The Bite of the Mango

by Mariatu Kamara

  On our days off, Yabom and I explored the city. But now I hated walking in London even more. During my first weeks there, people had rushed past me; now they slowed their pace to stare at me and my metal hands. Mariama and Yabom had bought me a thick blue wool coat, two sizes too big to accommodate the metal device. My silver hands stuck out, and people would poke their faces out from under their umbrellas to see the spectacle: a tiny African girl in an oversized coat with a foot-long metal contraption poking out from each sleeve.

  Before that, going to the flower shop around the corner had been my favorite pastime in London. I could spend hours smelling the pink, yellow, and red roses and white lilies and admiring the bouquets the shopkeeper made. I’d often buy gardenias with the money Mariama and David had given me for touristy things, arranging them in a glass vase on the dresser in my bedroom. Now, though, the nice saleslady with the red hair would follow me around the store in case I knocked a vase over. I had done that one day, shattering a bouquet of white roses.

  As I had learned to do in Freetown while begging, I kept my eyes pointed down. But I still saw the glances from strangers. I still saw, too, the homeless people, dirty and disheveled, who used tin cans instead of black plastic shopping bags to collect donations from passersby. There was one young man who was always outside the entrance to the London Underground station near our apartment. He was maybe 20, and his blond hair was dirty and matted. He wore a torn overcoat, a knitted brown hat, and ripped, stained jeans. His hands were covered in dirt and he had yellow fingers, likely from cigarette smoking, Yabom told me. Sometimes the man would just sit on the cold cement. Sometimes he played the guitar. Once I saw him playing an African drum. He wasn’t very good, not like the boys back home, whose drumming was fast and deep. But he tried.

  I’d elbow Yabom as softly as I could with the contraption to indicate she should give him some money. She’d protest. “We can’t be tossing our money away.”

  “Please, Yabom. This boy is like me back at the amputee camp,” I’d plead.

  Yabom would drop a few coins into the boy’s guitar case. I would smile, trying to catch the boy’s attention. But he too had learned not to look up.

  “Why are there young people in London who have to beg?” I asked Mariama and David one night over a dinner of rice and lamb. “I thought this was a rich country, where everyone drove around in Mercedes.”

  “It’s true England is better off than Sierra Leone,” David responded. “But there are still poor people here. There are poor people everywhere in the world. In fact, more people are poor than rich.”

  My heart sank. If I didn’t get an education soon and I remained in England, I would become a street person, having to beg like in Sierra Leone, but with one big difference: I’d be out in the cold and the rain.

  Right after dinner that night, I asked Yabom to take the colored magnetic letters off the fridge. So far, I hadn’t tried very hard to learn the alphabet, because I hated pushing the letters around with my fake metal fingers. As David and Mariama cleared the table, I whispered for Yabom to bring the letters to my room. I asked her to help me take the contraption off. Then we sat cross-legged on the floor as I arranged the letters with my arms on the floor. It took me about an hour and a half, with several mistakes that Yabom had to correct, but I finally got the letters A to Z in the right order.

  Yabom was very pleased. “Tomorrow we’ll start to spell some English words,” she said.

  Our spelling sessions went well, but a week or two later Yabom asked me a question that shocked me. “Mariatu, who is Bill?”

  I didn’t know how to reply. I looked over at Mariama, who glared back at me.

  The three of us were in Mariama’s living room. When Mariama returned from her job with the government that day, she had asked Yabom, who was helping me with the letters, to come with her into their bedroom. I switched the television on and watched music videos until they returned. Then Mariama switched off the TV while Yabom took a seat beside me on the couch.

  “Mariatu, who is Bill?” Mariama repeated, not nearly as nicely as Yabom.

  A part of me hoped they already knew about Bill. After all, Yabom had been phoning Freetown regularly to give the camp progress reports on my treatment and to ask them to pass on the information to my family. After one conversation, Yabom reported that Marie, Alie, and Adamsay had moved to a small village outside Masaika, about a one-hour minibus drive from Freetown. They’d got the money to move from someone in Canada, Yabom said. “So how can she and Mariama not know about Bill?” I asked myself now.

