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Wilton Sankawulo, Sr.
Ma Chrisma On You
A Short Story
When Jason Nyan put his gun down, he felt relieved as he trudged home in the twilight with streaming crowds from Red Light. An unbearable burden had descended from his shoulders. Many times his conscience had stopped him from acting in his own interest, but in this instance he had acted without qualms. Before, he had thought of freedom as lack of physical restriction, but now he realized that it was much more than that, for the whole world could be your prison while you’re unshackled. Freedom now seemed to him an inner glow of unaccountable peace and release from guilt—a complete cleansing of the body, mind, and spirit—a total rebirth. Where this strange sense of relief had come eluded him.
It couldn’t have come from the Papay’s seizing power, which freed him from prosecution for his many crimes, for you can’t get away with anything! He’d forever live with a crushing burden of guilt for his countless indiscriminate killings, looting, and careless parade of obscenities among respectable people—the unbearable dread of that inescapable midnight hour that conjured up the piteous images of the many innocent unarmed civilians cringing at his feet for mercy as he shot them in cold blood—the accusing eyes, fingers, and biting tongues of relatives and friends of his victims who confronted him in his neighborhood, on buses, at workplaces and market grounds. Yes, he was doomed, a marked man likely to be killed at any moment—but he didn’t care.
Not even his agreeing with Sata’s advice that he surrender his arms to the peacekeepers could account for his new-found freedom. He loved her because she stood behind him like a rock—because of her industry, alluring long black hair, open teeth, full breasts, and large round hips. But these war time girls were not trustworthy. Like porcupine intestines, they were too bitter to eat, yet too appetizing to trash.
When the NPFL seized most of Monrovia, these girls commonly abandoned their husbands for “freedom fighters” whom they adored for being young, valorous, bulletproof, and handsome in their exotic war gear: dresses, skirts, blouses, high heeled shoes, petticoats, stuffed bras, wigs, lipsticks—rifles hooked to their backs, revolvers on their waists—and pockets full of money. These “deliverers” never hesitated to kill people of means and loot their properties for girlfriends. But once the girls got what they wanted from you, Jason noted, they disappeared mysteriously, carrying everything you had gathered at the risk of your life. Many fighters sought their unfaithful girl friends and shot them. As for him, he left everything to heaven.
Now God had rewarded him with Sata, a girl of remarkable beauty. She was strong, thrifty, kind. “Perhaps another betrayer!” Jason had thought when they fell in love, although Sata had confessed that she loved him for love’s sake, not for money or things.
“I pity you men,” she had told him. “You endanger your lives to give girls what they want, but they turn their back on you once they get it. Nyan, depend on God and me.”
Even though he had been disappointed in love many times, Jason still gave any woman he kept the benefit of the doubt. People differed. Sata could be the right girl for him.
Sata defended her assurance with a bold initiative. She kept a portion of each day’s food money Jason gave her until it was enough to make market. Many a young girl entering business affected to sell dogafleh in order to keep clean to lie with any man who came round with a few dollars in his pocket. But there was too much used clothing in the market and having multiple lovers often cost a girl her husband or her life, Sata thought. The easy way usually promised dangerous success. Since food was always in great demand, Sata decided to sell fish. Daily she bought bags of fish at West Point and Popo Beach from Fanti and Kru fishermen and sold them in the General Market for a good profit. She always made sure to go home before dark to cook and prepare a warm bath for Jason. In six months she became a pillar for the family.
“Put the gun down,” she constantly advised Jason, who’d retort that disarmament would cut off his only source of livelihood and make him helpless among his countless enemies. “The peacekeepers will kill you if don’t!” Sata would add in warning.
“They don’t want our guns,” Jason told her, grinning. “Disarming us will end their employment. In their countries they seldom lay their eyes on US dollars, which they get here in plenty. Beside their pay, they get much money from loot and weapons sale. For a thousand US dollars, they give us all the guns and ammunitions we want and urge us to fight.”
“You must be joking!” Sata said, her lips parted in disbelief.
“They get the most pay and loot when we fight. Except the Ghanaians who are a little discreet, they carry our things by shipload up and down the coast nearly every week. You see any fitting bed or car or icebox or fan or TV in this town again?”
