The Darling (51 page)

THE ROAD TO FUAMA
was littered with abandoned cars and pickup trucks, tires stripped, hoods and trunks open, some of the vehicles still smouldering. The rubber plantations and plowed fields were empty of workers and overgrown, neglected for months now, since Charles’s band of rebels had crossed into Liberia from Guinea at Nimba and Johnson had come in from the north. The villages all seemed to have been abandoned by the inhabitants, and most of the buildings had been burned. Desolation lay all around.

At the river I was met by a group of four boys, two of them carrying AK-47s and bandoliers of ammunition draped over their bony shoulders. They wore do-rags on their heads and cheap wraparound sunglasses that made them look like spindly insects. When they approached the car, I opened the window and said that I wanted to cross the river to Fuama.

They didn’t answer. One boy held out his hand, palm up, and I put a dollar in it. The others did the same, and I put a dollar in each hand and said again that I wanted to cross the river to my husband’s village. I noticed a man, also in sunglasses and wearing a do-rag, camo shirt, cargo pants, and Timberland boots, lounging by a cotton tree nearby, smoking a cigarette and barely watching the boys under his apparent command. Though I had many times over the years made this journey to Fuama with Woodrow and had come to know most of the inhabitants of the settlement, at least their faces, these boys and their commander were strangers to me. Many of Woodrow’s people did not speak English, or spoke it only a little.
Perhaps they don’t understand me,
I thought.

The man got up slowly and strolled towards the car. I said to him, “My husband is Woodrow Sundiata. His father is headman of Fuama. My sons—”

The man cut me off. “Go home now,” he said. He waved the barrel of his gun in the direction I had come. “Turn and go home.”

Something in his voice was familiar. “Do I know you?” I asked. “What’s your name?”

“You know me.” He took off his sunglasses, and I recognized him at once. It was Albert, Woodrow’s nephew, who had guided me into the village years ago, on my first visit to Fuama, when I’d been left behind, a teenage boy who was in missionary school and hoped to follow Woodrow’s example in life. And indeed he had, or so I believed. He had finished high school in Liberia and, at Woodrow’s expense, had attended business school in Baltimore for two years and had returned to Liberia, where he had taken a job in Loma, up near the border of Sierra Leone, with an American-owned sand-and-gravel company.

“Albert!” I cried. “I’m so relieved it’s you.” His eyes were red rimmed and his expression was cold, utterly without feeling. “You’re a soldier,” I said.

“Everybody makin’ war now. You g’wan home now, missus,” he said and put his sunglasses back on.

“Albert, my sons … are they here? In Fuama? Do you know where they are?”

For a moment he said nothing. He turned to the boys with him and spoke rapidly in Kpelle. They answered with slow shakes of their heads. Then Albert said, “Mus’ be them dead. Most everybody from the family dead now. On account of Woodrow an’ Doe.”

“Woodrow is dead, Albert.”

“I know that.”

“He’s your uncle. Don’t you care?”

“I care, yes. But now everybody in the family, the whole village almost, they dead, too. On account of Woodrow bein’ for Doe an’ against Taylor.”

“It was Doe’s men who killed Woodrow,” I said. “Not Taylor’s.”

“Don’t matter who kill him.”

“No, you don’t understand!”

He started to walk away at that, but I got out of the car and followed him down to the edge of the river, where he stood looking across to the landing on the other side. The river was high from the rains and dark red with runoff from the highlands. “The raft is gone,” I said. “How do you get over to the village?”

“The village gone, too. The soldiers, them come an’ mash it all up. Burn all the houses, kill all the peoples inside an’ shoot the ones who run out.”

“What soldiers? Doe’s?”

“Charles Taylor’s soldiers. He come here with them and help to kill all the people himself. Then he goes on the radio an’ says it a great victory over Samuel Doe’s army boys. But there ain’t none of them here. Never was. Only old men an’ women an’ little babies here. When I hear Charles Taylor on the radio I came very fast from Loma to see what happened. Only these little boys left. Them an’ me, we been buryin’ all the dead peoples.”

“Where did you and these boys get the guns?” I asked him.

“Prince Johnson. He got plenty-plenty guns for people who wants to go against Charles Taylor while Prince an’ his soldiers goes against Samuel Doe in the city.”

We stood side by side in silence. He was a small, frail-boned, young man—like Woodrow a decade ago, before alcohol and middle age thickened him. “Albert, what will you do now?”

