Allah is Not Obliged (7 page)

Colonel Papa le Bon stepped out of the four-by-four, he was crying. It’s the truth, he was crying like a baby. He went over and crouched over the body of the child-soldier, the body of the little boy who had tried to stop the convoy. He prayed, then prayed some more. Then Colonel Papa le Bon came towards us. Wearing all the strange stuff he was wearing.

I started to cry again, ‘I want to be a soldier-child, small-soldier, child-soldier, I want my auntie, I want my auntie in Niangbo!’ A child-soldier with a machine-gun tried to make me swallow my sobs, but Colonel Papa le Bon stopped the kid and came over and patted my head like a proper father. I was happy and proud as a Senegalese wrestling champion. I stopped crying. With all his majesty, Colonel Papa le Bon gave a signal. A signal that meant they were going to take
me with them. They gave me a
pagne
and I wrapped it round my arse and tied it.

Colonel Papa le Bon went over to Yacouba who started chanting again, ‘I am a grigriman, I am a shaman.’ The colonel made another signal and they brought Yacouba a
pagne
so he could hide his shameful parts. His
bangala
had shrunk.

Then Colonel Papa le Bon went over to the mother, the mother with the dead baby. He looked at her and looked at her. She was all filthy and she wasn’t wearing her
pagne
any more and her underwear didn’t really cover her
gnoussou-gnoussou
. She had a sensual charm, she had a voluptuous sex-appeal, (‘sex appeal’ meaning that she made you want to make love). Colonel Papa le Bon wanted to walk away, but he came back. He came back because the woman had voluptuous sex-appeal, he came back and stroked the baby. He ordered his people to come and take the baby.

They came with a makeshift stretcher and took the baby. (You say a ‘makeshift stretcher’ when the stretcher has been made in a hurry. That’s what it says in the
Petit Robert
.) The dead bodies of the baby and the little boy were lifted on to the four-by-four on makeshift stretchers.

Colonel Papa le Bon climbed into the four-by-four. Four child-soldiers with AK-47s got into the car beside Colonel Papa le Bon. The truck set off. Everyone else followed, foot to the road. That’s right, foot to the road. (I already explained ‘foot to the road’ means walking.)

We followed them. We means Yacouba, the mother of the dead baby, and your servant, me, the street kid, in the flesh. The truck headed towards the village slowly and silently.
Slowly and silently because it had dead people in it. That’s what you do in everyday life, when you’ve got dead people on board, you drive slowly and silently. We were optimistic because Allah in his infinite goodness never leaves empty a mouth he has created.
Faforo!

Suddenly Colonel Papa le Bon stopped the truck. He got out of the truck, everyone got out of the truck. Colonel Papa le Bon roared, a song that was powerful and melodious. The song was returned by the echo. The echo of the forest. It was the song of the dead in Gio. Gio is the language of the Black Nigger African Natives in these parts, it’s a patois. Malinkés call them bushmen, savages, cannibals on account of they don’t speak Malinké like us and they’re not Muslim like us. In our big
bubus
the Malinkés look like they’re kind and friendly but really we’re racist bastards.

The song was taken up by the child-soldiers with the AK-47s. It was so, so beautiful that it made me cry. I cried my eyes out like this was the first time I’d ever seen something terrible. Cried like I didn’t believe in Allah. You should have seen it.
Faforo!

Everyone in the village came out of the huts. Out of curiosity, to see what was happening. The villagers followed the four-by-four with the bodies in it. Out of habit and because people are stupid and always following things. It was a genuine procession.

The dead child-soldier was called Kid, Captain Kid. Now and again in his beautiful song, Colonel Papa le Bon chanted ‘Captain Kid’ and the whole cortege howled after him
‘Kid, Kid’. You should have heard it. They sounded like a bunch of retards.

We got to the camp. Like all the camps in the Liberian tribal wars, there were human skulls on stakes all round the boundary. Colonel Papa le Bon pointed his AK-47 in the air and fired. All the child-soldiers stopped dead and fired into the air like him. It was like I was dreaming. You should have seen it.
Gnamokodé!

Kid’s body was laid out under the appatam (‘appatam’ is in the
Glossary
, I explained it already).

Crowds and crowds came past every single second, all of them bending over the body and acting all sad as if people didn’t go round slaughtering lots of innocents and children every day in Liberia.

