The Great Agony & Pure Laughter of the Gods (10 page)

There were harsher punishments the day of shooting training. Fortunately for the rookie boys, they were not the guinea pigs used for the exercise that day. Instead, to their horror and repugnance, the chief commander brought them three captured poachers.

But first, they had learned the five critical positions for shooting. It was the first day they had been allowed to touch a firearm. They looked at it scrupulously, as they knew only too well that it was a deadly machine. At that point, the training shifted to French, as the trainers said they had also been taught in French.

‘This is the best inheritance we got from our Belgian colonisers; thank their bloody asses for this toy. Without them, we would never have learned how to use this toy!’ One trainer screamed these words as if he was drunk.

‘Kadogo, you will thank us for teaching you this skill,’ said the other trainer.

‘The skill of killing,’ the one who spoke like a drunkard added with laughter.

There were many beatings that day as nervousness shook the boys’ bodies. They knew the damage a gun could cause, and the vicious and eternal stamp that comes from using one in their culture, so they trembled as they touched it, as they learned how to manoeuvre and master it. The roaring of the trainers made them tremble even more.

‘
ONE
. Position du corps!’ The trainer would scream these words, and a trainee boy would kneel down or take one step forward.

‘
TWO
. Tenue de l’arme!’ The boy would grip the gun tightly.

‘
THREE
. Viser et épauler!’ The boy would pick his target, looking through the sight.

‘
FOUR
. Couper la respiration!’ The boy would stop breathing as he focused on his target.

‘
FIVE
. Action du doigt sur la détente. Tirer!’ And the boy would shoot at a wooden figure.

It was while they were still learning the possible positions in which they could hold the gun that the chief commander, the General as they called him, arrived with a group of soldiers who were dragging three bleeding men. The three men were naked, and one was still holding a trap. These men were villagers who, because of the increased insecurity and militia looting of farms in the surrounding areas, had gone into poaching as a means of surviving. And indeed one of the three men confirmed this in his testimony when he was interrogated by the General. He said they had been setting traps for mountain gorillas when the soldiers had seized them.

The speaker, who looked to be in his late forties, cried like a little child as he swore he was innocent of any spying. He poached for the survival of his family, he said. He confessed that he had foreign buyers who requested live baby gorillas and even dead gorillas, and this had brought them to this part of the forest.

The story of the pleading man was like a joke to the ears of the General; he laughed so hard that the vigour of his mirth caught the other soldiers, and they too lit up as though they had heard the funniest story ever.

There was a sudden stop in the General’s laughter, followed by an intense silence. Now he was serious. He called for three guns, then he called for volunteers among his Kadogo. None came forward. His eyes burned with anger. Risto feared what might follow this anger; he volunteered. A smile sparked the General’s face.

‘You are trained to become young lions, to teach idiots like these three here to learn never to go behind our backs and spy for our enemies.’

The General prowled around the three boys who had been given guns.

‘I heard that you have already had your first killings, once by machete and once by beating. Wasn’t it fun?’ he laughed. ‘Now, you three are lucky to be the first to learn how to kill with a gun. It’s simple and easy, easier than killing with sticks. You do what you have been taught: you take a position, you hold your gun, you focus on your target, then you take action. Simple, easy.’ He demonstrated this with a gun that he had taken from his bodyguard. ‘Go on, one by one, you aim at the forehead. Go ahead.’

Benny stared at Risto with disgust as Risto did as he had been taught. He didn’t understand why Risto had been the first to volunteer, and this hurt him; he felt like vomiting.

The three men leaned against trees a few metres from where Risto and the two other boys took their shooting positions. The men’s eyes were closed; they were taking their last breaths, saying their last prayers as Risto and his two colleagues focused on proving that they had truly become young lions.

The first man was shot in the neck. He kept moving in agony, so the young rookie fired a second bullet, forgetting that bullets were expensive, and that one bullet meant one life. He got punished for that. And the body remained still, lifeless.

The second boy, shaking hard, lost one bullet in the air. He was severely punished, with a hundred blows and three days and nights of walking naked. But the loss of his bullet changed the fate of the poacher. Instead of being executed, he was tortured and mutilated by two other Kadogo and then released to go and warn villagers against spying. The man left without ears and without one of his arms.

