A Long Way Gone_ Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - Ishmael Beah [33]
Around nightfall we arrived at a very peculiar village. I am in fact not sure if it was a village. There was one large house and one kitchen less than a kilometer from the house. The pots were moldy, and there was a small storage house. The place was located in the middle of nowhere.
“Now, this will be an easy village for the rebels to capture,” Jumah said, laughing.
We walked around trying to find a sign of someone’s presence. Some sort of production of palm oil had taken place here; there were the remains of palm nut seeds everywhere. On the river floated a deserted canoe in which spirogyra had grown. Back at the old house, we debated where to sleep. We sat outside on logs at the foot of the verandah and Musa offered to tell a story about Bra Spider.
“No!” we protested—we all knew it too well—but he still continued.
“Bra Spider stories are always good no matter how many times you have heard them,” Musa said.
“My mother told me that whenever a story is told, it is worth listening to. So please listen. I will tell it quickly.” He coughed and began.
“Bra Spider lived in a village that was surrounded by many other villages. At the end of the harvest season, all the villages had a feast in celebration of their successful harvest. Wine and food were in abundance and people ate until they could see their reflections on each other’s stomach.”
“What?” we all said in shock at this extra detail he had added to the story.
“I am telling the story, so I can tell my version. Wait for your turn.” Musa stood up. We listened attentively to see if he was going to embellish the story with more striking details. He sat down and continued:
“Each village specialized in one dish. Bra Spider’s village made okra soup with palm oil and fish. Mmm…mmm…mmm. The other villages made cassava leaves with meat, potato leaves, and so on. Each village boasted about how good their meal was going to be. All the villages had an open invitation to their feasts. But Bra Spider took it to the extreme. He wanted to be present at all the feasts. He had to come up with a plan. He began collecting ropes around his village and weaving them several months before the feast. While people carried bushels of rice, bundles of wood, to the square and women pounded rice in mortars, removing the husk from its seeds, Bra Spider was stretching the ropes on his verandah and measuring their length. When men went hunting, he was busy laying out his ropes by the paths from his village to all the surrounding villages. He gave the ends of his ropes to the chiefs, who tied them to the nearest trees at their village squares. ‘Tell your people to pull the rope when their meal is ready,’ he told every chief in his nasal voice. Bra Spider starved for a week as he readied himself. When the day finally came, Bra Spider rose up earlier than everyone else. He sat on his verandah and securely tied all the ropes at his waist. He was shaking and saliva dripped out of his mouth as the smell of smoked meat, dried fish, and various stews wafted out from the cooking huts.
“Unluckily for Bra Spider, all the feasts started at the same time and the chiefs ordered the ropes to be pulled. He was suspended in the air above his village, pulled from all directions. Bra Spider screamed for help, but the drums and songs from his village square drowned his voice. He could see people gathering around plates of food and licking their hands at the end of the meal. Children walked across the village on their way to the river, munching on pieces of stewed chicken, goat, and deer meat. Each time