Russell Banks - The Darling

Now the whole of West Africa was threatened by the conflict. Entire villages, towns, and cities from Senegal in the north to Nigeria in the south and inland east of Guinea were made up of Mandingos, Krahns, Gios, and Manos. Consequently, in mid-August, a fourth army, one made up mostly of Ghanaians and Nigerians, entered the war. Ill equipped and barely trained, they were sent into Liberia by the Economic Community of West African States. The new army was called ECOMOG, or the Economic Community Monitoring Group, and it was supposed to keep the warring parties apart and somehow broker a peace settlement. It did nothing of the sort. The Ghanaians and Nigerians simply joined the fray, and soon they, too, were brutally murdering civilians and being murdered back. Unbelievable tales of massacres committed by all four armies, bizarre accounts of ritual killings, random executions, rape, cannibalism, and pillage accumulated and became believable, and people who could leave Liberia for safe havens in the U.S. or other West African countries packed up and fled. Those who could not or would not leave — among them Woodrow for his reasons and I for mine — kept inside their houses and prayed that the war would soon be over and the horror would stop.

ONE AFTERNOON late in August, the rain was falling like drapery, and Sam strolled into my office, only the second time he had come there, which meant he had a purpose. Even under a big black umbrella in a heavy downpour, he never seemed to hurry or stride along: he sauntered like a boulevardier, as if he had no place special to go and all the time in the world to get there. Which in those months was unusual, especially for a white man, when everyone in Liberia, even the locals, either hurried from one place to another or else slunk from door to door and, if you looked away and back again, was gone from sight. Sam folded his umbrella and perched on a corner of my desk and glanced at the logbook open before me.

I put down my pen and closed the book and said hello.

“Secrets?”

“You interested in the ovulation cycles of female chimpanzees?”

“Not really.” He whistled a tuneless tune through his teeth for half a minute while I waited in silence. We’d reached that point in our relationship where we could be both present and absent and not take it personally. Not exactly intimacy, but on its way there.

The rain drummed against the tin roof. Finally, Sam sighed and, without looking at me, said, “Things are going badly for Doe, you know. Very badly.”

“Yes. I know.”

“We’ve started advising American citizens to get the hell out of here while they still can. The country’s a house of cards, Hannah. Doe’s going to fall any day, and when he does, things will get savage for a spell. Between Johnson and Taylor and ECOMOG, there won’t be much wiggle room. It’s time for you and your boys to leave, Hannah.”

“I can’t leave. I’ve got the chimps. And the boys, they’re not Americans anyhow. They’re Liberians. Where would we go?”

“Please. Don’t play dumb with me. I’ve got exit visas for them and for you and Woodrow, too, in case Doe’s people give you shit at the airport. I’ve also got you entry visas for the U.S. All non-essential embassy personnel are flying out tomorrow. After that, getting out will be dicey at best. C’mon, Hannah, go home and pack.”

“Woodrow won’t leave. Not as long as Samuel Doe is president. He’s still a faithful member of the cabinet. And if he can’t go, neither can I or the boys. We’ll be all right. Besides, like I said, who’ll take care of the chimps?” I smiled up at him.

There was a break in the rain, and suddenly the room was very quiet. Sam walked to the window and peered out. “Doe’s a sinking ship, and all the rats who can are jumping off. Including Woodrow. And Doe knows it. He’s going nuts over there. Jesus, I hate this time of year,” he said suddenly and laughed. “I feel like Noah, collecting Americans for the ark, two by two.” He was silent for a moment, then said, “You’ve got five seats on the eleven o’clock to JFK tomorrow. If you’re not at Robertsfield by ten to claim them, there’s a whole bunch of gringos who will have been waiting all night, and they’ll happily take your place. It’s not the last flight out, but damned near it.”

“Have you spoken to Woodrow? Does he know about this?” I heard low hoots from Doris and Betty and then Doc down the hall, advising me that it was feeding time. In a moment the others would take up the call.

“Yesterday. I went by the ministry.”

“Yesterday? He never mentioned it.”

“I didn’t think he would. He said you wouldn’t leave your ‘dreamers,’ but mainly he still thinks Doe can pull it off as long as Johnson and Taylor are fighting each other. Doe thinks the Marines are gonna land and save his sorry ass. He’s wrong, of course. And ECOMOG’s not gonna save his ass either. All they’ll do is pick up the pieces after he’s gone and keep as many of them as they can for themselves. No, Woodrow’s deluded by Doe, who’s self-deluded. Your husband’s been in government too long. It was useless talking to him. That’s why I came by to talk to you. Woodrow said he planned to ship the boys out to his village, Fuama. But that won’t do you or him any good. And when he goes down, it won’t do the boys any good either. Or anyone else connected to Woodrow, so long as Woodrow stays connected to Doe. That’s going to be a death sentence, Hannah. Even for you.” He grabbed his umbrella and opened the door. Without turning, he said, “If Woodrow insists on sticking it out till the end, let him. But you and the boys, you get out, Hannah. In a few months things’ll be back to normal again, believe me. Charles Taylor will be sitting in the Executive Mansion, and Prince Johnson will either be dead or, if he’s lucky, in a cell, maybe right here alongside your ‘dreamers,’ ” he said and laughed lightly.

“You know that,” I said.

“I know that,” he answered and stepped outside and closed the door behind him. Seconds later, the rain resumed pounding on the roof. Then the chimps raised their voices in unison, hollering for their meal, each trying to outdo the others in volume and intensity. What began as a mild signal to their keeper rose to screeching rage, accompanied by the steady, rhythmic drumming of the rain.

WOODROW’S CAR PASSED through the gate and up the driveway at the usual time, five o’clock. He drove himself, however, which was not usual. I stepped from the kitchen, where I had started preparing supper, to the terrace and said, “No Satterthwaite?”

“No. Where are the boys?” He came rapidly towards me, ignoring the dogs, who looked after him with downcast but still expectant faces. Woodrow always arrived home with a small bag of meat purchased at a roadside stand and made a big show of feeding it to the dogs. But not today, evidently. Disappointed, they flopped in the shade at the rear of the car.

“In their room, I suppose. I’ve been in the kitchen. Why? What’s the matter?”

“Can’t you hear that?” he said and brushed past me.

Yes, I heard it, I’d been hearing it for weeks, the chatter of gunfire in the distance coming from the other side of the river in Logan Town, beyond Bushrod Island. We’d been hearing it off and on and had grown almost used to it, as if it were not the sound of men and boys shooting to kill people, but some mild form of celebration in a neighborhood we seldom visited and where we knew no one. When, after the first few days, it no longer seemed to be coming closer to our part of the city, I’d more or less tuned it out, and since my daily route to the boys’ school and the sanctuary in Toby and Woodrow’s route to the ministry were all in the opposite direction of Logan Town, the scattered bursts of gunfire we heard in the evening and during the night, seldom in the morning, came to us as if broadcast over the radio from some other part of the country. Despite the war, we’d managed to maintain so much of our normal daily life and routines that we felt not just protected from the war, but as if it were taking place somewhere beyond the border, in Guinea or Sierra Leone. You can do that in a war for a long time when you have enough money and your family and friends are still able to cling to power.