A Distant Shore (17 page)

Never before had I left the capital. As we passed through the shanty towns which clung to the edges of our main city, I stared in disbelief at the corrugated tin shelters which sprouted out of what looked like foul rubbish dumps. Although I had not seen these places with my own eyes, such tin-roofed slums, where beggars patrolled the streets, were widely known to be home for the disabled and maimed, places where huge rats bred freely and roamed by day and by night. I continued to stare in disbelief. This was our city? We soon passed into the countryside and sped south along the narrow strip of asphalt that had been laid clumsily over loose earth. The frayed edges of the asphalt had already been chewed by the red soil, and it was clear that at some point in the near future this “road” would disappear. I looked to either side, but there was nothing except a dark curtain of bush.

The truck rolled and swayed like a drunk, and as we pressed further south we began to pass hundreds of displaced persons walking towards us with mattresses, cooking pots, and bundles of possessions on their heads. We soon grew accustomed to the barricades of burning tyres that occasionally blocked the road, and finally one of our escorts climbed wearily to his feet. He steadied himself by holding on to the side of the truck, and we stared at him as he stood before us resplendent in his grimy New York Jets T-shirt with his belt of neat bullets, like long chocolate fingers, that was wrapped around his waist and across his chest. He was chewing some kind of nut and the juice was dribbling down his chin, but either he did not care or he did not notice, for he made no attempt to dam the black rivulet at the corner of his mouth. He looked through his gold-rimmed glasses at all five of us in turn, and then he began to speak without enthusiasm, as though his words carried no weight.

“We are fighting for a purpose. Our aim is to liberate our land from these unscrupulous men who hate us. They outnumber us two or three to one, but they are mosquitoes. They suck our blood, but you will be trained so that you can squash them, do you understand?”

We looked at this man and nodded, and he stared at each one of us in turn and then, as though suddenly overcome with fatigue, he carefully lowered himself to the floor of the truck and once again rolled over and onto his side and closed his eyes. I watched him, for I was sure that this was some trick of his to test us, but soon I was convinced that the man had truly fallen asleep and the rest of our journey passed in silence.

In the south we were held in the bush far away from the nearest village. Those who trained us were boys, but they walked with the authority of old men in their plastic flip-flops. Their painted nails, and the teddy bears that many clung to, initially caused me to be confused. I soon learned that the currency of the camp was weed that you smoked, and this gave these soldiers a feeling of invincibility so that holding a stuffed toy, or wearing a Donald Duck mask, or daubing oneself with bright-pink lipstick, could never undermine their manhood. For my own part, beyond the dark sunglasses which we all craved and needed, I decided not to decorate myself, and perhaps because of my conservative bearing, and the fact that I was some ten years older than most of the men, I was chosen to be the leader of a brigade. I was different, for I had more education than the others, and more ambition to make something of myself in the world, and for these reasons they listened to me whenever I chose to speak. However, I was not a man to waste words, and most of the time I remained silent, which is why they took it upon themselves to christen me “Hawk.”

Our first raids were a great success. I would lead the men into a village and we would drive out the government troops. We discovered many villagers with swollen stumps where their arms and legs used to be, the skin stretched and sewn together with makeshift stitching. These men had been tortured by the government troops, and many of our own people had now begun to resort to the same tactics in order to extract information, but I refused to allow my men to hack off limbs. When we had either killed or captured our enemy, the grateful villagers would re-emerge and shout and cheer for Hawk and his men. We showed restraint and, rather than just taking, we always waited for the liberated villagers to reward us. Sometimes they would cook food for us, rice with spicy sauce, cassava-bread pancakes, fresh roasted yam or soup; what little they had they would share with us, and even those who were not of our tribe knew that we would treat them better than the government soldiers. They knew that we were fair men, and when we left, my men always carried new gifts: a shower cap, a wedding headdress or a pair of women’s shoes. Patrick, my second-in-command, enjoyed smearing his face in mud and he took to wearing a wig with one long braided pigtail. Never without the weed, Patrick soon appropriated the name “Captain JuJu” and shortly after his rebirth he would not answer to any other title.

