Radiance of Tomorrow

by Ishmael Beah

  “I have to pick up my work supplies, so come along, my friend,” Benjamin said.

  “How did it go with the big man today?”

  “He tried to threaten me and to find out who else was part of the plot. But he got nothing!”

  “You think he suspects that I am part of it?”

  “He has nothing, and he is afraid of finding out if you are a part of it or anyone else. So do not worry. You will start work soon, anyway.” Benjamin nudged his friend. They were by the tiny fishing ponds that the company had created as one of the measures to rehabilitate the land.

  “How many ponds do you see here?” Benjamin asked, pointing to the murky water and the weary fish that swam from one end to the other with unnatural movements of their fins, a clear indication that they wanted out.

  “No more than five.”

  “Have you ever had fish from this pond?”

  “No, and I do not know of anyone who has.”

  “They say these ponds are to grow fish for the people whose rivers they have destroyed, but these fishes aren’t even enough to feed a child for a day.” Benjamin laughed.

  “Why grow barracuda in a country that has more of that fish than it can eat? And you will be working for these people?” Bockarie’s sarcasm made his friend smile.

  “Yes! And so will you. And we must hurry before the supply store closes.”

  When Benjamin returned ten minutes later, he carried a duffel bag of his new work materials, and his new ID card dangled around his neck. Bockarie patted his friend on the shoulder to congratulate him. They then sat by the wire fence and Benjamin went through the bag, showing Bockarie his blue overall uniform, yellow hard hat, and black boots that were heavier than any shoes either of them had ever worn. The company insignia with the head of a lion, in a distorted form, was on the hat and the bag. Benjamin put his hat on as they embarked on the last miles home. People smiled at him when they passed. They encountered an old man who said, “You are teacher no more. Will that hat protect your head?” The old man laughed sarcastically.

  They parted to their various homes. Bockarie briefly told his family about Benjamin’s news and he settled near his kerosene lamp to correct papers and prepare the lessons for the next day. For the first time, he felt a strong distaste for what he was doing and had to struggle through it. He couldn’t stop thinking about starting work for the mining company. Even though he didn’t know what the work entailed, the prospect of additional and steady income was enough to forgo teaching. Kula sensed the change in her husband’s mood. She took most of the papers from under his hand and corrected them herself.

  When she was done, she handed him the papers and walked slowly to make sure that his eyes found the enticing qualities of her body. “You are still a teacher, and you will be for your children always. Never try to write it off. I am going to the bedroom now and need your instructions, teacher Bockarie!” He followed her.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Benjamin and Fatu had just put their children to bed and were happily discussing what they would do with the additional money. They agreed to save and build a house. Benjamin insisted that Fatu should re-enroll in the nursing studies that she had abandoned because they had no money.

  It was a night filled with dreams of what was to come. Dreams were still possible here even though the paths to attain them weren’t necessarily the best ones. But who can ever know what path to walk on when all of them are either crooked or broken? One just has to walk.

  10

  BENJAMIN WAS AWAKE BEFORE 5:00 A.M., the time the alarm was set to go off. He switched on his flashlight and looked through his old notes and lesson plans while in bed, not wanting to get out just yet; wanting to avoid waking Fatu. He read:

  “During this lesson, teach them how to absorb knowledge as opposed to just memorizing. Teach them to become individual thinkers and not part of the majority that agrees with what is popular—afraid to stand alone in their thinking.” He chuckled at the optimism he had had, at his certainty of the positive impact he could have on his students. He still believed in those words but no longer had faith in how to teach them to others, especially here in Imperi … in his country … on earth, in general. Fatu rolled in her sleep and Benjamin turned off the flashlight and didn’t move. She fell back to sleep. He resumed reading his notes until it was time for Fatu to rise. She went to the fireplace and boiled water, cooled it down to the right temperature, and called on her husband to wash up. Afterward, she sat with him, caressing his face as he ate the chicken stew and rice that she had specially made the night before and had warmed up while Benjamin was washing. Some of the neighbors who didn’t sleep well and were wondering about how to keep their families alive for yet another day found the smell of the stew tormenting. They rolled around in their beds, covering their noses with bedclothes that didn’t smell of any sort of promise. That was a good place to start the day: where the dosages of disappointments were in abundance.

