That first time after he is finishing and I am leaving him, I was going to lie down, but I could not. I was asking Strika whether his own was hurting so much the first time, and he was drawing me picture in the mud of man bending down with his hand on the ground and gun and bullet shooting up his buttom. The picture was very funny but I am not smiling. I was feeling I can never be smiling again. I was deciding that it was time for me to leave because I felt that I was bleeding and I did not want to be bleeding in front of him or the other soldier otherwise they might be laughing at me and calling me woman. So, that time I am leaving him in the darkness of the room where we are sleeping and taking the lantern and going on my way to find the stream. This time I am not even fearing because I am so angry and confusing in my head about what was happening that I am just walking along the path not even thinking that there is any animal or spirit or the Devil to come and get me. And when I am reaching the stream, I am letting myself to fall in backward with my buttom first, and then I am feeling the water rising up to my chest and all around my face. If I was brave boy, then I would have been swallowing water or rock or something that would have made me to stop breathing and sink right to the bottom where I would just be staying forever, but I am not wanting to die this way because the ancestor will not be letting you to come and live with them. Instead your spirit will just be living wherever you are leaving your body. I was staying under and holding my breath and then trying to open my mouth, but each time I was becoming afraid and swinging my arm and scaring the frog to be making too much noise.
That first time, I am walking back to my camp in the darkness with all the ancestor making noise in my head, with my feets going this way and that into the thorn because it was hurting me too much to walk straight. I was tripping and pounding and trying to keep the lamp from falling unless Commandant would beat me because the lamp is very costly. It is taking me so long to be getting back to the building where Strika was sleeping that by the time I am returning, I am finding Strika sleeping on his mat. I was not knowing where my own mat was, so I just started lying down on the concrete beside him. Then I was feeling his arm around me even though he is not opening his eye to be showing that he is awake. I was not sleeping and was watching him the whole night, shifting, sucking his finger, grabbing his thing, and beating the air with his hand. When the morning was just coming around, I began to be feeling tired and sleepy even more than I was feeling the pain in my buttom and also in my head, so I slept. I must have been sleeping for long time because when I am waking, Strika was gone, leaving only scratching in the ground next to me saying, God will punish him.
But now he is doing the same to me over and over and over and I am used to it somehow even though it is also making me to feel as if I am still feeling it for the first time. He likes to be whispering to me as if I am woman and this time when he is finishing, he is running his hand up and down my back to wipe away the sweat, and then he is rubbing my head like I am still little boy. He is quieting when we are finishing, so quiet I can hear him cleaning himself with his handkerchief and then sitting back down on the cot.
When he is finishing this time, the light from the fire is still showing through the mosquito net and Commandant is sitting at the edge of the bed with his hand between his leg. He is rocking back and forwards and I am trying to know what he is thinking. I am holding my own hand against my buttom and pressing it to stop the pain. And I am putting my head down in his pillow which is smelling of sweat and having little splinter of chewing stick sticking out from inside it. This his cot is not even strong enough to be holding both of us and is creaking with every breath he is taking. My tongue is shifting back into my mouth because I am afraid that I will be biting it off to stop the pain. He is taking deep breath and sucking in all of the shadow in the room like they are food to him.
Agu, he is saying. But he is so tired his word is dragging instead of jumping off of his tongue. Do you want to know something? Let me tell you something.
I am not wanting to know anything he is telling me. I am not wanting to be hearing his voice even if it is only sounding like dull knife because he is so tired. I am not wanting to hear him breathing or to be smelling the anger or worry in his breath. All of this is making me to want to take the fire from outside and be swallowing it so that it is burning out my inside and making me empty shell. But I am saying Sah! Yes Sah! He is putting his hand on the back of my head and I am swallowing hard. The spit is growing in my mouth and I am drooling on the pillow. He is looking at my back, and I am feeling his eye all up and down my naked body. I can feel his stare crawling on my skin like many ant that is moving slowly slowly on the land and eating the world to many piece in one million tiny bite. I am turning and looking at him from the corner of my eye. Even though the room is not having too much light, I am seeing his eye with the red and it is making me to think he is demon. The light is making his nose to sharp more and his lip to shine too much with saliva from his tongue so he is just looking like he is eating very good meal.
