by Ishmael Beah
The mother of the boy let out a wail that was covered by the sounds of the machines roaring by. The women tried to console her, pulling her along when her feet were unable to hold up her body. She swung in their arms, allowing her feet to touch the ground every now and then as though to assure herself that she was still here on this earth.
The machines continued on, the men operating them in tears, helpless and filled with sadness. It was a day that already felt too long, and every hour made the world heavier. Men stood around hiding their faces because they couldn’t do anything to help.
Later that same day, Wonde came to the funeral home with a bag of rice for the boy’s family. He dropped it off in the yard from the back of his Toyota and left without greeting the mourners. The gesture made the equation clear: the company and the minister of mines felt that the lives of the people of Imperi were worth one bag of rice each. Sadder still, the family had no choice but to take the rice and use it. And Rogers, the father of the boy, soon afterward sought employment with the company as a general worker, and later as a driver of one of their trucks.
As usual, that night the bar in town was filled with the foreign workers and, also as usual, Wonde. The men from Imperi who worked for the company were all at the burial house, paying their respects. But the music from the bar and the boisterousness of the chatter drowned out the prayer being said for the boy. While Colonel and Miller watched, Sila came to the bar and pleaded with the owner to turn the music down, which he did. He then turned to the men: “Please, just for this night, could you bring your voices down for the burial house not far from here?”
But the men ignored him, and one of them told the bar owner that if he didn’t turn the music back up, they would all leave. The men started shouting at him, “Turn it up, man, what is wrong with you, trying to stop our enjoyment?”
Their voices grew even more raucous than the music, so the owner turned up the music to appease them, the only small contribution he could make. One of the foreigners stood and pulled one of his hands up inside his shirt to mimic Sila’s stump. No one could say where Ernest had come from, but suddenly he was there, shoving the man into tables, spilling beers, and breaking a chair. The foreigner staggered to his feet and was about to throw punches at Ernest when Sila stepped between them, as did the bar owner.
“The next round is on the house, gentlemen,” he said and escorted Sila and Ernest outside. No words left Sila’s lips, but before he started back for the burial house, he looked Ernest in the eyes. It was the first time. Ernest walked into the night toward the river where he usually went to sit on a rock, away from everyone.
“Wonde and his friends are very disrespectful. They are preventing God’s ears from hearing the dead boy’s mother and her prayers,” Colonel told Miller, his eyes getting red with anger. He asked Miller to follow him to the shed he had built in the back of their house that contained things he collected for purposes that Miller found out as they went along. He handed a rubber hose and some jerry cans to Miller. They walked back toward the bar. As they got nearer, Colonel made sure that they remained unseen and crept closer to the vehicles parked outside. Moving from one vehicle to another, he opened the petrol tanks and, using the rubber hose, sucked the petrol into the jerry cans. They made several trips to store the petrol in buckets, and when they were done, he took a gallon or more of the petrol and walked toward the mining site.
Miller didn’t ask where they were going; he just followed. Colonel knew where the electrical grid was that connected the power to the living quarters of the men at the bar. He also knew that the light for the bar was connected to that same grid. Why couldn’t the mining company offer the same power to other houses in town, or to the schools, for example? Colonel instructed Miller to make several piles of dry grasses. These he carefully soaked with petrol and threw into the inner part of the fenced electrical grid. Then he struck a match.
Colonel and Miller ran rapidly away from the sparks that flew out and exploded the wires. Soon enough, darkness took over the hills where the quarters were, along with the bar and even some of the offices. When the men at the bar came out to get into their vehicles, they couldn’t start them, and they had no way of reaching anyone, since the lights were out. They called on their radios for help, but it took hours before a bus could be found in the dark and dispatched to fetch them.
It took a week to get power back up and for the bar to be operational again. During that time, the town’s nightly natural sounds slowly returned—the crickets, the laughter of older people staying up talking, the vigorous orchestra of the frogs, the call for prayer. Colonel, who still rarely slept, listened to all the sounds. No one knew how the power failure had come about, though Wonde suspected Miller, but he didn’t know the boy’s name or whose son he was. Some of the workers suspected Ernest but had no proof. He, too, was not the son of anyone working for the company—or of anyone alive, for that matter. Usually in such cases, Wonde would sack the father or threaten to do so to get the outcome he desired. As a result, he and some of the foreigners became a bit afraid, though they still took liberties, as a mind accustomed to arrogance has limited space for remembrance.
Once the company resumed operations, the sounds of mining once more drove away the natural sounds of Imperi and the town returned to its crooked road. The machines were everywhere again, especially the ones the locals called “belle woman,” meaning “pregnant woman,” which they indeed resembled. Many vehicles were getting pregnant from the land and all that comes from it. They gave birth at the docks where ships carried the benefits somewhere else—riches generated from their land, which they would never taste, to places the people of Imperi would never know. They settled for the immediate but temporary enticements. They no longer believed they had control over anything in their lives; desperation became their master. But desperation does not lay foundations. And the elders struggled, as their presence and importance faded, to find words that might reach the ears of whatever God or gods were in the hearts of those in charge.
