by Ishmael Beah
“When will Mr. Matturi, Fatu, and family arrive?” Bockarie asked during their conversation.
“He called to tell me to take care of you. He will arrive with everyone when the time fits and said to tell you not to worry.” Mr. Saquee gave a reassuring nod. In that moment, they heard a commotion down the road. A young man came flying past with a group of young men shouting after him, “Catch that thief! Thief man!”
“Well, welcome!” Mr. Saquee said with a laugh. “That should be a way to close the night. Let’s hope they do not catch him.”
Bockarie wanted to ask why Mr. Saquee hoped that a thief would get away, but he didn’t. He was new to Freetown and would discover many things that at first did not make sense.
“Good evening, sirs,” a young fellow greeted them, standing under the stoop of the veranda. They answered with suspicion.
“My name is Pastor Stevens and I am going to pray for your financial success this evening, to ask the lord to open your financial gate.” The man began to pray. When he finished, he put out his hand, asking Bockarie and Mr. Saquee for some money.
“Young man, you should have prayed for your own financial gate to be opened first. Ours has just closed. Thank you, though, and God bless you, too!” Mr. Saquee tried to suppress his laugher. The fellow turned on his heel and walked into the night, leaving them two flyers. The first read, “Come to the national stadium and learn how to invest in next world (life after death).” The second, “Put u money na bank to Jesus” (Put your money in the bank of Jesus).
“Everyone is trying to believe in something these days, and they forget that miracles happen every day when we truly acknowledge the humanity of another or just have a simple, pure conversation with someone else.” Mama Kadie would have said this truth, Bockarie thought, and he knew that his family’s safe arrival in Freetown was nothing short of a miracle, a blessing.
* * *
As he slowly dragged his feet toward the room to search for sleep, Bockarie’s mind was consumed with what the following day would bring. There were questions about life in the city with his family; about his father, whom he had left behind. He wondered how Benjamin’s family was faring. He leaned his back against the door and stared into the dark night with strong eyes, as though wanting to leave his burden outside, then he gave the door a powerful shove. He nearly fell into the room. He heard a thud, followed by groan, a hissing, then a sniffle. He waited a bit to see which of his children he had hit, but the room was too dark to see Manawah, clutching his head and clenching his teeth. In pain, but not wanting his father to feel badly, the boy quietly moved his body closer to his brothers and away from the door, as Bockarie shut it and tiptoed around the children, his hands stretched in front of him to find the bed.
Manawah couldn’t sleep that night. Rolling around on the cold cement floor, he searched for a spot to lay the side of his head that pulsated so badly, but the cool of the floor did nothing to stop the swelling. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. He tightened his lips to hold the crying back, but it made him cough.
Bockarie was sleeping lightly and heard his son’s restlessness. “Are you okay my son?” he whispered, as he got up to open the window to let some air into the hot room. Manawah pretended to sleep, and not hearing any more movements, Bockarie went back to bed.
However, they both lay awake, waiting to hear the other, and as they did they saw in the darkness a long stick making its way into the room from the outside. The stick hooked the handles of the bag that contained the little cash they had. Carefully, the stick started retreating through the window it had come in. Bockarie leapt up, grabbing the bag and pulling the stick as well. He heard someone fall by the window and the person’s heavy footsteps take off into the night. He shut the window, went back to bed, and eventually fell asleep. The next morning the family woke to see that the window had been opened again and a bag of Bockarie’s clothes was missing.
“They call it fishing—that is what the thieves call that technique of lifting things from rooms. You shouldn’t open your window at night. If you must, though, make sure things are far away from the window area.”
Mr. Saquee shook hands with Bockarie to complete their morning greetings. While the men spoke, Manawah rose and his father spied his swollen head. “I am sorry, my son. Why didn’t you tell me last night?” Bockarie held his son’s head gently and examined the wound on his forehead.
“Don’t ever hide something like this from me.” He looked into his child’s eyes with a pleading stare.
