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ONE DOES NOT EXPLAIN how it feels standing on top a combat van holding a belt-fed machine gun.
You have to squeeze the trigger yourself, rotate it, feel its kickback as bullets pellet rhythmically. What one can explain is the need to silence the screams of your mother and sister in your head when they begged for their lives those months ago.
The men who fall from your bullets are part of the marauding group that causes you to see your mother and sister’s faces and hear their screams every time you close your eyes at night.
You did not need promises of eternal life and unsullied maidens to join the civilian Task Force.
BBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTT. The sound of the machine gun and explosions that follow are not loud enough to drown your thumping chest. You scream. You see men fall.
This makes you happy.
* * *
My name is Al’amin Aliyu.
I have known the weight of an AK-47 since I was 15. Before this, I only knew the weight of fruits plucked from the old church with the broken fence, and the weight of a groundnut tray on my head from hawking.
I had to know the weight of my tray because adults can be sneaky: they would take gyada from the tray without paying and there wasn’t a way of knowing with the tray on my head. Mama always said to heap the gyada from the edge to the middle, so that they can sleep on each other. That way, anyone who takes from it will send the others crashing. And that if my heart is in the gyada, I’d feel it too. I did learn to feel it. But when my heart wasn’t with my tray, it would be thinking of the weight of mangoes from that old church, the only one in Ruga Juli.
Then I started thinking of swimming, what it was like to feel the weight of water against my skin. The joy of fruits and water, as I remember, came from the thrill of abandoning school with my friends. I do not repeat much from this time anymore; all I can do is remember. So each time I put my heart to that thrill, I am transported to moments before the weight of guns, before 15.
* * *
Our clothes are peeled off. We race each other to the river: Yasin, Salim, Khalif, Gambo, and me. Yasin is bigger than all of us, but a slow runner. He uses his strength to fall anyone on his way to get to the water first.
I do not like to struggle so I let him pass me.
Gambo is the fastest and Yasin cannot overtake him. So he decks Gambo’s legs and Gambo falls terribly. There is blood coming out of the side of Gambo’s face. I see his eyes red with tears. He doesn’t even dust the sand off the bruises on the back of his arms nor his elbow and bloody face. He stands, wishing death on Yasin with his eyes. But we cannot complain.
We cannot tell on Yasin, because then we would have to explain what we were doing at the river when Khalif and Gambo are meant to be attending Islamiyya, and when I’m meant to be hawking my groundnuts. We are here now and there is nothing to do other than quietly hate Yasin and try to enjoy the water.
Yasin is dark, very dark. His face is stiff and scary because one eye has a scar over it and so it is always twitching and never as open as the other eye. His ears are like they are about to leave the sides of his head. He is bulky and has an amulet wrapped around his arm. The scars on his body tell stories about violence that none of us have ever seen. They do not look like the wounds one gets from falling off a tree while hunting for fruits, or even from stumbling on something while running. He doesn’t like to talk about them, so we never pushed hard when we asked. Sometimes we hate Yasin. Sometimes we like him. He is always slapping us. He once slapped me for licking mango wrongly. His palm is like sandpaper. Still, we never complained. Maybe it’s because he beat up anyone who beats or tries to bully any of us.
The water is refreshing as always. It was here I had my first swim. Yasin taught me. He is a better swimmer than all of us, so when we come to the river together, we do not leave his side.
The water is soft. I am still learning. I splash and blow bubbles all around but I never go far into the river. My arms and legs are moving in funny directions but I do not care. This is my way of flying as birds do in the sky. The water is my cloud and it caresses me.
After a while, I move to the sand to sit and watch the bigger boys. I sit with Gambo who can no longer go into the water today because of the wound across his jaw. It looks so fresh after he’s washed the sand off it. It looks painful, too. It would surely leave a mark. I wonder what he would have to tell his mother when she asks him this evening when we return. He looks at me and the anger is still there.
I just want to sit in peace and watch the bigger boys perform their moves. So, I look away.
There’s a lanky boy whose moves always make everyone stop and watch. His arms are long and he walks like he is sixty-five years old, his back bent. Each day has its own routine moves. He goes into the water chest first and goes quiet. Next, he comes out and does a somersault. Other times he does a backstroke and other maneuvers. He makes you fall in love.
Today, he climbs a rock and has done a lot of somersaults.
I look with envy.
I will be this good someday, I promise myself.
He attempts a backflip and goes into the water with finesse. We all grow silent waiting for his emergence. It takes longer. Everyone stands and watch and wait. My heart beats fast in a bad way. Nothing. No more whooshing sounds.
Someone brave enough goes after him. I watch as he is brought out of the water. He isn’t moving; his neck dangles like the doll little Safiyah plays with. Someone smaller in form than him stands at the river bank screaming what I think is his name.
“Sani!”
“Sani!”
I catch Sani’s eyes. He looks at me but without expression; his eyes are clear and peaceful. I try to swallow saliva. It feels like I’ve been punched in the stomach. It becomes hard to breathe. I want to scream. I turn and see Yasin and Gambo and Salim running. Khalif is beside me. We glance at each other and his eyes do the talking. We forget about our clothes and run as we have never run before.
* * *
Evening. At the mosque, I grab my plastic kettle. The water is cold. I pour it over my face and grit my teeth. My mind returns to Sani.
I close my eyes and see him: his neck and lifeless body. I hear his name in my head. Thoughts romp in my mind. I become dizzy. Alfa says everyone has a road to go on after death. I think of good and evil. About myself and death, and of Sani and on, which road he would be on. I wonder if he attended all his Qur’anic lessons or if he skipped some like me. I wonder if he did well before his life left him, if he stood well with Allah, if he fasted or performed salat. I hope he wasn’t like those big boys in the motor park who smoked wee-wee and drank haram. Even if he did out of ignorance, Allah would know and show mercy. Allah knows the intentions of the heart, and that’s all He judges.
