“Hey, ma,” her mother said from the doorway. “What happen, my daughter?” She stood with a dishrag and a cup she had almost finished drying in her hands.
Evelyn sighed. Her mother had always had a preternatural sense about her three daughters.
“Uh-huh. It only . . . ,” Evelyn said, trying not to flinch under the sharp glare of the sunlight streaming in the window, “a bad dream.” She could almost believe it herself.
Saybah Kollie stared at her oldest, most intelligent, and least marriageable daughter. “Palm butter with cassava wasn’t fine-oh” she said, referring to lunch. “Must have given you indigestion.”
Evelyn looked down at her hands, so that her mother would not see her frown. “Yeah, Ma.” Her mother had told her many times that she should not eat the way she did if she wanted to find a husband, and that lying down after eating only made the food stick to her already too-large thighs, hips, and stomach. The Old Ma stood at the doorway for another second. Evelyn could feel how much she wanted to ask about the dream. Finally she turned away and walked purposefully back to the kitchen.
Evelyn was still working up the courage to actually push out the retort that seemed to be permanently lodged in her throat: I don’t want a husband, Old Ma. But the next thought came right behind it: Maybe what coming will make me dry from all the worry-menh, Evelyn thought, smiling wryly. Maybe the Old Ma will end up happy with me after all. Then she remembered Mr. Buchanan being dragged from the house next door in the dead of night, screaming in his skivvies that he was innocent of any and all crimes of which he might be accused. That was more than two months ago, and the word in the neighborhood was that the rebels had taken him to an undisclosed location outside the city. Evelyn shook her head. Buchanan’s daughter, Elizabeth, was her best friend and a fellow first-year at the University of Liberia. Since her father’s kidnapping, Elizabeth had trouble getting out of bed each morning and was on the verge of flunking her courses this semester. With all the rumors and all the trouble, Evelyn was having an equally hard time concentrating and wasn’t far behind her on this path of shame.
She had always had a wry sense of humor—which had gotten her into plenty of trouble throughout her life—but even Evelyn had to admit that there was little about the situation that was funny. She wiped her dripping brow with the back of her hand. No, her personal joke about becoming dry at the expense of the nation wasn’t funny. But she hoped, at the very least, that the movie tonight would be. It was too exhausting not to laugh for months and months.
Love Brewed in an African Pot was showing at the Relda, and Evelyn and Elizabeth were determined to go see it that night. That was why Evelyn had laid down in the first place—to be fresh for the increasingly rare night on the town that the two had been planning for weeks. They had gone down to Broad Street and each purchased a new dress, just in from America. Elizabeth’s was made of a delicate and rich red chiffon, and gathered at the waist, showing off her figure, while Evelyn’s was a simple peach cotton that swirled like an open flower when she turned suddenly. These would have been extravagant purchases a year ago, but now, they were positively decadent. However, each of them had confessed to the other that they could not remember the last time they had bought something for themselves, something that made them feel beautiful, like anything could happen, that the world was filled with nothing else but pregnant possibility.
Placing her feet flat on the carpet, Evelyn began to walk, very slowly, toward the bathroom. Her head was still a bit dizzy, and she was vaguely nauseous, but she had the feeling that both would pass as soon as she could step into the shower.
You cannot walk this line forever, my dear. You will soon have to take a side—and each will have a very steep price-menh. She blinked, and tried to wipe Ujay’s brash voice from her mind. You chastise us for using violence, but you know in your heart it the only way change gonna come to this country-oh. What did one hundred fifty years of nonviolent protest and silence get us? Nothing. Nowhere. They still own us-oh. People like you, indigenous and privileged, gonna tip the balance to justice, small-small. You know this, Evie. That why you keep coming to our meetings. That why you prepare and carry the prisoners’ food. Evelyn shook her head violently and covered her ears. “Enough!” she yelled. It was bad enough to have to be in a room with Ujay’s prodding in real life—the last thing she needed was to bring it home with her to her dreams.
“Eeh-menh!” Evelyn said under her breath. Her mother would be there in an instant, asking if everything was all right. This time, there would be no stopping the questions about her dreams. Evelyn leaned out the bathroom door and called, “I fine. Only, I slipped.” Then she tore her clothes off, turned the shower up to full-blast, and let the cold water overwhelm all of her senses.
