by Ishmael Beah
Pa Moiwa got sicker. His friends told him he mustn’t die of heartbreak.
“There is no place to bury you, to join the others. So you have to live,” Mama Kadie pleaded with him.
“I must go and tell them that we tried to stop these things, that they must try and be with us another way,” he told his friends as they walked home. The elders took off their shoes to feel the earth, but it felt different: abrupt and bitter.
There were flames by the cemetery that night and an explosion that killed two unarmed local security guards. Someone had set fire to the machines. But it was only a small setback—the destruction soon continued, and more armed guards were deployed everywhere. News of such things did not make it to the papers or radios of nearby cities, let alone the capital of the country. The mining company’s annual brochures were filled with colorful stories of community building, stories of new schools and libraries. There were no mentions of the destruction of towns and cemeteries, the pollution of water sources, the loss of human life, or the children who now frequently drowned in the many dams.
* * *
Pa Moiwa died a few weeks later and so did many other elderly people. They were buried near the old cemetery with the hope that their spirits would join those who had gone ahead. But the area, along with the mass grave near it, was soon flooded.
The town was in the midst of a relocation to a barren land. The new houses were smaller, with weaker foundations. They were made of mud brick, not cement or clay. As a result, they sometimes collapsed on families, killing everyone inside. Of course, the police reports blamed the inhabitants for not maintaining the houses the mining company had had built for them. The new town also had no trees, no proper land to farm on, and no streams for water. Every morning, a truck carrying a tank would come to distribute water to the people. Everyone, even women and children, fought one another just to get a bucket or two, even though the water smelled impure and had rust in it. The schools that had been destroyed hadn’t been rebuilt, so everyone had to go to the town where the secondary school was. This meant long walks on roads with big trucks passing frequently. When your child left you for school, you waited anxiously to see if he or she would return alive. Accidents were common. The vehicles didn’t stop when they hit someone; the company took no responsibility whatsoever.
Benjamin and Bockarie still worked for the company and Rogers had completely disappeared. The older people waited in what gradually became the carcass of Imperi. Everyone moved out except some of the orphans. When the foreigners came to count the number of houses they had to pay for or rebuild, they didn’t count any households occupied by the youngsters, the orphans, the former child soldiers. Some adults tried to assume ownership of the houses so the children could be compensated—their parents had, after all, owned the buildings—but such efforts were to no avail. Families took in as many of the orphans as possible, but their numbers were too great. At Kula’s insistence, Bockarie took in Colonel’s group, with the exception of Ernest, whom Mama Kadie had grown fond of.
Mama Kadie purposefully gave tasks to Ernest that would bring him in contact with Sila. Sila had started speaking to the boy, uttering words in his direction without looking at him. He’d started after Ernest had defended his children from some bullies without using violence. One bully had thrown a stone and Ernest stepped in front of it with his back to it. Then he growled at the bully, who ran away, and winced from the pain. But as soon as Maada’s and Hawa’s eyes caught his, he smiled, and they did, too. Sila had seen it all from a distance.
“Thank you, Ernest,” he said, lowering himself to hug his children. Ernest walked off, still feeling that he hadn’t done enough or could never do enough for them.
But now wasn’t the time for mending broken connections. It was the time for teaching the heart to relocate to another land, to hold the memories of the land that would soon be abandoned, to embalm the image of what had existed so it wouldn’t decay with time, so it could live on vibrantly in the stories.
How do you pack up to leave your town for mining? It was easier to run during the war—you knew that no matter what, if you stayed alive, you would be able to return home and stand on your land. Now the land would be flooded; it would disappear.
* * *
It was the last day of the life of the real town of Imperi, before its name became something new, something that the tongues of its inhabitants had to try to get used to. Mama Kadie and Pa Kainesi had asked everyone to spend Saturday there one last time. The sky had washed its face and its tears had soaked the dirt road, so the dust seemed unable to rise. Even the trees now rejoiced, shaking their leaves lightly with the passing wind, relieved from the burden of carrying dust.
The elders slowly found their footsteps on the road, their bare feet leaving marks on the ground that the earth embraced with familiarity. The houses looked lonely now. After every few paces, the elders raised their heads toward the sky. They sent a boy to run around town asking everyone to gather at the field after the rain. They sat on Pa Kainesi’s veranda and waited. As soon as the boy finished the announcements, it started to rain again, this time with such vigor that each raindrop left a deep mark on the ground.
Pa Kainesi cleared his throat. “Ah, my friends, we are alive yet another day to collect memories. My blood is full with so many memories. So I must stand and stretch to make more space before we start talking.” He stood and paced up and down the veranda, slowly moving his shoulders and lifting his knees.
“Kainesi, if you awaken your bones any more than you have, those old things will break. So please sit. You’ve made enough space for new memories today,” Mama Kadie said with a chuckle.
