by Ishmael Beah
In the evening after everyone had returned to the village, the food was brought outside to the village square. It was divided among plates and seven people ate from each plate. After the meal, the villagers started playing drums, and we all joined hands and danced in circles under the moonlight. During an interval after several songs, one of the men announced that when the dancing had been exhausted, “whenever that will be,” he jokingly said, “the strangers will tell us stories about where they are from.” He lifted his hands and motioned for the drummers to continue. During the festivities I thought about the biggest celebration we used to have in my town at the end of the year. The women would sing about all the gossip, the dramas, the fights, and everything that had happened that year.
Would they be able to sing about all that will happen by the end of this war? I thought.
I also wondered a bit why the villagers were so kind to us, but I didn’t dwell on these thoughts, because I wanted to enjoy myself. The dance never ended that night and we had to leave early the next day, so we left as most of the villagers slept. We carried with us a plastic gallon of water and some smoked meat we had been given, and the old people we passed, sitting on their verandahs, waiting to be warmed by the morning sun, waved and said, “May the spirit of the ancestors be with you, children.”
When we were walking, I turned around to see the village one last time. It was yet to be born for that day. A cock crowed to dispatch the last remains of night and to mute the crickets that couldn’t let go of the darkness of their own accord. The sun was slowly rising but had already begun casting shadows on the huts and houses. I could still hear the drums echoing in my head from the previous night, but I refused to be happy. When I turned away from the village, my traveling companions were dancing in the sand, mimicking some of the dances we had seen.
“Show us what you’ve got,” they said, clapping and circling me. I couldn’t refuse. I started gyrating my hips to their claps, and they joined me. We placed our hands on each other’s shoulders and walked forward, dancing to sounds we made with our mouths. I was carrying the smoked meat in a small bag that I waved in the air to increase the speed at which we kicked our feet from side to side. We danced and laughed into the morning. But gradually we stopped. It was as if we all knew that we could be happy for only a brief moment. We weren’t in a hurry, so we walked slowly and quietly after we stopped dancing. At the end of the day we had finished drinking the water we were carrying.
Around nightfall we arrived at a very peculiar village. I am in fact not sure if it was a village. There was one large house and one kitchen less than a kilometer from the house. The pots were moldy, and there was a small storage house. The place was located in the middle of nowhere.
“Now, this will be an easy village for the rebels to capture,” Jumah said, laughing.
We walked around trying to find a sign of someone’s presence. Some sort of production of palm oil had taken place here; there were the remains of palm nut seeds everywhere. On the river floated a deserted canoe in which spirogyra had grown. Back at the old house, we debated where to sleep. We sat outside on logs at the foot of the verandah and Musa offered to tell a story about Bra Spider.
“No!” we protested—we all knew it too well—but he still continued.
“Bra Spider stories are always good no matter how many times you have heard them,” Musa said.
“My mother told me that whenever a story is told, it is worth listening to. So please listen. I will tell it quickly.” He coughed and began.
“Bra Spider lived in a village that was surrounded by many other villages. At the end of the harvest season, all the villages had a feast in celebration of their successful harvest. Wine and food were in abundance and people ate until they could see their reflections on each other’s stomach.”
“What?” we all said in shock at this extra detail he had added to the story.
“I am telling the story, so I can tell my version. Wait for your turn.” Musa stood up. We listened attentively to see if he was going to embellish the story with more striking details. He sat down and continued:
“Each village specialized in one dish. Bra Spider’s village made okra soup with palm oil and fish. Mmm…mmm…mmm. The other villages made cassava leaves with meat, potato leaves, and so on. Each village boasted about how good their meal was going to be. All the villages had an open invitation to their feasts. But Bra Spider took it to the extreme. He wanted to be present at all the feasts. He had to come up with a plan. He began collecting ropes around his village and weaving them several months before the feast. While people carried bushels of rice, bundles of wood, to the square and women pounded rice in mortars, removing the husk from its seeds, Bra Spider was stretching the ropes on his verandah and measuring their length. When men went hunting, he was busy laying out his ropes by the paths from his village to all the surrounding villages. He gave the ends of his ropes to the chiefs, who tied them to the nearest trees at their village squares. ‘Tell your people to pull the rope when their meal is ready,’ he told every chief in his nasal voice. Bra Spider starved for a week as he readied himself. When the day finally came, Bra Spider rose up earlier than everyone else. He sat on his verandah and securely tied all the ropes at his waist. He was shaking and saliva dripped out of his mouth as the smell of smoked meat, dried fish, and various stews wafted out from the cooking huts.
