Uzodinma Iweala - Beasts of No Nation

She is saying, stop looking at me and start praying. God is always helping you if you are asking Him. Then she is walking to the kitchen and leaving me and my father just sitting and staring at all the plant in the compound. My father is putting his head in his shirt and saying nothing. I am confusing. How can my father just be sitting there looking like goat that is ready to die? I was getting up to get water for my bath and leaving my father there for the whole day. He was just sitting and not even saying one word to anyone, not even to my sister who is always making him to laugh and be talking talking. I am not knowing if he is going to bed that night because he was still sitting there when I am coming to lock the gate and hang the key.

And then one day, when I am sweeping the parlor, just bending over and using broom to get all of the dust from each corner of the room, my father is rushing into the room sweating like he was running very fast. I am seeing how the sweat is just soaking through his shirt and making his face to shine and I am standing there looking at him wondering what is happening that is making him to look like this. My father is shouting to me, get up! Come on, we are having to go to the church NOW! And I am wondering what it is that is happening because it is not even Sunday. I am wanting to go and change into something, but my father is saying to move quick quick and to get my mother so we can be going to church. I am moving quickly and running out to the kitchen where my mother was just humming over one pot of stew, but when she is seeing me, right away she is thinking that something is wrong and so she is running to meet my father on the verandah where he is waiting. And then they are shouting and I am hearing my mother saying, heyeye! The war is come oh! War is coming.

I am asking if I can be going with them to the church and they are saying yes, so my father is carrying my sister who is sleeping because she is having nothing better to do and I am walking with my mother up the path of my village to the church. Even before we are getting inside, I am hearing voice that are even too loud to be coming from service. People are shouting and talking too loud and I am not even able to hear one sentence that anybody is speaking. When we are getting inside the church, the whole place was too hot and smelling like animal because there is no electricity and all the fan cannot be moving round and round to be bringing some air. Everybody in the village was trying to fit into the church so some people are standing on the bench, and other people are leaning on the wall, and everybody is just sweating because it is like we are one million cow just being put in the same space to be living. I am seeing so many people — even people who are not coming to this church, just talking talking and shouting shouting like something bad is going to happen. Pastor and the Chief are standing at the front of the church and shouting, but because there is no microphone nobody was really hearing them and everybody was talking over their talking. Pastor is just getting angry and running to one big drum set that is there and beating the symbol well well until the whole place is sounding KWANG! KWANG! KWANG! We are all shutting up. We are all shutting up except for the sound of too many people breathing.

Pastor was not even wearing his white robe when he is walking around at the front of the church. Instead, he was just wearing one blue shirt and trouser and also one cap to be covering his bald head. He was shouting shouting, DO YOU HEAR! WE CANNOT JUST BE SITTING HERE LIKE COW UNTIL THEY ARE BRINGING THE WAR! It is saying in The Bible that God is only helping those who are helping themselves. Isn’t God protecting the Israelites when they are having to leave their own home? So let us be pleasing God and leaving until the fighting is no more in our area. Otherwise they will just be killing killing all of us and then what will we be doing? I am laughing in my head even though my heart is beating fast fast with all of this talk of killing because I am thinking how my father is saying that Pastor is thinking he can be talking so much because he is having his Reverend Doctorate that is making him doctor of talking.

Then the Chief was getting up and wearing his red cap and his black shirt and saying, yes. Yes Pastor is right. We should be leaving. They are telling me that UN is coming to help us go, so when they are coming, we will be going with them. Tomorrow, at least all of the women and the small small children will be going with them first and then after we are making sure that everything is okay with all of the thing we are owning then the men can be finding their way to safety. Am I making it clear?

And then there was shouting shouting, WHO IS UN? WHAT ABOUT MY FARM? AND MY GOAT? AND WHAT ABOUT ALL MY BOOK? OR MY CAR? ENH! WHAT ABOUT ALL OF THESE THING! The voice are just coming from all of the different place in the church and every time somebody is shouting one thing then every head is turning to that direction to be seeing what it is they are shouting. There was too much grumbling and it was making my head to hurt so I am just standing near to my mother and my father and trying to be making sure that I am not annoying anybody. When we are finishing, everybody is leaving the church and nobody is even remembering to say a prayer because everybody is fearing how the fighting is coming too too near. I am not hearing anything, but my father who is already surviving one war is saying that you will know when war is coming if you are seeing airplane and hearing GBWEM GBWEM which is meaning that they are shelling and bombing.

That night my mother is making a big dinner of all my favorite food which is rice and stew with so much meats, but nobody, not even my father who can be eating three whole plate and even going back for more, is able to be eating anything at all at all. After dinner, I am clearing the table and stacking all the plate in one corner because it is even too dark to be washing and when I am coming back to the house I am seeing my mother like one dark spot and the light from the lamp was all around her while she was just packing food into many small bag. I was going to her and tapping her on her elbow to be asking, where we are going to go? And she is saying to me, we are going where we will be going and we will be getting there when we are getting there. I am not even knowing what she is meaning when she is saying this kind of thing, but then I am asking her if she is fearing, and she is looking back at me and bringing me close and hugging me so that my head is resting in her breast. Why should I be fearing Agu? Enh, she is saying. Aren’t you remembering that the Lord is protecting everybody and making sure that nothing bad will ever be happening to us? Now go and get ready for bed okay. And don’t be forgetting to pray. No matter what is happening remember that God is only remembering those who are praying.

So I am running through the hallway and into the room I am sharing with my sister and when I am getting there I am seeing that she is putting one knife under her bed. What is this for, I am asking her while I am looking at it with lamp and she is saying, for the enemy if they are coming, and then turning her head to be facing the wall. And I am laughing small small even if I am fearing because sometimes my sister, even though she is young, is trying to be too smart.

I was lying down to be sleeping in my own bed, but my whole body was just feeling so hot and everywhere was itching too much like ant is biting me. I am trying to sleep, trying to sleep, but I was not even closing my eye. It was like I am waiting for Father Christmas, and I am just lying there until the middle of the night when I am hearing my mother and my father talking. What do you mean you are not coming, my mother is saying to my father and I am hearing my father saying back, how can Agu be coming with you if we are supposed to be the men of this village? What is that looking like if everybody is staying to make sure their house is all right and we are just running from place to place? Enh? That is not right. And my mother is saying back to him, no. No. Just remove that thought from your head. God forbid such thing enh. And my father is saying, you are not understanding anything here. And my mother is saying, what if you are going and dying, then what am I doing? Do you want me to be sitting by the roadside like some woman with no sense who is just pulling out her hairs and trying to sell it? Then my father is just shouting, Wait now! It is my duty and it is his duty as my first son to be — before my mother is shouting, YOUR SON THIS AND THAT! Sometimes I am thinking that you are having no sense at all. Let me just be taking him with me enh. If there is war and everybody is dying, then who is even going to say anything if he is not staying around?