Because

by Jack A. Langedijk

  Robert looked up from the booklet, looked around the room, and then back at the picture. “You know, it’s hard to capture all that beauty, but they did a pretty good job in this room.”

  “Well, if you think that, you should see this room when the sun shines through those windows. I can’t describe it. It just truly becomes a wonder!” said the doorman.

  Robert started reading the caption under the photo. “It was built in 1630 by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The Taj Mahal is widely recognized as the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world’s heritage.”

  He paused and then asked the doorman, “What does this have to do with becoming?”

  “At the bottom of the page, read what the Emperor Shah Jahan himself wrote and how he described his monument of love.”

  Near the bottom was what looked like a four-line poem written in italics. Robert started to read out loud:

  “Should guilty seek asylum here,

  Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.

  Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,

  All his past sins are to be washed away...”

  “There’s a little more that was ripped out. But what he wrote there, well, that is one of the reasons I come here every day. Because of what I had become and well, now, what I am becoming.” Aaron said softly.

  Robert looked back down to see what he had just read. The words “guilty,” “pardoned” and “sins are to be washed away,” stood out to him. He glanced back up at the doorman with a questioning look.

  “I have been guilty of many horrific things, Mr. Sanchez. I had become someone whom people feared. I was that monster in people’s dreams, a monster that came to life.”

  Robert looked absolutely stunned. How could this gentle man with a laugh that soothed one’s soul ever have been anyone’s monster?

  “Have you ever heard of Joseph Kony?”

  Robert sadly nodded his head. “You mean that guy from Africa? That man who runs an army fighting against the government?”

  “Yes, Mr. Sanchez, Africa. Uganda, my home, that is where the Lord’s Resistance Army is. And yes, that’s right, that guy is fighting. But I’m not sure it is the government he is fighting any more. You see, when I was ten that guy came to our village with some of his army. We were out in the fields...my younger brother and I were with our mother. We heard the screams and then people came running towards us. Like a stampede of wild goats, they ran past us. Behind them were the soldiers and it was strange since the soldiers all came with guns, yet there was not one shot fired. I later found out it was because bullets were not to be wasted on running targets. So, we started running. My mother grabbed my younger brother and we turned to run. But that morning we had just dug a small ditch to collect water in and as she turned to run, she and my little brother fell into it. Quickly the soldiers were standing over them. My mother started yelling at them, but when they pointed a rifle at her, she fell and covered my little brother, trying to protect him. He was crying and that was the first shot I heard. I still had the shovel in my hand and I went to hit the soldier who shot the gun, but just as I raised the shovel, I was knocked into the hole with my mother and brother. I pulled my mother close, but her arms just didn’t move and neither did my brother’s. They were dead. Then the soldier pointed the gun at me and was going to shoot, but then a big voice yelled for him to stop.

  “I was thinking it was my father, coming to save me. But then this man looked down into the hole right at me and said to the other soldiers, ‘No, God wants this one to fight for Him.’ He then grabbed me by my shirt, yanked me out of the hole, and asked me, ‘Are you ready to fight for God and our country?’ But I was too...well, stunned to say anything. So he screamed the same question again, ‘Are you ready to fight for God and our country?’ Still no words came out of me so he nodded his head to this other man who carried this long silver machete. That man came walking towards me and he raised that shiny machete high over my head and just as he came down with the machete, I squeezed my eyes shut and I felt this burning sensation on the side of my head. All I could hear was the man asking me again, ‘So are you ready now to fight for God and country?’ but this time he asked in a quiet calm voice. I still felt that burning and as I opened my eyes, I saw the man was kneeling right in front of me. He leaned down and picked up something from the ground and then I saw why the side of my head was burning. The man was holding my ear and he brought it right to my nose and he said, ‘I’m sorry about this, but you must learn that God really doesn’t like having to repeat himself. This is the punishment for those who do not listen. So I ask you for the last time, are you ready to...’ But before he could finish his question, I just started crying, ‘Yes, yes,’ over and over and over again.

  “They took me back into our village and along the path, I saw my father. He was lying there, on his back, dead. He had cuts all over. I guess he was slashed and cut up with the same kind of machete they used on my ear. But you know, Mr. Sanchez, when I was looking at my father lying there so bloody and so...so...so lifeless, all I could think was, why did they kill him? Didn’t my father show he could fight for God too? Then I watched these soldiers—a lot of them were kids not much older than me. And they were stealing everything they could carry. It all happened so fast. After they rummaged through all the houses, they set them all on fire. It was so hot that day; the fire burned everything so quickly. My home was gone in less than a minute. And then, they all started leaving. No one was holding me or even watching that I didn’t escape. I could have just run, Mr. Sanchez. I could have just run right into the forest...but I didn’t.”

  “You were only ten, Aaron,” Robert said.

  “But I didn’t run...Why? And as they all started laughing and singing some soldiers’ hymn about God and freedom, well me? Me? I just followed them. It was like I had no choice but to...be...with them now. And so I became one of them.”

  “But Aaron, you were just a kid and really, what choice did you have?”

