A Long Way Gone_ Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - Ishmael Beah [19]
We farmed for three months at Kamator and I never got used to it. The only times that I enjoyed were the afternoon breaks, when we went swimming in the river. There, I would sit on the clear sandy bottom of the river and let the current take me downstream, where I would resurface, put on my dirty clothes, and return to the farm. The sad thing about all that hard labor was that, in the end, it all went to ruin, because the rebels did eventually come and everyone ran away, leaving their farms to be covered by weeds and devoured by animals.
It was during that attack in the village of Kamator that my friends and I separated. It was the last time I saw Junior, my older brother.
7
THE ATTACK HAPPENED unexpectedly one night. There hadn’t even been any rumors that the rebels were as close as fifty miles from Kamator. They just walked into the village from out of nowhere.
It was about 8:00 p.m., when people were performing the last prayer of the day. The imam was oblivious to what was going on until it was too late. He stood in front of everyone, facing east, vigorously reciting a long sura, and once prayer had started, no one was allowed to say anything that was not related to the performance of the prayer. I didn’t go to the mosque that night, but Kaloko did. He said that upon realizing that the rebels were in the village, everyone quickly and silently left the mosque, one at a time, leaving the imam by himself as he stood there leading the prayer. Some people tried to whisper to him, but he ignored them. The rebels captured him and demanded to know what parts of the forest people were hiding in, but the imam refused to tell them. They bound his hands and feet with wire, tied him to an iron post, and set fire to his body. They didn’t burn him completely, but the fire killed him. His semi-burnt remains were left in the village square. Kaloko said he saw this from the nearby bush where he hid.
During the attack, Junior was in the verandah room where all five of us slept. I was outside, sitting on the steps. I had no time to go look for him, since the attack was sudden, but instead had to run into the bush alone. That night I slept by myself, leaning on a tree. In the morning I found Kaloko, and together we returned to the village. The semi-burnt body of the imam, as Kaloko had described it, was there in the village square. I could see the pain he had felt by looking at the way his teeth were bared. All the houses were burned. There wasn’t a sign of life anywhere. We looked in the thick forest for Junior and our friends, but they weren’t anywhere to be found. We stumbled across a family we knew and they let us hide with them in the bush by the swamp. We stayed with them for two weeks, two weeks that felt like months. Each day went by very slowly as I busied myself thinking about what other possibilities lay ahead. Was there an end to this madness, and was there any future for me beyond the bushes? I thought about Junior, Gibrilla, Talloi, and Khalilou. Had they been able to escape the attack? I was losing everyone, my family, my friends. I remembered when my family moved to Mogbwemo. My father held a ceremony to bless our new home. He invited our new neighbors, and my father stood up during the ceremony and said, “I pray to the gods and ancestors that my family will always be together.” He looked at us, my mother held my little brother, and Junior and I stood next to each other with toffee in our mouths.
One of the elders stood up and added to what my father had said: “I pray to the gods and ancestors that your family will always be together, even when one of you crosses into the spirit world. To family and community.” The old man raised his open hands in the air. My father came over and stood by my mother and motioned for Junior and me to come closer. We did, and my father put his arms around us. The gathering clapped and a photographer took a few snapshots.
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