Beneath the Darkening Sky (6 page)

Slowly, I walk back to the village. If I run it might chase me, so I just walk. I look over my shoulder, and the shape lies still. So I walk a little faster. The blackness doesn’t even
blink. Then I turn, and there is my village.

Mama waits in front of her hut, wearing a perfect white dress. Her eyes are wet. Even from far away, I can tell she wants to cry. I think I am far enough away from the thing in the bushes that I
can run, so I do. I run up to Mama and she throws her arms around me and hugs me tightly. She kisses my cheek and my forehead and presses her cheek against my neck.

‘What’s wrong, Mama?’

She doesn’t answer, she cries more and holds me tighter.

‘We have to go.’ I know the voice. I look over Mama’s shoulder and there’s the Captain, standing in the hut, holding a running shoe. Steam’s flowing out of the
shoe. Closing his eyes, the Captain brings the shoe to his mouth and drinks out of it, like it’s a cup.

‘Just one more day?’ Mama pleads.

‘One more day,’ the Captain replies, wiping his mouth, ‘is a year.’ He drops the shoe to the floor and steps outside with us. I feel his hands around my waist as he pulls
me from Mama. At first she holds tighter, but he tugs on me and she lets go. The Captain holds me like I’m a basket of fruit and says to Mama, ‘Thanks for the coffee.’

I hold the Captain’s hand and we’re walking towards the big green truck. Other children stand on it dressed in dirty rags. Big holes all over their brown stained clothes. They
don’t look sad or angry, their tears have been beaten out of them. Just blank faces.

Then another voice. A tall man, dressed in black with a priest’s white collar. ‘Excuse me,’ says the priest. ‘The boy isn’t ready.’

The Captain stares at him. ‘He’s going to be a soldier and the elephants aren’t waiting.’

‘He cannot go yet,’ says the priest. ‘He hasn’t been blessed.’

‘Then go bless him.’ The Captain gives my hand to the priest. ‘Before the elephants come.’

The priest takes my hand and leads me to the village circle. A hundred people wait, all dressed in white, standing shoulder to shoulder in rows. ‘The boy must be blessed!’ cries the
priest, and the people cheer.

One lady in the front claps. The others join her and clap a lively beat. They sway to the rhythm of the clapping. One woman gives out a long cry as a first note to a song and others join her. As
they sing, the rows of people close around me, until I’m in the centre holding the priest’s hand.

In their song they praise God because he has sent them food, which eases their hunger. They thank him for rain, which eases their thirst. Then they cry out that their lives are filled with fear.
The soldiers roam the hills and wild animals steal their goats. The rains don’t come and their gardens wither. They thank God again, praising him for heaven. In every pain and hunger and
thirst and sorrow on earth, heaven is always there, hope is always alive. Hope, they sing, eases every pain.

The priest raises my hands and tells me to sing.

‘I don’t know the words.’

‘Then you must learn the words,’ says the priest with a smile.

I look at the singers again. Their swaying turns to spinning. All around me, the singers in their white clothing spin and dance. They move as one in their rows. Clapping and calling out the song
that doesn’t end.

‘If you cannot yet sing,’ the priest says, standing up, ‘you can always dance.’

So I pick up my feet and step with the clapping and I listen to the music and nod my head. I close my eyes and feel the music, like Papa taught me for the traditional dances. I turn and tap the
soil and the dust rises and the trees and the village spin around me. I stomp and jump and turn and kick and yell and spin and step and kick and jump. The huts become blurs, rising dust a haze, the
people around just colours whipping by. I raise my arms, shake my hands and my elbows bounce.

The music is warm inside me and the harder I dance, the deeper it goes and the warmer I feel. Like my bed in springtime, after a long day with the goats. Like everything inside of me is smooth
and comfortable. I swim in this feeling.

I wake. My entire body aches.

The heat of the blows has calmed, but the pain is like the humming of cicadas. Quiet, but constant. The truck’s shaking makes it worse.

On the truck, though, I don’t want to cry. I’m cried out. Or perhaps they really did beat it out of me. I can feel my feet and hands again, though maybe it was better when I
couldn’t. My feet don’t hurt too much, but when I try to shift my leg I can only move it a couple of centimetres, it weighs two tonnes. My left hand hurts like there’s an animal
inside. When the animal breathes in, my hand hurts like crazy, but then it breathes out and the pain isn’t so bad. My right hand has turned to stone.

