The Great Agony & Pure Laughter of the Gods

by Jamala Safari

  Landu had worked for Simba Kali as a carrier of looted goods and as an informant in the market. Landu had managed to escape while his platoon was under attack from another militia. He had walked many days and nights and ended up in Bugobe village. From there, he had relocated to Bukavu to rebuild his life. Risto’s family had agreed to take him in and pay for his studies. As soon as he heard the story of Risto, he felt deep pity for his cousin and wished to contribute to the restoration of his life. He believed they had many things in common: a beautiful childhood, ugly teenage years, and hopefully a future to look forward to.

  Landu volunteered to take over from Risto’s mother at the hospital. Besides the on-duty nurses and the doctors, families preferred to send their own person to look after the sick in hospital, to be a ‘guard’ as they called them.

  The first day that Landu sat by his cousin’s bed, Risto slept all day and barely noticed his new friend, except at those moments when he needed something. Landu responded obediently, and showed care in everything he did for Risto. The second day, after a morning of quiet, their conversation grew in the afternoon. Risto had many questions; this was what Landu wanted, he wanted to connect with his cousin, he wanted to help him at this difficult time. He guessed at some of what Risto might have endured, and he knew how hard it was to rebuild after such experiences.

  ‘So, how many days have I been in here?’ Risto asked, as Landu brought him a glass of water.

  ‘About ten days.’

  ‘Ten days? A long time … which hospital is this?

  ‘The hospital at Panzi. That ex-military camp of Panzi, remember?’

  ‘Yes, I remember. Tell me, how did I reach this place?’

  Landu stared at Risto’s face, then looked away. ‘I don’t know … but what I have heard is that you were found by poachers in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park. You were unconscious, with wounds all over your body. They thought you were dead, then they saw your chest moving. No one thought that you would survive. It is a miracle to see you alive.’

  The story amazed Risto, but he kept quiet for a moment.

  ‘Yes … I only remember being beaten up by Amani and his friends. They wanted to kill me.’

  Landu stayed quiet, wanting to hear more of the story, but Risto had no more to say. He realised that he had started a story that he didn’t wish to speak about.

  But his journey from the Kahuzi-Biega National Park to the Panzi hospital was indeed a miraculous one, as Landu had said. Since the day Amani had caught Risto holding Néné, he had wanted to devour the boy in a passion of hatred. He saw Néné as his personal property, and didn’t plan on sharing her with some rubbish Kadogo. But he knew the General’s eyes were on Risto all the time, and also that the boy was never without his AK-47. So it was a perfect opportunity when he found Risto weak and unwilling to go to Mbayo village. He and his friends beat the boy swiftly and brutally, and as soon as they believed he was dead, they carried him deep into the forest and dumped him, knowing that the scavengers and other carnivores would thank them for a great meal. Amani knew that once Risto’s absence was noticed, the General would believe his young lion had tried to escape, and no investigation would be made.

  It was a group of poachers coming to check their traps who found Risto. First they thought he was dead and were about to leave, when one of them saw his chest moving. His colleagues could not believe that someone with so many wounds could still be alive. Even if the boy was still alive, surely he was on the point of death. But it wasn’t in their culture to see a man in dire need of help, even if he had only minutes to live, and to leave him alone and unattended. Their moral code obliged them to take him to the nearest place of help.

  They carried him to the nearest village clinic, which was eerily empty, as most of the doctors and nurses had fled the insecurity and violence of the countryside. An exhausted nurse was looking after a woman with a complicated pregnancy, which was beyond her humble ability to manage. An ambulance came only once a week, and the pregnant woman could no longer wait. So a farmer took both the pregnant woman and Risto to the Panzi hospital in his pick-up truck. Everybody believed that both patients would die before they had travelled one kilometre beyond the village, but it was as if death was afraid to come into their bodies, and they made it to the hospital alive.

  Soon afterwards, Risto’s mother was visiting with her church group, to offer prayer and comfort to the sick and dying. She could not believe her eyes when she saw the unconscious face of her son in one of the rooms. She sat by his side day and night, praying and singing to him, urging him to wake up.

  ‘So … who is Amani, and why did his friends beat you? If I may ask?’ Landu was hesitant.

  ‘How is my uncle and the entire family back in Burinyi?’ Risto asked, trying to run away in his mind from the forest and the story of his beating.

  ‘They are all doing fine … just living under fear every day. Burinyi is full of militia too … so one fears for one’s life each second.’

  Landu rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He had two dark marks on his left biceps. He pulled his shirt up, showing scars that ran in an almost straight line across his right ribs.

  ‘All these … I got them in Burinyi,’ he said with a smile that intrigued Risto. He was suddenly curious about this man who exhibited his marks and scars.

  ‘All these, I got them in battles.’

  ‘Who were you working for?’ Risto asked.

  ‘Simba Kali was my general.’

  ‘You escaped? You were not shot at?’

  ‘We were losing the battle, we had lost our platoon commander and his assistant had been wounded … I knew it was my chance.’

  They remained silent for a moment, as if each one was remembering his own battles.

