A Long Way Gone_ Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - Ishmael Beah [48]
“Are you getting enough to eat here?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, as I tried to look at what he was reading.
“It is Shakespeare.” He showed me the cover. “Julius Caesar. Have you heard of it?”
“I read Julius Caesar in school,” I told him.
“Do you remember any of it?” he asked.
“Cowards die many times before their deaths…” I began, and he recited the whole speech with me. As soon as we were done, his face resumed its sternness. He ignored me and seemed to delve into his book. I watched as the veins on his forehead became transparent through his flesh and disappeared as he absorbed the contents of the book or thought about whatever else was on his mind. I tiptoed away from him as the sky exchanged sunlight for darkness.
When I was seven, I used to go to the town square to recite monologues from the works of Shakespeare for the adults of my community. At the end of every week, the male adults would gather to discuss matters of the community. They sat on long wooden benches, and at the end of their discussions I would be called upon to recite Shakespeare. My father would cough loudly to alert the other adults to be silent so that I could start. He sat in the front, with his arms crossed and a big smile on his face that looked as if it would take years to fade away. I stood on a bench and held on to a long stick as my sword. I would then start with Julius Caesar. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears…” I always recited speeches from Macbeth and Julius Caesar, as those were the adults’ favorites. I was always eager and excited to read for them, because it made me feel that I was really good at speaking the English language.
I was awake when the soldiers left in the middle of the night, the echo of their marching leaving an eerie air about the village that continued until dawn and through the rest of the day. There were ten soldiers left behind to protect the village, and they stood at their posts all day. Just when the evening was waving its fingers, signaling night to approach, the soldiers issued a curfew by shooting a few rounds into the air and ordering everyone to “get inside and stay low to the ground.” That night Musa told no stories and Moriba didn’t play marbles with the other boys. We quietly sat against the wall listening to the rapid bursts of gunfire in the distance. Just before the last hours of night, the moon sailed through the clouds, showing its face through the open window of the building before it was driven away by a cockcrow.
That morning didn’t come just with sunrise; it brought with it soldiers, the few who were able to make it back to the village. Their well-polished boots were drenched in dirt and they sat away from each other, clinging tightly to their guns, as if those were the only things that comforted them. One soldier, who sat on a cement brick underneath the kitchen, bowed his head in his hands and rocked his body. He got up and walked around the village and returned to sit on the brick again. He did this over and over throughout the day. Lieutenant Jabati was on the radio, and at some point he threw it against the wall and walked into his room. We civilians didn’t speak among ourselves during that day. We only watched the madness unfold in some of the soldiers.
At midday a group of over twenty soldiers arrived in the village. The lieutenant was surprised and delighted when he saw them, but he quickly hid his emotions. The soldiers prepared themselves and left for war. There was nothing to hide anymore; we knew the war was near. Soon after the soldiers left, we began hearing