“I don’t want to believe it, Nyan. If it’s true, then our country has become a hunting ground.”
“That’s what happens when poor people become peacekeepers. I had thought white people would be their commanders. But what white man would die for black people?”
“Just don’t get mixed up with fighting again. Material things you can always get but not your life once you lose it.”
“I see with you, Sata. From Butuo down to Monrovia, I fought for the NPFL with all my might. The only pay I ever got was shedding of my own people’s blood and looting their properties. Even if I’m not punished for my crimes, my conscience will never let me rest. Give me two weeks and I’ll put down my gun.”
That week Jason’s company raided Gold Medal Factory on Somalia Drive. He sold his loot at considerable profit, turned the money over to Sata, and surrendered his weapon.
“Expand the business with this and take care of the home,” he had told her as he gave her a bag full of money.
Instead of buying clothes or jewelry or running away from her killer boy friend as most other girls would have done, Sata, who already had enough market money, secretly bought a lot in Jacob Town and began building a house. When Jason did not get a report from her about the business after ten long months, he began seething with anxiety, thinking Sata had duped him. He decided, however, not to cause an alarm. If Sata had used the money up, it was all right. Was she not taking good care of the home and serving him faithfully? What was fifty thousand Liberian dollars? In American money it didn't amount to even a thousand dollars.
When the four-bedroom house she was building reached window level, Sata invited him to the construction site one Sunday morning. Jason couldn’t believe his eyes. He looked around opened mouth. From that day he considered Sata his backbone. At his urging, she brought her parents, two brothers and her sister that the rebels had raped, to care for them. He managed to find his old mother who had been languishing in a secluded village deep in Nimba Forest and brought her, too.
Building a house in the throes of war was no easy task. Many a day the family had little to eat. After ECOMOG “liberated” Monrovia’s suburbs, including Paynesville, where the new home was being built, thousands of unburied corpses polluted the air, the ground, and the wells of the city. Cholera, malaria, laser fever, malnutrition, and many other fatal diseases took their toll. Sata spent much money trying to take care of the family, buying expired drugs and fetching the services of hospitals and clinics which lacked the expertise, equipment, or medicines for proper treatment.
Jason was lucky to be employed at this time by Bishop Twan of the Pentecostal Church. In addition to his monthly pay, he brought home much food, money, and dogafleh from his workplace daily. He soon took his place in the family as the provider. Several times his mother went with him to thank the Bishop for his kindness.
Christmas was only a week in the offing, and Jason decided to make a big feast of it. He would dedicate the new house on the holiday. For two years they had not celebrated Christmas, not only because of the war but also because of the building project and his lack of steady income. Now that he was gainfully employed and the construction was over, he’d entertain his family and friends as of old when Christmas meant feasting, cultural dances, family reunions, and exchanging gifts. Who else would have it to pay for but the Bishop?
The sunrise cleared the morning mist, but as Jason stumbled down the laterite hill dotted with potholes, a soft breeze laden with drizzles shoved a black cloud from the Atlantic Ocean and sealed it off. The breeze nibbled his clothes, and cold bumps grew all over his body.
Bypassing the deep and rocky valley last night’s rain had turned into a lake, Jason lengthened his strides on the muddy path half circling the rim of the lake to reach the tarred road before the drizzle turned into a downpour. The breeze happily gathered speed and drove the cloud up-country, “where farmers need the rain,” thought Jason.
Boarding a rickety pickup filled to capacity with marketers and workers, Jason wondered when he would ever reach the parsonage. These broken vehicles that moved at a snail’s pace and broke down all too often, never delivered their passengers on time, but passengers relished the uncensored frank discussions they held in them. They judged cases eloquently, rendered verdicts, and proposed far-fetched solutions. Jason had learned from bitter experience the prudence of avoiding such discussions because they often led to violence. He remembered how a Kru man had engaged a Mano man in a fight when the latter had dismissed Kru as a Liberian language because “Kru people are frisky and love fighting.” But these talks sometimes amused and taught you how people reasoned. The present one centered round causes of the civil war. Strangely enough, it went on between two seniors of the University of Liberia, one of them was a history major and the other a major in business management. Everybody listened to them with rapt attention.
