Beneath the Darkening Sky (2 page)

The sky is still dark. The sun isn’t out yet, but the village is so bright. Where is all the light coming from?

I look around and see pillars of flame, maybe six huts away. They’re setting our huts on fire! My heart stops. Now there’s a flash, and a flicker becomes another flame, and it crawls
up the side of my hut, eating at it, singeing my home black.

Not even thinking, I climb the tree. I’m up so fast, hiding in the shadows of the leaves.

‘Obinna!’ I hear Akot cry out.

It’s hard to hear over everything. Soldiers yelling, villagers crying and screaming. The burning huts crackle and crash.

The only things moving slowly are the soldiers. They stroll through the village like children playing with toy guns, shooting at people as they run for their lives.

‘Obinna!’

If it wasn’t my name, I wouldn’t have heard it. ‘Where are you?’ But Akot stops. He’s looking at the tree, then everywhere else. Did he see me? I want to call out
to him, to tell him where I am so that he can come here and hide in the leaves with me, but if I call out to him the soldiers will hear. If I don’t, they will hurt him. I’ll call him
quietly. I open my mouth, and as I’m about to yell he turns and goes back towards our hut.

I creep out on the limb so I can see better. A soldier is trying to pull Mama out of her hut and Papa is holding onto her, refusing to let go. Two more waving guns in the air move towards them.
One raises his gun with both his hands and pounds Papa in the shoulder with the wooden end of it. Papa lets go of Mama with a groan. Maybe his arm has gone numb. The rebels – now I’m
sure they’re the rebels – drag all of my family out of the hut and force them to lie in the dirt for a second, and then yell at them to get up again. Akot runs to Mama, and wipes the
dirt out of her hair and whispers something to her. A soldier comes up from behind, an enormous shadow rising slowly. The soldier hits Akot and my brother spins and falls into the dirt.

I can hear him in my head – ‘Real men always fight back.’ Don’t be a man, Akot. Please. The rebel keeps the gun pointed at my brother’s head on the ground, he can
shoot him any second. No! God. Not Akot! Not now. The soldier shouts at him and Akot drags himself up, looking at the soldier as if he wants to remember his face.

I can count everyone, my whole family, standing close together near our hut. Where’s little Nini, our cousin? She’s hiding under her mama’s arm. A bunch of soldiers guard our
home, but no one looks at my tree. One of the men is talking. The sound has died down, but I still can’t hear him, I’m too far away. He waves his hands and points at my family. The
soldiers herd them like cattle, for a moment I think to my tree! But then I realise they’re going just to the left, into the central meeting place of the village.

The soldiers separate people into two groups. The first group is all men and boys. My father and grandfather and two cousins are there. Akot, and my other cousin, Otim. He’s the same age
as Akot, but he’s in Primary 6 and is known for his big feet. The second group is the women and the girls and the very young children. My mother and my grandmother, my uncle’s wife, and
little Nini and her two sisters. Mama is holding my baby sister, and my two little brothers grip her legs. My uncle’s sister-in-law, Akidi. She doesn’t even live with us, she’s
just visiting. Akidi is thirteen and her breasts are just starting to show. During the day, Akot keeps looking at them, but not now. No one says anything, not after they hit Akot.

Over there is my father. Even from this far away I can see the hatred in his face. The deep creases are pure black shadow, with our burning home lighting his face. He is fighting himself not to
move. I can hear his voice in my head. He’s telling me and Akot to be brave. ‘Be men. You have to prove yourself if you want to be a man.’ Seeing Papa’s face, I feel more
sad than scared. Just for a moment. Mama’s scared, she looks like she’s about to cry. She suddenly looks old. No one is moving, just shaking. I’ve stopped breathing. Even the wind
is still. Time has stopped. What I’m seeing can’t be real, but I want it to stay as it is. I’m more afraid of time starting again.

Another burning hut collapses and the villagers jump. One of the rebels laughs. He looks barely older than me, not by more than a year. Now I see that a lot of the rebels are just boys. All of
them are wearing army clothes, some tattered, others really new, but all a few sizes too big. A lot are dirty. I think it might be blood. Maybe the rebels make the younger ones cook, so they get
goat blood on their clothes. Their faces are all shiny with sweat and ash from the burning huts. It looks like face paint for the village dances.

