As Kesi lingered to admire the babies in their pretty hats, I wandered down the endless corridors, peeking into room after room. The halls were shiny green from the algae smoothed over their earthen sides. Each doorway opened onto a new delight: some rooms so surprisingly bright and airy they seemed like private gardens, others snug and cozy with ember fires glowing and colourful weavings lining the walls.
One door led me into a moist, dripping cavern filled with towering trees with thick flat leaves and giant orange and red flowers that cascaded down onto the benches of crystal that sat beneath them. The floor was dewy with moss. An old ant, with scraggly mandibles sticking out from his long beard, was scooping water from a rock pool.
“Is this your garden?” I asked in admiration.
“I am the gardener.”
I paused. “But does it belong to you?”
He blinked. “This is the colony’s garden. It belongs to everyone.”
“It is all so beautiful, but what is it for? Can you eat anything in here?”
He smiled at me but didn’t answer. He hefted his pail and hobbled a few steps to a cloud of tiny sprouts over which he carefully dripped the water. As he wouldn’t talk any more with me, I left him to wander along the twisty paths, sniffing blossoms, stroking palm trunks and tracing the patterns of dew on the crystal benches. The air was sharp and clean. I plucked a silky petal off a rose, and as I rubbed it against my cheek, I understood. It was simply a beautiful place, made more beautiful by the gardener’s work, which was his gift to everyone.
Back in the tunnel, I wasn’t entirely sure which direction would take me back to Kesi. But then a long parade of little silver creepers scurried past me, tinkling, each one covered in tiny carved wooden bells hanging from grassy threads. They danced past my feet as if I wasn’t even there, and I stood very still so I wouldn’t step on anyone. An elder creeper also cloaked in silver but without bells, carrying a golden staff, brought up the rear.
“Hello, Madame,” I greeted her.
“Hello, dear one,” she replied, as if she already knew who I was. “Please excuse this silly lot. They are so excited about the feast I can’t bear to be harsh with them. They work as furiously as they play.”
And so I followed them to find Queen Kesi already in the main hall, which was an enormous cavern lit by sunlight that flowed like water through a hundred hair-thin tunnels to the outside world. The walls were decked with spiders’ silk and painted with berry juice. And every creature there raised a cheer for Queen Kesi and me, toasting us with cups filled with morning dew.
The battle with the aardvark had been swift and ferocious, but the victory feast was loose and free. We laughed and sang and played through the rest of that day and into the evening, when duty called us back to our other life, our ordinary life, as children of the village.
2.
My mother and father say Kesi and I spend too much time lost in our own world, and not enough time attending to our chores. But I told my parents it was our teacher, Baingana, who told us to observe the dragonflies.
“What purpose is there in staring at the ground?” Daddy growled.
“How can you bear to look at all those wriggly things so closely?” Momma asked, giving a shudder. She would rather squash a beetle than cup it in her hands and feel it tickle her palms.
I loved tiny things. I loved them best of all because they were secret from the grown-ups. It seemed like only the inhabitants of Kidom really understood them.
But I kept these thoughts mostly to myself—I rarely challenged my parents’ rules in our home. Besides, I did my chores. I was proud to prepare the fire for the tea, and I did that every single morning, even when I had that terrible earache. And I pulled the weeds from around my avocado tree (always careful to check for caterpillars), and I had done all of this since I was seven years old.
Kesi was still only six, and it was true, she’d rather play than do her chores any day of the week, but she didn’t get reprimanded as much as me because she could make our parents laugh. Her teeth were crooked, and when she smiled her nose wrinkled up like a rabbit’s. Because she liked it so much, she always wore her bright pink school wrapper around her waist, even over her regular clothes, and our mother let her get away with it. The pink was so bright you could see her even in the dark, or from very far away.
Our brothers were older than us. Mashaka thought he was cool, like a rapper. He used to be a lot more fun before he became so cool. He used to be home all the time and never minded playing with us, but he had a big fight with Daddy and now was gone a lot of the time. He was the one who actually invented Kidom: he said all you had to do was trace a circle around yourself with a magic branch, and you would leave Momma and Daddy and school and the village behind you and enter the tiny world of insects. There we were giants, kings and queens.
We used to spend hours with him in Kidom. We would sit together in a circle on the bush floor, a mist of green surrounding us like mosquito netting but softer, shimmering with dew and magic. And Mashaka would describe the elaborate kingdoms inside the trees and under the ground, where we were able to wander in robes of spiders’ silk. And as he talked, I would feel myself leaving my body, like flying in a dream. Everything did become tiny—whole worlds could fit on the tip of my finger.
But when he was home these days, Mashaka was sullen and quiet. Always off on his own, with no time for us. At first, Momma said it was because he was growing up, and that growing pains are difficult. When I grow up, I told her, I won’t forget everything important. But she didn’t make excuses for him anymore. Sometimes when he was away he sent short messages through confusing chains of people to Momma, but they only seemed to make her sad.
