Beneath the Darkening Sky (7 page)

Soldiers chuckle. I think I can feel a couple scowl, but it’s hard to see in the dark.

‘One day, the king was travelling through farm country and he saw a girl working in the field. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Of course, she was just a maiden and he was
an old fat king, but that didn’t matter. He ordered his servants to take the girl and bring her back to the palace. He didn’t talk with her parents, he didn’t even ask the
girl’s name. Which was White Lily.

‘Quickly, a wedding was planned and all the rich and important people were invited, but no one poor was allowed to come. Even the girl’s family wasn’t allowed to attend. The
night of the wedding, the bride’s father stood at the palace gate and beat on the stones, weeping, for he could not see his daughter on her wedding day. Passing him, a whole parade of
servants brought in sumptuous and exotic food from all over the world. Another parade of servants carried in expensive gifts of gold and luxurious cloth.

‘All these riches were, of course, tradition at such a wedding. The evil king already had several wives, but none were as beautiful as White Lily and he was sure no one else had a wife so
beautiful. He really wanted to show her off, even though he still hadn’t thought to ask her name. He just called her New Wife.’

That earned a few laughs. One soldier got slapped on the back by a couple of others. ‘She’s talking about you!’ Laughter rippled around the fire.

‘As the presents and the feast were brought in, the entire town came out to watch. Many were so poor they couldn’t believe their eyes, and thought their hunger was giving them
hallucinations. One man who could believe it was named Black Tiger. He was the fiercest and fastest thief in the world. He once fought five royal soldiers by himself, making jokes about them the
entire time.’

More cheering. ‘Yeah!’ ‘Fucking badass!’ I catch sight of the Captain at the edge of the circle of firelight. I can see the flame in his eyes, looking at Akidi. His arms
are crossed. I know Akot has seen him too.

‘When Black Tiger saw all of the wealth that was being brought to the palace, he couldn’t resist. Just as the sun set, he snuck over the outer wall and crept past the guards. Then,
using special claws he had made himself, he climbed the wall of the palace. Up and up he went, until he came to an open window. He leapt inside and found himself face to face with the most
beautiful woman he had ever seen.

‘White Lily had been crying because the wedding would start soon and she didn’t want to marry the evil king. When Black Tiger demanded her gold and jewellery, White Lily stood up and
said, “Okay.”

‘But she didn’t take them off – Black Tiger didn’t understand.

‘“Take me,” White Lily explained. “Take me far away from the evil king and I’ll wear all my jewellery and you can sell it and buy your own palace.”’

‘He’s going to fuck her so hard!’ More cheering. ‘The bitch wants it bad.’ Can I see the Captain smiling?

‘This wasn’t what Black Tiger had expected, but she was so beautiful that he couldn’t refuse. He made a rope out of blankets and threw it out the window so White Lily could
climb down it. But as she was climbing down, a servant came in to fetch her to the wedding. When he saw Black Tiger he shouted for guards to come. Black Tiger smiled. When the guards arrived he
pulled out his sword and fought three of them at once. First he made them drop their swords, then he cut their belts so that their pants fell down around their ankles.

‘Black Tiger slid his claws back on, and fast, like he was running, he climbed down the side of the palace and got to the bottom before White Lily. He pulled out his sword and fought four
more guards, taking their swords and dropping their pants.

‘When White Lily reached the bottom, he told her to climb on his back and he scaled the outer wall. They ran into the wilderness. The king sent soldiers and assassins after them, but Black
Tiger fought them off. Finally, the king himself went to get White Lily back. By this time she was pregnant with Black Tiger’s child, but she wasn’t showing yet.’

A couple of soldiers moan in disappointment. ‘I wanted to hear about the fucking. Damn it, I’m horny now.’

‘The king knew that he wasn’t as good with a sword as Black Tiger, so he brought a poisoned dagger. If he could make just one cut, Black Tiger would be finished. After searching for
days, the king found them and he challenged Black Tiger. As they fought, the king fell back. He clutched at his heart, pretending to have a heart attack. Black Tiger would never stab an old man
having a heart attack. When he saw the king go down on his knee, Black Tiger dropped his guard and stood close enough to see if the heart attack was real. But that was too close.’

Shouts rise here and there, soldiers bellowing as if watching a real fight.

