They spent the next few days in awkward silence, each keeping their thoughts to themselves. However, one evening Adams invited Akinyi to the porch. They had a long conversation and the initial unease melted.
Now Akinyi looked forward to their nights on the porch when they could talk easily without any pressure or expectations.
Tonight as they listened to the chirping crickets, she decided to ask him about life in the army.
“I knew I wanted to be a soldier when I was young. I saw the Rambo and Jackie Chan movies, and I fell in love instantly. I even moulded soldiers and guns with clay,” he said, looking so nostalgic.
Akinyi tried to picture him as a child. Had he been one of the tall boys in the village? She wanted to ask but didn’t want to interrupt the story.
“When I finished high school, there was recruitment in the neighbouring school, so I went to try my luck. My father gave some kitu kidogo, and I was among the successful recruits,” he continued.
“Were you happy or scared?” she asked, sipping her drink.
He paused for a while before saying, “I was ecstatic. It was like a dream come true. I was going to fight to defend my beloved country. I had only believed in the romantic version of being a soldier. I didn’t know that I was signing up to be a gun for hire.”
Akinyi almost kicked herself hard for probing into his life, but she wanted to understand. She had always believed that ignorance was bliss, but she would no longer be kept in the dark. If she was going to share some time with this man, she had to know him more deeply and dive below the surface.
“That sounds disappointing for a young man who had spent his waking hours and sleeping time dreaming of being a soldier,” she commented, and he nodded in agreement.
“The training had been hell. Training hard for long hours, little sleep, the insults, and the whipping. They had told us that they were converting us from civilians to soldiers. In a real sense, they amputated our soft spots and turned us into monsters. We were only comfortable and could drop our guards around fellow soldiers. A soldier must be tough. They call it being army strong. We were told that our role was to take lives. Therefore, we needed psychological training on ruthlessness,” he said, his eyes clouding with something dark.
She could not fathom the emotions they were conveying. She had thought that she could understand his work, but she had been wrong. There was no way of understanding it by watching from outside the fence. One had to live the life, walk in his shoes to begin to understand.
He cleared his voice and continued, “The real test was when we went for the Linda Nchi operation. They told us that we would defend our country but who was defending us. They always said that—mungu ni wa majeshi—we were left in the hands of God.”
She couldn’t help it. She took his hands into hers when she saw the tormented look in his eyes. His hands were freezing cold. For a moment, she thought that he would pull his hands away, but when he didn’t, she warmed them with hers.
“Did you lose any of your friends?” she asked when she saw that he had relaxed and his hands were gaining heat.
“A lot of my friends paid the ultimate price. Al-Shabaab militants ambushed us several times, and we kept losing soldiers. One night, three of my closest friends were killed. I was mad at God, the Al-Shabaab and the government. I was almost running out of my mind. That night we went seeking them and killed a large number of them. But the pain even worsened. At the end of the day, we were all killers regardless of which interests we were serving. By killing them, were we better off? They were turning us into monsters, slowly but surely.”
“Did your men ever rape any women?” she asked and regretted asking the question immediately when he jerked back, narrowing his eyes.
“War is cruel. That’s all I can say. Unfortunately, some people use rape as a weapon of war. I don’t condone it, but it’s a reality. Now you have a glimpse into the life of a soldier.”
“It is very informative,” she said, straightening her tense shoulders.
The mood had shifted, and she had probed enough. She didn’t have the stomach for further gory details of war. She had so many unanswered questions but tonight wasn’t the night for them. They had more nights to talk for the foreseeable future.
***
One day in September, they sat on the porch as had become their routine.
“What is it like to be an only child?” Adams asked.
Akinyi smiled before saying, “It had both the good and the bad side. Which one do I start with?”
“The good.”
“ First, you get all the attention from your parents. Then, you are bought most toys.”
“Only those?” he asked, raising one of his eyebrows.
“Pretty much. On the bad side, you are a solitary bird, flying solo. You have no siblings to play with, and you do all the household chores yourself. It gets lonely.”
He considered what she had said, “Does that mean that you are always alone?”
“Yes, but the truth is I like my own company. My friend, Ephy, can’t stand to be alone for long. She gets depressed by the silence. What about you?”
“We are three in my family—my older brother, Seth, me and my younger sister, Val.”
“Then it must have been fun growing up?”
“It was. We could play football with Seth the entire day. Val was born when I was in class six. By then, we didn’t play much because of schoolwork. But on weekends, we would babysit while our mother did work around the house.”
“I am jealous. Now that you are grown, are you still close?”
Adams looked into the dark sky, dreading the question. He could lie and get it over with.
“Sorry. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I understand,” she said quickly.
He was tempted to take the bait but thought better of it. He had never shared what happened with any living soul. Yet as he stared at her attentive expression, he wanted to tell her the truth about his wounds.
“I haven’t seen them for a while.”
“How long?”
“Seventeen years.”
“Seventeen years!” she gasped. Something was not right.
He narrated the story about how they blamed him for the death of his mother.
She reached for his hands and looked at him sympathetically. Adams resisted the urge to pull away from the hold and pace the room or light a cigarette. He didn’t deserve pity. Instead, he should be reprimanded and told that it was his fault.
“I am so sorry. How have you coped with being away that long?”
“I developed my own survival tactics. Sometimes I look back and wonder what I could have done right. Maybe if I hadn’t joined the army, my mother would still be alive.”
“You don’t know that for sure. Nobody knows what the future holds.”
He looked momentarily lost for words before saying, “I know, but that doesn’t prevent me from wondering. When the pain gets too much, I light a cigarette and smoke the pain.”
She smiled despite herself, feeling foolish for thinking it was just some bad habit. “I still think that Seth and your father accused you because grief clouded their better judgement.”
“But I was also grieving. Imagine coming home to an already plastered grave. I felt so lost.”
She squeezed his hand, and he shook his head, “Sorry for spoiling the evening. I have never told anyone about the incident.”
She felt special and sad too. She could only imagine what he had lived through all the seventeen years. He was being brave about this, army strong.
“How come you have never told anyone about this? You have friends.”
“In the army, one way of handling grief is to never talk about it. If you don’t say anything about it, then time will dull the ache, and it will finally disappear. I guess I took that up.”
She didn’t know what to say to make this right. She stood from her seat and went to him, sitting on his lap and hugging him. Warm tears tracked down his cheek as he held her tightly. They stayed that way for long. When they later walked back into the house, it was apparent they had crossed an emotional boundary, and there was no going back.