“Can’t say. ’Cept to keep killin’ peoples. Till Taylor an’ Doe both dead or run out of the country. Prince Johnson give us plenty protection. Nothin’ can hurt us. No bullets, no machete, nothin’. He promise me a good job after the war an’ a house in the city. My war name ain’t Albert, y’ know,” he said. “No more Albert Sundiata,” he said with pride. “My war name is Sweet Dreams Gladiator. Pretty cool, eh?” He smiled broadly, boyishly. Then, still smiling, he said to me, “I need your car. Woodrow’s car.”

“My car? No!”

“We need to take your car. This Benz belongs to Prince Johnson now and no more to Samuel Doe.”

I argued, I protested, I begged, but it did no good. He’d gone stony on me. The boys had crowded into the car, ready to travel, pushing and punching one another playfully, as if headed out for a day at the beach.

Albert said, “Gimme the keys.”

“No! If you take the car, how will I get back?”

“Not my problem. Gimme the keys now.”

We stood there arguing a moment longer, when one of the boys walked over with the keys dangling from his fingertips. I’d left them in the ignition. He handed them to Albert, Sweet Dreams Gladiator, and that was the end of our argument. Albert headed for the car, and I said, “You’re not leaving me here,” and ran for the passenger’s side, flung open the door, and yanked the boy sitting there out of the car and took his place. “There! Now get in back with the others if you want to ride,” I said to him and locked the door.

Albert laughed and got behind the wheel, while the sour-faced boy fought for a place in back, where the others were jammed together with their guns and ammunition. They were little more than children, twelve and thirteen years old, one minute killers, the next playful and innocent-seeming as puppies. Albert said to them, “Better do what Mammi say, before she put the eye on you.”

WE PASSED THROUGH
the town of Millsburg to the far side of a cinder-block school, where several troop carriers and seventy-five or a hundred men and boys and a small number of women and girls loitered around campfires. It was nearly dark. I smelled food cooking—palm oil, rice, and meat. Albert parked the Mercedes next to a vehicle I recognized, a white Land Rover with the seal of the U.S. government on the door and U.S. embassy plates.

Immediately, a gang of fighters surrounded the Mercedes, admiring it and praising Albert for having brought it in. He turned and said to me, “Maybe I can get you a ride back to town.” He nodded in the direction of the Land Rover, then got out of the car. “Wait here. I’ll bring Prince to decide things,” he said and walked into the school with most of the crowd in tow.

A few moments later they returned, with Albert still at the center but walking a few feet behind a tall, very dark man in a proper military uniform, Prince Johnson, evidently, and striding along beside him, Sam Clement, his face barely concealing a sly smile.

I got out of the car and stood by the door, waiting. Johnson had the look of a successful preacher, a crowd-pleasing, handsome, back-slapper happiest when surrounded by admirers and impossible to imagine alone and in a reflective mood. He came straight to me and took my hand in both his huge hands and said, “I mus’ tell you how sad I am for the cruel an’ untimely death of your husband. I only jus’ now heard about it from my good friend, Mister Sam Clement. Please accept my heartfelt condolences, missus.”

I stammered a thank you and glanced at Sam, whose expression told me nothing at all. Johnson continued to talk. His English was very good, and he thanked me on behalf of his people and all the people of Liberia for the gift of the Mercedes, which had been bought and paid for by the poor people of Liberia and was now being returned to them, its rightful owners, and I could be sure that when this war was over there would be a proper public tribute to me, full government honors and privileges to be granted to me before all the citizens of Liberia. “We Liberians love the Americans,” he declared. “An’ we remember all their many generosities.” Then he moved close to the car and swung open the driver’s door and leaned in, examining it with obvious pleasure.

Sam came up to me and took my arm and in a low voice said, “Get in my car, I’ll take you back to town.” He walked me around to the passenger’s side of the Land Rover and opened the door. I climbed inside and waited while he exchanged a few words with Johnson, who now sat proudly behind the wheel of the Mercedes. Then Sam was beside me in the Land Rover, and we were driving very fast out of town, heading towards Monrovia.

For a long while neither of us spoke. Finally I said, “What were you doing there?”

“More to the point, darlin’, what were
you
doing there?”

“I had no choice. They wanted the car.”

“I mean, what were you doing way out here in the bush, for heaven’s sake?”

“My sons, Sam! My … lost boys. I thought maybe someone in Fuama would know … and would help me. Would help me find them and bring them home.”

“Ridiculous. All the Kpelle have scattered into the jungle or headed for the border. Except the ones who’ve signed on with Johnson. Like your young friend there. One of Woodrow’s people, no?”

