The Bite of the Mango (4 page)

In Magborou, we kids played with stilts made from slabs of wood, tin cans, and rope. In addition to seeing who could walk the fastest on them, we’d try to knock each other down. Usually there were too many kids for the number of stilts, so we’d end up sharing. My friend Mariatu would stand barefoot on my feet and hang on to me, usually around the neck. I would hold on to the ropes. Walking was hard with four feet, even though Mariatu tried to lift her own feet in rhythm with mine. With her on top of me, it felt as if I weighed twice as much, and we’d always end up laughing and falling on top of each other.

That’s how I felt as I began the long walk into Port Loko—as if my body weight had doubled. But now Mariatu was gone, and I was terrified. My arms throbbed, particularly near the bottom, around my wounds.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, since it was the dry season. The sun was hot already, even though it was still morning. The air was heavy with the smells of the forest—decaying wood, mango blossoms, and dew—and dust from the road. Birds cawed and chirped. I startled in fright the first few times I heard
the birds. In my imagination I saw rebels camouflaged in their khaki pants, sneaking through the bushes beside me. With every step I could hear the order from the older rebel to the kids in his charge: “Shoot that girl!”

By noon, my bare feet were covered in blisters. I trudged on, telling myself that the village the man mentioned must be near.

Sure enough, not long after, the lush countryside opened up. As the trees became more scarce, I heard the first sounds of a village—children’s laughter and the rustle of leaves.

I quickened my pace until I was in the center of the village. I could still hear the children, but the village was much quieter than it normally would have been. Two women with their backs to me were making what looked like fu fu and rice in large steel pots. Another woman sat by their side, mending a pair of boy’s pants.

“Hello,” I said as loudly as I could. My voice came out like a whisper, since my throat was parched. None of the women heard me. But someone else did.

“Who are you?” a young boy called out. Bug-eyed, he pointed a long finger at me, the way the boy rebels had done with their weapons.

The women jumped up, dropping whatever they had in their hands.

“What do you want?” demanded one of them. She appeared to be the oldest of the three, with wisps of gray in her short hair. She took a few steps toward me, then stopped. “What do you want?” she repeated. She looked very stern.

“P-p-please,” I stammered, my voice now a little louder.
“I need help.” I felt my legs wanting to collapse, but I managed to stay upright. “Rebels—”

“Rebels send girls like you into the villages first,” the woman cut in. “Then, when we’re caring for your needs, they attack. Where are they?” She was a heavy woman, and her sturdy legs shook the ground as she stamped. “Tell me where they are, child! Where are the rebels?”

“There are no rebels,” I said weakly. The woman’s temples were throbbing, and sweat trickled down her neck onto her bare breasts. “Please,” I begged. “I’m hurt.” And with that, I fell forward into the woman’s arms.

The woman who had caught me laid me down on the dusty ground. The sewing woman was taller, with a narrow face and high cheekbones. She propped the pants she had been mending under my head as a pillow while the third woman ran off, calling for help. The oldest woman lifted a plastic cup full of water to my lips. I sipped at it. I dared not drink too much, since my abdomen was starting to hurt again and I was afraid I would throw up.

The woman holding the cup explained that she had heard of girls like me being used as decoys. My mind drifted back to the girls I’d seen in Manarma with the rebels. Apparently the girls would feign injury and get unsuspecting villagers to help them. While everyone was busy with that, the rebels would sneak into the village unnoticed and attack.

The two women washed my face and then delicately unwound the fabric around my arms.

“Your wounds are very serious,” the older one said. “We need to get you to the medical clinic in Port Loko. Can you walk?”

I nodded, and the two women helped me stand. They walked beside me, close enough to catch me if I fell. We made our way back to the main road and started our trek into Port Loko.

After a while the road filled with women carrying big basins of fruits and vegetables on their heads. I looked down to avoid their stares, but I could feel them looking at me.

Then a voice called out: “You. You. You!” When I looked up, a bare-chested man was pointing at me.