Colonel and Miller, however, refused to grant control of their lives to the company and to those who had given the company the power to make people’s lives cheap and disposable. They did what they could through methods they had acquired over time. Some might say their methods were violent. But what was more violent than making people disbelieve in the worth of their own lives? What was more violent than making them believe they deserved less and less every day?
The night that followed, the rooster started crowing at 9:00 p.m. for daybreak.
6
“GOOD MORNING. I am going to be as brief as possible.”
It had been over a month since one of the students died on the electric cables on his way to school. Customarily people celebrated forty days after someone had passed away or at least spoke of him so he wasn’t forgotten. So when the principal came to the assembly that morning with a melancholic face, the students thought he was going to say a few words about the boy. At school, everyone had avoided discussing what had happened and it wasn’t because it was difficult. After all, they all knew death and had seen it closely during the war. But they didn’t want to be reminded about what had happened because all of them, teachers and students, had to pass by the live wires every day on the way to school and that was enough.
The principal waited for a few announcements before it was his turn to speak. His mind was scattered in many places, so his attention faded in and out of what was unfolding that morning. Since the arrival of the mining company, he had given up trying to encourage his staff to inspire their students. The company’s operations were now in full swing, and it was intent on luring brilliant young men to work using their strengths and not their minds. The other day he saw two former students, Vincent and Khalilou, who now wore hard hats, boots, and overalls, their young faces already becoming old with countenances that had accepted that this was the best possible outcome of their lives. The sight of their wasted youth bothered him. As he stood in front of the entire
school now, and having said he would be brief, he wanted to tell them what he had seen, but he didn’t think it was the appropriate time, and perhaps it never would be. Not everything about mining was bad; he had been educated on a scholarship from a mining company in another part of the country when he was a boy. But that was a long time ago, when those in power saw it as a service, not a business, and therefore opened their eyes to look ahead for their people. It was in the wake of independence. What happened to the pride and wisdom of that time?
The principal’s face had become consumed with despair beyond his control. But he managed a quick smile and exhaled deeply, freeing his mind from the many places it had been. He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, put on his glasses, and brought the leaflets he held behind him in front of his face. The assembly was too quiet.
“The board of education has decided to set standards of decency for schools. And to that end, yesterday I was provided with a list of new rules.” He held a paper up above his head. The students and teachers sighed with relief that this wasn’t a reminder of the boy who had died.
“I must make all of you abide by what I am to read, otherwise the school may be closed down permanently, especially if an inspector stops by unannounced.”
His eyes surveyed the length of the paper and then he began at the top. “‘Henceforth, all students must wear white socks and black shoes. No sandals or open-toe shoes for boys or girls.’”
He looked away before continuing. “‘All students must come to school in uniform. The new uniform for boys will now be blue trousers and plain white short-sleeve shirts. Girls are to wear blue skirts and plain white long-sleeve shirts.’”
He paused again. The words he had spoken obviously bothered him. He cleared his throat to make his voice stronger for the next sentences. “We have two weeks to make the change. There are more new rules, but these are the most immediate ones. Please inform your parents at the end of the school day so that they can start making arrangements.”
The principal removed his glasses and left without another word, quickly returning to his office. He knew this would create a problem for most of the students. Their parents were barely able to afford the school fees. Most of the audience now wished the principal had spoken about the boy’s death instead, however difficult it would have been to manage the nightmares that came with it. What he had presented was a heavier burden to carry.
“Poverty is worse than nightmares. You can wake up from nightmares,” Benjamin whispered to Bockarie, as the students slowly returned to their classrooms, the teachers—most of them parents, as well—lagging behind as they searched for the strength to walk into the day.
Bockarie was distraught. He could not think of a way he could acquire the money to buy his three school-aged children the new uniforms and shoes. Even extreme cuts in spending—reducing the amount of food cooked at home—would yield enough for only one child’s outfit. How could he explain to the other two why they would have to stop going to school? How would he choose which of his children would receive the first uniform? There were no satisfactory answers to the questions in his mind.
He avoided everyone during lunch and sat behind one of the three school buildings. Looking out at the hills, he imagined a better life. Benjamin found him and sat quietly beside his friend before starting a conversation. “We may lose some of our students—not only here in school but also for our lessons.”
“I know, man. Parents have to make some tough decisions.”
Benjamin nodded and leaned upright against the wall. “I am somehow glad that both of my children are still in primary school. I fear, though, that this will happen there, too.”
“What sort of ‘improvement’ is this that only increases the burden on parents? What difference will it make to have a uniform if your school has no materials, if your teachers don’t receive proper salaries, if the quality of the teachers is poor because they haven’t received training in years?” Bockarie had more to say, but he stopped.
