by Ishmael Beah
When people received the message from the miserable messenger, they went into hiding in the forest that very night. But Khalilou’s family had asked us to stay behind and follow them with the rest of their property if things didn’t improve in the subsequent days, so we stayed put.
That night for the first time in my life I realized that it is the physical presence of people and their spirits that gives a town life. With the absence of so many people, the town became scary, the night darker, and the silence unbearably agitating. Normally, the crickets and birds sang in the evening before the sun went down. But this time they didn’t, and darkness set in very fast. The moon wasn’t in the sky; the air was stiff, as if nature itself was afraid of what was happening.
The majority of the town’s population was in hiding for a week, and more people went into hiding after the arrival of more messengers. But the rebels didn’t come on the day they said they would, and as a result, people started moving back into the town. As soon as everyone was settled again, another message was sent. This time the messenger was a well-known Catholic bishop who had been doing missionary work when he ran into the rebels. They didn’t do anything to the bishop except threaten that if he failed to deliver their message they would come for him. Upon receiving the word, people again left town and headed for their various hiding places in the forests. And we were again left behind, this time not to carry Khalilou’s family’s belongings, as we had already taken them into hiding, but to look after the house and to buy certain food products like salt, pepper, rice, and fish that we took to Khalilou’s family in the bush.
Another ten days of hiding, and still the rebels hadn’t arrived. There was nothing to do but conclude that they weren’t coming. The town came alive again. Schools reopened; people returned to their normal routines. Five days went by peacefully, and even the soldiers in town relaxed.
I would sometimes go for walks by myself in the late evening. The sight of women preparing dinner always reminded me of the times I used to watch my mother cook. Boys weren’t allowed in the kitchen, but she made an exception for me, saying, “You need to know how to cook something for your palampo* life.” She would pause, give me a piece of dry fish, and then continue: “I want a grandchild. So don’t be a palampo forever.” Tears would form in my eyes as I continued my stroll on the tiny gravel roads in Mattru Jong.
When the rebels finally came, I was cooking. The rice was done and the okra soup was almost ready when I heard a single gunshot that echoed through the town. Junior, Talloi, Kaloko, Gibrilla, and Khalilou, who were in the room, ran outside. “Did you hear that?” they asked. We stood still, trying to determine whether the soldiers had fired the shot. A minute later, three different guns rapidly went off. This time we started to get worried. “It is just the soldiers testing their weapons,” one of our friends assured us. The town became very quiet, and no gunshots were heard for more than fifteen minutes. I went back to the kitchen and started to dish out the rice. At that instant several gunshots, which sounded like thunder striking the tin-roofed houses, took over town. The sound of the guns was so terrifying it confused everyone. No one was able to think clearly. In a matter of seconds, people started screaming and running in different directions, pushing and trampling on whoever had fallen on the ground. No one had the time to take anything with them. Everyone just ran to save his or her life. Mothers lost their children, whose confused, sad cries coincided with the gunshots. Families were separated and left behind everything they had worked for their whole lives. My heart was beating faster than it ever had. Each gunshot seemed to cling to the beat of my heart.
The rebels fired their guns toward the sky, as they shouted and merrily danced their way into town in a semicircle formation. There are two ways to enter Mattru Jong. One is by road and the other by crossing the river Jong. The rebels attacked and advanced into the town from inland, forcing the civilians to run toward the river. A lot of people were so terrified that they just ran to the river, jumped in, and lost the strength to swim. The soldiers, who somehow anticipated the attack and knew they were outnumbered, left town before the rebels actually came. This was a surprise to Junior, Talloi, Khalilou, Gibrilla, Kaloko, and me, whose initial instinct was to run to where the soldiers were stationed. We stood there, in front of mounted sandbags, unable to decide which way to go next. We started running again toward where there were fewer gunshots.
There was only one escape route out of town. Everyone headed for it. Mothers were screaming the names of their lost children, and the lost children cried in vain. We ran together, trying to keep up with each other. In order to get to the escape route, we had to cross a wet and muddy swamp that was adjacent to a tiny hill. In the swamp we ran past people who were stuck in the mud, past handicapped people who couldn’t be helped, for anyone who stopped to do so was risking his own life.
After we crossed the swamp, the real trouble started, because the rebels began shooting their guns at people instead of shooting into the sky. They didn’t want people to abandon the town, because they needed to use civilians as a shield against the military. One of the main aims of the rebels when they took over a town was to force the civilians to stay with them, especially women and children. This way they could stay longer, as military intervention would be delayed.
We were now at the top of a bushy hill immediately behind the swamp, in a clearing just before the escape route. Seeing the civilians all about to make it out, the rebels fired rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), machine guns, AK-47s, G3s, all the weapons they had, directly into the clearing. But we knew we had no choice, we had to make it across the clearing because, as young boys, the risk of staying in town was greater for us than trying to escape. Young boys were immediately recruited, and the initials RUF were carved wherever it pleased the rebels, with a hot bayonet. This not only meant that you were scarred for life but that you could never escape from them, because escaping with the carving of the rebels’ initials was asking for death, as soldiers would kill you without any questions and militant civilians would do the same.
