The Great Agony & Pure Laughter of the Gods by Jamala Safari Read Free Book Online Page B

They looked with resistance and insistence at each new face. An unfamiliar face was a dangerous one; it made them run. The story was that many teenagers had joined the new army.
    Some of Risto’s schoolmates now wore an army uniform that slowed their movements and made them look like puppets wearing their masters’ clothes. The uniforms these boys wore swallowed their spirits as well as their bodies; they were slaves to a uniform they would never be able to take off. Their youthful age raised questions about their decision to join the fighting. Only later was it revealed that boys like these had not chosen freely. They had been forced into violence, in secret ways they dared not pronounce.
    It had been only a few years since the country had changed from Zaire to the Democratic Republic of Congo; now there was change again. There were new leaders, a new army, new soldiers. Risto was confused; he had many questions that even his father couldn’t answer. Was it a new country? Who was in charge? When he heard about the many different militia groups that had risen, he wondered who protected whom, who guarded whom. Some of his friends had joined the most feared army group, the Mai-Mai. They had mystical powers; they couldn’t be defeated and they couldn’t die. Bullets wouldn’t penetrate their bodies; they would would tear their clothing and then fall like little plastic balls hitting a concrete wall. Knives would bend and machetes would bounce off their magical bodies. They were tattooed with lion blood and crocodile scales, and had the spirits of sacred forests and fearsome ancestors to protect them. They wore talismans of feathers and bones around their necks, and never washed in rivers or let the rain fall on them; they never ate food that had been cooked by women, and were not allowed to steal. They had many rules and principles. They were there to protect people from foreign invasion, Risto heard.
    But they were not the only ones with the goal of protecting people from outside armies; there were many others: the Movement of Liberation from This, the Movement of Liberation from That; Patriotic Front for This, Patriotic Unity for That. Risto was shocked to learn that the army in his town was not part of the national army; the militia that ‘protected’ them was a rebel army. All the militias wanted to get rid of ‘the rebel army’, but they were rebels themselves, according to the national government in the capital city of Kinshasa. It was confusion, curse and chaos.
    Bukavu had changed from a peaceful town with the joyful noise of happy children to a fearful town with the silence of fear and confusion pierced only by screams of mourning. The afternoon dances of children had changed to the thunder of soldiers’ footsteps chasing unhappy children. High-school and university students were seen as the troublemakers; they wanted to own their own history, to write it with their own blood, and so they became the targets of the rebel movement. They vowed never to allow the rebel movement to settle and rule, never to allow them to give the Congolese people instructions or to implement new policies. These students embarked on strikes and marches many times each month. They protested against foreign armies, against daily assassinations, and called for freedom of movement and freedom of speech. The more they marched, the more they got arrested and shot, the more they were forced to join the rebel army, and the more they diverted into the Mai-Mai movement.
    Days became uncertain, and each dawn gave birth to new fear and pain. Gunfire became the evening song in the streets of Bukavu. Armed burglars in military uniforms took over from the police night-shift. They visited houses as if they owned the town; so many lives were taken each night. The newspapers were full of reports of missing teenagers, who had been taken from their streets and homes. Later they would be found in military uniform.
    Risto’s parents decided to send him