The Dragons, the Giant, the Women, стр. 18
Outside the shack it began to rain again, and I imagined in the recent past a family that lived in the incinerated home, only a dozen yards from where we sat. I saw their living room and den, their hallways and kitchen, and a bedroom where children played. I wondered where they were in that moment, if they were also resting on the cool and damp cement of a stranger’s back house. Had they made it to Ghana? To Guinea? To Sierra Leone? Had they abandoned us here like the birds did? Like the planes did? Were they in America with Mam? I leaned into Ol’ Ma and daydreamed to ease my hunger, the dryness that painted my throat, making it as hard to swallow as it now was to cry.
“I owe you, Gus,” Amos said, finally catching his breath. Beneath his words, there were traces of his handsome, boyish face. “I will pay you back somehow.”
“Nonsense,” Papa said, sitting between Amos and Brother James across from us.
“I owe you, I owe you,” Amos repeated.
Papa put his hand around Amos’s shoulder. I wanted to go to him and hug him, but Ol’ Ma held on to me, not letting me break free from her.
“You will be safe now,” Papa said. “We will reach Junde day after tomorrow and we are taking a canoe to Lai to hide in Ma’s village. At least until they stop fighting.”
“How long have you been walking?” Amos asked.
“Three weeks. Almost.”
“Aye! The girls them too,” he shouted.
“Yeh, them too,” Papa said.
Amos looked at the sores on our mouths, numb to me now, that had appeared within our first week from the sugarcane we ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
“Sugarcane,” Ma said, noticing his focus.
Amos shook his head.
“And you have not heard from Mam?” he asked.
“How?”
“I am not staying here,” Amos said. “I am trying to get out.”
“Borders closed,” Brother James said.
“They are letting some people pass. Some. They didn’t let me pass to Sierra Leone but I am going back toward Ghana to see if I can get across.”
“Dangerous business,” Papa said. “What news have you heard?”
“Doe is refusing to step down. Taylor and Prince Johnson got the rebels killing Krahn people and government people to force him to step down,” he said.
There was salt in the following silence.
“Come with us to Lai, Amos,” Papa said.
“You safer traveling with family, Amos. Government soldiers will mistake you for rebel, and rebels will try force you to join them or they will kill you,” Brother James said.
Papa and Brother James and Amos, they talked all night about Liberia and her problems and all the things that could change her back to her old self. They talked about 1980 and 1983 and 1989. These men and their voices. And the memory of that rebel’s voice—that stupid, insane boy, who, if he lived, would become a more stupid, more insane man. Men were talking plenty during this war. Men were deciding where to go and when to go and when to stop. They were deciding where to hide and what to eat and when to eat. They were deciding who would be killed and who would live. They were deciding which direction the planes would fly and when they would be removed from the sky. And they were dividing plates of not-enough food and leading the way. And those male dogs howling in the distance, bellies full of rotting male carcasses, as some rebel men decided who would cut their throats and roast them for that night’s meal. And those men at the edge of the forest, those princes and rebels who wished to kill Hawa Undu. Why all this palaver over a hiding dragon? Why hadn’t they just asked a woman, one like Mam, one of those women who could do anything, and go anywhere, to just go inside the forest and talk to Hawa Undu in a nice voice? To make him a feast and pepper his palm butter with those spices Mam used and feed him pork feet and dry fish like a king? And she would not fight him. She would just hold Hawa Undu’s hand and lead him outside.
EIGHT
There was nowhere on our cream-colored walls in Caldwell too high for Papa to reach, no piece of furniture that he could not move with the slightest push. I would press my hand against his and it barely fit in his palm. Amazed, I looked past the dark veins of his stretched fingers and laughed with him as we guessed how many of my tiny hands could fit into his. Four was the decision. Once at our house in Caldwell, he told Wi, K, and me to stand together and hold each other as tightly as we could. Not knowing what to expect from the request, I hugged both of my sisters from either side. I grabbed their waists as they too grabbed mine. We huddled together and giggled over each other’s shoulders, looking around nervously for him. From the hallway—he took measured strides in our direction with hunched shoulders and muscular limbs that dangled from each side.
“Rooooar,” he said, making his way toward us.
We squealed and held on to each other as the giant approached.
“Rooooooooar,” he said again, this time picking up his angled feet and running to where we stood.
He picked us up all at once. He twirled us around until our stomachs hurt from laughter. I held on to the girls as our heads bobbled high in the air. I saw the face of Moneysweet through the window, smiling. Korkor warned that he should not make us so dizzy that we would be sick for dinner. He continued, nonetheless, and we did not stop laughing until the fufu dropped into the stew of our