  “There is always choice. There is always choice in what we become, Mr. Sanchez. You just have to be willing to face the consequences of your choice...and mine was—”

  The doorman then held up his stump and touched it as if the hand was still there. “My hand—my beautiful, wonderful hand. Do you know how many things you do in one day with your hands, Mr. Sanchez? So many incredible things—things that we sometimes aren’t even aware of. Our hands are capable of so many wonders. We can speak as many words of love as we can, but sometimes just reaching and touching, holding someone’s hand in complete silence, can say so much more.”

  Robert smiled as he looked at his own arm where, just moments before, he had felt exactly what the doorman was saying. He had felt love and care from this man without a word being spoken.

  “Do you know, Mr. Sanchez, that my parents never really spoke much to each other and, well, they were never really that affectionate either. Yet, when they held hands...ah, I can see them now, walking to the water hole together, holding hands. Hmmm...when I saw my parents—when they held hands—the world seemed to be at perfect peace. BUT these hands...they also can do things that cause so much hurt—terrible, shameful, devastating hurt. And my hands...like me...had become weapons of hurt, Mr. Sanchez. I had become a monster. That’s what I had become until that book came into my life.”

  Robert gave the doorman a look of total disbelief. “But Aaron, I’m sorry, but I just can’t believe you could have done any—”

  “Have you ever killed a man, Robert?” The doorman looked seriously into Robert’s eyes.

  “Well, um...no, but—”

  “Do you know what it’s like to take someone’s life—to kill a stranger that has done you no harm? But someone has put a gun in your hands and tells you that this stranger must die...It doesn’t matter that the stranger pleads or cries and asks you not to shoot. You shoot because that someone told you, ‘You must shoot!’ an
d you don’t ask why. You pull the trigger and never ask why. That is who I had become: a mindless monster who never questioned what he was told to do.”

  Robert wanted to say he refused to believe what Aaron had just told him was true. There was no way that this doorman actually killed another human being. He was probably just saying this to make a point. But before Robert could decide what to say, the doorman, who looked as if he was about to cry had caught himself, cleared his throat, reached for his coffee, took a sip and continued talking.

  “I got that book from a girl whose name was Aloyo Grace. Aloyo means victorious, Mr. Sanchez. And just like her name, Aloyo Grace always worked hard to be victorious in whatever she did. She did not want to be defeated in anything, least of all being a prisoner at that camp where I was a soldier.

  “I had just turned fourteen and had already been a part of that resistance army for almost three years when we captured Grace. She was only twelve years old when she became our prisoner. The rest of her family had all escaped but she told me that she knew one day she would be free and be with her family again.”

  The doorman then shook his head with a smile of remembrance.

  “Oh...so tiny she was...no taller than this.” The doorman held out his stump about four feet from the ground. “And Grace was not a good looking girl either, which was lucky in some ways for her because then she was only used only as a cook and for cleanup duties, not as a sex slave for the older boys and men like most of the other girls. My main job was to keep all these girls from escaping. I think they gave that job to me because I was not a good-looking boy either. And mostly they knew I wouldn’t try anything with the girls because of my missing ear. I always stayed my distance when I guarded the girls for I could see how they would laugh and point at my ear behind my back. Yet, they looked at me with that fearful look—afraid of me, like I was an ugly wounded animal that might attack if they came near me.”

  The doorman took another sip from his cup and cleared his throat once more.

  “But Grace, who had been in our camp for maybe one month, well, this little...plain looking girl that most of the boys called a mutt...she would always stop and say hello each and every time she passed me. She’d just say this simple ‘hello!’ And, although I never said a word back to her, I must tell you...secretly, Mr. Sanchez, I just loved those times! Each time she would simply say hi, ah those moments were...it was like...so...so normal. Like I didn’t belong there holding that gun, that I was back in my village and we were just kids passing each other on the way to our chores. The way we smiled and just said hi. You know that simple feeling, Mr. Sanchez? That everyday thing you never question?”

  Robert nodded slowly, thinking how he too missed so many of those simple daily feelings.

  “‘But then one day, she stopped to ask me a question. She spoke with this beautiful confidence and her voice was like...like, oh I know, kind of a princess-like voice. Anyway she stopped, Mr. Sanchez, about eight feet away from me, looked me directly in the eyes and asked, ‘Should I stop saying hello to you?’

  “Well, to tell you the truth, I was a bit shocked and I must confess, somewhat confused. I didn’t know how to respond to her so I just simply asked her, ‘Why do you ask me that?’

  “And she said, ‘Well, every day I see you and I know you are standing there protecting us, but still it doesn’t feel nice when I always say hello to you and you never say it back to me.’”

  The doorman’s voice then became animated and indignant.

  “Well, Mr. Sanchez, I still didn’t know what to say to her. I think I felt angry at first. I thought to myself, who is she to talk to me like that...to me? The guy with the gun! And she was wrong! I wasn’t protecting them; my job was to stop them from running away! I mean, didn’t she know? Didn’t she know I had orders to shoot any one of those girls if they had tried to escape? Didn’t she know I was the boss in this situation and it was my right to not say hello to her if I wanted?”

  The doorman laughed at himself.

  “But then she says right away with this big smile, ‘It’s okay if that’s who you want to be though. If you want to be somebody who doesn’t say hello, I guess I can understand.’

