The Dragons, the Giant, the Women, стр. 11
“Where we going?” I asked again.
“Yeh, where?” Wi echoed, moving closer to Ma as more people joined the road out of Monrovia.
“Away,” Papa answered.
“For how long?” Wi asked.
“I will tell you all soon. Not very long,” he said in one breath.
“And we will see Mam soon?” I asked.
“We will see Mam soon.”
“We going to America?” I asked.
“No, no, not America,” Papa stuttered. “But we will see her soon.”
“Can we go back for my doll baby?” K whined into Papa’s neck, tears now rusted on her cheeks.
“Maybe. We will see,” Papa said.
Questions waited at the roof of my mouth. Just as I was about to begin asking, as the words attempted to seep through the thin spaces between my teeth and fall at Papa’s feet, he stopped walking and waved his arm in the air.
“What is it?” Ol’ Ma asked in a panic before she noticed that the expression on Papa’s face was one of relief.
“James!” he yelled. “James? Brother James!”
Some of the people in front of us ducked for cover, others ran back into the field for fear that the yelling was a warning of dangers. Fifty feet ahead of us, a man turned around, and after noticing Papa, he hurried toward us through the crowd.
“Brother James!” Papa yelled as the man approached.
“Mr. Moore!” he replied as he reached Papa and hugged him. He was a man with narrow shoulders, taller and younger than Papa, and he lived by himself not too far from our house. We saw him at church and he always had candy to give us.
“You well, enneh-so?” Papa asked, patting his shoulder.
“Yeh,” Brother James answered. He picked me up and I felt his body shake.
“The drums?” I asked him after I saw he was startled by the outlying drums. Brother James looked at me and at Papa. Their exchange was cut short when Brother James said:
“Yes. Drumbeats.”
“Why they so loud?” Wi asked Papa.
“I don’t know,” Papa said.
“We must hurry-oh. I want make it to de ETMI before dark. They now set up camp there with food,” Brother James said. I remembered driving by the big school they spoke of many times.
“Yeh. That’s where we going,” Papa nodded and we continued to walk, the crowd of people now nearly shoulder to shoulder as we headed out of Monrovia.
“I’m hungry,” K began.
Papa handed her to Ma and he stopped in the middle of the road. He knelt down and opened the small backpack that he had taken from the house and pulled out a pack of crackers. The crowd shuffled around us. He opened the pack and gave a couple of crackers to K, then to Wi and me.
As I raised the cracker to my mouth, almost tasting the salt on my tongue, another drum, louder than all the rest, was struck so hard that I dropped my cracker on the road.
“Come,” Papa said, placing the bag back on his shoulder. Papa ran, pulling my hand as I was dragged behind him. Everyone on the road was running, screaming. After a hundred yards he stopped, looking in the distance in the direction of the drum.
“You can walk now. Walk now, but quickly,” he coaxed as K began to cry again.
“The rebels now block off the east and south borders,” Brother James said.
“How you know?” Papa asked him.
“I started walking toward there to take bus out of Liberia to Ghana. I got family there,” he said, still trembling, I could tell, though I was no longer touching him. “They will question you if they know your job. I saw them stopping people who look like they work for the government. Even on the road.”
Papa worked for the government, for the water and sewer company, but he was not Krahn like Hawa Undu and his people. Brother James said people like the rebels would think Papa supported Hawa Undu because of his government job.
“Good thing Ol’ Ma with you. Even if they don’t bother you for job, they still see Congo man.”
“Yes. And I got my university ID for the class I teach. I will say I’m a teacher,” Papa said. Brother James nodded.
“What is this ETMI business?” Papa asked, changing the subject, eyeing the travelers around us.
“Camp. I will not stay there long. I want get news from there.”
“Then where you will go?” Papa asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Brother James answered.
The roads looked different when traveled on foot. I realized I did not usually pay attention to what was happening outside of my car seat, where I would have pinching contests with my sisters to see who squeezed hardest, leaving throbbing red circles across our forearms. On foot the road was bumpy, full of rocks and now clothes that had fallen from the duffles of others who had left. Some shirts of different colors, some American shirts with the faces of American people smiling with their happy teeth and powdered skin. The crowd grew around us and my steps were closer and closer together. I squeezed Papa’s hand. Then I pulled it until he looked down. When I finally had his attention, I said nothing. I just stared at him, nearly stumbling along as we walked.
“What?” Papa asked after too long had passed without any words. “We will be there soon,” he said.
“And we will see Mam,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, before quickly looking away.
So my eyes returned to the road and those in front of us. There were Ol’ Mas and Ol’ Pas with canes, wobbling slowly to balance bags over their shoulders and atop their heads. They were with their children, and their grandchildren, who all carried heavier bags, looking nervously out into the fields and crowd, some with stains of tears covering their faces.
There were sugarcane fields on either side of us, the stalks like skinny bamboo at the roots and the brightest green at the crowns. It was rainy season and it had poured heavily only a few