  Mariama drummed the sides of her chair with her fingers.

  “Mariatu, who is Bill?” Yabom asked again. “Please tell us.”

  I took a deep breath and then, for the next hour, explained to Yabom and Mariama how Bill had come into my life and my family’s life.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about Bill earlier?” Mariama demanded when I finished.

  “I thought you already knew about him,” I replied. “Besides, it’s not like he wants me to move to Canada.”

  Yabom sighed. “Mariatu, he does want you to move to Canada. He’s agreed to bring you to Canada.”

  I tried hard to hide my excitement. Mariama, Yabom, and David had done so much for me; I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. But my spirits soared on hearing Yabom’s news. I can’t explain exactly why, since all I knew about the strange place called Canada was that salt fell from the sky, but I knew somehow that Canada was where I belonged.

  “When does Bill want me to move to Canada?” I asked.

  “Mariatu,” Mariama scolded, “your prosthetic hands will be available any day now. You need to learn how to use them. You still need treatment here. You can’t leave England.”

  I could feel my face grow hot. “But I want to go to Canada,” I said. “I’m only in England for six months. What happens after that? Can I go to Canada then?”

  “There is a strong chance you will be able to remain in England,” Yabom said, slipping her arm around my shoulder. “Mariama’s family is willing to sponsor you, and once you get used to your prosthetic hands, you can go to an all-girls school.”

  “Why?” I yelled. My response startled me as much as it did Yabom and Mariama. But I couldn’t hold my anger inside any longer. “Why do I have to wear these things?” I demanded, holding up my metal hands. “I hate them! I can do everything I need to do without them, and better. I want to go somewhere else. I want to go to Canada!”

  “Don’t be so ungrateful,” Mariama scolded. “You have an opportunity here that children at that camp of yours back in Freetown can only dream of.”

  I stood up and stomped. “I didn’t ask for anything that happened to me, but I am asking to go to this place called Canada.”

  I ran straight to my bedroom, where I tore off the device and threw it on the floor. Yabom, who had followed right behind, tried to console me.

  “Leave me alone,” I yelled, pushing her toward the door. Yabom looked scared as my arms flailed wildly. I lashed out at her in a fury, just as I had done with Abibatu the night she prevented me from taking painkillers to kill myself and my baby. Yabom took several steps backwards to avoid my attack. When she did, I slammed the door in her face.

  I stepped back, breathing erratically, until I bumped into the bed. I slid down to the floor, buried my head in my arms, and cried.

  Eventually my tears stopped, but I remained in my room until the apartment fell silent and the others had gone to bed. No one checked in on me or wished me good night. I guess they hoped I too had gone to sleep, and that by the next day my anger would have subsided.

  My anger did go away, but not my determination to move to Canada. Despite Mariama and David’s pleas that I remain in England, my mind was made up. Yabom, recognizing that further argument was pointless, began the process to acquire my Canadian visa.

  One morning we took the Underground to the offices of the Canadian High Commission.

  “I’m sorry,” said a nice yo
ung woman, “but you need to return to your place of birth and apply from there to come to Canada.”

  “But she can’t return to Sierra Leone,” implored Yabom. “There’s a war going on. She may never leave again.”

  This wasn’t entirely true. It was now February 2002, and President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah had declared the war over just a month earlier.

  “The rules are she must apply from Sierra Leone,” the woman said politely. “There is nothing I can do from here.”

  “Then I will go home!” I announced to Yabom as we walked back to the Underground station.

  “You may never leave again if you do,” Yabom warned me. “Mariama and David are right. England is your opportunity. Going back to Sierra Leone is a great risk. There isn’t even a Canadian consulate in Freetown—I don’t know where this woman expects you to fill out the paperwork. You’ll likely never leave Freetown again. Is that what you want?”

