The Dragons, the Giant, the Women, стр. 53
“What is a white person?” my daughter asked once on the phone.
“A person with pale skin,” I said. “Like Ms. Walters.”
Ms. Walters went to our church in Caldwell. The girls were in disbelief that she was white when I told them.
“How your series coming along?” Gus would ask me during our weekly calls.
“I na speaking series-oh,” I joked. “And if you just saw the way the people look at me when I open my mouth, hmph. Like I did something wrong.”
During our calls, I wished the phone handle was his hand.
“Don’t let it bother you,” Gus said.
“I’m trying,” I said. “How the girls?”
“They fine,” he said proudly. “Torma doing well with them.”
“I knew she would.”
“And Tutu-geh will turn five next month and she say she want big party,” he said.
“Give it to her. An April party will be beautiful. Invite everybody,” I said.
“You all right?” Papa asked.
“I’m still not feeling like myself since Christmas,” I said. “Sometimes I want to just pack my bags and come back home.” This was an admission. When I tell them the story, I tell them that the only thing that made me stay was wanting my daughters to know that they could go after anything they wanted, that they could fly too.
“That’s nonsense,” he said. “You almost finished with your first year. June three months away.”
“Yeh.”
“If it continue, then go see doctor,” he said.
“I will.” I had promised him I would stop worrying about the rumors of war. There was nothing about Liberia on television, so during every call I asked questions. What is the latest? Has Doe stepped down yet to avoid trouble? Do you think the rebels will be successful? What will happen to you all? Have you thought of the worst-case scenario? Shouldn’t we talk about what we will do? How many rebels will it take to remove him if they are serious? And how long? Will his soldiers put up a fight? And what will happen to the children? How are you explaining all this news to the girls? He ended up telling me that I was worrying myself too much, and that we should not talk about the war at all.
“Just worry about finishing there and coming home,” he had said.
So when our conversation became silent and all I could hear was the sound of breathing, I hoped he knew what I wanted to ask.
“All is well, Mam,” he said. “Just finish there and come back to us.”
TWENTY-ONE
One Sunday in April before a study session, I visited Calvary Baptist Church on Fifty-Seventh Street with Yasuka, to hear a missionary speak on his travels to Liberia. I heard about the church from a friend at Columbia and was happy to have found a Baptist church where I could go talk to God. I wanted to get a good seat that day to ask questions, but made sure to sit at the end of the pew in case I became dizzy. It had been four months since my Christmas visit and I had not been able to shake the ill feeling I had since returning to New York.
Calvary was a marble building with two stories of red pews to seat its many members. The back of each pew had wooden compartments where hymnals were kept. From habit, I ran my fingers over the edges of the hymnal covers. When the presenter approached the stage, I smiled. My best friends lived in Connecticut. They moved from Liberia earlier in the eighties with their husbands, and I tried to see them once a month. They occasionally drove to New York to pick me up for lunch, or I took a train at Penn Station to go out and see them. Still, I was always happy to meet anyone who had been to Liberia. I missed it more than I ever imagined I would. I missed my family. I missed my rose garden and my living room, the couches I had carefully designed and had upholstered with a fabric my daughters helped me pick.
The presenter approached the stage and introduced himself.
“I want to speak to you about my travels, and also to share my experiences in a country that is much different from ours,” he said.
The lights were dimmed and an overhead projector was turned on. The presenter clicked a remote and a picture of a young child, no more than four years old, black, dirty, naked against a wooded background, faded onto the screen. He showed several other pictures of children, similar to the first, appearing hungry, sad, some crying, all of them staring directly into the camera. He spoke of how difficult it was for him to find a single person who could read or write. At that point I started to sweat. He spoke of the lack of compassion among fathers, Liberian fathers, and what it said of the African men he had been around. I thought of my husband and my head pounded. Each picture made me feel nauseated—my body both hot and cold. Where was my garden in these pictures? Where was my husband and men like him? Where were my daughters?
“You have to say something,” Yasuka said. “You must say something.”
“When he is finished,” I said, feeling more and more sick as the presentation went on.
He mocked the smells, pitied the schools, warned everyone there about setting foot on Liberian soil without good health. He showed many poor villages, burst-open sewers, and too many children sitting alone—more than I could count—who were without even half a cup of river water to wash their faces. An hour later, after turning off his overhead projector, when the last child in his picture was now free to dress and go on about his business, an offering was taken for the presenter and his family. The baskets filled with American dollars and a line formed to speak to him. He did not show the Liberia I