Agu. I am not bad man, he is saying softly and putting his hand on my back.
My tear begin to running down my face and are mixing with my spit in the pillow. I want to be telling him that I cannot be fighting anymore, that my mind is becoming rotten like the inside of fruit. But I am knowing that if I am saying anything like this, he will be slapping me the way he is always slapping all the other soldier—until their bloody teeths is cutting his hand. I am biting into the pillow so I will not be making any noise. I am feeling the wooden splinter digging into the top of my mouth and tongue. I am wanting to leave.
Commandant is dragging his finger down the back of my neck and letting them dance and drum on the bump of my back. They are feeling like many drop of hot hot boiling water. Then he is closing his hand around my own hand and moving them away from my buttom.
Don’t worry, he is saying. It will be okay.
We are leaving this place and before we are leaving we are tearing it all down. Tearing it all down. The morning is cool and it feels nice on my skin. And if there is no war and we are normal person and not soldier, we are jubilating and saying, how nice the morning feels. How nice it is before the sun is coming out from all the cloud. We are all waking up and walking around stretching our arm and leg, and we are all hungry. Nobody is eating. Everyone here is doing zero zero one. I am not knowing what this is meaning before I am soldier, but now I am knowing that it means no breakfast, no lunch, only dinner. If you are wanting to eat when it is not dinner, then you are having to keep your dinner from before to be eating the next day. Or if we raiding or finding farm, then we can be eating.
We are all knowing what to do when it is time to be leaving. Food is going in one truck. Kerosene and fuel is going in another truck, and everybody is making sure he is having his own gun or knife because if you are losing this gun or knife, then Commandant will be losing you.
So this is what we are doing, loading this and loading that until finally we are pulling all of the building into one pile of palm and wood and so before we are leaving the camp, we can be burning it all up. Burning it all up. Commandant is saying, quick. Tear it down. Make the pile. We are not wanting to leave any nice place for Government to be using if they are coming this side. Soldier is getting kerosene ready from one jerry can and pouring it all over all the palm that is just lying there like dead thing, and then Commandant is coming to me with match and saying to me, you should be lighting the fire. Commandant is making it big honor to be lighting the fire and I am knowing that he is giving it to me only because I am saluting his soldier for him. I am liking very much to be setting fire, but it is still not making me like what he is doing to me last night. Nothing he is giving me is ever making me to like that, but I am not saying it or he will be beating me.
I am taking the match from Commandant and striking them well well until I am hearing SHHKA and seeing the fire on the end of the matchstick. The smell is coming into my nose and making me to want to sneeze. I am holding the match
, holding the match until the fire is just eating up the stick and then I am throwing it like that into the pile. The whole place is bursting into big flame but not GBWEM! like if they are bombing or shelling. It is still very hot and still rising up quick quick until everything is burning burning. The flame is having the color of sunset, just orange everywhere, but everything it is touching it is only making them black so quick that there is nothing nice to be looking at. I am not liking the way this orange is just making black smoke to be flying everywhere and if you are looking through it, it is making everything to move back and forward even if it is standing still.
We are all watching for some while and drinking in the smell of the smoke rising up up to the sky. I am watching all the other soldier around us and how everyone is staring at the fire growing bigger and bigger until it is becoming to be very hot and we were also not wanting to be waiting around because the smoke is now beginning to get into our chest and making us to cough and getting into our eye and making us to cry.
Then we are lining up and I am next to Strika waiting to take my place in the truck and watching all the other soldier load up quick quick until the weight is making all the truck to groaning like wounded beast. We are waiting, but before we are getting in, Commandant is coming over and we are saluting him. He is saying to us, no. No. You two are bodyguarding me today. You will be riding in my own car with me.