My oldest brother, Mosi, had no such growing pains. He was beautiful—everyone said so. We all wished we looked like Mosi. His eyes were like my eyes with thick black lashes, and his mouth was like Mashaka’s, full and soft. His laugh was like Kesi’s and they both had ears that were close to their heads, not like mine that stuck out. Each of us had pieces of Mosi, but on him it all came together in a way that made everyone admire him and want to be near him.
Sometimes a truck with soldiers drove through the village, scattering chickens and honking its horn. All of us would run to see the men in their uniforms with their guns bound with rags. Whenever they drove past, they always stared at Mosi.
One time, a truck stopped and the man in the front seat spoke to him. The man was smoking a thick cigarette and the white smoke streamed from his mouth and nose like he was a dragon. I was afraid that if the smoke touched Mosi’s face, he would get swallowed up.
I snapped a dry branch from a bush, and Kesi and I flew toward our brother. He reached out a hand to each of us, and we backed away from the dragon soldier. As we went, I tried to draw a constant circle to protect us from the dragon watching our every step. Mosi’s hand was damp in mine. I looked up at him, and the sun behind his head made his hair glow orange. It grew and grew until he became a giant moth with massive golden wings, and Kesi was a little pink beetle, buzzing around him. My ears stretched into antennae, and I waved them warily, sensing danger from the dragon.
3.
After dinner, I went outside by myself. I walked beyond the circle of firelight, past my avocado tree and even further, to the long grass by the baobab. I lay down on my belly in the soft dust, with my chin cupped in my palms, and watched a little sandfly struggle over the uneven ground. Why was he walking? If I had wings, I’d always fly.
The sun sank behind the hills and the blazing light was replaced in moments by a curtain of blackness. I often tried to notice the exact second this happened, but no matter how steadily I stared, it always seemed to happen when I blinked. I stayed where I was, allowing my ears to pick up where my eyes left off. I heard the murmur of my father talking, ants rustling and the occasional faraway bird calling or child squealing, so vivid now that the darkness had come. The black air lapped over me like water, and I turned lazily onto my back.
The stars danced like clouds of fireflies. I tried to look directly at one, but it faded away. When I looked sideways at it, there it was again, bright and clear. I picked another star that was much bigger, one I could look deeply into. I stared and stared, until all the other stars disappeared into the darkness. It felt like someone on that star was staring hard at me, and all at once we were rushing toward each other, about to crash like antelopes jousting with their horns. I pulled my eyes away quickly, just in case.
I waved my hands softly in the air. In the darkness they seemed to separate from me, each long finger transforming into a silver wing, almost invisible in the night sky. Dragonflies, dragons with wings. The king and queen of insects, with their army of fireflies behind them, filling the sky.
I drew a line with my finger, connecting the silver dots on that vast blackboard, like drawing with chalk on my slate. I drew a drum and a locust. I drew a hand holding a stick or a ladle. I shook my head, making the lines disappear. Then I drew an ancient warrior mounted on a giant butterfly. This was harder, because there were not enough stars for the left wing. I closed my eyes. The warrior had a giant boulder in a sling over one arm, and a long spear like Tinochika’s, the elder who had given me bitter tea to cure my aching ear. Muscles bulged on his arms, and his hands were so huge they could pluck a baobab like a blade of grass.
I felt myself slipping slowly into sleep, remembering that night in Tinochika’s hut as I drifted. My ear throbbing, Tinochika in his long white robe, mixing the foul-smelling herbs, shaking a fetish of black chicken feathers. The frightening sound of his chanting, and behind him a wall hung with pictures of Jesus covered in blood from spikes around his head and tortured people hanging naked over fiery pits. Above me the skies rumbled as the warrior raced across the sky to battle … to battle … and night erupted in cries of clashing metal. I woke up to a waterfall on the metal roof of our house. Rivers of water were already running wild over the ground right up to the door. Rain and rain and more rain. And yet by morning all was dry and even dusty again, as the earth’s thirst is seldom quenched.
4.
Morning is the most beautiful time of day in my village. The thick mist in the valleys makes the green peaks of the hills seem to float free of the earth, and the only way from one to another is to fly.
I walked with Kesi to school, kicking up the dirt with my bare feet. Mornings were the only time when my little sister was quiet—I think she was still sleeping inside. I was the one chattering, more to myself than to her. “We’d need an extra big stick—as long as a tree trunk—to circle the whole hilltop. Then we’d always be in Kidom, and we could fly to school.”
As we joined the main path, Kesi skipped away to be with her friends who were kicking a ball of wadded-up banana leaves. I met my friend Jacob by the mango tree behind the schoolhouse, and we took turns hoisting each other up to try to reach the lowest fruit. There was nothing that tasted so sweet in the morning.
Jacob’s home was the closest to ours, and every Sunday I would follow the path to his place. We would run through the trees to the river. It was too shallow for swimming, but we would splash around, tossing rocks, watching tiny fish and water bugs.
