After the lizard carcass had been licked clean, Togar gathered the palm fronds he had collected at dusk, placed a few on the ground, and gently tried to pull the balance over him as he lay down. Togar closed his eyes and shivered. The mosquitoes were ravenous and bit his legs, feet, stomach, and arms. One even had the audacity to bite his eyelid. Still, exhaustion claimed him after a few minutes.
* * *
—
His eye was swollen and puffy at dawn, and Togar awoke to its incessant itching. He had never relaxed enough on the hard earth to truly dream, but he did remember for a few minutes before waking, and the sweetness of the memory was almost unbearable.
Jorgbor had asked him to hold the baby for a few moments, while she tended a cut one of their neighbors had gotten while collecting firewood. Despite her youth, Jorgbor was a talented healer—not as strong as the medicine man, of course—but she had skill with the plants and knew how to tend to the sick and wounded. Sundaygar was fussy that morning and resisted being tied on his mother’s back, as was their custom. The boy was getting over some kind of digestive sickness and had vomited all over her several times while on her back the day before. “Just for a moment,” Jorgbor had assured him, handing over their son. Togar was irritated and didn’t bother to conceal it. It was a woman’s duty to care for her children, not a man’s. A discussion about the storage capacity of the granary was starting in Uncle William’s compound in a few minutes, and he wanted to make sure he got a seat closest to the elders.
Sundaygar fussed in his arms, reaching for his father’s nose. “Be still now!” Togar commanded, but this only made the baby more distressed. He began to cry and squirm out of his arms. Togar looked to his wife for assistance, but she was completely focused on tending to the shallow laceration on their neighbor’s forearm. Togar sucked his teeth. “Be calm, I say!” he yelled at the child, his voice rising. Sundaygar burst into tears then, and Togar wanted more than anything to be done with him. But when he gently nudged Jorgbor, she looked at him strangely and gestured toward the odd mixture of leaves, roots, water, and herbs she was pounding into a paste. “One minute-oh,” she said, and smiled in that way that women always smiled at men when they were fully in control of a situation that their men didn’t like. It made Togar unreasonably angry every time he saw it. In his arms, Sundaygar squirmed and almost fell. Why won’t you listen? Don’t you know your father knows nothing of tending to women’s things? Jorgbor looked over at him, alarmed, and pressed the baby against his chest. “Soothe him,” she said. “Rock him.” Togar frowned but followed his wife’s instruction. Once the child was on his chest, he rubbed his back with his right hand, jiggling him gently back and forth. Sundaygar responded to the motions and quieted. He nestled deeper into his father’s chest and even cooed once. Togar laughed, despite himself, at his son’s going so easily from a feeling of deep distress to comfort. “Yes, you are with Daddy now,” he whispered in his ear. “You are fine.” Jorgbor was carefully wiping the healing paste on Alice’s wound, but she looked over then and smiled at both of them. He met her eyes, and he allowed his former resentment to fall away. He was lucky he had them both, even if he was forced to act like a woman from time to time. It was worth it if it meant they would be a healthy, happy family.
And then a strange thing happened: Togar felt a warm wetness spread across his chest. Before he could even register what was happening, Sundaygar issued a loud fart and with it an explosion of soft, runny excrement. The smell was overwhelming—Togar wanted to vomit. He held the child toward Jorgbor. “Take him! Take him now!” Pried from the sheltered warmth of his father’s arms, Sundaygar began to scream again. Alice had turned away from him, but it was impossible not to see her laughing. Togar’s face reddened. He had put on his best shirt for the men’s meeting, and now it was ruined. He had just bathed, and now he would have to do it all over again. “I’m sorry. He urinated a few minutes ago. I don’t know what happened,” said Jorgbor. But she wouldn’t look at him straight on, either. Togar knew why: because she was laughing at him too. She wasn’t even making that much of an effort to hide it. All of it was too much. He had to get out of the compound. Jorgbor took their sick son in her hands, and Togar burst out the door. He ran to the river as fast as he could, fervently hoping that no one saw him along the way. Once at its edge, he took off everything and dove in.
