The Dragons, the Giant, the Women, стр. 17

the boy with the bright blue shirt and broken stories and pretending they all and none of them were there Pastor Brown pointed to something approaching us in the distance it was a tank they said it was a tank and in one second my frail body was in two places one was on the road one was jumping over the bodies gone to heaven now two and I was we were off the road and my bare feet were being dragged through a muddy field and (where were my shoes) as K cried and I wondered what I did to the sun for it to hate me as it did and the monstrous stalks were slapped with bullets and talking leaves said run and do not look back and blood poured out of the bottom of my feet as thorns pushed their way in and running and running and Papa was moving so fast and pulling my hand that the muddy waters were now my pool my baptism into one second past girlhood past innocence past things the clouds never made and my feet lost the ground beneath me so my knees now ran along with Papa and water now ran along my face and the lace at the bottom of my dress got left somewhere behind me with my shoes and the tank and my girlhood and the shooting that did not stop but came toward me under the open orange suns and clouds that said nothing more than rain.

SEVEN

They found little girls’ shoes in an abandoned house, mismatching slippers and sneakers and church shoes that Papa insisted we wear even though I cried that it was painful to walk with them on. We were only three days away from a town called Junde, where we would catch a canoe that would take us to the village Lai.

“It’s not safe to walk with no shoes on. The glass in the road will cut you,” Papa had said.

The outer layers of my feet were swollen and shredded from the sugarcane field thorns. Each step made my stomach turn and hurt, and that feeling traveled to my head. The sting was so serious that it felt like all of the water in my body left me from my eyes, and the river left a trail on the road out of Monrovia.

Since Papa was already holding K, who slept through the disorder in a small space underneath his chin, Brother James picked me up on his hip to ease my soreness.

The farther north we walked with our countrymen out of Monrovia, the more of us crowded the exploded pavement—shoeless and shirtless—faces smeared with all of the changes only three weeks had caused.

We walked underneath the sun. Brother James, whose once-shiny dress shoes had now dulled and lost their soles, limped as he held me; his steps were so inconsistent that on several occasions I nearly slid down his waist. The sun rays juked my eyes until I hid my face in Brother James’s neck. A bitter smell seeped from his skin as he walked; he panted as if my body grew heavier in his arms.

When I awoke, the sun was almost gone and our company had stopped walking. Brother James put me down and held my hand as I rubbed my eyes beside him. The road was nearly empty, except for a few other escapers before us, and down the road Papa walked away from us, to a confrontation between a lone rebel and a man he recognized. Ma took my hand away from Brother James and pulled me and my sisters close to her, unsure whether she should hide in the sugarcane fields or continue behind Papa.

“James,” she said.

“Wait here,” Brother James told her and followed Papa. “The boy look high.” The rebel, a boy around fourteen years old, no older than Torma, pointed a rifle at a man’s head. He laughed as he did, a sound like razors cutting bones. The man stood on the sidelines, facing the road, his face covered with tears, his shirt stained with blood.

The boy wore camouflage trousers and black boots that were too large for his feet; he had a smug smile and eyes so red they looked like they were bleeding.

“I don’t have money!” the man cried.

“Wait … wait,” Papa said, approaching them. His hands were raised in the air. “Don’t shoot!” he shouted. “Please don’t shoot,” Papa said again. From behind he looked different, smaller and as thin as the gun now pointed in his direction. “Here. Here, right here.” Papa raised a crumbled wad of money from his pocket.

“Don’t shoot,” he said. The boy stared at the old five-dollar bill in the air. Papa threw the money on the ground in front of the rebel. The boy scuttled to pick up the pale green wad. He turned around and ran through an adjacent field. When he was out of sight, Papa ran to the man and hugged him.

“Amos!” he said. Amos collapsed in Papa’s arms.

“Thank you. Thank you,” he said, wiping his face. “He made me stand there all day.”

“God bless you. Come,” Papa said, picking up Amos.

“We got to hurry before he come back,” Papa said, pulling us together. “He will come back.” He motioned to us to keep walking and led us for another mile to a small shack in the back of a home that had been burned down. A family’s memories were scattered in the mud. Inside, Papa and Brother James pushed a few yard tools to the back of the room, clearing space on the floor for us to sit. The cement was covered with ashes from the fire, along with coal, likely used to light a smoke pot that was nowhere to be found.

“It looks like they took everything here,” Brother James said. He took an old towel from his bag and used it to push an empty frame and broken glass out of the shack. Amos still looked afraid and Brother James took