  When he was fully dressed in his new overalls, hard hat, boots, and socks, Benjamin practiced walking, going forward and backward in front of his wife, whose smile competed with the brightness of the flames from the fire. After he had allowed his feet to grow familiar enough with the new socks and boots, the shiny black body of the boots that signified a worker for the mining company, he remarked, “Well, I think I have made a dent in them and they know who I am now.”

  Benjamin smiled at Fatu. His expression told that he was ready for work, whatever it entailed.

  “Let me go and say goodbye to the children.” He walked into the room where they slept.

  “Don’t wake them,” Fatu whispered. Benjamin sat on his heels and placed his palms on the foreheads of his children, pulled the cloth properly over their little bodies, and walked outside.

  Fatu was ready with a bucket in one arm and she held her husband’s hand in the other. They walked to the junction where the other men waited to be picked up for work. As soon as they saw the couple, the men began laughing because they, too, remembered their first day of work and the anticipated joy that was within them.

  “You smell fresh, my man! One always smells fresh of everything on the first day,” Rogers greeted Benjamin.

  Benjamin was surprised to see Rogers. After his son had stepped on the live wire that the company had left exposed, Rogers had withdrawn himself from social gatherings.

  “Good to see you, sir,” said Benjamin and shook Rogers’s hand.

  Fatu hugged her husband and went on her way to the river. The truck arrived and the men jumped in the back. The benches were as hard as the bed of the truck and Benjamin’s new overalls had already started getting dirty. He tried wiping his boots and parts of his overalls with his handkerchief. The men laughed.

  “Don’t waste your time,” Rogers said. “As soon as you get into this vehicle, all that was shiny becomes dusty and dirty. Soon you will only smell of chemicals.”

  As the truck sped down the road, the dust and stones chasing it and eventually catching up with it, Benjamin began to realize why the overalls and the hard hats were needed even before getting to work.

  The vehicle didn’t go to the mining site. It went past it, weaving its way through endless dams, which got bigger and bigger in size, and the earth got redder, exposing its wounds, and the men got quieter. Their laughter grew forced as they accepted the final banter of the morning. The truck halted at a large clearing in the middle of the dams that could be seen miles and miles in the distance. Once there had been forests here. Now the forests had been pushed back to the green mountains afar. Other vehicles were unloading. The men greeted one another and soon the clearing was filled with chatter.

  “Which is the dredge and which is the plant?” Benjamin asked a fellow standing next to him. He pointed at the plant that looked like an iron house with several floors floating on the water, and the dredge, a similar structure, but one that also resembled Caterpillar machinery, as it had zigzagged teeth in the front of it for digging.

&nbs
p; I wonder which one I will be going to, Benjamin thought. The white workers arrived shortly in their white Toyotas, and the lively conversation stopped abruptly. The locals who were supervisors abandoned the men they had been chatting with and took on an air of superiority as they approached the foreign bosses.

  “Form lines here and here—now,” one of the supervisors shouted at his companions, who filed in, foreigners in the front, local supervisors behind them, followed by the rest of the workers. Benjamin picked one of the lines, his mind anxious about what waited for him with this work.

  Two low-lying barges approached the banks of the dam so loaded with men that if any of them dropped his hands to his sides, they would drag in the water. One barge was from the plant connected to the dredge with a row of iron buckets that spun around. The other came from the dredge. The men, some with faces darker than their real skin, dismounted the barges and filled the empty vehicles, which took off.

  The foreigners got on the barges and a local supervisor directed the rest of the workers to one barge or the next. Benjamin was told to board the barge headed for the dredge. On the boat were some of his former students. They nodded in his direction. Once, he had lectured them about the importance of getting an education. Now he felt slightly ashamed, but he brushed that feeling away.