Behind me, more soldiers come from the far side of the village, out of a mist of dust and smoke, waving their guns in the air. They pass close to my tree. My foot slips and I almost lose my
grip. A mango falls. Eyes turn to the tree. But they don’t track it back to me.

The rebel leader calls out orders again, this time I can hear him. ‘Burn the rest of the huts. And fire the granaries!’

Laughing like devils, the rebels set fire to the other huts. Flames spread like ants over a dead bird, racing along, eating at the huts and granaries. Orange dancers above our homes. My stomach
twists and turns cold. The soldiers are burning the food. Who burns food? They’re crazy.

More rebels appear with people from the furthest huts. They shout and push so many, maybe the whole village. Everyone I know. I swallow a sob. All I can do is watch. How can I only watch? Now
the rebels have pulled the boys out of the first group and are separating them into two lines. I see them pushing tall boys into one line and short boys into the other. Akot is in the line of tall
boys. A soldier kneels in front of the short boys’ line. He stands his gun on its wooden end and then takes hold of the first boy. He brings him next to the gun, the tip of the barrel against
the boy’s temple.

A cold wash of horror passes through me, like I’ve suddenly fallen back into the cold dark water of my dream. I wonder whether they’re going to shoot the short boys in the head.

No. The soldier is not shooting him. I realise that he is measuring him, to see how tall he is. He slaps the boy and pushes him to the line of the taller boys, and then moves to the next boy. He
puts this boy next to the gun. Then he puts the open palm of his hand across the boy’s head and the tip of the gun. He lets go of the gun – both boy and gun stand still. The same
height. The soldier thinks for a moment and then, as if he has just remembered what he’s doing, he pulls the boy up by the ear and points him to go to the taller line. He yells,
‘Next!’ and they go through the line of short boys.

God help us. God help us. Don’t let us die, not today. God! I’m just a kid, but please hear me. God. God! God.

A knot in the tree is digging into my elbow, like it’s cutting me, but I know it isn’t. This helps me forget how scared I am. I look back out through the mango leaves. My whole
village is split into these three groups, boys, women and men. A couple of the rebels stand by the groups, making sure villagers don’t run or talk. The guards are older. Men with thick necks
and arms clutching guns.

Another soldier, a beret smoothing the shadow of his head, starts shouting and waving, and the younger rebels make a big circle around him. This must be their leader. I don’t know a lot of
the words, but every once in a while the grown-up rebels shout something back. They call him Captain. They push the kids to shout too. The Captain is talking about injustice and strength. He says
names I’ve never heard before. Now he’s talking about enemies. The rebels in the circle shout louder. Every time the Captain takes a breath, they’re yelling. Jumbled words, not
real sentences. The guards join in too, raising their guns above their heads. The young rebels’ voices are higher and they crack.

They think my village is their enemy. I didn’t know we were on a side.

The Captain in his beret is yelling, ‘Revolution.’ The grown-up rebels shout the slogans over and over. They grab the kids’ arms and raise them up, making them repeat the
slogans. The grown-ups smile at the older boys and shake their fists to encourage them more. Now the Captain just stands silently, hands on hips, and looks at his soldiers as they shout. Some
stomp. Some whistle. Some hoot.

All at once, they stop. A few of the youngest ones cover their mouths with their hands. The Captain has raised his arms, pistol pointing upward as if he wants to shoot the sky. The quiet is like
another voice, louder than the shouting. Scarier than the screaming.

‘Revolution!’ the Captain yells, and they all shout again. The grown-ups move without orders. Two of them grab an old man and drag him into the centre of the circle. Another soldier
appears holding a long, dirty rope. The man from my village has a short grey beard and is very thin. They push him, and he stumbles and falls into the dirt. I can see his mouth move, but the rebels
are making too much noise for me to hear him.

They wrap the rope around the old man’s feet, then his wrists. They pull him up to his knees so they can tie the knot better. The villagers watch through the wall of rebels. I climb up a
little higher in the tree, careful not to make the branch shake. I watch too. I can’t remember the old man’s name, but he knows a lot of songs. He taught Akot one about being a strong
warrior. I know it because Akot sings it so much.

The Captain holds a machete over his head. It shines in the light of our burning homes. The others are all so dirty they don’t shine much.

