The Bite of the Mango Read online

  Some other time was now, and Mariatu was not taking no for an answer.

  “It will be good for you to think about things other than Abdul,” she coaxed.

  “But I’m no good at acting,” I complained.

  “Then you can sing!” Mariatu retorted.

  “I’m no good at singing either,” I said, shaking my head.

  “I know you can dance,” she persisted. “Just show me a Sierra Leonean girl who can’t dance!”

  Now I really couldn’t argue. Every village girl in Sierra Leone learns to dance as soon as she can walk. It was what we did almost every night by the fire. My friends and I would don grass skirts and some Africana beads and take turns dancing in twos and threes, while some of the boys from Magborou drummed and the rest of the village sang and clapped.

  “Okay,” I said to Mariatu. “I’ll come and watch you today. I have nothing else to do anyway. But I’m not joining!”

  After I had finished my breakfast and washed up, Mariatu and I wove our way through the tents. When we reached the center of the camp, the theater troupe was just about to perform a skit on HIV/AIDS.

  I’d heard mention of the virus that was killing people in Sierra Leone, but no one in my family had it, so we had never talked about it. I had no idea how you acquired HIV/AIDS until I watched the skit that afternoon. The plot involved a funeral ceremony for a woman who had just died from AIDS. While the mourners stood motionless, two older members of the troupe, a man and a woman, explained that HIV/AIDS is acquired through sexual intercourse. When they were done speaking, the play resumed.

  Mariatu’s role was that of the bereaved daughter. Mariatu was good at acting. Her tears seemed real.

  “She was a good woman who cared about her family,” her character wailed.

  When the funeral ceremony ended, the whole cast came out and sang a song about HIV/AIDS.

  It’s killing all of Africa. How do we stop it? Only we can stop it!

  Be faithful to your wife, husband, or partner.

  When the skit was over, Mariatu and Victor approached me.

  “So you finally came out,” Victor said with a smile, punching me gently on the shoulder.

  “I just wanted to watch,” I said.

  “But we’d love to have you in the troupe,” he said. Victor was a tall, handsome man with an oval face and very short hair. When he smiled, his eyes drooped downwards slightly, giving him an innocent look. Even though I had only met him once or twice before, I’d liked him right away.

  “I’ve been through a few things recently,” I confessed. “I don’t know if I am up to acting, singing, and dancing yet.”

  “I know about the baby and his death,” he said kindly. “I wanted you to join the troupe a long time ago, but I realized it was too soon. Having a baby at twelve years of age is very hard.”

  I wanted to tell Victor that I had killed Abdul, that I was a mean person and he shouldn’t be talking to me. But instead I replied: “Yes, it was very hard. His death really hurt me.”

  “Why don’t you join the troupe and express your pain through theater?” Victor said. “We’re all good people.” His hand swooped in a circle to encompass the actors, who sat on the ground talking to each other in hushed tones.

  “I’ll try,” I said, not knowing where my answer came from. “I’ll try.”

  Victor created a role for me in the HIV/AIDS play as a villager mourning the woman who had died. All I had to do was cry. It was a small part, but I found I liked it. We ran through the skit a couple more times before Victor called it quits.

  I thanked Mariatu, waved goodbye to Victor, and went back to my tent. I didn’t feel happy, but some of the heaviness inside of me had started to lift. Victor was right: pretending to cry onstage did offer some relief from my pain.

  The next Sunday, I returned to the theater troupe. I didn’t tell anyone in my family where I was going, just that I would be back later. “Don’t worry about me,” I yelled.

  The following weekend, I went out to the theater troupe again. After we’d run through the skit a few times, we danced and sang. Some of the boys brought out drums. Even though they had no hands, they could still drum like nothing had happened to them. I found myself swaying to the music and singing the chorus of some popular Temne songs.

  By the time we were done, it was dinnertime. Victor walked with me back through the camp. On the way, we passed by his tent. His wife had prepared a plate of rice and vegetables, and Victor invited me to eat with him.

