A Long Way Gone_ Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - Ishmael Beah [76]
I got up, and as I started walking out of the hospital, Esther began to speak. “I will arrange for a full checkup at the Connaught hospital.” She paused and then continued, “Let me keep the Walkman. You don’t want the others to envy you and steal it. I will be here every day, so you can come and listen to it anytime.” I threw the Walkman at her and left, putting my fingers in my ears so I couldn’t hear her say “It is not your fault.”
That night, as I sat on the verandah listening to some of the boys discuss the volleyball game I had missed, I tried to think about my childhood days, but it was impossible, as I began getting flashbacks of the first time I slit a man’s throat. The scene kept surfacing in my memory like lightning on a dark rainy night, and each time it happened, I heard a sharp cry in my head that made my spine hurt. I went inside and sat on my bed facing the wall and tried to stop thinking, but I had a severe migraine that night. I rolled my head on the cold cement floor, but it didn’t stop. I went to the shower room and put my head under the cold water, but that didn’t help either. The headache became so severe that I couldn’t walk. I began to cry out loud. The night nurse was called. She gave me some sleeping tablets, but I still couldn’t fall asleep, even after my migraine stopped. I couldn’t face the nightmares I knew would come.
Esther got me to tell her some of my dreams. She would just listen and sit quietly with me. If she wanted to say anything, she would first ask, “Would you like me to say something about your dream?” Mostly I would say no and ask for the Walkman.
One afternoon Esther wasn’t supposed to work, but she came to the center wearing a jeans skirt instead of her normal white uniform. She came in a white Toyota with two men. One of the men was the driver and the other was a field-worker for Children Associated with the War (CAW). This was a Catholic organization that partnered with UNICEF and NGOs to create centers like ours.
“We are going to the hospital for your examination, and after that we will give you a tour of the city.” Esther was excited. “What do you say?” she asked me.
“Okay,” I agreed. I was always excited to go to the city. “Can my friend Alhaji come?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said, as if she knew I would ask.
As we drove into Freetown, the field-worker introduced himself: “My name is Leslie, it is a pleasure to meet you gentlemen.” He turned around from the front seat and shook our hands. He sat back and studied us in the rearview mirror. Esther sat between Alhaji and me in the backseat. She tickled us and sometimes put her arms around us. I resisted this affection, and she would put both her arms around Alhaji. I would look away and she would softly elbow me before putting her arms around me again.
At the center of the city, Esther pointed out the post office, shops, the UN building, and the Cotton Tree. On Wallace Johnson Street, traders played loud music and rang bells to attract customers. Boys and girls carried coolers on their heads, shouting, “Cold ice, cold ice…” “Cold ginger beer…” The city always amazed me, with its busy people hurrying up and down and its traders noisily creating its unique sound. I was watching one ringing a bell and throwing the secondhand clothes he was selling up in the air to attract passersby, when our car stopped at the hospital where I was to be examined.
The doctor kept asking, “You feel anything?” as he touched and squeezed parts of my body where I had been wounded or shot. I was beginning to get upset, when he told me he was finished. I put my clothes on and came into the waiting area where Esther, Leslie, and Alhaji