My Father’s Name is War

“My Father’s Name Is War” — from the short story collection Rocks Bleed Too (2021) by Jephtha Malelah.

My countryside is the most beautiful place on earth—like the mystical El Dorado. The only difference is that instead of gold, the houses are made from the rich red soil. The pots too. The red soil is beautiful; when it rains it never turns muddy. It is so rich that bricks are made from it. I love watching men make bricks.

They dig up the red soil, then add water to make a paste and smoothen it. With their strong calves, they step on the paste continuously until it’s ready. It is then shaped in mid-sized wooden boxes, arranged inside a kiln the size of a house, and roasted for hours. When the bricks are “ripe,” they come out as red as tomatoes. The village kids and I love climbing onto the tractors that come to collect them.

My beautiful countryside is about bricks, yes, but that is not all. It is a valley surrounded by steep pygmy hills. On rainy days, springs appear suddenly in your compound—a sight to behold. Their water is as clear as a cloudless sky. Our homestead faces the largest of these springs. We call it dago. On rainy days we swim in it; on all days, we drink and wash from it. It is Kamasasia village’s meeting place—where women chat and men argue. It is beautiful. Perhaps that is why I have never thought of leaving, unlike everyone else. Unlike Father.

My father is a soldier. He works for the country. He tells me they are called the Motherland Army. They wield long guns and defend our borders, like the ancient men who protected villages from raiders. I admire him. Unlike me, he is well built, muscles bulging. Every time he comes home, he lifts me so easily, as though I am as light as the rifles he carries.

Mama is a beautiful woman. She was born in a place called Ugenya, close to where the sun sets. I hope to visit it someday. I want to see if all the women there are as beautiful as she is. Her heart is as big as the pot used to cook kuon during festivities. No one feels they have eaten until they eat kuon. On days we have rice, Father considers them days he has gone hungry.

Whenever I write about Mama, I drift. Her voice is Beethoven’s music. Her smile is the fire God used to mold the sun. Mama doesn’t cook—she makes food. She has a way of making spices obey her. I have yet to find anyone who doesn’t lick their fingers or spoons—yes, even those who call themselves cultured—after eating her meals.

Mama’s anger is peculiar. She doesn’t get angry when she and Father argue, nor when my sisters break her precious pots. Those pots mean the world to her. She says they have been passed down for three generations, from her grandmother Silibia, who molded them from virgin Ugenya soil. Instead, Mama gets angry when I skip lunch to slide in the mud after the rain, swim in dago, or ride wild bulls with horns as curved as banana stems from Wagunda’s farm. Those bananas are legendary—so tall they rival eucalyptus trees. They say Wagunda used a special fertilizer to make them grow. Mama should know that anything worth skipping her food must be important.

She also gets angry when I’m sick. I don’t know if she’s angry at God or at Papa for being away so often. I think it’s at Papa—she loves God too much.

I once called Papa my superhero. And in some ways, he is. He carries me on his shoulders, brings me khaki trousers and strange sweets that lose their flavor in minutes, and gives lectures on manhood.

“Son, one day you’ll be a man like me. You will have to leave home, live among foreigners, sweat and fight to fend for your family. Someday you’ll be as tall as I am, your muscles will bulge. Keep your family safe when that time comes.”

I always have questions but swallow them for fear of his temper.

Do I have to leave home to become a man? Out of all your days away, Papa, do you bring back enough to buy flour, sugar, clothes, or medicine when we’re sick? Enough to send my sisters to school so they can recite their alphabet like I do?

And those bulging muscles—weren’t they meant for carrying guns and fighting the enemies of the Motherland? Why do you use them to whip Mama on your drunken nights?

Papa, you were my hero, but I am giving up. I am not happy. Mama is pure love, yet you beat her every time she confronts your waywardness. Those nights are darker than any others. Mama never wails like the other village women. She stays silent. I only hear utensils clattering, your belt striking her bare skin, and the muffled sobs of a mother who doesn’t want to wake her children to chaos.

But I am always awake.

Papa, does it not hurt you to know that my hero has a dark side? That the hands that lift me are the same hands that strike her? Papa, stop it. Never hold me again with the hands that hit Mama.