  “I was raped,” I whispered halfway through the meal.

  “I know,” was his reply.

  “Should I get tested for HIV/AIDS?”

  “Yes, Mariatu,” he said. “Yes.”

  I was shaking as the nurse at the camp pinched me with a needle and then filled a vial with my blood. It seemed anything good that happened to me was immediately followed by something bad, so I worried that maybe I was HIV-positive. I was cursed, and part of me felt it was for a good reason: I had killed Abdul by not loving him, so I deserved my fate.

  My thoughts drifted to a woman in the camp who Victor said was suffering from AIDS. Her once-robust body had shrunk to half its size. Her eyes were sunken, and her face and arms were covered in open sores. Initially the woman had gone for walks around the camp using a stick for a cane. Now she spent most of her days lying on a straw mat outside her tent, covered in a thin blanket, moaning. I passed by her on my way to the theater troupe.

  I closed my eyes and prayed, just as I had done the night of the rebel attack: “Allah, I know I was a bad mother. I know I didn’t deserve sweet little Abdul, and that’s why you took him from me. But please don’t let me have this virus. Please! I don’t want to die slowly like this woman at the camp. You kept me alive after Manarma for some reason. I promise, from now on for the rest of my life, I will try to think positively and be a good person if you spare me from this virus.”

  For the next few weeks, I was on pins and needles waiting for the test results. I tried to be a good person, as I had promised. Whenever Adamsay, Fatmata, Abibatu, or Marie talked to me, I made every effort to be attentive. I’d help the women cook dinner, fetching rice from the market, stirring the cassava leaves. I even ground some rice and cassava, though my arms kept slipping as I heaved the pole up and down into the gourd. At dinnertime, I would give my stone to Adamsay or one of my other cousins to sit on, while I crossed my legs and sat on the ground. We’d always eaten from one big plate, but now I waited for Adamsay and the others to finish before I ate. I used a big silver spoon that attached to my arms with velcro.

  “What’s going on with you?” Mohamed asked one night.

  “Usually you’re the first one gobbling up all the food!” Ibrahim added with his crooked smile.

  “Ah, Mariatu,” Mohamed continued. “You must want something from us. Perhaps to meet Sorie.” Ibrahim and Mohamed had befriended Sorie, a boy from the camp, shortly after his arrival a few months earlier. Sorie was lean and fit, with a big wide smile, much like Mohamed’s.

  “No,” I replied calmly. “I don’t want to be with a boy ever again. I’ve had enough of them. But you were all so kind to me when Abdul was here that I want to help out as much as I can from now on.”

  Mohamed and Ibrahim got up, helped each other wash the bottoms of their arms with water from a plastic kettle, and then pounced on me, knocking me to the ground. Mohamed tousled my hair while Ibrahim tickled my stomach.

  “I love these boys so much,” I thought when they had pulled me back up into a sitting position. I watched as they ran together down the aisle of sky blue tents, punching each other playfully in the stomach and shoulders. They were off to kick a soccer ball around with some other boys at an empty housing lot not far from the camp.

  After they had disappeared from view, I lay down on my back and looked up at the big fluffy clouds. “When I die, I want it to be quick,” I thought, “not drawn-out and painful.

  “Salieu,” I pledged, “if you are listening a
nd watching like you said you would, I want you to know that I plan on having a long life. A long and very good life, in which I start doing good things to help people.”

  When I went back to see the nurse, I had to wait outside in a long line. After about two hours, I made it inside the building, where I sat down on an examination table. The nurse was reading from a clipboard as she approached me.

  “Mariatu,” she said with a smile. “You tested negative. You do not have HIV/AIDS.”

  “Maybe,” I thought as I walked back to my tent, “my luck is finally changing.”