“Patrick,” I would ask him, “what juju are you using?” and he would laugh as though my question was the opening gambit in a game. Patrick would cackle and pass me the joint.

“Hawk, you are a funny man.” And then Captain JuJu, who had long forgotten that my name was Gabriel, would flap his arms and begin to run around and screech, “Only Hawk can fly” while the rest of the men clutched their sides with laughter. “Only Hawk can fly.” And I would take the weed and watch crazy Patrick with a quiet smile on my face. “Only Hawk can fly.”

For over a year this was our life, moving stealthily from one village to the next, driving back the government troops and waiting for news from the rest of the country, or a message from our leader back at the training camp. His headquarters was a small tin-roofed hut that was circled by bodyguards, and there he would sit with only his satellite telephone for company and plan the liberation campaign. Approximately once every month, our leader would call his commanders to him, and at such times a jeep would arrive and I would travel back south, leaving the troops in Patrick’s charge.

Colonel Bloodshed never removed his Ray-Ban glasses or his Nike training shoes. Inside his hut he had glossy photographs of American film actresses stuck to the wall, and while I waited for him to look up at me, or finish a telephone call, I would stare at the fading pictures and wonder why
these
girls in particular? The miracle of electric light was produced by the roar of the leader’s private generator, but above the noise of the engine I could still sometimes hear the sound of screaming as sand was being pushed into the ears of government soldiers, or I would hear cries for mercy as fresh captives were being hung upside down over the septic tank. Colonel Bloodshed seldom killed prisoners, this much I knew. Fear was enough to make the enemy talk, but I disliked hearing the noise. When the leader spoke to me from behind his glasses he enjoyed calling me Hawk, and he loved speaking in riddles and telling me that there were no more devils downstairs in hell, for they were all up here on earth visiting our country. He loved reminding me that guns must liberate, but they must never rule.

“Major Hawk,” he would say, “you are one of my ten chiefs. Remember, in war there are casualties, and we all do things that we wish we had not done.” Our leader would pause. “But remember. Guns must never rule, and I say this as a soldier.” Again he would pause, and then he would lift up his eyes as though trying to peer at me over the top of his Ray-Bans. “Hawk,” he would whisper. “To
not
be buried in one’s own land. Now
that
is the ultimate insult. You understand, don’t you?”

I would nod, but Colonel Bloodshed never listened to me, and I assumed he never listened to any of his “chiefs.”

“Hawk, I am a good-looking man, do you not think so? A show-man, yes?” Our leader stood and began to pace the floor with rhythmic deliberation. “You can see how I dress, can’t you? In the latest fashions, and always the best. Once upon a time I was a professional dancer in a night club, did you know that? Look, admire me, there is nothing to be ashamed of.” Our leader threw his hands into the air and spun on his axis, and then when he was once more facing me he began to laugh out loud. “I used to dream of going to Europe. Of becoming a ‘been-to.’ But I knew that such a journey would cost me five years of savings and cause me five years of debt. So instead, in the capital, I used to service the wives of the diplomats and the tourists in the hope that one of them would take me to Europe. There I would be the toast of the town. The brown toast. I would never be one of the ‘been-tos’ who come back as a ghost of the man they once were, their African souls crushed by these people. My body and my soul would return to Africa in triumph. Brown toast. Look at these feet.” He pointed to his Nike training shoes. “These feet were not made to suffer dirt. When I go to Europe I will walk everywhere on soft material and they will worship my black beauty. They will fall at my feet and proclaim my power and how handsome I am. I will stamp on their violins and piss on their classical music CDs. I will bring them black Africa.”

At such moments I had learned that it was best to say nothing and simply listen.

“How are the dogs?” By this I knew Colonel Bloodshed meant my troops.

“Sir, they are well.”

