by Wayétu Moore
“Come, come,” she said. “Come now.”
She picked up K and grabbed my hand.
“Hold Wi’s hand tight,” she said to Torma, who, though confused and with eyes that had only just adjusted to morning, obeyed.
We hurried through the crowd to the tennis court outside. Soldiers stood in clusters on the edges of the court. We were at the doorway for less time than it took to walk outside before Papa and Brother James came running to us. Their clothes were wet and the air still held a mist from the overnight storm.
“What happened?” Papa asked.
“They stealing children. One woman said they stole her daughter,” Ol’ Ma said. I could tell that she intended to whisper or conceal the end of her sentence, to hide the words from us, but her fear could not be hidden. I had heard and felt it too—the beating of her heart. That desperate pace.
“Come,” Papa said, and took K from Ol’ Ma.
“But we will miss the food here,” Torma said, under her breath.
“We should go,” Papa said. “It is not safe here.”
I did not want to be at the ETMI since hearing that story. But Torma was right. I was hungry and I was tired and I missed Mam more than I knew I could. And it was only morning but the drums had already begun to tell that day’s story.
FIVE
Since most people who had left their houses in Monrovia neighborhoods that week stayed at the ETMI, at dawn we walked alone. We did not have the dry rice they fed us at the school or the crackers Papa grabbed from our pantry before leaving, so he walked into sugarcane fields and retrieved sticks of sugarcane for us to eat. We chewed and sucked the juice for energy, then spit out the hard sticks on the dirt roads.
Later in the day when we heard the sound of car wheels, or if someone yelled “rebel,” we ran into the cane fields and hid. The canes from the field were sharp and as it became later in the day, our legs were covered with scratches. The stalks were not so tall that we could stand and avoid being seen, so we knelt on the ground together; I made sure that I was touching Papa every time, either his fingers or his shirt as he breathed loudly between stalks.
Other times I sat on his shoulder as we walked. The breeze was calmer from where I sat, but it was there that I noticed the people lying on the road.
“Why is everyone lying down?” I asked Papa.
“They are asleep,” he said. “You cannot sleep right now, because we have to go see Mam.”
First there were only a few, sprinkled here and there, surrounded by dark red puddles. Then on some roads there were many. I saw an old man and woman, I saw some boys, some men, then I saw a family resting—a mother and father and four children—surrounded by a deep red color, their clothes scattered around them.
When Papa saw that the sun was setting, he looked for places for us to sleep, afraid to travel with three young girls and Torma in the middle of the night.
“We have to find somewhere before it gets dark-oh,” Brother James said.
“I know. I looking,” Papa said.
“What you looking for?” I asked Papa as I sat on his shoulders and surveyed the countryside.
He thought hard.
“A house,” he said.
“An-nen we will go see Mam?” K asked. “We will go to our house?”
“Our house?” Wi asked excitedly.
He waited again.
“No. Another house,” he said. “But then we will go back.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Be strong for Papa. Be strong, yeh? Tell me … tell me the story of Jonah.”
“Once upon a time there was a man,” Wi said, smiling.
“—from Ninevah!” I interrupted her.
“He ran from God and the big big whale swallowed him.”
“A real whale?” K asked, always, although she had heard the story countless times.
“A house!” Brother James said.
“Where?” Papa asked.
“There,” he said, pointing to a house that sat like an ant separated from its colony, tired of wandering, waiting alone to die.
By the time we reached the house, it was almost night and I could barely make out the faces of my family. The small house sat about fifty yards from the road. The front door was opened, the windows were shattered, and broken pieces of glass covered the porch where a rocking chair moved slowly in the evening breeze.
“Wait here with them,” Papa said to Ol’ Ma as he and Brother James headed into the house.
“I want go,” I said.
“Stay here with Ma,” he said sternly. Papa and Brother James lumbered through the unkempt grass. They disappeared behind the distressed wood.
“What they looking for?” Wi asked, pulling Torma’s hand.
