by Majok Tulba
I try to focus on the things I can see around me, just what’s happening now. The moon sails over the horizon, heavy and full, and floods the dark jungle with light, like milk spilling from a calabash. A black bird flies across the moon, and then a shooting star whisks across the sky. I haven’t seen a shooting star in a long time. I can’t remember how long. What should I wish?
A star is billions and billions of miles away. Maybe so is God. Grandma used to pray to the spirits of the earth, the gods of rocks and trees and wind. I wish the god of earth was real, then I could pray to him and he would open the ground and eat the soldiers. He’d know I’m good and the soldiers are bad. Then the wind god could carry me back to Mama.
The village priest, Father Joseph, always says God forgives people. That’s why we should forgive. If we forgive others, God forgives us. Then we can be like God, and if we are like God and make our confession we can go to heaven. But I can’t forgive the soldiers. I want them to die. The gods Grandpa and Grandma prayed to didn’t forgive people. They did good things to people who made them happy and bad things to people who made them mad.
What if the god of the earth is like the Captain?
Maybe Grandpa’s gods are real. Maybe I made one of them angry and that’s why I’m here. Maybe Jesus is angry with me. If that’s why I’m here, then God must be angry with the entire country. He must be furious with all of Africa.
I have to pee. Even thinking about moving makes my body scream no. But I don’t want to pee where I’m sleeping, even if Mama’s not here to know. I take a deep breath and roll over onto my elbows. My body feels like wood, I’m breathing hard. My elbows don’t hurt too bad, but when I push up on one knee the pain is so sharp I crash back onto the cardboard.
I press my hands against the cardboard and try the other knee. It isn’t as bad, but it throbs. There’s my heartbeat, a pain in my knee. My right knee, the one that hurts really badly, I bring that up under me, getting my left foot on the ground. I try to stand now, but it feels like my back is pushing against a ceiling. Like I’m in a cave that’s only big enough to crawl through. I take a breath and a little cry escapes my lips.
I put both hands on my left leg and push, standing. It hurts hurts hurts. My legs don’t want to stand. I stumble. But – I’m up. I can see one guard standing not far away, so I try to move steadily so he doesn’t get nervous. I want to walk further, but I don’t want to upset the guard, and it hurts too much.
I unzip and let loose. My right leg starts to shake, but I stand there for a couple minutes. I didn’t realise I needed to pee this badly. When it’s done I sigh – relief. Maybe that’s a bad thought, I’d better not think that way. I zip up and hobble back to my mat. Then I see the river of my pee inching towards a sleeping soldier. With my right foot I kick dirt onto the stream, until it’s all mud and stops moving. That would have earned me another beating for sure. Maybe they would have killed me this time.
Maybe God doesn’t want me to die because I can’t forgive the rebels. If I die without forgiving them, maybe I’ll go to hell. I look around. Tomorrow we have a long walk on the bad road, that’s what Mouse said. Could it be worse than this?
I try to lower myself gently onto the cardboard. It doesn’t hurt as much going down, but I’m still breathing hard when I lie back. As my breathing gets quiet, I hear someone moving. Someone else going to pee, I guess. Over the snores, I hear the feet step, wait a few seconds, step, wait. Then it’s step, step, and step. He’s running.
There’s no shout, no sound, no warning before the boom. A gun fires and something hits the ground and slides in the dirt. Now lots of startled grunts and people moving around. Crying starts somewhere. I don’t cry, I just lie there. Akot, next to me, lies perfectly still.
After a while, everyone is quiet, except for the snorers and the crickets and the mosquitoes that whine and bite, but I’m too sore to swat them away.
Everything is quiet in the village. It’s night, but I can make out the stars of the Southern Cross over the trees. Walking doesn’t hurt as much. Then I hear singing, but not soldiers’ songs. Traditional songs. Songs that I’ve heard sung since I was a baby. They wash the pain out of my body. I run. Everything is dark as I run through the village, but I can see the huts and I don’t trip. I turn a corner and a great bonfire roars.
