by Ishmael Beah
The boys immediately spread out into the bushes to prepare for any encounter, and Khoudi continued cautiously along the path, followed by Namsa. It was possible that whoever had gotten this far had not reached the clearing, stumped by the barrier of thick bushes.
As they neared the clearing, they heard whispers and laughter. In the gloom, their eyes found one another, preparing for a confrontation. Then Khoudi and Namsa continued into the clearing, to announce their presence and give the others a chance to assess what was going on.
A fire in in the center of the clearing was just beginning to gain appetite. Sitting in a circle around it were three young men and two young women, their shadows jumping and stretching in the light from the growing flames. One of the women was in the process of inhaling smoke from a plastic bottle. As she looked up, her eyes fell on Khoudi and Namsa, and her mouth dropped open like the bottle, both openings leaking the cloudlike smoke.
“Eh! Eh! You are wasting. Pass it here,” said a muscular young man with a heavy voice. Then, noticing her silence, his eyes followed the path of her bewildered gaze.
He jumped to his feet, snapping his fingers to get the attention of the others. “Come join us!” he called. “You are safe here from the red caps.” He laughed loudly.
“Are you from around here?” Khoudiemata asked him, careful not to betray that they were anywhere near her own home. To judge from where they had decided to stop and build a fire, they had not yet found the airplane. Otherwise they would be seated comfortably around the refrigerator-table or perhaps even camped out inside the plane.
“What does it matter where we are from?” said the young man. “Have a seat and join our celebration.” He passed by Khoudiemata and grasped Namsa’s hand, but she pulled it from his grip and stepped closer behind Khoudi.
He laughed. “What disrespect! Boys, help me convince our guests to join the party.” The other two young men stood up and approached. Khoudiemata stepped back, pressing her raffia bag into Namsa with one hand. She could feel the girl reaching into the outside pocket where she kept her knife, and an instant later, Namsa had pressed it into Khoudi’s open palm. With her hand behind her back, she waited, drawing strength from the knowledge that Kpindi, Ndevui, and Elimane were watching from the bushes nearby, ready to pounce.
The three young men surrounded Khoudiemata and Namsa, edging them toward the fire pit.
“This one is beautiful if you look beyond how she is dressed,” said the first. “And I am interested in doing that.” He grabbed Khoudiemata’s left hand and pulled her right up against his body. She yanked herself away and returned to Namsa’s side. “Ah, she wants it, but she plays hard to get!” He laughed again.
Khoudiemata raised her left fist to him, which made all three of the men laugh. When the muscular one came at her again, with a quick swipe of her right hand Khoudi nicked his arm. She meant to deliver a stern warning, preferring to stop the escalation of violence before it went further. Stunned, he nevertheless came at her again, this time with menace in his eyes. She double-swiped, leaving slashes on both cheeks. Surprised, he reached for his face, and Khoudiemata stabbed him in the leg. He sank to the ground and then fell back in the dirt, howling.
The other two men, who had been headed for Namsa but had frozen in shock at Khoudi’s fast action, sprang into motion. Khoudi was ready for them. She met them with her knife raised and a look of determination on her face. But before they came within range, Kpindi and Ndevui were upon them, striking blows to their heads, necks, and torsos all the way to the edge of the clearing, whereupon the two intruders took to their heels. Seeing how things were going, the young women who had been sitting at the fire roused themselves from their stupor and ran away as well.
Clutching her knife, Khoudiemata knelt next to the man she had stabbed, but his body began to slide away from her. She looked up to see that Elimane was holding the fellow’s legs and dragging him hard against the ground. He tried grabbing at the roots and branches and grasses, but Elimane’s pull was insistent. At the entrance to the clearing, Elimane straddled him and landed punches to his ribs, his throat, his jaw, and his face. With each blow, the young man gasped for air and rolled from side to side, but there was no escape.
Elimane paused, glowering down at him. When he spoke, it was in a quiet but terrifying voice the others had never heard before. “Stand up and run away, or I’ll give you another round of that.”
