Allah is Not Obliged

Home > Literature > Allah is Not Obliged > Page 5
Allah is Not Obliged Page 5

by Ahmadou Kourouma


  Let’s start from the start.

  Mostly, things don’t happen like that. Mostly, the bike or the car or whatever stops dead when the kid makes the signal and doesn’t go past him even one inch. When it happens like that, everything goes smoothly, very smoothly. Faforo! The kid, the child-soldier, who’s about as tall as an officer’s cane, chats to the guys on the motorbike protecting the convoy. They get to know each other a bit, laughing and joking as if they drank beer together every night. Then the kid whistles, then he whistles again. Then a four-by-four truck comes out of the forest all covered in camouflage leaves. A four-by-four full of kids, child-soldiers, small-soldiers. Kids about this tall … as tall as an officer’s cane. Child-soldiers showing off, their kalashes, their AK-47s, slung over their shoulders, all dressed in Para uniforms. All dressed in parachute gear way too big for them, so the uniforms are falling down round their knees, and they’re swimming in them. The funniest thing is that there’s girls, genuine girls with real AK-47s showing off. But there aren’t too many girls. Only the cruel ones: only the one’s who’d stick a live bee right in your eye. (When someone is really cruel, Black Nigger African Natives say ‘they’d stick a live bee right in your eye’.) Then you’d see lots more child-soldiers dressed in the same uniforms, with the same guns, but walking out of the forest, or hanging off the cars and chatting to the people in the convoy like they were best friends who did their initiation together. (In the village, doing your initiation together means you’re really good friends.) Then the four-by-four truck drives to the front of the convoy and they all head off together.

  Then, you arrive in a camp that belongs to Colonel Papa le Bon. Everyone in the convoy gets out and goes into Colonel Papa le Bon’s hut. They unpack everything, weigh everything, measure everything on account of the taxes and duties are based on how much all the stuff is worth. There’s a lot of palaver and arguing and after a while you reach an agreement. Then you pay and pay and pay. You pay in kind, with rice, manioc, fonio (‘fonio’ is a food also called acha, or ‘hungry rice’). You can even pay with American dollars, real American dollars. Then Colonel Papa le Bon organises an ecumenical mass. (In my Larousse, it says ‘ecumenical’ means a mass where there’s Jesus Christ and Mohammed and Buddha.) So anyway, Colonel Papa le Bon organises an ecumenical mass. There’s lots of blessings and stuff. Then he goes his way and you go your way.

  That’s the way it’s supposed to happen. Because Colonel Papa le Bon is the representative spokesman of the NPFL (which stands for National Patriotic Front of Liberia). The NPFL is the movement of the warlord Taylor, who wreaks havoc all over the region.

  But that’s not how things went with us. The guys at the front on the motorbike who were supposed to defend us thought the kid was a road-block and opened fire. And that’s when the shit hit the fan.

  All we could hear was the tat-tat-tat of AK-47s, just machine-guns tat-tat-tat-ing away. Whoever it was just kept shooting and shooting and shooting. When the damage was done, totally done, that’s when it stopped.

  While all this was going on, all of us in the convoy were going crazy. Everyone was screaming out to the spirits of their ancestors and to every protective spirit in heaven and on earth. With all the noise, it sounded like thunder. And all this because the guy on the motorcycle had been showing off with his kalash and fired at the child-soldier.

  Yacouba had a bad feeling the minute we boarded the truck. He never liked the look of the guy on the back of the motorbike, the one who fired the first shot, the one who thought the kid was just a little thief setting up a road-block. It was the guy on the back of the motorcycle who fired and made all the consequences happen and now we were in the shit.

  Then we saw a child-soldier, a small-soldier as tall as an officer’s cane, a child-soldier wearing a baggy Para uniform. It was a girl. She was walking hesitantly. (‘Hesitantly’ is what you say when someone is walking like they’re nervous and unsure.) And she looked round at all the destruction from the AK-47ing, looked really carefully as if one of the guys might get up when actually everyone was totally dead, even the blood was dead beat, from flowing all over the place. She stopped where she was and whistled loudly and then whistled again. And then child-soldiers started appearing from all over the place, all dressed like her, all waving their AK-47s.