‘The evil king pulled the poison dagger from his robes and slashed out at Black Tiger, who evaded the dagger, but not before the very tip of the blade opened his skin. Black Tiger
didn’t notice the cut and slashed at the king, opening his throat. No sooner had he seen the king die than his legs gave out, and Black Tiger died on the ground next to the king.

‘White Lily returned to the palace and told everyone that the king had come to her bed before the wedding and she was pregnant with his child. Of course, the other wives tried to kill the
baby boy, when he came, but White Lily had been living with Black Tiger and learned many of his secrets. Finally the day came, and the son of Black Tiger took the crown, and his dynasty ruled for a
hundred years of freedom and happiness.’

The end.

Akidi looks around, chewing on her finger.

The soldiers, who cheered throughout the story, give one last cheer. Now I’m sure the Captain is smiling. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘That’s a good story. White Lily is like
our country and we are Black Tiger. One day, the revolutionary government will be in the palace, not the fat king!’

They cheer more. I know this story, and that isn’t how it goes, but it made the soldiers happy and made me forget where I was. Akot and Akidi are pretty smart.

The Captain leaves and the soldiers settle back to their own fire and their own stew. Akot goes back to staring into the flames.

‘Are you a virgin?’ a girl called Mouse asks Akidi.

‘Yes.’ Akidi tenses up into an even tighter ball.

‘Too bad,’ Mouse replies, almost smiling. ‘They aren’t kind to virgins.’

After dinner, one of the girls gives me an old cardboard box, her bed. She says she’ll sleep next to another girl. Mouse says that she doesn’t have to do that, she
should sleep in Champ’s bed.

The Captain shouts, ‘The girls sleep outside tonight!’ The men groan. ‘We leave at first light. I don’t want them too tired.’

‘I hope you can walk straight,’ Mouse smiles at me. ‘Tomorrow, bad road.’

The ride here began in another world. The cardboard is the softest thing I’ve ever touched. I lie there listening to the camp: whimpers and rumbling stomachs, snoring and shifting bodies.
The insect hum of the day gets gentler, with higher pitched sounds spiking through every few seconds.

‘Maybe, when it’s dark,’ Otim whispers to Akot, ‘we can sneak out. We could hide in the jungle until they leave. They didn’t count us or take our names. I
don’t think they’ll even know we’re gone.’

Akot is silent for a minute. ‘You’re stupid,’ he says quietly, like he’s reading it out of a book. ‘Do you think you’re the first person to think of that
plan? They’ll have a way to find you or stop you.’

‘How could they?’

‘I don’t know. But I’m sure they’ve thought of that.’ Akot is silent again, then says, ‘We don’t even know which way home is without following the road.
And if we stayed anywhere near the road, they’d find us like that.’ He snaps his fingers. ‘We’re not going home any time soon.’

Above me, the sky is the darkest blue. I see so many stars, but I can’t make out the constellations Papa taught me. My side throbs. I don’t need the thing doctors wear around their
neck to hear my heart. Every time it pumps, I hurt in four places. Like my blood is angry. Why did I get sick on the truck? Why didn’t I go to the back of the truck to do it?

Akot was right, the soldiers did think about us escaping at night. The new recruits sleep next to each other on the field. The younger soldiers sleep around us. And other soldiers walk around
them, with little flashlights. Champ is one of them – I don’t want to move even where I am, in case he sees me and does something crazy.

Big chunks of the field are just dirt, but most of us sleep on the thin grass. They put me on the dirt because I got the box, and that’s okay with me. It also means I’m further away
from most of the soldiers. They all snore. They sound like pigs digging for food. One guy sounds like an old motorcycle.

Can it be only this morning we left the village?

A cool breeze eases the ache and I can see high branches of the jungle dancing against the stars. Between snores, I hear crickets chirping. I’ve always loved that sound. I don’t know
why. Mama hates them.

I try to focus on the things I can see around me, just what’s happening now. The moon sails over the horizon, heavy and full, and floods the dark jungle with light, like milk spilling from
a calabash. A black bird flies across the moon, and then a shooting star whisks across the sky. I haven’t seen a shooting star in a long time. I can’t remember how long. What should I
wish?