All around the bonfire, people sit in their perfect white clothes. They sing and clap. It’s a fast song, about how every drought ends in rain. On the other side of the fire, I see Mama and Papa sitting together. Papa is singing so loud I can hear him over the entire village. He sings with his mouth wide open and his white teeth flash in the firelight. But why is no one dancing?
That’s when I see Pina, dancing around the fire. She turns and turns, up on one toe. Her white shoes stay perfect, no matter how many times she spins. The song gets faster and people howl and cheer, then join the song again.
Pina jumps and spins, turning her body sideways as she flies. Her dance is frantic. Pina moves faster than I thought anyone could.
Even though everyone is smiling, a bad feeling cramps up my stomach. Like I’m watching a car engine rattling, until it explodes. My village, singing for Pina’s crazy dance, looks like it’s shaking, about to erupt. Everything is about to fall apart.
Lines of red cut into the blue sky, making it bleed. Little by little it gets brighter and brighter, and I still haven’t slept. Around me, I hear people stirring. They get up. I don’t want to get up. I’ve never wanted to get up less.
‘Come on,’ I hear Champ yell, and he kicks someone. ‘Get up and get out of here so I can get some sleep.’
So wherever we are going, the trucks can’t come. We will walk. I have to walk.
I sit up and look around. Akot is already up, he is wiping the dirt out of his hair and clothes. Where is Otim? I see his feet lying in the dirt, his body covered by the long dewy grass. He is very still. I wonder how he can sleep through the commotion of soldiers and recruits waking up, then I realise he is the boy who tried to run away last night. My heart throbs. He just wanted to go home. I want to go home too.
The Captain blows a whistle. ‘Everyone up! We’re moving out!’
Minefield
My feet are on fire. We have no shoes for this trail. Sharp stones. Bits of metal. We walk in a single line down the road. The Captain walks in the centre with the grown-ups. Behind them the kid soldiers, then more grown-ups in the back. Us new recruits walk in front. The bits of metal are pieces of exploded mines.
All I can think is that my entire body hurts. I’m limping, but at least everybody wants to walk slowly. Every so often the Captain will yell for us to go faster, and we do for a while. It hurts most then. I have to push myself like I’m running just to walk at normal speed, and my toes, heels, knees and thighs scream under my skin.
We’ve been walking all day, through landmines. We stop only when the Captain wants to and for as long as he wants. They order us to stop and we drop to the ground. The first time, I notice out of the corner of my eye a boy near the front of our group shifting uncomfortably on a rock by the side of the road. A moment later, BOOM!
I don’t see it, but I hear it. My chest compresses, like I’ve been punched. A giant cloud shoots into the sky and people cover their faces. The young recruits scream. I search for the boy, sweeping the roadside with my eyes. He’s not there. I can’t believe he has just gone like that. It’s like a magician’s trick – a puff of smoke and then, nothing. I see only red. Is it blood or the bang that has blinded me?
‘Looks like he sat on one,’ yells out one of the soldiers. I can’t understand it.
‘Look, look!’ yells another. ‘That’s his arm. That’s a hundred metres, at least! Wow, I’ve never seen one fly so far.’
‘Maybe he was part bird.’ Laughter.
Soon we’re up on our feet again. I cannot get the image of that boy on the rock out of my mind as I try to watch where I place my feet on the ground. We stop to have water. They pass us one canteen. We
look at it and feel our mouths parched and dry as it’s handed towards us. It runs out before it gets to the end. Still, I’ve had a small sip. They make us change order and keep walking. They put anyone who annoys them in front. They are easy to annoy. It’s impossible to think of anything except what could happen to those at the front.
The heat pours down on us and all we can do is walk. We don’t even know where we’re going, we just walk and walk. Try to forget. Be strong and push forward. If you aren’t strong, you’re dead.
I pass another boy sitting by the side of the road – one of the big boys from school, he loved teasing me. Now he’s just sitting, covered in sweat with a sour look on his face. I keep walking.
‘Hey,’ I hear the Captain say behind me. ‘I didn’t say stop.’ Although at the sound of his voice we’ve all stopped.
‘Captain,’ a soldier says with a laugh in his voice. ‘He’s probably just brain-cooked. Too much sun, hearing voices.’
