Lieutenant Hotshot

by Julia North

  “You mustn’t shoot the bullets too fast, Hotshot, otherwise there’ll be no fun.”

  I felt my cheeks get hot. I laughed with them but they made me feel small. I didn’t want a ladylove.

  “My AK‘s my ladylove,” I said.

  “Ha, ha, your AK‘s your ladylove. No, Hotshot, you must feel the soft brown flesh of the Pineapple girl,” said Mobuto.

  “Yes, you can choose any girl you want. There’re some good new ones with pretty mouths and big brown eyes who have come to the camp,” said Nkunda.

  “After your first time you will want more and more, Hotshot. You’ll shoot your magic bullets into all the girls. Here, smoke the Jamba. It’ll help to make you ready,” said Mobuto. He shoved the joint at me.

  I pulled the blue smoke deep down. It chased the fear away but my heart still thumped because I knew that Mobuto and Nkunda would watch me have my first ladylove and I would need to do it good like a man.

  “Can I get another Tusker?”

  “Ha, ha, yes go get another Tusker but don’t have too many or your AK barrel will droop,” said Mobuto. He threw back his head in a belly laugh and his fat stomach wobbled. Nkunda joined in the laughter and I laughed too with hot cheeks and a sound that was too high. I leaned back in my chair with my beer and took another big sip hoping its coolness would take the redness from my face.

  “My cock’s talking to me,” said Mobuto. “You’ll take her first and then I’ll have her and then Nkunda.”

  “She’ll be lucky this pineapple girl to have us three, heh?”

  We pushed back our chairs and went to the grenade hut where the Pineapple girls worked. Mobuto threw open the door and the girls stopped and quickly saluted with big eyes.

  “Line up. You are lucky girls for our Lieutenant Hotshot has come to choose a ladylove.”

  The girls they stood and looked at me with big brown eyes. Some were too young and looked like only nine years. I didn’t want to look at the young ones. They made me think of Thandi. My heart beat hard. What if Thandi was caught? Would they want to make her a Pineapple girl if I brought her here? I shook my head to chase away the thought and looked through the line of girls with my breath stuck in my chest.

  I saw one girl near the end who had light brown skin and big round eyes. She looked about twelve years. Her lips were full and her ears were small. She held her hands together and shook and couldn’t look me in the eyes. She looked like she was a city girl and she would be okay. The city boys had probably already taken her.

  “I want her.” I pointed, trying to make my voice sound loud and strong.

  “Good choice,” grunted Mobuto. “Take her. We’ll go to my hut.”

  I grabbed the girl by the arm and made her walk behind Mobuto and Nkunda. I threw her on the bed in Mobuto‘s hut and began to take off my pants. Mobuto ripped her panties from her and he and Nkunda held her legs wide for me with her dress up. The girl lay and stared up at the ceiling like she was somewhere else. That made me angry. This was my first ladylove and she was lucky to have me. I felt myself growing hard like the barrel of my AK and then I climbed on top and I thrust and thrust until I made her scream and I screamed too.

  “My turn,” said Mobuto gruffly.

  I looked at his manhood. It was big and brown. The girl she cried when he went in her. Then it was the turn of Nkunda. The girl cried and cried. I bet she wished it was only me. Now I was a true man. I could have anything I want.

  Chapter 27

  The bush has come alive.

  “Ambush!” screams Mobuto. Move back!”

  Bullets fly out from the trees. There’s a flash of green headbands. Rebels jump out of the bush. I scream and shoot my AK. Noise is everywhere. Fire is everywhere; eating us, burning us.

  BAM! A grenade blasts in my ears. Aiee, Bloodneverdry is in the air. His back is broken. There’s blood everywhere. There are the bodies everywhere; some with no heads. Whose body is that? My mind screams with fear. The fear eats me up.

  “Retreat,” shouts Mobuto. “Retreat.”

  I’m stuck to the ground. Death has swallowed me like the hippo. I can’t escape. “No…” I scream. “No…”

  Then something’s shaking me. A voice is calling to me. “Come back,” it calls. “Modetse, come back.”

  My body is wet with the sweat and my mind is full of the clouds.

  “It’s not real,” says the voice.

