* * *
That evening, Bockarie canceled the lessons on his veranda because a musician was coming to town. Kula, Benjamin, Fatu, and Bockarie had arranged to go dancing. As he sat on his veranda quickly correcting papers so he could get ready for the night out, Bockarie looked up and saw Benjamin returning from his first day of work. Benjamin’s overalls and face were completely blackened.
Beaming, Bockarie leapt up and gave his friend a handshake. “So how was it, man?”
Benjamin wanted to tell his friend about what had happened at work but Bockarie seemed too happy. So he responded instead with a question. “Has there been a funeral in town today?”
Benjamin’s question didn’t make sense to Bockarie. “No. What are you talking about?”
Benjamin blanketed his face with a smile that was weak underneath. “Work was exhausting but great, man. I am getting paid while in training for the work that I will be doing!”
“I cannot wait to start, man. So we dance tonight!” Bockarie hit his friend’s shoulder and began walking backward to his veranda, giving his friend time to go see his family.
Benjamin waved him off, still smiling but consumed with thoughts about what had happened to the body of the man who had died at work. Why does no one know about it? What would happen to the man’s family?
He walked home maintaining a smile on his face, for his wife and children.
I am lucky to have a job that pays me a little more
, he thought, forcing the smile to become even wider as he saw Fatu waiting for him on the veranda. She had plaited and oiled her hair and made herself quite beautiful for him. She wore a green embroidered dress with palm tree patterns at the hem, and the children stood by their mother with clean and shiny skin from the Vaseline lotion, in traditional outfits of light cotton with patterns of African heroes.
“Welcome home, dear. I am so happy, and how was your first day of work?” She pulled a chair for her husband to settle down.
“Welcome home, Father! We wish you a pleasant evening and thank you for your hard work!” The children had rehearsed this all afternoon. Giggling, they hugged their father and ran off to do their homework.
“It was nothing a former teacher couldn’t handle. We are blessed.” He smiled even harder to make sure the pretend happiness on his face didn’t fade.
“We are going to celebrate tonight, so you must wash up. Leave the overalls there and I will rinse them.” Fatu went to the fireplace to prepare the hot water for him.
“Thank you, my dear, but you mustn’t worry yourself about the overalls. They will only get dirty again tomorrow. They must only be washed when my nose cannot tolerate the smell!” He laughed and she shook her head at how funny her husband always was.
At the back of the house, he couldn’t enjoy throwing calabashes full of hot water on his head and body. The soap stayed on his skin longer and his hands forgot what to do, his second-nature motions intruded on by thoughts of what had happened at work. How could he bring this up when all his fellow workers kept quiet? On the way back to Imperi, everyone had gone about his banter as if nothing had happened. He seemed to be the only one tormented. Perhaps such things had become common occurrences for them? The dust that chased the truck on the way back from work now seemed to have a brutality about it. The stones that flew up with such determination now seemed to Benjamin to want to hit the workers.
On the truck, another worker came over and told him, “If you take everything to heart like this you won’t last. Trust me, brother, there has been worse, way worse.” And then he’d sat back down, his body dancing to the rhythm of the galloping vehicle.
“This is the longest washing you have ever done. What must you be doing there?” Fatu’s voice woke Benjamin from his torment. He hurriedly finished so that he could eat and get ready to meet Bockarie and the others for the disco that night.
Everyone—Benjamin and Fatu, Bockarie and Kula, and several others from town—was in high spirits as they walked to the secondary school field that had been shielded by sticks and thatch to make a dancing hall under the stars. A long cloth hung over the entrance to keep away the eyes of those who couldn’t afford this simple luxury. Still, young boys and girls hung about outside, enjoying the music, even if every so often the shouts of excitement coming from inside made them detest their youthfulness, which meant pennilessness, which meant they couldn’t go into the dance space. Inside, Benjamin, Fatu, Bockarie, Kula, and most of the people from Imperi and surrounding areas danced like there was no tomorrow. The intoxicating music, the good company, and the local brew that flowed in abundance slowly overshadowed Benjamin’s torment.