  ‘I heard that you lost your cousin Benny in battle in the forest.’

  Risto remained silent for a moment, then made a sign of acknowledgment. Landu wanted to hear more about Risto’s journey; he knew that talking was the only way one could heal and come to terms with the horrible memories, but Risto seemed reserved, shut off.

  He went on to tell Risto about his own experiences in the forest. He was one of hundreds of children in Burunyi who had joined the Mai-Mai movement in order to remain alive and to protect their families. A family who did not have a member who was a soldier was vulnerable to victimisation. Landu spoke first of his experience as a carrier of looted goods and an informant in the market. Then he spoke more slowly of his history as a fighter, a rapist and maybe even a killer. He had fought many battles, but had never come face-to-face with any of his victims; he never knew if his bullets had taken lives or not. His greatest regret was being involved in the rape of a girl in a village controlled by rival militia.

  After this long litany, he told Risto how he had come to terms with his terrible journey: ‘I never wished to commit any atrocity; I was forced to do so. So I shouldn’t blame myself. I have come to understand that I am not a naturally evil person. We human beings are born to do good, but corrupt environments try to change our nature. But if we get a second chance to be who we are meant to be, we should reclaim our natural identity and be good people again.’

  Risto listened with great interest. He could relate to Landu’s story. He could feel this shared connection with his cousin, and wished he could talk about his experiences too, but he was still afraid of what Landu would think of him. His crimes were far worse than Landu’s. He regretted that he could not open his mouth to utter a single word to trace his journey in the forest. His history was so dark that it would frighten the strongest of human souls. How could he begin to tell a story of so much evil, so much betrayal and so much pain? There were so many loads on his soul that he knew he would never be free. He thought of Benny over and over, wishing he had had a chance to talk to him, to explain that he was not evil, that it was the forest that had changed him. The law of the forest had hardened his soul so that he could survive. He wished he’d had time to tell Benny that he was still the Risto of t
heir youth, the innocent boy who wished nothing more than laughter over the wonders of life and the mysteries of the village. But Benny had died holding onto the image of the cruel Risto, the young lion with an evil soul. This thought haunted Risto.

  But he was able to open up a little; he shared with Landu his happier memories of his early childhood. It was still too painful to think of Benny and their life in the village.

  As Risto and Landu spoke, their sick neighbours and their visitors looked at them as if they were new masterpiece paintings; their eyes stared, as their mouths whispered to each other. Risto knew they were the subject of gossip. ‘Do people know that you were a child soldier?’ he asked Landu.

  ‘Some, but not everyone.’

  ‘In our street?’

  ‘Yes, they know.’

  ‘What do they say?’

  ‘I’ve shown them my scars and told them about my bad experiences in the forest. They feel pity for me; many see me as brave for escaping.’

  Landu’s story did not take away Risto’s fears. Their experiences were different; they had worked for different militia groups. His had been a foreign militia, and they were the most evil of all; many people knew and hated how the foreign militia treated people who lived near the forest.

  ‘So … you said people felt pity for you … even when you told them about the rape story?’

  ‘No, I didn’t talk about that one.’

  They looked into each other’s eyes. Risto understood that even Landu was still afraid of his dark past; it was impossible to share all, he told himself.

  ‘So, what are you doing now?’ Risto asked.

  ‘Studying. I am carrying on with high school. I want to become a journalist,’ said Landu with a vivid smile.

  How could Risto have known how many months he had spent in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park? Days and nights there were all the same. A week, a month or months were just days and nights in a row; the only difference was when there was a moon, and when there wasn’t. There was no Easter, Christmas or New Year in the forest. Today was no different from tomorrow. They went to the well, they washed clothes, they went to patrol the forest, they returned to their huts, they ate their stolen meat, and they did the same again the next day. The story was always the same. Some days they killed people; that was the only thing that made any difference to their days.

  As the forest had no calendar, the hospital had none too; there was neither day nor night in the hospital. Risto closed and opened his eyes to the flash of a strong light. He asked that the lights be switched off at night. Some of the patients in the ward agreed, but one man, who was hidden in a small kind of house, refused. This man cried like a baby every day. He didn’t want the lights to be switched off for any reason. Every single hour he called his guard, but would say only, ‘I want you to be here.’ Sometimes he would ask his guard to scratch him somewhere. But the guard could not do so; the man’s whole body was wounded and bandaged. He had been involved in a car accident that had burned away most of his skin and flesh, so the doctors had built a toy house around him to protect him from flies. He was like a tortoise; the toy house was like his shell, with only his head sticking out. People called him ‘the tortoise man’.

  Nearby was another patient, as strange as his untidy bed. He didn’t talk to anyone. He was always quiet. He only spoke to the doctors. They said he was paralysed. He was a gold-digger. He had been in a mine tunnel with his torch attached to his head, his dirty clothes and his basin, searching to become a rich man within a week; then he found gold, a really big piece of gold. He decided to leave the site, come down to Bukavu, and buy a house near Lake Kivu in the centre of town. He was nearly out when the tunnel collapsed around him; stones fell and buried him. Other diggers came to his rescue. He was saved, but paralysed. His gold was taken by one of his rescuers. He lay on his bed thinking about how he could have been a rich man.