The muezzin calls.
I quickly do my ablution and run to the front row.
* * *
We walk quietly as we have been doing for the past three weeks. The sun is at its peak. We walk past the river, and, as if we planned it, we all stop and stare.
The sun shines over the water. I do not know what the other boys are thinking but I want to run and jump and make whooshing sounds in its cold, shimmering beauty. I want to feel it on my skin once more. I inhale deeply. It still has its calm and sweet smell. The breeze is sweet. There are goosebumps all over my arms. I smile. My heart beats faster. I want to run. I glance at Khalif and Salim and their faces say things I like.
Gambo’s smile makes the dried scar across his jaw stretch.
We all turn and look at Yasin, our eyes asking permission. He stares back. Slowly, his eyes widen and we see a half-smile growing on that dark face. In that moment, we do not remember the dead boy. Yasin’s smile is the only thing we see, the only thing that floods our minds. We forget we still have our clothes on and we rush to the water, running and laughing and running.
* * *
Now, you wonder what would have happened if on your way back home you had not turned back to the river to fetch your tray. You wonder if by now, you would have still been with Yasin and Salim, Khalif and Gambo. Because it was the last time you ever saw them. The last anyone ever saw them.
Dauda, the farmer with the largest stretch of land in Ruga Juli, which is at the edge of the village and trails down to the river path, said he saw trucks filled with young boys and men with guns pass sometime just before the day went dark.
You wonder if they are still alive, or if they are with Sani. And like Sani, you are still unsure of their afterlife. None of you smoked wee-wee except Yasin. But you all had done haram things: the swimming without permission and the lies to cover it up; the mangoes which were not yours to pluck; the hands of girls you all held the day you wanted to show them just how high you could climb those trees by the river. You pray: Allah would know, at least for yourself, what was in the heart that day. You just wanted Ummi to see that you were better than the other boys at something, at climbing trees. Allah would know that the main reason you reached for her hand was that the path was filled with uneven rocks and you did not want her to fall as you did on your first time. Allah knows the intentions of the heart, and even though that was not the only reason you held her hands, He knows that was the main reason. He knows you had no plans for iskanchi. You do not think anyone had those plans. Nothing happened that day. He knows. And that’s what truly matters.
The shooting is over. As you rummage the carnage, you dig your machete into the victims missed by your bullets. When you aim for the abdomen and not the chest, you don’t hit a bone and the machete goes in with ease, the same way Sani dove into the water years back.
You no longer swim, though.
You no longer even remember your promise to someday swim as good as Sani.
You see a slim, middle-aged man with a sharp nose and prominent cheekbones. His breathing is violent and he grabs sand into his left palm. You can tell he wishes to be the one holding your machete.
He chokes on his blood and his eyes are glassy with intent. You can tell who a man is by the look in his eyes, you can know if he wants to kill you or if he has to. You do not hurry to dig your machete into him. Instead, you drop the machete and take out the small dagger Commander Yohanna gave to you when you first got here. You tear this man’s camouflage jacket and begin to make careful incisions on his hairless chest.
You are trying to spell your sister’s name but the blood comes out too quickly and you start all over again. The blood doesn’t give you time to finish the name. You get tired of restarting and with one drive, send your machete just above his right nipple. You are sad that his body does not squirm even a little. His palm loses its grip and opens to show the sand moulded in it.
There are corpses from both sides but few are the Joint Task Force’s. There are screams and a lot of jumping around. This is the most the Joint Task Force has killed since you joined 18 months ago.
The boys are shooting into the air and celebrating, all with reasons for being here.
You see Yusuf with whom you joined the Force with also smiling but not jumping. He has a patch over his left eye from the last operation where a grenade exploded, taking his eye.
After a raid no one had checked the pile of bodies for survivors. One saw this chance and threw a grenade. Yusuf wasn’t in the blast range strong enough to kill him, but the explosion from behind rippled enough to cause a fall that sent his head to a rock. Sometimes, when I see him sleeping, the patch slightly aside, I remember how he slowly tried to stand up repeatedly, eye covered with both sand-stained hands that trickled with crimson. He screamed his mother’s name. Maybe it is his reason for being here. He didn’t leave after that fall even though Commander Yohanna told him he could.
You raise your head to a pile away from you.
There is no movement, just opened eyes; so you make your way to the pile slowly.
You are in no rush. They are another boy’s eyes. His body makes no attempt to move or play dead. It just lies there as his eyes look at you, pleading that you return and forget you saw him.
You stand over him, your dagger in hand, unsure of what to do. You look around and no one seems to be paying attention to you. You stare at him. Letting him live is an insult to Yusuf’s left eye, and to your sister, to mama, to baba, to Yasin and Salim and Khalif and Gambo.
But this boy has eyes of just a boy, not those of your enemy. His eyes seem familiar. So is the scar across his jaw.
You grit your teeth as you go down on your knees.
You place your palm over his eyes, hoping it will be easier. You stop your dagger momentarily from piercing deeper into his body. You hate that you hesitate. You want to damn the consequences of leaving him alive. Maybe just this once, so you wait.
You wait, until you don’t anymore.
As you return your dagger back to its sheath, after wiping his blood off it, you understand that these things have to happen. And one does not simply explain them.
❦
Jonathan Durunguma was the 2017 winner of the Okike Prize for Literature. He is working on a collection of short stories exploring the cultural perceptions of mental illness and its effect on persons close to the afflicted. He has been published in Agbowó and Brittle Paper.
Afapinen 