“Who is this?” I demanded.  “Who is this?” The shadows of slumber flickered off my eyes. I elbowed my pillow and brought my head to par with the headboard.

The belligerent caller continued to talk. I listened, my face resting on the telephone handset. The pre-dawn silence sucked sweat off my body.  

“You want to play the imitating game on me, eh?  You want to play my game against me, eh?  You cannot figure out what a union is, eh?  Don’t you know that a child who must wear his father’s pants shall have his waist eaten by a rope?  Now, if you don’t stop the madness that I heard you and your union want to make, I will show you why monkeys don’t eat pepper.”

“Who is this?” I growled.

“You are stupid and good for nothing boys!” the gravelly voice said, “That is what you are, right? I see that you cannot handle the Railway Union properly, eh?”

“Who is this!”

“Vistens! Pashaki Vistens!” the voice said.  “You think you can create an impact out of this nonsense?  Well, I have news for you! No two moments are ever quite the same in all of mankind’s history.  I got away with it then because the railway was the only hope of the people.  I was fighting against everything colonial . . . ”

My heart began pounding in its ribcage. I realized beyond any doubt that the chilling voice I was hearing was familiar. The president! It was foolish, but my first reaction was swelling pride at my sudden importance.  

“…everything! I fought against everything colonial in control of my people’s lives!” Pashaki Vistens, the president of the Republic of Yugosoba continued shouting at me.  “I didn’t fight against my people or my people’s leadership.  My cause was genuine, and my struggle had nothing to do with money, sabotage, or that kind of thing.  It was about a people’s freedom.  And that was all it was, nothing more.  That moment is passed—it’s gone forever.  What you and your bunch of thugs are doing right now is nothing other than a civil disturbance.  Believe it or not, none of you will get away with it!”  

I heard the thunder of anger as the caller punctuated his threats by slamming his phone into its cradle.  Suddenly nervous, I struggled to replace my own handset in the dark. What does it mean,  I asked myself, when the highest authority of the land calls your bedroom phone on his private line.  What would happen now?

I was the golden herdsman, president of the railway union. I rubbed elbows with people of power and wealth.  Not being an errand boy, I definitely was someone who had a kind of worth. I was someone others ran to for consultation. That is what I was: a worthy man, a man of the people.  Over five hundred railway workers looked up to me for decisions affecting their lives. To work or not to work; to strike or not to strike; to accept or not to accept; to refuse or not to refuse.  I determined them all.  

But the herdsman too can be scared of the horns of his cattle.  Stop them?  I didn’t know how to change the course of five hundred angry faces dripping hot blood, snarling with clenched fists, humbled only by the fulfilling realization of their own violence!  They called it “spoiling the spoiler and the spoiled.”  Imagine the audacity of authority!  Our union had a legitimate cause and the strike was our resolve. Salaries hadn’t been paid in three months.  On top of that taxes piled up on the unpaid salaries. 

One morning, we were directed to the notice board where we read that retroactive to the first of several yet unpaid months, three new kinds of taxes would be added to the existing four.  This revenue would enable our government to provide us with security, clean drinking water, and other needs at the dock.  The union’s interpretation of the new edict was that salaries were being drastically reduced to speed up the death of every railway worker and every member of his family.  The government provided nothing for anyone, just unpaid salaries, which it regularly decreased with its senseless paperwork full of meaningless jargon. Fires smoldered in the hearts of the workers and anger overflowed the bounds of their souls.  

The government’s new tax notice came down that day in shreds.  The next morning, a new notice went up, handwritten in italics style, probably by the minister of works himself.  That one also, though spared shredding because of its calligraphic beauty, was torn down.  A clerk in the minister’s office passing by picked it up and reposted it on the board, perhaps innocently thinking it had been blown down by the wind.  For three more hours, the notice, now with big boot marks across it, hung on the board, before not just the notice, but the entire notice board, was brought down by some anonymous, angry hand. 

The next day, presented in a more official and impersonal font, a notice was pasted on the bare wall with the warning that the information on it had already been gazetted for national consumption and historical deposit.  That too came down, and in its stead was boldly written: 

The union favors the return
of the colonial masters.
They built the railway,
only they can manage it.

Until that sign went up, the ministry had treated the entire affair as union mischief.  Now an offense had been committed and it was time the union was made culpable.  Next came the summons from the minister.  He wanted me at a meeting at 2:00 p.m. prompt the very day.  The union quickly arranged a meeting of its executives to take place at exactly the same time.  I was expected to honor both meetings, obviously a physical impossibility. Pressured by the union membership, I replied, with great humility, to the minister, telling him that I would be unable to personally attend his meeting in person under the circumstances. I offered to send three delegates in my place. If that was unacceptable, I asked him if he could kindly shift his meeting to another time of his convenience.