“Unluckily for Bra Spider, all the feasts started at the same time and the chiefs ordered the ropes to be pulled. He was suspended in the air above his village, pulled from all directions. Bra Spider screamed for help, but the drums and songs from his village square drowned his voice. He could see people gathering around plates of food and licking their hands at the end of the meal. Children walked across the village on their way to the river, munching on pieces of stewed chicken, goat, and deer meat. Each time Bra Spider tried to loosen the ropes, the villages pulled harder, as they thought it was a signal that he was ready to visit their feast. At the end of the celebration in Bra Spider’s village, a boy saw him and called on the elders. They cut the ropes and brought Bra Spider down. In a barely audible voice he demanded some food, but there was nothing left. The feasts had ended everywhere. Bra Spider remained hungry, and because he was pulled so tight for so long, this explains why spiders have a thin waistline.”
“All this food in the story is making me hungry. Good story, though. I have never heard it told like this,” Alhaji said, stretching his back. We all laughed, as we knew he was mocking Musa for adding some details to the tale.
As soon as Musa was done, night took over the village. It was as if the sky had quickly rolled over, changing its bright side to dark, bringing sleep with it for my companions. We placed the smoked meat and the gallon of water by the door of the room we occupied. I stayed in the room with my friends, even though I didn’t fall asleep until the very last hours of the night. I remembered nights I had spent sitting with my grandmother by the fire. “You are growing up so fast. It feels like yesterday when I was at your name-giving ceremony.” She would look at me, her shiny face glowing, before she told me the story of my name-giving ceremony. Growing up, I had been to several of these ceremonies, but Grandmother always told me about mine.
Everyone in the community was present. Before things started, food was prepared in abundance with everyone’s help. Early in the morning, the men slaughtered a sheep, skinned it, and shared the meat among the finest women cooks, so that each would cook her best dish for the ceremony. While the women cooked, the men stood around in the yard welcoming each other with firm handshakes, laughing, each man clearing his throat as loud as he could before he started talking. Boys who hung about and eavesdropped on the men’s conversations would be called upon to perform certain tasks—slaughter chickens behind the cooking huts, chop firewood.
Near the thatched-roof cooking huts, women sang while they pounded rice in mortars. They did tricks with pestles. They flipped them in the air and clapped several times before they caugh
t them, and continued pounding and singing. The women who were older and more experienced not only clapped several times before they caught their pestles but also made elaborate “thank you” gestures, all in harmony with the songs they sang. Inside the huts, girls sat on the ground fanning red charcoals with a bamboo fan or an old plate, or simply by blowing to start the fire under the big pots.
By nine o’clock in the morning the food was ready. Everyone dressed up in his or her finest clothing. The women were especially elegant in their beautiful patterned cotton skirts, dresses, shirts, and lappei—a big cotton cloth that women wrap around their waist—and extravagant head wraps. Everyone was in high spirits and ready to commence the ceremony that was to last until noon.
“The imam arrived late,” said my grandmother. A large metal tray containing leweh (rice paste), kola nuts lined on the side, and water in a calabash was handed over to him, and after settling himself on a stool in the middle of the yard, and rolling up the sleeves of his white gown, he mixed the leweh and separated it into several carefully molded portions, each topped with a kola nut. The imam then proceeded to read several suras from the Quran. After the prayer he sprinkled some water on the ground to invite the spirits of the ancestors.
The imam waved to my mother, motioning her to bring me to him. It was my first time outside in the open. My mother knelt before the imam and presented me to him. He rubbed some of the water from the calabash on my forehead and recited more prayers, followed by the proclamation of my name. “Ishmael he shall be called,” he said, and everyone clapped. Women started singing and dancing. My mother passed me to my father, who raised me high above the crowd before passing me around to be held by everyone present. I had become a member of the community and was now owned and cared for by all.
The food was brought out on humongous plates. The elders started to feast first, all eating from one plate. The men did the same, then the boys, before the women and girls had their share. Singing and dancing followed the feast. While the jubilation was going on, I was placed in the hands and care of older women who couldn’t dance much anymore. They held me, smiled at me, and called me “little husband.” They started telling me stories about the community. Whenever I gave them a smile, they remarked, “He loves stories. Well, you came to the right place.”
I smiled a bit, as I could visualize my grandmother’s happy face at the end of this story. Some of my traveling companions were snoring as the late-night breeze caused my eyes to become heavy.
When we woke up the next morning, all the smoked meat was gone. We started blaming each other. Kanei inspected Musa’s lips. Musa became angry, and they started throwing blows at each other. I was about to part them when Saidu pointed to the tattered bag at the edge of the verandah.
“This is the bag, right?” he said, pointing to its chewed edges. “This was not done by any of us. See, the bag is still tied.” He showed it to us. “Something else ate the meat, and whatever ate this meat is still around somewhere.” He picked up a stick and began walking toward the bushes.
“You see, it wasn’t me.” Musa pushed Kanei out of his way as he joined Saidu.
“It is some kind of animal,” Moriba said, inspecting the prints the creature’s feet had left on the ground. Some of us looked around the village while others followed the tracks of the creature down the path to the river. We were about to give up looking when Saidu shouted from behind the storage house in the village:
“I found the thief and he is angry.”