“I wanted you to sleep, Father, because of your meeting. This will go away.” Manawah lightly tapped the swelling and went to fetch water at the only pump in the neighborhood. There, the line was so long that people would leave their buckets and jerry cans and go about their morning activities, then return hours later just when it was their turn. This technique unknown to Manawah on the first morning, he stood in line for hours and each time he thought he would be next, as no other person was around, whoever’s bucket was next in line arrived just in time. When he told the story later, deeply frustrated, they found it funny. Manawah didn’t get easily frustrated.
Kula took the cassavas out of the rice bag that they were wrapped in and began peeling them. She had brought some from up-country. She cut them into pieces and hummed a quiet tune as she washed and tossed the pieces in a pot of boiling water. Soon enough she called on everyone to assemble and eat the boiled cassavas she had prepared. Mr. Saquee and his wife shared the meal, and he was ecstatic.
“It has been a while since I tasted fresh cassavas. It makes me miss my village. Thank you, Kula, hmmm.” His eyes were closed and the children giggled at how much joy this man expressed for a piece of cassava. They knew their mother was an excellent cook, but this was incredibly funny. Bockarie ate his meal quickly and headed to his meeting, leaving Kula to supervise the family as they unpacked and familiarized themselves with their new environment.
14
BOCKARIE LEFT EARLY IN ORDER TO SAVE MONEY by walking the several miles to his meeting on the other side of the city center. He clenched and opened his fists, took short breaths and clenched his jaw, and whispered repeatedly, “Grant me luck today.” He looked toward the sky.
He stepped into the main street, and as soon as he started his stroll he realized he had made the right decision not only to save money but to walk as well. The queues for passenger vehicles were so long that he would have been standing there way past his appointment time. However, he had to return home to change into a T-shirt. When he entered the room, Kula froze with the thought that this was not a good sign. She was the only one home, arranging their belongings so they would all fit in the small room. She also had a newspaper on the table and in between folding things was underlining ads for work.
“Is it already over?”
“I just came back because I need a T-shirt so that I don’t sweat in my interview shirt. You are worrying too much.” He patted her shoulder to calm her anxiety. He changed and neatly folded his dress shirt and undershirt. He then placed them gently in a black plastic bag that he carried under his arm as he readied to go out again.
“Did they all run away already?” He kissed his wife and lowered himself on the bed for a bit.
“The boys went to fetch water and Miata took the twins with her to the market and to walk around the neighborhood a bit. They wanted to do all their chores early so that they could ‘discover the city,’ as they put it.” She stopped her work and sat next to her husband.
“Do you think we made the right decision to come here?” he asked her, his head in his hands.
“We have not yet started living here and you are already giving up. Now go out there and see what share we can have of whatever luck is left.” She smiled at him while broadening her eyes for him to move on. He kissed her again and left the house in a more enthusiastic mood than when he’d headed out before. She waved him off with her newspaper. Bockarie started sweating profusely as soon as he set foot on the main road a
gain, but he kept a positive attitude to attract hope and luck his way, determination in his every stride.
There were so many people on the street where the cars were supposed to be that he had to fix himself firmly on the ground so that he was able to walk in his chosen direction. Otherwise the melee would carry him somewhere else. He saw this happen a minute before to a man who lost his son in the crowd. When a car approached the crowded street, the driver honked relentlessly, revving the engine, threatening to run people over. It was only then that the crowd opened up with just enough space for the car to pass, then filled up the open spaces, engulfing the car. Some people grumbled and shouted at the driver, “You want to kill us?”
They banged on the body of the car. “Stop blowing your horn so much.”
When another car came by whose driver didn’t honk or rev its engine, the driver was berated for not alerting the crowd. A brand-new Mercedes-Benz came into view, and as the crowd parted to let it through, some children with dirty palm-oil-laden hands and Coca-Cola bottle tops first wiped their greasy hands on the vehicle and then etched jagged lines on it with the sharp little disks as they jogged alongside. The driver got angry and jumped out, but by then the children were gone, and he was peppered with insults because his opened door impeded the flow of foot traffic.