My response enraged the minister.  He dispatched a letter disparaging my performance and reminding me that “. . . every citizen is bound to the service of the Yugosoba Government.”  He ordered me to call off all engagements that might conflict with his scheduled meeting, particularly those having anything to do with the union.  Failure to do so would result in my suspension from my work and subjection to the laws of the land.  

When I showed the letter to the union members, they hastily rescheduled our own meeting and whisked me away to it.  I was shown a paper and told to sign.  “Noted and desired,” the paper read. That was my reply to the minister, composed by the union.

On national radio that day, the minister of broadcasting announced two resolutions: the government had banned the union, and its pending national strike was therefore considered illegal.  The next day, the minister of works fired off a letter to the union restating the resolutions.  The letter was copied to the president, parliament, and the court of law. 

The union fired back.  Our letter reiterated our determination to proceed with the strike. That letter was copied to the Queen of Great Britain, her Prime Minister, the American Ambassador, his president, parliament, the court of law, the press (including the BBC), the general public, and whoever happened by the city’s central cotton tree where the letter hung like a crucifix.  

That evening, the national radio applauded the government’s position, and berated the union for being childish and thinking that our letter would get any consideration outside of Yugosoba. 

President Vistens was referring to this madness when he called me on the phone.  Regardless of his outburst, I had always considered Vistens to be personally disinterested in affairs of this nature, and that he knew how to handle them with a minimum of confusion for the benefit of everyone.  As a matter of fact, I thought his involvement in the matter had merely been necessitated to save the skin of his minister – whom the independent press had blasted countless times as being politically immature.  Every paper that came out that week accused the minister of blowing the incident out of proportion.

The president’s threats could have spoiled my day, but I took comfort in the morning papers, which continued to support our action.  My home was no peaceful retreat from the affairs of the union. My two wives were always finding fault with each other, throwing the house into turmoil. Yes, I had two wives, but contrary to the belief of my friend, Konneh, I did not consider my marriages an act of polygamy.  Where I came from, for a man to be considered a polygamist, he had to husband five or more wives, like my father did in his prime.  He had six wives.  In my village, a man who owned big and endless farms, like my father, needed as many hands as he could get. Having multiple mates was the natural course of events. Very quickly, my father’s six wives provided the farms with a huge staff of farm hands. 

 Nevertheless, my wives’ boisterous and incessant hatred of each other continually proclaimed me a polygamist.  If my father’s six wives chose to argue at the top of their voices with each other at the same time, they would not equal the gbongbosoro—chaos of my two wives.  The volume and intensity of their voices caused anyone approaching my household to think that I was married to several dozen women.  Eight unruly children compounded the quarrel between my wives.  Perhaps it was the uneven biological distribution of our offspring that caused the trouble among them: six to the elder wife and two to the younger.  Sometimes, when the heat was too much and the house shook with feminine antagonism, I starved for weeks on end, plagued with various kinds of hunger.

That morning after the broadcast, I was confused about how to personally deal with the issue, especially now that it involved the president. I was by myself in my room all day, drinking palm wine and wondering what to make of the president’s threatening telephone call.  At first, I decided against disclosing the president’s call to the union for fear that they would react foolishly, or to Konneh, my journalist friend, for fear that he would write all kinds of things about it.  There are times, I believe, when a shepherd leads his sheep from the back.  That was what I had done until the president’s call. But at last I felt I needed a smart confidante to help me work out the problem, so I sent my eldest son to invite Konneh to drink palm wine with me.  After all, Konneh already knew everything about the union from previous interviews.

Presently I heard approaching footsteps. “Some sober man is waiting outside to talk to you,” Mabinty, my first wife said, peeking into my room.  “Like always, he is here to make a man out of you.  How can I ever thank the Lord for someone like him who is helping you open your eyes to see reason?”

“Who is it waiting for me?”  I asked. Ignoring my question, Mabinty walked away.  Of course I knew at once to whom she was referring.

 I met Konneh sitting in the living room.  Konneh was the only man who had tried to stop me from marrying my second wife, and just for his effort, unsuccessful though it was, Mabinty held him in high esteem.  When I crossed paths with Mabinty in the parlor again, I told her that Konneh had come to interview me for a biographical sketch to be published in his newspaper.  

Although I didn’t write too well, I hated anyone putting words on paper and asking me to claim authorship of them.  I hoped Konneh wouldn’t ask me to do that. We were childhood friends who went to school together. He was the smarter, and I the stronger.  We always argued about issues of brains and brawn.  Toward the end of our teenage years we agreed that an endowment of both brains and brawn made one a genius, while an endowment of either of the two could make one a hero. He went on to the University of Yugosoba, and I made my way to the railway.  By the time I was president of the union, he had risen through the ranks of journalism. 