There are so many of us to be sitting on one seat of Commandant’s truck, but we are all squeezing in. Driver is sitting behind the wheel. I am sitting next to driver, Strika is sitting next to me, and Commandant is sitting next to the other door. Inside of Commandant’s truck is so nice past anything that all the other soldier are even having. His seat is not made of wood but cushion so it is feeling very nice on your buttom when you are sitting on it. He is having button to be bringing down the window and you can even be turning on the radio when you are driving so we can be listening to music. Driver is turning it on and we are all moving our head up and down like lizard and tapping our finger to the song.
But I am looking out the window too and seeing how thing is just flashing by so fast, WHOOSH there is tree, WHOOSH there is house, WHOOSH there is person, and I am thinking that everything is moving so fast, I will be old man before the war is over. I am knowing I am no more child so if this war is ending I cannot be going back to doing child thing. No. I will be going back to be teachering or farming, or Doctor or Engineer, and I will be finding my mother and my sister, but not my father because he is dying in this war.
My thinking is like the road, going on and on, and on and on, until it is taking me so far far away from this place. Sometimes I am thinking of my life far far ahead and sometimes I am thinking of all the life I am leaving behind. And then I am looking at Commandant and Strika and I am also thinking to myself that both of them are looking so peaceful and beautiful like how we are looking before the war, like how we are being after the war, but not like now. Now we just be looking like animal.
Driving driving and walking walking and driving driving and walking walking and fighting and soldiering and running from road into bush and bush onto road. That is all we are doing. That is the only thing we can be doing until one day we are coming to one town. Commandant is calling it his town because he is living here as soldier sometimes before this war is starting. I am seeing sign that is saying, Welcome to the Town of Abundant Resources. I can read so I am knowing what welcome is meaning. I am knowing what town is meaning. And I am knowing what is abundant resources. But still I am wanting to know what this sign is meaning for us. I am wanting to ask somebody but I am not saying anything. No word is coming out of my mouth.
As we are standing on this road, I am seeing the breezes and feeling the grasses. I am mixing up but I am knowing always to be keeping my mouth closed. I am not saying anything but I am thinking nothing is easy. I am not happying anymore. I am not happying ever again.
Before we are coming here, Commandant is telling me how his town is fine past any other town, that his place is like paradise they are always talking about in Bible. In this place, he is saying, in this place enh. Everything is so fine. If you are looking from the top of hill, you are seeing how all the house is having different color roof, red, green, blue, yellow, orange so the whole place is just looking like field of flower stretching all the way up to the river which is shining shining. Ah, this river is shining so bright at the end of the town like one big piece of tin lying on the ground. We are always saying, he is saying, that in this place, maybe one day, big bird will just be coming down and carrying it off because he is thinking it is tin and not water. And ah ah! Agu, we are always having light all the time, and water and so many foods to be eating like chicken, and cow, and goat, and vegetable, and fruit, any kind fruit you are wanting because trader is always bringing everything he is having to this place to be selling. There is nothing they are not selling in this place. If you are wanting beautiful clothe, you can have clothe. If you are wanting beautiful wood, you can have wood, and jewelry—gold and silver. It is all here. We are having it all. But that is not even what I am really liking.
He is saying, the best thing this town is having is all the womens. Ah, woman in this place is just too beautiful. If you just see woman here, before you are even knowing it, your soldier is standing at full tenshun. They are having breast big like pillow and so nice and round that their clothe is even rejoicing to be holding them. And they are having buttom that is just rounding so nice that anytime they are sitting down, chair is also rejoicing. They are knowing well well how to make man feel so good with their kissing and loving. He is saying, kai! the last time I am in this place, enh! I am having four womens in one day until my soldier is hurting too much for me to even be easing myself.