The young man struggled to his feet, wiping his face and leaving a bloody streak there from one of the slashes he had received from Khoudiemata. His body was shaking, whether with pain or with anger it was unclear, but despite his muscles and his superior height, he could muster only a feeble fist. Then he unclenched his fingers and staggered away as fast as he could drag his wounded body, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure Elimane and the others were not pursuing him, and stumbling into bushes as he went.
The little family let out a collective sigh of relief, followed by silence as they all found a place to sit or a tree to lean against. Ndevui kicked dirt into the fire until it went out. He picked up the bottle the intruders had been inhaling from and threw it hard into the bushes as though he hoped the thing itself would go up in smoke. All of the others except Namsa knew why.
When Ndevui came to them, he’d been addicted to such bottles. One morning, he’d woken to find himself floating in the ocean. He wasn’t that far out, and he could see people going about their morning business, young people running along the beach and fishermen launching their boats. But when he tried to swim for shore, he discovered that he couldn’t move his arms or legs, and when he tried to call for help, his speech was slurred. He remembered thinking that it was only a matter of time before he drifted out to sea or some creature ate him or he drowned like a rock, unable to keep himself afloat. In fact, he began to wonder, how was it that he was floating at all? And for that matter, how had he ended up in the ocean? He remembered that he had been inhaling by the docks the night before, with a group of young people like himself, but that was as far as his memory went.
As to the mystery of his buoyancy, that was more readily unraveled. Beneath him, he realized, were pieces of the foam used to protect fragile goods en route to this part of the world while they were in transit. Once they arrived in the port, they were unboxed, and the cartons, foam, and plastic wrappings were thrown into the ocean. But the ocean doesn’t like to be fed such foods, and it spits out what isn’t natural to its diet. For once, Ndevui was thankful for human recklessness, which had supplied a life raft to keep him safe while he slept. He didn’t know how he’d gotten on it. Had he become intoxicated to the point of unconsciousness and, assumed to be dead or nearly so, pushed out to sea by his fellow addicts, lest they be left to answer uncomfortable questions to the authorities about his condition and their own?
Ndevui had floated for a few more hours, until a fisherman in a passing canoe noticed that his eyes were moving and pulled him out of the water and into his boat. Ndevui could not speak at all by this point, but he could cry, and he wondered if his tears of gratitude could be distinguished from the ocean spray on his face. Regardless, the fisherman brought him to shore and laid his body on the beach, out of reach of the waves. “I don’t want you dying in my fishing zone and bringing those useless investigators down here. This is my daily living. If you have to die, you can die on dry land.”
Ndevui lay on the beach for the entire day, the sun lashing him, until gradually he regained the power of his limbs, and the will to move them. The chill in his bones had stayed with him for a month, and to this day he hated being cold.
But now, the chill that had descended earlier was lifting, departing as suddenly as the intruders, and nothing seemed to be amiss.
Kpindi chased the silence away. “Well, I don’t think they found the plane. Which is a good thing, as I don’t want to have to go find a new home.”
“You think they will be back?” Nam
sa asked timidly.
“I doubt it,” said Khoudi. “I think they just happened on this spot because they were trying to escape the red caps.”
“Those particular ones won’t be coming back. That fellow is going to have nightmares about Elimane.” Kpindi chuckled.
Khoudi’s eyes met Elimane’s with newfound admiration. She had seen him fight before, but never with so much visible rage.
“Big brother, I never thought you fully had it in you. Did you get that from one of these books, or is it deep in there?” Ndevui picked up the paperback that had fallen out of Elimane’s pocket. “I really must work on my reading, if that’s how you learn to fight like that.” With a grin, he handed the book back to Elimane, who took it and slapped it against his palms, though it didn’t need dusting. He seemed to be avoiding Khoudi’s gaze.
“I know where that rage came from, and it surely isn’t from the books he reads,” teased Kpindi, placing his arm around Elimane’s shoulders. “There’s a cauldron of passion boiling away in there”—he poked at Elimane’s chest—“and it finally gave itself away.”
