Truck Men, with their covered sun-drenched faces and guns, and their speeding trucks no longer intrigued her. Now, she rarely looked up from her beloved trash heap as they sped by.
The mangled bodies she would stumble upon as she rooted along the roads for nourishing things the Humans discarded no longer fascinated her either.
Sometimes she overheard the Humans discussing the Still Mens’ crimes.
At night her Young Human tied her to a tree with an olid rope she loathed. The stench of urine and defecation of so many strange Animals who had come before her disquieted her.
Usually, the Men in Trucks stayed far from her home, which she came to understand was Good. They would come down from the mountains to pick up Things and Animals like her, then retreat, which was sometimes Bad.
When the Truck Men lingered at Others’ homes, the Sky Beasts swooped down. The animals could hear their unnatural buzzing long before the Truck Men and Others could.
When the Truck Men stayed, flashes of light and thunderous explosions would follow which tossed dust and the remains of incinerated Humans and Animals into the sky.
That night, tied to her tree, she watched the Truck Men arrive. They boisterously stepped down and disappeared into her Humans’ compound.
Her body stiffened. Her hackles stood up. She bleated as loud as she could, her ears back. Her Humans did not come. She kicked the ground, throwing up dirt behind her. She paced. She tried to warn her Humans when she first heard the buzzing. She yanked at the tree and bucked in hopes of breaking the rope. Maybe then she could warn them.
As the noise became intolerably louder, she crouched low to the ground as something came shrieking towards her. She tried to make herself as small as possible before the Flash came.
The next morning the wary neighborhood men came by to inspect the damage and count the dead. Relatives came by to pick whatever remains they could bury.
She and her tree were smoldering detritus, unnoticed.
III. The Cat in Haji Nur Mohammad’s Compound
Cat was special with her white coat, large ears and wide, outsized black eyes on her small triangular face.
She lived with several others in one of the Warlord’s private compounds on the outskirts of Kabul.
When Haji ate well, they all ate well, feasting off the discarded bones and offal of the animals he routinely slaughtered for his revolving entourages of boisterous guests.
Tonight was such a night. Haji’s men came back with a large, terrified goat. Within minutes, they slit his throat and let his blood run out. The cats watched from a distance in anticipation as the kasab hacked the still-warm animal into chunks that would be variously fried, roasted and stewed.
Haji’s cooks served the meat and morsels of fat over pillows of fragrant rice with sweet carrots and raisins. They rendered the feet and head into a tasty stew their Pakistani mehman savored.
As night began to fall, the guests began to arrive in their Pajeros, Land Rovers and Toyotas.
They assembled in Haji’s great hall, seated upon luxurious carpets and bolsters. The food was brought out on silver platters atop plastic sheets with oddly floral prints. The men began lapping up gravy with fresh naan and foisting chunks of charred flesh and fat into their mouths with their fat, ringed fingers.
Some drank tea or even daru. Others smoked hashish or opium.
The men were buzzing with excitement.
Cat knew why. Haji was known to have the most beautiful dancing boys in Kabul. Businessmen, warlords and traffickers were honored by Haji’s envied invitations.
Tonight, Haji would bring out the Hazara boy they called Chinoise.
As the musicians began to assemble, the men stretched out. They picked the meat out of their mangled teeth. Restless in anticipation, they stroked their beards.
Chinoise made his appearance in a blur of colors in motion as he spun and twirled to the delight of the assembled men as the musicians behind him played Pashtun folk songs.
His striking grey eyes were outlined in kohl. He dazzled in a red blouse bespeckled with sequins over a dark blue velvet skirt and a silk tasseled scarf he draped coyly about his face and shoulders. His ankles and wrists bedecked with the boisterous bells he famously played with the undulations of his body.
As he danced the plates of abandoned food were taken away and the Cats began to feast.
Cat no longer payed attention to the Men or Chinoise until, late in the night, the Guests retreated to their vehicles and sped off into the star-strewn night likely to meet their expectant wives.
Cat followed Chinoise to his private room and watched him undress then fill an old, green bucket of tepid water. Cat could smell Those Mens’ musky odors on his body. Chinoise poured water over his frail body from a cup.
He lathered himself with soap then ladled more water over himself to rinse. He scrubbed his face to remove the makeup. But the scent of Those Men lingered.
Chinoise put on his night dress as Cat cautiously strode up near him. Chinoise slid into bed and motioned Cat to join him. Cat jumped up on the rope bed and situated himself on Chinoise’s pillow and purred deeply.
He drew Cat near and stroked her. Chinoise clutched her close as he cried bitter tears into Cat’s fur. In these moments, the self he had to protect from Those Men, cautiously leered out from the shadows.
He missed his mother most of all. She wept furiously when his father announced that he had sold him to Haji. She beat her chest when Haji took him away and renamed him like a pet. Only when Haji felt tender did he call the boy by his real name: Zahid.
Zahid longed to be Cat, to leap with her over the compound walls and escape and survive Out There.
Away from Haji and Those Men who supped upon him like a communal plate.
Away from the things they did to him, made him do to them.
Away from their sickening stench, greasy hands, and the shame he could not wash away.
He longed to be innocent again, nestled near his mother as she made tea in the morning. He longed to be Zahid.
C. Christine Fair is a provost’s distinguished associate professor within the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She studies political and military events of South Asia and travels extensively throughout Asia and the Middle East. Her books include In Their Own Words: Understanding the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (OUP 2019); Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War (OUP, 2014); and Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States (Globe Pequot, 2008). She has published creative pieces in The Bark, The Dime Review, Clementine Unbound, Awakenings, Fifty Word Stories, The Drabble, Sandy River Review, Sonder Midwest, Black Horse Magazine, and Bluntly Magazine among others. Her scholarly website is ChristineFair.net. She blogs at https://shortbustoparadise.wordpress.com/. She tweets at @CChristineFair.
“The Animals Bear Witness to Their Crimes,” is comprised of three accounts from ongoing or recent wars in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Afghanistan, presented from the vantage point of the animals who bear silent witnesses to the crimes and violence of the conflicts. These are all wars she has studied on the ground. They are all wars that haunt her.