“Our leaders brought this war on us,” fired the major in business management, who looked skinny and highly temperamental, “because they’re too corrupt, too selfish, too greedy, and too immoral. They make the poor people kill one another while they live in safety, drinking and womanizing.”
“Fred, the poor people have themselves to blame. Why should they shed their own blood for people who don’t care about them?”
“When I heard women singing, ‘You kill my Pa, I’ll vote for you! You kill my Ma, I’ll vote for you!’– I thought we’re done. Over hundred and fifty years the ruling class never did anything for the country people. Now the country people are killing their own fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunties to put them back to power. Beyan, this war is a punishment for some sin we have committed. Like the Israelites, we must put on sackcloth and ashes, repent, and ask God’s forgiveness.”
“Churches sprout up by the dozens every day all over the country—prophets preach in the streets. Yet, the war rages on! The Congo people kept our people blind so they may have their own way in this country. That’s why they don’t want white people to become citizens. The white people will not stand for this nonsense.”
“If white people become citizens, we will really experience apartheid here in this country. Read African history! Our preachers are the fire under the war. Some act like peacemakers but truly are spies for rebels. I was present the other day at Iron Gate when a bishop, a country man, I won’t call his name for sake of peace, prayed over ULIMO’s guns. Now tell me, does this bishop believe in God?”
“The Church leaders don’t want the war to end because it makes them rich. With death hanging over us, everybody goes to church and puts their last cents in the offering plate for salvation. The pastors and priests and bishops not only pocket the money, they buy tickets and flee the country with their families. Liberian churches have become a big market ground.”
“I know a bishop who goes to America nearly every month and Christians there give him plenty of money, food, and dogafleh for war victims. He keeps everything for himself, his family, relatives, and girl friends.”
“Market women also profit by the war. They bring food from Greater Liberia and sell it hundred times the actual price, and they spy for rebels.”
“Market women saving your life!” shouted a bedraggled skinny woman, a pan of dried bonnies in her lap. “Dey bring food here and tell you where rebels way strike for you to run away. How we sell food depend on how we buy it. We can’t spy for rebel while our children here. Da you book people spoiling de country. Where de nine dollar rice your say your way bring?”
“Mama, you right,” said Fred. “When the country people took over the country in 1980, they started fighting among themselves. Everybody wants to be president for their family and tribe.”
“Everything goes back to Tubman. He made us lazy with his PRO. Liberians never learned to work. With five dollars you could get a bag of rice. Now people are forced to pay Lebanese price for imported things, and they have no money. So they kill each other to get what they want. We could grow our own rice here!”
“Tubman wanted to die in office. That’s why he kept us poor, ignorant, and blind but kept our stomach full. When the Liberian man stomach is full, he doesn’t care what happens to him.”
“We could see through his policies but were forbidden to talk.”
“Tubman knew that freedom is dangerous for the black man. The black man believes whatever he imagines and acts upon that belief. When Tolbert freed the press, it was his undoing. Our young politicians organized parties to lie to us. One of them said that the government had enough money to make every citizen a millionaire. Another one claimed he could place rice on the market at nine dollars per bag as the woman was saying. Where is the rice? So, so lies just to undermine Tolbert. But we believed them and staged the Rice Riot, and people died in vain. Now we can’t get even our pay or lay our eyes on a grain of rice! I’ve lost confidence in Liberian politicians.”
“Taylor wants to kill off all country people, except those who are his henchmen. This is really a war of vengeance. Up to Charlie King’s time the Congo people enslaved us because they hold us responsible for selling their ancestors into slavery, something that happened four hundred years ago. The League of Nations stopped their slave trade, now they are supporting Taylor to kill us once and for all!”
“The Americo-Liberians refused to open up the country because they’re afraid we’ll take it from them, but it is their greatest mistake. Now the country has spoiled. People with nothing to lose are dangerous. My great grandfather once told me that the slaves they sold were criminals and misfits. Now they have come back and waged war on us! We’d have been better off if the French or the British had taken over this place.”
