by Wayétu Moore
“Hello,” he said, examining at my passport. “Where is your address here?”
I cleared my throat and handed him a sheet of paper with the address of Facia’s friend written on it.
“I am staying with Marta Raman,” I said.
The man nodded and stamped my passport, letting me pass. Beyond the counter, two security guards waited for me, blocking my way to the airport exit.
“We just need to check your bag,” one said.
I handed them my suitcase and watched carefully as they opened it and lifted a few of my clothes.
“Open your purse,” one of them said.
I held out my purse and opened it for the guard to look inside.
“Okay, you can go,” he said and pushed my valise aside. A man approached with a customs vest and paced in front of me.
“Where you coming from? London or America?” he asked.
My exit was so close. I glanced at the door.
“America, but I don’t need your help,” I said, remembering Facia’s stories about rogues who waited at the airport for naive travelers to steal from.
“Your people outside?” he asked and I nodded.
“Let me take your bag for you,” he said, gesturing toward my suitcase. “Too heavy for the beautiful lady.”
“No, no,” I said holding my bag close.
“Okay, okay,” he said, friendly and respectfully. “I am only trying to help. Welcome, sister,” he said and walked away.
I felt sorry for how short I had been with him, but the feeling was fleeting, eclipsed by my new anxiety that I had actually made it back. Outside, the sun ran to meet me, kissing my face like the sister, the child it recognized me to be. A plane flew above us out of Sierra Leone and cars honked their way out of the parking lot in jagged lines.
A man approached me wearing a newly pressed shirt. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief and smiled my way.
“Are you Mam?” he asked. He extended his hand toward my suitcase. Again, I pulled the suitcase and purse close.
“Yes,” I said softly.
“No worry, no worry. I am Marta’s driver,” he laughed. He looked out onto the lot and pointed toward a car about a hundred yards away. The door opened and a short woman stepped out, straightening her dress. She waved toward me and adjusted her sunglasses. I laughed and waved to the woman.
“Oh!” I said. “Thank you. Thank you,” I said to the driver and handed him my suitcase. I followed him to the car where Marta waited. The impending greeting made me anxious. I knew nothing of the woman except that she was a former classmate of Facia during her time at the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon, France.
“Hello!” Marta said, giggling. “Wow, you look just like Facia!”
I hugged her and landed a soft kiss on each cheek.
“Thank you for coming,” I said.
She smelled like she had rubbed peppermint oil behind her ears. I couldn’t see her eyes behind her sunglasses, but I imagined they were as kind as her voice.
“You must be famished,” Marta said.
The windows had been manually rolled down and all of those delightful smells raced to meet my senses.
“I am,” I answered, shyly. “Thank you again for everything.”
“No, please,” Marta smiled. “If you are Facia’s sister, then you are my sister.” She rubbed my shoulder. “It is truly brave what you are doing.”
“I haven’t done anything yet,” I said. “I want to leave tonight for the border town if possible. I could at least get there in the early morning.”
“Nonsense!” Marta said, hitting the seat playfully. “You just arrived. Please. I had my house girl make you jollof rice. And we can make palaver sauce if you want. Plus, it’s better to arrive in the afternoon. Especially now.”
I reluctantly agreed. The driver hit the brakes hard as schoolchildren crossed the road. The Freetown intersections were swarming, more packed than I remembered from my visits when I was younger. On the other side of the street, the children danced and chased each other through the passing crowd. One turned around and made a face at us, twisting his mouth and nose in opposite directions, before continuing with his friends.
“Don’t mind them,” Marta laughed, noticing the child’s face. “Their gut is full. Everybody happy about Christmas.”
“Yes, yes.” I breathed in the day’s sighs. “I can’t believe it’s been a year since I’ve been back.”
“Time does fly, doesn’t it?” Marta asked, not missing a beat.
“There are so many people,” I said.
“Yes, many of your people have come this year. Nobody ever imagined this could happen to Liberia. I remember we were all once trying to cross your borders for jobs. Now it’s Liberians looking for jobs everywhere else since things do not look like they are changing.”
“Wow.”
“I hear Guinea and Ghana, and even Nigeria, have many more in refugee camps,” Marta said.
I wondered how many of the friends were in those camps.
“They say they are setting up settlement programs in New York for those in the camps. In Staten Island, I believe,” Marta said.
“Yes, I’ve heard that too,” I said, staring at the many pedestrians on the road. “And also Rhode Island, is what they are saying.”
“Yes, there too.”
“This is all still unbelievable,” I said.
“Yes, it’s too bad,” Marta said. “You know there are rumors now that Taylor’s rebels are on their way through Sierra Leone. They want to overthrow Momoh too.”
“We heard it but we didn’t know how true it was,” I said.
“I am making my way out of this place myself soon. I will go to France and wait it out.”
“We will pray.”
A boy approached our window selling fried plantains. I imagined he would place that day’s earnings in a pot near his front door, to be used by a shy but stern mother or Ol’ Ma, or a tired but joyous father or Ol’ Pa. I handed him a few coins. He smiled when he saw the money and grabbed a few of the bags out of his bucket.
