The interview had proved long, tough and frustrating. The four of us sat on a hard bench in the shade at the side of the house. Morlai acted as interpreter. Bassie barely spoke Creole, let alone English, so most of the conversation was conducted in Temne. Bassie opened by repeating sections of his original testimony. This time I interrupted and stopped him. I told him how many people we had already spoken to. I begged him to be truthful. He paused, made a show of trying to remember and then changed his account.
Bassie Kargbo confirmed what I now knew, that the witnesses had lied in return for promises of money and army jobs. Without a trace of shame, although at least without any of the indignation Morlai Salieu had displayed, Bassie Kargbo described how, after the trial, Bambay Kamara had taken Morlai Salieu, Kemoko Suma and Bassie to State House to see Stevens himself. The office was on the top floor, he remembered. Stevens had told them to see Joseph Momoh, the army chief, assuring them he would find them each a place in the military. They had gone along to see the force commander but were turned away time and time again. They tried to go back to see Stevens, and also called on S. I. Koroma, but they were sent on their way.
Bassie mixed paint for a living. I looked around me. He seemed pretty destitute, sitting shirtless and slack bellied. The house was no more than a hut. A few chickens scratched around an ants’ nest. On the wall before me was a rainbow of paint smears. Against the sordid background the colours appeared unexpectedly vibrant and momentarily they distracted me from the conversation. There was no sign of any children or relatives, which was unusual. Just Bassie and his young wife, a girl in her teens, who sat on the ground and listened as we spoke.
In court my father had openly admitted he had been approached with talk of a coup by Bassie and another soldier, but that he had refused to entertain their talk. When the purpose of their visit to the rice store at 60 Kissy Road became clear, he had terminated the discussion and urged them to go home. Abu Kanu's statement from the dock corroborated every detail of his account. I was certain this must be the truth. My father knew he was being watched day and night. He would have been careful with whom he spoke and wary of being entrapped. Under a dictatorship, in a world where political talk of any kind could result in arrest and detention, who would take the chance and discuss the overthrow of the government with strangers? That had been his reply to Tom Johnson during the trial. To do so would have been foolhardy to the point of madness.
‘He was more interested in his business, some business he had. I remember. He told us he did not want to be involved,’ Bassie conceded to me.
In court Bassie had claimed the small sum of money my father had given him for his bus fare was to buy arms. He had also placed him at Habib Lansana Kamara's house and at Murraytown cemetery on the evening of 29 July. I wanted to hear him withdraw the allegations now, but he was disinclined to discuss it. He insisted that anything he had said in court was drawn from his statement, written for him by a CID officer, and subsequently committed to memory. He could not now remember it all. Later on, when I tried to press him on details of his own actions, he began to obfuscate in much the same way as Morlai Salieu had done. It was impossible to know whether his refusal to be drawn further was an attempt to pull a veil over his guilt or conceal an altogether more sinister role.
I trudged the long path back down the hill feeling dissatisfied, trying to make sense of it all. Several questions remained unanswered, not least the precise part played by Bassie Kargbo and Morlai Salieu. Linked to this was the question of what exactly had taken place that night. Bassie insisted that a group of soldiers and civilians had met at Murraytown graveyard, but that he himself had decided to leave and hadn't taken part in any attack. This was exactly what Morlai Salieu had claimed. Was it possible they slipped away just in time to report back to the authorities? The only thing the two of them had told me that I accepted was that they had lied in court. That much I had proved. None of the rest of the information they had given me could I treat as reliable.
Unfa Mansaray told me he had seen the soldier accused of leading the attack, Regimental Sergeant-Major Kalogoh, in the barracks that very night. Every one of the defendants to whom I had spoken denied being anywhere near Murraytown cemetery. All were convinced there had never been a real plot, that Morlai Salieu and Bassie Kargbo had fabricated the entire story.