  Every Saturday and Sunday from then on, I joined the theater troupe in the center of the camp. In addition to the play on HIV/AIDS, we worked on a new skit about forgiveness and reconciliation. We re-enacted a scene from the war in which some of the youth played victims while others played the boy soldiers. As in the play I had seen when Mariatu introduced me to the troupe, the boy rebels pretended to cut off their victims’ hands and then to burn down the village. But the last part of this play was different.

  In one scene, a man played the head commando of the rebels, ordering the boy rebels around. “You need to be fighters! You need to kill!” he yelled. “Take this to make you strong men,” he said, handing the boys drugs.

  One boy rebel said no, so the commando beat him.

  In the second-to-last scene, the boy rebels huddled together, crying. They admitted their crimes to one another and wished they could return to their own villages and their old lives—much like all of us at Aberdeen were wishing we could do.

  The final scene had the boy rebels and the victims walking out onstage, arm in arm, and singing about peace.

  As I sat on the ground and watched, I realized that the boy rebels who had hurt me must have families somewhere. I thought back to the rebel who’d said he wanted me to join them in the bush. “Would he have asked me to kill?” I wondered.

  Mariatu broke into my thoughts. Linking her arm through mine, she pulled me to my feet and then dragged me up onstage. “It’s time to dance,” she sang out.

  The boys started drumming, just like boys did back in Magborou. Two girls at a time came forward and did a dance duet. The rest of us sang and swayed to the rhythm and beat.

  When it was my turn to be in the center, I closed my eyes. My knees bent. My torso moved down toward the ground and up again, then side to side. I repeated the pattern, immersing myself in the music. I felt really alive for the first time in ages.

  One Sunday, just as we ended our practice for the day, Victor motioned for us to be quiet.

  “I have something to tell you,” he said. He paused, keeping us in suspense.

  “Come on, Victor. Spit it out,” Mariatu implored.

  “We’re going to perform in public,” he announced, his eyes bright.

  “Oh, that’s all,” Mariatu said, rolling her eyes. “Who’s visiting the camp this time?” Whenever aid agency officials or a politician came to the camp, the theater troupe performed—just as I had been asked to perform for the media when Abdul was alive. When I told my story, journalists furiously wrote down my answers in tiny books. The theater troupe also told stories, through skits, dances, and songs.

  “No,” Victor replied, winking at Mariatu. “We’ve been asked to perform at Brookfields Stadium in a couple of weeks’ time for a whole bunch of people, including some government ministers.”

  My chest constricted. “I can’t perform in front of other people,” I declared. Brookfields was the largest place for people to meet in all of Freetown.

  “Yes, you can,” Victor admonished. “You all can, and you all will. We will do such a good job that the war will end and peace will come again to Sierra Leone!”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” Mariatu moaned.

  I moaned too, for a different reason. I was trying to think of the best excuse I could offer to get out of performing. But something else in me was just as strong, and I decided to join the theater troupe onstage after all. We had an important purpose: to help raise awareness of my country’s problems.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Mariatu! Mariatu!” Mohamed called out.

  I was walking back from the clock tower, tired and dusty after a day of begging. All I wanted was some rice and sauce, some vegetables if Abibatu and Marie had prepared any, and then bed. I went to sleep early now most nights, in preparation for our performance at the soccer stadium. I was still worried I would make a fool of myself, but Mariatu was so thrilled about the event that I didn’t want to rain on her parade. Sometimes she got so excited she started jumping up and down, squealing in delight. Her enthusiasm was catching, and we’d jump facing each other, going faster and faster. Our hysteria turned into a game in which we’d see who could jump the highest.

  “Some fancy lady wants to see you,” Mohamed gasped, running up to me. Mohamed’s baby fat had disappeared since we’d moved to the camp, and he was growing into a handsome man, with a big white smile that could charm anyone. “Hurry,” he urged, hopping from foot to foot. “She’s at the tent. She’s at the tent. I think it’s your time.”

  Adamsay was leaving for Germany in less than a month. About six young people from the camp had moved to the United States, and several others were on a relocation list. But so far no one had shown any interest in me.