My success was measured by my title. Konneh’s success was measured in numbers: three beatings (one leaving him with a broken ankle), five lock-ups (one that ran two years for libel against the son of a nephew of the spokesman of the first vice president’s friend), and one award from the West honoring fearless journalists in third world countries.  

“What would you do with a threat like that from the president?”  I asked him, after providing the details of my early morning telephone conversation.

“The question is for you to answer.”  He then asked,  “What would you do?”  He took a big sip of his palm wine and waited for my answer.

“No.  Don’t play the interviewer tonight.  You know I value your take on things like this,” I insisted.

“Do you really?  Oh, but of course I know you do, only you don’t have the guts to think, even imagine, that you could do things my way,” Konneh said.

“Our situations, you know, aren’t quite the same.”

“I don’t understand what you mean by that,” he said, puzzled by my remark.  “Like you, I have my life on the line in what I do,” the fearless reporter explained.

“That is it!” I shouted.  “You and I have our lives on the line, but maneuvering is obviously more difficult for me.  You can simply sit there in that chair and singularly decide on how you want your writing to appear in tomorrow’s issue of your newspaper, but I have hundreds of people to consult before I sanction any event or action.”

“Very well, very well,” Konneh said and held up his hands.  “You are beginning to sound very much like them now,” he picked up his glass and took a sip.

“Like whom?” I asked.  

Konneh leaned forward in his chair and glared at me.  “Like the ones you and I are supposed to be fighting against for what they are putting the country into,” he practically spewed the words toward my face.

I shifted a little in my chair.  “Perhaps I’m not fighting against anyone,” I protested.  

“Either way, you remind me of Vistens.  Aren’t you both presidents?” he asked.  

“I will ignore that missile, and spare with you its response, I replied.  Just answer my question.”  Reaching for my glass, I laughed at his sarcasm.  

He patiently finished his last few sips of wine, set the glass down, leaned back in his chair, and stared out across the room as he thought.  “What would I do, you want to know?” he finally said.  “You know I am not you, and you know what I would do.  I would fire back.”

“Look, this is no journalistic exchange to impress the public,” I admonished.  “And when it’s over, I would still like to have every part of my body intact.”

“Kandeh, can’t you see you are in the wrong room?” he shook his head patiently.  “You are lucky to have people around you who are interested in waking the dead person inside you.  People read your name every day in the papers, yet they don’t realize that you do not exist!”

“You think I’m dead?” I asked, charging from my chair with a new resolve.  “Well I got news for you, Konneh.  Vistens just knocked on my grave.”  

“Then I’ll ask you this,” he said.  “When are you going to resurrect?”

I looked at him in the eyes and could tell that he meant business. I was inspired by his fearless personality. I decided then and there that for once it would be fun to move against the gods of the country.  I said almost in a whisper, “Have you got ink in your pen?”  

“What colors do you want your name in?” asked Konneh.

“Build me a rainbow,” I replied, and gulped my glass of palm wine.

“You just got one up in the sky,” he said.  “Just don’t forget the light that burns behind it. Lazarus, walk forth!”  

In that instant my wife, Mabinty, passed through the room like a polar sun that rises and sets in an instant.  She fixed me with her gaze, but spoke to my best friend.  “Konneh, do teach him how to be a man both at home and in the streets,” she said as she went into the house.

“Is the war still raging between them?” Konneh, smiling, asked after Mabinty had disappeared.

For a moment, I felt the embrace of home and friendship blocking out the tension and trepidation my new resolve had stirred in me.  “You tell me when it will end,” I laughed and poured him another glass of wine.

“It will end whenever you want it to end, Kandeh.  Remember, a man in your position and with a political future such as the one ahead of you ought to set an example of being smart right from the home.”

“Are you saying our fathers were not smart when they married many wives?” I lowered my head and looked at him from beneath my brow.  “I hope the ways of the white man have not settled too deeply into that head of yours.”

Konneh waved his hand and shook his head in rebuttal.  “Kandeh, do not confuse our days with the social lives of our forefathers, or even our fathers when they were in their prime.  Many things that were socially accepted yesterday just cannot fit in today’s society.”

“Why not?” I asked.  We had approached this theme many times from many angles.  “Is it because the white man came and confused you?  Tell me, what is the difference between the white man who has a wife and many concubines, and myself with only two wives and no concubine?”

Konneh took a sip of his wine before answering.  “Now listen to this carefully.  The difference between that white man—and I’ll not even say a white man—the difference between the wise man with a wife and concubines, and you with two wives is that he keeps his troubles apart while you bring them together under one roof.  You will never have peace in your home unless—and I must warn you, because your success with this railway struggle will depend on this—unless you resolve the situation under your roof.”