Finally it was Risto’s turn. As he pulled the trigger, a bullet flew, a shot was heard, a forehead exploded, a man cried out, a body fell, and praises were heard. Risto had become a true young lion.

Days passed by as the village boys grew into little guerrilla soldiers.

Their clothes had been given back to them. They had learned how to use guns. They had seen how easy it was. They had familiarised themselves with the environment; they knew where the well was, and were the ones sent to bring water and sometimes to do the laundry. There was little trust, though; there was always someone to escort them with a gun when they went to fetch water.

They had learned that a good soldier is awake like an owl, ready to fight at all and any times. A good soldier has acute senses, with an additional sixth sense for instinctive judgements. A good soldier has to listen, and execute the given commands. A good soldier never questions, never cries, even if it is his commander who dies. An army has never been a widow; there are always other commanders to take charge.

They had been told the secret of the jungle: if you want to survive, show no mercy to a stranger. Whoever was not part of them was their enemy, and his fate was death; he was to be killed immediately.

The boys had almost no weapons, except for the machetes a few of them held; others had heavy sticks in their hands. Some had no weapons at all, and carried the baggage and herded the livestock. It was up to each boy to find his own weapon.

‘If you kill an enemy, his gun is yours.’ These were the words the commander spoke as he caressed his untidy beard. ‘No killing means no gun, and you remain vulnerable. It is up to each one of you to get his own firearm.’

It was an equation with ten unknowns; a barehanded boy could not seize a gun from a fully armed and trained soldier – it was foolishness. But the message was simple; they were little Kadogo with lion hearts. And a lion was a king, and powerful.

It was early morning; the camp had settled into a routine. Risto was among the boys supposed to fetch water and wash laundry. They gathered clothes from the General. Two soldiers followed them like a rabbit’s tail. Risto had some clothes and a drum that belonged to Néné’s cruel husband, a man called Amani, which means ‘peace’ in Swahili. Risto carried the man’s stinking boots, socks and sweaty clothes. They arrived at the well. First they washed the clothes, then they hung them out on the branches of trees before they themselves bathed in the river.

Risto dedicated his time to the shirt he had been given to wash. Benny was there and swimming, but not as he had done in the village; he was still in shock. All was visible on his fragile face. Indeed, all the boys were in shock. The lion-heart tag was in reality an attribute that frightened them, haunted them. How they could come to carry that lion heart, that evil spirit within them, so soon, was the question that confused them all. Killing was evil, a disgusting, shameful thing to perform, and they knew this, but it was still the only way to survive. This was what hurt them, what shocked them, and made them feel evil.

As Benny sunbathed on a rock, he stared at his cousin and best friend Risto, now a stranger to him. Benny no longer saw the Risto he knew, the Risto of tenderness and laughter. He could not believe that Risto had volunteered to perform horrible executions, to torture a human soul. Twice he had been the first to hold the fatal tool. All was confusion and agony for Benny.

So between Benny and Risto, like between all the rookie boys, talk ceased. They communicated with distrustful eyes and suspicious looks, as if the person next to them was an alien predator. They all suspected each other while hiding the traumatising pain of being a child soldier, afraid to show any weakness. The reality was that, in secret, each one cried, each tried to confess his sin to his God, but each knew that he could never be forgiven; he was evil, he was a killer.

When the two boys returned to the camp, each one headed off to return the clothes they had washed. Risto went to a hut at the back of the camp. There was no proper door to knock on, only a cloth curtain. He coughed to announce himself.

‘Who’s there?’ a female voice called. It was Néné.

Risto was careful; maybe the cruel Amani was listening within. ‘I have brought back the clothes. All of them are washed, no soap remains.’

‘Don’t worry, he is not here.’

Néné said her words with a soft voice. She moved to the door frame and looked out at the high trees and creepers that surrounded the camp. The little hut had a low roof; it would have been impossible for Risto to stand straight in it. With the soft wind blowing, the curtain in the doorway danced like a marionette, letting a curious eye peep inside. Risto saw a thin mattress with a dirty cover, once white, now khaki.

