He crept stealthily, hugging the edge of the hallway, ears attuned to every sound, every movement. Garnahweh wiped the sweat from his eyes as they rounded the corner to the bedchamber. He shook his head; the miscreant hadn’t even bothered to shut the door and lay sprawled across the bed, half dressed and snoring, his paunch hanging out from a too-short undershirt. The old man does not deserve to govern, Garnahweh thought. He cannot even manage his own body-menh.
As he tiptoed forward, Tolbert’s figure came into focus. He was curled up in almost a fetal position, except his left leg was stretched out completely. Garnahweh wondered how a man—one of such power, particularly—could allow himself the luxury of such vulnerability. He wasn’t a baby, after all, and sleeping in such a way only invited others to see his weakness. You could see it in the easy rise and fall of his chest, in the spittle that ran down his chin, that at some basic and primal level the man didn’t believe the world held any real dangers for him. That his whole life—perhaps even before birth, when his mother carried him—he had known he was safe from any real harm. Garnahweh chuckled. This was the real danger of being a Congo man: You were fooled into believing you could cheat death. That you could sleep in your bed—the most powerful man in the whole of Liberia—and be utterly and completely shielded from harm. That no one would cut you down when you were defenseless. Garnahweh took two more steps until he was face-to-face with the man he imagined for months in his dreams, the barrel of his gun just touching the quivering left nostril. The eyes fluttered beneath the lids, and Garnahweh allowed himself to wonder for a moment if Tolbert was perhaps lost in some strange dreamworld of his own, or if some part of him knew that this was the moment of his undoing, his death. “Do it-menh!” the man behind him hissed. Garnahweh bit his lip, and as the blood rushed into his mouth, he pulled the trigger. He thought of his niece, Janjay, then of his family back in the village, and how they would one day sing songs of this moment, the moment when he found the strength to release them and their countrymen from their blinding, crushing poverty. The moment when their collective dream of a free and truly democratic country came into focus.
CHAPTER FORTY
EVELYN FILLED THE TEAPOT with water from the tap, then placed it on the stove top. No one could start their morning without tea and some small piece of bread with butter or jam. She hummed to herself while she grabbed two plastic cups from the shelf. The Old Ma would say that she shouldn’t worry herself, that Poady, their small girl, would prepare breakfast for them. But Evelyn found that preparing the water, stirring the tea, cutting the bread, actually calmed her as she woke up and began her day. It was a ritual of sorts, one which had soothed her since she was a very young girl. And after last night’s dreams, she needed soothing. At least this morning, unlike the last few, she was not overcome with nausea.
She saw a trio of mangoes on the counter and realized that Poady had already been to the market. Evelyn smiled and grabbed one to cut; the mango would be sweet with bread and tea. Poady was a good girl.
In a few moments breakfast was ready, and Evelyn placed it in the center of the kitchen table. She set a place for herself, a place for the Old Ma, and a place for Poady (even though she knew the Old Ma wouldn’t approve; this was the new Liberia President Tolbert was inelegantly inching them toward, and it would require all of them to make adjustments). The teapot tooted as steam rose from the top. Evelyn had just turned off the burner and grabbed the pot when Poady burst through the doorway, breathless, clutching the Observer. Evelyn jumped and dropped the metal pot on the floor, sending scalding hot water all over.
“He dead! He dead!” Poady shouted, thrusting the paper and its big, lurid headline at her. MURDERED! It read. “They killed him in his sleep!”
Evelyn watched her arm slowly move across the expanse of water she had spilled on the floor to meet Poady’s and take the dreadful paper. SOLDIERS ASSUME COMMAND; DOE SAYS COUP NECESSARY TO RESTORE ORDER, she read in the subheadline. Bile rose in her throat, and then the vomiting began.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
April 23, 1980, Monrovia, Liberia
“THE DREAMER ALWAYS PART of the dream-oh.”
“Not this time-oh.”