“Rebels,” Torma said.
“What rebels?” Wi asked.
Papa ran out of the house and back to the road.
“Come,” he said, picking up K. We followed him through the yard. He kicked the broken glass out of our way and we plodded across the porch and into the house.
“Hold my hand,” he said. Ma held his hand and mine, I held Torma’s, and Torma held Wi’s. Linked, we moved through the dark house to a back corner where moonlight bled through.
“It stinks,” I said, wrinkling my nose to what smelled like molded cheese.
“Torma, go try find running water,” Ma whispered.
“Where? You want me find well?” Torma asked.
“No, just find kitchen.”
“Come,” Papa told her and she hesitantly walked with him out of the room. “Stay here with Brother James,” he told us. We found the corner of the room beneath the moonlight, where we sat near Brother James and hugged Ma in the dark. We heard a flow of water in the other room.
“Sounds like they found water,” Brother James said under his breath and stood up, but remembering that we were alone in the room, he paced around where we sat until Papa returned.
“Water is there. Torma will wash the clothes and when she finishes James and I will wash.”
“Oh praise God,” Ma said.
We followed her in the dark toward the sound of the running water.
During the day we walked, during the night Papa and Brother James found old, abandoned houses for us to sleep in. They always came back to the road to get us, and we entered the dark houses and slept close to Ol’ Ma, as the sounds of panic and unrest shook the roads nearby. One day, Papa took longer than usual to return to the road.
“Maybe I should go in,” Torma said as we waited together for Papa and Brother James to return.
“No,” Ma answered her. “You hear that?”
We became quiet and could then hear a voice that was neither Papa nor Brother James.
“I should go,” Torma said louder.
“Pray the devil back to hell,” Ma whispered, pulling us all toward her. “No, wait here with them,” she told Torma.
Ma went toward the house. She searched the yard and picked up a large stick from the trash on the front lawn.
“Shh,” Torma said as our whimpers formed, although I felt her arms shudder as she hugged us.
Ma prayed out loud as she tiptoed toward the door with the stick in her hand.
“Oh God come be with us-oh,” she said. “God come help us-oh, God come give me strength-oh.”
As Ma staggered to the porch, Papa finally appeared. Taken aback, he laughed when he saw her with the stick. She angrily threw it back into the grass and squeezed her lappa.
“What you take so long for?” she yelled at him.
We ran to them and Papa put his arm around Ma.
“Sorry,” he said, “but look.”
From the darkness, a family of four emerged onto the porch.
“They were hiding here and thought we were rebels,” Papa said.
“Ay-yah,” Ma said, shaking the woman’s hand. She touched her palm to the woman’s face, as if she had known her for a very long time.
“Hello, Ol’ Ma,” the woman said.
The woman looked Torma’s age and wore a dress with short sleeves that revealed her arms, which looked like two long sticks. They had two sons, boys the same height who looked older than my sisters and me and looked as if they had been punished for a crime only the worst people would commit.
“What happened to your eye?” I asked one of the boys when I noticed that one of his eyes was swollen shut.
“Apollo,” his mother said.
“Apollo?” I asked.
“Something you get from being in the sun for long,” Papa said tapping my shoulder to be quiet. “The people call it apollo.”
“How long you all been here?” Ol’ Ma asked them.
“Two days. I want his eye to get well before we leave again,” the man said.
“Where you people from?” the father asked.
“Caldwell,” Papa answered. “And you?”
“Bong County,” he said.
This house did not have a smell. It did not feel abandoned, either; it felt as though the family was welcoming us in as guests to a place that had been theirs for a long time.
“Where you all going?” the man asked Papa.
“We trying reach the north border. I hear the rebels them not there much yet. We want to go to Sierra Leone,” he answered. “And you?”
“That’s where we were headed but we turned around. We will try to make it to Guinea instead,” the father said. “I heard on the road they’re not letting men cross into Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone government doesn’t want to risk letting rebels or spies in and spreading the war.”