  I waited until we were nestled beside each other on the Underground, what Britons call the Tube. “I know in my heart of hearts I do not belong in England,” I whispered to Yabom as I slipped my arm through hers. “I can’t explain how I know this, but I do. I’ve known other things in my life, including that the rebels would come when they did. I tried to speak up in the past, but I always gave in to what older people wanted. This time, I want you to trust me. I can do almost anything now without my hands. I don’t need these fake hands. And I want to see my family. Somehow, I will get that visa for Canada, and it will be in that country, which snows, that I will go to school and make something of myself.”

  “All right, Mariatu,” Yabom said. “I will trust you. After all, this is your life. I will help you whatever way I can.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Since my outburst, Yabom, Mariama, and David had given up trying to force me to eat by holding a fork between my fake fingers or to go for walks wearing the contraption. Slowly, they stopped protesting when I’d say: “Not today. Let’s practice tomorrow.”

  In turn, I showed them that I could tie the laces on my running shoes, do up the zippers on my sweaters and jackets, and twist off jar lids and bottle tops using just my arms and teeth. I even started to cook my own food, mostly rice with hot peppers, chicken, and fish that Yabom and I bought at the market.

  “I guess we made a mistake thinking the prosthetic hands would benefit you,” David said sympathetically one night.

  “No,” I replied. “Maybe one day I’ll get used to wearing them. But for now, I like doing things on my own. Thank you for your help, David. I learned a lot in England.”

  And I really had, even though the adults viewed my experience as a failure. I could read some English now, including street signs I recognized. I knew my numbers up to 100. But most of all, I had found the self-confidence in England to listen to my inner voice and speak up for what I needed and wanted.

  I left London for Freetown on another rainy day. In my carry-on suitcase were my new plastic prosthetic hands, carefully wrapped in tissue paper. The ones I had been fitted for had replaced the metal device. But while my plastic hands were smaller and lighter, and fit snugly around my arms, I still could do more things without them.

  Another thing I had discovered about myself in London was that I loved fashion. Packed alongside my prosthetic hands was a pair of black leather boots with stiletto heels. “Where will you ever wear those things?” Yabom had said when I asked her to buy them for me. “And how will you walk in them?”

  In fact, I’d worn them everywhere. By the time I left London, I’d come to enjoy walking around the city, with my arms stuck in the pockets of a navy blue wool coat that actually fit, and wearing one of Mariama’s silk scarves and those fancy boots.

  Once we were seated on the airplane, I slid the blind down over the window beside me. I didn’t want to see outside as we accelerated and took off, getting closer and closer to the clouds and then going through them. Every bump of turbulence saw me leaping for Yabom’s arm and squeezing it tight.

  Most of the other passengers slept on the airplane, but I dared not even close my eyes for fear the plane might crash. I listened attentively to every word the flight attendants spoke in English; I even understood some of what they were saying. I ate a tiny bit of my plain chicken and potato dinner. And then, just before we were set to land, I put on some makeup. I was nearly 15 now, and in London Yabom had let me try on her makeup. Before we left for Freetown, Mariama had bought me some lip gloss, pink eye shadow, and brown eyeliner for my very own, as well as a small case to carry the makeup in.

  It was nearly midnight when Yabom and I arrived at Lungi International Airport, located across the Sierra Leone River from Freetown. Despite the late hour, the airport was bustling with porters and customs officers. One of the officers stamped my green Sierra Leone passport and then waved me through.

  Outside the airport, young boys whistled at Yabom and me, thrusting their hands out for money. Both the hot, humid air and the sight of the boys hit me like a brick. These were kids like me, with family depending on them to earn a few leones to buy vegetables and rice. The airport was a good place for them to be; newly arriving foreigners, mostly employed by aid organizations, were often generous after their long flights.

  Yabom gave a boy some leones to put our suitcases on a buggy and escort us to one of the waiting taxi-minibuses. About 15 of us, all foreigners except for Yabom and me, squeezed onto one bus.

