Chapter 2

By the time they reached the barracks, Kofi’s legs had gone numb and his shirt was stiff with dust. The barracks were long low buildings of concrete block, their roofs patched with corrugated iron. A flagpole stood in the middle of a courtyard of packed red earth, and beyond the fence, the land flattened out toward a line of hills that looked blue in the fading light.

They were given a meal of rice and beans in a hall that smelled of disinfectant and old grease. Kofi sat with two boys from his village, Kwame and Yaw, who had been in the truck but had not spoken until now.

“You think they feed us like this every day?” Kwame asked, scraping the bottom of his tin plate.

“No,” Yaw said. “My cousin came through here two years ago. He said the first meal is always good. After that, you get what you get.”

Kwame looked at his empty plate with new suspicion.

After the meal, they were assigned to huts. Kofi’s was the third in a row, a narrow room with four iron beds and a single window with no glass. He took the bed nearest the door and set his father’s bag on the floor beside it. The other three beds were claimed by a tall recruit named Osei, a quiet one called Fiifi, and a boy so young-looking that Kofi assumed he had lied about his age. His name was Kojo, and he said nothing at all, only sat on his bed with his knees drawn up.

Osei was the first to speak. He was from the coast, from a fishing town Kofi had never heard of, and he talked the way some people breathe, without effort. He told them about his father’s boat, about the time he had caught a barracuda longer than his arm, about a girl named Abena who worked at the market and had promised to wait for him.

“She will not wait,” Fiifi said, from his bed. It was the first thing he had said all evening.

Osei laughed. “She will wait. I sent her a letter before I left.”

“One letter,” Fiifi said.

“One letter is enough.”

Kofi listened without joining in. He thought of his mother, of the candle she would be lighting right now, of Ama who would be asking where he was. He thought of the cloth in his pocket and did not take it out.

The lights went out at nine. The room was dark except for the square of moonlight on the floor. Kojo’s breathing was too fast, too shallow. After a while, Kofi heard him get up and go outside.

He found Kojo sitting on the step, his arms wrapped around his knees. The night was cool, and the hills had gone black against the sky.

“You should sleep,” Kofi said, sitting down beside him.

“I cannot.”

“Why not?”

Kojo was quiet for a long moment. “My mother does not know I am here. I told her I was going to the city to look for work.” He looked at Kofi. “She will find out. The letter will come, and she will find out.”

Kofi thought about what to say. He had no wisdom to offer, no comfort that would not sound like a lie. “Write to her tomorrow,” he said at last. “Tell her yourself before the letter reaches her.”

Kojo looked at him. “What do I say?”

“The truth. That you are here. That you are safe. That you will come back.”

“Will I?”

Kofi did not answer. He looked out at the dark hills and the stars above them and felt the weight of the cloth in his pocket, the weight of his father’s bag, the weight of every promise he had made in the last two days.

“I do not know,” he said. “But write it anyway.”

Kojo nodded slowly. They sat together until the moon moved behind the hills and the night grew cold. Then they went back inside, and Kofi lay on his iron bed with his eyes open, listening to the sounds of the barracks: the creak of the roof, the distant bark of a dog, the murmur of voices from the hut next door.

In the morning, a bugle would sound. They would be counted and marched and taught how to hold a rifle. The war would begin to feel real.

But for now, there was only the dark and the quiet and the small red cloth in his pocket, and the sound of Kojo’s breathing easing into sleep across the room.

Kofi closed his eyes. He did not dream.