It was dark but I could almost see Papa’s disappointment.
“Not letting people in?” Brother James asked.
“No,” the man said, certainly. “It’s risky for them, so only women and children for now.”
“We will turn around? To go where?” Torma asked.
“Nah-mah,” Ol’ Ma said. “Gus, we can go to Lai then.”
Papa turned to her.
“Lai?” he asked.
Ol’ Ma nodded and pulled me close, hugging my shoulder. Lai was a village hidden by the forests. It was Ol’ Ma’s village—where she lived before meeting Ol’ Pa, before moving into the city so they could find work and educate Mam and her sisters. Mam says they took us all to Lai as babies, to show Ol’ Ma’s family, but we had not visited since, though Mam and her sisters, my aunts, talked about it often.
In order to get to Lai, Mam once said, we would have to travel on a canoe. She told me that I would enjoy this canoe, because the canoe traveled along a lake so clear that we would see our reflections, and every hair on our head could be counted on the face of the water.
“That’s where the Ol’ Pa and the others in Logan Town probably hiding. And the rebels won’t find it,” Ol’ Ma added. “We will have to find somebody to take us in the canoe.”
“Yes, we can go to Lai then,” Papa nodded, as if the idea were his, and I could tell he was still thinking. “We will wait for a few weeks for the boys to get out of Monrovia.”
“And you will go back? Liberia won’t be same for long time-oh!” the man said.
“We will see,” Papa said. “But Lai is good choice. Rebels will not find it easily.”
Papa continued his conversation with the man and Brother James, and we moved to the back of the room and sat down on a floor near the window.
“I have apple,” the woman said, rushing to a corner where a dim glare from an old lantern provided us light.
“We found some here. You all want?” she asked.
We looked at Ol’ Ma and waited for her. When she nodded her head, we grabbed the apples and devoured them. They were so sweet. So delicious. The woman smiled at Torma.
“How old are they?” she asked.
“This one just turned four, and these two are five and six,” Ol’ Ma answered. “Their mother is in America.”
“Oh,” the woman said, examining our clothes, as if she gathered that we were from the city. She pulled the son with the swollen eye close to her and stroked his head. The boy’s eye watered and he sniffed. They were all dry with hunger and exhaustion, beaten by the war outside. I wondered if we looked the same way.
“How old?” Ol’ Ma asked her.
“Nine and seven,” the woman answered, then without warning began to cry.
“Ay-yah. Nah-mah,” Ol’ Ma said softly. “This thing, like all bad things. It will end soon.”
Her sons just stared at her helplessly, as if they were used to her crying and knew that nothing could be done but to wait.
“I know, I pray for it,” the woman said. “I had another. But …”
Ol’ Ma pressed her hand against her heart. She waited for the woman to continue.
The mother said that her other son was thirteen years old and she was at home with her sons three weeks before when the rebels invaded their county. Her husband was not at home when she saw others leaving, when she saw them packing their belongings and fleeing on the roads. Some people were headed to Guinea, and others decided they would walk toward Monrovia since the rebels had not reached there yet, and they hoped the dragon’s men could possibly fight and defeat the uprising. She was not sure which way to go and was afraid her husband would not know where to find her, so she stayed in the house. When she heard the caravan of rebels close by, she told her sons to hide around the house, in the kitchen and in the bathroom, and she tried to hide under the bed, but two rebels found her. She became silent then and her tears were more abundant.
“Nah-mah,” Ol’ Ma said.
“What happened when the rebels came?” I asked. “What happened?”
“They were unkind,” Ol’ Ma said. “They hurt her.”
“It was too long. I don’t know how long and my own son, the thirteen-year-old, he came in the room and told them he would go with them if they left me alone. So they took him and I cried for him to stay but he went with them. The next day my husband came back and we left but I don’t know what happened to my son. My husband said the rebels will force him to fight. But he is no fighter. He is a gentle boy. Brave but gentle. Now I don’t know what happened to him.”