I’m sure my bones are broken. My hand, my knee, and a couple of ribs. Even breathing lightly hurts. Sticky spots of drying blood are all over me.

‘Hey, he’s awake,’ Akidi says. Akidi is like a big sister to all of us younger kids in the village. The girls like going to collect water from the stream with Akidi because she
tells fables and funny tales as they walk. Now she’s curled up like I was, behind the goat.

I look up and I’m still in Akot’s lap, but his face is still. Not like the kids in my dream. His face isn’t empty, it’s hidden.

‘Obinna,’ Akidi is almost whispering. ‘How do you feel?’

‘It hurts,’ I moan.

‘Well, you aren’t bleeding too much,’ Akidi says, trying to smile. ‘So I think you’ll be okay.’

‘I’m not okay.’

‘I know.’ She reaches out and touches my face. The touch feels funny. Then she takes the cloth from her hair and sticks a corner of it in her mouth. Carefully she uses the wet corner
to wipe my face.

Akot looks towards the soldiers. None of them are looking at us. Of course they don’t care.

‘They told us we can’t sing,’ Akidi tells me. ‘We can only sing revolution songs, but I don’t know any of those.’

Just then someone yells, ‘Elephants!’

Soldiers turn around, craning their necks to get a look. One of the new recruits, who’s about my age, stands up, trying to see, just as Champ throws the steering wheel around a sharp
corner. Soldiers yell out as they slide to the edge of the truck, hands scrambling for a grip. Shouts turn into laughs as the truck goes straight again. They could have died, but they just laugh.
They cheer for Champ even though he almost killed them.

‘Hey,’ I hear a soldier yell. ‘I think we lost a recruit back there.’ He laughs. The boy who had stood up was no longer there.

They laugh more. The truck keeps its steady pace.

I look over at the Captain. He isn’t laughing, but a little smile breaks up his harsh face. He has one leg in the truck and I can see my sick still on it, dry and cracked, like old mud. He
looks down at me and I find I’m looking into his eyes. I see how dark they are. Like black circles in white pools, empty holes that go on forever. For a moment, I feel like I’m
falling.

Slowly he pulls a handgun from his belt. He lowers his head and looks at me through his eyebrows, like a cheetah before it runs. He turns the gun towards me and pushes on the back part so it
clicks.

I see his big lips move.
Bang
, he says silently. Then he smiles, big this time.

‘You’re mine,’ he says. ‘Baboon’s Ass.’

Fear is a second skin underneath the first, and made of ice.

The cold breaks and I look away. I want to run again, but when I think about running, my body screams.

So I stare at the sky. The forever up, blue beyond. I’m reaching out for it in my mind. I’m flying. A cool breeze blows and my scrapes and cuts feel better. My heart beats faster, a
soft tickle caresses my chest.

I glimpse green in the edges of my vision. The farthest branches of trees. At first just a few, but then almost solid. The leaves are so thick and lush and the trees are so close together, like
a wall or a valley. Now I want to see it.

I push up on my elbows. Searing pain! But I can now see the thick jungle flying by us. For a second I think about hiding in there. I think they’d never find me. But this isn’t my
jungle, maybe they walk through it every day. I don’t know. Then the trees end, giving way to a large football field. Now I know it’s their jungle.

In the field are about fifty trucks. Most of them are big army trucks like the one I’m in. I see a few smaller trucks with large guns mounted in the back and even a school bus
spray-painted camo green. They all look beaten up and I wonder if Champ’s driving did that. More soldiers with big guns and bullet belts over their shoulders walk around the field. Little
groups of new recruits like me stand around.

A group of girls are sitting around a cooking fire, and even from far away I can see they don’t want to be seen, so they just look down. Another group, this time boys, sit around another
fire. They look everywhere, like buzzards protecting their meat. Some recruits are singing, they look happy. A soldier comes over and sings with them. It must be a rebel song. The rebels’
songs are all about how beautiful the world will be when the revolution takes over. I can’t hear the words above the sound of the truck, but I know I don’t like their song. What sort of
a place is this?

I see more kids sitting together crying. No one is beating them. Maybe the soldiers know there’s too many to beat, so they leave them alone. Maybe.

We turn onto the field and Champ slams on the brakes. We all slide forward and a goat almost steps on my face. The soldiers cry out as they slide towards the edges. Then they laugh and cheer.
They’re all crazy.