My heart missed a beat, but I was not going to let Konneh achieve a victory on one issue by appealing to another.  Draining my glass, I picked up the jug of palm wine and looked at it with mock seriousness.  “If you’re not going to stay on topic, then perhaps we should change the topic.  I suggest the topic of palm wine,” I said as I began to pour.  

Konneh laughed out loud.

There ensued a conversation taking in all aspects of the palm wine we were sharing: its potency, flavor, color, and the merits of its effects on the spirit and on friendship.   We finished the palm wine and had dinner.  Shortly afterwards, Konneh left.

I went to sleep thinking that the next day, being Saturday, would give me time to mull over all that had happened during the past few days.  Although the railway operated on weekends, the union executives met only on weekdays, unless there was an emergency.  As president of the union I never worked on the dock.  I spent all my time managing the union from my office.  I was told that Vistens had fought hard for that arrangement when he was head of the union.  There had been twelve union leaders between him and me. I was the first union president to foment a crisis—as the president of the nation himself believed—by calling for a strike. I’d had advice from many people regarding the upcoming strike, but I’d only discussed the telephone call with Mabinty and now Konneh.

That Saturday morning, the house was left to Mabinty and me. Yeabu, my second wife, and the kids had gone to the market because it was her turn to cook. I lay on my bed staring up at the ceiling and thinking about the turn of events.  Mabinty came into the room and sat on the edge of the bed.  She soothed my tormented mind with her words.  I had told her that my heart was heavy about the strike.  She wanted me to go ahead with it because the union was for it, and I would only get into trouble if I betrayed them.  Of course, I myself was in favor of the strike, but with a telephone line across my throat, I didn’t know how to handle the situation. 

Mabinty climbed on top of me in the bed and began feeling for my heartbeat like a physician, all the time repeating that I need not be worried and that everything was going to be fine.  I was about to express my doubts on the subject, but just then she slid her hand into my pants.  We eyed each other and laughed.  Since I had married Yeabu a few years before, I had divided myself between the two of them three nights at a time.  The truth was that I had long ago noticed how that marriage had considerably diminished the verve Mabinty once had.  Now there we were hot in the quickness of emotions, and I was seeing a hint of her former self emerge.  Yeabu had only begun her three nights with me, and, as per our household’s understanding, Mabinty was supposed to have nothing to do with me sexually until her turn came about.  The thought that the two wives were fire to each other did not elude me.  

“I know how we used to be when it was just the two of us,” I began.

“The thought, just the thought of you on her . . .” Mabinty breathed.

“Don’t start anything, Mabinty.  You know it’s not . . . ”

She massaged my crotch.  When she unzipped my pants and went to it with her mouth, I groaned in pleasure, shedding my hesitation.  She had never done that before.  I allowed both of us to luxuriate in the new sensation before finally pulling her up to me.

“Not that I’m objecting,” I said.  “But what brought that on?”  

“I have to start doing the things that have made you love her more than you love me,” Mabinty pouted.

 “Do not think like that, Mabinty.  You and Yeabu are two different people.”

“Yes, I know how you think we are different.  You think I am very, very old and she very, very young.  Try me.”

She caressed me until I felt fire creeping through my flesh.  Blood rushed into my head and my mouth watered for her.  We hurriedly shed our clothes and went to it.  I certainly hadn’t planned this and I don’t think she had either.  A thousand stars were popping inside my head when the door flew open, and Yeabu entered. 

One wife had caught me having an affair with the other wife. Was that so bad?  No. No? 

Yeabu held the door wide open.  We could hear the children approaching.  I recovered from my shock and told her to shut the door.  With a rage very much like that of a wounded lion, Yeabu released the door and entered charging at us.  The door slammed shut behind her.  She pushed Mabinty off me.

“You whore!  Can’t you wait for your turn?”  

“What do you mean?  Is he not my husband too?”  Mabinty hurriedly began to dress.  

I went cold.  

“Whose three nights are these?  Can’t you go sleeping with your dirty boyfriends in the meantime?”

“Who has boyfriends like you?  Mabinty retorted.  “Besides, the turns were meant to be at night only.  During the day either of us can have him.”

Yeabu paused maybe half a second as if she might buy that logic. “Do you always feel scratchy and cannot wait for your turn?” said my younger wife.  “What is wrong with your womanhood?  Are you a whore?” Her eyes were burning with anger.

“It is you who are the whore, obo!” Mabinty shouted from the other side of my bed.

“Now tell me who is stealing the turn of her mate?  Who?  Tell me.  You are a daylight thief, that’s what you are!” Yeabu was now rudely clapping her hands.

“He is my man too!  He is not yours alone!”  

“But you should wait for your turn, a thief like you.  Don’t we both have turns with him?” Yeabu shouted back.