A star is billions and billions of miles away. Maybe so is God. Grandma used to pray to the spirits of the earth, the gods of rocks and trees and wind. I wish the god of earth was real, then I
could pray to him and he would open the ground and eat the soldiers. He’d know I’m good and the soldiers are bad. Then the wind god could carry me back to Mama.

The village priest, Father Joseph, always says God forgives people. That’s why we should forgive. If we forgive others, God forgives us. Then we can be like God, and if we are like God and
make our confession we can go to heaven. But I can’t forgive the soldiers. I want them to die. The gods Grandpa and Grandma prayed to didn’t forgive people. They did good things to
people who made them happy and bad things to people who made them mad.

What if the god of the earth is like the Captain?

Maybe Grandpa’s gods are real. Maybe I made one of them angry and that’s why I’m here. Maybe Jesus is angry with me. If that’s why I’m here, then God must be angry
with the entire country. He must be furious with all of Africa.

I have to pee. Even thinking about moving makes my body scream
no
. But I don’t want to pee where I’m sleeping, even if Mama’s not here to know. I take a deep breath
and roll over onto my elbows. My body feels like wood, I’m breathing hard. My elbows don’t hurt too bad, but when I push up on one knee the pain is so sharp I crash back onto the
cardboard.

I press my hands against the cardboard and try the other knee. It isn’t as bad, but it throbs. There’s my heartbeat, a pain in my knee. My right knee, the one that hurts really
badly, I bring that up under me, getting my left foot on the ground. I try to stand now, but it feels like my back is pushing against a ceiling. Like I’m in a cave that’s only big
enough to crawl through. I take a breath and a little cry escapes my lips.

I put both hands on my left leg and push, standing. It hurts hurts hurts. My legs don’t want to stand. I stumble. But – I’m up. I can see one guard standing not far away, so I
try to move steadily so he doesn’t get nervous. I want to walk further, but I don’t want to upset the guard, and it hurts too much.

I unzip and let loose. My right leg starts to shake, but I stand there for a couple minutes. I didn’t realise I needed to pee this badly. When it’s done I sigh – relief. Maybe
that’s a bad thought, I’d better not think that way. I zip up and hobble back to my mat. Then I see the river of my pee inching towards a sleeping soldier. With my right foot I kick
dirt onto the stream, until it’s all mud and stops moving. That would have earned me another beating for sure. Maybe they would have killed me this time.

Maybe God doesn’t want me to die because I can’t forgive the rebels. If I die without forgiving them, maybe I’ll go to hell. I look around. Tomorrow we have a long walk on the
bad road, that’s what Mouse said. Could it be worse than this?

I try to lower myself gently onto the cardboard. It doesn’t hurt as much going down, but I’m still breathing hard when I lie back. As my breathing gets quiet, I hear someone moving.
Someone else going to pee, I guess. Over the snores, I hear the feet step, wait a few seconds, step, wait. Then it’s step, step, and step. He’s running.

There’s no shout, no sound, no warning before the boom. A gun fires and something hits the ground and slides in the dirt. Now lots of startled grunts and people moving around. Crying
starts somewhere. I don’t cry, I just lie there. Akot, next to me, lies perfectly still.

After a while, everyone is quiet, except for the snorers and the crickets and the mosquitoes that whine and bite, but I’m too sore to swat them away.

Everything is quiet in the village. It’s night, but I can make out the stars of the Southern Cross over the trees. Walking doesn’t hurt as much. Then I hear singing, but not
soldiers’ songs. Traditional songs. Songs that I’ve heard sung since I was a baby. They wash the pain out of my body. I run. Everything is dark as I run through the village, but I can
see the huts and I don’t trip. I turn a corner and a great bonfire roars.

All around the bonfire, people sit in their perfect white clothes. They sing and clap. It’s a fast song, about how every drought ends in rain. On the other side of the fire, I see Mama and
Papa sitting together. Papa is singing so loud I can hear him over the entire village. He sings with his mouth wide open and his white teeth flash in the firelight. But why is no one dancing?

That’s when I see Pina, dancing around the fire. She turns and turns, up on one toe. Her white shoes stay perfect, no matter how many times she spins. The song gets faster and people howl
and cheer, then join the song again.

Pina jumps and spins, turning her body sideways as she flies. Her dance is frantic. Pina moves faster than I thought anyone could.