But something had taken place that night. I had one memory. Just one. It was my single solid item of information and I clung to it: the soldier who was brought to our house early that same evening. I needed to find out about him. From the newspaper reports and the transcripts of the trial I had his name: Kendekah Sesay. His fate, I had also learned, was linked with my uncle, Momodu Forna.
The RUF headquarters in Makeni were based in what had formerly been a World Food Programme regional administration building. Most of the windows were broken, the offices long emptied of anything of value. In the courtyard in front of the building, in the shade of the cutlass trees, groups of soldiers gathered, sitting along the walls or splayed in a couple of rotten armchairs. They were boys and young teenagers mostly, dressed in the haphazard uniform of African rebel armies: flip-flops and shorts. The lucky ones among them had combat jackets. Some sported T-shirts bearing the logos of western manufacturers of sporting goods; some were bare-chested. Gold chains and home-made charms adorned their necks and wrists. The older boys wore sunglasses. All of them carried weapons: the ubiquitous AK 47 plus an assortment of pistols, rifles and machetes. A small boy crossed our path, weighed down by a pair of bullet belts slung, bandolero-style, across his body.
Before we could proceed farther and onto Magburaka we needed to gain clearance from Colonel Issa, the RUF commander for the district. Our large delegation now included several official observers from the United Nations mission in Sierra Leone, UNAMSIL, whom we had picked up at their base on the outskirts of town. Accompanied by twelve of the RUF leaders we entered a large meeting room on the ground floor. There was broken glass on the floor, a table, a few overturned chairs and benches along the wall. The wooden floor and the wall panels had swelled and splintered with damp. The air carried the odour of decay. Aware that we were not directly involved in the proceedings, Simon and I chose a discreet position on one of the uneven benches. Behind us and at every other window, dozens of rebels argued and jostled, trying to get a view into the room from the outside.
Colonel Issa, it turned out, was not there even though the meeting had been scheduled for some weeks. General Kallon, a small man wearing an outsized ceremonial jacket, complete with gold epaulettes, a red beret and a pair of empty spectacle frames, announced he was in charge. Ian, the logistics officer in whose vehicle we had travelled, was unhappy and he let it be known. He was intent on waiting for Colonel Issa himself. There was a heated discussion. General Kallon appeared offended and declared with bombast that he had the authority to deal with all matters in the colonel's absence. In the turbulent discussion that followed every member of the RUF command in the room interjected loudly, gesticulating as they gave voice to their individual opinion. To my eye several of the men appeared to be high on drugs, or drunk at the very least. People were interrupting each other, constantly talking at cross purposes. There was no humour on any of their faces and little attempt at civility. All the while Ian and a UN colleague tried to hold the discussion at bay until Colonel Issa arrived. Twenty minutes passed, and there was still no sign of him.
I gazed at the faces of the men in the room and the boys hanging through the open windows. I found I could not prevent the thoughts that streamed through my mind, the continual flash of the images I had seen, of the terrible atrocities each and every one of them must have committed and witnessed. I wondered how many of them were local boys. Many of the rebels came from Liberia. There were also known to be contingents of mercenaries from Burkina Faso who fought alongside them. More than a decade ago, when the civil war raged across the border in Liberia, Sierra Leoneans consoled themselves, saying such barbarism could never occur amon
g our people. I had been among those who believed that anarchy and evil had no place in the society I knew, where respect for elders was profound, the authority of the family entrenched. Liberia was a place where people spoke with Americanised accents, used dollars; it was more American than African. We thought what happened there could never happen here – until, that is to say, it did. The RUF kidnapped children and compelled them to slit the throats of their own parents. The act was more than just symbolic. The killing of a mother and father represented the killing of authority. The newly orphaned recruits belonged, body and soul, to their captors.
I switched my attention back to the conversation at the other end of the room. The temperature had risen a notch. Colonel Issa had been radioed, and although his men claimed he was on his way, he had yet to appear. General Kallon stood with his arms across his chest; anger danced across his features.