I was thrown overboard with confusion.  Although they had always fought like cats and dogs, Mabinty and Yeabu had never been this wild with each other.  They’d now tripled the impact my father’s six wives would have made in their quarrels all against each other at the same time. To think that the argument had to do with sex.  I was embarrassed, hoping our neighbors wouldn’t hear them quarrelling.  I scrambled out of the bed and began pulling on my clothes.

I have to admit that it was very clear that I loved Yeabu more.  I had only been married to Yeabu three years then, and she was ten years younger than Mabinty. I always looked forward to Yeabu’s three nights.  Before I married Yeabu, there were periods of three nights, four nights, even a week, when Mabinty and I did nothing in bed other than sleep.  Since my second marriage, if I only slept through my three nights with my first wife, she would cry and complain bitterly, hinting that Yeabu was sucking me dry.  I always lied to her that I had also left Yeabu alone during her previous three nights, but she never believed me.  For one thing, during Yeabu’s three nights I went to bed early, while on Mabinty’s nights I encouraged her to sit with me over palm wine discussing things of yesteryears until very late.

“Witch!  Oh, you witch!  You have bewitched Kandeh!” Mabinty shouted.

I choked with embarrassment.  Peering through the window, I caught a glimpse of a neighbor’s inquisitive face.  I wanted to tell him that if he was so interested in my household, maybe he should stick his nose in my lavatory.  Instead, realizing that the children were listening to every word, I redirected my anger to them. I opened the door and shouted at them to go to the back and not to sit in the parlor eavesdropping on adult matters.

From over the fence of my compound came a burst of dirty laughter.  More neighbors had been alerted.  I held up a patriarchal hand and ordered my wives to stop, but I couldn’t stop Yeabu, who was out-talking Mabinty.  At first Mabinty listened to my command.  As usual, Yeabu was only infuriated by my voice. Mabinty could no longer restrain herself.  Stretching like a snake, she grabbed Yeabu by her dress and pulled her to the ground.  Then she reached for a chair and clubbed her on the head.  Yeabu staggered and groaned at my feet.  Stooping, she pushed Mabinty and registered three blows on her face.  Although blood ran from both their noses, I was the most helpless of the three, pained more by the dirty laughter of my neighbors than by the foolishness of my wives. The first thought that came to my angry head was to shout at my neighbors out the window and threaten them by telling them that I could torment their lives with only one call to the office of the president if they didn’t go away.  That was foolish of me, but it was the thought that welled up in my angry and tormented mind.

I lost the opportunity that weekend to think about the matter of the union and the president’s threatening phone call. In their anger, my wives shut the doors of their rooms against my face, and I was left sprawled on the living room floor, beaten down without having been touched by a single fist, and more confused than I had been in the morning. During the night though, I had time to talk with most of my executive colleagues on the phone.  I told them about the call from President Vistens, but stopped short of telling them about his threats or the problem in my home.  My colleagues suggested an emergency meeting with the membership the next day to address the issue before our strike. 

That night I dreamed President Vistens and his entourage visited me at home.  He and I embraced in the middle of my compound.  He told me he knew the troubles involved in leading over five hundred unruly workers in a union like that of the railway.  He offered me a deal.  If I convinced the union to accept the proposed taxes, he promised to seat me in his political corridor and reward me at the appropriate time. He asked me to respond.  For a while I lost myself in an imaginary political corridor where I found myself among giants who were already household names in the country.  If I were seated in the president’s corridor, I would be on my way to beating all odds and becoming a household name myself.  I beheld the many eyes of the president’s men, their broad smiles, exposing brilliant canine teeth.  However, as soon as I began to address the president, the painful sting of a mosquito startled me from my sleep.

On Monday morning, without thinking about my unfinished dream or my wives’ quarrel, I hopped in a taxi and went to meet my colleagues at the main station dock.  As I approached, they broke into a victory song.  Banners calling for the lifting of the ban on the union were mounted in the sky.  I hadn’t given a thought to the ban on the union because I figured that if the president had called and talked to me about cooling the steam, the two sides were bound to reach a compromise in spite of his threat.

A long line of train coaches stood idly on the tracks.  The trains that were supposed to have left that morning for the Marampa mines and the diamond town of Kono were motionless.  After breaking off the song, the men informed me that the minister was the first to arrive at the facility that morning.  He and his men had barred workers from entering the building.  An hour had gone by before I arrived.

I was still trying to understand the situation when the minister stepped out of the building.  Following close behind him were clerks and police officers.  He carried a thick wad of papers that he carefully flipped through before raising his head to address me.

“Mr. Kandeh Kargbo, shouldn’t you have announced your arrival here?” he asked.  

“Oh, I don’t usually do that, and besides, I’m just arriving.  I’m surprised to see you here this morning, Mr. Minister, sir,” I replied humbly.