  “And just her saying that...that she understood started to make me angry. I had been there almost three years and she was only there for a month. What could she understand about me? And so that made me really feel angry but...somehow she confused me at the same time.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I felt defensive, Mr. Sanchez.”

  The doorman raised his stump to his head. “And in my head came this burning anger. I thought...This tiny girl, who does she think she is? She doesn’t even know my name. How does she know who I am or who I want to be? So in my anger, I reacted and lifted up my rifle towards her and then barked at her, ‘What the hell do you understand about me?’ The doorman lifted his arm and showed Robert how he held the rifle at the little girl.

  “And so then she stopped smiling, Mr. Sanchez.”

  The doorman’s face grew painfully sad as he spoke. “And then she fell to her knees. And I noticed something I had never seen in this girl before. I realized at that moment—that for the whole month she had been there—that when she looked at me, I never saw fear on her face. And now it changed. I changed her. I saw that same fear, that exact same horrible fear in her face that I saw in all the other girls when they looked at me!”

  The doorman slapped his thigh. “Me! I did this. And there she was, Mr. Sanchez, she looked up at me, right at my rifle, and then she started crying and pleading with me, ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry...Please don’t shoot me. I will not say another word, I promise...I will stop saying hello to you...I will do anything you tell me.’”

  The doorman then pulled his chair closer to Robert and leaned in. “And do you know what I thought, Mr. Sanchez, right at that moment?”

  “What?” Robert whispered.

  “I had become the destroyer of the one and only moment I loved. That wonderful normal moment where I thought I was back home again. That brief heavenly moment that made me feel home, I had become the destroyer of it.”

  Robert waited a moment as the doorman let out a great exhaling sound and rubbed his eyes with his stump. “So, what did you do, Aaron?”

  The doorman shook his head and smiled ever so slightly. “First, Mr. Sanchez, I wanted to apologize. I wanted so badly to undo my reaction. I wanted so desperately...I just wanted to clean that fear from her face. I wanted our moment back. I wanted everything to be back to the way it was. Those precious little ‘hellos’ from her...But you have to understand, Mr. Sanchez, I was barely fourteen and for the past three years I was taught to not have emotions—that emotions can get you killed. So I, well...I...So first I looked around to make sure no other guards were watching and I dropped my gun beside me and I whispered the only thing I thought might get everything back to the way it was. I said...” The doorman shook his head, scornfully snorted to himself and then whispered, “I leaned down to the girl and said, ‘Okay, then I order you to keep saying hello.’”

  The doorman then lifted his arms high and looked up. “Yes, Mr. Sanchez, that was my way of making it better...I said, ‘I order you to keep saying hello.’”

  Robert gave him an encouraging smile and put a hand on his knee in support.

  “Ah, but it was right then, right at that moment—that is where this little tiny princess showed me what I had become...and more importantly, she showed me that maybe I had a chance...of maybe...maybe changing...becoming something else. After I had ordered her to keep saying hello, she looked up and asked me, ‘How?’ And I say to her, ‘The way you always did before.’ And well, her face kind of squeezed into a grimace like that would be too hard for her to do. I could see she was thinking about what I had asked her to do. You could actually see and tell she was thinking it over and over again in her head. After a couple of seconds, she said to me, ‘All right, I can say hi to you but you have to tell me how I sh
ould say it and I will try to do it the way you tell me.’”

  Robert gave him a sympathetic smile.

  “Well, now I was getting completely confused! What’s so hard about saying hi? I wondered. So I said to her, ‘Just say it the way you always did before...’ And then she says, ‘I will try, I promise you.’ So I asked her, ‘But why do you have to try? You have been doing it for one month already...Just...say...hello the same way.’

  “Then, Mr. Sanchez, she got this really sad look on her face and these huge tears started rolling down her cheeks and then, trying so hard not to cry, she said to me, ‘I don’t know if I can do it the same way...but I will try to...I promise you I will try.’ ‘But why?’ I asked her. ‘Why? You don’t need to try, just do it the same way you always did.’ ‘And what if it’s not the same? Will you shoot me then?’ she asked me. And I say ‘Why can’t it be the same? WHY?’ And then she cries out, ‘Because I am scared of you now!’”

  The doorman stopped. He stared at Robert for a long moment and repeated the girls’ words. “Because she’s scared of me now! What had I become, Mr. Sanchez? What had I become?” The doorman shook his head to show his disdain in himself.

  “And you know, Mr. Sanchez, I had done terrible things as a soldier. They taught me to do these horrific things—things I know I never would have done in my life. And when I held that gun, I always knew why they were afraid. But even though I saw fear in so many people’s eyes, no one, not one person had ever told me they were scared of me. Me? Aaron?! Isn’t that strange, Mr. Sanchez? The gun I understood they feared, but not me. I never thought I had become scary. I thought it was the gun...or my ugly scarred head that they were afraid of...but not me, Aaron Aboga!” The doorman slammed a fist unto his chest.

  “So now, I was all tied in knots. All I’m thinking is how could I get back my moment of home? How could I live that moment again, of her saying hi to me?