You cannot even be knowing how nice this place is. It is just too nice, he is saying. And I am looking at him with my eye so open. So he is saying to me, why are you looking at me with your eye open like that? Enh? You think it is lie? Agu, enh, you think it is lie?
Let me be telling you how town is coming to this place, he is saying. Long long ago, he is saying, but not so long ago that there is no human but before human is really traveling from one village to the next village, there was trader who was just trading small small clothe in his own village. He is greedy man just trying to make his money from anything he is having, so all of the people in his village are living very poor and he is the only one living rich with the biggest compound, the most yam, and the most wife and child than anybody in his village—even the chief.
So one day there was small famine in the whole of the village, not too big but big enough that people are beginning to hungry too much and since it is famine, the land is not even giving anything for them to be eating because the land is hungry itself. So they are coming to the richest Cloth Seller, all of them the whole village in their brown rag and their dry skin. And they are asking him in one big voice that is just weak even though there are so many of them, Please Papa. Please give us food you are storing because we are so hungry and you are so rich. And the Cloth Seller was sweating and looking to his storage and then looking to everybody in the village and saying, why are you asking me for my yam? Are any of you helping my family and me when I am harvesting them? And then all of the village people were hmmming and ahahing between themself because it is all of their monies that is making this man to be so rich that he can be planting so many yam. So everybody in the village was just angrying at this Cloth Seller and shouting that he is not having any heart, and attacking him and his family until the man—who was also coward—is just running running, leaving his family to all the angry people agitating for food.
He was traveling, traveling, traveling through the bush looking left and right, walking for many many day, too many day. No food. No water. All his clothe tearing by the bush and his feets cutting with root and rock in the road until one day he is finding one old woman lying on the road. The woman was having only one eye and no teeths so that you are not even hear
ing what she is saying too much of the time. Cloth Seller was seeing that she is smelling of food so he was going to her and saying, Mma. Please Mma. Help me. I am just small trader leaving his village for trading, but robber on the road is attacking me and now I am having nothing, not even one drop of water to drink. The old woman he is talking to is witch and she is saying to him, don’t worry. If you are helping me to do something, then I will be giving you anything you are wanting. Normal, this man is not really helping to anybody and just trying to help himself, but this time he is hungrying so much that he is listening well well.
Witch is saying, I am old woman just too weak to be moving from my place under this nice tree, but my house is not too too far. Go into my house and be bringing yam pottage I am making, but do not be eating any of it until you are here. So Cloth Seller was following what Witch is saying and finding her hut in the middle of bush. It was smelling so bad like refuses all around and the whole mud of the hut is melting back into the ground because she is only having one leg and not able to be fixing it all the time like you are always having to fix mud hut. He was also smelling yam pottage so he was going into the hut and finding in the middle, on the fire, big bowl of it. At this time, he was hungrying so much that he is sitting down and eating some food for himself. When he was finishing, he was fulling so much that he is lying down his head on the ground and sleeping.
When he is waking up, he was seeing that there was not even very much yam pottage left, so he is very shameful and picking up the pot from the fire and rushing back to Witch thinking, oh my God! What can I be doing? What can I be doing? When he is getting to the place he is leaving Witch, he is saying to her before she is even having chance to speak, Mma please. I am so sorry I am just spilling yam pottage onto the ground that is why there is only small small food left. Please be forgiving me because I am not meaning to do you any harm. Witch is looking at him and saying to him, are you eating well? And he is answering, yes well well. The food is very good, before he is even knowing what he is saying. Then she is looking up at him and saying, ah ah liar. You know that I am Witch and watching you with my one eye I am leaving in my house. And she was shouting on the man. But Cloth Seller was saying to Witch, I am traveling for too many day and I am so hungry and tired. Please. Please. Please. Witch was saying, that is fine since you are helping me at least have some food. I am sorrying for you and will be giving you one wish before you are moving on. What is it that you are wanting most in this world?
Beasts of No Nation Page 8