Land of My Fathers

by Vamba Sherif

  ‘If I wanted to finish you off, I would have done so a while ago. What are you doing out alone in the rain?’ the man said.

  The next lightning flashed across a face that perhaps was as old as my father’s. The fighter was tall, had a wide gap in his teeth, and two Kalashnikovs strung across his shoulders. His grasp on me, I realized, was becoming tighter and with it my ever-growing panic.

  ‘We came to bring peace. We hate war,’ he said.

  I was not listening. My mind was working out scenarios about the end, about how it would feel being shot by a Kalashnikov.

  ‘You understand. This injustice must end.’

  I could make out our house on the hill, and the fact it was so close and yet impossibly far brought sudden tears to my eyes.

  ‘Come, I will take you home,’ he said.

  Indeed, he led me up the hill and waited until I had knocked at the door and my parents had let me in to merge once again with the night.

  No one berated me. For the first time, I was confronted with fear of another kind, the fear that is triggered by the unbearable thought of losing someone dear to one. I saw it in Aunt Elizabeth, in the professor who was spending the night at our place, in my mother and father who received me in silence, their voices affected by this fear.

  My mother dried me with one of her large towels, and after I had changed into fresh clothes, she led me into my room. Aunt Elizabeth went on to prepare some soup for me. My mother felt my forehead.

  ‘It is hot like coal,’ she said.

  She took my head and rested it on her lap.

  ‘You will get better soon. The soup will be ready.’

  Meanwhile, my father and the professor were standing in the room, gazing at me, their anxious smiles replacing their words.

  ‘I must have scared him to death. It was my fault,’ the professor said, referring to his prediction. ‘A child doesn’t have to be burdened with what is yet to transpire. I should have known that, Frederick.’

  ‘No, prof,’ my father said. ‘It has nothing to do with what you said.’

  The professor approached the bed.

  ‘Halay, you will forgive me, won’t you?’

  I nodded.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ my mother said.

  ‘Daughter, you are too generous.’

  Aunt Elizabeth entered the room with a bowl of soup, peppered so much that when I tasted it I felt my face swelling, about to explode.

  But it was my favourite soup, to which three fat pieces of catfish had been added and spiced so well that the fish melted in my mouth. I disregarded the hot pepper and soon felt thirsty.

  The soup did me good. The professor and his daughter, along with my parents, were awake for most of the night, talking in low voices.

  6

  Mr Wilson’s voice woke me the next morning, Saturday, and when I came out of my room the late morning sun was already fierce and implacable. My family was gathered on the verandah, while Mr Wilson went on with his apologies. He wore his blue tailor-made suit that accentuated the sooty darkness of his skin, the same suit he would wear on special occasions before the war, on the last day of the school year or on Independence Day. He looked small in the suit, bony, underfed, but not as gloomy as on that first day at school.

  ‘I held him up last night. It was not his fault,’ he said.

  ‘Teacher, he’s all right now,’ my father said.

  ‘I should have sent him home earlier.’

  ‘We understand,’ my mother said.

  ‘I will never hold him up again.’

  ‘Teacher, tell us about the school,’ my mother said.

  ‘Well, we’ve just started.’

  ‘How is our son faring?’

  ‘If only he can take up drawing again.’

  ‘Let him concentrate on his education first,’ my father said.

  ‘But he’s better at drawing.’

  ‘Don’t fight over the child,’ my mother said.

  ‘Halay told me about his drawings,’ Aunt Elizabeth said.

  Mr Wilson turned to her, saying, ‘He was trying to draw your portrait last night. I had tried but failed. He’s better.’

  ‘No, you are better, Mr Wilson,’ my mother said. ‘You are the one who taught Halay how to draw. You are better.’

  ‘But the boy is much more gifted,’ he said.

  I happened to turn around and saw the city mayor climbing up the hill with an umbrella in hand, and when he mounted the hill, he drew himself upright, and sauntered up to Aunt Elizabeth.