* * *
—
The night was cool, so both young women wore shawls around their shoulders. They also each carried identical white leather purses that Mr. Buchanan had brought back from his most recent trip to France. They walked slowly toward the blazing red lights of the Relda, almost not wanting to reach it too quickly. They both knew that the night would end too soon, and that tomorrow would be upon them well before they had even begun to prepare for it.
“They surround him then?” Elizabeth asked, leaning into her friend.
Evelyn nodded, the dream becoming all too visceral again. “He didn’t see them coming and was overwhelmed-menh.”
Elizabeth peered at her in horror. “Eeh-menh! What they do to him?”
Evelyn looked away from her, at the cars making their way leisurely down the boulevard. She did not want to say, but she knew she would feel better once she did. “They gutted him,” she said evenly. They were at the steps of the Relda and faced each other.
“Oh!” Elizabeth exclaimed, then clasped her hand over her mouth. “They did not-menh!”
Evelyn sighed. “They did-menh.” She started up the steps slowly. The wind picked up for an instant and billowed her skirts around her.
Elizabeth regained her composure and quickly ran up the steps to meet her. She grabbed Evelyn’s arm. “And what did you do-oh?”
Evelyn turned to her incredulously. “What you mean, what I do? I wasn’t there.”
Elizabeth backed away from her. “But you were there. It your dream-menh!”
“Right,” Evelyn said, opening her purse to find her money. “It my dream, and I wasn’t there-oh.”
Elizabeth’s brow furrowed. “But how you watching it if you not there? I don’t understand. The dreamer always part of the dream”
“Not this time-oh,” Evelyn said. She paid the attendant for a ticket. After Elizabeth was done paying, she said quietly, “To watch the president be murdered by his own men, our own army-menh. I had no body—only eyes and ears.”
Elizabeth frowned. She looked down at her shoes, then back up at Evelyn. “What your mother say-ya?”
Evelyn shrugged. “I didn’t tell her.”
Elizabeth opened the door and walked through it. “Oh.”
Evelyn followed. “But she knows. I know she knows-menh.”
Once they were in the foyer, the night disappeared behind them, on the other side of the glass. The elegant red carpet of the theater pushed back on their pumps purposefully with each step, and they felt like they were gliding forward, in their Western dresses and lotioned limbs.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
April 7, 1980, West Point Area, Monrovia, Liberia
IT WASN’T SO MUCH that he hated them. It was more like he hated what had happened to him. And the worst part was, he wasn’t even sure if he could blame it all on them anymore. He could admit now that writing and distributing the anti-Tolbert poem was not the smartest move he’d made in his nineteen years. As a trained Progressive Alliance of Liberia activist, he knew very well what it meant to spend your political capital—to throw it like a bomb into the insatiable mouth of the Congo people, and wa
tch it do its work. And then to feel the consequences. Still, Ujay Flomo smiled. His dream of a university education might have been snatched away, but his dream of a just society? They couldn’t take that from him any more than they could take his name. The more they tried, the more vigorously he and PAL and everyone in the movement would resist. As one Comrade drops, another takes his place-oh. Yes, that was the way of it. They didn’t even see the wave until it was upon them.
“But what use is democracy if you cannot participate-oh?”
Ujay groaned now and rolled over on his lumpy, dirty mattress, pulling his wrists over his ears.
“Eeh-menh! Now you expelled, all those political aspirations falling away, small-small,” she had told him at the meeting the other day. “That beautiful justice you fighting for so hard, that one you say worth an ocean of blood and another of fear, that one will not allow you to serve those you represent. You will never be a senator now, and the people of West Point will never benefit from the strength of your leadership.” Her usually steady voice was almost shaking at this point, and her delicately coiffed bob was slightly askew. He knew what he should be feeling at that moment should have been anger, but instead, all he felt was an acute urge to touch her face, and move the delinquent hair behind her ear. “What will you do when all this is over-oh?” she asked him. “What will you do-menh?”