That night, the funeral vigil started at nine o’clock after the Muslim prayers and the Catholic prayers. Nobody knew Kid’s religion, on account of no one knew if his parents were Catholic or Muslim. It’s
kif-kif
, same difference. The whole village was there for the vigil. There were lots of storm lanterns. It was spellbinding. (‘Spellbinding’ is a big word I found in the
Larousse
, it means something that is magical.)

Two women started a chant and then the choir and everyone else joined in. Once in a while, so as not to fall asleep, and so as not to be eaten alive by mosquitoes, they’d get up and shake their elephant tails. Because the women had elephant tails and they danced in a lewd way! In fact, it wasn’t lewd, it was demonic. (According to the
Petit Robert
, ‘lewd’ means ‘indecent or obscene’.)

Suddenly we heard a cry from some unfathomable depth.
The cry announced that Colonel Papa le Bon had joined the dance, that the master of ceremonies had entered the circle. Everyone stood up and took off their headdresses because he was the boss and the lord of the whole place. And we saw Colonel Papa le Bon completely transformed. Totally!
Walahé!
No shit!

He was wearing a multicoloured headwrap and he was stripped to the waist. He had muscles like a bull and it made me happy to see such a strong well-fed man in famine-starved Liberia. He had a bunch of medals hanging round his neck, from his arms and from his shoulders and in the middle of all the medals was his kalash. He had the kalash on account of there were tribal wars in Liberia and people were being killed like they weren’t worth an old grandmother’s fart. (In my village, when something’s not worth much, we say it’s not worth an old grandmother’s fart. I explained that before and now I’ve explained it again.) Colonel Papa le Bon walked round the body three times then came and sat down. Everyone sat down and listened like a bunch of arseholes.

He started off by telling the events of how Captain Kid got killed. The two young men on the motorbike were possessed by evil spirits and fired on him without warning. The devil had got into them. The captain’s soul flew off and we shall mourn him. We could not exorcise the devil from the hearts of every passenger in the convoy or from the minds of the men responsible for the captain’s death. It just was not possible. That’s why we had to kill some of them, but seeing as God says thou shalt not kill too much, or at least thou shalt kill less, we stopped killing, and left the others
just as they came into the world. We left them naked. This is what the Lord has said: when people truly injure you, kill less but leave them naked they came into the world. Everything in the trucks and all their possessions were brought here to the camp. These things should be given to the captain’s parents, but since no one knows who the captain’s parents are, they will be distributed, shared out fairly between the child-soldiers, between Captain Kid’s friends. The child-soldiers can sell off these things and make a couple of dollars. With the dollars they can buy lots of hashish. God will punish the people who committed the evil deed that killed Captain Kid.

Next, Colonel Papa le Bon told us what had to be done. Walahé! The devourer of souls had to be exposed. The devourer of souls who had gobbled up the child-soldier, Captain Kid,
djoko-djoko
. (According to the
Glossary, ‘djoko-djoko
’ means ‘by fair means or foul’.) He had to be hunted down in whatever form he had taken. There would be dancing all night and if necessary all the next day. The dance would go on until the devourer of souls had been unmasked. Until he had made a clean breast. (According to the
Larousse
, ‘make a clean breast’ means when someone confesses his terrible crime from his own lips.)

So as to look more serious and more approachable, Colonel Papa le Bon took off his kalash. He put the kalash close at hand, put it within easy reach on account of there was war and people were dying like flies from tribal wars in Liberia.

The tom-toms started up again, more furious, more hectic. And there were songs that were better than any nightingale’s.
From time to time, palm wine was served, from time to time Colonel Papa le Bon drank palm wine, from time to time Colonel Papa le Bon got fucked-up on palm wine. But palm wine was not good for Colonel Papa le Bon. Not a bit. He drank the stuff all night, drank so much he was completely drunk and completely blacked out (‘blacked out’ means he became unconscious).

At about four in the morning, completely drunk, Colonel Papa le Bon staggered towards the circle of women and grabbed some old woman who was half-asleep. She had devoured the soul of Captain Kid! No one else! It was she.
Walahé!
She and nobody else who had been the leader of this debauchery. (According to my
Larousse
, ‘debauchery’ means ‘an orgy’.)

The old woman shrieked like a bird in a trap, ‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me!’

‘It was you, it was you,’ shouted Colonel Papa le Bon. ‘The soul of Captain Kid has come back in the night to denounce you.’

‘
Walahé!
It wasn’t me. I loved Kid. He came to my hut to eat.’

