by Wayétu Moore
Calvary was a marble building with two stories of red pews to seat its many members. The back of each pew had wooden compartments where hymnals were kept. From habit, I ran my fingers over the edges of the hymnal covers. When the presenter approached the stage, I smiled. My best friends lived in Connecticut. They moved from Liberia earlier in the eighties with their husbands, and I tried to see them once a month. They occasionally drove to New York to pick me up for lunch, or I took a train at Penn Station to go out and see them. Still, I was always happy to meet anyone who had been to Liberia. I missed it more than I ever imagined I would. I missed my family. I missed my rose garden and my living room, the couches I had carefully designed and had upholstered with a fabric my daughters helped me pick.
The presenter approached the stage and introduced himself.
“I want to speak to you about my travels, and also to share my experiences in a country that is much different from ours,” he said.
The lights were dimmed and an overhead projector was turned on. The presenter clicked a remote and a picture of a young child, no more than four years old, black, dirty, naked against a wooded background, faded onto the screen. He showed several other pictures of children, similar to the first, appearing hungry, sad, some crying, all of them staring directly into the camera. He spoke of how difficult it was for him to find a single person who could read or write. At that point I started to sweat. He spoke of the lack of compassion among fathers, Liberian fathers, and what it said of the African men he had been around. I thought of my husband and my head pounded. Each picture made me feel nauseated—my body both hot and cold. Where was my garden in these pictures? Where was my husband and men like him? Where were my daughters?
“You have to say something,” Yasuka said. “You must say something.”
“When he is finished,” I said, feeling more and more sick as the presentation went on.
He mocked the smells, pitied the schools, warned everyone there about setting foot on Liberian soil without good health. He showed many poor villages, burst-open sewers, and too many children sitting alone—more than I could count—who were without even half a cup of river water to wash their faces. An hour later, after turning off his overhead projector, when the last child in his picture was now free to dress and go on about his business, an offering was taken for the presenter and his family. The baskets filled with American dollars and a line formed to speak to him. He did not show the Liberia I knew and loved, but the pictures made me afraid. It was the worst version of the country I had ever seen, but this version, I feared, could be what Liberia could become with war. I went to him slowly, rehearsing what I would say. Yasuka walked beside me, annoyed and still noticeably angered by the presentation. Every few minutes she shook her head and looked at me. When we finally arrived at the front of the line, the presenter smiled and extended his hand. Yasuka shook her head at him but I took his hand.
“I just want you to know that I am from Liberia,” I said. An assistant at his side handed pamphlets to us. Yasuka shook her head and looked away and I took the pamphlet. “This is very, very offensive,” I said, raising my voice. The presenter stopped smiling. “I am very offended,” I continued, but before I could say all that I had rehearsed in line, my body grew warm. I rushed out of the sanctuary and through the hallway to the nearest bathroom, where I quickly pushed open a stall and vomited—heaved all I had eaten that morning and everything from the previous day.
“Hello?”
“What happened? I’ve been so worried,” I tried not to shout that night. My roommates were still asleep. It was morning in Liberia and the middle of the night in New York. “I’ve been trying to call every day after you missed last week’s call.”
“I know, I know, sorry,” he said. “The people say the phone lines them spoiled.” He sounded hasty and it worried me, but I was happy to hear his voice.
“I have so much to tell you. I went to Calvary last weekend and this man—”
“Mam—the phone is breaking. Mam?”
“Hello? Hello, Gus?” I shouted. I would apologize to my roommates in the morning.
“Okay, I can hear you,” he said.
“Good. I know it won’t last long then, enneh? Did the girls get the shirts I sent?” I asked.
“They did,” he answered.
“Oh good,” I said, missing his scent.
“I am going to go see a doctor. There is something wrong, I just don’t know what. I thought maybe I was pregnant but I’ve been menstruating. It’s light but there’s still something,” I told him.