Jacob loved to play warrior. Not like the soldiers who passed through the village nor the dressed-up big leaders with shiny buttons on their jackets and large leather straps around their waists and across their shoulders. Jacob loved the true warriors of our people, the warriors who dressed in leopard skins and wore their braids flowing down their backs. The ancient warriors of stories, songs and dances—the courageous, proud protectors of the tribe. Jacob would spend ages searching for just the right branch to use as a spear for the day and would meet me with his pockets bulging with bottle caps, feathers and plastic scraps. He would adorn himself and put on the face of a fearless warrior, standing there as if the wind could never blow him down. I would start to clap a rhythm and he would dance, my beat twisting and turning him so that his arms and legs flew as if about to break from his body. He would lift his feet and stomp the ground, sending a message of thunder. But he couldn’t keep dancing as long as I could clap, and he’d eventually collapse, covered in sweat. I’d flop down beside him and we’d talk about the old days. Did warriors have to go to school like we did?
This morning, we couldn’t reach high enough to grab a mango, so Jacob picked a branch off the ground and proceeded to launch it into the tree to try to knock down the fruit. After the third time the stick came crashing down—still with no mangos—we felt a large shadow loom over us.
“All you are doing is hurting the tree.” Baingana’s deep voice.
Baingana was our teacher and a village elder. Our parents gave us chores and told us how to behave, but it was Baingana who made us want to obey. Something about his calm ways, his words, his very long fingers and bushy beard, made us feel safe. Baingana put things into our heads that we had never heard of or seen. We had no books, but he had no need for them—his mind was filled with knowledge. He explained how to grow an avocado tree, how to find France on a map, when to use an adjective, what astronauts do, and why our water tasted better when we gathered it higher up the hillsides.
But he also spoke of the roots of our traditions, how our ways of doing things in the village came about and why we must understand and follow these ways to be respected and succeed in life. He showed us the marvels of the creatures and plants that lived all around us and how to commune with them to stay honest and attentive and fair. I felt I was on the right path if I put my feet where Baingana stepped.
“Ooooh, you are in big trouble!” I whispered to Jacob, as Baingana led the way into school.
“Me!” Jacob teased. “If you hadn’t been screeching like a monkey he wouldn’t have even noticed us.”
Squabble, squabble, until we reached the doorway. This was our daily routine. Annoying. Comforting.
“In your seats, please.” Baingana’s deep voice rumbled.
We all scrambled to our wooden desks, the little ones in the front rows, and the oldest in the back. I settled into my place beside Jacob in the fourth row, and made my silent daily plea to my Kidom guardians to help me pass into the next level so that I could at last have a seat by the window.
5.
Our school was one room, cool and comfortable, our benches lined up to face clean blackboards. All of the children from the village and nearby farms came here every day. The rains could fail to come, but we never failed to arrive on time, dressed in our crisp white shirts. Home could be wanting, the roads muddy or dusty or frightening, but school was secure.
I sat up very straight, hoping to be chosen as the day’s helper. Each morning, Baingana chose one of us to fetch water for the schoolroom, beat the chalk out of the erasers and perform other equally important tasks throughout the day. It was a position of honour, especially, Baingana said, for those old enough to appreciate the privilege and young enough to be willing to help.
Before he spoke to us again, Baingana gave us his warm smile. But when he opened his mouth, BANG! A loud noise outside sent us older children scrambling to the window.
I could see nothing, but another BANG! came, followed by the pitiful bleating of goats, and we all began to cry out.
“Calm down!” Baingana boomed, striding to the doorway and blocking it with his huge frame.
I craned my neck but could see only a glimpse of blue sky above the crowd of heads in front of me.
Then the oldest kids began to point. “Hey, neat! Check it out!” “Oh yeah!” “Look at that one!” “It’s Danno!”
Danno was a film from America about a strong man with guns who shot people in the jungl
e. I had never seen it, but I knew this much: soldiers were out there.
I moved away from the window to find my little sister where she still sat in the second row.
“Come on,” I whispered, and we made our way to stand behind our teacher.
He was still blocking the doorway, but he was silent as he stared into the front yard. Most of the other boys and girls came to crowd behind us at the door, pushing and shoving and trying to poke their heads around our teacher’s waist or through his legs so they could see. I edged my head around him and looked up to see his face. It wasn’t the usual face of Baingana. It was still, yes, but not calm. His mouth was wide open, his eyes bulging.
I turned my eyes to look where he was staring. The soldiers outside the school were shorter and skinnier than any I had seen before. Their movements were quick, not lazy and leaning like those of the dragon man. They were carrying guns in their hands, and some of the guns seemed as big as they were. Then I got it: they were kids. It was weird, ridiculous. They were dressed like real soldiers but in miniature. They were our ages but their faces looked as if they were wearing angry masks held in place by dirty bandanas and skullcaps. Where did they come from and why were they here? But as we watched them spreading out from the truck with their guns pointing in all directions as if they were going to shoot or at least scare everybody else, questions disappeared from my head. My stomach clenched and I pulled Kesi closer.
Five or six of them were crowded around an old goat herder, who towered over them. He was shouting at them and pointing to his goat flopping on the ground—it had blood on its face and was bleating more softly now.
One tall child raised his gun like a stick and swung it at the herder. We all gasped as the thick part of the gun smashed into his old, thin face and made his head snap around. We gasped again as he fell to the ground and these children—were they really children?—laughed. This was unbelievable. It was not possible. What child would strike an elder? I began to shake so hard my teeth were clacking together.
They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children Page 6