by Ishmael Beah
Of all the dancers, Sila was the best, and he danced by himself to every song. Sweat soaked and dried on his body and he didn’t care. Benjamin and Bockarie spotted Colonel at some point during the night. He wore a red baseball hat, the brim disguising his face, and was dressed quite well, better than how they remembered him. He wore a plain white untucked long-sleeve shirt with a tie hanging loosely on his neck. He came close to Kula, and with his back facing her, he said, “Thank you for taking care of the others. They tell me they have never eaten food as sweet as yours.”
“You are welcome. Who are you?” Kula said, knowing well that it could be several people telling her those words. Colonel started dancing and used a move to turn around and raise the brim of his hat for a quick reveal.
“I thought I saw a smile there. Did I, young man?” She turned briefly to her husband to tell him, and by the time she turned back, Colonel, as usual, had disappeared.
He went that night to see Mama Kadie to tell her she could count on him for anything she needed.
“Thank you, Kpoyeh, or Nestor. Which one do you like these days?” she said with a smile, and he responded, “Whichever it is that you choose, I accept.”
He spoke calmly. Kpoyeh means “salt water,” and he was given that name because salt water doesn’t allow anything to stay inside it, it would throw it out. And Nestor because the registrar of his birth name couldn’t pronounce or write his original name and he had looked up Nestor and loved the meanings behind it.
Close to 5:00 a.m. the gates were let open so that all could pour in and see the musician who had come from the capital. Everyone knew his songs, and one in particular called “Yesterday Betteh Pass Tiday” (Yesterday Was Better than Today) caused an uproar of excitement. People came alive perhaps for the truth in the song that they knew of so intimately but could never find the right words to communicate to themselves. They danced and shook the earth from its core so that even disturbed ghosts became merrier.
The last song spoke to all the men, women, and youngsters who struggled every day to make something of their lives. The song was called “Fen Am” (Find It) and it encouraged people to rise up every day and go look for opportunities. Even though they were tired of going around all day, and mostly for nothing, they shouldn’t give up. The lyrics went on:
There is no hand of food for an idler
I will not do anything bad but I will try and make it
And later, the song went on cautioning that one shouldn’t envy what others have, whether wealth or possession, because you do not know how they acquired such things.
The night prolonged its last muscles of darkness as the song blared on, sung with equal vigor by the musician and the crowd that hung on to every word of it. The nostalgia of that night had already settled within them as they walked home crooning the words of “Yesterday Was Better than Today.”
“I am coming with you to work today, man. I start today! I will see you at the junction soon,” Bockarie told his friend and pulled his wife’s exhausted body home. Benjamin just conjured a laugh and patted his friend’s shoulder, knowing full well he couldn’t say anything.
Bockarie was the happiest fellow that morning in the vehicle and with the cleanest overalls. He was dropped off at the mining site and waved off Benjamin, who was carried to the dredge.
Bockarie was being trained how to test soil samples and determine what minerals were in them. While he was learning to test the samples, one of his coworkers pulled out some interesting-looking stones, really big, from the soil samples. The bosses who monitored them on camera announced, through the speakers, that he should come to their office and bring with him the stones and soil samples. He never returned. No one ever saw him again or knew what happened to him. After searching for him unsuccessfully for many months, his wife and child left Imperi. The only thing Bockarie remembered was that shortly after the man was called out of the sampling area, a truck with armed guards came by, something was quickly loaded in the back, the doors slammed shut, and the vehicle departed. From that day on, when Bockarie and Benjamin returned from work they didn’t say much about what they did. The only gratitude they expressed, and they did so to please their wives, was that they would make a little more money than they had, and that thought was enough to hold the forced smiles on their faces longer than their hearts wanted.
The elders were not happy.
They wanted Benjamin and Bockarie to return to teaching because they felt the mining company would take their strength and dull their spirits. For a while, the two men did still teach some lessons, but their zeal dwindled, and the students, sensing the tiredness and disinterest of their teachers, stopped coming. The households of Benjamin and Bockarie got quieter as the number of days they worked for the company increased. Each of them only wanted to be left alone after work.
“Father, how come you don’t read anymore and those big and tall boys don’t come here with their books?” Thomas asked his father one evening while Bockarie sat alone on the veranda concealing with the darkness whatever emotions had taken hold of his face.
“Go back inside and do your homework.” Bockarie’s response used to be an invitation to sit near him, and he would explain things to his youngest son and read to him. Now, the boy dragged his feet inside, and his mother knew what had happened. Oumu, Thomas’s precocious twin sister, always remedied such situations. She went out on the veranda, wrapped her little arms around her father, and climbed on his lap.
“Father, Mother said you are the best teacher ever. So I want you to be my only teacher when I am in secondary school. You have to promise. And Grandfather said you are losing your strength for others. But I think you will have some to teach me when I am big…” She went on until her father finally smiled, and it was not a false one. He promised to teach her. She ran back inside to tell everyone, and they could hear Bockarie laughing on the veranda while Oumu recounted what he had agreed to. He stood by the door, watching his family, then turned to join his father, who always sat outside waiting for the cool breeze that came in abundance when the night was much quieter.