Once more he was in her bed, and she had wrapped him in her arms and her legs. Held his eyes with her own. Surrounded him with him inside her. So he would see that she was real and give up the dream. “It is not the only beautiful thing in the world,” she whispered in his ear. The wind rattled the window she’d closed tightly and his eyes strayed. “Here.” She brought his hand to her belly. “Here.” They were naked but for Ujay’s clasp lying between her breasts. “Here.” She held her hand over his on her stomach, trying to make him know.
Again the wind rattled the glass, and this time the latch didn’t hold. Suddenly there was so much shouting and the sound of gunfire and where was Ujay? Where was she? Where was the baby?
* * *
—
Beneath a coarse cotton cap, the young soldier watched the young woman in the purple skirt run across the road to where the melee between the protesters, drivers, and passengers was unfolding. The ruckus they were making grew louder with each passing moment, as more young people joined the fray. Even as the crowd of rioters grew, though, the young soldier found he couldn’t take his eyes from the girl in purple. Yes, she was one of these new educated women who thought herself above the common man, a soldier with no prospects or reason. They, who thought themselves above the obligations of womanhood. Their selfishness and determination to be men would bring shame down on their family and community. It was even rumored that many of them weren’t even women at all—that they didn’t actually possess womanly parts. The soldier lowered his AK-47 from his shoulder and crouched down on one knee, following the progress of the melee through the front sight. When things started getting disorderly, the soldier found it helpful to examine whatever was happening through his front sight. It helped him focus. His gun, always impeccably cleaned and ready, gave a certain clarity to the world.
He saw a middle-aged man with a Bible beating a young man over the head with it. Looking down the barrel of the gun, he saw two young men pick up the stools that were blocking the road and throw them to the side. Smoke seemed to be everywhere, a hazy cloud spreading out faster than the eye could follow. The soldier saw small boys hawking water drop their cheap plastic bowls and pull out guns and clubs and pieces of cut glass to kill the Congo people. He saw the boys, years later, as men, marching in perfect formation to the national anthem. The soldier watched the bodies of his people—hundreds and thousands of dead country people—rise up out of the ground and salute him. Beside him, the sinewy, growing body of his young niece appeared suddenly, and she kissed him affectionately on the cheek. The soldier saw the young woman in the purple skirt insert herself between a taxi driver and a student screaming at each other, pleading with both of them. And then he saw the young woman falling sideways onto the ground, as if a powerful invisible force had plowed into her. The sound of the gunshot rang in his ears, and with a start he realized that his bullet had been that force.
* * *
—
Farther up the street, Ujay saw the students gathering and milling about, no doubt preparing whatever program they had in mind for the new purveyors of democracy in Liberia. The packed bus pulled to the side in order to let him and a few other passengers off in front of the executive mansion. Its ancient brakes exhaled in relief, as Ujay muscled through the arms and legs, torsos and heads blocking his way to the exit. It had been a long ride from West Point, with too many people and far too many stops. But it would be worth it, if only to see her. He wiped his palms on his freshly ironed suit pants. They were always sweaty when he was nervous.
He quickened his pace and peered ahead. There was some kind of commotion going on, with plenty of angry shouting and moving, agitated bodies. He couldn’t see what was happening exactly but could sense that it was rapidly getting out of h
and. He broke into a slow jog, scanning the crowd for any sign of Evelyn. He knew that she would be there and wanted to surprise her. He hadn’t liked the way their last conversation had ended on the phone, with her answering in that passive way she did when she had given up on someone. She was the last person he ever wanted to give up on him. Although he didn’t like to admit it, he needed her too much for that.
Finally he saw her, once again the purple skirt that hugged her in all the right places—her hips, her thighs, her buttocks. She was trying to keep two young men from throwing punches at each other, her long outstretched arms the only thing between them. He was maybe two car lengths away from her when it happened: Something struck her, and she fell heavily to the ground. The two men she had been handling looked perplexed and were so shocked that they stopped yelling immediately and crouched down beside her. Ujay’s stomach lurched, and he broke into a full sprint. Evie. Evie. Evie. Evie. Evie. Evie. Everything else inside his brain went blank, save that one simple word.
