“I served this country within and abroad for thirty-two years. If not for my minority tribe, I would’ve been a yeneral by now!”
“Are you saying since you’re not a general you didn’t get a piece of the billions of dollars the country pumped into ECOMOG?”
“Kai, leave the generals out of this!” the chief said suddenly. “It’s people like this madman we should probe . . . not generals!”
At this, Colonel Usenetok lost it. He untied the rope from his waist and wanted to flog the chief, but the people blocked him. They told him they were free to question him because they were in a democracy. The soldier was so angry he seemed delirious and started to hop and shove people all over the aisle, like a bad spirit. Without the rope, the ragged camouflage garment flared along with his temper. More talismans were exposed. He jumped over the heads of people sitting in the aisle.
“Dis no be de savannah of Sierra Leone o!” a refugee said.
“You think we dey urban warfare for Liberia?”
“We must eject this madman.”
The more they yelled at him, the more erratic his behavior became. He pulled out his hands like two machine guns and fired at people, his mouth producing the rat-a-tat. He shot at the ceiling and announced that he had brought down helicopters. He fired into the window and claimed he was keeping the RUF rebels at bay. The people called the police to come and deliver them, but they were nowhere to be found. When the colonel got to the front of the bus he stopped suddenly and said: “The government hasn’t paid my arrears. I come here and you’re robbing me of my seat—after six years at the war front, in the service of the fatherland? And you’re talking democracy? No stupid chief talks for anyone in a true democracy!”
“No, my people,” the chief said, and stood up. “This madman’s worship is not the true religion of our ancestors! I know the religion of my ancestors. We don’t know what mad juju he brought back from his travels. . . . We must throw the soldier out before it’s too late! I repeat: Gabriel shall not surrender his seat!” Then he turned to the soldier: “As our ancestors say, you can’t quarrel with God and then scale the palm tree with a broken rope. If you insist, I shall leave this bus! And this whole bus must face the consequence once you reach my delta! My people will ask you what you did with me . . .”
“Then jou shall not travel on this bus!” the soldier shouted, punching the air. “I’ve suffered too much for freedom in this country . . . in Africa. And jou want to eyect me from the bus because of my reliyion?”
“You must go,” the chief said.
“Let me tell all of jou in this bus, none of these white countries, which brought us Christianity and democracy, came to die for the Liberians. Did any of these Arab countries peddling militant Islam in Africa send troops to Sierra Leone? I say jou all are mad, to kill each other for two foreign reliyions. We wretched ECOMOG soldiers went out there to die for democracy while the little democracy in this country is being scuttled by yenerals and politicians and chiefs . . . rogues. We saved Liberia . . . Sierra Leone. Hooray to the West African soldier! I shall kill somebody before I leave this bus today. Try me. I have learned so much from where I have been.”
“My people, see what I mean?” the chief laughed. “My son, making sense doesn’t depend on how many places you have visited. As our people say, if winning a race depended on one’s number of legs, the millipede would beat the dog hands down . . .”
“Chief, you dey talk sense!” the refugees said.
“Yet get wisdom well well!”
“May you live forever o!”
Chief Ukongo chuckled and fanned away the sweat that was beginning to collect on his face. He thudded his stick and looked around the bus as if it were his parlor. “As I was saying, my people, we’re not safe with his mad juju. . . . We must vote him out of this bus, since we’re in a democracy. Colonel, you said you have learned democracy abroad, right? OK, let’s practice it. . . . We have come to the end of campaigns and endless talk.”
“But my quarrel is with this boy who has my space!” the soldier said. “And he’s ready to give me my seat . . .”
“You’ve charmed the boy!” the chief interjected. “I’m his royal father and must protect him!”
The soldier began to shout at the top of his lungs. He was telling the bus about the rebels of Liberia and the child soldiers of Sierra Leone. He rattled on about how ruthless the child soldiers were and how he had killed many of them, how he would not spare any child who carried a gun. He talked about how he had to start taking cocaine to march at the pace of cocaine madness exhibited by the child soldiers.
The chief said his stories and boundless energy were a ploy to disrupt free and fair elections. He said his people would never be intimidated by a soldier ever again.
MADAM ANIEMA REMOVED HER thick glasses, squinting her eyes and looking around the bus as if she had finally found a solution to the soldier menace. Then she brought out the little water bottle from which the sick man had drunk. She announced to everyone that she was carrying holy water. She made a sign of the cross, stood up hastily, and went about sprinkling the place with the water, to neutralize the soldier’s charms. People made way for her lean frame.
“Saint Joseph, Terror of the Devil!” she said faintly.
“Pray for us!” the bus responded.
“Sacred Heart of Jesus!”
“Have mercy on us!”
She rolled out a litany of saints to come to their aid, and gently she sprinkled the water on the colonel, who was still fuming and ranting about being cheated, and commanded the devil to leave them. The soldier calmed down, looking on in disbelief.
“Once the Church has blessed the water,” she said, “the spirit of God fills that water. Now we can travel with the soldier even to Moscow.” She turned to the soldier: “You find a place and sit down. You are OK. Thanks for what you have given to the country.”
“I will sit down,” the soldier said.
The passengers thanked her profusely, and some even asked her to preach to them. Monica begged her to sprinkle some of the water on her baby, which she did. They asked her why she did not sprinkle it on the sick man. She said that there was no need, since he had taken the pills with the holy water, and that the man would be fine wherever he was.
“We no be like all dis nyama-nyama churches!” one Catholic man said from the back.
“We know how to deal wid Satan!” another said.
“Because we’ve been in this church business for two thousand years now!”
“Colonel,” Madam Aniema said, “you will be given a place—”
“You’ve got the real thing, woman!” the chief cut in with his congratulations. He stood up again and smiled at everybody, like a headmaster whose student has just triumphed at a debate. “Your holy water is as powerful as what those bearded Irishmen sprinkled on our ancestors to make them instant Catholics. Then, the Church didn’t waste time dipping you into a river before you got the Spirit . . .”
“Yesss!” the Catholics cheered.
“Just three drops of water and you knew Latin like the pope,” the chief said.
“Of courssse!”
“I’m going to personally tell Rome to ordain you a priest . . .”
“No, no, no. . . . That’s not our church!”
“Chief, we no dey ordain women for our church!”
A light murmur went through the bus. Some said Madam Aniema should be exempted from church tradition, while the Catholics said it was impossible to ordain women and warned outsiders to mind their own business. The soldier stood there, watching, surprised he was no longer the focus of attention. He looked at Madam Aniema intently, as if expecting her to offer him a seat.