 “Let’s put it this way, I am going to be physically in charge of the docks for now,” he informed me, adding, “I think matters have slipped out of your control.” Rumor had it that President Vistens had picked this loud mouthed officer from the military and made him minister of works in order to control the union with a fist.

 “We want to ensure,” the minister continued, “that responsible railway workers are given the opportunity to serve their country.  We are not happy that these trains are standing here while innocent villagers are left miles away deprived of their rights.”

I stepped away from the crowd and approached him.  “But the union, sir, has…”

“Ah, yes!  The union, did you say?  The union is banned for now.  I wish to deal with every one of you individually, but only as workers of the government,” he said, moving away from me and talking to the crowd of workers.  I realized at once that he had singled me out only to squeeze out any power I might have left in me and to put fear into the hearts of the five hundred others, many of who were illiterate.  

He held up a loudspeaker and began to talk: “We have to ensure that this station is functioning again in the next hour.  Workers are free to make individual choices, but whoever wants to return to work must sign a copy of the new government contract I am holding here.  It states among other things that railway workers will remain loyal to the government and will individually be responsible for any of their actions.  All those who wish to keep their jobs beginning the next hour must sign the new contract with the police officers in the booth across the tracks.  Let me warn those of you who don’t read and write that the main clause in the new contract also asks you to withdraw your membership from the union.  I must add here that a more deserving union will later be constituted by government.”

I turned to look at my partners. A deep silence wedged in their faces.  Most of their banners had already fallen from the sky.  Those who still dared to hold theirs up held them unsteadily.  A few of the men, broken and disheartened, began to walk toward the other side of the tracks to sign the new contract. 

My torment mixing with anger, I returned my eyes to the bright-faced minister.  “None of my members is going to look at your contract or sign it, Mr. Minister!”  I barked, trying to keep even with his loudspeaker. A few grunts of support belched from behind me.  When I turned to make an estimate, the number was encouraging; even those who had already moved toward the tracks paused.  I knew I needed to push more to diminish the strength of the minister, just as he had attempted to diminish mine.

“Kandeh, are you aware of the sort of trouble into which you are leading these men and yourself?  There is no reason to try to be what you can never be.  You certainly cannot obstruct a government that must do its work,” the minister growled.

His first mistake was, not talking to me through his loudspeaker.

“It is you who are obstructing justice, Mr. Minister,” I said.  “And like I told you, my colleagues won’t even read your contract.  We wish to have an audience with a responsible official who will democratically address our grievances.”

The minister swiftly turned to the police officers and whispered to them.  I had seen his eyes widen at my use of the word “democratically,” which the Vistens government had long ago redefined to suit their dictatorial tendencies. 

Turning toward me, the minister said, “I consider your behavior disrespectful to a senior government authority.  At this hour, I order you to leave the premises of this station or else.”  

“Not until your authority pays me my rightful due,” I said, almost singing the words. “That money for which I have worked the past three months to provide for my family; even if it is only a tenth of your salary, it will make my family as happy as yours.”

He paused, stupefied.  I’d squeezed him by the balls! My colleagues roared in support of me.  The police surged.  I stood my ground and continued to stare at the minister.

 “You know Mr. Minister,” I began.  “Perhaps I should inform you that the president has offered to do the right thing,” I lied.  “He has offered to discuss this matter with us.  He called me up on the telephone.”

“That would be in your dreams, Mr. Arrogant! The minister bellowed.  “I can see the publicity you want around you.  A man must regard himself in the mirror before he thinks about moving a mountain.  May I inform you that I have not come here for jokes and wishful thinking?  Everything I do here is approved by my president,” his words were firm, but his voice was certainly less authoritative.

Suddenly, a man dashed from inside the office and whispered into the minister’s ear.  Doubt clouded the minister’s face.  He conferred briefly with the police then disappeared into the office.  While we waited, my men released some of their tension with whispers of encouragement, urging each other to disobey the minister.

The morning had drifted into noon. The sun couched itself in the center of the sky.  A large mass of clouds were advancing like an army.  The hills crouched in defensive silence as though they were all waiting for my command.  At short intervals, union members came up to me and commended me for what they referred to as my “wisdom and bravery.”   

After some interminable minutes, a man in a dark suit appeared at the door and conferred with the police officers.  My heart nearly stopped.  I was familiar with police brutality.  I had seen their efforts on the bare back of my friend, Konneh: the deep valleys of blood across his arms and the lacerations on his face.  For the most part, I was not worried much about police brutality because there were only five of them at the meeting, all of them unarmed.  I quickly sent a few of my men to comb the area to see if there were any snipers in the area.  They came back saying there were none.  Finally, one police officer calmed the crowd, asking us to grant audience to the dark suited man.

