When I look back at Africa’s wars of the 1990s, the picture that springs to mind is that of rifle-wielding boys wearing grubby, over-sized t-shirts, staring into the distance, deathly grins etched on their faces.
In works of fiction coming out, the subject of the child soldier is one that is becoming recurrent for African novelists. The critically acclaimed Beasts of no Nation, by Nigerian Uzodinma Uweala-about a child soldier who enlists in a war being waged for reasons he doesn’t even know-came out in 2005. Two years later, Measuring Time, by another Nigerian, Helon Habila, was published. The novel features twins, one of whom fakes his age to get into the Nigerian army fighting the Biafrans in the late 1960s.
Nigerian Chris Abani has brought out Song for Night, a novella about My Luck, a west African boy who enlisted for the war effort when he was 12. At the time of narrating his story, he has been fighting for three years. ‘We are simply fighting to survive the war,” the 15 year-old says. My Luck is not telling us his story in the way you and me would do it because he can’t speak. He’s part of a group of mine diffusers in the army whose vocal chords were removed so that they can’t scream and thus distract others in the event of a mine detonation. The ingenious boys have devised their own unique sign language to communicate.
One obvious problem with a book of this kind is how he narrates his story when he can’t speak. ‘Of course if you are hearing any of this at all it’s because you have gained access to my head,” the narrator explains how we are witnesses to this ‘interior monologue”. Even though these thoughts are in Igbo we somehow understand him. ‘We shan’t waste time in trying to figure all that out because—time here is precious”.
This little difficulty deftly shoved of out of the way, we learn how his colleagues left him for dead after a landmine blast. His story is in effect his reminiscences as he tries to find his comrades. It’s not only My Luck’s soul that hobbles because of all the killing he has done, his scarified body bears witness. He has 20 crosses on his body, each cross representing the dead. On his right arm is carved six X’s: “for each person I enjoyed killing”.
This book has the usual experiences that we have come to expect in the wars fought on this continent. There are countless corpses floating in the rivers; there’s child rape (a major welcomes a friendly seven year-old child while remarking, ‘this one is ripe. I will enjoy her”). One of the most harrowing moments of the book may be a pithy line from Ijeoma, the narrator’s 14 year-old girlfriend. As she lay dying, Ijeoma says: ‘I am proper sacrifice”. There’s no article definite or indefinite in that sentence, the tragedy and pointlessness of this war is palpable.
Song for Night is told in a controlled voice; here and there you see evidence of the concussion the narrator suffered in the landmine blast, but there isn’t a lot of histrionics. Abani’s poetic filter (as opposed to the narrator’s) holds back much of the horrors of war.
Some of the strongest narrative moments in the book are in My Luck’s fleeting reminiscences of his imam father, his storyteller grandfather and the myths about the Igbo deities Amadioha and Idemili, also found in Chinua Achebe’s works.
Song for Night
Nevertheless, Song for Night remains a gripping, harrowing read. This work is marked differently from his last book, The Virgin of Flames, set in Los Angeles, and shows his versatility and craftsmanship.