“Ay God,” Ol’ Ma said and murmured a prayer for the woman. I wondered whether, if Mam was there, if she would hide like the woman did. I was happy she was not there, because I did not want the rebels to hurt her if they found her. But if they tried to, I would be like the woman’s son and run to where she was and hug her, and tell them not to hurt Mam.
“I hear it will take long for them to move the rebels,” I could hear the man say to Papa. “The people say leave the country until Taylor and the rebels move Doe from the mansion.”
“For true?” Brother James said.
“Yeh.”
“They want Doe to surrender. Taylor came with plenty boys,” the man said. Papa opened his mouth but nothing came out. He wanted to argue as he always did when the dragon’s name came up, I could tell. But he could not.
Papa listened to us talk to God that night and breathed into the wincing shadows on the wall. Afterward, he, Brother James, and the man walked to the front door. I fell asleep to their whispers near the entrance and woke up to the same.
SIX
My eyes were heavy and I could not look at the sun because it was no longer yellow like in our picture books with dancing girls and boys who held hands around a world too small for people it looked orange from where I stood and it burned when I looked up and so I did not orange in a white sky made my eyes heavy and because I could not look at the sun since I could not envision my face in the clouds with purple and orange barrettes bouncing up and down on a couch I should not have been bouncing up and down was a restless head or Popsicles or sunflowers or other things the clouds never made I stopped but they commanded that I keep walking and I did since stopping would mean spending more than three seconds near the sleeping bodies with frozen faces the boy with the bright blue shirt the ones who striped the streets
and seeded the farm roads with no destination in sight but tears that fell under an open sun we walked and did not know where we were going tired the heat and betrayed by nightly prayers unanswered it seemed and “Where we going?” I asked and nowhere was their answer though it did not make sense that we were making such a fuss on a journey that was not somewhere and “Where is Mam?” I asked and we are going to see her and I stopped counting the days forgot what Mam’s voice sounded like they did not know which soldiers were good and which were rebels could not hand us punishments for our whining for fear it would be our last did not know where we were going so I cut my eyes and slowed down and “Come now, keep up” is from Ol’ Ma who acted like she did not see the bodies or did not smell what smelled like blood or did not care that I had stopped walking because it hurt to look up at the orange sun and clouds that drew nothing but rain my left shoe fell off and I wanted Ol’ Ma to notice but she did not so I kicked off my right shoe and it hit her heel in front of me and she turned around but instead of picking up my shoe and demanding the entire caravan to “STOP AT ONCE” walking to this nowhere she pulled my hand to keep up with her and “Come now, keep up” sounded like those guns beating against something too hard as we strolled between those men and women like crooked lines and shapes sleeping they told us dreaming of heaven now they told us under the open sun my feet were bare and I did not tell Papa because I was afraid he would not know what to say I did not tell Wi or K because I was afraid they would tell Papa so I walked—with Papa and the girls and Ma and Torma and two pastors and a neighbor and some members of our church under an orange sun and clouds to nowhere we were walking I was barefoot down this dusty road of bodies and the boy with the bright blue shirt and broken stories and pretending they all and none of them were there Pastor Brown pointed to something approaching us in the distance it was a tank they said it was a tank and in one second my frail body was in two places one was on the road one was jumping over the bodies gone to heaven now two and I was we were off the road and my bare feet were being dragged through a muddy field and (where were my shoes) as K cried and I wondered what I did to the sun for it to hate me as it did and the monstrous stalks were slapped with bullets and talking leaves said run and do not look back and blood poured out of the bottom of my feet as thorns pushed their way in and running and running and Papa was moving so fast and pulling my hand that the muddy waters were now my pool my baptism into one second past girlhood past innocence past things the clouds never made and my feet lost the ground beneath me so my knees now ran along with Papa and water now ran along my face and the lace at the bottom of my dress got left somewhere behind me with my shoes and the tank and my girlhood and the shooting that did not stop but came toward me under the open orange suns and clouds that said nothing more than rain.