“Be sure to let me know what happens,” he said. It was late and I was sleepy, and I knew he would say that he had to go soon, but I wanted to sit there a bit longer.
“The Chens left,” he said.
“What? Why?”
“They scared. The rebels still here and they scared. He say they will be back when things settle down.”
The end of his sentence was broken, and the line was full of static.
“I love you, Mam.” I heard that clearly.
I left Harlem early one morning with only one hard-boiled egg in my stomach. My stomach began to cramp and bend, and I was not sure if it was because the egg did not suffice or if I was suffering the same discomfort that finally led me to set an appointment.
In the waiting room I read the outside of a pamphlet held by the woman in front of me. I was alone again with my uncertainty. My friend Rose had called me the night before to tell me of a cousin who had recently left Liberia and made it to safety, calling her from Sierra Leone. “He said the people now start fighting,” Rose had said. “Have you spoken to Gus?”
“Not for two weeks,” I had told her. “I can’t reach him.”
She told me not to worry, as everyone seemed to be doing lately, as if Liberia’s worst-case scenario had not finally come.
“Mrs. Moore?” I heard.
I walked toward a woman with blue-rimmed glasses and large dramatic curls, who looked more like she belonged in an optical ad than in that office. It was a standard “woman’s clinic” room—curtain, armchair, posters, white counter with gloves.
“Everything will be fine,” she said before leaving me alone. I undressed and lay on my back in the chair, waiting for the doctor.
“Mrs. Moore?” The doctor entered the room, followed by the nurse.
“Hello,” I said.
“So you haven’t been well,” he said. “We’re going to take some basic blood work but I’m going to get an ultrasound just in case. How regular have your cycles been?”
“They have been light,” I said. “But they’ve come.”
“Okay, well, let’s get you set up here. You can relax. It’ll be over before you know it.” He smiled and proceeded to inquire about my health and family history. He told me to lean back, and everything seemed to be going well after he began, but then his hand stiffened.
“Everything all right?” I asked.
The nurse kept writing in my file.
“Well, Mrs. Moore, it looks like there’s a baby in there.”
“What?!” I asked.
“You see the screen?” he asked.
I saw the baby’s head. It was perfect.
“You’re going to be a mother again,” he said, smiling, and my eyes swelled. I imagined the faces of my daughters, and how they would react once they found out.
“Light bleeding happens in some pregnant women, usually when the fetus has trouble attaching to the uterine wall.”
“Is the baby okay?”
“We’ll continue to monitor you, but it looks like it. Just continue to take care of yourself.”
He may have explained things further. I may have thanked him. I must have shaken his hand and taken a business card from the nurse. I sat alone in the room. I felt alone in the world, having not heard from Gus and the girls for two weeks, and I cried.
TWENTY-TWO
I was not able to return to Liberia in June during rainy season as I had promised. By Ju
ly there were no planes flying in or out of the country. Instead, I moved into a small apartment through on-campus family housing and spent my days and nights waiting by the phone in hopes of a call from Gus, or news that they were safe. A month had passed since I had heard his voice. When I tell them the story, I tell them that I watched news stations to catch clips of the conflict—hoping to see someone I recognized. The phone rang, but the calls were always from family and friends in America sending their prayers my way or asking whether I knew where they were. During the day I sat facing the window beside an air conditioner my super gave me. I tried to read, to study, but I could not. I tried watching television but the happiness on the faces of the characters made me sob. How could they smile so widely? How could they not know that people were dying?
I was afraid to go outside because I did not want to miss a call and barely left my living room. Yasuka had gone away for the summer, as had many of my classmates. I spoke to Rose and Masnoh frequently, though quickly, afraid I would miss a call from Liberia if I remained on the phone for too long. Eventually I moved my dresser into the living room so that I could stay close to the phone at all times. I laid my sheets and blankets on the living room couch, and on the days that were not so miserable I read the books spread across the floor, because I had to remind myself that I was still in school, and that when I saw my daughters again, I wanted to tell them that I had fought.