The two women stopped and told me to do the same.

“You!” the man continued, coming right up to me. “Look at this person,” he demanded. He pointed at a man being dragged toward us. The captive had a rope around his neck and his wrists tied behind him, like Adamsay’s and mine had been in Manarma. “Do you recognize him?” the bare-chested man barked.

I did recognize the man who was tied up. He had married a beautiful woman from Magborou not long before. When he first announced his intentions to the people of our village, he and his family were given big cups full of water, as a symbol of approval, peace, and purity. The entire village turned out a month later to watch the man arrive for the week-long wedding ceremony. He came laden with food. The woman’s family had sent, via messenger, a list of what they wanted: a goat, a big bag of rice, beans, fried dumplings, and fruit. As is customary in our culture, the man had presented his bride-to-be with a calabash, or gourd, full of household items, including a needle and thread, candies, and a copy of the Quran. Also inside was a dowry of several thousand leones, the money we used in Sierra Leone, which the bride’s family distributed among her relatives.

For the ceremony, the woman wore a lovely white docket-and-lappa with lace sewn into it and a matching head scarf. The man was dressed in a gold and brown gown and cap. I didn’t know him, but he seemed nice, taking my hand at one point during the festivities and dancing with me. Now here he was, being dragged down the road like the wedding goat being led to slaughter.

I hesitated, not sure what to do. “Yes, I know this man,” I finally said to the fellow standing in front of me. “He’s—”

But the man cut me off. “I thought so,” he said angrily. “We caught him with an army sack and a red bandana like the rebels wear. He is one of the rebels. Even if he didn’t personally cut your hands off, we will kill him in your honor.”

“No, wait!” My voice was thin and scratchy. “I know him from my village.” My head was spinning, and I was so weak I was certain I would collapse any minute. I tried so hard to get the words out to tell the man to stop. But I couldn’t.

By now, all the people in the road had moved to the sides as spectators. The man who had accosted me pointed his long gun at the captive.

Bang. Bang. Bang
. The three gunshots echoed in my head as the man I knew from the wedding fell backwards onto the ground.

I closed my eyes.

“No more,” I prayed to Allah. “No more bloodshed!”

The hospital clinic in Port Loko was a square building made of gray cement. People of all shapes and sizes were waiting for help—old men, women holding screaming and
bloodied babies, young children cradling their arms like me.

The two women led me to a vacant spot under a mango tree. I tried to prop myself up against the tree trunk, but I couldn’t manage it. I slumped to the ground and entered a fitful sleep, in which I kept seeing people being shot.

At some point, the older woman shook me awake and helped me sit up. “Come,” she said, guiding me. “The nurses can see you now.”

Inside the clinic, it was even hotter than outside. A wind ruffled the dirty white curtains that hung over the windows, but there were so many people lying on the bare floors and leaning up against the walls that the breeze didn’t get very far. I found it hard to breathe.

A woman wearing a stiff white dress and matching cap took me by the shoulders. She was a nurse, she explained, and she would help me as best she could. After I lay down on a metal bed, she put a thin blanket the color of the sky over me.

I closed my eyes and drifted, but I was aware of everything going on around me: women speaking softly, children whimpering. Occasionally someone screamed, and when I heard that, my body twitched. “We want to go to Port Loko next,” the rebels said inside my head over and over again.

I felt the nurse unwind the fabric from my arms. “Where did this happen to you?” she asked.

“Manarma,” I groaned.

“Who did this to you?”

“The rebels.” As I said the words, I panicked. “They said they’re coming to Port Loko next,” I repeated hysterically, trying to sit up.

The nurse attempted to calm me. “You are safe here. ECOMOG
¹
patrols the city. Even if the rebels attack, they will be killed.”

“You don’t know what they are capable of doing,” I insisted, shaking my head from side to side.

“There is an ECOMOG truck here taking the sickest people to Connaught Hospital in Freetown,” the nurse continued. “We don’t have the medications here to fight your infection. You must go with them.”