  ‘I had to pay a formal visit to a young lady who’s honoured us by leaving America to see us, just like her ancestor did,’ he said by way of greeting. He was out of breath but was doing his best to regulate it.

  The mayor boasted of his accomplishments. He told Aunt Elizabeth that he had been the one who had introduced hydroelectricity into the city, which was destroyed during the war.

  ‘I worked day and night for forty years building this city, and all my work was destroyed in a matter of a few days.’

  He paused to let us digest what he’d said.

  ‘My father knew your ancestor,’ he said. ‘Edward Richards came to us as a friend. He’s an example to all of us.’ He looked around. ‘Where is your father?’ he asked Aunt Elizabeth.

  ‘He’s asleep. Halay, go fetch him,’ Aunt Elizabeth said.

  I met the professor lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, his eyes so fixed on a point on the ceiling that I thought he was in a trance or in the thrall of an invisible being. My presence seemed to have startled him.

  ‘I was dreaming, Halay. I saw you drawing. You must draw.’

  ‘Prof, I don’t know what’s happened to me.’

  ‘Don’t doubt. Doubt smothers ability.’

  ‘But I just can’t.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it will come.’

  ‘The mayor wants to see you.’

  ‘That old man lusts after my daughter. Since her arrival, he’s been hounding her, never letting her be.’

  He sucked his teeth and said: ‘Here’s what we will do, child. I kept some money from my teaching days at the university. I will buy you the best drawing materials. What do you think? Come on now, don’t disappoint me.’

  But what if, with the new materials, I still failed to draw? Because I didn’t want to let him down, I said, ‘I will give it a try.’

  ‘Now, let’s see what that old lecher wants from me,’ he said.

  The mayor was telling Elizabeth about the school Edward Richards had founded, and about his student years.

  ‘We paid our school fees with bags of rice, with sacks of coffee or cocoa, palm oil or chicken. Most of us were from poor families.’

  ‘Professor,’ he said when he saw us. ‘You can be of some help to us. Yes, you are the one with the knowledge.’

  ‘If only you would leave my daughter alone.’

  ‘Professor, I regard her as my daughter. No, what am I saying? I regard her as my granddaughter. I am impressed by her courage. Look at what she’s done in the short time she’s been here. She’s changed you, she’s changed us all. I barely recognize you, Professor Richards.’

  The professor seemed disarmed.

  ‘Now tell us what happened to Edward Richards. You say he wrote that manuscript you carry around with you.’

  The professor’s voice broke as he attempted to speak. Except for our family, no one had cared for him or for his manuscript. Often, he would show up on our verandah, his clothes in tatters, needing care, which my mother would offer. Sometimes, after a meal or a hot bath, he would hug my mother tight, saying, ‘Daughter, daughter, daughter!’

  ‘Edward Richards did see Charlotte again,’ he said. ‘In fact, after Halay passed on, he left for Monrovia and stayed there for a while. Once again he became a father to his son, my great-grandfather, and a partner to Charlotte, my great-great-grandmother. He was one of those who participated in outlining the boundaries as we know them today. He made sure that this part of the count
ry did not fall under British or French influence.’

  ‘I remember my father telling me about the boundaries,’ the mayor said. ‘We were cheated out of many towns and villages.’

  ‘Edward Richards did return to this place. He lived and passed on here. This is why we are as much a part of this place as we are a part of the rest of the country. My roots are here. The Richardses belong here.’

  ‘We’ve never considered you otherwise, professor,’ the mayor said. ‘Look, your daughter’s returned home.’

  The mayor stood up, about to leave.

  ‘Teacher Wilson,’ he said. ‘Do your best for our children. We need to prepare them for the future even though it’s still uncertain, what with all the shootings every night.’

  ‘But you are the authority,’ my father said. ‘You could put a halt to the gunfire. You could talk sense into those fighters.’

  ‘They are beyond our control. No one controls them. For some the war is not yet over, will never be over. We have to live with the presence of such people in our midst,’ the mayor said.