“Gentlemen,” he cleared his throat.  “I will make this brief.  The minister has just consulted with the State House, and regarding your grievances, he wishes the union to know that your executive members have been granted a presidential audience tomorrow at 2:00 p.m.  Only your executive members shall attend that meeting, and—”

Whatever he said afterward didn’t reach the crowd.  How I found myself on the shoulders of two of my colleagues, I can’t explain.  The crowd broke into our victory song, marching out of the station with me in the air, and replacing all the banners in the sky.  On the roadsides, idle and destitute youth who displayed a perfect picture of the shame of the nation’s economic adversity loitered. I myself was noted for drawing government attention to this particular adversity.  Those destitute children joined the crowd and heightened the refrain of my victory.

Our new victory and our jubilation in the streets during the day kept a broad smile on my face while I slept that night.  When I could sleep.  Yeabu was all over me.  Before getting up from bed, we made love with electric passion to make up for the nights of deprivation following what she called “cheating” and I called “jealousy.”  The following morning I requested from my brew master a bigger jug of palm wine to charge my head and to develop the courage in me for the proposed meeting with the president, the feared bone breaker.  I sent my eldest son to invite Konneh to share my wine.

While I waited for Konneh, I thought of all that had happened and was about to happen, either in reality or in my prophetic dreams. I had dreamed of a presidential visit to my house on one day, and the next day I would receive an invitation to go and meet the president.  My mind wandered. Was I really going to be politically great?  Was I going to be a minister and garner huge amounts of money and worldwide fame?  Was I going to be great – great and fine?  To ensure that I said nothing to destroy my good fortune before the president, I wrote my speech carefully.  Konneh was supposed to edit it, and I would caution him to divorce his radical views from my conservative ones, just in case he was tempted to shower my speech with his poisonous leftist ideas and obstruct my opportunity.  I have to confess that I feared Konneh’s pen.  It had led me into trouble many a time, but at the same time, I had great admiration for his insight.

I was beginning to wonder why my son was taking so long in bringing me back word from Konneh when I saw him, running breathlessly from Konneh’s compound.  I thought what a fine sprinter he was, although I hadn’t tried to develop his talent.  That little detail would be taken care of when I made it into the president’s circle and was on my way to becoming rich and powerful.  Wasn’t my son himself fit to be sent abroad to be educated with state money for the benefit of the nation?  We were going to see about the possibilities.

My son was still out of breath when he reached me.  Exhausted, he managed to sputter that I should go into hiding at once. What was wrong with him, I wondered.  

“You have to hide, dad. Quickly!  They are coming after you,” he gasped.

“Coming after me?  Who are?  And what for?”  

“They—they—they just murdered uncle Konneh!”  

“They just—what did you say?”  My muscles tensed and my head spun.

“I don’t know—but there are some men out there—screaming for your blood, and—”  

Without warning the gates of my compound flew open.  Plainclothesmen armed with guns invaded the pathways.  Sporadic firing sent my family running for safety.  What seemed like big bottles of fire went up in the air and landed on the roof of my house.  I caught sight of my eldest son jumping over the fence.  My wives and my other children were trapped inside the burning house.  The rooms filled with black smoke.  

I choked as I made my way into the house, cautious of the danger ahead of me but at the same time frantic to save my family.  Three rooms yielded no sign of them.  In the fourth, I felt someone on the edge of the bed.  It was Yeabu.  I carried her out of the room feeling for her pulse and was happy that she was alive.  I breathed into her mouth and she gasped.  I hurriedly helped her through a window and followed after.

From afar, I saw the house consumed by fire.  The fence was completely broken.  I hid in a derelict house from where I monitored events.  After the assailants left, I returned to continue the search for the rest of my family. All I remembered afterward was receiving a blow to my head that threw me to the ground unconscious.  When I opened my eyes later, I was in the company of my union executive members at the home of one of them.  Apparently a group of them had rescued my family and had found me unconscious.  Still worried about the danger, they had divided my family into two groups between the households of two colleagues.  

Yeabu and her two children and one of Mabinty’s children were with me, while Mabinty and the rest of her children had been taken to another location.  The decision was made to separate my family into two halves so that if the left hand of fate fell on any one half, the other might still survive to ensure that my family tree continued to grow.  

Mabinty, I was told, had been reluctant to be the one separated from me.  She had demanded to be with every one of her kids in the event that fate should wrap its hand around her.  She had been so uncompromising that my colleagues had to remind her that the kids she was making a fuss about were also mine, and that all my friends were doing was trying to save lives. It was obvious that they didn’t read the truth in Mabinty’s face.