  First they surrounded us and started yelling, ‘Out of the trucks, hands on your heads!’ And we all started getting down, hands on our heads.

  The child-soldiers were really, really angry; they were red in the face they were so angry. (You don’t really say ‘red in the face’ for blacks. Blacks never go red in the face, they just frown.) Anyway the small-soldiers were frowning; they were crying on account of how angry they were, they were crying for their dead friend.

  We started getting out of the trucks. Single file, one after the other. One of the soldiers took the jewellery, ripping off earrings and necklaces and stuffing them in a bag that another guy was carrying. The child-soldiers took our headdresses and clothes and shoes. If they liked your underwear, they took that too. They put all the clothes into piles, lots of piles: one pile for the shoes, one pile for the headdresses, one for pants, one for underpants. All the naked passengers from the trucks uncomfortably tried to cover their bangala if it was a man or their gnoussou-gnoussou if it was a woman (according to the Glossary, ‘bangala’ and ‘gnoussou-gnoussou’ are names for your shameful parts), but the child-soldiers didn’t let them. They ordered the embarrassed passengers to fuck off into the forest. And everyone ran off into the forest with no objections.

  When it came to Yacouba’s turn, he wasn’t going to be pushed around. He cried, ‘Me marabout, me grigriman, me grigriman!’

  The child-soldiers poked him and forced him to take off his clothes. He kept on shouting, ‘Me shaman, grigriman. Me grigriman …’ Even when he had no clothes on and was trying to cover his bangala with his hands, he kept on screaming, ‘Grigriman, shaman.’ And when they told him to go into the jungle, he came back shouting, ‘Grigriman, shaman.’ ‘Makou!’ ordered the child-soldiers aiming an AK-47 at his arse. (‘Makou’ is in the Glossary and it means ‘shut up’.) So he shut up and stood on the side of the road with his hands covering his shameful parts.

  Then came my turn. I let them pull me to my feet. I was blubbering like a spoiled brat, ‘Child-soldier, small-soldier, soldier-child, I want to be a child-soldier, I want to go to my aunt’s house in Niangbo.’ They kept taking my clothes off and I kept blubbering and crying, ‘Me small-soldier, me child-soldier, me soldier-child.’ Then they ordered me into the jungle but I wouldn’t go, I just stood there with my bangala hanging there. I don’t give a shit about modesty, I’m a street kid. (According to the Petit Robert, ‘modesty’ means ‘a respect for moral standards’.) I don’t give a fuck about moral standards, I just kept on crying.

  One of the child-soldiers poked a kalash in my arse and shouted, ‘Makou, makou!’ So I shut up. I was trembling, trembling like the hindquarters of a nanny-goat waiting for a billy-goat (‘hindquarters’ means ‘arse, bum’). I felt like I needed to do pee-pee, to do pooh, to do everything. Walahé!

  Next came a woman, a mother. She got down from the truck with her baby in her arms. A stray bullet had put a hole in the poor baby and killed it. The mother wasn’t going to let herself be pushed around: she refused to take off her clothes. They tore off her pagne (according to the Glossary, a ‘pagne’ is an item of traditional female clothing consisting of a piece of cloth without fastenings wrapped around the body). She refused to run into the forest, she stood beside me and Yacouba, on the side of the road, holding her dead baby in her arms. She started crying, ‘My baby, my baby. Walahé! Walahé!‘ When I heard her, I started crying like the spoiled brat again, ‘I want to go to Niangbo, I want to be a child-soldier. Faforo! Walahé! Gnamokodé!’

  The concert got too deafening, too loud, and they finally started to pay attention. ‘Shut the fuck up!’ they ordered, and we went makou. ‘Don’t move!’ and we stood t
o attention by the side of the road, like a bunch of fuckwits.

  And then a four-by-four came out of the jungle. It was full of child-soldiers. They didn’t wait for a signal, they just started looting the trucks. They took everything worth taking. They piled all the stuff into the four-by-four. The four-by-four made a couple of trips to the village. After they took all the things in the convoy, they started taking the piles of shoes and clothes and hats. They piled everything into the four-by-four and did another couple of trips. On the last run, the four-by-four brought back Colonel Papa le Bon.