By the time he reached her, the blood had encircled her completely, collecting into an ever-widening pool. Ujay’s knees buckled beneath him, and he collapsed on top of her. He couldn’t stop saying her name, but she never answered him.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
1998, Gomoa Buduburam Refugee Camp, Outside Accra, Ghana
THE NIGHT FELL COOL on Ujay’s arms as he rocked his young son to sleep on the porch. The boy had just awakened from a nightmare, crying out for his father. Now that the boy was in his arms, Ujay knew it wouldn’t be long before he succumbed again to the lure of sleep. This was his favorite part of being a father: the physical closeness between him and the child. The way it inexplicably, magically translated into emotional closeness. The boy nuzzled into his father’s chest, sighing contentedly.
“Bad dream-oh?” Fanewu asked from the doorway of their tiny concrete house.
Ujay jumped. He had been so focused on Kollie, he hadn’t even heard her come in the back from fetching water.
Fanewu put a thin, gentle hand on his arm. She was the sixth child in a large Loma family and had grown up in the village cooking, cleaning, caring for the children younger than she. In fact, caring for others was Fanewu’s pride and joy. And besides that, she was seven years his junior and beautiful. She would have been the perfect wife, had he loved her.
“Oh,” Ujay said. He snuggled the boy into his chest. “I thought you were going to do the wash-oh.” The last thing he wanted to appear to be was a useless husband, only good for doing womanly things like rocking babies. But when it came down to it, that actually was all he and the other men at the Gomoa Buduburam Refugee Camp were good for. There was no work, and no prospects for work. They were all guests of the UNHCR and the Ghanaian government, until and if Liberia stopped unraveling from its civil war. As soon as things stabilized, Ujay was set to return with the family to Bigazi, in Lofa County, the place where he was born and the place he had decided they would call home. In the eighteen years since the coup, Ujay had gotten his masters in sociology and had begun to teach and write at the University of Liberia in Monrovia. But he no longer believed in the state’s ability to educate the masses, the idea that had lit him up in his youth. No, if Liberia’s slow descent into chaos had shown him anything, it was that education was no buffer to man’s blind ambition for power. That, and the devastating limits of violence to bring about fundamental social change were the major lessons he carried with him on his exodus to Ghana. In the end, Evie had been right about everything.
Fanewu laughed, showing her brilliant white teeth. With her hair plaited tightly against her scalp and her high, regal cheekbones she really was a beauty. “Angel going to wake up with night terrors any minute now too. You mind looking to her after you done with him, while I get the wash?”
Ujay grimaced. He knew she hadn’t meant it that way at all, but her response felt like an affront to him. Like an insult. “Glad you finally found the time to keep us clean-oh,” he sneered. “That mountain of dirty clothes in there about to run us out of this shack.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. He knew they were not fair, were cruel actually, given how hard Fanewu worked to keep the household afloat. In addition to all her housekeeping and family duties, she also sold small bags of water at a kiosk beside the house, to bring in the tiny little bit of money they did have. But somehow, Ujay simply could not help himself around his wife. It wasn’t her fault they were stuck indefinitely in this godforsaken camp and country that didn’t want them. Nor was it her fault that Liberia had been taken over by madmen who gleefully massacred thousands in the name of “freedom” and “democracy.” And it certainly wasn’t her fault that the love of his life had died in his arms, on a plain, dirty road in the capital. None of this was Fanewu’s fault, yet he behaved as if it was. Ujay shook his head angrily, wishing he were another man—a man who could be the husband that Fanewu deserved.
Fanewu sighed.
She might have been trying to avoid a fight by not responding to him, but her restraint drove him crazy. He wanted her to argue with him, and argue fiercely. He wanted her to denounce him, to recite the litany of things he had done to malign her, but she would not. She would never. Instead, she leaned over and took the boy from his arms—gently as ever—and kissed his head lovingly. “Little Kollie,” she whispered. “You brought your father-ya. You resemble so much.” She smiled at Ujay, and it was a peace offering, a way to let go of their mini-spat.
