Com-Pounded

The compound had two different buildings. One building was where the instruction happened. Where the prayers occurred. Where the meals were shared. Where they were a community.

They were a larger group now. The constant breeding of the white wives by the Black Muslims had created their community. And the white children they'd brought with them were in arranged marriages. There was a closer sense of kin and family than Elizabeth had ever felt in South Carolina.

The second compound was for the husbands and wives to sleep. It was three stories. Cindy and Faheed had a room on the bottom floor, beside Amber and Ousmane. On the second floor, Julia and Hakeem slept mere feet from Bianca and Abubaker. And on the third floor, Allie and Oussama were separated by the thinnest of walls from Elizabeth and Yusuuf.

At night, the noises in the 'sleeping' compound became a smphony of white women moaning and Black men groaning. There was no English. The wives begged in Arabic, and the men commanded in Arabic. Each night was an unspoken competition between the men and the wives, the success measured in brown babies born to their burgeoning community.