by John Parsons

I switched on the television for the evening news and my attention was grabbed by the newscaster. He mentioned a name was that was well-known to me. ‘Charles Taylor, one-time President of Liberia, stands accused at the International Court of Justice in the Hague of murder, rape and torture during the Sierra Leone civil war. He pleads ‘Not Guilty’.
Immediately, my mind was back in 2005, in Sierra Leone, West Africa, where I found myself shortly after the civil war for control of the diamond fields had ended. Here I met a woman who had witnessed the atrocities committed by the rebel army during the conflict.
Celestine was my cook. She was short in stature, a slender woman with tribal slashes on her cheeks. Her garb was a brightly striped pink and blue blouse and faded blue jeans protected by an apron speckled with tomato motifs. A white shower cap completed her outfit.
We often chatted under the polythene sheet that shielded her makeshift kitchen from the debilitating heat and tropical downpours.
Each morning, at elevenses, I watched Celestine bend over her charcoal burners, sprinkling aromatic herbs into her dixies. One morning when the equatorial sun was making me wilt, I sat down on a bench seat in her kitchen. Our relationship had developed over the preceding days and now was the opportune time to ask a question that nagged at my mind. ‘Celestine,’ I asked hesitantly, ‘How did you survive the civil war when tens of thousands died?’
She turned, gave a half-smile, replaced the lids on her dixies and joined me on the bench. ‘I will tell you.’ She lowered her voice, linked her arm in mine. ‘I survived by the grace of God.’
My curiosity was aroused, and she must have noticed for she continued in a neutral tone, ‘I was living in Freetown when rebels and local militia battled it out. The militia told me,’ ”Move, or be killed.’ She dabbed her brow with a handful of apron.
‘Where did you go?’
‘Me and my children slept in the bush.’ She spoke without emotion but gripped my arm tighter.
‘Terrible. Other people were hiding from the rebels. Some carried pails of water.’
‘Of course, it was hot and humid, wasn’t it?’
‘Oh!’ she gasped. ‘Not to drink. To drown their babies if they cried. If the rebels found them they would kill everyone.’
‘You are kidding.’
‘No. I saw them put babies under the water till the air bubbles had gone.’
I was dumb-founded. A fire-finch trilled outside of the kitchen. It’s melodic song didn’t stop Celestine from recounting her story.
‘One morning I told my children I must go and buy food. They cried, ‘ ”Mummy, don’t go.” ‘
Celestine’s voice crackled with urgency as she emphasised each word. Again in a neutral tone she said, ‘The rebels found the food queue. A boy-soldier walked up and down the line shouting, ‘ ”Hands behind backs.” ‘
She paused. What was she going to say next? When it came I was speechless.
Celestine released my arm, jumped to her feet and made the action of a machine gun. ‘Bang. Bang. Bang.’
I stared, mouth agape. ‘That’s terrible. What happened to your children? Did they starve?’
‘Thank God they survived.’ She flashed her ebony-coloured eyes.
In the distance I heard a faint sound and cocked my ear. Someone was coming along the path beside the kitchen. Celestine heard too. She got to her feet, walked back to her dixies and checked their contents.
When the footsteps died away she returned and gripped my arm again and pressed on with her story. ‘Then the rebels picked someone out.’ ”You stand over there,” ‘they screeched. They took a few more steps,’ ”and you…you…stand over there.” ‘
‘You know,’ she went on, ‘they put a tyre round someone’s neck, poured on petrol and lit it.’ She squeezed my arm. ‘I saw them burn…burn to death.’
My heart pounded.
A few hours earlier, first light creeping over the mangrove swamps of the Sierra Leone River, in tints of yellow and orange, the world had seemed a beautiful place. A pied kingfisher had enviously watched a man fishing from a dugout canoe.
Celestine was now gazing at an indefinable point in the polythene ceiling. Could she again smell the sweet, sickly stench of burning flesh?
She interrupted my disturbed thoughts. ‘A young woman in the food queue was pregnant.’ Her voice was sinking as she placed both hands on her stomach. ‘A boy-soldier…came along and smacked her belly, taunting her.’
‘Celestine, how old was he?’
‘About the same age as my youngest son. Ten. His eyes were glassy. Drugs. They cut their foreheads with a razor and pressed cocaine straight in.’
On the previous afternoon when I went to buy fresh papaya a bunch of kids had crowded my minibus, cane baskets on their heads. How could these charming, mischievous African children – or children like them – kill without mercy? They seemed to be more at home trading fruit and general merchandise than slaughtering people old enough to be their parents.
Celestine pressed on with her story. ‘The boy-soldier strutted up and down, peering into the pregnant woman’s eyes. ‘ ”What kind of baby is it, a boy or girl?” ‘he yelled. She was afraid to speak but the boy-soldier persisted.
‘Looking to the ground she breathed.’ ”It’s a girl.” ‘
A lump rose in my throat.
‘ ”We will see,” ‘said the boy-soldier.’
Celestine looked directly at me. ‘Do you know…he slit open the woman’s stomach with his machete. I watched him tear out the unborn baby.’
I felt sick. In my mind I heard the woman’s blood-curdling screams as she fell to the ground and her innards were snatched at by dogs maddened by hunger.
She closed her eyes.
‘Sorry,’ I whispered, my eyes watering. ‘Can anyone forgive such an outrage?’
For a moment she was silent. ‘At first I felt hate. But then, as time went on, by the grace of God I was able to forgive.’
How could Celestine talk of ‘forgiveness’, how could she? Some hold a grudge if a hurtful word comes their way, yet this woman who had seen unbelievable horror still showed a benevolent attitude to the perpetrators of the atrocities.
I was shocked. ‘Celestine, I’ve never met anyone as spiritual as you.’
‘Me no finish.’
My stomach was doing somersaults. I couldn’t take any more horrors, but I had no choice for Celestine was saying, ‘The soldiers took the foetus and pounded it to pulp with their rifle butts. Do you know…?’
I shook my head.
‘They ate it.’ She softly reiterated the words while I fought to keep my emotions in check.
‘Celestine,’ I repeated my earlier question in a faltering voice. ‘How did you survive when thousands died? Tell the truth?’
She sighed and said softly just as she had before, ‘Only by the grace of God.’
In my hotel on moonless nights, trying to live a normal life by candlelight, I thought of her words. They haunted me then and have done ever since.
If only Celestine could have seen into the future she would have cried for joy. Life would return to normality. Years of peace would follow the war. Employment opportunities would increase but more importantly, Charles Taylor, the architect of the war would be brought to justice.