Caught in the middle

When I was two years old, I waddled with total oblivion into our neighbours firing bullets at each other.

On one end of the dirt compound was Corporal Salim, the tall and lanky Nubian soldier, who everyone in the barracks called “Brown” because of his skin complexion that was too bright for a man of his tribe. He paced, barefooted, this way and that way, his eyes lit with a red fury and the skin over his cheek bones burning with it.

As he walked, Brown’s unbuttoned grey shirt flew behind him to reveal his hairy belly that sank into his backbone. His faded military trousers, which he pulled up often, hung loose around his waspish, almost ladylike waist.

On the other end was Murefu -sized, coloured and shaped like a roasted coffee bean. He walked with an exaggerated limp, the result of a bullet wound at the back of his thigh, acquired from an unspecified battle many years prior. His nickname, which is Kiswahili for “Tall” was a punchline at the end of the joke that was his height.

Shouting in their loud, masculine voices, Brown and Murefu took turns coming out from behind the wall on either side of the housing unit, motioning with strong gestures at each other, and fleeing when the other’s violent pop of the gun rang out in the air.

In my two-year-old eyes, everything was happening at supersonic speed. I remember being so fascinated by the spectacle that I sat down, and stopped to watch. I would turn my head left and hear from the tall, yellow soldier, then turn right and hear from the short one, before a bullet was fired and they would both disappear. The entire time I just sat there, eyes transfixed upon the dramatic scene.

At some point -and to date I do not know why I did it- I got up on my feet and walked towards Murefu. My mother tells me that I might have done so because he is the one I liked better of the two; that because he was lame, he moved around less and so spent most of his time at home. Because of that he often sat longer with me and also played with me more.

I remember with vivid accuracy, walking up to him and lifting my hands to be carried, only to be ignored. Instead, he raised the gun above my head and fired. A shrill wail escaped my mouth, as I felt the ground beneath me shake like an earthquake and the whole world go quiet in an instant.

Right after, before I could make sense of what had happened, I felt my small feet lift off the ground and my body float in the air. A cool wind rushed past my ears, and I saw a haze of green and brown everywhere. The familiar scent of my mother’s hair gel came up to my nose, and like instinct had seared it into my conscience, I leaned my head against her chest and immediately stopped crying.

My mother, shaking all over, dashed into the house and curled herself up in a corner in the kitchen, wetting my forehead with her warm tears and muttering unintelligible words over my head.

To date, it is still etched in my memory the sensation of my little body bundled tight in the grip of her maternal strength.