  ‘So the fighting continues,’ my mother said.

  ‘Yes, until such a time when those young men realize that there’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s fear that’s driving them.’

  The mayor turned to Aunt Elizabeth.

  ‘Daughter,’ he said. ‘We should meet soon to discuss the future of the city. I hear you are helping Ma-Jowo with her stores.’

  Aunt Elizabeth nodded. As soon as the mayor left with Mr Wilson, the professor took his daughter to his home. My father decided to mend the front door whose hinges had been weakened by the storm of the other night. He covered the leaks in the zinc roof with stones, the occasional sound of his hammer disturbing the silence around the house. My mother swept and cleaned the house, but no matter how hard she worked, dust managed to settle on everything at the end of the day, which hadn’t always been the case. Before the war ours was an impeccable home.

  Alone in my room, trying to recover from the fright, I pondered the words of the fighter. Why fight if you hated war? It made no sense. What injustice was he talking about? The thought of being close to him sent a shiver through me. I had stared war in the face and it had spared me. In my mind I tried to give shape to the face with the gap in its teeth, but the face eluded me.

  My mother urged me to come out to take some fresh air, and when I did I found it carried the pungent odour of the bushes and of dust, which was swept up by an occasional wind. I sat in the shade of the orange tree, and gazed down at the city, which seemed in thrall to the heat, so much so that I could hardly see a soul on the street. By evening, I was famished for food.

  We had a sumptuous dinner. My mother applied her culinary skills in preparing the potato greens enriched with meat, shrimps and fish. It was served with red rice, which the farmers belonging to my father’s cooperative society had grown. Aunt Elizabeth, who had returned from visiting her father, joined us around a large tray. We had hardly begun when we heard the professor at the door, clearing his throat to announce his presence. He entered, washed his hands and joined us.

  We ate in silence. From the beginning, all eyes were fixed on the chunks of smoked and oil-soaked meat that topped the heap of steaming rice. Because meat was considered the best part of the meal, surpassing in importance the shrimps and fish, we chose to avoid it. We brushed against it as though it was meant not to be eaten. Often, the meat would be preserved until after the rice and stew had been eaten, then divided among the adults. But Aunt Elizabeth made an exception to that rule. She threw most of the meat in front of me. And her father said, ‘I don’t know how you do it over there, but a child does not need so much meat here.’

  My parents laughed.

  ‘He needs good food to recover, Dad,’ Aunt Elizabeth said.

  ‘But not so much meat,’ he said.

  When we were finished, the professor leaned against the sofa and began to pick his teeth with a tiny wooden splinter.

  ‘You are the only family I have left in the world,’ he said. ‘I came to tell you something about the manuscript. I’ve kept it all my life. On returning home today, I realized someone else needed it much more than I did. It’s time to pass it on to someone who deserves it.’

  The professor turned to me.

  ‘Halay, child, you need this manuscript to help you to draw again. It might inspire you. I hope it does.’

  ‘He’s still a child,’ my father protested.

  ‘No, he’s not. He thinks great thoughts. I see our future in the child. He needs these writings.’

  ‘Let him have it,’ Aunt Elizabeth said.

  My father protested but he seemed alone. Later, the professor returned home, and I retired to bed. In bed and with the manuscript in hand, I browsed through the handwriting of Edward Richards. He was a meticulous man: he had described our rituals and customs, some of which had survived, but it was the story of my ancestor that had the most impact on me. Edward Richards wrote that Halay was an inconspicuous man whose courage was only revealed at the most crucial time. ‘I knew him for years,’ he wrote, ‘but even at the last moment I doubted he had it in him to become the man he was in the end, even after he had told me his story. I had survived slavery, one of the most gruesome crimes committed against mankind, I had encountered difficulties, but mine paled before Halay’s. Indeed, he seemed to encapsulate all those experiences, to bear it in life as much as he’s doing in eternity. The past lived in him and the future even more so. I understand his choice now.’