Finally Risto dared to look directly at Néné. She wore a new red loincloth with an old white blouse. The blouse was too big for her, leaving her clavicles greeting the skies. She was barefoot. She looked down at herself, at what she wore, then looked at Risto with eyes full of tears. He didn’t have a word to say.

‘No news from home?’

‘No.’

She kept quiet, a heart-devouring moment.

‘How are you doing?’ he asked, and immediately felt stupid for asking the question.

‘You can see my misery on my face; I am helpless.’

‘You are strong,’ he said, looking at the ground.

He sucked his lips, then showed a shy smile. She tried to smile back at him. It was difficult; tears filled her eyes instead. She tried to hide them by staring at the tall trees all around, but still they came. Suddenly she burst into tears, but even then she tried to keep her voice low as she wept. Risto could bear it no longer; he embraced her as she cried. She sobbed silently into her fingers, which had taken on a dry dirty-white colour.

As she stood in Risto’s arms, she seemed to remember something that kept her floating in thought for a moment. She took off her small plaited bracelet, held it tight to her chest, then tied it onto Risto’s right arm. She began crying again.

‘Sorry, Néné. Please don’t cry. Be strong. This will end. We will get over it,’ Risto begged her quietly; a loud voice could mean death to both of them. But he knew he was lying to her and to himself. There was no hope of liberation from the hands of these people. It was just a way to keep her faith alive.

‘Can you see how much thinner I have become, skin and bones only!’ She showed him her slim hands.

‘You cry every day, I know.’

‘I would rather die than stay in this shack with this cruel man. But he has told me that if I stop crying every day, he will allow me to visit my parents. So I try to stop sometimes.’

Oh, what a crazy hope! The girl was naïve, Risto thought to himself.

They could hear voices coming closer.

‘There he is. Go! Run!’ she told him as she released herself from his embrace and quickly wiped away her tears.

‘I have dropped off your clothes,’ said Risto to a face that didn’t have time to turn and look at him.

No word. No answer. He walked past Néné’s tormentor.

Risto was ready. He wore smelly plastic shoes taken from one of the rookies, as well as his dirty white socks. He had borrowed them for the long walk ahead. It would be very long, he had been warned. The General had chosen him and Dumbo, another young Kadogo, as well as others among his soldiers, to go to the mines.

He went to report to the house of the General early in the morning. The men emerged with brand-new equipment; the commander of the mission, Lieutenant Kurega, had a radio, a
GPS
and a compass.

‘Don’t come back here if any one of those things is not with you!’ the General warned the soldiers.

Risto was handed a new gun.

‘Take care of it, bring it back.’

They began walking and disappeared into the forest, heading towards the mines in the Kalahe district, northwest of the Kabare territory. It was only then that Risto understood that the militia was based in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park. A few curious chimpanzees peeped timidly through the bushes at them, while birds’ songs eased Risto’s sore heart.

He was ready for any assault; he held his gun ready while Dumbo walked brandishing his machete. As they passed the chimpanzees, Kurega told them that the animals made good meat. The boys only replied, ‘Yes.’

They crossed swamps and climbed high mountains, sometimes crawling. It wasn’t an easy journey. They followed paths marked only by the footprints of people. Each split in a path was an equation to solve, a frightening dilemma; any wrong move could lead them into the territory of other militia. But the map saved them many times; the foreign militia knew the forest better than the locals did.

It was midday when they arrived at the Mbayo mine village in Kalahe. They arrived at a small business centre in the village; a very straight, narrow road ran between a few straw and iron-sheeted houses. The road served as an open market, with tables surrounded by a considerable crowd of villagers. A few soldiers in uniforms were hanging around, relaxing. They greeted the men with Risto and Dumbo; they seemed to know them. The language changed into a foreign one; the five soldiers with Lieutenant Kurega sniggered with their colleagues as Risto looked around the area, familiarising himself with it. The crowd was mostly made up of elderly people selling their crops. The villagers seemed unconcerned; they seemed to be in another country, busy with their activities.