1501107836 (N) by Mary -Louise Parker

Author:Mary -Louise Parker [Parker, Mary -Louise]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Dear Rafiki Yangu,

How’d you get so happy?

Maybe you could always get everyone to join you on the dance floor, even when there is no dance floor.

Last Thanksgiving, we were all around that coffee table in the living room. Some people were on the rug, others in a heap on the couch. The kids got to stay up late. You played your adungu, the homemade Ugandan harp. Starting with a song in Swahili, you tried to get Hunter to join in, remember? He was too humble and wanted you to sing, but you wouldn’t take no. You went on your knees, pleading, “Siiiing something, Hun-ter, siiiiing out, my brother . . .” Leaning across that table until you were up in his face, your singing dropped to a whisper and then rose to a howl. You sang that one line, entreating him to join you in Swahili, and then English, you lay down and sang it old and frail and jumped up and made it funky like James Brown. Hunter was holding his stomach, laughing so hard, and you’d both put back some Ugandan gin, I won’t say how much. That was the highlight of the party. Everyone sprang to life despite being spent from all the pie and Thanksgiving haiku.

It could be that you’ve always had that pied piper thing, but your life took a hairpin turn when you were so young. I can’t imagine there were any parties for a long time after that. There was too much to do.

When you threw down your weapon mid-battle you had to be quick, or the rebel army who kidnapped you might catch you. They would surely kill you in ways that would make you wish during your death that you’d never been born. What they did to escaped child soldiers is so far off the scale in terms of human atrocity that I can’t believe I was alive anywhere drawing a safe breath while that was happening somewhere else. I can’t hold those images in my consciousness and sustain the idea of a benevolent creator, but your faith does not waver. You believe in God.

You live as a free man now. “Free man” might be a relative term for some men, but not you. There is being kidnapped, brainwashed, and tortured, and there is escaping that. There is stowing away in a truck that you hope will bring you to safety, and when that truck is overtaken, the canisters of paraffin that you hide behind are pierced and the wax inside burns you so severely that your skin bleaches white. You are disfigured but it is temporary, more important that you run, and are free. You go looking for a distant relative who takes you in and gives you a mat to sleep on. There is a roof over your head and no gun acting as your pillow. You are free to work, and work is now freedom, even though you carry buckets through the slums for pittance and for more hours a day than most people are awake.

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