“Look at the rains, how they fall these days. There is no lightning. The thunder is afraid to announce its arrival.” He stood up again and walked to the edge of the veranda, holding his hand under the rain. He rubbed the cold rain on his rough face and continued. “When I was a boy, my grandmother told me that lightning occurs because God sends the ancestors to take photographs of the land and its people. We do not have lightning anymore. The last sets of lightning happened during the years when guns spoke. My heart fills with fire when I think of these things.” He returned to his bamboo chair.
“It has also been raining more than usual. It is as if the earth wants to cleanse itself.” Mama Kadie hummed a tune that begged the rain to cease, but nothing changed.
“If the last time God sent the ancestors to take photographs of this land was during the years of bloodshed, then we must find a way to invite more lightning. We need newer pictures of this land. Not all of it was lost,” Pa Kainesi said.
“I have been sending my voice to the world beyond our eyes, but I haven’t received anything,” Mama Kadie said with a low voice. The other elders only listened. As though it had been eavesdropping, the rain abruptly stopped. No one said anything for a while. They knew it was time to make their way to the field for Mama Kadie to speak to everyone one last time.
When their feet had reached the last bit of earth on the old part of town, they stood near the main road. It took days of rain to soak the dust on this road. They looked both ways for the cars and trucks that sped through town with no regard for people crossing. As they were about to carry their old bones across, they heard the bellow of an engine that sounded like a wounded cow. A white Toyota Hilux, its windows rolled up, sped past them, sending dust and small stones into the air. The dust rose to their wrinkled faces, getting on their lips and in their noses, causing them to spit and cough.
“My mind has never understood why these white men drive so fast through this town. You have to hold your breath to reach anyplace around here,” Pa Kainesi said, coughing and wiping the dust off his forehead. “And why do they have white vehicles only to drive on such dusty, muddy roads?”
* * *
The field was packed with people, and lively pockets of conversations were breaking out all over. The few young people in town hung about, some in trees so they could see the gathering
properly. Colonel was there, too, standing away from everyone with the intention of stopping any intruders. This would be the last time he was in Imperi.
“How has the world greeted you today?” Pa Kainesi asked everyone.
“The world greeted us kindly this morning by waking us with life. However, we are troubled,” someone shouted above the voices of the crowd. Some people laughed and others agreed by humming. Pa Kainesi motioned for Mama Kadie to step forward and take over. She stood quietly for a while to invite the silence that brought spirits among the living. She began:
“We used to sit around in a circle to tell many stories. Nowadays in our circles, when we manage to have them, there are mostly elders and adults. There aren’t many children to receive the stories. We, the elders, our hearts cry, because we worry that we may lose our connection to the different moons to come, to the moons that have passed, and to the sun today. The sun will set without our whispers. The ears and voices of those gone will be closed to us. Our grandchildren will have weak backbones and they won’t have the ears to understand the knowledge that lies within them, that holds them firm on this earth. A simple wind of despair will easily break them. What must we do, my friends?” All the faces in the crowd became serious. “We must live in the radiance of tomorrow, as our ancestors have suggested in their tales. For what is yet to come tomorrow has possibilities, and we must think of it, the simplest glimpse of that possibility of goodness. That will be our strength. That has always been our strength. This is all I wanted to say.” She turned away from the crowd.
Gradually, people began to sing and dance and joke around with one another. The smiles that had dulled brightened again. This wasn’t a place for illusions; the reality here was the genuine happiness that came about from the natural magic of standing next to someone and being consumed by the fortitude in his or her humanity. This was what started the dancing and singing and brought out the sun. It was the last day of the life of the real town of Imperi. The name moved on to the new town, but the new town would never be able to hold the stories.
* * *
Three months later, you wouldn’t know that a town had existed where Imperi had been: an artificial dam now occupied much of the land, the top of the water shimmering with the reflections of the minerals underneath. The dredge was in full swing, digging the rutile or, as the older people referred to it, “the colorful and shiny excrement of the earth that shows that it is still healthy.” Most days, though, people wished that the excrements of their land were like all others, undesirable, and that their earth didn’t carry within it beautiful things that brought them misery.
* * *
The new town didn’t have the magic of Imperi. The birds didn’t come, as there were no trees for them to build their nests in. The roosters that were brought along crowed at the wrong hours.
Bockarie was at work one day when his mobile phone rang. He never got calls during the day, and when he did, people would only “flash” him—call him and hang up, expecting a call back, as they had no credit on their phones. Today, however, his phone rang persistently and he answered it.
“It is your brother, Benjamin. How are you, man?” His voice was shaking.
Bockarie frowned. “Aren’t you at work? And why are you crying? You are a grown man.”
“I am calling to say goodbye, brother. Take care of my family and return them to my homeland for me.”
Bockarie’s heart started racing. He could feel Benjamin’s pain through the phone and tried not to believe it. “Please stop joking. This isn’t funny, man.”
“I know I joke around a lot, but this is serious. The dredge fell and I am stuck under one of its huge iron buckets with five others. Three have already died and it is just a matter of time,” Benjamin said, the fear no longer in his voice.
While he spoke, Bockarie had decided to run home so Benjamin would at least be able to speak to his wife and children on the phone. He got up from his desk and started heading out of the lab where they tested soil samples.