  I blink my eyes. I’m lying on the grass outside my hut. What’s happened?

  I turn to look. The voice is Mama Zuma’s. She’s sitting cross- legged on the ground next to me and shaking my shoulder.

  “It’s okay, my child,” she says. “Here, sit up. Have some water.”

  I push myself up and my arms shake but the cool water helps my dry mouth.

  “They happen to all of you,” says Mama Zuma with a smile. “They’ll go in time.”

  I just stare and say nothing. I do not want to talk.

  All of a sudden she puts her fat arms around me. She pulls me to her and pats my head. “It’ll be okay,” she whispers.

  I widen my eyes. I feel like I am a child again back with Umama. I just want her to make everything better, to take away the pain. The tears start to visit my eyes. I fight them back. No, I’m a soldier. I won’t cry.

  “I’m fine,” I mutter, trying to push her away, but she refuses to move.

  “Is there a lot of blood in your dreams?”

  “Too much,” I say as the memories come back into my head like the strong river. My hands sweat and I catch my breath.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  I don’t want to but I can’t stop myself. It just comes out of me. “It’s bad blood. It comes from the dark spirits,” I croak. “It’s trying to drown me. Sometimes I can smell its iron smell so strong I’m sick.”

  “Does it scare you?”

  “Yes. I think it’ll kill me.”

  “It’s over. It can’t kill you now, Modetse. Perfect love casts out fear. The dark spirits have no power against it.”

  I grow angry with her. What is this perfect love? What does she know? Before, when I was in the L.R.A., I felt nothing, but now the guilt attacks me. What does she know of guilt? She didn’t cut off the hands. She doesn’t have dark spirits inside who come out and attack her. The air around me grows heavy. I hate this mission. They’ve made me feel this guilt. I hate them! I try to get up but she touches my arm.

  “Stay, please a bit longer. Blood can also be good maybe. Do you think so? Like with a blood brother maybe?”

  I flinch as David jumps back into my head and a deep pain rises in my belly.

  “Did you lose a blood brother?” she whispers.

  “The enemy killed him. That’s why I hate them,” I shout.

  David’s dead body is back. My muscles grow hard and I clench my fists.

  “It’s sad, Modetse, when young lives are lost. That’s why war’s so evil on both sides. Maybe the L.R.A. killed someone else’s blood brother. Have you thought of that?”

  My eyes widen and my stomach goes funny. I say nothing and we sit in silence. Then Mama Zuma puts her arm around me.

  “Blood can be cleansing. It has great power,” she says. “That’s why it is used for sacrifices and to ask for forgiveness. It’s a great mystery. Does it help to think about the good side to take away the bad?”

  I shrug my shoulders. She has made my head spin.

  “You’re forgiven by the blood, Modetse. Right now you might have mud on you from the past but the power of the blood of Christ will wash that clean away. There is no greater power than that, nothing. Darkness flees from that power. You must always remember it was not your fault. God will not hold it against you. You must go and speak to the doctor. Please tell me you will.”

  I nod, but my mind spins. I want to believe what she is saying but she doesn’t understand. There is nothing that can chase the darkness away. Blood comes from the kill. There is no power to clean in the blood. What is she talking abo
ut? My body grows like iron and I hold my arm tight so I don’t hit out at her. She just makes me feel bad inside. I jump up and brush the grass and sand from my body.

  “I need to walk,” I say.

  Mama Zuma nods and smiles at me with sad eyes.

  “That’s a good idea. Come to my kitchen afterwards. I’ll go and bake a big chocolate cake for you. Remember go see the doctor.”

  I nod and walk away my mind going round and round. Good blood, bad blood…This blood talk is making me sick. How can blood make you clean? But inside I’m scared she could be right and maybe these other spirits have more power. This blood they use has a power I don’t understand. Will it kill me or clean me? Maybe I should see Dr. Zuma.

  Chapter 28

  “Dr. Zuma’s ready for you, Modetse.”

  I glare at Nurse Sophie and walk into the cool thatched hut. My body is filled with anger. I wish I hadn’t listened to Mama Zuma and her stupid story of the blood.