  The taxi drove right onto the ferry. When we were midway across the river, I got out of the bus and walked to the railing. I inhaled the familiar air, thick with the smells of burning coal and hot spices. “I’m home,” I thought. I smiled, but then a cold shiver ran through me. “What if I don’t ever leave Sierra Leone again? I just can’t go back to a life of begging.” A part of me felt at that moment I had made a terrible mistake by returning.

  I didn’t share these feelings with Yabom when I returned to the taxi. She had dozed off, and I awakened her only when we reached the other side and I saw her husband there to greet us. He loaded our luggage into a beat-up old car he had borrowed from a friend. I jumped in the back seat, while Yabom sat up front beside her husband.

  The streets were alive even at this late hour, with people standing by fires frying cassava or trying to sleep on straw mats right on the cement or on the dirt road. I was very tired, and I was just about to fall asleep when Yabom’s husband turned left after the Freetown clock tower.

  “Where are you going?” I asked, suddenly alert and leaning forward.

  “To our home,” said Yabom.

  “But I want to go back to the camp,” I exclaimed.

  “You can’t, Mariatu,” Yabom said, swinging around to face me. “On this, I must put my foot down.”

  “Why?” I asked. “I want to see my family!”

  “But your family has moved to a village near Masaika,” she answered.

  “Only a few members of my family have moved,” I cried out. “I still have relatives and friends at Aberdeen. Please take me there.”

  “Listen, Mariatu,” Yabom said, softly yet sternly. “In this country, there is much suffering still. The war may have ended, but many, many people are homeless, still unable to return to their villages. Many, many people are injured like you. Sierra Leoneans may appear to be happy for your good fortune in going to England and now Canada, but deep down they are jealous. They want what you have. And they will do things, like hire women who practice witchcraft to cast spells on you so that bad fortune comes your way.”

  “I am not scared of these people,” I said. “No one I know would want evil to come to me. Not after everything I have been through. Take me back to the camp.”

  Yabom gazed at me silently for a few moments. “Mariatu,” she said eventually, “I want to help, but you have to listen to me.”

  “And you have to trust me,” I said, raising my voice. “You said in London you would. I want to go to Aberdeen!”

  “Let her go where she wants,” Yabom’s husband cut in. “She
’s old enough to decide.”

  He turned the vehicle into a bumpy back alley lined with potholes, and before long we merged back onto the road that led to Aberdeen.

  As we pulled up alongside the camp, I could see the burning fires. I heard people talking and dogs barking.

  “I’ll go in by myself,” I said to Yabom, who had jumped out of the car and opened the door for me.

  “Against my better judgment, I will trust you,” she said. “I will come to see you in a few days. You’re going to be all right, Mariatu. You are going to be all right.”

  I pulled up the handle of my suitcase and slung the long strap of my carry-on bag over my shoulder.

  “Have a nice stay with your husband,” I said to Yabom as I turned to enter the camp. “We’ll be back together soon, and going to Canada. Don’t you worry about that!”

  “Hello! Hello!” I called out.

  Mohamed, Ibrahim, Abdul, and Fatmata were really happy to see me when I woke them up. I knew from Yabom’s calls home that the couple now had a daughter, Mariatu, named after me.

  Fatmata folded me into her arms, sobbing. Mohamed joked around as usual. “You just couldn’t live without me,” he laughed. “Maybe you and I should get married.”

  “Ha, ha,” I said, making a face. But I had to admit that he looked smashing in a white tank top and pants. “What happened to you while I was away?” I teased. “You’ve become a movie star!”

  “A what?” he asked.

  “Never mind,” I said, embracing him. I had forgotten for a moment that Mohamed had never seen a television program or a movie.

  For the first little while at the camp, I was able to feed everyone quite well, buying fish and goat with some money David and Mariama had given me. I bought a big bag of rice at the market that Abdul and Fatmata had to carry home together on their heads. We got some vegetables too, and avocado, pineapple, coconut, and plantain, although the pickings at the market were slim. Fatmata explained that many of the crops had been destroyed during the war, and farmers were only slowly returning to their work. Even if you could afford food in Freetown, that didn’t mean you could escape starvation.