“My son the teacher, mining worker. Sit with your father and share the breeze.” Pa Kainesi knocked on the wooden bench next to him.
“In every person’s life you acquire lots of titles for the things you do. Yours so far are ‘teacher’ and ‘mining worker.’ However many you acquire, there is one that always fits you best because it brings sweetness to your spirit. You seem troubled these days, my son.”
“Everything is all right, Father. Work isn’t what I thought, but the money is slightly better and comes on time.”
“Your eyes, your movements do not say things are all right. Perhaps we mustn’t pry. Just be sure not to lose yourself completely to this hand-to-mouth business.” The old man held his son’s hands and they chatted into the night. Their laughter drifted into the house and made Kula and the children happy. Pa Kainesi’s face glowed, and his cheeks, which had tensed, relaxed. At some point, Bockarie took his father’s hand and placed it on his cheeks. He had loved the feel and warmth of his father’s hands when he was a child, before life’s worries came along, before the war.
* * *
Bockarie decided to walk home one evening after his shift ended. He had been missing the walk that he made when he was a teacher. It had allowed him to see and greet others more than he did nowadays. Though he was exhausted, and the dust was particularly heavy, he slowly made his way home along the road.
A few minutes into the walk he heard someone running up behind him. “Teacher, Teacher, why art thou so pensive? Are you lecturing to the road or perhaps to the dust?” The giggling belonged to Benjamin, who put his right arm around his friend’s shoulders. They made jokes about the principal, who was still angry with Benjamin and looking for ways to get his ledger back.
“I swear, one time he wanted to run me over with his motorcycle at the junction. I think it was only because some other people showed up that he changed direction.” Benjamin hum
med with disbelief.
“Where is that ledger, anyway?”
“I think I lost the thing, man! I was moving it from place to place because I was worried about someone else finding it. But the principal doesn’t know that,” Benjamin said. They made way for the truck that carried the rutile mineral to the docks. The driver waved to them.
“That’s Rogers! So he’s a driver now? That explains why I haven’t seen him at work in a while.” Benjamin turned to Bockarie and was about to ask a question when they heard a loud sound followed by the wailing of a woman. They ran toward the cry.
A woman sat on the earth holding the body of a little boy in her arms. He had been trying to run across the street to his mother, and because of the height of the truck, Rogers hadn’t seen him. The left front tire had knocked the boy down, dragging his body under, and the double right back tire had flattened him to the ground. The truck had galloped a bit as it went over the boy, so Rogers had stopped to see what had happened. He stepped down, shaking. His eyes saw what had occurred. Some of the boy’s bones had ripped through his skin. The mother’s face was instantly rugged with sorrow. Rogers was on the radio calling for help. Somehow the boy was still breathing. The voice from the radio instructed him to get in the truck and drive to his destination; someone would be there soon to take care of the boy.
“I will not do that. I will stay here until help arrives,” Rogers said to the voice.
“Then consider yourself suspended until further notice,” the voice responded, and the radio went silent. In a matter of minutes, a Toyota with tinted glass arrived and another employee took the radio from Rogers, got into the truck, and drove it away from the scene of the accident. The back tires, soaked with blood and bits of dirt, painted the already disturbed earth with the boy’s life. The vehicle that had dropped off the new driver sped back toward the mining site, near where the hospital was, leaving the boy in the arms of his mother. Rogers told the mother they should carry the child to the hospital. He knew that help wasn’t coming—the vehicle that was supposed to take them hadn’t. The mother stood up with her son, and that was when life completely departed him. She laid the boy down carefully and sprang on Rogers, hitting him everywhere until she was exhausted. He threw his arms around her and embraced her, weeping.
“He was my only child left. I lost everyone in the war and now am alone,” she said, sobbing as she removed herself from the embrace of Rogers and picked up her son. Benjamin and Bockarie tried to help, but she wanted to carry her child herself. She walked toward the mining site. Rogers followed, not knowing what he could do.
“I wonder where she’s going,” Bockarie said.
“And Rogers, that poor fellow. Just when he was regaining himself from the death of his son,” Benjamin said. They watched the woman walking far into the middle of the road, so cars had to swerve to avoid her.
When she reached the gate at the mining site, she called for who was in charge to come out and see what they had done to her child. The security guards received orders to escort her out of the area.
No one anticipated what happened next. The woman ran with her child in her arms toward one of the electric security fences and leaned against it, electrocuting herself. A crow cried sharply nearby and the silence deepened. Something had torn in the fabric of that day. Rogers ran from the crowd toward Imperi. He didn’t go home but into the bushes, tearing off his clothes until he was naked. He never came back, but he was sighted every now and then eating raw food and roots at the edge of town. Had he gone mad, or was he punishing himself for the accident? No one knew, not even his wife, as he didn’t speak to anyone and appeared to have forgotten even his family, friends, and workmates.