“The colonialists developed only those parts of Africa they settled in, like Kenyan, South Africa, the Ivory Coast, and Senegal. They destroyed everything when Independence came. I don’t want to blame the Americo-Liberians for this tragedy. It’s the country people killing each other. We the country people don’t like ourselves. Tolbert tried to fix Liberia, but we killed him. Since he died no development has taken place.”
“If you want to be a great leader, forget about fame and wealth. Look at Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. If these men had hankered after money and wine and women and fame, they wouldn’t have become great. Tolbert wanted the lion’s share of the country’s wealth. That was his problem.”
“I loved his style, though. He wasn’t the ‘grab and go’ kind of president. He worked hard for his money and rewarded hardworking people. Tolbert would rather give you a job than cash. And you better be qualified for that job! That’s what angered his enemies. The man stood for education!”
“This is a strange country for true. If you do the right thing, you’re damned; if you do the wrong thing, it’s even worse.”
“This war came because we left the economy in foreign hands. Why should Ghanaians do our fishing and baking and marketing? Why should Lebanese and Indians run our shops? Foreign nationals pocket our money while we kill each other for nothing. Money is found in business and not in government.”
“America or the UN should run this country for five years, and it will be like America.”
“While our African brothers and sisters fight to get rid of white rule, you want white people to rule us. You belong on a cotton field in America South.”
“Can we cook and eat independence? Can independence build our roads and schools and hospitals?”
“The trouble is a true native son has never been president of this country. Liberian presidents have always come from America, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast. They ship our money to their homes. How the country will develop?”
“How will a country man become president when we don’t like each other? Put a Bassa man in the Executive Mansion, and only Bassa people will get jobs here. Make a Lorma, Kru, Vai, or Gio man president—the same thing happens. If you didn’t know how to speak Krahn when the Krahn were in power, you couldn’t get a fitting job in the country.”
“Krahn people make de country man somebady, my friend,” declared a Freeport worker. “Before Krahn took powa, who hear country man being president, vice president, ambassador, minister, chief justice, or superintendent?”
“You people gave jobs to other tribes but kept the money for yourselves,” said Beyan. “And you made Mandingo people citizens!”
“How many Krahn people wor minister and managing director here when Krahn rule dis country? Mandingo people been citizen of Liberia from de beginning of our history.”
“The Liberian president is too powerful. That’s the problem,” said Fred. “He decides everything! He has everything! All other government officials are mere rubber stamps. That’s the root cause of our problems.”
“These wild talks mean nothing,” said a Freeport worker. “When we geh outruf dis pickup, your way not be brave enough to talk ‘bout dese tins in public. Da you book people spoil de country. Your sheh you mouth.”
“They say Taylor bribed the peacekeepers, the national army, and all government officials so that he may win the war and become president,” Beyan rejoined, paying the old man no attention. “The Nigerian army alone could have captured him long ago had they wished.”
“They say he used to put thousands of dollars in his killers’ pockets when sending them to the front. When government soldiers killed some and found so much money on them, they joined his forces. Over ninety percent of Taylor’s rebels are government soldiers.”
“Your lee de people tin and go find sometin for your hungry children to eat!” the Freeport worker insisted. Many workers joined the protest.
“When your finish book your way do de same tin? Dis country been run by corruption since J. J. Robert.”
As he alighted from the dilapidated pickup, which had broken down after crossing Gabriel Tucker Bridge, Jason thought the phrase “since J. J. Roberts” summed up the Liberian tragedy. If the people could express their views and the leaders had listened, all the problems would have been solved long ago. Walking down congested Water Street to divert his mind with window shopping, Jason could hardly get into the Lebanese shops. Liberian market stalls filled with the same goods the Lebanese sold in their shops were all along the sidewalk. The prices of good were never marked, so marketers charged you according to your appearance. Sata would have to do the Christmas shopping, Jason thought. Only women had the sense and patience to comb the market for durable goods at bargain prices. Jason almost wept when he saw mountains of garbage festooned with flies and mice on Water Street, befouling the air with a deadly stench. He couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t Liberians clean at least their capital to redeem their health and self-respect, Jason wondered. Concerted efforts on the part of marketers could do the job. Were they waiting for America to do it for them?