Of all the dancers, Sila was the best, and he danced by himself to every song. Sweat soaked and dried on his body and he didn’t care. Benjamin and Bockarie spotted Colonel at some point during the night. He wore a red baseball hat, the brim disguising his face, and was dressed quite well, better than how they remembered him. He wore a plain white untucked long-sleeve shirt with a tie hanging loosely on his neck. He came close to Kula, and with his back facing her, he said, “Thank you for taking care of the others. They tell me they have never eaten food as sweet as yours.”
“You are welcome. Who are you?” Kula said, knowing well that it could be several people telling her those words. Colonel started dancing and used a move to turn around and raise the brim of his hat for a quick reveal.
“I thought I saw a smile there. Did I, young man?” She turned briefly to her husband to tell him, and by the time she turned back, Colonel, as usual, had disappeared.
He went that night to see Mama Kadie to tell her she could count on him for anything she needed.
“Thank you, Kpoyeh, or Nestor. Which one do you like these days?” she said with a smile, and he responded, “Whichever it is that you choose, I accept.”
He spoke calmly.
Kpoyeh
means “salt water,” and he was given that name because salt water doesn’t allow anything to stay inside it, it would throw it out. And Nestor because the registrar of his birth name couldn’t pronounce or write his original name and he had looked up Nestor and loved the meanings behind it.
Close to 5:00 a.m. the gates were let open so that all could pour in and see the musician who had come from the capital. Everyone knew his songs, and one in particular called “Yesterday Betteh Pass Tiday” (Yesterday Was Better than Today) caused an uproar of excitement. People came alive perhaps for the truth in the song that they knew of so intimately but could never find the right words to communicate to themselves. They danced and shook the earth from its core so that even disturbed ghosts became merrier.
The last song spoke to all the men, women, and youngsters who struggled every day to make something of their lives. The song was called “Fen Am” (Find It) and it encouraged people to rise up every day and go look for opportunities. Even though they were tired of going around all day, and mostly for nothing, they shouldn’t give up. The lyrics went on:
There is no hand of food for an idler
I will not do anything bad but I will try and make it
And later, the song went on cautioning that one shouldn’t envy what others have, whether wealth or possession, because you do not know how they acquired such things.
The night prolonged its last muscles of darkness as the song blared on, sung with equal vigor by the musician and the crowd that hung on to every word of it. The nostalgia of that night had already settled within them as they walked home crooning the words of “Yesterday Was Better than Today.”
“I am coming with you to work today, man. I start today! I will see you at the junction soon,” Bockarie told his friend and pulled his wife’s exhausted body home. Benjamin just conjured a laugh and patted his friend’s shoulder, knowing full well he couldn’t say anything.
Bockarie was the happiest fellow that morning in the vehicle and with the cleanest overalls. He was dropped off at the mining site and waved off Benjamin, who was carried to the dredge.
Bockarie was being trained how to test soil samples and determine what minerals were in them. While he was learning to test the samples, one of his coworkers pulled out some interesting-looking stones, really big, from the soil samples. The bosses who monitored them on camera announced, through the speakers, that he should come to their office and bring with him the stones and soil samples. He never returned. No one ever saw him again or knew what happened to him. After searching for him unsuccessfully for many months, his wife and child left Imperi. The only thing Bockarie remembered was that shortly after the man was called out of the sampling area, a truck with armed guards came by, something was quickly loaded in the back, the doors slammed shut, and the vehicle departed. From that day on, when Bockarie and Benjamin returned from work they didn’t say much about what they did. The only gratitude they expressed, and they did so to please their wives, was that they would make a little more money than they had, and that thought was enough to hold the forced smiles on their faces longer than their hearts wanted.
The elders were not happy.
They wanted Benjamin and Bockarie to return to teaching because they felt the mining company would take their strength and dull their spirits. For a while, the two men did still teach some lessons, but their zeal dwindled, and the students, sensing the tiredness and disinterest of their teachers, stopped coming. The households of Benjamin and Bockarie got quieter as the number of days they worked for the company increased. Each of them only wanted to be left alone after work.