“What are you going on about?” said Khoudi abruptly, searching for her bag, which she had dropped in all the commotion. She dusted it off and put the knife away. And with that, the five of them proceeded to the plane.
To their relief, there were no footprints or other signs of intruders there, and when they had completed their inspection, their bodies fell back into their usual state of relaxation in this private world of theirs.
“Ah, now I will finish my day with this purity. Yes, yes, lion rise within I,” proclaimed Ndevui, at last taking the blunt from behind his ear and lighting it with mock seriousness. He always spoke like this when he was about to smoke, which was whenever he managed to steal a bit of ganja.
“Isn’t it bad to steal something you consider so sacred?” Kpindi took a seat next to him and made a pinching motion with his fingers to indicate that he too wished to partake of the “holy vegetables,” as he called it.
“Ganja should be free, so if I take it from someone who doesn’t want to share it or is selling it, that is righteousness, justice.” Ndevui took a puff.
“Pass on that righteousness, then,” said Kpindi, and soon they were passing the joint around until it was finished. Namsa no longer fell into a fit of coughing when she inhaled, as she had the first few times. Everything felt soothing. Even the warm breeze and the familiar landscape became a paradise where time slowed to their rhythm, laughter, and gestures, punctuated by the music of the crashing waves from afar.
Before long, sleepiness overtook them, and one by one, the younger members went inside the plane to lie down. Finally, only Elimane and Khoudi were left, sitting across from each other at the makeshift table.
“I apologize if I overstepped my role,” said Elimane at length. “I just couldn’t tolerate how that fellow had behaved to you. I know you can protect yourself.” His head was lowered, and he was avoiding Khoudi’s eyes.
“Thank you, big brother,” Khoudi answered evenly, trying for the same tone she always used with him. It was too much to contemplate the possibility of any of the others changing the way she had.
“Okay, then, I hope the night is good to you.” Elimane spoke with his customary calm, but without adding “sister” as he usually did. Khoudi stood and gave his shoulder a friendly jab, to nudge him back to his easy way with her, but he refused to look at her. It wasn’t until he had reached the steps to the plane that he sent a quick glance her way.
“Wise choice, Khoudi. Sitting out here a bit with the company of the cool air. Especially tonight.” Then he disappeared into the belly of the plane.
Khoudiemata remained outside, thinking. She thought about the many times she had had to protect herself with violence, the only language most boys and men seemed to understand. She liked knowing that she was able to take care of herself, but it bothered her that she had grown so comfortable with violence. And yet, what other choice was she left with?
These thoughts did not open the doors to sleep. She turned her thoughts to the next day, and her plans for herself, and gradually, with the cool breeze sailing gently against her face, the tension in it dissolved.
Her reverie was suddenly interrupted by bouts of shouting from inside the plane. After a few seconds, she registered the voice as Namsa’s. She ran up the steps. Namsa was shaking and sweating and rolling in her sleep, in the grip of some nightmare. The others stood by looking on, afraid to get too close. Khoudi sat next to her and held her tightly until she quieted and slept peacefully again.
The others were all fully awake now. “I am going to the night market.” Ndevui glanced around to see if anyone wished to join him. Kpindi nodded, and Khoudi was tempted. A nightmare had disturbed the atmosphere of their home, a nightmare all of them had dreamed. They preferred the risks of nighttime adventures—even in the wake of the red caps—to what awaited them in their own minds.
And the night market was a real escape. It was the only place outside their home where the little family didn’t feel the need to pretend not to be together. Like them, most people came to the market after they had finished searching the day and needed a bit of a break. They came to smell what they couldn’t afford to eat, to imagine what seemed impossible for them in the grainy television sets people clustered around at the sides of stalls or mounted at the entrance of bars, and in the mannerisms of those better off than they were. To be sure, the group had to keep their wits about them. They usually arrived early and found a place to sit behind the glow of kerosene lamps and the dull bulbs powered by improbably loud generators. If they had money, they bought a couple of beers to share, and some cheap food: stone-hard bread with boiled peanuts or cubed sugar sprinkled with water. Over the din, bits and pieces of banter reached them.