Dark clouds hung over Monrovia again. It began to drizzle. Retracing his steps, Jason took a shortcut up Coleman Hill to Broad Street, where he stood under the eaves of Rivoli Cinema to wait. Though he was a changed man, a newborn, he felt had no choice but to steal. “You can’t be honest in this country even if you want to,” he thought. “My salary as a high school graduate is only one hundred and four Liberian dollars. In American money it’s only two dollars and twenty cents. Yes, I must do it one last time. I will do it on a grand scale and then stop for good. It’s the only way to survive in this unhealthy environment.” Jason recalled the popular Liberian adage, ‘Steal from steal make devil laugh,’ and grinned.
Stealing from Bishop Twan was nothing to fear. The Bishop had gone again to Europe and America to get more donations for war victims which would end up in his pocket and warehouses for his own use. His conscience had never permitted him to investigate or punish workers for robbing him because he knew that THESE THINGS BELONGED TO THE PEOPLE!
Jason thought he now knew the source of his relief after surrendering his arms: It wasn’t his fault to have been born and bred in an environment where corruption ruled supreme. God knew he had wished to make an honest living, but he joined the rebel Taylor’s rebel incursion thinking it’d liberate the nation from corruption and bring about development, but he had recklessly destroyed his own people only to return to power a ruling class distinguished for its roguery, terrorism, profligacy, and murder. But was Taylor doing anything unusual? Had stealing not been a national sport in Liberia since its founding? Robbing the nation’s coffers had been so excessive and disgraceful that a Minister of Finance once set the Finance Ministry on fire to destroy evidence. The Maritime Funds went mostly into private pockets. A Liberian ambassador sold the country’s historic embassy in London for more than ten million dollars and pocketed the money. The list could continue without end.
It wasn’t his fault that his father had failed to send him to school. His Old Man, a Paramount Chief and man of means, collected in his fifteen clans the haunch of every large animal a hunter killed and a bag of rice from each household after every harvest. His mother once told him that, long ago, a hunter had given his father a large diamond he had found in the forest. Lebanese traders in Sanniquellie had said it was worth more than half a million US dollars. Chief Tiah Nyan had given the precious stone to the president who had wined, dined, and lodged him and his entourage in the Executive Mansion for a week, and, as a farewell gesture, sent him off with a brand new Chevrolet and a thousand American bucks. Additionally, the president had offered him a senatorial position for Nimba County, but he’d rather remain “in the bush,” thus missing an opportunity to live in Monrovia where he’d have sent his children to school.
The car was parked as decoration until it turned into rust because there were no viable road to drive it on. As for the money, his Old Man had used it to dowry many more wives who with their parents and relatives had eaten up every cent of it. Chief Nyan had died of common pneumonia. If only he had had an educated son gainfully employed in Monrovia or the Ivory Coast, his life would have been saved. Jason had gone to school in Sanniquellie through his own effort and managed to get only a high school education. Thousands of native sons had the same story to tell, only that in many cases some of them hardly completed high school. When would sanity dictate that the national interest be the priority?
A handful of rebels, some two dozen men had taken the country from the national army all because of personal interest, Jason recalled. When the rebels launched their attack in Nimba, the armed forces—both police and soldiers—had been so busy looting that the rebels had bypassed them, entered Gbarnga, the heart of the country, and killed four hundred government troops. The breakaway faction of the NPFL had wakened the slumbering troops in their barracks at six in the morning. With war at their doorsteps, vigilance was never their concern. Their leader had told the drowsy troops that President Doe had sent them to block Taylor’s advance and that Taylor’s men were poised to attack Gbarnga in a matter of days. They should therefore drill to be in good shape to meet the enemy. These hapless men, many of them in their seventies, had stood in formation for the exercise, only for the rebels to gun them down in cold blood. Sometimes the rebels piled up looted items such as radios, iceboxes, televisions, bales of clothes, furniture, dishes, cartons of drinks, and the like in village squares. Like bug-a-bugs drawn to firelight, both civilians and soldiers scrambled over the bait only to become point-blank targets for the rebels’ guns. The rebels had no problem taking the country from the national army and dividing it among themselves.