The memory ended there, and Togar opened his eyes reluctantly. The sun was peeking out over the small hills all around him, and an elephant trumpeted far in the distance. Togar sighed. That was Monday. Now it was Thursday, and he would give anything for the stench of Sundaygar’s feces. To hold his baby son once more and feel the shock of warm urine across his chest.
* * *
—
Togar began to lose track of the days. He knew when it was daylight, because he could move more easily through the dense bush, and when dusk came, he would cook whatever he had been able to find and rest for a few hours before getting up and running again. These things were all he needed to know: daytime, nighttime, food, rest, move. Everything else—the soldiers; longer units of time like days, weeks, months; even Jorgbor and Sundaygar—was more than he could focus on. He concentrated on weaving a small net from palm fronds to catch tilapia in the river, which he had decided he would follow as far as Yela, in Bong County. As his fingers worked, Togar willed himself not to see the beautiful scars from Jorgbor’s Sande ceremony he loved to trace along the small of her back when he lay down at night. Suddenly he felt driver ants feasting on his bare flesh, and he focused again on his task and recited his new nightly prayer: For a time I will forget you. Just for a time. So that I may come back to you.
Without the distraction of human voices, his ears became remarkably attuned to the sounds of the forest. The braying and strange mooing of the buffalo herds. The bright chirping of the cowbirds. Togar even began to recognize the sound of the snakes moving through the dry grasses late at night. As a child, being bitten had been one of his great fears. . . .
And just like that, she was back. Jorgbor had shown him how to suck out the venom from the bite right after an attack and also what herbs to chew afterward to deaden its effects. She only had to use this particular set of skills twice in all her years, but they successfully saved a small boy and an old man who had strayed into a pit on their way back from the farm. It was one of the reasons why he loved her: all the knowledge she had about healing and so many other things, which she shared freely with anyone who asked. It had made their whole village stronger. Togar’s stomach churned as he thought about what would become of their village now, with all the men and so many of the crops taken, the taxes and all the farms abandoned—
No. Making his way through the more than one hundred miles to Zigida was the one goal he could allow himself to entertain. He had to believe that Jorgbor’s brother would help him form a plan to save his family when he arrived. He had no idea what that might be, but they had to come up with something. It was what the ancestors demanded.
Togar was headed due north, maybe a bit northeast, to Yela. Once he crossed the border into Bong County, he would skew northwest a bit, and from Yela move through Palala, to Belefuanai near the Nianda River, over the border to Lofa County, into Zorzor, Yella, and then finally, Zigida. Sometimes as he was running, one foot tromping the tall, green grasses, the other midway through the next stride, he would string the names together in a kind of pekin song that matched the rhythm of his movements: Yela, Palala, Belefuanai, Zorzor, Yella, Zigida. The song was a comfort to him, a familiar thing in his mouth and limbs, in places where he was the most unfamiliar thing for miles. But he would still be alive, he reminded himself, and he would still be free.
After what felt like weeks and weeks of running, Togar came upon a well-beaten path in what he believed was Bong County. He hesitated for a moment. It could lead me into trouble, but it could also lead me to rest and some decent food. He was well outside of land he had ever walked on.
He had some kind of inkling of where he might be, but still no concrete evidence. Though he doubted it, he reluctantly had to admit that for all he knew he could be running in circles around Giakpee. Togar took a step as quietly as he could, then another, and then another.
Not long after, he spotted a stand of papaya trees to his right. He stepped off the path, picked one of the succulent yellowish-orange fruits from a cluster of six near the top of the trunk, and sat down to cut it open with a wooden knife he had fashioned some days ago. He clawed at the fruit. Sweet juice ran down his chin, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.
“You there!” someone shouted.
Togar jumped. The sound of a human voice was sharp, almost piercing after so much time alone in the bush.
“Whose papaya you think you eating? You pay me for this papaya, boy.”