Were the children deliberately looking to destroy cars? No. They saw them as things to play with, things to lay hands on and mark while they passed by. The motion felt good to them, and they did it to any car except police, military, presidential, and ministerial vehicles. Of course, those vehicles went by so fast they would kill you before you had a chance to lay your hands on them. And even if they slowed down, the children knew enough that they didn’t dare.
After thirty uncomfortable minutes of minding every part of his body in the crowd, Bockarie finally extricated himself from the madness. There were still a lot of people on the road as he left the city center, especially young boys and men hanging about—most of them dressed quite nicely but still just sitting around on the pavement, on packed vehicles, on anything, waiting. He passed an interestingly dressed young man who walked with so much confidence that it seemed he owned the very street he walked on. He had on nicely fitted jeans and a blue long-sleeve shirt, tucked in. On top of the blue shirt, he wore his undershirt, rather than below. This gave him a very sophisticated look, however, and his expression told anyone he passed that he was proud of this new style. Using what you have to the best of your ability, Bockarie thought.
The young man also reminded him that he had to change his T-shirt, which he did quickly on the side of the street, wiping his sweat with the shirt he’d been wearing. He walked the next few steps to a restaurant that sold local food, not the one that had white people’s food and was always crowded by foreigners and those who could afford to pay for green things on plates with names and portions that insulted the money in a poor man’s pocket. This was where he was supposed to meet a certain Mr. Kaifala.
* * *
At home Kula had marked enough employment ads in the flimsy newspapers whose pages tore as she turned them. She started calling the numbers to inquire about the jobs and hopefully make an appointment for an interview. Her first choices were nursing jobs at hospitals or clinics. Most of the numbers for these jobs had been disconnected, and the ones she managed to reach hung up on her as soon as she said that she had just arrived in the city from up-country. She wondered if coming from the interior automatically implied inexperience or unworthiness of everything in the city. No matter what the explanation was, she decided that on her next calls she would say nothing about it. Still, no one had any openings for her, or so they said, even though the ads just came out in the papers that morning. Sometimes secretaries would put her on hold and go on about their personal lives for minutes that were costly for her before retrieving the phone only to tell her that the person she needed to speak with wasn’t around.
“But you didn’t even check. I heard you on the phone talking the whole time,” she’d responded to one of them.
“I said no one is here and I know how to do my job.” The person hung up on her. Kula wanted to tell her that if she was going to waste her minutes to at least tell some interesting story about her personal life.
Manawah and Abu had returned from bathing after finishing their chores of fetching enough water for the day. They came inside to change their clothes. Kula left the room and stood by the door outside. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, trying to calm her nerves. While she waited for the boys, Miata, Oumu, and Thomas returned from the market and their wanderings. Oumu had again seen Colonel and wanted to speak to him, but he’d made a hand gesture indicating not when Miata and Thomas were around. She wanted to tell her mother but then thought if Colonel wanted her parents to know he was around, he would have made it known.
“Something on your mind, my child?” Kula asked Oumu, studying her little girl’s clearly bothered face.
“No, Mother. Just remembering the things I have seen since we arrived.” Oumu managed a smile, and her mother stroked her cheek tenderly, trying to assure her that she could tell her mother anything.
Kula took the ingredients that Miata had bought. She had to prepare the meal so she could get back to her job search.
The boys asked for permission to investigate their new neighborhood and were off before the answer came out of their mother’s mouth. “Make sure to look after your brother, Manawah.” She sent her voice after them.
Miata looked at her mother with questioning eyes about why she had granted permission to her brothers so easily and hadn’t given them the responsibility of taking their littlest siblings with them.
