Radiance of Tomorrow (11 page)

“You clearly do not know what comes out of your mouth. If you want to be funny, you could say you are Jackson Pollock, not Michelangelo. But you are neither of those people.” Pa Moiwa shook his head in disgust. “Do you behave in such a manner in the land you are from?”

The man burped. “You speak good English, old man. I was just painting here a little bit!”

“In your land, do you urinate in public spaces? Isn’t it a public health violation?”

“Are you getting smart with me?”

“Not yet. I am not sure if I should waste my words on an idiot who thinks he can paint with his piss.”

The man zipped his trousers and brushed against Pa Moiwa as he turned back toward the bar. “I am going for more paint, my work isn’t done,” he said loudly. “When I am finished, you will always remember John.” He laughed.

Pa Moiwa turned to the young people standing around, who wiped the smiles off their faces, ashamed they had laughed at the man’s actions. “Why do they always give good names to such misguided spirits? And why do you watch such behavior?”

Pa Moiwa mumbled to himself. He had wanted to explain to the man that he was pissing on sacred ground where wise men and women had sat for generations to discuss important matters about this land. But it was not worth telling him these things.

“Go fetch some water and wash this place clean, all of you. This is your punishment for standing by and encouraging the white man.”

As the young people set about doing what they had been ordered to do, Pa Moiwa went to see his friends and recounted what had happened. Pa Kainesi and Mama Kadie agreed that they should speak to one of the senior supervisors in charge of all the foreign and local employees, a stocky light-skinned fellow by the name of Wonde. Wonde was easy to find in town—he parked his vehicle outside the house of whichever woman he spent the night with.

Colonel had arrived at the end of John’s misbehavior. He stood in the dark, away from the gathering by the town hall, and waited until everyone had dispersed. He knew the arrogance of the fellow would bring him back after more beers at the bar.

Hours passed, and most people were already in their beds when screams rang out. Men came running with flashlights. The elders came, too.

On the ground, in front of the hall, was the splayed-out figure of John. His face was swollen from blows and his hands had been tied behind his back with his own shirt, which had been torn to make a rope. He couldn’t speak—a beer bottle had been stuck in his mouth and he was struggling not to swallow the liquid in it as he lay on his back. When someone removed the bottle, he spat out repeatedly.

“I am going to find that savage and kill him,” he shouted.

“Who are you speaking of?” Pa Kainesi asked.

“One of you attacked me for no reason! I was just joking around…” One of the armed men who had arrived untied him and took him away, the crowd’s eyes following them as they climbed into the company vehicle.

“It is urine in the beer bottle that he was drinking,” Miller said, sniffing, as he held the bottle at arm’s length. The crowd turned their eyes away from the vehicle and regarded Miller.

John had urinated in the bottle with the intention of throwing it at the walls inside the town hall building. But before he completed his task, someone had turned the tables on him.

In his room, Colonel lay on his back, his eyes fixed on the spiderweb in the corner of the ceiling. The veins on his forehead came alive and his teeth clenched as he fought to hold at bay the tormented images dancing in his mind. The spiderweb had a calming effect on him. He admired how resourceful the spider was in catching prey and living without any external help.

That morning, the elders sent some boys to look around town and locate Wonde’s vehicle. They quickly found it and relayed the message to the elders, who waited for Wonde by his Toyota.

Emerging on the veranda, yawning, he stopped in his tracks when he saw them, then he turned his back to them to properly zip up his trousers and button his shirt. Turning around, his body language and face projected cunning, so the men knew that whatever he said wouldn’t be the truth.

“Good morning.”

The elders returned his greeting, searching for the honest part of his face. They asked to have an audience with him about the behavior of his workers in general. The elders limited their words when they had something important to say.

“Yes, I would want to hear your concerns more than anything else,” he said. “I am rushing to work now, but please come to my home tomorrow for some respectable sit-down and chat.”

He climbed into his vehicle and left without offering the elders a lift back to their homes. This was not a respectable thing to do. One always asked to accompany the elders, even on foot, and even if your eyes could see where they lived, and especially after they had walked to seek a discussion with someone younger.