Shouting, stomping and chanting. The old man is tied up like a fat goat and the Captain walks around him. More soldiers join the circle, like spectators at a cock fight. The Captain steps away
and points with his shining machete at one of the boys, an older one with scars on his cheek. The boy screams like he’s won something and runs forward, his own machete raised. What’s he
doing?

The boy swings the machete down, onto the old man’s neck.

The old man’s head is not joined to his body. Both are lying on the ground, blood pumping out of the neck just like a goat killed for a feast. The rebels cry out in celebration. The killer
boy grabs the head from the ground. The old man’s eyes are still open. Maybe he’s still alive. Maybe they can put the head back on.

Blood drips from what used to be the old man and now looks like a tree trunk. The killer dances around, swinging the head by its thin hair and waving his dirty blade. The old man knew so many
songs. One grown-up calmly unties the rope from the body.

The killer boy throws the head as hard as he can. It tumbles past the villagers and lands in a burning hut. The killer boy howls and shakes his fists like he’s just made a goal in
football. Grown-ups drag the old man’s body out of the ring and throw it to the side.

Mouths gape. A flash of someone shooting his gun in the air. Feet stomp. But I can’t hear a thing. They are dragging another man into the ring.

It’s Papa
.

His face is all hate.

When he laughs, Papa’s mouth gets really big and his bright teeth shine, even in the dark. Then his Adam’s apple bobs up and down and his laugh is deep like thunder and happy like a
rainbow.

While the grown-ups tie a dirty rope around Papa’s wrists, some big boys run around, getting the young ones to jump and scream.

The Captain stands outside the circle and whispers in one young boy’s ear.

A boy younger than me. The Captain shows him how to hold a machete with both hands.

Papa is pushed down on his knees and they tie his ankles together. Tight.

‘You’re all animals!’ Papa yells. I can hear him, louder than the rebels. ‘Animals that sniff through their own shit for food! You’re all dogs, eating your own
vomit!’

‘Animals,’ one of the rebels shouts back, ‘live in the dirt.’ He kicks Papa to the ground. ‘Now you’re an animal too!’

The Captain pushes the boy into the circle. He runs forward.

I want to hold Papa in my arms and protect him but I can’t.

Don’t do it!

The boy jumps and swings his machete down with both —

Papa!

I close my eyes. For the briefest moment I think, When I open my eyes I will see Papa alive and well. When I open my eyes everything will be okay.

I look back up and see the boy’s face covered with blood. The boy stumbles back, dropping his machete and rubbing the blood out of his eyes. A fresh shout breaks out in the circle. I
can’t see Papa’s face. It’s real. I can’t believe Papa is gone. I can’t breathe.

A grown-up goes to Papa and grabs his hair, but the blade didn’t go all the way through. He pulls and twists for a moment, and then hacks down with his machete, once, twice. I open my
mouth to be sick, but nothing comes out. The rebel offers Papa’s head to the little boy, who is still wiping the blood off his face with his sleeve.

They hand the little boy my papa’s head. His eyes are closed, but I can see his bright teeth shining. His mouth screams, but no sound comes out.

God kill them all. And kill me too. Then I can be with Papa.

Mama holds my youngest siblings close to her skirt and wails. Her eyes have vanished in wrinkles, tears run through them. Akot stands, watches, his whole body shaking, fists clenched.

The rebels circle and sing songs. Another man is brought in, and another and another. They make the young ones kill first. Heads are tossed into the burning huts and bodies are thrown. Just like
the butcher, only he never killed so many animals at once.

I sob, but no one hears me because everyone’s sobbing. The women pull at their hair and wail at the sky. Children cry and cling to their mothers. Some look about, trying to make sense of
what they see. Others just sit and bawl with their hands over their eyes. This isn’t happening, it can’t be.

The rebels disperse. They behead men at random. Akot and Otim and Akidi are held back by some of the guards, but most of the grown-ups ignore the men and go to the women. I can see one of them
grab my uncle’s wife. She screams and cries, tears soak her face and baby Nini holds onto her. My uncle’s wife is screaming and reaching out. The other women reach for her but the
rebels hold them back, pushing and kicking, hitting them with their guns. Her dress is ripped off. Children are pushed and thrown and kicked. What happens to the women is nothing like what
I’ve glimpsed in our village at night, or even seen with the animals in the fields – it is not from this world. They rip, and push, and cut.