  “Mohamed, you’re such a jokester,” I called as we wove in and out of the market stalls, jumping over plastic laundry tubs, boxes, dogs, and cats. “Don’t get my hopes up!”

  “Mariatu, I’m not lying. She’s real. The woman is real. She’s there at the camp, talking to Marie and Abibatu and asking for you.”

  My heart leapt. What if Mohamed was right? What if I could leave this place full of so much sadness, end my days of feeling worthless because I had to beg richer Sierra Leoneans for handouts? Abdul still entered my dreams at night. When I passed other babies at the camp, slung on their mothers’ backs, I’d look away and quicken my pace. Moving to a foreign place might be a remedy for the guilt that still plagued me.

  Mohamed and I took as many shortcuts as we knew, down alleyways, behind and around other people’s tents. En route, someone shouted: “What’s your hurry? It’s not like you’re going anywhere.”

  I wanted to shout back at him, “Yes I am! I’m going to the United States!”

  When we got to our tent, Marie was lighting the fire. Standing beside her was a woman wearing a straight brown skirt and a white blouse. She was the same height as Marie but wider, with short curly hair.

  “Hello,” the woman said when I stopped in front of her. “I’m Comfort. Are you Mariatu?”

  “Yes,” I panted, still breathless from our run.

  “Well, then. If you are Mariatu Kamara, I have a message for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “If you come to my office tomorrow morning, I will give you the message, and we can talk more about things then.” She gave me directions to her office, then went on her way.

  I stood pondering the possibilities. Would I really be going to this place called the United States, which people said was the best place in the world to live?

  I could have slept in the next morning, but I got up with Adamsay. After my cousins left, I changed into my best clothes, a red Africana docket-and-lappa. I washed my only shoes, a pair of orange flip-flops, and then set off.

  Comfort’s office wasn’t far from the camp. I had never been in an office building before. The closest I’d ever got to those official-looking places was standing at their gates with Adamsay, asking business people for money on their way home from work. Usually one of the security guards would order us to get lost.

  As I walked toward the front door that morning, I half-expected the security guard to shoo me away. But he didn’t. He smiled and opened the door for me instead.

  I found the staircase at the end of the hall, right where Comfort had told me it would be, and counted out the four flights to her floor. When I reached the landing, she was there to meet me. “Perfect timing,”
she said with approval.

  Today Comfort was wearing a blue Africana docket-and-lappa, with some big brown beads. “You look very nice,” I complimented her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I like to wear both Western clothes and Africana outfits.”

  Comfort’s office was a big room full of bookshelves. Posters of flowers and framed certificates and diplomas hung on the walls. When Comfort saw me looking at them, she explained that she was a social worker. She helped people at the amputee camp with non-medical problems, such as reuniting with their families. “Some families are very ashamed of their members who have lost limbs from the war,” she said. “At first they don’t want anything to do with these people who are disabled. I help the families accept their loved ones.”

  I wondered a little at what she said. Until the day before, I had never seen Comfort at the camp, and my family got along just fine. They didn’t view me any differently than they had before the attack. They still bossed me around: “Go get some water, Mariatu! Go buy some peppers! Go brush your teeth!” I wasn’t exactly sure whom Comfort was helping. But I didn’t ask.

  Comfort motioned me to a chair beside her desk.

  “A man phoned from Canada,” she said, sitting down across from me. “His name is Bill, and he wants to find the girl he read about in a newspaper article.” Comfort reached over and handed me a newspaper clipping. To my surprise, it showed a photograph of me, holding Abdul. “Is this you?”

  “Yes,” I said quietly, staring into the face of my little son. “That’s me.” I had to blink back my tears.

  Comfort didn’t seem to notice my distress. “If you are the person in the photograph, this man Bill wants to help you. His family read your story, and they would like to give you money for food and clothes.”

  “What is Canada?” I asked.

  Comfort pulled a big book she called an atlas out from behind her desk. “This is North America,” she said, running her hand over one of the pages. “Canada is a country that sits above the United States.”