But even though Wonde’s behavior made the elders shake their heads with doubt, they knew they had to try, as there was more at stake than tradition. Tradition can live on only if those carrying it respect it—and live in conditions that allow the traditions to survive. Otherwise, traditions have a way of hiding inside people and leaving only dangerous footprints of confusion.

*   *   *

The path to the hill where the mining headquarters was and where Wonde lived no longer existed. It had either been flooded or replaced with dusty roads that offered no suitable place for human feet. The elders managed to walk slowly on the side of the road. They wondered why Wonde hadn’t sent a vehicle to collect them, but they went anyway, hoping a conversation would mend whatever had been broken and prevent further problems. It was the weekend, so there weren’t many vehicles on the road. The four miles felt longer than usual, and when they arrived at the company’s living quarters, there was a gate. There, the security guards told them that they must have an appointment to continue beyond the metal post. They tried to explain that Wonde had invited them to come by.

“Why would we walk all this way if we had no business here?” Pa Kainesi asked the guards.

“We are only allowed to let in people who have appointments, and if you do, your names should be here.” One of the guards flipped through the pages of a book.

“Do you have a note in there that says three elders?” Pa Moiwa tried to lighten the situation. No one laughed, though.

“Your individual names will be here if the person you’ve come to visit wants to see you.” The guard looked through the book some more with eyes wide open, as if he wanted the names of these elders to appear on one of the pages even though he knew they wouldn’t.

“You must be able with that walkie-talkie in your hand to call Wonde and tell him we are here,” Mama Kadie said, pointing to the radio.

Now caught between respecting his elders and afraid of losing his job, the guard called on his radio to inquire. As soon as he said hello, Wonde angrily instructed him to go to the telephone in the security booth. The elders were perplexed. They waited, their ears catching only the guard’s voice, and he pressed the phone to his ear as though he didn’t want Wonde’s insulting commands to escape and reach them.

“Yes sir, yes sir, yes sir…” The guard nodded on and on. When he hung up the phone, his face became that of a person who had been told to convey words that tormented his spirit. The only thing he could do was keep most of the message—the parts that made his eyes ashamed of being on his face—to himself. He simply told the elders that Wonde would not see them.

They didn’t understand. Wonde was a cunning fellow, but this was out of the ordinary and completely unacceptable.

“Did Wonde tell you what his reasons are?” Pa Moiwa searched for the frank part of the young man’s eyes. He didn’t give them to the old man.

“He cannot see you.” The guard motioned for them to walk back the way they had arrived. The elders could have walked up the hill to find Wonde on their own, but there were private security guards standing in formation along the hillside. They weren’t dark skinned, they were white, but the way they acknowledged the presence of the elders showed that they weren’t from afar, that they understood some African customs. And their mannerisms—bowing their heads just a bit even in their military uniforms to give way to the elders—showed that they were Africans. They were South African mercenaries from the former Rhodesia. The sight of them made Pa Kainesi think about conversations he used to have with his son and friends about the fact that there are Africans who are white-skinned in North Africa and elsewhere. And some of these white-skinned Africans didn’t like dark-skinned Africans at all, for no apparent reason. “It is because they are disappointed Africans! You know they are not black as Africans are supposed to be,” his son would respond. Pa Kainesi looked at the armed men again. There was something in their eyes that detested the very fact that they were familiar with the customs of the place in which they now found themselves. The elders avoided gazing too much at this well-armed group and turned to the guard one more time to express their disappointment with looks that wounded deeper than words could have.

A vehicle heading in the direction of Imperi approached the gate, and the guard tried to convince the driver to give the elders a lift. He refused, as they weren’t allowed to give natives a ride in the company cars. He whispered this into the ear of the guard. Pa Moiwa heard him though, and commented, “A native in the car says natives aren’t allowed in the company’s car.” A strained smile came across his face. The gate was lifted and the driver sped off.

The elders began walking back home, their old bones becoming weaker under the hot sun. They said nothing to one another throughout the journey and parted as soon as they arrived in town. Bockarie saw his dust-laden father dragging his feet. His clothes seemed to sag on his old frame, and for the first time, his face had lost its glow.

