It was on patrol. I was on the left flank, & dismounted Voska to inspect some tracks when a Tommy suddenly emerged from behind a taaibos. We were both frozen in shock, each with his loaded rifle in hand. I believe we both thought the same thought: He could be me. That was the first time I shot somebody down from such proximity. Though I recount it now, I possess no visual memory of it. Before, during & after, everything is missing. Only the words with which I am reporting here, remain.
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I know, I understand that I should not have pushed him with my words to demonstrate a kind of courage I knew he already possessed. I know, I understand that it was because Mademba envied me and loved me at the same time that he went out first, as soon as Captain Armand blew the attack whistle on the day of his death. It was to show me that you donât need beautiful teeth, you donât need beautiful shoulders and a broad torso and very, very strong arms and thighs to be truly brave. So in the end I think it wasnât just my words that killed Mademba. It wasnât just my words about the Diopsâ totem, as hurtful as those grains of metal that fell on us from the sky of war, that killed him. I know, I understand that all of my beauty and all of my strength also killed Mademba, my more-than-brother, who loved me and envied me at the same time. It was the beauty and strength of my body that killed him, it was the way all the women looked at me, at the middle of my body, that killed him. It was the way their eyes caressed my shoulders, my chest, my arms, and my legs, the way they lingered on my well-aligned teeth and my proud, hooked nose that killed him.
This entire episode took me from fear to a rage that burned in me then, animates me now, and will likely leave me on fire for the rest of my days. I still had my journalism. My response was, in this moment, to write. I was lucky I had even that. Most of us are forced to drink our travesties straight and smile about it. I wrote about the history of the Prince Georgeâs County police. Nothing had ever felt so essential to me.
Sometimes it all comes back to me and I ask myself: âWhy all this shit? Why do all these horrors happen to me? ⌠All the shit Iâve been through in this motherfuckinâ world ever since I was born. ⌠What kind of world is this? A world where you get your ass kicked if you do good ⌠but given a medal if you kill some guy in the name of patriotism! What shit is that?â My first clash with âlaw and orderâ people was on 30 April 1974. I canât forget that, man! Oh, what bastards! There I was in my house in Surulere. At that time, you know, there wasnât any barbed-wire fence around my place. I had nothing to fear. I wasnât even thinking they could have something against me. I was just preaching revolution for Africa, you know.
One child said he slept outside because the house was filled with the cries of nightmares. The doctor had the impression that no conversation took place in houses anymore, only vicious discipline, orders and brutal teasing.
You know, we all came out of the war aged, dearest Anna, with a sense of life and death that does not exist in normal lives. So, how does one look forward if all that exists as soft-weeping wounds? You cannot imagine any future . . . You just lie. And wait.
War eludes grasping. It is as if you & the men around you perpetually strive to impose order on the chaos of something untransmittable. Only men like De Wet, you think, comprehend the war to its full extent. We, beset daily by events that defy reality, can later make no sense of anything. We are merely a crumb tumbling in a saddlebag as somebody gallops away.
I see God comes towards me through mud.
God has no ears.
He stares with blunt & lashless eyes.