  * * *

  Walahél Colonel Papa le Bon was shockingly garbed (according to my Larousse, ‘garbed’ means ‘dressed strangely’). For a start Colonel Papa le Bon had colonel’s stripes. That was on account of the tribal wars. Colonel Papa le Bon was wearing a white soutane, a white soutane tied at the waist with a leather belt, a belt held up by a pair of black leather braces crossed across his back and his chest. Colonel Papa le Bon was wearing a cardinal’s mitre. Colonel Papa le Bon was leaning on a pope’s staff, a staff with a crucifix at the top. Colonel Papa le Bon was carrying a bible in his left hand. To top it all off, Colonel Papa le Bon was wearing an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. The AK-47 and Colonel Papa le Bon were inseparable, he carried it round with him night and day. That was on account of the tribal wars.

  Colonel Papa le Bon stepped out of the four-by-four, he was crying. It’s the truth, he was crying like a baby. He went over and crouched over the body of the child-soldier, the body of the little boy who had tried to stop the convoy. He prayed, then prayed some more. Then Colonel Papa le Bon came towards us. Wearing all the strange stuff he was wearing.

  I started to cry again, ‘I want to be a soldier-child, small-soldier, child-soldier, I want my auntie, I want my auntie in Niangbo!’ A child-soldier with a machine-gun tried to make me swallow my sobs, but Colonel Papa le Bon stopped the kid and came over and patted my head like a proper father. I was happy and proud as a Senegalese wrestling champion. I stopped crying. With all his majesty, Colonel Papa le Bon gave a signal. A signal that meant they were going to take me with them. They gave me a pagne and I wrapped it round my arse and tied it.

  Colonel Papa le Bon went over to Yacouba who started chanting again, ‘I am a grigriman, I am a shaman.’ The colonel made another signal and they brought Yacouba a pagne so he could hide his shameful parts. His bangala had shrunk.

  Then Colonel Papa le Bon went over to the mother, the mother with the dead baby. He looked at her and looked at her. She was all filthy and she wasn’t wearing her pagne any more and her underwear didn’t really cover her gnoussou-gnoussou. She had a sensual charm, she had a voluptuous sex-appeal, (‘sex appeal’ meaning that she made you want to make love). Colonel Papa le Bon wanted to walk away, but he came back. He came back because the woman had voluptuous sex-appeal, he came back and stroked the baby. He ordered his people to come and take the baby.

  They came with a makeshift stretcher and took the baby. (You say a ‘makeshift stretcher’ when the stretcher has been made in a hurry. That’s what it says in the Petit Robert.) The dead bodies of the baby and the little boy were lifted on to the four-by-four on makeshift stretchers.

  Colonel Papa le Bon climbed into the four-by-four. Four child-soldiers with AK-47s got into the car beside Colonel Papa le Bon. The truck set off. Everyone else followed, foot to the road. That’s right, foot to the road. (I already explained ‘foot to the road’ means walking.)

  We followed them. We means Yacouba, the mother of the dead baby, and your servant, me, the street kid, in the flesh. The truck headed towards the village slowly and silently. Slowly and silently because it had dead people in it. That’s what you do in everyday life, when you’ve got dead people on board, you drive slowly and silently. We were optimistic because Allah in his infinite goodness never leaves empty a mouth he has created. Faforo!

  Suddenly Colonel Papa le Bon stopped the truck. He got out of the truck, everyone got out of the truck. Colonel Papa le Bon roared, a song that was powerful and melodious. The song was returned by the echo. The echo of the forest. It was the song of the dead in Gio. Gio is the language of the Black Nigger African Natives in these parts, it’s a patois. Malinkés call them bushmen, savages, cannibals on account of they don’t speak Malinké like us and they’re not Muslim like us. In our big bubus the Malinkés look like they’re kind and friendly but really we’re racist bastards.

  The song was taken up by the child-soldiers with the AK-47s. It was so, so beautiful that it made me cry. I cried my eyes out like this was the first time I’d ever seen something terrible. Cried like I didn’t believe in Allah. You should have seen it. Faforo!

  Everyone in the village came out of the huts. Out of curiosity, to see what was happening. The villagers followed the four-by-four with the bodies in it. Out of habit and because people are stupid and always following things. It was a genuine procession.