I have never seen my father’s countenance like this, like that of a man who just lost his last ounce of dignity. He has been through so much, why now?
Bockarie thought to himself. He took his father’s hand in his for a while before going inside to bring him a cup of cold water. Pa Kainesi drank the water and looked up at his son.

“We returned here to repair ourselves, but this isn’t the way to begin. We need to maintain how we sit down respectfully with one another.” He said no more and just sat in his chair under the mango tree in the yard all afternoon and evening, mumbling to himself, eyes fixed on the distance.

That evening, Amadu came to deliver wood from Colonel’s group to Kula. Colonel, with offers of free bundles of wood, had gotten Kula to be one of his many customers. While Amadu was stacking the bundles of wood by the mango tree, he overheard Kula talking to her daughter Miata about how the elders had been mistreated.

“This is why your grandfather is so quiet this evening. He is a man of few or no words when he is angry or bothered deeply by something,” she said. Kula had turned to look in the direction of Amadu, but not because he was eavesdropping. She had put aside a dish for Colonel and his group, something that had been agreed upon by the elders and her husband. It was customary in small towns and villages for mothers and women in general to put aside portions of food that they had cooked for their families for children with no family of their own or sometimes even single men. Also, Colonel always sent a bit more firewood than Kula paid for, and she wanted to return the favor of goodness.

“Please take this to your Man in Charge for all of you.” She handed him the bowl of rice with beans, dried fish, and palm oil soup on top. Miata laughed at the name Man in Charge, but also at Amadu, whose face lit up when he smelled the food.

Upon Amadu’s return, Colonel whistled with two fingers in his mouth, which was a signal for all the boys and the girl to gather immediately. Miller, Ernest, Salimatu, and Victor left their various tasks and rushed to the bucket of water to wash their hands. Victor, who had difficulty eating hot food, usually came with a bowl so that he could take his share as they all dug in and wait for his food to cool.

This evening, though, Victor didn’t bring a bowl, which made the rest of them laugh as they congratulated him. They then devoured the food as though they hadn’t eaten for days.

“She cooks better than Salimatu. I feel I have actually had food after this meal,” Ernest said, and Salimatu slapped the back of his head. Colonel turned the other way to smile just for a second before his face returned to its customary state. At the end of the meal, Amadu told Colonel what he had heard. Colonel listened pensively and said nothing afterward.

Deep in the night, when the stars themselves were drowsy, dulling the brightness of the sky and causing it to nod, Colonel left his room and went into town. He stopped at the carpenter’s workshop, where he quietly took some nails and borrowed a hammer and screwdriver. He searched until he found Wonde’s vehicle, the only one in great condition, parked carelessly outside a woman’s house. Colonel went to work, driving nails into all the tires. Using the screwdriver, he opened the vehicle and removed the battery from the walkie-talkie that was on the passenger seat. He threw the battery in the bushes and quietly closed the door of the car. He returned home passing by the bar to see if any men were misbehaving so that he could ambush them afterward. They were drinking and shouting but nothing beyond that as far as Colonel could see. He returned the carpenter’s tools and went home to wait for another night to pass, as he was still learning to sleep.

Wonde, as usual, emerged from the house in the morning and finished tucking in his shirt and fastening his belt on the veranda. He had a bottle of water, and he rinsed his mouth and spat before drinking some and washing his round, bearded face. He strutted to his car whistling with an air of self-importance. His mood was soon spoiled when he saw his flat tires. He looked around, scratching his head for answers, then got down on his knees to see if the tires were at least manageable to drive on. Confirming that none of them had any air whatsoever, after he had repeatedly pressed them, he kicked one in frustration, then reached inside for the radio to call for help, but the thing wouldn’t come on. When he noticed the battery was gone, he threw it back in the car, slammed the door, and went to sit on the veranda of the house he had slept in to think, holding his head in his hands. He raised his head with a smile when the idea came to him to pay someone to deliver a note for him at the company’s main site. Surely someone would come get him immediately.