But he shivered in the night air, without the little bundle that had warmed his whole being only moments before. Can’t she see I want my son? Doesn’t she know that he is the only thing that makes me feel alive here? He fingered the trinket that they had pulled off Evie’s cold, dead body. It had been in his family for generations, and he sometimes wondered how many now-dead fingers had once clasped it as he did now, what their dreams and sorrows had been, if they ever wondered, as he did, if they really had a country to call home.
“Good night,” he said icily, signaling to her to leave him.
“Good night,” she said softly, and walked back inside.
After a moment he went inside to comfort four-year-old Angel, who woke up every night from the same bad dream. Then he came back out on the porch and sat there for hours, watching the sun rise. Wondering if his own history was just a dream-loop folding back on itself over and over again, in endless variation and repetition, always in search of a place to rest.
You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world. . . . The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even but a millimeter the way people look at reality, then you can change it.
—James Baldwin
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
THE CLASP IS NOT here, around my neck.
It does not sit in the hollow of my clavicle. It never has. It has not been delicately handled and hidden and passed down through generations, an easy legacy that can be seen, held, and quantified. If there is a clasp to bind up all your hopes and dreams for the human spirit, I have never seen it. Not with my eyes open.
Yes, there were such trinkets in the colonial period and in the forced labor period and even in the heyday of the Tubman years and beyond. But I never saw any of them outside a museum case. I created the clasp in order to tell the story, nothing more.
* * *
—
Ten years on, Kollie—our black diamond—back but never actually really here the way he was before, the way we need him to be; Ma finally divorced from Papi, as she should have done years ago; and I still don’t know. I don’t know anything except this: The truth is fluid and fungible and untrustworthy and won’t abide by any one telling. And sometimes, in inventing the truth, we can discover something deeper. We can find our place in the story, because that, at least, is one thing we can make for ourselves. A story. No matter how busted o
ur family, how lost our history.
If you were me and your older brother had been exiled to a country he only remembered as a waking nightmare, and if he came back so changed and so silent and damaged that you could count on one hand the number of complete conversations you had with him in the years he’s been back, you would have done the same. If words were the only tools at your disposal to make sense of a lineage in two countries that never seemed to align or intersect in ways that made you feel like anything but a perpetual foreigner in either place, you too would have spent the last three years trapped in a small room behind a computer screen, desperately punching out an invented history. You too would have dug up every scrap and half story that might or might not have basis in historical or family fact and carefully assembled it with other pieces and bits collected from your life, your research, or the collective unconscious, to create what one of my creative writing professors might call a fictional canvas of fact. You too would have shamelessly stolen most parts of your brother’s story and thrown it on the page. You too would have spent months in research libraries and on databases, gathering every article and every book you could get your hands on that detailed the colonial experience for those first African American settlers in Liberia. You would have even flown to Monrovia, hired a car to drive you to Grand Bassa County, and walked on your own two feet to interview the few men still alive who had lived through the horrors of forced labor in the 1920s and somehow survived with their families and dignity mostly intact. And you would have dragged your reluctant but supportive black American girlfriend along with you, because without her, you weren’t sure you’d ever find your way back. Instead of years of therapy, you would find solace and comfort, and most of all meaning, in a manufactured family narrative. More than that: an invented national narrative spanning two continents, one ocean, and so many forgotten bodies. I decided to make whole in story what, in point of fact, will always be broken in reality. Wholeness and story can be a choice. It can be decided upon; it can be conjured into being. It can be as tough as an old pair of hand-me-down boots and as sweet as a stolen mango. It can shimmer like a Friday-night-on-the-town dress. If one doesn’t have a coherent and unified country or family or story to call home, one may simply grab the facts she can and dream them up. What are facts if not the soil from which our dreams grow?
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