His breath had caught in his throat then, and he broke his gaze with her. “Nothing is ever over, Evie,” he said. He knew she hated being called that—it was what her mother called her—so he had delighted in almost exclusively calling her “Evie” since they had met years ago, as children. He watched her wince and resisted the urge to pinch her. If she only knew how hard he had to work every second he was around her not to touch her.
“That,” she said, her mouth in a thin, pinched line, “is bullshit.” He couldn’t help it then—he burst out laughing, which of course made her even angrier. He finally got control of himself, and said, “Careful, Evie. What would your mother say-ya? You’ll never get a husband that way.”
She was livid now. “I not getting no husband,” she said and stomped off.
But Ujay knew she would; whatever the two of them had become recently, he knew she would. She was a product of her place, family, and stature, after all. Her class always married—up, if possible; never down.
He stretched out now and made a conscious decision to wipe Evelyn from his mind. Nothing good could come from thinking of her, he had learned that long ago. No, better to consider the rumors circulating all over the city that George, Oscar, Dika, and the others might be executed next week, to mark the occasion of the first anniversary of the Rice Riots. Wilson had told him about it a few days ago, and the thought of it made him want to break something. The trouble was, there was nothing around to break—his family owned little of value, and everything that was valuable was already broken.
* * *
—
“They want to make an example of them-menh,” Wilson had told him, leaning over their water glasses at the student center. “They feel the same energy on the streets that we do-oh—the exhaustion with their easy brutality. They know they have to do something to quell it, and they think that something is right in their compound.”
Wilson was Kpelle, from Bong County, and head of the Student Unification Party, which had gained strength and power over the past five years, as more indigenous students came to school in Monrovia. Students from the city had dominated all aspects of university life for decades, but with the current political climate, they were finally seeing their limited perspectives challenged. A skillful speaker, Wilson was able to bring together Kru, Grebo, Krahn, and Geh, clans that had never before seen a common goal: to have a place at the table at the seat of the republic.
“Their compound is connected to our compound,” Ujay said, taking a sip from his glass. “If they try anything, more blood will be spilt-menh. And this time, the blood will not only be ours.” He looked around the student center, at the men and women laughing and teasing one another, and he was struck with an intense longing throughout his entire body just to rest—to be easy. But then, in the next moment, his breathing seized up in his chest, and he knew that he could never rest until he had seen it, the entire thing, through.
Wilson’s hand slamming down on the tabletop woke him from his reverie. Suddenly Wilson’s finger was in Ujay’s face. “Blood is blood,” he said. “And we all Liberian-oh.”
The intensity of Wilson’s glance was getting to be too much for even Ujay to stand, so he broke from it for a moment to look at the DJ, who was switching out James Brown for the new Earth, Wind & Fire LP. Ujay knew a complicated political debate was moments away, and he simply didn’t have the energy. “These people . . . They not people-menh. I don’t know what they are. They come here over a century ago, to escape from slavery, they say, to find a new land, a home to be free, and what they do-ya? They act as if no one here already, as if we have no culture, no civilization, no religion, no humanity-oh.” He laughed again bitterly. “No, no. The Congo people know no other way of rule than brutality. All they know how to do is kill—whether slowly, by the deadening poverty we endure, or quickly, by force-menh.” Ujay felt the familiar hotness behind his eyes and swallowed quickly, telling himself to calm down. That was all he needed, to cry in front of Wilson. “And that is why,” he concluded, “the only solution is indigenous rule-oh.”
Wilson shook his head slowly. “The only solution, eh?” He took another sip of water. “And John and Mary, Cecilia and Josiah? What about all the Congo people trying to help us-oh? Shall we kill them too?” Wilson’s voice was rising, and Ujay motioned for him to quiet down. Who knew who was in the student center right then? This was a time when no one was safe—especially those who were stupid enough to think they were.
“For God’s sake-menh!” Ujay hissed. “I not saying we should kill anyone—least of all our friends.” Ujay grinned at Wilson mischievously. “Or lovers.”
Wilson’s eyes flashed in alarm.
Ujay held up his hand. “It okay-ya,” he said. “I not gonna say a thing.”
Wilson scowled. “You just did-menh.”
