The Great Agony & Pure Laughter of the Gods (6 page)

They walked past dead bodies, burning houses, wounded soldiers, wounded civilians. Risto thought about his late friends Ombeni and Frank, then was distracted by the cries of a lost child. He shivered. The crowd was as large as that at a soccer tournament. To keep count of their children, mothers would shout the name of each child, from the firstborn to the youngest, and every one would answer loudly. The noise of guns combined with the cries of children was deafening. Bullets whispered a quiet but violent song that people often only grasped after fatal words pierced innocent bodies. The song of the bullets came in a wind that carried many voices, those of the dead, the dying, those fighting death and those escaping death, and when it became very loud, people fell down on their stomachs with no wish to open their eyes again. Then the bullets would fall, not very far from where they were lying. For some, it would then be time to bury their loved ones, for others, a time to build crutches for their own bodies, but the journey carried on and on to the unknown destination.

On the third day of the journey, the songs of the guns could no longer be heard. Risto, his mother and his two sisters were alive and very far from Bukavu town; they were in the Luhoko village in the heart of Walungu territory. The woman they had followed, the friend of their mother, had been heavily pregnant when they first set out. On the journey, she had given birth to twin children. There was no clinic to go to. Everything – the labour and the birth – happened along the way. Generous villagers had given them food and a lot of fruit without questioning. It was the spirit of the people of the village to help.

The news had come that the pregnant woman needed to rest. The entire group stopped. The pregnant woman was taken in by the villagers and offered a small straw hut. Then everything turned into a grownup women business. From where the curious children watched, a frenzy of activity could be seen at the hut. Two women, with plastic basins in their hands, ran to the pregnant woman’s hut. It didn’t take long before some shouting could be heard. Apparently there was not enough paraffin in the lamp they were using. An old woman emerged from the hut and ran like a buck. One of her loincloths fell off unnoticed. She went straight to another hut a few metres away and came back with a working lamp.

Later that afternoon, the news came that the journey couldn’t go on; the pregnant woman had given birth to twins. Songs burst into the air. The villagers gave the new mother the small hut where she had given birth, and offered other huts to Risto’s family. Many other families were hosted by volunteers from the village. Some who had family members in nearby villages decided to carry on.

Eventually, reports came that war had ended and peace had returned to Bukavu. Displaced people started returning home. Risto’s family and the entire group that had found refuge in Luhoko village decided to go back home too. The twins were two months old when the party set out on the journey. The refugees thanked the villagers for their generosity and warmth, and promised to stay in contact.

Bukavu had changed. Was it wearing a mask, or did it have another spirit in its body? The people said it was a new country, and indeed it was. It had new people with new tongues, new ideologies, many new things indeed. These new things had captured the attention of the media. The country was in the headlines across the globe.

Something else surprising had happened. Teenagers were now more rare than gold. And those who were visible had deer eyes on their backs, ready to run whenever suspicious or sinister stories emerged of the kidnapping or militarisation of children. They looked with resistance and insistence at each new face. An unfamiliar face was a dangerous one; it made them run. The story was that many teenagers had joined the new army.

Some of Risto’s schoolmates now wore an army uniform that slowed their movements and made them look like puppets wearing their masters’ clothes. The uniforms these boys wore swallowed their spirits as well as their bodies; they were slaves to a uniform they would never be able to take off. Their youthful age raised questions about their decision to join the fighting. Only later was it revealed that boys like these had not chosen freely. They had been forced into violence, in secret ways they dared not pronounce.