  Dr. Zuma sits in a big black leather chair at the far end of the hut. There’s a small wooden table with books and a flask of water with two glasses in front of him. He smiles at me and gets up and puts out his hand.

  “Kuwakaribisha, Modetse. Good to see you.”

  I nod, but play stupid to the hand he gives me.

  He looks at me in silence for a few seconds and then says, “Please sit down here.”

  He points to a big blue armchair opposite him. I sit hard down into its soft cushions and stare at the ceiling. Dr. Zuma sits back down in his chair and we stare at each other. I move in my chair and look at the ceiling. Then he makes a noise in his throat and asks, “I believe you’re doing well in school?”

  I stay quiet. What game’s he playing?

  “Mama Zuma tells me you’re a talented mathematician. You could go on to university one day, you know.”

  I try to stop it but his words make me happy inside. Then I realize that he is being the sly jackal. He’s trying to stop me from going back to the L.R.A. by lying to me and making me think I can do things only rich people do. I glare at him.

  “I’m a soldier. I don’t need university.”

  He smiles and says, “I hope we can change that, Modetse. It’s time for a turning point. What happened in the past was not your fault.”

  “You’re not L.R.A.!” I shout with spit shooting from my mouth. “What do you know?”

  “The L.R.A. is over, Modetse,” he says, looking me straight in the eyes.

  “No, it’s not over,” I shout. “I’ll be the new leader.”

  This man knows nothing. He’s just trying to brainwash our soldiers and stop them going back the L.R.A.

  I jump out of my chair and kick over the square wooden table in front of us. The flask and glasses break hard on the clay floor and water spills out across it. I kick the overturned table so that it flies up against the shelf at the back of the hut. Books fall to the floor. I pick them up and throw them against the wall. I turn on him like the fierce lion and scream, “I’ll destroy you and every- thing you have. I don’t want to talk to you. I want to go back to my family. Where’s the L.R.A.? You’ve made me a prisoner of war and you’re trying to brainwash me with your Jesus. The L.R.A. will find you and kill you. I’m Lieutenant Hotshot! They need me!”

  This pig doctor he just sits there and says in the quiet voice, “The L.R.A. has left the area, Modetse. The Government’s defeated them. They’ve poisoned your mind and we must undo that. True cleansing will come from God in your own time. It’s not your fault what happened. You were only a child.”

  He doesn’t seem worried by my shouting and just gets up and picks up the books and the table. I clench my muscles and scream, “I’m sick of people telling me it’s not my fault! It is my fault! I want to kill. I like to kill. I want more blood!”

  I feel like I’ll explode. This doctor knows nothing. He’s not a soldier. He doesn’t know what it’s like to belong to the L.R.A. He’s just a stupid city man. What can he know of killing? I breathe hard. I clench my fists until my knuckles are white. My head spins round and my heart beats like a drum in my chest.

  “Let the anger pass. I understand how you feel, Modetse,” says the doctor.

  He’s so calm that it makes me want to cut him to pieces. I tense my arm to stop it lashing out and grind my teeth together.

  “How can you understand? You’re not L.R.A,” I say, and spit on the floor to insult him.

  He ignores my spitting and answers in a quiet voice,

  “You’re right, I’m not L.R.A. but when I was a young man I was also a soldier. I’ve been in conflict before in the Congo. I’ve also seen horrible things, Modetse. So you see I can understand a bit.”

  I look at him with wide eyes and an open mouth. That explains why he could hold me so tight.

  “You were an enemy?”

  “No I wasn’t an enemy. This was before the L.R.A., but no war is nice. I wouldn’t like to be in one again. I’ve also had to ask Jesus for forgiveness.”

  He looks deeply at me for a while and I stand frozen.

  “Will you sit down now, Modetse? I’d like to hear about your role in the L.R.A.”

  He pushes the chair for me and I clear my throat, shuffle down to it, and sit with my head down and elbows on my knees.

  “When you’re ready, Modetse,” he says in a soft voice. “Start maybe with telling me how you get the name Hotshot.”

  I give an evil grin and spit out, “I was a hotshot and the best man for cutting the hands of the enemy.”

  I stare at him, waiting for him to look shocked, but he just continues to look at me calmly and asks, “You cut lots of hands off?