“Yes. Albert. All he wants to do now is kill people loyal to Doe or Taylor.”

“He’s got reason.”

“Yes. I know.”

“Hannah, give it up,” he said. “Don’t go looking any further for your sons.”

“I have to, Sam.”

“They don’t want to be found. Believe me, I’ve asked around. The sons of Woodrow Sundiata, they’re well known, Hannah, and they’re either under the protection of that crazy sorry-ass Johnson, or Taylor, who isn’t much better.”

“They could have been back there, back at Johnson’s camp?”

“Exactly. And if they wanted you to find them, darlin’, you’d find them without looking. They know where
you
are, m’dear.” He was silent for a moment. “If you won’t leave the country, Hannah, and I can’t force you to leave, then for God’s sake stay at your house. I’ll make sure it’s secure. We’ve hired some locals to protect certain properties from looting and certain individuals from harm. But if things keep getting worse, we’ll have to close down the embassy completely, and if we do, I won’t be able to help you, Hannah. You’ll be on your own here. A white woman all alone in hell.”

“Who do you think will win the war, Sam?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Taylor. This guy Johnson is nutty as a fruitcake, a real piece of work. But Taylor, him we can deal with.”

“I’ll be all right then.”

Our route back to town passed near Toby, and I asked Sam to let me stop at the sanctuary for a moment to check on my dreamers. With things falling apart so fast, I couldn’t be sure of Kuyo’s and Estelle’s willingness or ability to cover for me. When we pulled up in front of the office, the place was dark, and no one came out of the building to greet us. The headlights of Sam’s Land Rover flooded the small yard, and long, fluttering shadows from the cotton tree in the center of the yard flashed across the gravel. While Sam waited in the car, I walked quickly to Estelle’s cabin and knocked on the door and called, “Estelle? You there?”

No answer. Returning to the car, I said to Sam, “You go on. I’ve got to feed and water the chimps. I think my helpers have run off.”

“How’ll you get home?”

“I’ll camp here. I’ve got a couch in the office. It’s okay. I’ve done it before.”

He passed me a flashlight. “Here. You’ll need this. Looks like the power’s off all over the city.”

He drove away, and I snapped on the flashlight and headed for the office, when suddenly the door opened, and there was Kuyo, and in the shadows behind him, Estelle, both of them wide eyed, frightened. “Why didn’t you come out before, for heaven’s sake?” I demanded. “If I’d known you were here, I’d have gone home with Mister Clement.”

“We didn’ know it was you,” Kuyo said solemnly. “Might be the soldiers comin’ back.”

I entered the office and lit a kerosene lamp, filling the room with a dull orange glow. “They were here again? Doe’s soldiers?”

He said he didn’t think so. Not Doe’s soldiers. Not this time. “Maybe from Prince Johnson. Real wild boys,” he said. They had gone through the place and emptied the petty cash box and had taken the radio and my old manual typewriter. They’d noted the eleven chimps, pointedly counting them, Kuyo said, and they’d told him that as soon as they got themselves a truck, they were coming back.

“Them gonna make plenty-plenty bush meat, Miz Sundiata,” Estelle said and started to whimper. “Them men are terrible peoples!” she cried.

“Then we’ll have to move the chimps,” I said.

And we did move them. It took the entire night, but the three of us managed to transport all eleven dreamers from the sanctuary out to Boniface Island, a small, mangrove-covered islet in the middle of the broad estuary. Chimpanzees cannot swim and are afraid of open water, which made the island, though more of a sanctuary, as much a place of confinement as the renovated prison at Toby had been. In pairs and with the larger adults one by one, we moved the dreamers in the same large, wheeled cage that we had used to bring them to Toby from the blood lab in the first place. The river bank was only a few hundred yards down a narrow lane from the sanctuary, and luckily Kuyo had a friend with an old, leaky Boston Whaler with an outboard motor that hadn’t been stolen by the soldiers yet. For fifty dollars, Kuyo’s friend agreed to let us use the boat for the night. We flattened the bottom of the hull by laying a sheet of plywood into it and used another for a ramp to load and off-load the chimps. Seven times we rolled the cage onto the boat and kept it steady during the three-mile voyage out to Boniface, where we rolled the cage from the boat onto the short, dark beach and released the chimps, strangers suddenly freed in a strange land. Until they discovered, of course, that the land was very small, not much larger than their communal space at Toby, and was surrounded by water.