  Risto’s father came often to visit his son; his best friend Papa François was always with him. Despite their constant arguments about culture and customs, modernism and the lifestyles of their people, theirs was a good friendship that looked more or less like a brotherhood. Mahuno was a family man, deeply rooted in his African heritage, and he never stopped telling Papa François that he was part of the lost breed of the continent, the uprooted Africans who had been left halfway between worlds by Western culture. Papa François hated the African ‘football families’ of ten children, and disliked the African courtesy of people looking on the ground while somebody talked to them. As a fan of Western culture, he introduced himself as Papa François, even to his own children. He refused to be called Baba Mao, his traditional name, as his firstborn was called Mao. Both men, however, shared a dislike for the unstable political landscape of their country and the trouble-someness of the Great Lakes region. They also hated the new, so-called ‘rich boys’, who never ceased taking each other to court because of land disputes or paternity rights.

  The two visited Risto frequently. They always came with unfinished discussions about Africa versus the West.

  ‘I always like your opinion, young man,’ Papa François would say whenever Risto made a comment that favoured his argument. He would tell Risto’s father, ‘Your boy should study politics. These are the people who will save this continent from our brainless politicians who have been unable to create intelligent and strategic international policies that would benefit the continent.’

  ‘François, I am very proud of my boy. Don’t you think he is the new Renaissance man?’ Mahuno would respond as they both laughed and patted Risto. It seemed as if they shared him; they were both his parents because of the love they showed him.

  . Chapter 9 .

  Risto could move both his hands and legs with less and less pain; his mother would have slaughtered a cow for celebration if she’d had one. Risto’s father brought him geography books, world history books, a few novels and a small radio so he could listen to the news.

  The number of his visitors increased. At first it was between four and six visitors a day; now it grew to ten or fifteen. On Sundays, they came in their dozens. Some of them didn’t even get a chance to see him. Each one came with something in his or her hands: foufou or ugali with Sambaza fish, the most special fish of the Kivu region, taken from the lake. Others came with foufou and meat, or foufou with different types of vegetables. Others brought Sombé – cassava leaves pounded with spices. Some brought bread and fruit, and some came with money. No one would have paid a visit empty-handed. It would have been a sign of discourtesy, unless one was experiencing terrible financial problems. Even if one brought just one big avocado or one juicy mango, it would be enough. The hospital didn’t provide food for the patients, so patients relied on the food brought by visitors or made by their relatives. Visits and food to a patient were also a debt to the patient and his family; if that person got hospitalised, he knew these people would visit him with food too.

  Some people came to visit Risto’s neighbour empty-handed, and the boys couldn’t understand it. Didn’t he get even two sweet potatoes? As more visitors came, and more food was delivered, Risto donated some food to others in the ward who didn’t get any gifts from their visitors.

  Landu was very happy when he saw church representatives coming to visit sick people. When he heard that even prisoners were fed by religious people, he was amazed. There is always a stranger without family or friends who needs help, he kept repeating. He knew that each Sunday morning, patients received visits from religious people who came to pray for them. Many believed that diseases came from Satan and other people possessed by evil spirits, which needed to be thrown out by prayer. Maybe it was someone’s last hour on earth, maybe their disease or wound couldn’t be cured, and those patients had to be prayed over. They prayed for the delivery of those with sin, for those who didn’t know God to be saved.

  One morning, the tortoise man in his toy house had made Landu laugh until he cried. The tortoise man was always afraid – afraid that a jealous aunt had b
ewitched him and caused his car accident. After he dreamed his guard was chasing him with a knife, he refused to eat the food the man had cooked, even though he was his own brother. That day, he had called a pastor and told him of his fear, that he felt he was about to die. The pastor told him that if he had faith in God, he wouldn’t die. He argued, asking the pastor how many saints had died while they had faith in God. He asked the pastor where Peter, Luke, John and all those other people in the bible were. They had died even though they had faith. Was his faith bigger than that of all those people? The pastor prayed for him anyway.

  The day came for Risto to stand up for the first time under the watchful eye of a nurse. Landu held the crutches for Risto as his mother came with a wheelchair. Risto no longer wore a green gown; he had changed into a boubou made from a piece of cloth brought by his mother. The boubou covered his remaining bandages without hurting him.

  Risto refused the wheelchair; he wanted to show his family that he could stand up, like a hero. He stumbled and a flash of pain went through his bones; he felt dizzy, then leaned on his mother’s shoulder. Her celebrative voice was in each onlooker’s ear. She told everyone how her son, who had once had little hope of walking, would soon walk again. She became even more excited when the doctor told her that her son might be able to leave the hospital within a week.

  Risto was torn between happiness and fear. If freedom from a hospital bed meant liberation and a return to normal life, it might also be his ticket to hell, or even a journey along suicidal paths. What if he bumped into someone from Birava village, someone on a business trip, a family visit, maybe even running away from the militia? What would happen to him if his past was exposed?