“If nobody cares about the nation, why should I?” Jason thought. “Only my feelings hold me hostage for my crimes but not my reasoning, circumstance, or any evidence of patriotism I see in this country.” Jason roused from his depressive reflections at a tap on his shoulder.
“So Dragon Teeth, you mean to say you have put the gun down?” Turning round, Jason spied Brutus’ wizened eyes, famished mien, unkempt hair, and frayed clothing.
“I’m now called Jason, my man,” Jason told his former fighting mate. “Don’t call me by that stupid name anymore.”
“Once a rebel always a rebel, my man!” Brutus insisted, laughing. “You look great, my man! What woman taking care of you?”
“Your heart makes you fat, not food, my man. My conscience is clear.”
“What is conscience? You look worry. Wake up, my man. Our pot coming boil again! Attack going on in Voinjama right now! Mandingo people supported by Guinea want to kill the Papay. They lie! We way fight dem. Papay sending ten truckload of soldier up dere tonight. Jack the Rebel commanding dem. I going way dem.”
“A good talking with you, Brutus,” Jason said. “I on my way to work. Stopped only to wait for the rain; a look like a na coming jesna. I work for Bishop Twan. Goodbye.”
“Do you know da bishops dem behine dis war? De Papay pay dem heavy money to be his agent, but dey always lie to him! Lee dem. When we finish way de Mandingo people we gan gay dem hell. You wan’ end way dem in de same hole? My man, de Mandingo people in Voinjama are rich way diamond. We gan cross over to Sierra Leone and help RUF, den go to de diamond field! Join us, my man! You ain’ wan’ geh rich?”
“Good luck to you, Brutus,” Jason said as he walked away, although it was still drizzling.
“Ha! Ha! Haaaa!” Brutus laughed at him. “Better look for money to geh outruf dis country. You now enemy to you own people!”
When Nimely opened the gate of the parsonage, he seared Jason with shiny eyes and exclaimed, “Ma Christma on you! Ma Christma on you!”
Sewon, who stood at the door scratching his head, came down and snapped Jason's fingers warmly.
“Ma Christma! Ma Christma! Ma Christma on you!” he cried.
“Let’s thank God we’ve lived to see the day,” Jason said. “Life is the most important thing.”
Opening the heavy mahogany door, Jason went straight into the Bishop’s office where he stayed for fifteen minutes and returned, his pants pockets bulging.
“Since Bishop isn’t here I ga noting to do,” he told the guards. “I came only to inspect. I way be back on Christmas Eve. See you people later.”
“The fellow stole!” Nimely told Sewon in Kru, after Jason merged with holiday shoppers going down to General Market. “When he came out of the house, his pockets were loaded with something like money.”
“I noticed it too,” said Sewon. “It will soon rot for us to smell.”
“We told Bishop not to trust that rogue with his keys, but he didn’t listen. The leopard that is friendly is a leopard!”
“They shouldn’t mix us in it, that’s all.”
“God knows our hands are clean. The fellow doesn’t know how to steal. When you steal, share the spoils with people for them to talk for you when things come to focus.”
“That Mano man is dealing! But medicine rots, you know.”
“He’s pressing his luck too hard. The small, small things he has been taking home everyday are not enough. He wants everything! The case will come up when Bishop returns. Our testimonies will send Nyan to jail.”
“You know Bishop. He feels sorry for rogues.”
“I’ll get tough SODs when the case is on. Fellows who are really broke! Who won’t let the matter drop!”
To hurry home, Jason took a taxi. When he gave the money to Sata in the secrecy of their bedroom, she couldn’t believe it. She had never seen such a large sum of money before.
“How you ga all dis money?” Sata whispered fearfully. “Nyan, I hope you haven’t taken the gun again.”
“No, no,” Jason said with nonchalance. “The Bishop is so pleased with my work that he gave me dis money for our Christmas. He kept it in his office and said I should take it a week before Christmas. Make haste and buy plenty of foods and drinks and Christmas things. We way celebrate Christmas de whole week and the next.”