One night not long before, a young man waiting in line to get bread, butter, and tea had called out, to no one in particular, “Why do we always have to stand in line for everything in this country?”
“Eh, you are only asking because you are at the back of the line,” someone ahead of him replied, and the whole line burst into laughter.
Someone else was playing music from a popular radio station on a phone, with the volume cranked up so others could enjoy it. If I get money, eh . . . the song blared, echoing the same music coming out of loudspeakers in the distance. Most people mouthed the lyrics, entertaining the dreams the music suggested.
At the end of the song, the radio host made announcements: Tomorrow, we will have a discussion about whether our politicians should be called corrupt or thieves. If you steal rice at the market, are you not a thief? Join us in the a.m. and call in to be part of the conversation. And now, more music from our own reggae superstar, with a new song: “Mr. Politicorruption,” or “You Are Not Fit to Be Called My Leader.” The host sang along a bit as the song filled the airwaves.
The gatherers laughed, and some began humming along.
“Ah, if you steal, you are a thief. Simple as that,” someone called out, sparking a boisterous debate.
“No, correction. If you are poor and you steal, then you are a thief. If you are a politician, then you are corrupt.” This joking rebuttal brought about more laughter.
“Look at this watch. I corrupted it today, oh.” A young fellow stood in the middle of the informal circle brandishing a gold watch.
The crowd murmured and laughed, handing the new term around and making it part of the ever-changing local parlance. And the little family listened and took note, eating and drinking as slowly as they could to prolong the enjoyment, keeping at bay the unwelcome memories that grew more restive at night. When fatigue had conquered every cell in their bodies, they’d groggily make their way home.
But tonight, there was to be no night market for Khoudi. While Elimane went outside and sat in the clearing, fiddling with a paperback as it had grown too dark to read, she wedged hers
elf against the belly of the plane, with Namsa’s head in her lap. From time to time, Khoudi read in Namsa’s face the signs that her memory was beginning to stir, pursuing her in her sleep. Then she would place her palm on Namsa’s forehead until the girl relaxed.
This went on all night, and every now and then, Khoudi would ask herself, “Why must most of those who give life to earth suffer so much?” It was one of those questions that didn’t seek an answer. And even as she waited patiently with Namsa, forgetting herself as women do, effortlessly, she wondered if there was a way not to lose herself while caring for others.
4
The sun rose earlier than usual, and harshly, dragged against the sky. Namsa, feeling its warmth on her face, rubbed her cheeks with an effort that woke her, her eyes startling open but softening when they came in contact with Khoudi’s. She swallowed to find her voice.
“Don’t you like your own sleeping place?”
“I feel safe with you.” Khoudi pulled her leg from under Namsa’s head and wiggled her toes to return her foot to full life. She didn’t mention what had happened the previous night and knew that the others wouldn’t either. It was enough that the nightmares took their toll.
Just as their bodies were welcoming the day with yawns and stretches, Khoudi and Namsa heard an explosion of guttural laughter they recognized as Kpindi’s and Ndevui’s. Namsa went to greet them, and found Elimane outdoors, asleep at the table, his cheek on his book and his hands drooping. Kpindi and Ndevui staggered into the clearing, each carrying a crate of Star beer, Ndevui’s with a burlap sack atop it, Kpindi’s with a cloth-covered bowl. They slammed the crates down on the old fridge, waking Elimane, the little paperback rising with him, stuck to his cheek.
Ndevui guffawed. “You spend so much time with them, now they are beginning to kiss you while you sleep.” He opened the sack and set its contents—beer, vodka, whiskey, and other spirits—on the table. He grabbed a beer and handed it to Kpindi, who had uncovered the bowl to reveal a feast of beignets, fried fish, and pepper sauce that filled the air with its aroma, mingling with the odors of alcohol, sweat, and perfume the pair had brought home as well.