His supervisor said, “Bockarie, sit back down at your workstation or you will be sacked.”
His heart and entire body was filled with so much pain that his ears didn’t take in what any of his bosses shouted at him. He pushed them out of the way and ran to town while listening to the last words of his friend. Since he had his company attire and ID, he got a lift, the phone glued to his ear, listening to Benjamin. The men in the back of the truck discussed the fallen dredge and said they heard no one was harmed.
Bockarie jumped off the vehicle before it stopped and got to Benjamin’s house, handing the phone to Fatu. She tried not to cry in front of the children. She said nothing, but she dropped the things she was holding and stood in one place, as though her feet had grown roots. Her beautiful shiny face was twisted and lost its glow, tears coming out slowly, her tongue unable to utter a sound. After what felt like a long time, she removed the phone from her ear and handed it back to Bockarie, her eyes telling him to stay with her children. She ran to the back of the house, vomited, and began to wail, her belly convulsing.
Meanwhile, Bockarie was with Bundu and Rugiatu, who weren’t old enough to understand the situation. They were fascinated that they could hear their father’s voice in the phone. “See you soon, Father, when you come out of this machine,” Rugiatu said, and she and her brother chuckled. Bockarie took the phone from them. He could hear only his friend’s heavy breathing now, and the voices of the other men trapped with him discussing how to get the phone from his hands. Bockarie ran back to the junction to board one of the company vehicles, which he assumed would be headed to the dredge. He was told that no one was allowed there at the moment. He pleaded with the driver.
“I am on the phone with my friend and he is trapped there, dying with others.”
“Haven’t you heard that no one was harmed? The dredge just fell and everyone working at that time is safe,” the driver told him. Bockarie sat on the ground and cried, the only thing he could do to honor his friend. He couldn’t go to the police and he had no way of spreading the truth—no money to pay for a radio announcement or a notice in the newspapers. He and the families of the other men couldn’t even recover the bodies—the company stuck by its story, which was that no one had died. They hung a printed roster of the names of those who were at work with check marks opposite all their names indicating that they had been accounted for. Benjamin’s name wasn’t there, nor were those of the others who had died.
The dredge was lifted and operations resumed. The incident reminded people of the war, when they’d suffered the same emotional and psychological toll, burying people without their bodies or graveyards.
Bockarie returned to work, placed his badge on his boss’s desk, and left before he could be formally sacked.
That night the families of Benjamin and Bockarie and the elders sat together on the veranda. They swung between sadness and happiness. They couldn’t talk about what had happened or cry in front of Benjamin’s children. The older children knew, and they were careful not to say anything. Even with these precautions, there were moments when Bundu and Rugiatu unknowingly made everyone’s eyes fill with tears, and the adults closed their mouths so their jaws wouldn’t shake with sorrow.
“I want to tell a story that Father told me yesterday,” Bundu said at one point and went on telling the story, mimicking his father’s voice.
“I wish Father was here to tell the other story he had promised us,” Rugiatu said, stretching and looking toward her mother with a smile. Later that night, when all the children had gone to sleep, Benjamin, his father, Kula, Fatu, and Mama Kadie sat quietly in the darkness. Kula was next to Fatu, consoling her by rubbing her back so her convulsing stomach wouldn’t make her vomit.
“I promised him over the phone I would take his family back to his home in Kono,” Bockarie said. “I have to make plans to do it as soon as possible, as things are so fragile here.” He stood up and walked off the veranda into the night without saying anything to
anyone. No one asked.
The days that followed were difficult. They couldn’t mourn for Benjamin because the mining company refused to admit that he had been killed, and some of the workers refused also. The children still asked Bockarie when their father was going to come out of that machine from which he had spoken to them. Their mother pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t sob in front of the children. She wasn’t sure how long she could carry on. Kula helped take care of the children while Fatu was in mourning. Bockarie waited for a week just in case Benjamin’s body was recovered, but nothing was found. No one had been granted access to the area of the accident. Armed men guarded the place day and night until the company cleaned up and reerected the dredge.
12
“WE CANNOT WAIT ANY LONGER. We must leave Imperi tomorrow,” Bockarie said to Fatu one afternoon at the end of the week. They were returning from a stroll down the road away from town. There was a tree there that she would hold on to and shout into the wind, releasing her pain. She would then dry her eyes with her waistcloth and return to her children, wiping all the sadness from her face.
“You are right. Staying here isn’t helping me. I will get ready tonight.” Fatu’s voice was weak from crying.
That evening, as she packed her things, she decided to leave her husband’s clothes behind. It was too painful to pack them. She held some of his shirts against her and brought them to her nose to remember his smell. She needed to bury him somehow, and leaving his belongings was a way to start. Kula washed and dressed the children and packed some food for them. When they asked why their father wasn’t coming, she told them, “This is a special vacation for you to see your grandparents.” They grinned and ran to tell their mother. She smiled at their innocence but said nothing; since her husband had passed away, she had been quieter than usual. She had started thinking about returning to nursing at any hospital or clinic she could find; even a pharmacy would do.