  The engine halted and the body of the boat smacked the side of the dredge. One after the other and as quickly as possible the men climbed the iron steps to the main deck. The white men immediately went to offices outfitted with two-way mirrors overlooking the entire operations, leaving the supervisors to take charge. Benjamin looked around. Everywhere were warning signs that read DANGER. They were so plentiful he knew right away he must be on his guard at all times. Some signs were wordless: they just showed a skeleton imposed on a red stop sign.

  The noise was too much. One of Benjamin’s students handed him little things and indicated that they were to be pushed into his ears. He did, and the noise got slightly better.

  “You are new, yes?” one of the supervisors shouted.

  Before Benjamin could answer, he shouted again, “Come with me.” Benjamin followed and was stationed near some pipes to observe the iron buckets that carried the soaked minerals and, if they were out of place, to align them.

  “Your training starts. Focus, my good man.” The supervisor snapped his fingers to get Benjamin’s full attention. “Tell me, Mr. Teacher, where can you find work in this country that pays you while in training?” He patted Benjamin on the shoulder and left.

  Benjamin wanted to ask questions but the supervisor was already gone, walking through the iron steps, on the pipes through the moving parts of the dredge with so much ease it was as though he was on land.

  “Here. Take this and I will supervise you for a bit. It is my break, so don’t worry.” Another of Benjamin’s former students handed him clear goggles and leaned against one of the iron posts that held a ladder.

  “Any pointers for a novice?” Benjamin asked.

  “Always make sure to wear your goggles and gloves. Also, carefully pay attention to where you lean or what you hold on to because a good number of these pipes and metals are hot. I mean really hot. So hot that if you touch them the only thing they won’t burn are your bones. They will leave marks on them, though.”

  “Does most of the work require standing for most of the eight hours or more?”

  “Yes, Teacher. You only rest during short breaks and lunch, but you will get used to it. It gets easier if you work near a fellow who likes to tell stories and jokes!” The young man wiped sweat off his forehead. He followed the distracted eyes of his teacher and saw that he was looking at two men praying. Both recited the Islamic prayer first, the Al-Fatiha, facing where the sun rose. They followed with the Lord’s Prayer. They hesitated and then entered a work area where flames leapt out.

  “What was that about?” Benjamin asked his student.

  “Some people do that before they go into the most dangerous work areas. We say around here that it is so dangerous you have to do two or more prayers—because hopefully, at least one of them will get God’s attention!”

  He laughed. And just as he did a loud and painful sound ripped the air. It came from the place the two men had just entered. One emerged, his overalls partially on fire, his flesh severely burnt on one side from his armpit all the way down to his waist. His hands and face looked as though the fire had sucked flesh from his bones. Men laid him on a cold pipe and rubbed wet sand on his burnt skin, the areas that still had skin. Someone shut off whatever gave the flames life, and all the men, including Benjamin and his student, rubbed their heads together as they huddled to see what had happened. There was blood in the small area and the corpse of the other man. His right hand was still caught in the zigzag teeth of the machine that continued spinning his body around and around. The supervisor’s radio went off and he held it to his ears. “Yes, sir,” he said, looking up toward the offices covered with mirrors.

  “Back to work, everybody. Now,” he shouted, and the men dispersed back to their workstations. The former student who had kept Benjamin company patted him on the back and they went their separate ways. It wasn’t lunchtime yet and Benjamin wondered what else the day would bring—perhaps something good to make up for having already claimed a life.

  * * *

  At school, Bockarie was daydreaming about starting work. He wondered what Benjamin was doing. He envied him, the freedom from the boredom Bockarie now felt. The mood on campus was getting stiffer. The one man who always managed a smile, the principal, had been in a bad mood lately and no longer gave his motivational speeches.

  As Bockarie’s students quietly worked on their essays, he reached inside his new-employee bag and felt the overalls, the boots, the hard hat. Their brand-new smell filled his nose. He would start work in three days and couldn’t wait.