  The dead child-soldier was called Kid, Captain Kid. Now and again in his beautiful song, Colonel Papa le Bon chanted ‘Captain Kid’ and the whole cortege howled after him ‘Kid, Kid’. You should have heard it. They sounded like a bunch of retards.

  We got to the camp. Like all the camps in the Liberian tribal wars, there were human skulls on stakes all round the boundary. Colonel Papa le Bon pointed his AK-47 in the air and fired. All the child-soldiers stopped dead and fired into the air like him. It was like I was dreaming. You should have seen it. Gnamokodé!

  Kid’s body was laid out under the appatam (‘appatam’ is in the Glossary, I explained it already).

  Crowds and crowds came past every single second, all of them bending over the body and acting all sad as if people didn’t go round slaughtering lots of innocents and children every day in Liberia.

  That night, the funeral vigil started at nine o’clock after the Muslim prayers and the Catholic prayers. Nobody knew Kid’s religion, on account of no one knew if his parents were Catholic or Muslim. It’s kif-kif, same difference. The whole village was there for the vigil. There were lots of storm lanterns. It was spellbinding. (‘Spellbinding’ is a big word I found in the Larousse, it means something that is magical.)

  Two women started a chant and then the choir and everyone else joined in. Once in a while, so as not to fall asleep, and so as not to be eaten alive by mosquitoes, they’d get up and shake their elephant tails. Because the women had elephant tails and they danced in a lewd way! In fact, it wasn’t lewd, it was demonic. (According to the Petit Robert, ‘lewd’ means ‘indecent or obscene’.)

  Suddenly we heard a cry from some unfathomable depth. The cry announced that Colonel Papa le Bon had joined the dance, that the master of ceremonies had entered the circle. Everyone stood up and took off their headdresses because he was the boss and the lord of the whole place. And we saw Colonel Papa le Bon completely transformed. Totally! Walahé! No shit!

  He was wearing a multicoloured headwrap and he was stripped to the waist. He had muscles like a bull and it made me happy to see such a strong well-fed man in famine-starved Liberia. He had a bunch of medals hanging round his neck, from his arms and from his shoulders and in the middle of all the medals was his kalash. He had the kalash on account of there were tribal wars in Liberia and people were being killed like they weren’t worth an old grandmother’s fart. (In my village, when something’s not worth much, we say it’s not worth an old grandmother’s fart. I explained that before and now I’ve explained it again.) Colonel Papa le Bon walked round the body three times then came and sat down. Everyone sat down and listened like a bunch of arseholes.

  He started off by telling the events of how Captain Kid got killed. The two young men on the motorbike were possessed by evil spirits and fired on him without warning. The devil had got into them. The captain’s soul flew off and we shall mourn him. We could not exorcise the devil from the hearts of every passenger in the convoy or from the minds of the men responsible for the captain’s death. It just was not possible. That’s why we had to k
ill some of them, but seeing as God says thou shalt not kill too much, or at least thou shalt kill less, we stopped killing, and left the others just as they came into the world. We left them naked. This is what the Lord has said: when people truly injure you, kill less but leave them naked they came into the world. Everything in the trucks and all their possessions were brought here to the camp. These things should be given to the captain’s parents, but since no one knows who the captain’s parents are, they will be distributed, shared out fairly between the child-soldiers, between Captain Kid’s friends. The child-soldiers can sell off these things and make a couple of dollars. With the dollars they can buy lots of hashish. God will punish the people who committed the evil deed that killed Captain Kid.

  Next, Colonel Papa le Bon told us what had to be done. Walahé! The devourer of souls had to be exposed. The devourer of souls who had gobbled up the child-soldier, Captain Kid, djoko-djoko. (According to the Glossary, ‘djoko-djoko’ means ‘by fair means or foul’.) He had to be hunted down in whatever form he had taken. There would be dancing all night and if necessary all the next day. The dance would go on until the devourer of souls had been unmasked. Until he had made a clean breast. (According to the Larousse, ‘make a clean breast’ means when someone confesses his terrible crime from his own lips.)

  So as to look more serious and more approachable, Colonel Papa le Bon took off his kalash. He put the kalash close at hand, put it within easy reach on account of there was war and people were dying like flies from tribal wars in Liberia.

 

‹ Prev