“No,” I said waving my hand.
He nodded in gratitude as the car drove away from the intersection. I retrieved a handkerchief out of my purse and pressed it against my forehead. The heat filled the back seat as the car once again stopped in traffic.
“You will be broke in a week’s time that way,” Marta said laughing.
“It’s a good thing I won’t be here for long then,” I said.
“So you were serious about leaving soon then?”
“Yes,” I said. “I have to. I will leave for Bo Waterside first thing in the morning.”
“Yes, well, anything we can do to help,” Marta agreed. “We will take you first thing. Do you know anyone there?”
“No,” I said. “I will find a room to rent and decide what to do from there.”
“You really are as brave as Facia claims,” Marta said. “Well, I will give you my number. You can call me just in case.”
Marta’s flat was the same size as my suite in New York. She lived in the middle of Freetown where the voices of laughter and soccer balls lasted through the day. The smell of burning coal stalked the bathroom from a tiny window with iron bars. The water pressure in the shower was low and the water was cold, but I stood underneath shivering. The nervousness came to me at once—the noise outside shaking my confidence, those faces on the road with no trace of my family. I had no plan beyond taking the bus to Bo Waterside and finding a room. Marta confirmed that it was nearly impossible to cross the border, but I tried to remain hopeful. Bo Waterside was so close to Junde, only a day’s journey—and Lai was a canoe ride outside Junde. Surely there were people in the town who would be familiar with the area. I wrapped myself in a towel and gazed into a mirror. I had kept my hair in a ponytail as Facia had suggested, so my cheekbones were especially high below my sunken eyes. I remembered what Ol’ Ma had told me about coming home if I was ever unable to recognize
myself in the mirror.
“I’m here, Ma,” I said.
That night, Marta’s cook boiled a pot of white rice. She boiled pork meat, chicken breasts, shrimp, and smoked fish in another pot with diced onion and peppers. She took the meat out of the pot and emptied most of the salty, seasoned water. She placed jute leaves in the leftover water until it boiled, the sound like joking Ol’ Pas on a dry-season porch who fought with the sun to stay a little longer behind the sugarcane fields. The smell of the seasoned leaves filled the apartment, making my mouth water. The cook then emptied the bowl of boiled meats into the boiling greens and added palm oil, along with fresh peppers and other seasoning. Palaver sauce. When the greens were finished, she placed them over the rice she had prepared and took two plates out for me and Marta. I thanked her and stared at the bowl, its steam rising in perfect undulations. I had no appetite, bullied by nerves, but I forced myself to eat for energy.
Once when I was young, I got sick and lost my appetite for days, becoming so frail that it worried Ol’ Ma and Ol’ Pa. Ol’ Ma made me a bowl of checked rice with okra and gravy, frying two of the best chickens on the farm in Lubn Town. She took it to the bed where I lay, next to the lantern that made a titan of her shadow.
“Eat,” Ol’ Ma had said, and I shook my head.
“You must eat,” Ol’ Ma said again, and I still refused.
“Then what will you do when the Mamy Wateh witch and the dragons them come for you? You will need energy if Pa not here to save you.” That had gotten my attention, and I opened my mouth for Ol’ Ma to feed me.
“And with each bite, pray for your strength against those bad bad things,” Ol’ Ma said, easing the metal spoon into my mouth. So with each bite at Marta’s, I prayed for strength from those things, trying my best not to cry.
Early the following morning, I boarded a local bus in Freetown headed to the Sierra Leone–Liberia border town of Bo Waterside. Marta asked if I wanted to keep any of my belongings in Freetown, but I took my entire suitcase and purse with me. Inside the bus I placed the suitcase on the seat near the window and I held my purse in my lap, squeezing it against my stomach. I was told by Marta’s driver to occupy my own row if I could, to avoid pickpockets who frequently used the transit for extra income. He had also said to sit at the aisle seat instead of the window, so in the unlikely event of a carjacking or other emergency, I could more easily escape. The advice had given me angst and I trembled as I boarded, and I concluded that I would pray during the entire nine-hour bus ride. There were two holes in the back windows, made by bullets. The seats on the bus were covered with old vinyl that had been tied with string or taped at bursting corners. I found an empty row in the middle and sat.
The bus passengers were mostly traders who traveled back and forth from Freetown to the border towns for goods to sell in market. The bus was less rank than I thought it would be, and I was glad that the morning breeze crept through the opened windows. As the bus pulled off, there was a loud knocking at the front door. The driver cursed while he opened the door, and a short man boarded, paying him and moving through the bus to find a seat. I looked toward the window in hopes that he would not try to sit beside me. I heard his heavy footsteps approach, and the man stopped right in front of my seat.
“Please, can I sit?” he asked.
I examined his face. His skin was the same color as his dark eyes, he was graying, and he had short fingers tightly wrapped around the handle of a duffle bag. I looked around the crowded bus and stood, picking up my suitcase, to let him slide into the window seat. The man was short—even shorter than me—and looked up at me when I stood. I placed my suitcase underneath the seat in front of me, watching it carefully as the bus continued on.
“Thank you,” the man said. “I am Jallah.”