  * * *

  That evening, Bockarie canceled the lessons on his veranda because a musician was coming to town. Kula, Benjamin, Fatu, and Bockarie had arranged to go dancing. As he sat on his veranda quickly correcting papers so he could get ready for the night out, Bockarie looked up and saw Benjamin returning from his first day of work. Benjamin’s overalls and face were completely blackened.

  Beaming, Bockarie leapt up and gave his friend a handshake. “So how was it, man?”

  Benjamin wanted to tell his friend about what had happened at work but Bockarie seemed too happy. So he responded instead with a question. “Has there been a funeral in town today?”

  Benjamin’s question didn’t make sense to Bockarie. “No. What are you talking about?”

  Benjamin blanketed his face with a smile that was weak underneath. “Work was exhausting but great, man. I am getting paid while in training for the work that I will be doing!”

  “I cannot wait to start, man. So we dance tonight!” Bockarie hit his friend’s shoulder and began walking backward to his veranda, giving his friend time to go see his family.

  Benjamin waved him off, still smiling but consumed with thoughts about what had happened to the body of the man who had died at work. Why does no one know about it? What would happen to the man’s family?

  He walked home maintaining a smile on his face, for his wife and children. I am lucky to have a job that pays me a little more, he thought, forcing the smile to become even wider as he saw Fatu waiting for him on the veranda. She had plaited and oiled her hair and made herself quite beautiful for him. She wore a green embroidered dress with palm tree patterns at the hem, and the children stood by their mother with clean and shiny skin from the Vaseline lotion, in traditional outfits of light cotton with patterns of African heroes.

  “Welcome home, dear. I am so happy, and how was your first day of work?” She pulled a chair for her husband to settle down.

  “Welcome home, Father! We wish you a pleasant evening and thank you for your hard work!” The children had rehearsed this all afternoon. Giggling, they hugged their father and ran off to do their homework.


  “It was nothing a former teacher couldn’t handle. We are blessed.” He smiled even harder to make sure the pretend happiness on his face didn’t fade.

  “We are going to celebrate tonight, so you must wash up. Leave the overalls there and I will rinse them.” Fatu went to the fireplace to prepare the hot water for him.

  “Thank you, my dear, but you mustn’t worry yourself about the overalls. They will only get dirty again tomorrow. They must only be washed when my nose cannot tolerate the smell!” He laughed and she shook her head at how funny her husband always was.

  At the back of the house, he couldn’t enjoy throwing calabashes full of hot water on his head and body. The soap stayed on his skin longer and his hands forgot what to do, his second-nature motions intruded on by thoughts of what had happened at work. How could he bring this up when all his fellow workers kept quiet? On the way back to Imperi, everyone had gone about his banter as if nothing had happened. He seemed to be the only one tormented. Perhaps such things had become common occurrences for them? The dust that chased the truck on the way back from work now seemed to have a brutality about it. The stones that flew up with such determination now seemed to Benjamin to want to hit the workers.

  On the truck, another worker came over and told him, “If you take everything to heart like this you won’t last. Trust me, brother, there has been worse, way worse.” And then he’d sat back down, his body dancing to the rhythm of the galloping vehicle.

  “This is the longest washing you have ever done. What must you be doing there?” Fatu’s voice woke Benjamin from his torment. He hurriedly finished so that he could eat and get ready to meet Bockarie and the others for the disco that night.

  Everyone—Benjamin and Fatu, Bockarie and Kula, and several others from town—was in high spirits as they walked to the secondary school field that had been shielded by sticks and thatch to make a dancing hall under the stars. A long cloth hung over the entrance to keep away the eyes of those who couldn’t afford this simple luxury. Still, young boys and girls hung about outside, enjoying the music, even if every so often the shouts of excitement coming from inside made them detest their youthfulness, which meant pennilessness, which meant they couldn’t go into the dance space. Inside, Benjamin, Fatu, Bockarie, Kula, and most of the people from Imperi and surrounding areas danced like there was no tomorrow. The intoxicating music, the good company, and the local brew that flowed in abundance slowly overshadowed Benjamin’s torment.