‘Shut up!’ the Captain says. ‘Boy, get walking.’
‘No,’ the boy says. ‘I’m not going with you. I’m not walking another step.’
‘No?’ the Captain asks. ‘Who says no to me?’ He pauses, then yells, ‘Who says no to me?’
‘No one!’ the soldiers yell. I hear them beating the boy.
‘Enough,’ the Captain says eventually and the sounds stop. ‘Well, boy? Are you ready to walk or do you just want to bleed for a while?’
‘Go to hell!’ the boy whimpers.
The Captain laughs. ‘Look around you, boy! Do you see trees? Or grass? No! All you see is the heat coming off the ground. Where do you think you are?’ He laughs again. ‘Okay, leave him. We don’t need this one. The villagers are making babies for us year round. We’ll get a new one soon.’
We walk again. The boy they beat, he’s still breathing, but he’s already dead. The sun will burn the water out of him. His body will lie on the side of the road, unburied, with a family of dark birds tearing his skin and muscles. By the time we get to where we are going we will have forgotten him. Even now I can’t remember his name. No one will tell his mother how, where or when he died. Or even that he’s dead. When he left the village he was gone forever. Dying means nothing to the rebels. It only matters to our families and villages. Here, we step on landmines and get shot and go to sleep hungry, never to wake up, but we were already corpses.
But I remember what the boy did, and wonder whether I will ever be brave enough to do the same.
The day is giving up the ghost, its heat is drifting away, and the sky lights up in fire and blood. The sunset squints, then boom! Another mine. We all stagger back. Some at the front fall over.
My stomach bubbles and knots, fear rises in my throat, my heart is between my feet. God, don’t make me lead. What will I do if they call on me? Will I be strong like Papa? A couple of grown-ups are near the front now. They push whoever is next in line into the lead and tell him to walk.
‘No! I won’t!’ the boy shouts back. ‘I’m not leading. I’m not going to die!’
A soldier pulls out his gun and, bang, the boy falls to the ground with a hole in his forehead. ‘You were saying?’ The soldier laughs. ‘All right, next up. You, walk!’
We walk again. For a moment I don’t mind the sharp rocks as I step on something soft, something I pray is not a piece of what used to be a boy from my village. Maybe he was. The boy they just shot was. His name vanishes from my mind. But I know what I will do if they call on me. If you refuse to lead, you die a coward. If you lead long enough, you die a brave man.
I suddenly realise that I don’t know where Akot is in the line any more. I look around, but there’s a tall boy right behind me and there are only a couple of boys ahead of me, so I know he’s not in front. If I just stepped in my brother, I might be sick again, even though I haven’t had more than soup to eat.
When it gets dark we stop. They hand out more water and dry crackers. The soldiers get food stolen from the government, these big rubber packs of food in a paste. I’ve seen them before. I’d take those over dry crackers any time. We lie down on the road, afraid to step anywhere someone else hasn’t already stepped.
In the dark, the soldiers talk and laugh, but we kids don’t. We just lie down and some snore. I can hear others crying. At first I lie there in pain, then I start to cry. But I don’t get more than a few tears out before it turns into a crazy half-laugh that sounds like a wheeze. I don’t know why I’m laughing, what can there be to laugh at except that I’m still alive?
I actually sleep, right on the rock-hard ground. When I wake I’m so stiff I can barely move, though I’m not sure if it’s from the ground or the beating. At first light we are back up and walking. They don’t rearrange us and I feel bad for the boy leading. He must have been so happy when they said we were stopping for the night. He’s survived how many hours as the leader? There’s no way to know, really. Time doesn’t mean anything out here. Just night and day and hurry.
My eyes catch sight of a solid shoulder. I’m sure I recognise it. But it’s difficult with others blocking my view. Is that Akot back there? His skinny legs look out of place with the rest of him. He is covered in a sheen of sweat and muck.
As far as I can see, Akot never looks for me. He stares at his feet and the ground in front of him. He isn’t watching, no fear keeps him alert. His mouth isn’t tight the way it gets when he’s sad and doesn’t want anyone to see. If anything he looks bored. Everything about him is relaxed – easy movements only just fast enough to satisfy the soldiers.