It had been only a few years since the country had changed from Zaire to the Democratic Republic of Congo; now there was change again. There were new leaders, a new army, new soldiers. Risto was confused; he had many questions that even his father couldn’t answer. Was it a new country? Who was in charge? When he heard about the many different militia groups that had risen, he wondered who protected whom, who guarded whom. Some of his friends had joined the most feared army group, the Mai-Mai. They had mystical powers; they couldn’t be defeated and they couldn’t die. Bullets wouldn’t penetrate their bodies; they would would tear their clothing and then fall like little plastic balls hitting a concrete wall. Knives would bend and machetes would bounce off their magical bodies. They were tattooed with lion blood and crocodile scales, and had the spirits of sacred forests and fearsome ancestors to protect them. They wore talismans of feathers and bones around their necks, and never washed in rivers or let the rain fall on them; they never ate food that had been cooked by women, and were not allowed to steal. They had many rules and principles. They were there to protect people from foreign invasion, Risto heard.

But they were not the only ones with the goal of protecting people from outside armies; there were many others: the Movement of Liberation from This, the Movement of Liberation from That; Patriotic Front for This, Patriotic Unity for That. Risto was shocked to learn that the army in his town was not part of the national army; the militia that ‘protected’ them was a rebel army. All the militias wanted to get rid of ‘the rebel army’, but they were rebels themselves, according to the national government in the capital city of Kinshasa. It was confusion, curse and chaos.

Bukavu had changed from a peaceful town with the joyful noise of happy children to a fearful town with the silence of fear and confusion pierced only by screams of mourning. The afternoon dances of children had changed to the thunder of soldiers’ footsteps chasing unhappy children. High-school and university students were seen as the troublemakers; they wanted to own their own history, to write it with their own blood, and so they became the targets of the rebel movement. They vowed never to allow the rebel movement to settle and rule, never to allow them to give the Congolese people instructions or to implement new policies. These students embarked on strikes and marches many times each month. They protested against foreign armies, against daily assassinations, and called for freedom of movement and freedom of speech. The more they marched, the more they got arrested and shot, the more they were forced to join the rebel army, and the more they diverted into the Mai-Mai movement.

Days became uncertain, and each dawn gave birth to new fear and pain. Gunfire became the evening song in the streets of Bukavu. Armed burglars in military uniforms took over from the police night-shift. They visited houses as if they owned the town; so many lives were taken each night. The newspapers were full of reports of missing teenagers, who had been taken from their streets and homes. Later they would be found in military uniform.

Risto’s parents decided to send him away to escape the situation in town. He had no choice; he would go to Bugobe, to his mother’s village, until things calmed down. But it felt like treason to leave Néné behind. Though their mouths spoke little of their relationship, their hearts’ beating depended on it. They could not bear a day without a glimpse of the other. But the order to leave the town was not one that Risto could defy. He packed his bag in tears, berating himself as a coward. He would leave behind half his heart to save his own skin; he wept as he waved goodbye to Néné.

Risto found Bugobe with a timid smile breaking out from between its grinding teeth. It had been a long time since he had visited his beloved village. His last visit had been a breathtaking one, and its memories were still fresh. Bugobe was the place where he had discovered the mystery of villages and their forests. He had heard invisible shadows talking, he had heard the voice of nature and the songs of silent nights. He could still see the face of his old friend Benny, the boy who knew the sleeping room of the moon and the different voices of the universe’s soul.

But as soon as he arrived, he realised the Bugobe he saw was different from the Bugobe he had known. He was surprised to be unmet and to walk alone on his way from the bus stop. Had they forgotten he was coming today? Usually when Risto visited Bugobe, many villagers waited for him, mostly young boys waiting for gifts. This time his gifts were lying in his bags. It wasn’t easy to walk and carry all his bags. Every now and again he stopped to rest. After he had stopped many times, he saw Benny coming towards him. He greeted Risto in a rush and took a few of his bags.

‘I was about to die with these things,’ said Risto, but Benny didn’t respond. He seemed preoccupied, quiet. They crossed the village, but to Risto’s surprise, he saw no children coming for the usual hugs and greetings. The few people they passed by greeted them hastily and passed in a hurry without handshaking, their smiles lasting no more than a few seconds. It seemed like the village wasn’t happy.

‘Are you well, Benny?’

‘No.’