  “Yes,” I shout. What’s the matter with this stupid doctor? Why isn’t he shocked at what I’ve done?

  “Was there a reason for cutting off the people’s hands who were not soldiers?”

  “Yes, because the hands they do the work. If they’ve no hands then they can’t work for the enemy.”

  “What if they’re not helping the enemy?”

  “All those villagers were helping the enemy,” I say. Ay, this man is stupid.

  The doctor goes silent for a moment and then asks, “Do you dream about cutting off hands now?”

  I flinch. Aiee, how does he know my dreams this man? I’m worried that maybe he has some special powers because he’s also a priest. He was talking to the spirits in the river; that means he can find out things and have power over me. Maybe he’s sending the hands and dark shadows to my dreams? My heart beats fast and I clamp my lips. He smiles at me, looks down at his paper, and writes something.

  “You know, Modetse, sometimes even now I dream about the things I saw thirty years ago. I shot people who didn’t deserve it. They still come back to haunt me. It would not be unusual if you dreamt about hands.”

  Now I understand. He has no powers. He’s just clever because he’s also been a soldier. I give him an angry stare.

  He just smiles back and asks, “Do you dream of them?”

  “Yes, sometimes.”

  “Are you cutting them in your dreams?”

  “No.”

  “What’re they doing?”

  “They hit me.”

  “Oh? They want revenge?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it many of them?”

  “Too many.”

  “Yes, I understand. Of course they’ll want revenge, but that can only be if it really was your fault. And, Modetse, this is a very important point. You must listen to me.” He leans forward and looks me deep in my eyes. “It was not your fault. You were just a child and as a soldier had to follow your orders. You were brainwashed into doing what you did. You must not blame yourself.”

  I stand up and scream, “I wasn’t brainwashed and I’m not a child. I’m the best soldier to cut off the hands of the enemy and I wanted to follow my orders. I’m good L.R.A. I do what I’m told and I’ll go back and I’ll cut off all the hands and feet of the enemy pigs. I’ll cut off your hands and the hands of
Nurse Sophie and everyone…”

  I shout so loud that my chest heaves up and down. My breath hurts in my chest. My head spins.

  I stand up and kick the blue armchair so hard that it squeals right across the wooden floor. It nearly knocks a pot with green palm leaves over. The doctor jumps up and steadies the pot. Then he moves the chair back to its place and sits back down in his chair. He shows me with his hand to sit down again.

  I shake my head and shout, “I won’t talk to you anymore. I’m strong enough to sort out my own dreams. I don’t need your help.”

  I run from the hut back to the dark green forest where I can hide from everyone. I don’t want to think about anything but inside my head spins. I don’t know what is right. If what he says is true and it’s not my fault then the L.R.A. is wrong and it’s their fault. But that can’t be. No…it is the enemy’s fault. It’s their fault…not mine. I don’t want to lose my power. I can’t lose my power. I don’t believe in their forgiveness it will make me weak.

  Chapter 29

  “I like the crafts,” says Richard as we make our way to the Craft hut that afternoon. “Mama Zuma says I’m the talented artist.”

  I frown at him and grunt. Trigger and he keep telling me to do the stupid crafts. My mood is still black from visiting the doctor; I don’t want to talk or hear his stupid boasting. I’m only going because Tula will be there.

  We go in the long Art hut with its mud walls and straw roof. It is cool inside and smells like the cows. On the floor are many long yellow mats of straw. Next to them stand big wooden boxes filled with red clay, colored beads and buckles. The new leather smell relaxes my mind. The air is full with the noise of the children chattering like small chickens.

  My eyes walk around the hut. The girls are sitting far from the boys. My heart beats like a bongo drum. Tula is with the small girls. They are playing with many bright beans.

  “Modetse, Richard. Over here,” calls Mama Zuma. She shows us to sit on a long yellow straw mat with strips of brown leather in front.

  I lift my eyes at Richard and pull a face. I want to sit by Tula. He smiles back and we make our way past the girls to the mat. I can feel Tula watching me as I walk past, but I stare hard out in front and pretend not to see her while my drum heart hurts my ears.