I wondered what they were doing—what they had been eating. I paced my living room floor, as my stomach finally grew in front of me. On those lonely June nights while I was wrapped in the laughter of children playing outside, the fire hydrants loud as they burst, the only way to deal with my worry was to dream of them.
It was in July and I was in the bathroom. I was looking into a mirror at a face that was more and more plump each day when the phone rang. I ran as quickly as I could into the living room, nearly stumbling over my feet.
“Hello? Hello, hello?” I asked, trembling.
“Mam! Mam!” said a familiar voice. “It’s me, Facia.”
I fell to the living room floor at the sound of my sister’s voice.
“Facia! You are safe! Where are you?”
“I am at the airport. I made it to New York. I’m at LaGuardia. There was no way to call until now—”
“You here?” I asked, searching my immediate surrounding for my shoes.
“I here. I here with Bom.”
“American Airlines?”
“American!”
“I coming, Facia!” I grabbed my purse and hurried out the door, hailing the first taxi that drove past.
“LaGuardia,” I yelled. “American Airlines!”
It was a warm day and the taxi windows were rolled down. I laughed into the sun, then cried at the memory of Facia’s voice, so recent, so familiar. I saw myself in the driver’s rearview mirror, the darkened circles around my eyes. I used my fingers to comb my hair, then held my stomach until we reached the airport. I rushed out of the taxi. The terminal was crowded and I searched each face that passed for Facia’s. None was hers. I ran through the terminal until I finally arrived at the room with bags. Through a crowd I saw my sister sitting on a bench, looking toward a glass overlooking the road, as beautiful as I had last seen her in December.
“Facia!” I shouted, nearly choking on my tears. We crashed into each other. In that moment, we were all we knew we had.
“You are pregnant,” Facia said, looking down at my stomach. Facia, thirty-one years old at the time, wiped my face as if she were Ol’ Ma. “Don’t cry, Mam,” Facia said, unable to heed her own words. “I am here now.”
We stood for a long time, hugging, crying, some travelers looking on at the spectacle as they passed.
It was morning when the rebels reached Logan Town, where Ol’ Pa and my sisters Alice and Facia were staying with others, including Alice’s young son, Bom. There was shooting on the road and Ol’ Pa made them go and pack their things.
“We will go to Lai,” he said.
“And what about Ol’ Ma?” Alice had asked, shaken by the guns in the distance.
“We will go to Caldwell first to get them?”
“We will go to Lai. She with Gus. He will make sure they get to Lai safely.”
Facia and Alice had packed a few of their things.
On the front porch in Logan Town, they said Ol’ Pa spoke to a neighbor, an older man who did not live far from their home. His jeep was parked outside as he spoke, and young children peered out of the window. Ol’ Pa hurried inside and the man remained outside on the porch.
“Alice!” he called. “Come go with him.”
Alice ran to Ol’ Pa. Bom went to her and stood beside her. He was a thin boy, orange-brown and tall for twelve years old.
“The man says he’s going to the airport. They are airlifting American citizens. They will take Bom,” he said, looking down at his grandson. “He needs a guardian. You can go too.”
“But what about Ma?” Alice asked, wiping her face, yelling.
“What about you? It is not safe here, Alice,” Ol’ Pa said, and looked at the man waiting on the porch.
“And what about you, Ol’ Pa?” Alice asked, still shaking.
“Do not worry about me. Me, I’m going to Lai,” he said. He towered over them—tall and majestic in his stature.
“No, no. You and Ol’ Ma,” Alice said, shaking her head. “You are old. Facia!”
Facia rushed to where they were standing.
“The man says they will airlift Americans, and Bom needs a guardian,” she began and was unable to finish. Her tears filled her palms and Facia hugged her, letting Alice lean into her. Facia said they kissed each other more times than she could count, as only my sisters would.
