CHAPTER THIRTEEN
1926, Grand Bassa County, Liberia
AM I STILL A MAN, then? If he was doomed to live a life of banishment from all he knew and held dear, fleeing the Frontier Force infantrymen at every turn, subsisting on roots and leaves and the occasional kindness of strangers, then his father, his grandfather, and their fathers would regard him with shame and embarrassment. He would be no man at all, really. He would be only a shadow, spreading out at dusk, and alighting each morning, not attached to any body, place, or feeling; just moving, being, escaping.
How could this be? He was no longer a rightful citizen of Giakpee and would therefore be thrown out of the clan if the soldiers’ claim was sound. Then he could never return to Jorgbor and their son. That all of this had come to pass in the space of three days was incredible. His whole world, gone. Everything that mattered to him cleaved open, dried out like so much cassava.
And, however much he swatted it away, the question always returned like a tsetse fly, biting until the disease fully bloomed in the blood. The longer he was in the bush, the weightier the question became, taking more shape until it finally broke in on itself and echoed in the dull space of his skull: Am I still a man?
Togar Somah, son of Baccus Somah and grandson of Aku Mawolo, leaned down into the creek and cradled a cupful of its cool, clear water. He knew that the soldiers were probably less than a half day from him, but he hadn’t stopped to drink in hours and was on the verge of collapse. He brought the liquid to his parched lips and sucked it down hungrily, dipping back in the creek several more times before pushing himself down on to the rich dark clay of the bank. How soothing the mud was on his overheated, sweaty skin, chafed from days of running in the bush without bathing. How strangely easy it is to become nothing, he thought. To be unknown to everyone but your pursuer, and to disappear into this land.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had set out on his own alone, as his family had constant need of him. Besides, with the recent raids in neighboring villages, it was no longer safe. Still, Togar mused, admiring the green abundance of the ironwood trees, the palm fronds that reached around his every turn, no one ever really took the time to actually see this land, their home, unless they were alone. And this was the first time he had been so in years. He heard the shrill call of a monkey somewhere high in the tree branches above him and the steady beat of a woodpecker nearby. A flock of guinea fowl walked to the edge of the creek, about five feet from him, to drink. They did not seem bothered at all by his presence, though a few fluttered their gray feathers, speckled with white dots, and after drinking, raised their curved bills to the sun. Togar watched the perfect, pear-shaped birds strut and gather around one another, and for those few minutes he was glad to be there with them, simply being in the harsh afternoon sun. At least there was this one moment that he could honestly say the wicked ones had given him.
Of course, he hated them too—hated the Congo people for snatching his newly won manhood from him. Just eighteen and a husband and father, where would he go and who would he become, now that his future had been uprooted from its rightful soil? Who could he become? He didn’t want to be another beast of burden for their plantations, would rather die than be shipped off to Fernando Pó, that home of the devil where so many Kru men met their final resting place.
Togar shivered and the water churned in his otherwise empty belly. There were not enough curses for the Congo men. Don’t think they ain’t kill you for a scrap of land, his great-grandmother Lani used to warn him and the other children who gathered round her. Congo people evil-oh, she would say, gravely wagging a gnarled old finger in their faces. You forget at your own peril. Even now Togar laughed, at the memory. She used words like that, peril, on occasion, white words that none of them quite knew what to do with. And she even had a small stack of books she kept in the corner of her compound, a gift, it was rumored, from her own Congo mother, who was apparently one of the first to come over on the big ships, full of dreams of taming the wild forests and building a country out of mud and mosquitoes. Grandma Lani had never talked about it, but there were whispers that her mother banished her for marrying a heathen Bassa man, great-grandfather Gartee. And that Grandma Lani had never looked back, even though she had kept some of her Congo ways through all the years, her book learning and her Congo English. She had even given Togar a talisman of sorts when he reached manhood: The remnants of a leopard skin pouch with a metal clasp at the top. It belong to my poor brother-oh, Grandma Lani had told him. He remembered that he had been surprised to see tears in her eyes. Before the fever take him. His Bassa love give it to him to ward off evil spirits and keep him safe in this world and the next. After he gone, it keep me safe too. She closed his small fingers over the cool metal clasp—the only part of the trinket that was still intact. Then she focused her runny, yellowed eyes on his own youthful ones. Keep it on your body, and it will do the same for you. So, he had taken a piece of twine and hooked it through the clasp. Then he had tied the whole thing around his neck and had never taken it off since, not even for bathing. And he had to admit, it had brought him Jorgbor and Sundaygar, the luckiest things in his life.
He fingered the talisman absently now, as he often did when he was thinking. It calmed him, somehow, knowing that it linked him to another history and people he had never known, but who were nevertheless, part of him.
A loud rustling behind a tangled knot of vines threw Togar out of his daydreaming. He sat up abruptly and cursed himself for taking too long to rest. He raised himself up on his haunches and peered into the dense underbrush. Even if they were this close, he still might be able to run. He had always been the most swift and agile of his peers, able to dodge the most tenacious pursuer. And even if it truly was over, if they did try to subdue him, he would resist till the end. He reached down and grabbed a handful of silt from the creek bed. It was a fool’s plan, he knew, with little chance of success, but it was all he had. Togar’s muscles tensed as another vine cracked. Whatever was coming was coming now, and he would have one chance to escape and maybe not even that if they had fresh munitions.
He realized in that split second that although he wanted to live, needed to kiss Jorgbor and Sundaygar one more time before leaving this earth, he was prepared to die if it came to that or imprisonment. Yes, his fathers, his ancestors were surely with him. Togar smiled: Even in death, he would still be a man. Grandma Lani’s laughter flooded his ears, deriding the Congo people as it brought him stories of their cruelty and the Bassa ability to resist it. We always been here, eh? she would tell pekin gathered at her feet. And we always be here. That why they hate us. And then the great laughter would come from her small body, giving them all the feeling of daggers being thrown into the soft earth.
Togar leapt up now, as a loud crash echoed through the bush. Cradling the mud in his right hand, he took five long strides before he heard the petulant oinks of three wild pigs break into the small space of the creek bank. The guinea fowl scattered immediately, heading as far away from the offending animals as possible.
Togar fell down in the dirt and roared a deep belly laugh. It was a sound out of a man’s body, but if the pigs had known how to listen, they would have heard echoes of the joy of a child at play. “You wicked, wicked beasts!” he scolded. The pigs regarded him for the first time and took several steps back. Togar’s stomach growled at the thought of roasting one of them, and then he forced the image out of his head. God had given him another chance for freedom, another opportunity to reunite with his family, and he shouldn’t be distracted by something as base as meat. No, he needed to get moving again. His luck was holding so far, all thanks to the ancestors, but he knew it would not always be so.
He stood up and began running in the direction of what he thought was north. The only things waiting for him to the south were more Congo plantations run by slave labor and the ports that led to Fernando Pó, and death.