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The river, where its surface can be seen, is a
muddy brown. It is indifferent to what it carries, unburdened equally by
flowers, or corpses, or shit. Some girls wade in up to their waists, calling
out names when a face is recognized. It’s routine now, just another chore, like
grinding millet or weeding the garden. It looks like the
rebels visited the village a few kilometers away, walking in at dawn, just as
families were stirring. They might not have heard about it for days, but the
river doesn’t wait to bring them the news. They spend their lives learning this
lesson—of the remorseless strength of the river’s pull; of the slow, unrelenting
current carrying everything down to the sea. Forgetfulness is
easy to come by. The bush creeps in to erase the burned traces of homes; the
red bus that used to stop there will soon drive by without slowing down. A
bride stands on the shore, pretty in her western-style dress, gripping her
flowers tightly. To her it feels like any other small catastrophe—a drunken
argument between relatives, an inopportune rain shower—impossible to predict, nobody’s
fault. The minister does not falter as, behind the wedding party, the flotilla
of death drifts by. Pain comes in
drips; grief is paid in installments. On the bank of the river, the boys stop
fishing out of fear of snagging a corpse, snapping a line, losing a hook. They
jostle and push each other, roughhousing until the water is clear again. They
have even stopped rejoicing that it wasn’t them, that they have another day
next to the stoic river, that once again they have been left alone to die in
their own time. Old men sit
drinking bitter coffee, trading gossip. The shop girl brings them napkins and a
few bits of news. It’s all the same, intrigue and betrayal told in cheap bits,
each new detail burying the last. Colonel Tsiba declared himself a prince and
was murdered by his officers. The AFC split from the ARC; the FNL joined the
PLF. Nobody knows how it will turn out, except that it always turns out the
same way. They used to mark the spots with small wooden crosses, but that
ambition has long left them. These days, communion is served with a nine-millimeter
round, and everyone dies for someone else’s sins. Fear swells the
heart; it begins to feel like love. Where there is no tenderness, brute force
will do. The wedding ends with another minor disaster. The bride’s veil has
blown away, skipping mischievously down to the river. The minister, ever
gallant, volunteers to retrieve it. The wedding party watches with trepidation,
afraid that he might slip in the mud and ruin his best suit. Like a heron, he
picks his way toward the veil, stepping carefully over the dead. |