The Dragons, the Giant, the Women, стр. 14
“Come,” Papa said, and took K from Ol’ Ma.
“But we will miss the food here,” Torma said, under her breath.
“We should go,” Papa said. “It is not safe here.”
I did not want to be at the ETMI since hearing that story. But Torma was right. I was hungry and I was tired and I missed Mam more than I knew I could. And it was only morning but the drums had already begun to tell that day’s story.
FIVE
Since most people who had left their houses in Monrovia neighborhoods that week stayed at the ETMI, at dawn we walked alone. We did not have the dry rice they fed us at the school or the crackers Papa grabbed from our pantry before leaving, so he walked into sugarcane fields and retrieved sticks of sugarcane for us to eat. We chewed and sucked the juice for energy, then spit out the hard sticks on the dirt roads.
Later in the day when we heard the sound of car wheels, or if someone yelled “rebel,” we ran into the cane fields and hid. The canes from the field were sharp and as it became later in the day, our legs were covered with scratches. The stalks were not so tall that we could stand and avoid being seen, so we knelt on the ground together; I made sure that I was touching Papa every time, either his fingers or his shirt as he breathed loudly between stalks.
Other times I sat on his shoulder as we walked. The breeze was calmer from where I sat, but it was there that I noticed the people lying on the road.
“Why is everyone lying down?” I asked Papa.
“They are asleep,” he said. “You cannot sleep right now, because we have to go see Mam.”
First there were only a few, sprinkled here and there, surrounded by dark red puddles. Then on some roads there were many. I saw an old man and woman, I saw some boys, some men, then I saw a family resting—a mother and father and four children—surrounded by a deep red color, their clothes scattered around them.
When Papa saw that the sun was setting, he looked for places for us to sleep, afraid to travel with three young girls and Torma in the middle of the night.
“We have to find somewhere before it gets dark-oh,” Brother James said.
“I know. I looking,” Papa said.
“What you looking for?” I asked Papa as I sat on his shoulders and surveyed the countryside.
He thought hard.
“A house,” he said.
“An-nen we will go see Mam?” K asked. “We will go to our house?”
“Our house?” Wi asked excitedly.
He waited again.
“No. Another house,” he said. “But then we will go back.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Be strong for Papa. Be strong, yeh? Tell me … tell me the story of Jonah.”
“Once upon a time there was a man,” Wi said, smiling.
“—from Ninevah!” I interrupted her.
“He ran from God and the big big whale swallowed him.”
“A real whale?” K asked, always, although she had heard the story countless times.
“A house!” Brother James said.
“Where?” Papa asked.
“There,” he said, pointing to a house that sat like an ant separated from its colony, tired of wandering, waiting alone to die.
By the time we reached the house, it was almost night and I could barely make out the faces of my family. The small house sat about fifty yards from the road. The front door was opened, the windows were shattered, and broken pieces of glass covered the porch where a rocking chair moved slowly in the evening breeze.
“Wait here with them,” Papa said to Ol’ Ma as he and Brother James headed into the house.
“I want go,” I said.
“Stay here with Ma,” he said sternly. Papa and Brother James lumbered through the unkempt grass. They disappeared behind the distressed wood.
“What they looking for?” Wi asked, pulling Torma’s hand.
“Rebels,” Torma said.
“What rebels?” Wi asked.
Papa ran out of the house and back to the road.
“Come,” he said, picking up K. We followed him through the yard. He kicked the broken glass out of our way and we plodded across the porch and into the house.
“Hold my hand,” he said. Ma held his hand and mine, I held Torma’s, and Torma held Wi’s. Linked, we moved through the dark house to a back corner where moonlight bled through.
“It stinks,” I said, wrinkling my nose to what smelled like molded cheese.
“Torma, go try find running water,” Ma whispered.
“Where? You want me find well?” Torma asked.
“No, just find kitchen.”
“Come,” Papa told her and she hesitantly walked with him out of the room. “Stay here with Brother James,” he told us. We found the corner of the room beneath the moonlight, where we sat near Brother James and hugged Ma in the dark. We heard a flow of water in the other room.
“Sounds like they found water,” Brother James said under his breath and stood up, but remembering that we were alone in the room, he paced around where we sat until Papa returned.
“Water is there. Torma will wash the clothes and when she finishes James and I will wash.”
“Oh praise God,” Ma said.
We followed her in the dark toward the sound of the running water.
During the day we walked, during the night Papa and Brother James found old, abandoned houses for us to sleep in. They always came back to the road to get us, and we entered the dark houses and slept close to Ol’ Ma, as the sounds of panic and unrest shook the roads nearby. One day, Papa took longer than usual to return to the road.
“Maybe I should go in,” Torma said as we waited together for Papa and Brother James to return.
“No,” Ma answered her. “You hear that?”
We became quiet and could then hear a voice that was neither Papa nor Brother James.
“I should go,” Torma said louder.
“Pray