Ian was speaking in precise, clipped sentences. ‘This meeting was arranged many days ago. We have travelled here all the way from Freetown. A lot of us have made the journey. We have work to do and we need to speak to the colonel before we begin. Now you tell us he is not here. This is no good.’ He made a crossing motion with his hands in the air in front of him. Then he turned and indicated Simon and me with a sweep of his hand. ‘I have even brought two journalists here from England with me. What sort of report will they make about the way the RUF do business?’
This was not only a grave error, it was not strictly true. Ian knew and accepted that I was making the journey not with the intention of filing a report, but to reach Magburaka and find my family. His irritation had got the better of him and he had tried to humiliate General Kallon in front of the gathering. Now, in the silence that followed his words, every pair of eyes was fixed upon us.
The meeting broke up shortly after that, brought to a temporary halt until Colonel Issa arrived. For the time being, though, there was no way of reaching Magburaka. The town was at least forty minutes’ drive away and we were all under orders to travel any distance only in convoys of at least two vehicles in case of either breakdown or ambush. We stood in the car park and waited, trying not to think about what might happen to us. I had a sense of impending disaster and there was nothing I could do about it. Africa did not share the traditions of freedom of speech that Europe and America held dear. Journalists here were generally regarded as spies. When Patrick, a colleague of Ian's, offered us a sightseeing trip around the locality we readily agreed. We were keen to put some distance between ourselves and the rebel base and I had the feeling, though it remained unspoken between us, that Patrick shared our opinion.
Less than a mile down the road Ian's voice crackled across the broadband radio in the Land Cruiser. ‘You must return to base immediately!’ He meant the UNAMSIL headquarters. ‘I'll meet you there. Don't go anywhere else.’ Ian's voice was taut and edged with panic.
Ian hurried out to meet the car as we drew up outside the building. He looked pale and serious. A problem had arisen. Colonel Issa had arrived back at base to learn from General Kallon that there were two journalists at large in the area. The colonel was red-eyed and drunk. Words had been exchanged. Ian, who had dealt with the colonel before, had never seen him so enraged. Colonel Issa had sent out radioed instructions to every one of the rebel checkpoints with orders to stop our vehicle, and to arrest us if we were caught taking photographs. Ian feared for our safety: he wanted us to return to Freetown immediately.
We sat on the steps of the building, Simon and I, while Ian and Patrick determined what should be done with us. I had my head in my hands. I couldn't believe I had come this far only to turn back now. To tell the truth I was pretty irritated with Ian for the blunder he had made. He was now deep in conversation with Patrick, leaning against the bonnet of the Land Cruiser. I tried to read their gestures, work out which way the discussion was going. Finally Ian walked over to us. Our fate, it seemed, had been determined by logistics: there were no available vehicles to take us back to Freetown. We would stay in Makeni until the morning and leave at first light. In the meantime he agreed to take me to my family in Magburaka; he had a meeting in the town. He could leave me with them for forty-five minutes.
The Hotel Adams was a moss-covered ruin, abandoned ever since I was a child. In its heyday, when Magburaka was the centre of the colonial administration, the hotel provided accommodation for railway passengers travelling between Bauya and Freetown. The Hotel Adams aside, the centre of Magburaka was surprisingly intact. I tried hard to remember the layout of the town. The wide, straight avenues were lined with palm trees and identical low bungalows, built of clay bricks with dark-red corrugated-iron roofs, each equidistantly spaced, sitting in its own small plot of land with a water pot by the front door. They all looked the same.
We stopped at the main square in the centre of town to ask for directions to Magbesseh Street. The driver and I climbed out and we approached a woman selling cola nuts. She was curious and asked what business we had in Magburaka. The driver, who was a Temne, told her my name. Within a few minutes I was surrounded by well-wishers. People put down their wares and shook my hand; a man selling shirts called across the square to his friends to hurry over: ‘Aminatta Forna! Dr Forna's daughter.’
‘Mohamed Sorie een pickin.’
‘Welcome, welcome!’
‘Are you going to see your family?’