‘Is that why you are so quiet today? Is there bad news?’

‘No,’ Benny answered.

‘I feel like the village is not happy, like there is something that is not going well here.’

‘People are very busy. You know, Risto, life has changed in the village. We only have life during the day; the night is something else.’

These words captured Risto’s attention. He stared at Benny. He knew Benny as the face of the village; whenever he smiled, the village smiled. Now the village was scowling. There was no sound of pestles pounding, or of young girls singing; everything was as quiet as midnight at a cemetery.

‘You see, it is only 2pm, but there is no one in the village. Everyone is out with their children; the whole family goes to get anything they can from their fields and farms to bring it back to be near their houses,’ said Benny quietly. ‘You know, the farms, those near the big forest on Donga and Mlangala, they are looted each evening by the militias.’ He took a breath and looked at Risto, waiting for a reaction. Risto tried to look unconcerned; he had seen a lot in town.

‘Do you know the militias?’ Benny asked.

‘No, I have only heard about them,’ Risto answered.

‘Huh! The militias!’ exclaimed Benny. ‘These people are looting our fields. They have invaded the Birava and Kidumbi villages. They are inhumane! They have looted families and raped the women and even the little girls! They have killed people and taken young girls into the forests as their wives.’

‘Are you sure of what you are saying?’ Risto’s face changed.

‘Risto, the militias are wild. People from those villages are in Bugobe as refugees. Many of them witnessed these horrors.’

Risto couldn’t believe his ears. There was no peace in either town or in the villages. He had run away from a war-zone into a battlefield!

‘So, the people of Bugobe … you are not afraid?’

‘No, no … we are far from them. They won’t come this side. Before they can arrive here, the soldiers of the new government will intercept them.’

‘So, you guys this side trust the rebel movement? How can you call it the new government?’

‘No, we don’t trust them. But they are the ones who came to rescue the people in those invaded villages. And they are the ones who control the region.’

‘Even so, they are killing people in town! They are looting homes. You know, I am running away from them, that is why I am here right now.’

Benny looked at Risto with surprise.

Soon they arrived home. No one was in the compound. Risto went behind the hut his grandmother used as a storeroom and came back with cassava. It was still wet and covered in black and white mould. He went back to the hut where he had dropped his luggage; the fire was hidden underneath hot ashes. This was one of the secrets of the village he knew from his last visit. He revived the fire and put the cassava on it. Benny sat on a stool outside.

‘Take this piece, man!’ He threw Benny some cassava that he had cooled after taking it from the fire.

‘You said you don’t trust the new government, the rebels. Why then do people from town send their children to join them?’ Benny asked, agitated.

‘No, people don’t send their boys, no!’

‘But that is what we heard on the provincial radio station.’

‘The radio station is run by the rebels; they say what pleases them! No one wants to join their army!’

‘Maybe you don’t know, Risto, but many young boys are joining the movement. Some of them are working at different posts in the nearby villages, on the road to Mwanga and Birava …’

‘You know, Benny, the truth hasn’t been told. From what I know, young boys are not joining the movement; they are being kidnapped and forced.’

Benny went very quiet, perhaps because of the news Risto had told him, or perhaps because he had trusted in the rebel movement. Maybe it was the chaotic state of both the town and the village that made him sick at heart. Risto examined his mind to check whether there was any exaggeration in the news he had given Benny, but all he had said was true. Those young teenagers whom the rebel movement claimed were happy to serve the movement were morally and spiritually tortured. They didn’t join the army willingly; they were forced into it. And those who fled were in trouble. Risto had witnessed this in town; he had seen runaways caught in his street, and all their ribs broken by the beatings ordered by the commander of the battalion. The following day, the victim would often be found dead from his injuries.

It was getting late. The sun was on its way to its hut to sleep. Benny and Risto went to find the cattle nearby. They were being kept in a very large, enclosed compound with stagnant water all around.

‘Why do you have to keep the cattle enclosed?’ asked Risto.