The girl’s head is bent in prayer. Under her fingers the pages of the open bible are soft. She can feel the breath, warm, from her nose, slipping over her lips and chin, and down into her neck. All around her she hears the murmurs of others in prayer. Above these rises the voice of the pastor, her father. His words are wise, his speaking gentle. She listens intently, twisting her fingers together as she whispers, “Amen.”
There is nothing to prepare her for the first gunshot, nor for the series of further shots that follows. Strange cries come from outside the church; whooping and calling and a sound she can put no real name to. Within the church all is silent. Some of the congregation have half raised themselves off their seats, others are standing. Some rush to the windows and look out; Esther is amongst these. Outside, she sees people running in all directions – towards the church, away from the town. There are too many faces. She recognises them, but at the same time does not. She turns inwards again at the sound of her father’s voice. The church is crowded now, loud, but he does not shout. He says simply, “We must prepare ourselves. Some of us are going to die. The Jihadists are coming. We must remain faithful. We have only our faith.”
The militants enter without show, moving with purpose amongst the crowd. As though a single body, many-armed, they divide men from women, pulling Esther’s three-year old brother from her mother’s arms. Separated from their wives and children by no more than a few steps, the men stand, waiting. Her father is nearby with his eyes closed, his lips moving in prayer. Esther sees a militant walk towards him, raise his arm and slash the throat of her father and the man beside him in a single movement. She hears the short gurgle of his last breath, witnesses the sudden opening of his eyes in death.
Esther is running. Afterwards, when no more men were standing, they had been told to leave. They had been chased and she had fled, losing her mother and her three sisters. For hours now she walks, hiding in bushes, crying at the memory of her brother and father’s slumped forms. At sunset she reaches a village. The inhabitants take her in, feed her. Days later, in different directions, her sisters are found. There is no word of their mother.
Esther returns home with her siblings. They have become her children now. It is up to her to clothe and feed them. Where their house had been, there now remains an ashy heap. They sleep in that ash, grow vegetables in it, pray in it. Every day Esther walks to the church where her father and brother were killed. Beyond it lies the mass grave in which they are buried; before it, the burnt out shell of the car her father had driven. It is here, each time, that she recalls her father’s last words, his reminder that faith is what will be left to them.
Sometimes, for Esther, faith feels like too little. But most days she finds it budding out towards her from hidden places, from the smallnesses of everyday life. She finds it in the growth of leaves, the laughter of her sisters, the rush of clouds across the sky. At these times she knows that faith lives in her, and she walks tall, remembering that what she carries within her is bigger than the world, more precious than a life.
AUTHOR:
Karen Jennings lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