As she helped me sit up, I noticed for the first time that the nurse was pretty, with high cheekbones and smooth black hair brushed neatly underneath her cap. She looked only a few years older than me.

I felt dizzier than ever. My stomach convulsed. I started to vomit, but nothing came out. The nurse supported me as I got back on my feet, then led me down a crowded hall to the back door of the clinic. As soon as she opened the door, I began to scream. She grabbed hold of me as I tried to run away.

“Rebels!” I shouted. “Rebels!”

“No,” the nurse said in a reassuring voice. “These men are with ECOMOG. They’re here to help you. They’re on your side.”

I looked more closely at the three men standing by the truck. They wore the same khaki pants as the rebels, and guns and bullets were draped around their bodies too. The only thing different about them was their matching khaki shirts and hats.

One of the soldiers smiled at me. “May I touch you?” he asked, stepping toward me.

I said nothing as he lifted me onto the back of the truck. There were benches lining the sides, and a green tarp covered the top. The rest was wide open.

A soldier inside found me an empty place to sit. As I glanced around at the bloodied faces of the others, I shivered. There were people with no ears, some with no arms, and one person with an eye missing.

Then my heart stopped. I gasped as I looked into the sad brown eyes of first Mohamed and then Ibrahim.

One afternoon when I was little, I was sitting underneath a coconut tree when a tiny yellow and brown weaver dropped suddenly from the sky. I don’t know what made that little bird fall, but it landed with a thud on the red clay earth. I moved to help it, then decided not to. The weaver was injured. It was better off dying on its own than having me take it back to the village, where it would likely die in pain a day or two later or, worse, live out its life with a broken wing. For the longest time, I watched as that stubborn bird tried to stand up on its crooked little legs, flapping its wings wildly, only to topple over and lie still before trying all over again.

Then something miraculous happened. After the bird had lain motionless for so long I thought it was dead, it stood up as solid as ever and lifted off into the sky.

When I saw Ibrahim and Mohamed, I felt like that bird. Something had knocked me clear out of the sky, and here I was on the ground, trying to get up. But I couldn’t, and I wondered if I’d ever have the perseverance of that small weaver. I sat in a trance, not moving. My glazed eyes locked on Ibrahim’s eyes, then moved to Mohamed’s. What broke the spell was Ibrahim.
With a defeated sigh, he looked down at his arms, which were bandaged like mine. “The rebels cut off his hands too.” I gasped at the realization. And then I saw that Mohamed was cradling his arms in exactly the same way.

I felt a chill, though it was very warm in the back of the truck with all our bodies crammed so close together. My head slipped onto the shoulder of the person sitting next to me.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t,” a soft female voice replied. The woman gently pushed my head back down onto her fleshy shoulder, then stroked my forehead with her fingers.

To avoid the rebels, the ECOMOG truck took a longer route to Freetown, along a rough road full of potholes and ditches. Somehow I managed to catch a bit of sleep, with my head still on my neighbor’s shoulder.

I woke when the truck stopped, and the woman turned toward me.

“What happened to you, sweet girl?” she asked quietly, wiping some hair out of my eyes. “No. Don’t answer. Save your voice.”

She poured some water onto a cloth, then ran it over my forehead and cheeks. “My name is Fatmata,” she said. “My uncle was caught in the attack at Manarma, like you, I am guessing. My brother and I are here with him.” She gestured to the two men sitting beside her. One of them was covered from head to toe in caked blood.

ECOMOG soldiers were helping people disembark from the truck. My body tightened when it was my turn, and my lips started to quiver. Fatmata sensed my anxiety. “We’re in Lungi,”
she told me. “We need to take a boat to Freetown, just a short distance over the water.”

It was dark by now, and on the far shore I could see lights going up the sides of buildings taller than palm trees. Lights appeared to be hanging everywhere! In Magborou, we lived our nights in darkness except for the light from the fire or the few kerosene lamps we owned.

