Ancestor Stones - Aminatta Forna [126]
What did we want? We indicated our badges. Reporting for duty, it crossed my mind to say.
‘It may be dangerous to be out today, there might be trouble,’ said the second soldier, as if we would be so easily cowed.
‘Then so be it,’ I said. ‘We are here to bring in the vote. Now we need to get on, this station was supposed to open an hour ago.’ For some seconds nobody spoke or moved.
The soldiers were roughly the age of my two sons. I watched as the one in front of me bit his lower lip, twisted it and then suddenly dropped his gaze and stepped aside. We moved past him and into the building.
‘We will stay here for your protection,’ he called after us, in a voice that was hollow at the centre.
‘As you please,’ I replied.
My knees shook as I walked, my hands holding on to the handle of my bag were slippery. Once inside we freed the three ballot boxes from the padlock and chains that held them together and set them out in a short, neat row. Just seeing them there, squat and imposing, somehow made me feel better. In a cardboard box along with paper and pens, we found the sign that said ‘Polling Station’ with a big, black arrow and this we placed outside the door. From her bag Redempta unpacked her own special cheese and jam sandwiches, a flask, a can of Peak milk and two cups. I watched her smooth, placid face beneath that terrible cherry wig she wore, absorbed in the task she had set herself.
We settled down to wait.
A man pushing an icebox of soft drinks in an old pram turned the corner, saw the soldiers, thought better of it and moved on with his load. The minutes passed. Dawn had been and gone, not a bird in sight. Outside the soldiers ground one cigarette stub after another under the heels of their boots. That and the scratching of the bats in the branches of the cotton tree, the gentle unfolding and wrapping of wings around bodies, were the only sounds. I could sense my fear skirting the building, attracted by the silence, looking for a way inside.
What did I think of while we waited?
I can only tell you what I didn’t think about. I did not think about whether people would come. Nor did I waste the effort on wishing the soldiers away, because I knew they were there to frighten people off. I didn’t think about the trucks carrying more soldiers all over the city. I didn’t think about the other polling stations, sitting in pools of silence all over the country. Nor did I think about what we would do at the end of the day. Most of all I didn’t think about the fear clawing at the cracks in the windows, scuttling under the floorboards, crawling across the roof, looking for an opening.
Instead I thought about that day, a long time ago, when I sat in a rice-weighing station wearing my favourite pair of red shoes.
The smell of rice dust on a cool morning, so clean and pure. By contrast this room was sweltering and smelled of ink and sour milk. Then it had been the end of the rains, harvest time. The land had been opulent, bursting with hope and fertility. Now, halfway through harmattan, it was desiccated, a semi-desert. The sky was choked with dust. The city stank. Hope had shrivelled and crumbled away.
When people are afraid they stay indoors. They close shutters, bolt doors, hide behind the flimsy tin and cardboard walls of their huts. That day even the police stayed inside, safe behind the thick walls of their solid British-built stations. Only the madmen wandered the streets, dazed and smiling, unexpected lords of the city.
There is but one reason people would venture outside on such a day.
Women’s voices as muted and soft as the music of water. I had fallen into a kind of wakeful reverie, at first the sound drifted over me as though it had escaped from my dreams. I stood up and walked across the room to the door. The standpipe was on the other side of the football ground. The women approached it