Ujay shrugged. “Love is love, my friend.”
Wilson leaned into him, seeing an opening. “Oh ya? So, what revolution, then?”
Let’s groove tonight, the speakers thrummed. Share the spice of life. A woman’s peal of laughter shot out from a corner. Ujay shrugged.
“Revolution the opposite of love for you, Ujay,” Wilson continued, all the fire evaporating from his features. He just looked sad now. “And that why I don’t trust you-menh.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
April 7, 1980, Army Barracks, Monrovia, Liberia
“IT MY DREAM, and I wasn’t there-oh.”
Garnahweh heard the dull thud of his boots against the concrete sidewalk and wondered if he might be lucky enough to be the only one in his unit’s quarters. The others were out at the bar, sharing pints of Star beer and stories about their women—or the women they would have, as soon as the change that was coming finally came to this godforsaken country. Since he had joined the army after his eighteenth birthday a little more than a year ago, Garnahweh himself was surprised by how little interest he had in either women or beer—subjects which seemed to provoke an endless amount of discussion and argument among his peers. On the whole, he was far more concerned about the meager harvest his family had collected back home in the village and about Janjay, his six-year-old niece, who had been designated his charge after his sister died from the curse last year. If Garnahweh didn’t yet have a wife and daughter of his own to protect, he took his duty to his niece seriously.
Garnahweh shivered and pulled his rough cotton hat over his ears. The day had been sunny and dry, but when night came, he always found that he was not able to keep warm under the thin, scratchy blankets they were issued. He would not dare ask for another bla
nket, however. Such an admission—of having “thin blood”—would raise suspicion about not only his ability to execute the demanding requirements of a soldier, but about his very manhood.
The unit’s quarters were about twelve feet wide by twenty feet long, with four sets of bunks squeezed into the sides and one in the center. Threadbare sheets strapped perhaps half of the bunk beds—a futile effort by some of the men, who, like Garnahweh, were desperately trying to create some semblance of home, of “progress.” The walls were blank, except for the peeling white paint that was dulled by dirt in some places and marred by boot prints in others. The floor was cold, packed dirt, which should have been swept clean every morning, but which was not, because all the men considered this to be women’s and girls’ work, and none of the newly made men in the unit would risk the insinuation that they were suited for such things. There were times when no one else was around, however, when Garnahweh had been tempted to pick up the broom of palm fronds himself and sweep the area clean. If there was one thing he could not abide by, it was dirt. The only thing that was almost as bad as that was disorder.
He strode over to his bunk and flopped down on it with a sigh. When would they finally come for him? He closed his eyes, imagining himself sitting behind the large desk of the Minister of Agriculture. Garnahweh had glimpsed it only once, on an errand to pick up a classified envelope for Master Sargent Samuel K. Doe. The desk was made of a deep, rich maple, no doubt crafted in Europe. But the fat man behind the desk, the man whose name Garnahweh had not even bothered to learn because he would not be in the position for much longer, this man did not seem to even understand, much less appreciate, the beauty before him. You could not even see the desktop, since numerous papers were flung across it in disarray. It was a wonder, Garnahweh thought, taking the envelope from the man’s limp and clammy hands, that anything got done in the Agricultural Ministry, given the state of things. It had taken all of Garnahweh’s strength, all of his soldier’s training, to keep his face impassive when a feeling of nausea invaded his gut. The simple truth was—this fat Congo man, like so many others who populated the halls of the executive mansion—disgusted him. They, like most Congos, might have grown rich off their laziness and power, but they had also become old, obsolete—effeminate, almost. They had forgotten what an honest day’s work felt like, they had begun to believe the image of themselves that they perpetuated, because they made sure it was in everyone’s line of sight. He could never tell Master Sergeant Doe or any of his superiors this, but Garnahweh almost felt sorry for the Congos. What was a man if he wasn’t a man anymore? He shook his head on his bunk now. Garnahweh had heard whispers that Congo men could no longer satisfy their women, could not even plant their seed in them, which was why so many young Congo women were looking for Bassa, Vai, Gola, Krahn, and Kru boyfriends lately. This must have been the final humiliation for their men.
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