Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [123]
15
Serah, 1996
The Storm
Once I stood thousands of feet up on the edge of an escarpment, side by side with Janneh watching a storm race across the plain below. In the distance tiny figures ran ahead of the dust, dark clouds bearing down upon them. They were huddled over, clutching at their clothing, holding on to children, trying to shield themselves from the fury of the storm. In between us and those terrified souls, I could see more people, just beginning to sense the growing tempest, hurrying along, not yet caught up in its violent swirls, gazing up at the sky in an attempt to read the signs. Directly below were others still, oblivious to what was happening only a few miles away, tending their animals, watching their children at play, sitting outdoors in the sunshine.
I remember how we wanted to shout and wave and jump up and down. But instead we did nothing. We were too far away. And even if they had heard nobody would have believed us, for where they stood they could not see the omens in the sky.
Sometimes I think this is what happened in our country. Nobody heeded the warnings, nobody smelled the rain coming, or saw the lights in the sky or heard the roar of thunder, until we were all engulfed by it.
In Italy before the war in Europe, Benito Mussolini made the trains run on time. I read that once in a history book. He also wore a white uniform and a helmet with a plume on the top, and knew how to talk to people in a way that made them want to believe him.
We had a new President. A young man, who might have been a Benito Mussolini, who was handsome and finely attired in his uniform and who wore mirror sunglasses and swaggered in front of other heads of state, men in their sixties and seventies whom he appeared to despise, perhaps because they reminded him of the President he had just chased from our country. Nobody wanted to be ruled by the old, fat President and his corrupt cronies and because the new, young President cleaned up the streets and emptied the gutters of filth and spoke about democratic elections and looked so fine, the people were happy. Women sewed dresses printed with his delightful features, young men copied his mode of dress and eyewear, everyone joined in the campaign to clean up the streets. Clean up the Government. Clean up the country. People turned over their mattresses, bleached the steps in front of their houses and hosed down the walls, swept the dirt from their yards into the street from where it was miraculously removed. We were putting our house in order.
It felt good.
Some of the fat men who had financed the old President feared reprisals and left. Good riddance. Others, less high profile, stayed quiet and bided their time. Overnight it became impossible to find a single person who would admit to ever having supported the former President. The shopkeeper on the corner of the street who had voted for the party all his life gave his store a lick of paint and stencilled the new regime’s slogan on his shutters. Ambrose printed up business cards and boldly offered his services to the new leaders.
The President’s face in his mirror shades appeared on the front of international magazines. ‘The youngest leader in the world,’ said the headline. He had not even celebrated his thirtieth birthday. We were so proud of our baby-faced leader: so slim and strong, not bloated on bribes and flattery. So proud we handed him our anguish and hopes and fears to carry on those broad shoulders of his. The rest of the world looked on, smiling fondly. Or so we thought. We could not see they were really laughing at our foolishness.
In their neat and shining homes, people settled down to wait. And waited. And waited. And just as they were beginning to wonder how much longer we might have to wait, to fear our leader was just a pretty face with a silver tongue, he was toppled by another young man with equally babyish features