Someone squeezed my arm. People massed around me. I felt disoriented, bewildered; at the same time I was nodding and smiling, comforted by the warmth of the welcome. I had not expected it at all. I didn't know any of these people nor did I recognise their faces, but they all knew me, every one of them. Someone pointed the way to Magbesseh Street. At Ian's request we made a short detour along the way. Less than half an hour later the two Land Cruisers drew up in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes and dropped us in front of the house my father had built in Magbesseh Street. News had travelled fast. Uncle Momodu, who had heard the news that I was in the vicinity clear across the other side of town, had hurried back, and was standing on the porch to meet us wearing a fresh navy-blue gown, leather sandals and a fez.
Uncle Momodu barely seemed to have aged: he looked just the same to me. His sons – Abdul, Hamdeen and Abdulai, all young boys in their teens – came out of the house and greeted Simon and me in perfect English. We retired to the front porch. Immediately we were surrounded by a small crowd of children and neighbours. The local Imam arrived, resplendent in purple, and took a seat alongside us. I greeted him with a few words of Temne and shook hands. Simon extended his hand, holding the elbow of his right arm in the customary Muslim style. We sat down.
I didn't know where to begin. I was desperately conscious of how little time I had and yet I was wary of plunging straight in without warning, of asking sensitive questions relating to the past without an appropriate prelude. The minutes passed. We exchanged civilities for the second time, then the third time. Someone brought two glasses of water. I took a couple of sips. It was luke warm. We continued to sit. I hoped people would soon lose interest and leave us alone, but the crowd around us, rather than diminishing, seemed to swell. After a few more minutes I asked Uncle Momodu if perhaps we could take a short walk.
Pa Roke's house was still standing, painted red with blue shutters. I noticed for the first time how beautifully carved the latticework was. It had been sold, Abdul informed me; someone who was not a relation lived there now. Auntie Memuna's house opposite stood empty. As we walked down the road we were followed by the throng of people, who by now must have numbered upwards of twenty or thirty: the whole street had turned out to see us. I followed the path around the back of the houses with Uncle Momodu, his sons and the crowd of villagers in my wake. Twenty yards on I came to a halt when I realised I was standing in front of the latrines. I started to retrace my steps. I turned to Uncle Momodu, who was at my elbow: ‘Can we talk, please?’ I asked in desperation. ‘I have to leave soon and I can't come back. I have to return to Freetown in the morning. I must talk to yo
u.’
The house was completely empty of furniture. Uncle Momodu led us into the master bedroom. The mattress on the bed and the wall behind were scorched – by the rebels, explained Uncle Momodu. They had tried to set fire to the place when the RUF had first overrun Magburaka four years before. The bathroom had been destroyed: basin, toilet, tub all smashed. This house had been the realisation of a dream for my father, but we had never stayed so much as a night in it.
We spent the remainder of my visit sitting on the bed, deep in conversation. All except for the last five minutes. For that brief time we gathered in front of the house taking photographs: Momodu with his sons, Momodu alone, regarding the camera with an unsmiling face, striking a rigid pose with his hands by his side, like the old-fashioned photos of the Fornas taken at great expense and ceremony by the photographer in Magburaka's high street. Momodu and me. Behind us the Imam and a scattering of children gaze upon the proceedings. In the final image of the series, at Simon's urging, Uncle Momodu, alone again, manages a small, slight smile. And then we were gone. Ian reappeared and we were sucked back into the air-conditioned interior of the Land Cruiser.
‘Owa!’ I called. I waved. A dozen voices chorused in reply. This was not how I had imagined it at all, my return to Magburaka. There had been no choice, but still it felt wrong. I remembered how our visits to Magburaka used to be. We would spend languid hours with Pa Roke, just keeping company. We paid our respects to the family elders one by one, never hurrying for fear of causing offence. I used to be bored by it when I was a child. Yet now I had never felt more alien, more like a foreigner. I had arrived in a white four-wheel-drive covered in official insignia, spent less than an hour and disappeared again.
The Devil that Danced on the Water Page 41