We dodged from bush to bush and made it to the other side. But this was just the beginning of many risky situations that were to come. Immediately after one explosion, we got up and ran together, with our heads down, jumping over fresh dead bodies and flames of burnt dried trees. We were almost at the end of the clearing when we heard the whizzing of another rocket grenade approaching. We sped up our steps and took dives into the bush before the grenade landed, followed by several rounds of machine gun fire. The people who were right behind us were not as lucky as we were. The RPG caught up with them. One of them caught the fragments of the RPG. He cried out loudly and screamed that he was blind. No one dared to go out and help him. He was halted by another grenade that exploded, causing his remains and blood to sprinkle like rain on the nearby leaves and bushes. All of it happened too fast.
As soon as we had crossed the clearing, the rebels sent some of their men to catch those who had made it into the bush. They started chasing and shooting after us. We ran for more than an hour without stopping. It was unbelievable how fast and long we ran. I didn’t sweat or get tired at all. Junior was in front of me and behind Talloi. Every few seconds, my brother would call my name, to make sure I wasn’t left behind. I could hear the sadness in his voice, and each time I answered him, my voice trembled. Gibrilla, Kaloko, and Khalilou were behind me. Their breathing was heavy and I could hear one of them hissing, trying not to cry. Talloi was a very fast runner, even when we were younger. But on that evening we were able to keep up with him. After an hour or maybe even more of running, the rebels gave up the chase and returned to Mattru Jong while we continued on.
4
FOR SEVERAL DAYS the six of us walked on a tiny path that was about a foot wide, walled by thick bushes on either side. Junior was in front of me and his hands didn’t swing as they used to when he strolled across the yard on his way back from school. I wanted to know what he was thinking, but everyone was too quiet and I didn
’t know how to break the silence. I thought about where my family was, whether I would be able to see them again, and wished that they were safe and not too heartbroken about Junior and me. Tears formed in my eyes, but I was too hungry to cry.
We slept in abandoned villages, where we lay on the bare ground and hoped that the following day we would be able to find something other than raw cassava to eat. We had passed through a village that had banana, orange, and coconut trees. Khalilou, who knew how to climb better than all of us, mounted each of those trees and plucked as much from them as he could. The bananas were raw, so we boiled them by adding wood to a fire that was in one of the outdoor kitchens. Someone must have left that village when he or she saw us coming, because the fire was new. The bananas didn’t taste good at all, because there was no salt or any other ingredients, but we ate every single bit, just to have something in our stomachs. Afterward, we ate some oranges and some coconuts. We could not find something substantial to eat. We got hungrier day after day, to the point that our stomachs were hurting and our visions blurred at times. We had no choice but to sneak back into Mattru Jong, along with some people we encountered on the path, to get some money we had left behind, so that we could buy food.
On our way through the quiet and almost barren town, which now seemed unfamiliar, we saw rotten pots of food that had been left behind. Bodies, furniture, clothes, and all kinds of property were scattered all over. On one verandah we saw an old man sitting in a chair as if asleep. There was a bullet hole in his forehead, and underneath the stoop lay the bodies of two men whose genitals, limbs, and hands had been chopped off by a machete that was on the ground next to their piled body parts. I vomited and immediately felt feverish, but we had to continue on. We ran on tiptoe as fast and as cautiously as we could, avoiding the main streets. We stood against walls of houses and inspected the tiny gravel roads between houses before crossing to another house. At one point, as soon as we had crossed the road, we heard footsteps. There was no immediate cover, so we had to swiftly run onto a verandah and hide behind stacks of cement bricks. We peeped from behind the bricks and saw two rebels who wore baggy jeans, sleepers,* and white T-shirts. Their heads were tied with red handkerchiefs and they carried their guns behind their backs. They were escorting a group of young women who carried cooking pots, bags of rice, mortars and pestles. We watched them until they were out of sight before we began moving again. We finally got to Khalilou’s house. All the doors were broken and the house was torn apart. The house, like every other in the town, had been looted. There was a bullet hole in the doorframe and broken glasses of Star beer, a popular brand in the country, and empty cigarette packets on the verandah floor. There was nothing of use to be found in the house. The only food that was available was raw rice in bags that were too heavy to carry and would slow us down. But the money was, luckily, still where I had kept it, which was in a tiny plastic bag under the foot of the bed. I put it inside my crape, and we headed back toward the swamp.