“Hurry, he will leave soon,” Ol’ Pa said in a panic. The shooting sounded closer by the minute. He returned to the foyer, where he hugged and kissed Bom. Facia and Alice went to their rooms to collect traveling papers and other information for the embassy.
“Take care of your aunty, big boy,” Ol’ Pa said.
Facia hugged Ol’ Pa as if she were five years old again. She sobbed into his chest.
“Come, come now,” Ol’ Pa said. “This will be over soon. Go to New York. You have Mam’s number?”
“Yes,” Facia said.
“And you have your papers?”
Facia nodded.
“Then go and come back in time for Christmas.” His smile was hers.
Facia took Bom’s hand and they ran into the man’s jeep. In the rearview mirror, through the dust made by those running on the road, she saw Ol’ Pa and Alice stand together on the porch, crying and waving until they disappeared.
I made Facia and Bom pepper soup. Stirred the water and tomato sauce and peppers and fish and bouillon and onions and salt into the pot with all my love. I watched as they drank, gripping their spoons as they sat together on my living room couch, still rattled from their journey.
“I should be feeding you,” Facia said, and I could not stop crying. “Aye, Mam.”
“It’s just that I thought everyone was—I didn’t hear from anyone for so long,” I finally admitted.
“I can’t imagine,” Facia said.
“Before coming, you said you heard nothing from them?” I asked again.
“Everybody was running and rushing. Pa called and called but nobody in Caldwell picked up. He say Gus will take care of them. He say they will go to Lai until the war stop.”
“But Caldwell so far from Cape Mount. So far from Lai,” I said.
“Just pray,” Facia told me.
Facia was able to come with Bom to America as his guardian, someone who could take care of him because Alice was far away. There were still American citizens in Liberia who were being airlifted to safety. Liberians tried their luck crossing into Guinea, Ghana, and Sierra Leone as men fought over who would be the next king.
“Sam Doe is saying he will not step down,” Facia said after drinking her soup. “The rebels them all
over Liberia just like roaches, spoiling everything trying to force him out of the presidency.”
“What?”
“Buildings, cars, even pipes. They’re digging up pipes to go sell. Destroying everything until he leaves.”
I imagined the Liberia I had left—the sprawling beaches, the roads bending into markets.
On Saturday mornings in Liberia, I woke up my girls with music. With Miriam Makeba, Sunny Okosun, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Mary Kiazolu, and George Gozi. On Saturday mornings I would play these singers, these magicians, and dance to them while I cooked in my Caldwell kitchen.
“Pata Pata,” one of Makeba’s most popular works, was only one of a collection of around fifty songs that embedded themselves into the mold of that house. I danced there. I moved my feet and hips as though I were a part of the music. My girls rolled their pelvises around, then jerked their bottoms back and forth. I could still hear their laughter. Gus would sometimes join me, and they watched us, each step bringing us closer to Liberia’s full story, the dancing and funky hiccupping beats that moved the junctions of their bones. The merging cultures and origins, all trying to make sense of a place they all wanted to call home.
That night I pressed Play on an old tape player, and inside there was a Miriam Makeba cassette. Makeba sang “Suliram,” a song she recorded in 1960, an Indonesian lullaby whose title means “go to sleep.” The song floated through the walls of my apartment and over me as I lay on my couch beside the phone and looked up at the ridged ceiling.
“Suliram, ram, ram,” Makeba sang as I cried. “Suliram yang manis.” The lyrics weighed me down. “Go to sleep,” Makeba sang. But I could not. I walked to my bed, where Facia slept beside Bom, in the dark.
“You sleeping?” I asked, as if we were children, little girls again at Ol’ Ma’s house in Logan Town.
“No,” Facia said, sniffing.
I found my sister’s hand and held it. “Suliram, ram, ram. Suliram yang manis,” Makeba sang. And I swore I heard Facia sing along, hum and wail those prayers in the night, just as our mother would.