“You don’t have to take them with you now, either,” Kula said, pointing at Thomas and Oumu. “You can go up to the college and see if you can take some classes this summer, later on. That will be your excursion.” Kula motioned for her daughter to go.
“Ex … cur … sion. What does that mean?” Oumu asked her mother.
“I’ll tell you later.” She didn’t want to deal with Oumu then. Oumu’s questions were unending these days. Once you answered one question, there was another at its heels.
What Kula could not know was that Oumu was looking for any opportunity to go out alone so that she could run into Colonel. So she sat next to her mother as Kula went through what they had brought from the market.
“Your sister forgot to buy the Maggi,” Kula said.
“I can go get it at the shop just over there,” Oumu volunteered.
“Okay, take this and come right back,” Kula said, looking suspiciously at Oumu—the little girl had been too quick to offer to do a chore.
As soon as Oumu left the house, her eyes went in search of Colonel. He was already standing behind her. He joked, “You have to have better eyes to look for me.”
Oumu turned around, smiling.
“Did you follow us to the city?” she asked Colonel. He didn’t answer but just walked with her to buy the maggi.
“You must promise me that you won’t tell anyone that I am here. Not yet. Okay?” He broadened his eyes at her.
“Okay.”
“Your father went to town to look for work, I am guessing.”
“I don’t know. But he did go to town.”
“You have to go back before your mother comes looking, for she will have eyes to find you,” Colonel said.
“You are probably right.”
“But you can always find me there if you need to, okay?” He pointed at the small kiosk that sold cigarettes.
She waved to him as he disappeared among the pan bodi houses.
* * *
Bockarie sat near the window where the breeze from the sea visited intermittently. The waitress didn’t pay him much attention and he quite liked that because he wanted to save the little money he had. He observed the young men across the street standing by the entrance of the fancy restaurant. Their eyes resented everything that showed even the slightest comfort that they didn’t ha
ve. When someone came out of the restaurant with a bottle of cold water, they sighed with indignation.
The eyes of a struggling person see the smallest comfort, in the way another walks, laughs, sits, and even breathes, Bockarie said loudly in his mind. He was surprised by his ability to clearly express himself and decided then that he must write down some of his observations. But he had neither a pen nor a sheet of paper.
He did have an inner dialogue, though. If I buy a mango juice, the waitress will certainly bring me a napkin. I could then ask to borrow a pen and write on that napkin.
“Miss, mango juice, please.” He raised his hand. Twenty minutes later, she still hadn’t brought him the juice. He remembered Mr. Saquee explaining to him that in the city, he had to be forceful and not always polite to be heard, especially when he wanted to be served at shops and restaurants. Otherwise he would wait for hours.
“Hey, you. Mango juice—now,” he commanded, raising his voice at the young woman and eyeing her hard. She reacted, though with reluctance in her movements and irritation in her eyes. She brought the juice with a napkin and asked Bockarie to pay before setting the bottle down on the table in front of him.
“Could I borrow your pen?” He took the pen from her fingers before she responded. He paid, she took his money and left him. He quickly removed the napkin wrapped around the cold juice bottle so that it wouldn’t get saturated and started writing his observations.
* * *
The veins on the young man’s forehead and the look in his eyes show that he has lost faith in the possibility of something good today, so he sits on the ground, leans his head on the 4×4 car, and allows his heart to breathe, as his spirit has been holding its breath all day.
The young man sits on the ground in a crowded city where he has come to look for hope. So many like him are searching for hope that it has become afraid here and is on the run. Whenever it shows itself—hope, that is—hands from the crowded streets reach for it with such violent urgency because of the fear that they may never see it again. They do so without knowing that their desperation frightens hope away. Hope also doesn’t know that it is its scarcity that causes the crowd to lunge at it, shredding its robe. And as it struggles to escape, the fabric scraps land in the hands of some but last only for hours, a day, days, a week, weeks, depending on how much fabric each hand is able to catch.