Benjamin laughed. “This is the first time that I have seen you exasperated. Not bad, my man!” He threw his fist in the air. But Bockarie’s mood didn’t change, so Benjamin adopted a more serious tone. “We have idiots in charge, man. Everywhere. That is why the world is the way it is. Remember when we were in school? Those were the days, man! My first week of school, I arrived with no shirt and no shoes—only shorts with holes in them—and they accepted me in class. The teacher told everyone, ‘Now, this exemplifies the strongest desire to learn. He walked six miles like this to come for learning.’”
Benjamin finally got Bockarie to laugh. The men slapped each other’s hands, snapping their fingers at the end. He continued, “I had no idea what those words meant, but I liked how they sounded. The teacher and the class made me feel that I had done something good. And at the end of the day, the teacher sat me on the handlebars of his bicycle and took me home. He had a long conversation with my father and I started school full time. And every day after that, that teacher picked me up and brought me back home until I was old enough to walk the miles on my own.”
The simple memories from the past made them both smile. “Do you want to know how I started school?” Bockarie asked.
“Why do you always ask before you speak?” Benjamin chided warmly. “Just say what you have to say, man.”
“I was in the same condition as you, but I didn’t have the courage to go into the classroom. So I found a mango tree by the school. I climbed it and from a comfortable position in the branches, I could hear the lessons and see the blackboard. The teacher saw me and he began to open the classroom window completely so that I could properly see.” He chuckled.
“I did that for an entire month, reciting everything that I heard, over and over, and practicing writing the alphabet on the ground. One morning, the teacher was waiting for me under the mango tree, and he held my hand, and he took me into the classroom. Those were the days, indeed, when we had decent people in a decent environment and they could do such things.”
The small wind from the past had made the day seem lighter, and they sat happily until the bell rang for class. Each clang of the bell drove away some of the joy until there was none left. They stood up and wiped the dust off their trousers.
Before they parted, Benjamin extended his hand to his friend for a shake. “I am strongly thinking about applying to work for the company,” he said. “I want to keep on teaching, but with the irregular pay, and commodities getting increasingly expensive, I am not sure I can continue.”
Bockarie said nothing. What could he say?
Not so long ago, Benjamin was throwing stones at the company cars. Now he was going to work for them.
* * *
Everyone dreaded what would happen when the school’s new policy took effect. Teachers tried to move lessons quickly ahead to provide notes for those students who would miss school during the transition. The teachers all agreed that the only way they could help was by providing students with plenty of readings and assignments so that they could study at home while waiting for their parents to find the money to buy them uniforms or have them sewn by the tailor in town. The tailor was probably the only happy person around because he got more work than he could handle. He charged higher prices for his services and the people protested, but at the end of the day, they had to pay. His reasoning, as he explained to Mama Kadie, was this: “It will be a while before I get another job so I am making sure that I have enough income to last me for who knows however long.”
The tailor did sew some uniforms for free—but he didn’t let anyone know about it. The principal visited him a week before the new uniforms became mandatory. He came by foot, without his motorcycle and with no flashlight, and he told the tailor that he would pay for all the students whose parents could afford only a fraction of the payment, or nothing at all. He gave the tailor money to buy the cloth to start the work.
“This has been a Nicodemus visit and arrangement. You and I must take this secret to our grave
s.” He shook the tailor’s hand and held it tightly.
“But what if I rise from the dead like Lazarus, could I tell the secret then?” The tailor pulled his hand from the principal’s grip.
“It will be the only secret that isn’t resurrected if you return from the dead like Lazarus.” With a half smile, the principal walked into the arms of the darkness, which quickly embraced him and hid him from all eyes. Even with all of the contributions, and there were others, some students couldn’t afford to attend until weeks later. And even when they all had uniforms, there was the matter of black shoes. Black shoes were expensive, far more expensive than, say, sneakers.
Bockarie had managed to get uniforms for all of his children, even though he’d paid only for the one for Miata. He didn’t understand the sudden generosity of the tailor, but he was grateful for it. The tailor praised him. “You are a good teacher—so teach our children how to get out of here.” The tailor said he was joking; his tone suggested otherwise.
Even with the tailor’s help, though, Bockarie had no money left to buy shoes for his second son. So Abu stayed home on the first day of the new rules. But Abu and his older brother, Manawah, had a plan. They had decided they would share the one pair. One day Manawah would wear them to class; the next, it would be Abu’s turn. The shoes were certainly too big for Abu but not noticeably so, or so he convinced himself.
“So what do you think about our idea, Father?” Manawah asked quietly. When he spoke, his voice became like that of his father’s. His calm behavior, as well.
“Maybe we could—” Abu, who was faster at doing things, even the way he spoke, was about to present another solution when their father said, “This is temporary. I will buy another pair of shoes for you, Abu, soon. Thank you boys for understanding.” He pulled them close to him on either side and squeezed them. Then, to break the spell, he tickled them until they screamed with laughter.