“May I stay with you?” Fatmata asked in a low voice. She was a little taller than me, I could see as we stood side by side, and a bit heavier. I guessed she was about 20.

Fatmata led me to the pam-pam, a boat similar to the long wooden canoe men used in Magborou to fish. I spied a few other pam-pams in the water, sunk down with only their helms sticking out.

“No,” I cried. “I can’t go. It will sink. I’m sure it will!”

I had never been in a boat before, and I knew there was no way I could swim without my hands.

Fatmata assured me that everything would be all right. “I’ll hold you the entire time,” she said. “We will get to the other side safely.”

We were the last people to board. The boat moved smoothly, and my apprehension lifted as I watched the lights of the city dance over the water. I had always wanted to visit Freetown, because the adults in the village talked about how big and exciting it was.

Once we landed, ECOMOG soldiers led us to another truck. The vehicle made a singing noise as we moved through the streets of Freetown; I know now it was a siren. In the West, ambulances blare to tell drivers to get out of the way. But in
Freetown, the people crowded onto the streets didn’t seem to notice. They walked right in front of that truck, not bothering to step aside. If I had been healthy, I could have reached the hospital more quickly on foot.

When we arrived at the front gate of the hospital, a woman in a nurse’s uniform directed us to a building at the end of the big complex of hospital wards.

“She’s telling us to go there for the night,” Fatmata said. “Don’t you worry, little one, I will stay with you tonight.”

The stench from the building reached me before I even walked inside—blood, vomit, and sweat. The auditorium was crowded with people lying on the bare cement floor. Blood was everywhere. As I passed through the door with Fatmata by my side, I felt like one of Mohamed’s ghosts on the lookout for a healthy body to possess. But this building held no one healthy; everyone was sick. When I sat down, I immediately threw up.

I was among the first to be treated the next morning. Some nurses took me to a bright white room with a huge light hanging from the ceiling. One of the nurses explained it was an operating room.

The doctor, a man with a gruff voice, wore a long white coat and glasses. He spoke Krio, but one of the nurses translated his words into Temne for me. Did I know anyone in Freetown? he asked.

“Yes, my uncle Sulaiman,” I replied.

“Do you know where he lives?”

Sulaiman was Marie and my father’s youngest brother. I had never visited him, but I knew he was a businessman in
Dovecut, a shopping area in Freetown.

The doctor stuck what looked like a long sewing needle into my arm which he said would put me to sleep. When I awoke, it was nightfall, and Fatmata was by my bedside. I was in a big room lined with beds. It was the girls’ ward, Fatmata told me, filled with patients my age and younger. I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t; whatever the doctor had given me made me woozy. My arms had been bandaged in bright white material. Not a speck of blood showed through the fabric.

Fatmata held a spoonful of plain white rice up to my mouth. Before I could swallow it, I threw up.

“You need to eat,” she said gently. “You need food to give you energy, so we will try again later.”

I fell asleep before I could answer.

The next day, when Fatmata came to visit, she told me her uncle had died from his wounds. She had been crying, and I could see she was very sad. When she asked if I’d like to try walking, I nodded yes.

“Then let’s go see those boys you know from the truck,” she suggested. “They’ve been asking for you.”

As soon as we entered the boys’ ward, I spotted Ibrahim. He was lying on one of the many metal cots that filled the room. “Hi, Mariatu,” he said, a smile crossing his face. He didn’t sit up. Like me, it would take him some time to learn how to do things without hands. “Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded, blinking back tears.

“Don’t you be crying there, Mariatu,” I heard Mohamed call. He sat on the edge of the bed directly behind Ibrahim’s, his legs dangling, his arms bandaged like mine.

Mohamed had the big fat grin he always wore. Despite the ordeal he had been through, his eyes sparkled.

“I guess we’re equal now,” he said as I sat down beside him.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, how are we going to wrestle? No one will win.”

I don’t know where it came from but I laughed and laughed. I felt like that little weaver bird again, but this time I had the feeling I could learn to fly.