I was angry and sad when I learned the reason for the attack that had cost Konneh his life.  That morning, his newspaper had hit the stand with the interview he had done with me.  My colleagues were able to secure copies of it before the ruthless forces of President Vistens stormed through the city beating vendors and readers who had it in their possession.  I was pictured on the front cover on the shoulders of two men with an inset of President Vistens on the left and a bold headline underneath that read:  TWO PRESIDENTS IN A HOT CONTEST.

Konneh had written:

For the first time in the history of post-colonial Yugosoba, democracy is poised to be tested to the benefit of all black Africa.  The single-party government of President Vistens has been challenged on the principles of good governance, justice, and the culture of genuine representation by the most powerful pressure group in the country, the Railway Workers’ Union. 

This unprecedented chapter in our nation’s history threatens to expose the abuse of power in government departments, the yellow cry of the helpless poor constantly brutalized by a government they voted in power.

  Many years ago, President Vistens was born by the oars of unionism to topple the government of Prime Minister Magran.  He had lured the nation into a trap and had subjugated democracy by announcing a single-party system of government.  Couched in State House today and fearing that history is about to repeat itself, he trembles and perspires under the cracking force of the Railway Union.  The president has manipulated every wing of government including the black-robed legislators to dance to his tune, but the union remains resilient in the face of this dictatorship!

  The leadership of Kandeh Kargbo, the poor man’s hope and humble servant of the basic principles of democracy and communalism, has impressed everyone with the successful struggle of the Railway Workers’ Union to have government see reason and run their affairs humanely.  Kandeh Kargbo and his union are on course.  When you hear the whistle blow nine hundred miles, they are the ones on track and riding on the train!

In the afternoon, word came to us that the general membership of the union had defied my plea to stay action.  About four hundred men took to the street protesting everything, from the killing of Konneh to questions about the legitimacy of the Vistens government.  An hour later the crowd grew to thousands.  The government responded by sending its military after the crowds.  The city was nearly brought to its knees with blood sprinkling everywhere.  Following the funereal silence after the guns, government declared a dusk to dawn curfew a few hours later.  The national radio blamed the disturbance on the union one thousand times over.  That evening, the president was on the radio for what seemed like forever.  

“Fellow countrymen,” he began his broadcast,  “This is your president talking to you with a heavy heart.  We had awakened from sleep this morning with every expectation we would live happily through today just like we have always done under the protection of my government.  We were never aware that we had among us satanic enemies born from the womb of hell.  They decided today to turn our beloved country into a war zone.  These men engaged our security forces in combat without regard to the innocent lives around us.  We are grateful to our ever loyal forces which have captured these men and taken them into custody.

  “My government will interpret the laws of the land to bring them to justice.  While a few of them remain in hiding, my government is searching for the leading criminal, the notorious and unpatriotic Kandeh Kargbo.  I entreat you all as good citizens to assist the law enforcement officers tracking down and stopping these dangerous men.  I will read you a note I received from the majority of the membership of the railway workers appealing on behalf of the larger body of the union who never supported Kandeh Kargbo and his small group of thugs.  The note says, ‘It is sad when men who cannot control their own homes undertake to lead the public lives of other men.  Very soon they destroy all the values of the society.  This is exactly what Kandeh Kargbo, the self-styled leader of the railway union, has done. Kargbo, a man with six wives and countless number of children, is corrupt, inept, and dangerous.  He has embezzled union funds since forcing himself upon us.  He slept under a roof which he had very little control over because all he was interested in doing was taking a new wife every year.  The members of his household always fought with each other and have terrorized the entire neighborhood.  Kargbo constantly threatened helpless parents to turn over their teenage daughters to him.  Sometimes he indeed used force to own these innocent girls whom he kept as sex slaves. We workers of the railway are calling on every Yugosobian to rally behind President Vistens.  He not only provided the railway with exemplary leadership during his time as a railway worker and leader of the union, but also he is currently serving the nation better than any leader this nation has ever had.’  

“Fellow Yugosobians, this letter was given to me by the law-abiding citizens working at the railway. Furthermore, fellow citizens, my government has deliberated the liabilities involved in running the age-old railway station.  Last year alone, my government invested eighteen million in the railway, and what was its income?  It was only a total of seven million.  For the past five years, each year has been worse than the year before it.  We are aware of the mass manufacturing of motor cars, trucks, and buses in Europe and other places.  My government has held consultations with all the wings of government, traditional chiefs, and you the voters, as to the viability of keeping and running these colonial trains.  As a democracy we have listened to your responses that it is not profitable to keep a broken system running.  Therefore, fellow citizens over the next six months, we will begin to phase the railway out of service in this country.  This exercise will end in less than one year.  The country shall enjoy a constant supply of private and public vehicular transportation from Britain and Japan.” 

And so, Vistens droned on. Tears filled my eyes. I mourned Konneh. I mourned Yugosoba.