I nodded but did not respond, afraid to encourage conversation, and I continued in silence as the bus rode along. The faces of pedestrians and city buildings sitting too close together became deep and vast plains. The Atlantic Ocean was not too far away, and my head leaned against its jubilant sound. Gus had courted me in the presence of that same ocean. I was a teenager when we met, and while we were undergraduates at the University of Liberia, he spent all his spare change on bus fare to visit me and my parents in Logan Town. Ol’ Ma liked him because he was as brave as Ol’ Pa had been, direct with his intentions, yet soft when he looked at me. The ocean had eavesdropped when he proposed.
I had been unable to sleep the night before. I lay awake in Marta’s guest bed for hours anticipating my journey. Now these distant beaches ushered me to sleep, applauding my return after what felt like a lifetime away. Every time I dozed off, I woke up suddenly, surveying my surroundings with my purse close to my breasts. The suitcase remained underneath the seat.
The man laughed beside me.
“Do not worry,” he said. “It is still there. I am watching it for you.” I moved uncomfortably in the stiff bus seat.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. I leaned my head against the seat.
“Besides, it is not thieves we must worry about. Everybody is too nervous going this way to steal,” he chuckled. He looked out of the bus window and I finally smiled. His voice was warm and familiar.
“Thank you,” I said again, making sure he heard me.
“Ah, no worry, no worry.”
“What was your name again?” I asked after a moment. He turned to face me, noticeably pleased.
“Jallah,” he said. “Yours?”
“My family calls me Mam,” I answered. “I’m Vai.”
“Oh! You are Vai?” he asked, holding out his hand. I shook it.
“Yes. It’s nice to meet you,” I said.
“I knew it,” he said in Vai. “Our women are the most beautiful. That’s what I say.”
I laughed with him and blushed.
“Bie-kah. Thank you,” I responded in Vai.
“You have been away, yes?”
Just as Facia had told me, my time in America was emanating from me, even with the plain clothes and hair.
“No worry, I will not hurt you. Anyway, you are clever to be so quiet, but you are safe. By my word,” Jallah said, holding up his right hand. “I knew that too,” Jallah said, joyfully slapping his thigh. “You should be careful traveling when you reach the border towns. I hear that not too long ago they kidnapped a woman they thought was an American nurse. They still looking for her.”
I looked out the window.
“But no worry, no worry. You Vai girl and Vai people they not humbugging much, they say. You going to market?”
“No, to Bo Waterside. I need to find a room,” I said.
“There are plenty rooms there but not all of them good,” Jallah said. “You have family there?”
“I have family in Cape Mount,” I said. “On the other side.”
“Yes, me too,” Jallah said. “Plenty family in Cape Mount.”
“Oh, that’s good.”
“I have many many brothers and sisters. Many of them. Nobody die in war yet. One cousin we can’t find but nobody die yet,” he said.
“That’s good to hear,” I said, my body now cold. “What do you do?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Me, I am a trader. I go to Freetown for things you can only find in America and London and I sell and trade with the boys at the border,” he said.
“That’s good,” I said.
“People want American things plenty. Perfume and jeans, jewelry, anything they buy if it’s from America.”
“That is something. People in school in America ask me where they can find African masks and fabric. They pay plenty money for it,” I said.
“Yes, I know, I know. People want American thing. American want African thing,” Jallah said. “Nobody just happy with what they have.”
“Yeh,” I agreed.
“You will see the market at Bo Waterside. American thing there too,” Jallah said.
“I’m sure,” I said. “But the first thing I have to do is find a ro
om.”
“I have rooms and I would let you rent one but my wives will get jealous.” He laughed again until he coughed. I laughed too. I couldn’t help it.
“The two of them are hard women—my wives. The people them ask why I choose them, but the heart wants what it wants,” Jallah said. “How many wives did your father marry?” he asked.
“One,” I said.
“Oh! And your grandfather?”
“One,” I said.
“Both of them?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. And still wealthy enough to have daughter in America? They are great men,” Jallah said, waving his pointer finger.
“They were great women,” I replied.
Jallah looked at the golden band hugging my slender finger.
“And how long have you been married?”
“Eight years. Our anniversary was last week. December 12.”
“Happy anniversary,” Jallah said. “You are beautiful woman. I am sure he will buy you plenty fine gifts.”
I touched my ring.
“He is alive?” Jallah asked.
“Yes. I was told he is living.”
“That’s good! You never know, my sister,” he continued in Vai. “I met a woman in Freetown who was selling at a market to feed her daughters. She said her husband and brother were killed and she cannot find her son.”
“God bless her,” I said.
“Yes-oh.”
“And is he at Bo Waterside?” Jallah asked.
“No, he is in a village on the other side. I am going to try to get him and my daughters out,” I said, each word heavier than the last.
Jallah raised his eyebrow and turned to the window. When he looked at me again, his eyebrows were still creased, unable to filter his doubtful thoughts.
“And … and how will you do that, sister?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Jallah,” I said. “Not sure yet. I hope to get answers once I reach the border.”
“Ah,” he said with warmth in his eyes. “You women are mighty. God bless you, sister.”