We ran to see what it was. It was a dog munching on the last bit of the smoked meat. Upon seeing us, it began barking and guarding the meat with its hind legs.
“You bad dog. That is ours.” Alhaji took the stick from Saidu and started chasing the animal. The dog still held on to the last bit of meat as it disappeared among the bushes. With a shake of the head, Saidu picked up the gallon of water and started heading down the path. We all followed him, Alhaji still holding the stick.
That afternoon we began rummaging the bushes for whatever fruit looked edible. We didn’t converse much as we walked.
In the evening we stopped to rest along the path.
“I should have killed that dog,” Alhaji said slowly, as he rolled on his back.
“Why?” I asked.
“Yes. Why? What good would it have done?” Moriba sat up.
“I just wanted to kill it because it ate the only food we had,” Alhaji angrily replied.
“It would have made good meat,” Musa said.
“I don’t think so. Plus, it would have been difficult to prepare it, anyway.” I turned to Musa, who was lying on his back next to me.
“You guys disgust me just thinking about something like that.” Jumah spat.
“Well.” Musa stood up.
“He is going to tell another story.” Alhaji sighed.
Musa turned to Alhaji. “Yes, well, not really a story.” He paused and then continued. “My father used to work for these Malaysians, and he told me that they ate dogs. So if Alhaji had killed that dog, I would have loved to try some. So when I see my father again, I can tell him how it tasted. And he will not be angry with me, because I had a good excuse for eating dog meat,” Musa concluded.
We all became quiet, thinking about our own families. Musa had triggered in all of us what we were afraid of thinking.
Musa was home with his father in Mattru Jong when the attack took place. His mother had gone to the market to buy fish for the evening meal. He and his father had run toward the market and found his mother, but as they ran out of town, his mother had somehow been left behind. They realized that she wasn’t with them only after they stopped for a rest at the first village they reached. His father cried and told Musa to stay there while he went to look for his wife. Musa told his father that he wanted to go back down the path with him. “No, my son, stay here and I’ll bring back your mother.” As soon as his father left, the village was attacked and Musa ran away. He had been running ever since.
Alhaji was at the river fetching water when the rebels attacked. He ran home, only to stand in front of the empty house shouting the names of his parents, two brothers, and sister.
Kanei had escaped with his parents, but lost his two sisters and three brothers in the chaos. He and his parents had jumped in a boat along with many others to cross the Jong River. When the boat reached the middle of the river, the rebels on shore began shooting at the people in the boat, and everyone panicked, causing the boat to capsize. Kanei swam to the other side of the river as fast as he could. When he pulled himself ashore, he could see people drowning in the water, screaming as they fought to stay afloat. The rebels laughed at the dying people. He had wept all night as he followed the survivors, who made their way to a village down the river. There, people had told Kanei that his parents had passed through. The hope of finding his family had kept Kanei moving over the months.
Jumah and Moriba lived next to each other. RPGs had destroyed their houses during the attack. They had run toward the wharf to find their parents, who were traders, but their parents were nowhere to be found. They ran to the forest where their families had earlier hidden, but they weren’t there either.
Saidu’s family was unable to leave town during the attack. Along with his parents and three sisters, who were nineteen, seventeen, and fifteen, he hid under the bed during the night. In the morning the rebels broke into the house and found his parents and three sisters. Saidu had climbed to the attic to bring down the remaining rice for their journey, when the rebels stormed in. Saidu sat in the attic, holding his breath and listening to the wailing of his sisters as the rebels raped them. His father shouted at them to stop, and one of the rebels hit him with the butt of his gun. Saidu’s mother cried and apologized to her daughters for having brought them into this world to be victims of such madness. After the rebels had raped the sisters over and over, they bundled the family’s property and made the father and mother carry it. They took the three girls with them.
“To this
day, I carry the pain that my sisters and parents felt. When I climbed down after the rebels were gone, I couldn’t stand and my tears froze in my eyes. I felt like my veins were being harshly pulled out of my body. I still feel like that all the time, as I can’t stop thinking about that day. What did my sisters do to anyone?” Saidu said after he was done telling us the story one night in an abandoned village. My teeth became sour as I listened to his story. It was then that I understood why he was so quiet all the time.
“We should keep walking,” Kanei said sadly as he dusted his pants. We had agreed to walk at night. During the day we would search for food and take turns sleeping. At night it felt as if we were walking with the moon. It followed us under thick clouds and waited for us at the other end of dark forest paths. It would disappear with sunrise but return again, hovering on our path, the next night. Its brightness became dull as nights passed. Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them. Under these stars and sky I used to hear stories, but now it seemed as if it was the sky that was telling us a story as its stars fell, violently colliding with each other. The moon hid behind clouds to avoid seeing what was happening.
During the day the sun refused to rise gradually, as it had before. It became bright from the minute it surfaced from behind the clouds, its golden rays darkening my eyes. The clouds in the blue sky sailed violently, destroying each other’s formation.