The money amounted to five thousand American dollars, and twenty thousand Liberian dollars. Sata hid the American dollars and used the Liberian money to buy Christmas gifts, food and drinks. Guests praised the choice Liberian dishes she prepared in large amounts: fufu, gaykpaa, dipper, dumboy, and soup; rice with cassava leaves, collard greens, potato greens, bitter balls, bitter leaves, and torborgee stewed with meat, pig feet, and fish. Liquor of all kinds including beer, gin, whiskey, vodka, champagne, and palm wine were available in abundance. Sata gave the guests clothes, radios, perfumes, shoes, and many other things for Christmas presents. During these festivities, no one ever mentioned the name of the person whose birthday they were celebrating. The guests adored Sata and Jason for their prudence, affluence, generosity, and hard work. Some fighters, they said, foolishly spent their money on women, cars, and merry making, but Jason and his beautiful wife had wisely built a house and were taking good care of their people and themselves. God’s richest blessings would always be with them.
Some of Jason’s fighting mates came, too, and like Brutus, invited him to go back to the war. Jason avoided responding to these invitations, either positively or negatively. Before you knew, they’ve got you and your fate was hanging in the balance.
On Christmas Eve, Rebel I Mean To Kill proposed that they climax the celebrations by rounding up Monrovia. Using a Toyota bus he had looted, he transported some fifty men to bars on Broad Street, then Logan Town, then New Kru Town, and finally Hotel Africa where they drank many a shop dry and hijacked drinks from business people. On Christmas morning, Jason had enough time only to run home, bathe, drink a cup of iced water, and go to work.
Arriving at the Bishop’s house by ten, sodden with liquor, he met a large crowd at the gate and in the yard.
"Perhaps they’re here for Christmas presents,” he thought. Pressing his way into the yard, Jason saw Bishop Twan, a white Catholic priest, and four SODs with submachine guns. Nimely and Sewon were in handcuffs. A bitter argument was in progress.
“Bishop, we told you not to bring that rogue to this yard!” cried Nimely. “But you brought him here and gave him your house keys!”
“I can kiss the Bible; I don’t know nothing about your money,” Sewon cried. “Only Jason went into the house when you were away. He is responsible for anything missing there.”
“Good, he is here,” the Bishop said, watching Jason as he climbed to the porch. All eyes turned to Jason inquisitively.
“Officers, please put the people out of the yard and lock the gate,” the Bishop instructed.
“What happened?” Jason asked, looking confused.
“Let’s take the suspects to Headquarters and make them sleep on cold cement tonight. They’ll confess everything tomorrow morning,” the Sergeant said with confidence.
“A large sum of money has been stolen in my office,” Bishop Twan told Jason. “Sewon and Nimely say you alone entered the house in my absence.”
“Bishop, I swear before God I know nothing about your money,” Jason said. “I don’t play in your house when you are absent. I came here only once to inspect.”
“We’ll take you too to Headquarters for questioning, then,” said the Sergeant.
“Bishop,” Nimely said, “I have something to tell you.”
“Go on,” said the Bishop.
“Jason has been celebrating Christmas all week! See crowd of people at his house! Food say, ‘Yeah me!’ Liquor say, ‘Yeah me!’ Smell his mouth. Let de police check behine him.”
“We know how to handle rogue, my man,” said the Captain. “We don’t check behine dem. Where we taking you people, thank God a you live.”
Suddenly there was a piercing cry at the gate, declaring that the Bishop’s mother wanted to see him. The Bishop sent word that he was busy with an investigation. Bishop Twan’s mother had died years ago, but anyone old enough to be his mother claimed the right to call him son. The church bell was ringing. He thought about this and on second thought, he judged that it might be a member of his congregation bringing him a goat or chicken for a Christmas present.
“I’ll be with you people shortly,” he said and went to the gate.
The Bishop searched his memory but couldn’t place the old lady who gazed in his face with a bright smile and bent low.
“Thank you, Bishop! Thank you, God!” she sang, dancing.
“Thank me for what?” the Bishop asked.
Rising and looking at the Bishop’s face with level eyes, the old lady said in Nefu, “My son Jason brought us thousands of dollars and said you sent it for our Christmas. Since the war began this is my first time wearing new clothes. We have food to overflowing. I don’t know how to thank you. May God bless you, my son.”