“Father, how come you don’t read anymore and those big and tall boys don’t come here with their books?” Thomas asked his father one evening while Bockarie sat alone on the veranda concealing with the darkness whatever emotions had taken hold of his face.
“Go back inside and do your homework.” Bockarie’s response used to be an invitation to sit near him, and he would explain things to his youngest son and read to him. Now, the boy dragged his feet inside, and his mother knew what had happened. Oumu, Thomas’s precocious twin sister, always remedied such situations. She went out on the veranda, wrapped her little arms around her father, and climbed on his lap.
“Father, Mother said you are the best teacher ever. So I want you to be my only teacher when I am in secondary school. You have to promise. And Grandfather said you are losing your strength for others. But I think you will have some to teach me when I am big…” She went on until her father finally smiled, and it was not a false one. He promised to teach her. She ran back inside to tell everyone, and they could hear Bockarie laughing on the veranda while Oumu recounted what he had agreed to. He stood by the door, watching his family, then turned to join his father, who always sat outside waiting for the cool breeze that came in abundance when the night was much quieter.
“My son the teacher, mining worker. Sit with your father and share the breeze.” Pa Kainesi knocked on the wooden bench next to him.
“In every person’s life you acquire lots of titles for the things you do. Yours so far are ‘teacher’ and ‘mining worker.’ However many you acquire, there is one that always fits you best because it brings sweetness to your spirit. You seem troubled these days, my son.”
“Everything is all right, Father. Work isn’t what I thought, but the money is slightly better and comes on time.”
“Your eyes, your movements do not say things are all right. Perhaps we mustn’t pry. Just be sure not to lose yourself completely to this hand-to-mouth business.” The old man held his son’s hands and they chatted into the night. Their laughter drifted into the house and made Kula and the children happy. Pa Kainesi’s face glowed, and his cheeks, which had tensed, relaxed. At some point, Bockarie took his father’s hand and placed it on his cheeks. He had loved the feel and warmth of his father’s hands when he was a child, before life’s worries came along, before the war.
* * *
Bockarie decided to walk home one evening after his shift ended. He had been missing the walk that he made when he was a teacher. It had allowed him to see and greet others more than he did nowadays. Though he was exhausted, and the dust was particularly heavy, he slowly made his way home along the road.
A few minutes into the walk he heard someone running up behind him. “Teacher, Teacher, why art thou so pensive? Are you lecturing to the road or perhaps to the dust?” The giggling belonged to Benjamin, who put his right arm around his friend’s shoulders. They made jokes about the principal, who was still angry with Benjamin and looking for ways to get his ledger back.
“I swear, one time he wanted to run me over with his motorcycle at the junction. I think it was only because some other people showed up that he changed direction.” Benjamin hummed with disbelief.
“Where is that ledger, anyway?”
“I think I lost the thing, man! I was moving it from place to place because I was worried about someone else finding it. But the principal doesn’t know that,” Benjamin said. They made way for the truck that carried the rutile mineral to the docks. The driver waved to them.
“That’s Rogers! So he’s a driver now? That explains why I haven’t seen him at work in a while.” Benjamin turned to Bockarie and was about to ask a question when they heard a loud sound followed by the wailing of a woman. They ran toward the cry.
A woman sat on the earth holding the body of a little boy in her arms. He had been trying to run across the street to his mother, and because of the height of the truck, Rogers hadn’t seen him. The left front tire had knocked the boy down, dragging his body under, and the double right back tire had flattened him to the ground. The truck had galloped a bit as it went over the boy, so Rogers had stopped to see what had happened. He stepped down, shaking. His eyes saw what had occurred. Some of the boy’s bones had ripped through his skin. The mother’s face was instantly rugged with sorrow. Rogers was on the radio calling for help. Somehow the boy was still breathing. The voice from the radio instructed him to get in the truck and drive to his destination; someone would be there soon to take care of the boy.