We don’t walk for very long before our first stop. My feet are numb. The Captain needs the toilet. Others have just gone by the side of the road during a break. I don’t need to. I haven’t since the night they came. Now there’s grass around, I hadn’t noticed before. Up ahead is a forest of short trees, all spread out. A few are close to us. The Captain grabs a recruit and tells him to walk to a nearby tree. After he takes a few steps, the Captain follows, stepping exactly where he stepped. When the boy gets to the tree the Captain orders him to walk around it. No mines. The Captain goes behind the tree and squats.
Then the boy comes back, with the Captain following. They are back in line and yell for everyone to walk. Those who aren’t ready scramble to get themselves together, and the grown-ups in the front change our order. The boy who was leading ends up standing behind me. As we walk he hums to himself.
We aren’t allowed to sing anything but the revolution songs. But this boy, he’s so happy to have survived he has to sing, and humming is the best he can do. He does it quietly, but I recognise the song. It’s a good song, a freedom song. I wish we could talk in line but we’re too tired, and if we talk too loud we’ll end up in the lead sooner. So on we go in silence and I pretend I’m talking with Akot. We’re telling each other stories from tending the goats. The stories are slipping away, but I miss the goats.
We sleep again. Tonight, though, we are closer to the trees and the ground around them is covered in leaves. Old leaves, rotting, but still pretty soft. The soldiers send us to walk around the trees, checking for mines. Nobody finds one. It’s even better than the cardboard. As I lie asleep I wonder how far away from home I am – not just in distance, but in time. It’s been so long since I was home. That feels worse somehow, but I don’t know why exactly. It doesn’t matter. Any distance from home is the distance between a starving man and a loaf of bread.
I lie on my bed of rotting leaves, waiting for dreams of my grandfather. I pretend that I’m at the football field. I left the village just this morning. I saw Pina on my way here. When I wake up I say the same thing to myself. Today is the first day. Yesterday I was at home. Yesterday I was with Mama.
We walk, we sleep. No food today. The soldiers had what was left of their paste food from yesterday. No – not yesterday. Yesterday I was in the village. Yesterday I was with Mama. What they have is just what they have.
And I have nothing. I’m getting really hungry now. It’s much worse than just my
stomach growling, now my head is starting to feel like a balloon. The lightness comes in little waves, then I’m heavy again. In the morning, I’m right behind one of the grownups in front, the ones that keep the lead boy walking. During one of the lightness waves, I stumble forward a little and I bump into the soldier.
‘What are you doing?’ he yells. Everyone up front stops. ‘Are you going for my gun? Are you trying to escape?’
‘No, no,’ I say. ‘I just got dizzy and tripped.’
‘I think you wanted to escape,’ he says. ‘Get in front of me where I can watch you!’
He grabs my shoulders and forces me in front of him. There’s just one other boy up here. ‘You are lucky,’ says the soldier. ‘That boy snores really loud. He kept me awake, so he’s leading.’
Twice more we stop without changing positions. The first time is for water. They pass the canteen, but it doesn’t get to me. The soldiers at the front have their own canteens, but they don’t share.
‘What if you step on a landmine?’ they say. ‘That would be a waste of water, wouldn’t it?’
Then we’re walking again. Somewhere behind me, I hear a thump and some people mutter things. We are all just tired, but the line has stopped. I turn around and I see a boy lying on the road. A soldier walks over and kicks him a little. The boy doesn’t move. The soldier grabs him by the shirt and drags him out of the line, then we walk again. The boy’s chest is still moving up and down. His arm is reaching out and I think his hand is moving. Then again, maybe he’s just lying that way because of how the soldier dragged him.
It doesn’t matter. We keep moving. I couldn’t carry him anyway. Today I don’t hurt as much, but my muscles ache badly and a few places they kicked extra hard are really sore. Then I wonder whether I am better. Maybe I’m just as hurt as I was, but I can’t feel it as much. I know that I’ve lost feeling in my feet. What if that numbness is spreading? If it is, is that bad? I have no idea.
