The woman hugged herself, digging her long yellow nails into her skin. She shook, fell to her knees and collapsed.

Saba ran to find the midwife, bringing her back to a crowd that had gathered outside their hut, where Hagos had carried the woman. The midwife entered but exited moments later. Our daughter left us, she said. God bless her soul.

There was a long silence.

She’s dead, the midwife said.

The elders bowed their heads. Saba wondered if death in this place that was supposed to be safe caught them by surprise too. She had bought the illusion that escaping the war meant escaping all forms of death. Otherwise, why go through the pain of exile to come here?

Many women wept, mourning the passing of a beautiful woman who arrived at the camp wearing the colour of the sun. When the athlete came with a shovel borrowed from the aid centre, the elders didn’t move. They had yet to decide on a burial site. The athlete said he knew a large swathe of flat land, south of the camp. We need to cut the grass and it will be ready, he said.

No, not that place, it is where they will build the school, Saba said, shouting above the wailing mourners. It is not for a graveyard. It is for our future.

The midwife pulled Saba by the hand and shoved her inside the hut where the dead woman was laid out on her blanket.

The morning after a rainy night. The morning after the death. Rays of sunshine fell on the camp. On Saba’s face. The crowded square. A man lathered the face of another with a soaped brush in front of a broken mirror hanging from the wall. Saba was blind to her fragmented reflection in the mirror, but noticed a half-white, half-black face, head tilting to the side. A razor pressed against the cheek. A trickle of blood. A woman hung dresses, trousers, shirts, a jellabiya and vests on the clothesline as a girl ground grain into flour on a stone. Cries. Laughter. Moaning. And mourning. The fragrance of incense drifted from another hut. A girl’s toes polished in red stuck out of the dung-fed mud wall. When Saba turned, the imam and the priest bumped into each other in a lane where only one could pass. Both men raised their hands in supplication. Saba walked on. A scream. A woman having sex. Hagos stormed her mind as she peeked through the window as the man’s thing drowned inside the woman. A woman’s inside is made of sea, Saba thought. Seaweed. Fish. Balloons. Bags. Love letters in bottles floating endlessly. Sadness. Laughter. This woman’s inside contains her womb, the seeds of a future and now his dick. How deep was a woman? Saba asked herself. A man wept: I found God, his tears fall on the holy book. I too, a woman. Me too, a girl. We too. We too. A family. God proliferating in a place abandoned by humanity. Chants. Igziabeher. Allah. God. Rebbee. Credo in Dio. Ululations. Elelelelelelel. Too much to take. Too much. Saba held her head in her hands. Dizziness. Vomit gushed out of her. She closed her eyes. She fainted.