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| It Cuts Both Ways | |
| By SammoR | ||||||||
| 28 July 2007 | ||||||||
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Two people meet in a London pub one Saturday afternoon, for lunch and a chat. Nothing extraordinary there, you might think. But their first encounter was during the civil war in Sierra Leone, West Africa - where the author of this story grew up. One is the survivor of terrible atrocities, and one the perpetrator. But something binds them together, something neither of them can escape. This story contains graphic descriptions of violence. The war lasted from 1991 - 2001.The RUF rebels and their allies often cut off the hands, arms or legs of their captives, to inspire terror. The story contains a few words in Krio, the language used by many Sierra Leoneans. Some Krio can be easily understood from its similarity to other languages, including English, but I have provided footnotes. This is an abbreviated version of a 10,000 word novella - if you spot anything which indicates I've left any written-out characters or events still lying around, then please tell me....Also, I have had a few formatting problems, I keep having to separate the paragraphs! If it's all joined up - not me guv! Mariama Conteh sat down at the Wetherspoons pub in Camberwell, a plate of fish and chips in front of her. She picked at the food. Typical tasteless British food, she thought. Or maybe she had just lost her appetite, through fear of what was about to happen. She looked at the large flat-screen television on the wall that was tuned to a 24 hours news channel – the time on the bottom of the screen read 1:50. Almost 2 p.m, the time for the meeting. Mariama recalled her phone conversation with Emmanuel. She had rebuffed his attempts at familiarity. Speaking coldly, and in English, she had dictated a time and a place for their meeting. ‘Could this be a trap?’ she thought, ‘A trap for him to get me here while he’s trying to take Alpha?’ But this could not be, she thought – he could not know that Alpha was with Mariama’s friend in Peckham. Mariama took a sip from the large Coke in front of her. Before her captivity she had been fond of the occasional stolen Star beer. But the regular doses of ‘morale boosters’ - the raw spirit dosed out to the bush-wives and rebels – had put her off alcohol for good. She thought back eight years, back to the Sierra Leonean war, to her first meeting with Emmanuel… Mariama had been living in Freetown, in her last year of school. She came from a poor family in a rural village, and her parents had not been able to afford schooling. An uncle in the city had brought her to town, and found a wealthy family, the Thompsons, who took her in. They treated their two daughters like princesses, while Mariama had done all the chores. Her parents had both since died, and she had not visited the village in years. Then – January 6 1999. There was a rebel attack on the city. The Thompsons were singled out as theirs was one of the posher houses in their street in Freetown’s East End. Mariama had been doing the laundry in the backyard when rebels had started beating on the gate. She had hidden in the old boys’ quarters, seconds before the rebels rushed into the yard and stormed the house, where the Thompsons were. Mariama had heard the sounds of tearing clothes, and screams – then gunshots and an ominous silence. The rebels had then looted the house, and later set fire to it. Just before they left the yard, one of them had thrown a blazing rag into the boys’ quarters. The building had burst into flames, and Mariama had collapsed, coughing. Two drug-crazed boy rebels had dragged Mariama out into the street, laying her on the ground in front of their commander. The commander - who the rebels called ‘Thunder’ – had raised a ‘cutlass’[i] to chop Mariama’s head off, but then Emmanuel had intervened. He had come from down the road, with another squad of rebels. He too was a rebel commander, in his thirties – back then, he was called ‘RPG’. He had demanded Mariama as his ‘bush-wife[ii].’ Her nightmare of rebel captivity had begun. During the following three weeks she had witnessed many rebel atrocities in the city – rapes, executions, amputations, and arson. The rebels she was with had made up two squads, made up mostly of very young boys, with a gory division of labour spelt out in their names – Thunder’s ‘Burn House Squad’ and RPG’s ‘Cut Hands Squad’. RPG had forced himself on Mariama almost daily. She had been scarred physically as well – RPG had cut the rebel group’s initials, ‘RUF’ on her left arm and back. Along with the other prisoners, she was plied with drink and drugs. Three weeks later the squads had withdrawn from the city in a convoy of captured vehicles, as the pro-government Civil Defence Force militia and the allied Nigerian peacekeeping troops had gained the upper hand. Afterwards, the rebels and prisoners had driven around the nearby countryside for a few weeks, before heading towards their base in the Northern Province. And then Mariama’s chance for freedom had come – a Nigerian Alpha jet had bombed the rebel convoy. In the confusion which followed, she had run into the bush, and spent several days walking back to Freetown. Back in the city she had gone to other members of the Thompson family. They had taken her in for a few days, but had cold-shouldered her. Eventually, they had sent for her Uncle Amadu from Freetown. He had collected her and taken her to his house. Mariama had assumed that sheer snobbery had been behind her banishment. But on her way to her uncle’s place in Freetown she had seen suspected rebels being rounded up and shot by Nigerian soldiers and the militia. She had learned that anyone with a tattoo or rebel scars was suspect – as was anyone sheltering them. And later, she had discovered that she was pregnant – and RPG had to be the father… Her uncle had begged and borrowed money, and used it to send Mariama to the Gambia. She had given birth to her son there, naming him after the plane which had set her free. Later, she had come to England, claiming asylum and settling in London. At length, she had got her ‘stay[iii]’, but even though the war was now long over, she was still afraid of going home even for a visit. She feared Thunder, and RPG… Then, two weeks ago, her past had caught up with her. RPG had come up to her and Alpha, on a bus. She had screamed, grabbed Alpha, covered his ears, and got off the bus. But RPG must have followed her home. The next day, the concierge at her block of flats handed her a minicab firm’s card. The man who had left it sounded like RPG, by the concierge’s description. On the card were written his real name - ‘Emmanuel Bobson’ - a mobile phone number and the words ‘call me.’ Mariama had tried to ignore it. But after a week’s reflection she realised that Emmanuel would confront her sooner or later… She steeled herself for the meeting. For all their snobbery and callousness, the Thompsons had given her a place to live in the city, and paid for her schooling. It had been a harsh, unequal bargain, but they had not been her enemies. This man had killed, raped and mutilated. He had stood by whilst houses were burned. He was the enemy! And also the father of her son… ‘There is no justice,’ she thought. As a minicab driver, he must be making lots of money. And he would never be punished for his crimes, as the amnesty for war crimes in Sierra Leone covered him. The Special Court was only for major faction leaders. ‘It’s two o’clock here in London…’ said the announcer on the news. ‘He won’t come,’ Mariama thought, raising her glass to her lips. ‘He doesn’t have the “mind” to stand in front of me…’ Then she coughed, spitting Coke across the table. Emmanuel was walking through the main entrance of the pub. He turned round, scanning the room. Then he came towards Mariama’s table. As he approached, the blood thumped in Mariama’s ears. A voice inside her screamed ‘Get out, get out! Run - as far as you can!’ But for how long? He knew where she lived… He was standing alongside her table. ‘Can I sit down?’ he asked. ‘You never asked me anything back then,’ Mariama replied bluntly. ‘You just did as you pleased.’ Emmanuel was shamefaced. ‘That was then. It should be different now.’ He paused, then repeated ‘Can I sit down?’ Mariama motioned silently. Emmanuel sat down. Mariama tucked into the bland food, eating with gusto. Anything to avoid his gaze, anything to avoid talking to him. ‘Is the food that good?’ Emmanuel asked. ‘Better than the werreh[iv] you gave to us prisoners,’ Mariama spat out. Emmanuel picked up the menu, then went up to the bar to order his meal. Minutes later he returned to the table carrying a large orange drink. ‘I know what I did was terrible. It was wrong...’ he said. ‘Is that all?’ ‘I am sorry. I am sorry…What more can I say?’ ‘Nothing…there’s nothing you can say,’ Mariama said firmly. She suddenly realised that she was in control. He could not harm her here. She had something he desired, and only she could decide whether or not to give it to him. ‘You are a minicab driver – what were you doing on the bus?’ she asked. ‘My car was being serviced…God said that we must meet,’ Emmanuel said. ‘ “God said” – after all you did, you remember God now?’ Emmanuel hung his head. ‘The boy – I heard you call him “Alpha” –I have to know. Is he mine?’ Mariama flinched. ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ Emmanuel said, ‘I know…’ ‘Why should I tell you? I will never let you anywhere near him! Astaf’ullai[v]…’ ‘I know what I did was wrong – but the war is over….’ Mariama laughed bitterly. ‘Yes, but does that mean the people you killed have come back to life? Does that mean the houses your friends burned down have gone back to how they were before?’ ‘I know things can never go back to how they were....’ ‘Do you realise what you did to me? Do you? The house where I grew up, your friends destroyed it. They raped, killed the family who brought me up…’ ‘A Krio[vi] family bringing up a Temne child. Did they ever treat you as an equal?’ Emmanuel scoffed, emboldened. ‘Or were you just there to empty the mother’s chamber pot? Look, you survived because you were outside doing the laundry – they were sitting on their backsides in the house when Thunder’s squad came ..’ ‘Don’t judge,’ Mariama sighed, tears coming to her face. ‘Not all men pikin[vii] are badly treated. I’ve known some who were treated far better than me. And some who were treated far worse… The Thompsons were not perfect - I would have had words with them, if they were still alive. But they are dead – I hold no grudges against them now. I nearly died with them.’ ‘But you didn’t,’ Emmanuel pressed. ‘You survived. And I saved your life!’ ‘You saved my life? Am I supposed to thank you for that?’ Mariama sneered. ‘You don’t know… Thunder had sworn to kill everyone in the house, even any vendor he found in the yard. He swore to his mother’s grave to do that…’ ‘He had no right to kill anyone – you just made him do the right thing.’ ‘But …I saved your life. Doesn’t that mean anything?’ ‘I wanted – I wanted to die…do you understand?’ Mariama asked. ‘I wanted to die…I had not seen what happened to the Thompsons, but I had heard everything. When the rebels dragged me out I had given up…’ ‘But you didn’t die…’ ‘But after you – did what you did – I wanted to die even more!’ Mariama blurted out. ‘And then I found out - I found out that you had marked me forever – not just with those scars, but you’d left your face with me….’ Emmanuel shifted uncomfortably. Just then the waitress served his meal, but he didn’t even look at it. At length he said, ‘That’s how things were in the war, behind rebel lines. Someone would have done it …’ ‘…and that someone had to be you! So you did it just to save me from anyone else?’ ‘If I had not demanded you as my bush-wife, you would only have lived a few minutes more. Thunder’s squad would have raped you, and then killed you. They may have thrown you, alive, into the burning house to die.’ ‘Who says I wouldn’t have preferred that?’ Mariama snapped. ‘You would have preferred to be burnt alive than – being a bush-wife?’ replied Emmanuel. ‘What do you know about it? Have you ever been raped?’ Emmanuel prodded his food with a fork. ‘No – though I have seen it happen to men as well as women.’ ‘Then you wouldn’t know anything about it,’ Mariama said. ‘Only one boyfriend had known me as a woman, when – you did what you did. The Thompsons never allowed boys to visit me, so boyfriends didn’t stay with me for long. If I said that you have put me off men forever I would be telling a lie, but what you did has affected me.’ Emmanuel was silent, shovelling some of the food into his mouth. Mariama stared at him. He looked so normal - like any of the diners around him. 