The Foreign Service Journal, June 2005

S he leaves the house with her head down, and makes her way along the shadows of the path, up to the main road, to the whitewashed concrete building with the spiky black iron fence, hoping no one will see her. Harmony’s hand trembles as she takes hold of the door handle. She doesn’t know what to expect, but she knows that Ibori has finally gone too far. Perhaps now that they can see with their own eyes the blood on her face, and the gap in her teeth, they will believe her, she thinks. And so, with a deep breath, she enters the police station. Three officers are seated around a table, remnants of their supper in front of them. They stop laughing abrupt- ly as she walks in, expectation and smoke hanging in the air before she speaks, “Please, you must help me. My husband beat me, and knocked out my tooth.” She slurs through swollen lips and tongue, surprised to hear her own words come out so mangled. One of the officers replies, “He beat you, huh? What did you do?” Harmony doesn’t understand the question at first. “Please, my husband is hitting me — see? Even my tooth, it’s gone.” She opens her mouth for them to see. Another officer pipes up, “Don’t be so cold with your husband, girl, or this is what happens! Now go and make up with him with kisses!” He makes smacking noises with his lips. The officers all burst out laughing. “I need your help! Please, I need your help!” “You need your husband, woman. Go home and tell him you are sorry, so he will take you back. You don’t belong here. Go. Show him what you are willing to do for him!” The officers laugh. They sit immobile, looking at her, their stupid, wide, red mouths open with mirth and saliva. Harmony feels the blood rush to her face. She stum- bles out the door and walks as fast as she can, head bowed, vision blurred, back towards Hukumu. Her mind is racing, where to go, what to do. She has no money, nothing but Harry with her. Before she has time to think, she realizes she is almost home. She stops and looks up. Ibori is sitting in front of the house like a leopard crouched in the grass. Without a further thought, har- mony turns and runs. I hope he didn’t see me , she thinks. She runs down familiar paths, her heart racing like a frightened gazelle. Harry is clinging to her back so tightly that his nails dig through her t-shirt and into her skin. He is crying. “Don’t cry, my baby, don’t cry.” Harmony reassures him. Then she murmurs, “Please, G--, where can I go? Where can I go?” As she passes Daniel’s house, she sees a shadowed cor- ner behind his water cistern, and crouches quickly behind the tank, leaning into the darkness. She passes Harry smoothly onto her lap to soothe him. But emotion overtakes her, and the tears roll down her swollen, blood- c rusted face. After years of trying, and smiling, and pray- ing for salvation within her marriage, it is behind Daniel’s house in the rank mud that she finally lets go of her tears. A moment later, a shadow is standing over her, and a light is forced into her eyes. Oh, G--, it’s Ibori , she thinks, and curls up protectively over Harry, waiting for a blow to hit her. It doesn’t. The voice says, “What are you doing here?” It is not Ibori. From where she is crouched, she sees Daniel, looking 10 feet tall, his dark figure long like a wall behind the flashlight. I have made so many mistakes , she thinks. Why have I stopped here? “Oh, please! Please help us! I’m so scared! I don’t want him to find us!” “Who? What’s happened? Are you hurt?” Daniel asks. Harmony is surprised by the kindness in his voice. “Please, if my husband finds us, he’ll kill us. I have nowhereto go. Please help us. My son and I, we must get away from here! Please …” “I know you,” he says slowly. Then, as he turns away, “Hurry. Come inside.” She gasps, and leans back against the wall of his house, unsure. “Hurry!” he commands, his long legs carrying him away. Harmony wipes her eyes on her sleeve. “Come, my love,” she whispers to Harry as she leaps up to follow Daniel into his house. “Perhaps he is our angel.” F O C U S J U N E 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 29 She wore her hair in neat cornrows, and sometimes put henna on her nails, but “beautiful” was not a word she ever thought of.