It was an older man’s voice, and though he couldn’t understand every word, he could make out enough to glean their basic meaning. If he was where he thought he was, the man was speaking Kpelle. Togar did what he was beginning to think was his greatest talent in life: He hid behind a large mahogany tree.
“I say, you there! You think I can’t see you? I see you, boy. I see you eating my money-oh.”
Togar began to chuckle, in spite of himself.
“Oh, now you think me funny, boy?” The man’s voice was getting closer and closer, more and more agitated by the minute.
Togar wondered how the man could see him so clearly. He was well hidden. He looked to his right and left for an opening in the bush where he could dash off and be concealed.
The man walked faster, his every step rapidly encroaching on his hiding place.
Togar wanted to move, but there was another part of him that wanted to stay and talk to the first real human being he had come across in far too long—even if it would probably not be an amenable discussion.
“Poor old country man got nothing to eat way out in the bush ’cause rich, rich man come and steal it,” the man said. “Enjoy all his papaya so he can’t feed his family after Congo soldiers take all his crop money for taxes. You, boy. You probably work for Congo soldiers, eh? You show them where to come, how to take the most from us poor country people. Oh yes! That’s what Bassa man do to Kpelle man, Loma do to Vai man, Mandigo man do to Mano man. That’s what we learn best from Congo people: how to destroy each other-oh.”
Togar could not stand to listen to these lies any longer. He stepped out from behind the tree.
The man was short but solidly built, with muscles that strained his once-white shirt and ripped trousers. A cutlass dangled from his right hand, although not menacingly. He simply held it in the way that so many farmers in the village did—as an extension of his arm.
“You don’t know me,” said Togar. “So I will forgive the suggestion that I would ever have anything to do with those brutes. Much less inform on my brothers.”
The man cocked his head at him, sizing him up. “You speak Bassa, but not the same Bassa round here-oh.”
Togar stared right back at him. He thought that fear was making the man posture, when his true nature was kindness. Togar could see a speck of mirth on his face, although it was gone as quickly as it came.
“You from down-down, maybe,” the man said, gesturing ahead of them. “South Bassa country.”
Togar said nothing. He was still deciding about this man.
“Oh, now you can’t talk, eh? Worried that Bassa gonna tell too much, eh?” He walked around Togar slowly, inspecting him.
Togar bristled under his gaze. He dropped what was left of the papaya.
“Maybe you a criminal, stealing rice and cassava and papaya village to village. Maybe you raid the farms in the night, when everyone is sleeping and never see a thief grabbing their hard-grown food from their mouths.” His voice was thin and raspy, and it got under Togar’s skin. “Or maybe you trying to make haste from the authorities. Maybe you hate them as much as we. Won’t let them take all your crop money or steal you to their farm to work for nothing. Maybe they after you for that, been running for days and weeks now. So far from home you forgot which was up, which way was down.” He laughed. By this time, the man was a hairbreadth from Togar’s ear. “Maybe you been in the bush so long, speech even left your lips. Maybe you forgot how to talk, how to tell your story. Maybe you even forgot your own name, boy,” he whispered in Togar’s ear.
Togar pushed the man back. “I am Togar Somah, son of Baccus Somah and grandson of Aku Mawolo, father of Sundaygar Somah,” he said. He felt his back straighten at the sound of his family’s names. “I live in Giakpee with my family, or I did, until the soldiers chased me from there because I am a man and would not submit. Do not call me boy again.”
The man’s whole bearing changed then. His eyes lit up, and his torso lengthened. “Submit to what?”
Togar frowned, the vivid and painful memory resurfacing. Fortee, Gardiah, the soldiers, his near miss with the bullet. “To work their farms while mine goes to ruin. To leave my newborn son and wife. To allow them to take my sister’s womanhood.” His voice broke unexpectedly in the middle of this last sentence.