“It is hard for the dogs. If they are afraid, you must let them smoke the cannabis and mix it with gunpowder. Then they will have no fear of spilled blood coming back to haunt them. They will no longer see people, only chickens that have to be slaughtered. You must encourage them to harvest the chickens. It is time for the men of our country to reap the harvest and eat chicken.”

At some point, having been provided with a patient and obedient audience, Colonel Bloodshed would tire of my presence and unceremoniously fall asleep, and I would find a jeep or a truck that was available and begin the long journey back north to my men.

Sometimes I would take out my book with its curled cover and mottled pages, and I would try to reread some of the notes that I had made, for I was in the habit of copying out passages from books that appeared to me to be memorable. However, on this particular night, as the light faded, I simply stared into the dark undergrowth. As I passed through a village that we had liberated only a few weeks earlier, I looked at the long line of women waiting at the solitary well for water, and the naked children running around in circles and playing the game of hitting each other with switches pulled from trees, and I wanted to weep for both tribes of my country. My own father had sent me to be a part of this slaughter and for the life of me I could not understand what he hoped to achieve. He meant well, that much I understood, but what did my father know of war?

When I arrived back at our camp I discovered that in my absence Patrick had led a group of men back to the village that we had most recently captured. Apparently the men had heard that the local prostitutes were prepared to go “live” with a man who did not wear a condom. These women liked dry sex, rough, quick and without lubrication, and Patrick and the men were eager to offer up trinkets in exchange for these women’s bodies. I sat by the campfire with the handful of men who remained behind, and I encouraged them to clean their weapons, for too many of them were rusting up in the humidity. I reminded the men that a weapon that jammed might well cost them their lives. They looked at me in silence. I cleaned my own rifle, but said nothing further.

In the morning Patrick and his men had still not returned and so I sent two men to search them out. When they finally appeared, Patrick was dressed in black pantyhose and he was still drunk. The others were high on pills and they continued to smoke weed. The men staggered towards me as streaks of light began to colour the tops of the trees. Patrick smiled his gap-toothed smile and placed a welcoming hand on my shoulder.

“Hawk,” he whispered. “Hawk, you have never tasted women like these. I am sorry, my brother, but nothing like these women. Never. Nothing like these.”

I looked at Patrick and then turned away, for these men were suffering enough in this hellish war without enduring the lash of my tongue. In fact, I had no words on my tongue with which to lash them. These were young men who were fighting because somebody had given their family a bag of rice or promised them a car. For over a year they had simply eaten what they were given, and they had all lost friends. I walked to the shade of a tree and sat and closed my eyes. When I opened them it was evening.

The following morning we moved north and began our assault on the next village, but the mood had changed. As we cut through the bush, Patrick would not meet my eyes, and the other men avoided me. I felt as though I was marching alone, but I said nothing. When we reached the village we stopped and took up our crouching positions. We waited for signs of government troops, but we saw nobody. I stared at Patrick, who was wearing a new shower cap on top of his wig, but he simply looked at Major “Hawk” and laughed, and I could see it in his eyes that he had already taken something.

“Hawk. We are ready. Are you ready? Hawk, we are ready to fly.”

I zipped my forefinger across my lips to encourage him to be quiet, but he simply giggled. And then others among the men began to laugh. I continued to look straight ahead at the village, but I could see no movement at all.

After a few moments, I stood up and beckoned everybody to gather around. I told them that the village was clear and that the government troops must have retreated. I suggested that we pass through, and accept food if the villagers wished to give some to us, but we would just move on. Patrick stepped out in front of me and held up his hand.

“No. The women last night told us that this village is friendly towards the government troops. These villagers are traitors.” I had heard this and I knew that there was a possibility that it was true, but before I could say anything Patrick continued. “Captain JuJu says we take control of this village.”

The men began to nod and to move from one bare foot to another. They were already tired under the weight of shells and the heavy pieces of equipment that were strapped to their narrow backs, but their hearts were strong with amphetamines and dope. I spoke quietly.