‘That’s why you gobbled him up. I saw you transform yourself into an owl in the night. I was sleeping like a caiman, one eye half-open. I saw you. You took his soul in your claws. You flew up into the high branches of the kapok tree. Others transformed into owls flew up to join you. There you had your orgy. You gorged on his skull. You ate his brain yourself and left the remains to your disciples. It was you! It was you! It was you!’

‘No, it wasn’t me!’

‘The soul of the dead came to me in the night to tell me it was you. If you don’t confess, I will submit you to trial with a white-hot iron (‘white-hot’ means ‘an object which has been subjected to heat until it glows’). I will pass the iron over your tongue. Yes, Yes.’

Faced with all the mounting evidence, the old woman was
makou
, open-mouthed. And then she told the truth, she made a clean breast, she confessed. (‘Confess’ is in my
Larousse
. It means to say in your own words that the incriminating facts are true.)

The old woman who confessed was called Jeanne. She and three of her disciples were taken to prison under escort. There, Colonel Papa le Bon was going to exorcise them (‘exorcise’ means ‘to free from evil spirits or malign influences’).
Walahé! Faforo!

Captain Kid’s funeral took place then the next day at 4 p.m. It was raining. There was lots of crying. People were thrashing about and sobbing ‘Kid! Kid! Kid!’ like it was the first time they had ever seen a tragedy. And then the child-soldiers lined up and fired their kalashes. That’s all they’re good at. Firing guns.
Faforo!

Colonel Papa le Bon was the representative of the NPFL in Zorzor. That was the highest up you could get in northern Liberia. It meant you looked after the important trafficking coming in from Guinea. You collected the taxes and customs duties and kept an eye on comings and goings in Liberia.

Walahé!
Colonel Papa le Bon was a big-shot in the NPFL. An important member of Taylor’s brigade.

Who was this big-shot warlord Taylor?

The first time anyone in Liberia heard of Taylor was when he pulled off a big gangster scam that bankrupted the Liberian treasury. He took all their money and used forged papers that he wrote himself to convince the government that he’d turned the money into loads of dollars in the USA. When they smelled a rat (‘smelled a rat’ means they realised there was something wrong) and discovered it was all a rip-off, they hunted him down. Taylor went into hiding in the USA using a false name. After a huge manhunt they tracked him down and arrested him. They put him in jail.

While he was locked up, he bribed his gaolers with stolen money and escaped to Libya, where he introduced himself to Qaddafi as the fearless leader of the revolution against Samuel Doe’s bloody dictatorship. Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator, had been trying to overthrow Doe’s regime and kissed Taylor right on the mouth. He sent them—Taylor and his followers—to the camps they have in Libya where they make terrorists. Libya has had terrorist camps ever since Qaddafi came to power. In this camp, Taylor and his followers learned guerrilla warfare.

And that’s not all: Qaddafi palmed him off on Blaise Compaoré, the dictator of Burkina Faso, with lots of commendations, like he was commendable. Compaoré, the dictator of Burkina Faso, recommended him to Houphouët-Boigny, dictator of Côte d’Ivoire, like he was a choirboy or a saint. Houphouët, who hated Samuel Doe for murdering his son-in-law, was happy to meet Taylor and kissed him right on the mouth. Houphouët and Compaoré quickly agreed that they
would support the warlord. Compaoré, on behalf of Burkina Faso, took care of training the soldiers, and Houphouët, on behalf of Côte d’Ivoire, took care of paying for and transporting all the guns.

And that’s how Taylor the warlord got to be a big somebody. A famous warlord who bled Liberia dry (‘bleed dry’ means ‘to systematically exploit the population, forcing them to make heavy sacrifices’). Taylor lives in Gbarnea. From time to time, he sends child-soldiers on murderous missions to try and capture the Mansion House. The Mansion House is where the president of Liberia used to live before the warlords divided up the country between them.

Compared to Taylor, Compoaré, the Burkinabé dictator, Houphouët-Boigny, the Ivorian dictator, and Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator, are civilised people, he makes them look like civilised people. Why would they support a barefaced liar, an out-and-out thief, a crook like Taylor and make him head of state? Why? Why? It can only be one of two reasons: either they’re as corrupt as Taylor, or they’re playing what people in Africa with its barbaric dictatorships and liberticidal fathers of nations call ‘la
grande politique
’. (According to my
Larousse
, ‘liberticidal’ means ‘that which destroys freedom’.)