The man sucked his teeth, looked down at his feet, which were rough and cut up like most villagers’. He exhaled slowly, then looked up again to meet Togar’s eyes. “You a friend, man. I can see now. I was just vexed ’cause you stole my papaya-oh. Give me hard time.” Then he reached out his right hand and grasped his shoulder. The man smiled, and though he was missing almost as many teeth as he had, it was a warm welcoming smile that made Togar instantly at ease.
“I no criminal. I ate papaya fresh off the tree ’cause I thought it belonged to the forest. If I knew it belonged to a brother, I would have left it to rot on the branch.”
The man sucked his teeth, apparently agreeing to go along with Togar’s explanation. “I am Manhtee,” he said, “Son of Togba Kpangbah; grandson of Yarkpawolo; father of Zaowolo, Siakoh, Toimu, and Sianeh; and grandfather of Cammue, Kpakelah, Kollie, Konah, Lurpu, Kortolo, and Kehper.”
Togar felt his eyes widen. The man was older than he thought, and had a formidable lineage that came with all the duties and responsibilities of being an elder.
The man laughed. “Oh yes! I am a potent old man-oh! My seed has nourished not only the soils of our village, and of Yela around it, but has grown powerful sons like you who will never submit to the terror of the Congo beasts. And their sons, they will cut down the Congo people all the same and throw them back into the sea from where they came.” The man’s smile was wide and easy now. He clapped Togar’s back. “Come,” he said. “You are welcome. Let me take you to our small village. My wives will give you some goat meat and rice, so you may fill your belly before running once more from those devils.” The man gestured toward the path in front of them.
Although Togar wanted to trust Manhtee, and though his stomach rumbled at the thought of what would be his first real meal in weeks, he hesitated, just as he had at the start of the path that had taken him to this point. Stories abounded of scoundrels, men who sold their own cousins and friends back into bondage, for a few coins, a few guns, a steady stream of palm wine, and the promise of security. Manhtee had been right about one thing: The Congo people had turned the country people against one another.
“Ah! Now your belly is full of my sweet papaya, maybe you don’t want to go?” said Manhtee.
Togar had to admit that the man was an expert at reading people.
“Maybe you don’t have to trust a poor country man now that you have taken what you wanted?” Manhtee continued.
Togar frowned, then looked at the ground. Manhtee’s goodwill would not last forever, so he needed to decide now: Take a chance and trust him, or play it safe and endure yet another cold and hungry night alone in the bush? His stomach rumbled, louder this time.
Manhtee took another step on the path, and began walking. “My wives will be
expecting me,” he said. “If I am gone too long, they will think I have been taken like the others. You know.” He looked back at Togar for a moment.
Togar nodded.
Manhtee turned back to the path and continued walking. “Come if you want. Go if you must. But whatever you decide, leave my poor papaya alone-oh.”
Togar laughed. Manhtee reminded him of his own father, who had the same sense of humor and the same pride of family. Togar took a step along the path, then another, then another. Before long, he and Manhtee had walked in silence for a few minutes, well behind the stand of papayas and into a small clearing of grass huts, women tending pots over fires, and children chasing one another wildly around them.
“Welcome to Tuma-La,” the man said, turning around. “Where we make sure our brothers from the south are well cared for.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MUCH TO HIS SURPRISE, Togar ended up staying in Tuma-La for almost three days. Despite his objections, Manhtee gave him his own pallet to sleep on in his compound, insisting that it was the softest he would ever enjoy. One of his sons had apparently been collecting bird feathers for some time and stuffed them all into the mattress as a gift to his aging father. After sleeping on the cold, hard earth for so long, Togar slept like a baby. And Manhtee’s three wives, their innumerable children and grandchildren made sure that his every need was met. They carried him water from the river to bathe in; cooked him fish, okra, and goat meat over rice; and even mended some of his clothes, which had been torn from his weeks in the woods. It wasn’t like being back home in Giakpee, but it was surely the next best thing. For the first time in weeks, Togar felt he could relax a little bit, and spent his time trading stories of Frontier Force raids with the men, discussing the area around Tuma-La and its proximity to Yela, and debating possible routes through Palala, and on to Belefuanai.
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