  As I went on reading, I was interrupted by gunfire but of a kind that was not sporadic. It evolved in intensity, and this time with loud explosions accompanying it as the night wore on. We had been plunged into another war and all desire to flee had abandoned us.

  7

  The warriors of the night were still fighting each other well into the next day and night and for days on end. Through chinks in the door and windows, during subsequent days, we tried to figure out what was happening but to no avail. No one dared to venture out of their homes. Our world consisted of the four walls of the house within which we discussed and arrived at incredible conclusions. ‘It must be a new group of fighters who had launched an attack on the city,’ my father said, but my mother was of the opinion that it was the same men who were fighting each other.

  ‘Soon, they will depose our mayor and take over the city,’ she said.

  The days were long, monotonous and shot through with anxiety, and they dragged on slowly like a reluctant sheep being led to slaughter. ‘Don’t worry, it will soon be over,’ my father said on the fourth day.

  But the explosions down the hill, the constant quaking of the earth, the edgy sound of bazookas, the whistling of bullets through the air, the ever-present sense of peril, went on unabated. I could hardly sleep. Our roof would often shiver to an explosion close by, sometimes behind our house, and fetid and suffocating smoke would find its way into the house.

  ‘What do they want?’ Aunt Elizabeth whispered and my mother sucked her teeth and said, ‘They want to finish us off first and then each other.’

  Aunt Elizabeth worried about her father, the professor. ‘He will not leave his home,’ my mother said.

  Then we would escape to our rooms to avoid each other, for boredom had set in. With the boredom came hunger. Our supply of food had run out.

  ‘I will go to search for food,’ my father said.

  ‘Frederick, you are not leaving this house,’ my mother said.

  She stood before the door.

  ‘Move, Jowo,’ he said.

  ‘I am not budging, Frederick. I lost my ancestor because of this war. We’ve given our all to prevent this war. You are not going to die in it. You hear me? We’ve given our all to prevent this year. You are not going to die in it.’

  ‘I can’t bear to see you like this.’

  ‘You will have to bear it. We have to bear it.’

  ‘Don’t make me hurt you, Jowo.’

  ‘Halay, your fa
ther is talking about hurting me. Did you hear him, Elizabeth? Come on now, hurt me. Frederick, go on.’

  I rushed and stood between them, and I turned to my father, whose gaze was fixed on the bolted door.

  ‘Father, let’s wait for a few days. Then you and I will go out in search of food. Mother, he’s not leaving. We will wait.’

  In the absence of food, we existed on water, which we collected through a hole in the roof, so that every rainfall became a windfall.

  By then, more than two weeks into the fighting, weakened by hunger, I began to feel as if we were living in a dream, for my power of perception had become hazy. So that now I cannot tell whether what transpired was in the real world or in a dream.

  One morning I woke up and began to draw, not the face of Aunt Elizabeth, which had become gaunt and which stared into the distance as if somewhere along the path we had not chosen lay a solution to our problem. I did not draw my mother whose face had taken on a solemn expression, and not my father whose face was clouded with rage as a result of inaction. No, I was drawing my ancestor Halay. Now in the grip of a feeling that I was not in this world but in a deep trance-like dream, I left the drawing undone, unlocked the main door without being interrupted by anyone, and went down the hill to the main street and walked on amid the ruins of the new fighting until I reached a point where I could see the fighters, including the one who had taken me home. He was shrouded in smoke and wore dark glasses that covered half his face. He had a bazooka in his hands, aiming it at houses he was about to destroy. He noticed me as I approached and turned the weapon on me. His brow was furrowed into a grimace, and as I drew nearer, his men surrounded me. They followed me as I went up to the muzzle of the bazooka and felt it touch my chest, felt the heat from it.

  ‘It’s you again,’ the commander of the fighters said.

  He took the bazooka away from my chest.

  ‘He’s not afraid,’ one of them said.