The young soldiers, the kids who already have uniforms and guns or sticks, jump down and run onto the football field, shouting to others they know. Perhaps they’re friends. The new
recruits get out slowly as the others wave their rifles at us. We’re like young goats coming out of a pen. We scoot to the edge of the truck, where the soldiers are, then run right past
them.

Akot and I are still scooting when I hear other soldiers coming near the truck.

‘Captain!’ they shout with big smiles, running towards him.

‘Whoa, Captain!’ one shouts. ‘Are you sick? I’ve got some malaria tablets if you need them.’

‘Not me,’ the Captain replies. ‘See that one in there, with the bruises? It’s his. Baboon’s Ass puked right on me.’

More soldiers stand at the edge of the truck. ‘Come here!’ they yell at me. ‘Baboon’s Ass!’ I hear. ‘Hand him over!’ another says. They are grabbing the
other recruits and pulling them out of the truck and just pushing them away, like meerkats digging for a bug. Six huge men, just torsos because their legs are hidden by the edge of the truck, claw
at me.

I grab Akot, but I know it’s no good. They seize me and Akot and tear us apart. I don’t see where Akot goes, but I land in the dirt with these six men towering around me.

‘Puke on the Captain?’ Kick. One of my cuts reopens.

‘He’s a great man!’ Kick. I’m bleeding.

‘Enough!’ the Captain yells. They stop.

I hear stepping around me. No one’s talking, but someone’s crying. When I try to open my eyes it’s like they are sewn shut. When I do open them a little the world is blobs of
colour. Tears in my eyes. The crying is me. I’m crying. The monsters didn’t beat it out of me. Now I
want
to cry. I want them to see that they are kicking a child.

That they’ve stopped kicking me is the best thing that’s ever happened.

‘So,’ says the Captain. He’s standing next to me. I turn my head and try to look up. ‘Do you know why I told them to stop?’

I don’t reply.

‘I want you to get well soon,’ the Captain whispers. ‘Then we can start again.’

He stands up and walks off with his soldiers following, like he’s Michael Jordan.

I look around. Akot stands by the truck. A soldier holds onto my brother’s shoulders, rising behind him. I know that look on Akot’s face. It’s hate, for either me or the
soldiers.

The soldiers give the girls cardboard boxes to sleep on. ‘We want them to stay soft,’ one of them says. He laughs. The Captain and other adults have tents.

Akot and Otim carry me to the other seated recruits. A couple of girls come over when they see Akidi and other girls from the truck. They bring bandages and cover my worst cuts – they
sting then fade to a dull throb. A boy makes a fire and a soldier brings us a dented pot and wilted vegetables. Akidi crouches near the cooking fire and makes a soup. The vegetables are old and
dissolve in my mouth, but the soup is hot, and pushes back against the cuts and bruises.

While we sit around the fire, trying to eat, Otim says to Akidi, ‘Tell us a story.’ In the village, Akidi was famous for her stories. She would tell them to the rest of us kids when
the adults were away in the fields, or at times like now, when we’d eaten and the fire was burning low. But now isn’t like any time we had in the village. Akidi shakes her head.

We’re not alone. ‘Yeah!’ says a soldier at the next fire. ‘A story! Let’s hear what the new recruits have got to say for themselves.’ The other soldiers with
him grin and look at Akidi.

Akidi shrinks with all these men looking at her. Now she looks scared again, like she thinks if they don’t like her story, they’ll kill her. Maybe she’s right, these animals
will kill you for anything.

‘Come on,’ says the first soldier, whose face we can’t see properly. ‘Tell us a story! Otherwise I might tell you one.’

And all the soldiers laugh, and sing out, ‘Yeah,’ ‘Tell us,’ and ‘Come on.’ Akidi just stares at the bonfire. I can see the flames’ reflection in her
eyes.

Next to me, Akot’s foot moves. He has given Akidi a little kick. ‘“The Princess and the Thief”,’ he whispers. She looks at him for a minute, not understanding, but
then she nods and clears her throat.

Her voice squeaks, ‘Okay.’ She takes a deep breath and tries again. This time her voice is loud and stronger. They can hear her at the next fire..

‘Once upon a time, an evil king lived in a beautiful palace that overlooked a very poor city. The king would go through his country, and anything that he liked he would just take. He would
steal the food right off a poor man’s table and eat it right in front of him. He didn’t care if the man died, as long as the king got exactly what he wanted, nothing else mattered. The
same went for people.’