“Come with me.” The Bishop led the old lady by the hand to the porch.
“Tell me what you said at the gate,” he told her. Everybody watched her in suspense.
“I only came to thank you. My son Jason brought us a whole bag of money and said you sent it for our Christmas.” She smiled with satisfaction for her son’s honor, but Jason looked embarrassed. Before he could say a word, the police released his friends, put him in handcuffs, and dragged him away. Placing her hands on her head, her fingers interlocked, the old lady wept bitterly.
“Gentlemen, wait,” the Catholic priest called the police, who stopped in their tracks and looked at him. “This is only a mistake Jason has made! Country people don’t steal! It’s the war that has made them behave like this. I’ve worked up-country more than fourteen years. You can leave your door open there, spend the whole day on your farm, and come home to meet nothing lost. The country people’s only problem is sex. They don’t even think it a sin. Convincing them that it should take place only in marriage is a big problem. Let the young man repent, bring whatever amount of the money he still has, and be set free. He isn’t a criminal. See how he put his gun down without being forced to do so. He could have kept it and arm-robbed the Bishop without any problem.”
“Father,” the Sergeant said, “our boss wants us to complete this investigation and report to him. When we’re through, see him.” The Sergeant bobbed his head in the direction of the police headquarters.
“Father is right,” said Bishop Twan. “People in this country don’t even wait for Christmas to come before going round telling people, ‘Ma Christma on you! Ma Christma on you!’ They don’t even know it’s Jesus’ birthday. Some steal just to find Christmas presents for friends and relatives! That’s what has put Jason in trouble.”
“You’re right,” agreed the Father. “Jason, when you get out of this trouble, never again bother finding Christmas gift for people. If anyone asks you for it, tell them that God has already given everybody the greatest Christmas present: His son Jesus Christ who came on earth and redeemed us from our sins. And remember whenever you tell the devil ‘No,’ don’t tell him ‘Yes’ again.”
As the SODs took Jason away, Radio Veritas burst out with the popular Christmas carol, “Joy to the world, the Lord has come.” Outside the gate, a group of children were singing “Happy Christma me nor daai-yo!” to the rhythm of empty cans they were tapping.
Late that night the SODs took Jason to his own house and extorted more than three thousand US dollars from Sata, who swore that it was all the money he had given her.
“We couldn’t let our friend suffer in jail,” the SOD Commander told Sata. “All the Bishop knows is that he’s in jail. If he asks us about him we will say he ran away. You people leave the town right away. Give us the keys to your house. We’ll take care of it while you people are away. If you people hang round here and something happens to you, don’t hold us responsible. The police chief will want a million US dollars from you. Failure to pay will mean torture or execution for Jason.”
Jason knew it was a BIG LIE! They’d be the very persons to kill him so that he would not reveal their identities. When the rotten government had been overthrown, the new commanders would seek out people like him for execution. He advised Sata to leave the town for her own safety. It wouldn’t be long for the incoming rebels to take over the country. They had worldwide support. They were mostly NPFL deserters who wanted to dislodge the selfish government they had put into office. He was joining them. “I’ll see you next Christmas,” Jason told her, and left hurriedly for Bomi County which the rebels had overrun.
Sata was beside herself with worry when Jason left. “What our people say is true, then,” she cried inconsolably, “that leopard can’t change his spots.” Vowing never to marry an ex-combatant again, she gave the keys to the rebels, packed up early in the morning, and went home to Bong County with the rest of the family.
“Your life is still before you,” her father comforted her as they rode in a chartered pickup on the bomb-cratered highway. “Thank God they didn’t kill you. What is money or house? This country has spoiled, my child. It will never be the same again. The rebels are already within shooting distance of Monrovia, somewhere round Dimeh on Bomi Highway. Let’s go to Ghana and come back if conditions improve. We must get out of here, for rebels are all the same. They usually promise to do the right thing when they take over the country. Who knew that Taylor and his gang came to spoil this beautiful country and kill everybody? The money they stole from you will soon be a curse on them. Unless they bomb your house, we’ll meet it when we return.”
Copyright © 2005 Wilton Sankawulo
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