'Why?' she asked. 'Why what?' 'Why did you do it? Kill - chop people's hands off - rape...?' ‘Do you think we started out being mad killers?’ Emmanuel was defensive. ‘Look, anyone can start with good intentions, and then it all gets out of control...’ ‘Well, go on then,’ Mariama challenged him. ‘How do good people start killing, raping, chopping off hands?’ Emmanuel took a deep breath. ‘I grew up in Pujehun, in the south. Back in the eighties, when I finished school, I went to study at a technical college in Freetown, staying with relatives there. I hoped I'd get a good job after I qualified. I got the best grades in my class. When I finished, I couldn’t find work, I had no contacts. People who'd barely passed knew ministers, they pulled strings and got jobs.’ He paused, and then continued. ‘I could see wealth all over Freetown, people driving huge Pajero cars while others couldn’t buy enough food or pay their rent. I went to Liberia to find work there – but there was none to be found. I met some Sierra Leoneans there. They said they wanted to change our country, so that the money would be shared and educated people would all be able to get a decent job. They would look after me, for the time being, and they would put me in touch with others like me.’ ‘You believed them?’ Mariama scoffed. ‘You might not have been treated well, but you never wanted for food or a roof over your head,’ Emmanuel said. ‘But I – I was hard-up…’ ‘So what happened next?’ ‘I was driven to a village deep into the countryside –we might have crossed into Ivory Coast. Then – they put me in a camp and forced me to do military training…’ ‘And that surprised you…how did you think that they were going to change things, if not by fighting?’ asked Mariama. Emmanuel shrugged. ‘I was trained with lots of other Sierra Leoneans,’ he continued, at length. ‘The instructors were all sorts – Sierra Leoneans, lots of Liberians, some from Burkina Faso. They told us we would have to fight alongside the Liberian rebels first.’ ‘So you were going to start saving Sierra Leone, by fighting a war in a country you hardly knew?’ Emmanuel shuffled uncomfortably. ‘We fought our way across Liberia. We had been taught to obey our leaders without question – I had seen people shot in the camps for disobeying an order. The things we did became worse – rapes, killings…Yet we all felt these people deserved it, because they supported the government, or something. And we were given drugs – by the time we got to the Sierra Leone border we were all high. We had seen friends killed – life was worth nothing. More and more of the old hands were killed. Those of us who remained got promoted – I became a commander.’ ‘How many bush wives did you ever have?’ asked Mariama. Emmanuel looked away, embarrassed. ‘Two,’ he replied at length. ‘The first – she started off as a prisoner, but then she became a fighter, a good one. I was proud of her – had she lived, and if other things had been different, she and I could have stayed together after the war. But she was killed in an ambush.’ ‘And the second?’ ‘She died too - of dysentery.’ ‘But they were not the only women you – forced….’ ‘No, there were more.’ Emmanuel admitted. ‘I know what you want to ask. As far as I know, no other woman I – took – during the war, had a child for me. That’s why I looked after the boys in the squad. I hoped – honestly, I hoped that I could keep at least some of them alive till after the war. I had never had any children, so I loved them as if they were my own. I really felt it when any of them died.’ ‘What about the people whose hands you cut off?’ snapped Mariama. ‘Did you “really feel” for them?’ Emmanuel was silent. At length he said, ‘I – I just did what I had to do – I would have been killed myself otherwise…’ ‘You ruined people’s lives and you say you were “doing what you had to do”…’ ‘You didn’t get arms or legs cut off – you can’t say I ruined your life...’ ‘You don’t understand!’ Mariama shouted, causing many of the other patrons to turn round. ‘Do you know how long it took to get the scars removed? I still have dark marks on my arm and back. Whenever I wear a sleeveless top – people ask me how I got that mark and I have to give them some bullshit answer…And then there was the baby…’ ‘You could never regret having a baby,’ Emmanuel mumbled. ‘A child is always a blessing…’ ‘What would you know about it?’ Mariama was searing in her sarcasm. ‘Many of our men don’t want a woman with a child anyway – they fear that she will go back to the father. And when they hear that she doesn’t know who the father is, they think she’s a “free[viii]” woman…’ ‘Women in - your position– many just say the father is dead…’ Mariama bit her lip. That was the very lie which she had told Alpha. ‘For how long?’ she retorted. ‘People will ask if the grandparents look after the child, they listen for the child’s surname. With some of our kongosa[ix] brothers and sisters, nothing hides.’ ‘But surely,’ Emmanuel said, ‘when the truth comes out, people are sorry for you…?’ ‘Maybe to my face….but men think to themselves, “a rebel baby”. They have suffered in the war, they don’t want to bring up a rebel’s child. So far I have only had short relationships with Sierra Leoneans here – the ones I’ve met fade away once they know the full story.’ ‘They don’t deserve you,’ Emmanuel said ‘And you do? Is that it? You want me and Alpha to be with you, as a family? You, you geh mind[x]!’ ‘That’s not what I am suggesting. In fact that cannot happen.’ Emmanuel was stony-faced. ‘I’ll get some more drinks.’ He got up and went to the bar. ‘So what do you want?’ Mariama said as Emmanuel put the drinks down on the table. ‘Have you got the perfect wife but no kids? Or perhaps no sons? If you want a son you cannot have mine. You will just have to keep on trying for one of your own…’ Emmanuel coughed, spitting out some drink. ‘I have to tell you what happened after you escaped. We withdrew deep into the countryside, to our big camp near Makeni. One day, my squad was out on patrol; CDF militiamen ambushed us. There were too many of them – we had to surrender. They took us to a clearing, lined some of the boys against a tree and pointed their guns at them…’ He held a hand over his face. Mariama could tell from the crack in his voice that he was fighting back tears. ‘I begged them to kill me and let the boys live, but they said no, they had something worse in store for me,’ Emmanuel went on. ‘They – they shot the boys, all of them, in threes and fours. I tried to look away but they made me watch…’ A tear ran down his cheek. ‘When they had killed them all – I cried, I really did. Then – their leader said – he would give me something to cry about. By then, I feared nothing…I just wanted to die…’ Mariama nodded. ‘I know the feeling.’ ‘They held my arms and legs – then they pulled my trousers off.’ Emmanuel’s tears were now flowing freely. ‘I thought they were going to rape me…but no. One man pulled out my – my thing - whilst their leader raised my own cutlass and said “You used that to rape our women – you will rape no more.” Then he – he cut it off.’ Mariama gasped. ‘You are lying – you just want me to feel sorry for you…’ Emmanuel reached into his jacket pocket, and handed Mariama two letters, and a few photos. ‘These are what I showed the Home Office.’ The letters were medical reports, from doctors in Freetown and London. Each referred to Emmanuel’s injuries – the traumatic removal of penis and testicles, apparently by a sharp object. The photos showed him, naked, looking shamefacedly away from the camera. His groin was shaved, showing the briefest of stumps. A long scar ran from his lower stomach to his thigh. Mariama noted that the photos were Polaroids, so there was no possibility of digital trickery. She shuffled through the photos, over and over, her mouth open. ‘If you don’t believe me,’ Emmanuel said, ‘you can follow me to the ladies’ toilet and I’ll show you. You’ll be perfectly safe – I can do nothing to you now. And if anyone asks why I’m in the ladies’, I’ll show them too.’ Mariama handed back the photos and letters. Her inner voice said, ‘He’s got what he deserves. It is your ‘harkeh’[xi]!Throw your drink over him! Shout out loud “This man raped me – and now his dick has been cut off! There’s nothing in his trousers!”’ But she only asked, ‘What happened after – after they did that?’ ‘They marched off. I thought I would die….I hoped I would die. I did not, I passed out. I woke up in the camp – Thunder had sent out a search party, which had brought me back. Somehow, they stopped the bleeding...’ ‘How did they react to - what had happened?’ ‘Thunder and the other commanders– they all said how sorry they were about it. But none of them would look me in the eye.’ Emmanuel took a sip of his drink. ‘They pitied me, and no-one would say much to me. They made me an assistant to one of the senior commanders, counting weapons and sorting out fuel for vehicles and so on. I was no longer a man; I could no longer lead in battle.’ ‘How did that make you feel?’ Mariama asked. Emmanuel looked away. ‘Many times, when I was checking captured weapons, I thought of shooting myself.’ ‘Why didn’t you?’ ‘I don’t know…Maybe because I was too much of a coward. Or because so many had died and I was still alive, and we heard rumours of a peace agreement. I thought I had to live to see the war finished.’ ‘When did you leave the rebels?’ ‘Later that year,’ Emmanuel replied. ‘We demobilised, under the peace agreement – most of us anyway.’ ‘And Thunder?’ ‘He stayed in the bush. I heard that he was killed the following year, in that last rebel attack near Freetown.’ ‘Were you in Freetown by then?’ Mariama asked. ‘I was.’ Emmanuel said, wiping the tears from his face. He shook his head. ‘I had to face up to what I had done. The burnt houses, the people with arms and legs missing…it was terrible. To do – things - while on drugs, while the war was on, while our blood was hot – that was one thing. But to see the effects afterwards... I would wake up screaming at night, remembering some of what I had done. That had not happened to me for a long time, not since my early years with the rebels.’ ‘And how did other people treat you?’ ‘People tended to leave ex-rebels alone, because they were still afraid of them,’ Emmanuel replied. ‘But not me. Some people would jeer at me – they had heard about my – my condition. The men with no legs, no arms – they were still men because they could have sex, even if some of them never would again. But no penis – no man.’ He let out a long sigh, then continued. ‘I was living with the survivors of my relatives. Many of them had died in the war - mostly killed by rebels. And they still took me in. It almost hurt me that they didn’t hold my past against me. Fambul tik dae ben but e nor dae broke[xii]. But my neighbours weren’t so kind. They gave me no respect; they pushed me around all the time. If I stood up for myself, people would say things like “Shut up or I’ll cut off the half bit that they left.” ’ I got some money together and left, came to England. With my – my injuries - my asylum claim didn’t take long. I – I told them I was an innocent victim of an attack.’ ‘Do you have many Sierra Leonean friends here?’ Mariama asked. ‘A few, but I don’t get out much now,’ Emmanuel said. ‘I’ve been to some Sierra Leonean parties – conversations died when I came in, people mumbled when I went past –“nar ‘im, look am[xiii]! ” Some people told me off because of the war, and then laughed at me because of my – my situation. So I stay out of sight. I work hard, as I don’t go out much and I don’t have much to spend money on. Most of my money goes to my family back home – I can hardly spend it on women.’ ‘I go to parties, occasionally,’ Mariama said. ‘I meet some of the Thompsons sometimes, we just say hello and that’s it. I have a laugh at the men who chat me up, then back off afterwards when they find out all about my child.’ ‘The other cab drivers thought I was gay, because I never chatted up the radio control girls.’ Emmanuel said. ‘But the ones who are gay have tried it on with me, and I wasn’t interested.’ ‘Why not?’ asked Mariama, with a wicked smile. ‘You should try that – you still have the equipment for it!’ ‘I am not interested,’ said Emmanuel wryly. ‘And don’t give up on all of our men. Lots of men bring up children who are not theirs. One fine day, you will meet a Sierra Leonean man who will accept you, and Alpha, even when he knows the whole story.’ ‘Insh’Allah[xiv],’ Mariama said. Emmanuel seemed to be summoning up the courage to say something. At length he blurted out, ‘Mariama, am I a bad person?’ ‘That’s not for me to say,’ Mariama replied with caution. ‘But you did bad things. Then a bad thing happened to you.’ Emmanuel nodded. Mariama went on, ‘But you can’t compare yourself to the people you killed or chopped up. They brought nothing on themselves. Some of them might not have been very nice people, like the Thompsons. But they never killed or hacked anyone. The militia did that to you because of what you had done. The boys you led may have been victims, but not you…’ ‘In my heart, I know all this,’ Emmanuel said, sombrely. ‘But maybe I needed to hear someone else say it.’ He paused. ‘Let us talk about Alpha. Can I meet him?’ The voice spoke in Mariama’s head again. ‘Now you can pay him back for what he did! He will never have any more children – deny him the one child he will ever have!’ ‘You can contact him, but you must not meet him just yet,’ said Mariama firmly. ‘You can send cards and presents – addressed to me. I will give them to him – I’ll tell him you are a long-lost uncle. When he is a lot older, you can meet him, in my presence. Later I will tell him what happened, and who you really are.’ ‘Couldn’t we – tell him now, just tell him that I am his father?’ Emmanuel suggested. ‘We can tell him exactly what happened, when he is older.’ ‘No,’ Mariama was firm. ‘Then he would love you for years, as his father, and then start hating you when he learns what you did. This way, he will only know you as an uncle. In time, he will be able to deal with it. When he does know, it will be for him to decide whether he stays in touch with you. Do you understand that?’ ‘If it has to be that way, I agree,’ Emmanuel said reluctantly. He shuffled his hands, and looked away. Mariama recognised the mannerism – it was exactly what Alpha would do whenever he made a promise he had no intention of keeping. ‘If you ever try and meet him or contact him behind my back in any way,’ Mariama said, ‘I’ll get you deported…’ ‘How can you do that?’ Emmanuel snapped. ‘I know that you lied to the Home Office – I know you’re no innocent victim.’ Emmanuel laughed. ‘Your word against mine. Mistaken identity…’ ‘Not just my word.’ Mariama said. ‘Remember, I am not the only one you abused. There are many others – in America, in Guinea, back home, here – who were captured with me, and who I am still in touch with. If they all confirm what you did, you’ll soon be on a plane back home.’ Emmanuel took a deep breath. Again, this was exactly what Alpha would do whenever Mariama called his bluff. ‘I accept,’ he said. They sat in silence for several minutes, lost in thought as they finished their drinks. ‘Well, I must go,’ Emmanuel said, rising to his feet. ‘Can I give you a lift home?’ ‘No – I’ve got to meet someone,’ replied Mariama. ‘I already have a lift.’ It was a lie, but even after their meeting, the idea of being all alone with him in a car made her feel uncomfortable. They said their goodbyes and Emmanuel walked off. Minutes later, Mariama was on the bus, heading for Peckham. She reflected on the lie she had told about still being in touch with her fellow victims – a lie which had had the desired effect of putting the fear of God into Emmanuel. She felt strangely at peace. Her inner voice seemed to have fallen silent. She touched the bottle of antidepressants in her handbag. She would not throw them away just yet, but she had an idea that she wouldn’t be taking them any time soon. Mariama looked forward to the summer. Perhaps she would spend the holidays in Sierra Leone, looking up Uncle Amadu and his family, and old friends, maybe even visiting the village. She could show Alpha the homeland he had never known –a land which no longer held any terrors for Mariama. [i] Machete. [ii] A captive used for sex by a rebel. [iii] The right to remain in the UK. [iv] Leftovers. [v] ‘God Forbid!’ From Arabic, but in general use in Sierra Leone. [vi] A Westernised ethnic group, living mostly in the capital Freetown. Some consider themselves superior to the ethnic groups from the interior, such as the Temne. [vii] Children, often from a rural background, being brought up by better-off city families. [viii] Promiscuous. [ix] Fond of gossip. [x] You’ve got a nerve! [xi] Divine vengeance. [xii] The family tree may bend, but it never breaks. [xiii] That’s him, look at him! [xiv] ‘God willing.’ From Arabic, as in note iv.
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