The six of us, including the people we had entered the town together with, gathered at the edge of the swamp as planned and started crossing the clearing three at a time. I was in the second batch, with Talloi and another person. We started to crawl across the clearing at the signal of the first group that had made it across. While we were in the middle of the clearing, they signaled for us to lie flat, and as soon as we hit the ground, they motioned for us to continue crawling. There were dead bodies everywhere and flies were feasting on the congealed blood on them. After we made it to the other side, we saw that there were rebels on guard in a little tower at the wharf that overlooked the clearing. The next batch was Junior and two others. As they were crossing, something fell out of someone’s pocket onto an aluminum pan in the clearing. The sound was loud enough to get the attention of the rebels on guard, and they pointed their guns toward where the sound had come from. My heart throbbed with pain as I watched my brother lying on the ground, pretending to be one of the dead bodies. Several shots were heard in town, and that distracted the rebels and made them turn the other way. Junior and the two others made it. His face was dusty and there were residues of mud in between his teeth. He breathed heavily, clenching his fists. One boy among the last batch to cross the clearing was too slow, because he carried a big bag of things he had gathered from his house. As a result, the rebels who were on guard in the little tower saw him and opened fire. Some of the rebels underneath the tower started running and shooting toward us. We whispered to the boy, “Drop the bag and hurry. The rebels are coming. Come on.” But the boy didn’t listen. It fell from his shoulder after he had crossed the clearing, and as we ran away, I saw him pulling on the bag, which was stuck between tree stumps. We ran as fast as we could until we lost the rebels. It was sunset and we walked quietly toward the big red sun and the still sky that awaited darkness. The boy who caused the rebels to spot us didn’t make it to the first crowded village we reached.
That night we were temporarily happy that we had some money, and were hoping to buy some cooked rice with cassava or potato leaves for dinner. We high-fived each other as we approached the village market, and our stomachs growled as the smell of palm oil wafted from cooking huts. But when we got back to the cooked-food stalls, we were disappointed to find that those who had been selling cassava leaves, okra soup, and potato leaves, all cooked with dried fish and rich palm oil served with rice, had ceased to do so. Some of them were saving their food in case things got worse, and others simply didn’t want to sell any more for unexplained reasons.
After all the trouble and risk we undertook to get the money, it became useless. We would have been less hungry if we had stayed at the village instead of walking the miles to Mattru Jong and back. I wanted to blame someone for this particular predicament, but there was no one to be blamed. We had made a logical decision and it had come to this. It was a typical aspect of being in the war. Things changed rapidly in a matter of seconds and no one had any control over anything. We had yet to learn these things and implement survival tactics, which was what it came down to. That night we were so hungry that we stole people’s food while they slept. It was the only way to get through the night.
5
WE WERE SO HUNGRY that it hurt to drink water and we felt cramps in our guts. It was as though something were eating the insides of our stomachs. Our lips became parched and our joints weakened and ached. I began to feel my ribs when I touched my sides. We didn’t know where else to get food. The one cassava farm that we ravaged didn’t last long. Birds and animals such as rabbits were nowhere to be seen. We became irritable and sat apart from each other, as if sitting together made us hungrier.
One evening we actually chased a little boy who was eating two boiled ears of corn by himself. He was about five years old and was enjoying the corn that he held in both hands, taking turns biting each ear. We didn’t say a word or even look at each other. Rather, we rushed on the boy at the same time, and before he knew what was happening, we had taken the corn from him. We shared it among the six of us and ate our little portion while the boy cried and ran to his parents. The boy’s parents didn’t confront us about the incident. I guess they knew that six boys would jump on their son for two ears of corn only if they were desperately hungry. Later in the evening, the boy’s mother gave each of us an ear of corn. I felt guilty about it for a few minutes, but in our position, there wasn’t much time for remorse.
I do not know the name of the village that we were in and didn’t bother to ask, since I was busy trying to survive the everyday obstacles. We didn’t know the names of other towns and villages and how to get there. So hunger drove us back to Mattru Jong again. It was dangerous, but hunger made us not care that much. It was summertime, the dry season, and the grassland had grown yellowish. A fresh green forest engulfed it.
We were in the middle of the grassland walking in single file, our shirts on our shoulders or heads, when suddenly three rebels rose from behind the dried grasses and pointed their guns at Gibrilla, who
was in the front. They cocked their guns, and one of them placed the muzzle of his gun under Gibrilla’s chin. “He is scared like a soaked monkey,” the rebel laughingly told his companions. As the other two walked past me, I avoided eye contact by putting my head down. The younger rebel raised my head with his bayonet, still in its scabbard. While he was looking at me sternly, he took the bayonet from its scabbard and attached it at the muzzle of his gun. I trembled so hard that my lips shook. He smiled without emotion. The rebels, none of whom were older than twenty-one, started walking us back to a village we had passed. One was dressed in a sleeveless army shirt and jeans, his head tied with a red cloth. The other two were dressed in jeans jackets and pants, wearing baseball hats backward and new Adidas sneakers. All three wore a lot of fancy watches on both wrists. All these things had been taken from people by force or looted from houses and shops.
The rebels said a lot of things as we walked. Whatever they said didn’t sound friendly. I couldn’t hear their words, because all I could think about was death. I struggled to avoid fainting.
As we approached the village, two of the rebels ran ahead. Six of us and one rebel, I thought to myself. But he had a semiautomatic machine gun and a long belt of bullets wrapped around him. He made us walk in two lines of three, with our hands on our heads. He was behind us, aiming his gun at our heads, and at some point he said, “If any of you makes a move, I will kill everyone. So don’t even breathe too hard or it might be your last.” He laughed and his voice echoed in the distant forest. I prayed that my friends and brother wouldn’t make any sudden moves or even try to scratch an itch. The back of my head was getting warm, as if expecting a bullet anytime.