by Chris Abani
“My name is Grace,” she says.
“Come, Mother,” I sign. “We can find shelter ahead.”
She helps me hoist the coffin onto my head and we move along. It is natural and fitting that I should take the coffin from the old woman. I am stronger and younger, yet I feel even closer to death with the infernal box on my head. Grace says nothing, just follows. When we get to the grove, I clear the ground shrub just away from the road, the blade of the machete fast against the hollow bamboo, sounding a song of steel and wood. In no time I have built a lean-to and roofed it with bamboo leaves woven into small squares; and just in time because I have barely hauled the coffin into the shelter when the sky opens up in a storm.
“Can you build a fire?” Grace asks.
If she thinks it is strange that I don’t speak, she has said nothing. I nod and gather kindling. It is easy—I just reach back into the grove. Soon there is a small but cheerful blaze going. Grace opens the coffin and pulls out a pot and some cooking ingredients. As she stands the pot in the rain to collect water, she asks: “Is that yam I see in your bag?”
I nod and offer it to her. She peels it quickly with my bayonet, her grip experienced, and then she holds it out in the rain to wash it clean. She chops it and puts it in the pot of water, adds the last of the oil from my bag, some herbs she has, and a piece of dry fish she has been clearly hoarding for some time. While we wait for the rain to abate and the yam pottage to cook, I smoke and she rubs snuff on her gums. She begins to talk.
“I’ve carried this coffin for so long; for such a long time. You see, we are nothing if we don’t know how to die right. That sums us up as a people. Not the manner we come into the world, but the manner in which we leave.”
After all that I have seen, it sounds a little self-indulgent, but it’s not like I can interrupt her, so I let her go on. It seems important to her to tell me this stuff, although I don’t know why. Why, even in moments like this, do people feel they have to explain their oddness? If no one felt that kind of shame, that kind of embarrassment, would there be no more war? It sounds silly. I guess this is what Grandfather meant when he would say I was acting my age.
“One day I will die and then my killers will be able to bury me easily.”
I want to laugh but it would be unkind.
“I even have a headstone in here,” Grace continues, pointing to the coffin. No wonder it is so bloody heavy, I think. But she isn’t too irritating and I am grateful for the company. Besides, the food smells great. She busies herself dishing it into earthenware bowls she digs out of the coffin. A right Pandora’s Box, I think. We eat in silence. I remember her taking the bowl from me, but nothing else.
When I wake, she is gone. Like the rain and the bamboo grove. In fact, I wake up in the coffin beside the river, quite a distance from the grove. I leap out. She must have moved me, but how, and why? What kind of sorcery is this?
Just then, across the river, I catch sight of Nebu and the rest of my platoon. They are resting on the opposite bank. I scream and wave but I think I am too far away because they don’t act like they’ve seen me. There is nothing else to do but cross the river. I have no boat, so I push the coffin into the water. Shuddering, I get in and begin paddling with my arms.
Fear Is an Open Hand
Beating over the Heart
There are many things about John Wayne that I despised, but this I admired: the man had no fear. It was almost as though the word, or the concept, was foreign to him. He was obviously too old and big to be a mine diffuser, but he was always up there at the front with us, risking his life, spraying the enemy with his weapon of choice, the squat ugly Israeli Uzi.
“The perfect weapon,” he would say. “Not much to look at, easy to handle, and deadlier than anything else out there. Like me.” This was followed with a big laugh, the kind of head-thrown-back, I-am-full-of-life laugh. Sometimes he would have a bottle of beer balanced precariously on his head and he would forget and throw his head back, sending the bottle crashing. These are the sounds that remind me of him: the high-pitched metallic spitting of his Uzi, the deep laugh, and the sound of breaking glass.
I remember one time a few weeks after we had just left camp; we were pinned down by heavy enemy fire from a gun we would later know as the M60. While all the other platoon leaders were hiding or taking cover, John Wayne spotted the gun encampment and, standing up, he ran straight for it, stopping less than ten yards from it to throw three grenades. As he hit the deck, the explosion sent bits of gun and men flying over him.
“There are only two things a man should fear,” he told me once. “God and women. That’s all.” Then he laughed; John Wayne a.k.a., Major Essien. Now I know he couldn’t have been a real major. Majors don’t lead platoons, lieutenants do. I wonder why I kept him out of my mental roll call that night.
The only other person who seemed immune to fear was Ijeoma. Maybe it is no coincidence they are both dead. Now though, as I embark across the river of the dead in a coffin, I wish for some of their fearlessness.
It is useless; I am shivering like a wet cat.
Will Is an Emphatic Finger Pointing
The coffin spins around like a leaf turning in an eddy. No matter how hard I try to paddle, it keeps spinning in the same place, midway across the river.
Frustrated, I shoot my gun into the air until I run out of ammo and the trigger just clicks, the hammer echoing metallically. Sobbing, I watch as my platoon gets up and heads off, into the forest. They don’t see or hear me. How is that possible? I’m not that far away. Fuck this war, I think. Fuck it all.
Tired; I am so tired. I give in and lie back in the coffin. So tired; too tired.
As I drift off to sleep, I feel the coffin drifting toward shore.
I don’t care anymore.
Home Is a Palm Fisted to the Heart
It is late evening when the coffin finally bumps up against the opposite shore. Wearily, I climb out. There is a house on the bank and all the lights are burning. I drop my gun and my bayonet and my machete. I am too tired, I can’t do this anymore. If death is what awaits me, I want to face it without fear. I’ve had enough of that.
There is a woman sitting on the veranda on a porch swing. She is young and smiling and happy. As I approach, I realize who she is. It can’t be, but it is.
My mother looks toward me and holds out her arms. I stumble into them and she pats me on the back.
“My Luck, My Luck,” she says. “You are home.”
I pull back and look at her. I am trying to make sense of it, to think, but I can’t focus.
“Mother,” I say, and my voice has returned.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to: Percival Everett, Cristina Garcia, Sarah Valentine, Steve Isoardi, Jeannette Lindsay, Peter Orner, Brad Kessler, Dave Eggers, Johnny Temple, Johanna Ingalls, Ellen Levine, Beth Shube, Ron Gottesman, Kachi Akoma, Rebecca Brown, Titi Osu, Matthew Shenoda, Anna Silver, Elaine Attias, Nick Rosen, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Joey Dosik, and Elias Wondimu.
My family.
All my friends.