As for the woman and her child, they were removed from the fence at night after the armed guards dispersed the crowd. No one knew who removed the bodies or where they were buried. There was nothing about them reported anywhere. It was as though they had never existed.
11
LESS THAN A WEEK AFTER THE INCIDENT, there were white men all over town, aided by some locals who carried their equipment. They began marking houses, trees, and the ground with paint: red, white, and yellow. Rumor had it they were geologists (those who speak to the earth to find out what it chooses to give to the living—this was the closest translation for the elders) who had determined that there were large mineral deposits under the ground of Imperi. People knew what this meant: soon their town would be bulldozed to extract the minerals. But they refused to believe it. What did the colors mean? Where were they going to go? These questions took hold of every gathering in town and even intruded on private whispers. As the confusion increased, the geologists moved into the cemetery and started marking gravestones and cutting trees.
The elders, about eight of them, decided to confront the white men, waking up early and waiting patiently at the end of the road where the path into the cemetery began. A few hours later, four white men got out of their vehicles and rubbed something on their arms, faces, and necks; they put on hats and started talking among themselves while the locals offloaded their equipment.
The elders cleared their throats. “You there, young white fellows. We have been told that you are supposed to listen to the earth and learn from it. But what you are doing is different and against those whose role is to listen to the earth,” an elder with grace and wisdom in every part of his being said to the foreigners.
“We have permission to mine anywhere we find rutile in this chiefdom,” one of the geologists said.
“Who gave you that permission?” another elder asked.
“Your government. Our company has it for ninety-nine years.”
“Even if that is the case, would you dig up your own grandfather’s or grandmother’s grave to find some minerals?” Pa Moiwa asked. The white men ignored the question.
The elders couldn’t get any more answers. They had a quick meeting standing at the entrance of the cemetery and agreed to send someone to plead with the paramount chief. They couldn’t believe that someone would lease their land for ninety-nine years with impunity and no monitoring whatsoever; they couldn’t comprehend that someone chosen as a minister or president of a country could make such a decision. Even local chiefs didn’t do that to people they knew and grew up with. However idiotic it was, a solution must be found, and there was no need to give up yet on the one who was supposed to represent them. Surely she would rail against the decision to mine where their ancestors were buried.
The paramount chief sent word back the next day that she would come to town for a meeting in two days and that until then all work on the cemetery and around town would stop. The work did stop. There was some relief in the air: finally, someone was listening.
On the day she arrived, everyone brought whatever hope and strength was left in them to the football field. It was the only space big enough to accommodate the crowd. Some men from the government came, too—their dark sunglasses and fancy cars gave them away. And of course there were the white men in charge of the company, escorted by their armed guards and police.
“Finally, we can have a discussion together about this land,” someone shouted, and the people clapped and chanted old slogans about solidarity.
The paramount chief took the megaphone and the chanting died down. “We have had meetings with your section chiefs and they will tell you the details, but here is what we’ve decided: this town will be relocated. Your houses will be rebuilt elsewhere and you will be paid surface rent for your farms and properties. You must cooperate and cause no trouble for these men.” She put the megaphone down and shook hands with the government officials and the foreigners. They all seemed pleased with themselves, smiling as though they had performed a remarkable service for the many hardened faces before them.
The crowd started shouting: “We own this land! No one consulted us!” The officials, shielded from the people by their armed guards and police, got into their vehicles and left the townspeople to their quarrels. Pa Moiwa fainted and had to be
carried home. That evening, the usual layered clouds that summoned night to cloak the sky were broken into many pieces and struggled to make their call. Thus the night, too, arrived at a defeated pace that deepened the gloominess of the town. Even the birds didn’t chant; they just went quietly into their nests, as if they knew that they would soon have to find new homes.
As though the company felt that if it waited, the people would find a way to stop them, men started tearing down the cemetery a few days later.
No one knew how the machines came to the cemetery, but they were there one morning, ready to further wound the shattered backbone of the community. The armed guards and police were there as well, in full riot gear, standing by a barrier that had been made with sticks and pointing their guns at anyone who came too close or looked too hard.
The machines’ engines bellowed, releasing smoke that rose toward the morning sky and tormented the rising sun. The blades of the machines dug into the graves, pulling out bodies, skulls, and some bones still wrapped in old cotton clothes; they were all deposited in a big hole the machines had dug. People cried and shouted in vain. They apologized to the ancestors. No one had ever witnessed an entire cemetery destroyed like this.
Some people refused to believe that this was actually happening. They thought they were having a nightmare that would pass. It seemed the sun had told the moon what it had seen, because the moon refused to come out that night. There was a silence that made the dark last longer, longer than it had even during the war. The next morning, hesitantly, one after another, the townspeople went to the cemetery. The place was now a deep hole with all the graves gone and no indication that they had ever existed. The big hole where all the dead had been piled up was covered. The people left offerings there, prayed, and cried.
