There was a war

I have always been afraid of fish. When i visit people and they say dinner is ready and it is fish they serve, i am never sure how to decline without being rude. It is not so much the fish, It is more what it represents for me.

I was seven years old when my parents packed us up and sent us across the border to live with my mother's cousin. A few months later, when the new year started, there were all these stories flooding our ears. I was the youngest and i really didn't understand most of them but i saw how the people around me reacted to them.

My aunt who was normally such a sweet natured person was suddenly always tense. She snapped at her children and treated my sister and i as though we were flowers she didn't want to see whither. She fed us and sat watching us long after she thought we were asleep.

The first time i sensed that her unease was about us, i started to wonder if something had happened to my parents. Her husband was hard to read. He patted my head like i was a cute puppy every time he met me in the corridor and went about his way. My sister who was the brave one, also the older one, dared to ask one day.

"Aunt Bridget, do you think Mum and Dad will be picking us soon?"

We saw her eyes tear and then she turned away, took a moment to compose herself and then she turned and smiled and said it would be a little while longer. Did we not like it here? Did we need something? Did we have an urgent thing to tell them? We could tell her, you know, she was here for us, and she would do anything to make us even more comfortable.

Judith, my wise 14year old sister, drew me to her later that night and just held me. She said we would be okay. She said she had heard at school that people were fighting back home. She said our parents were probably stuck there because of the fighting. She didn't say much else except to pray the prayers of a 14year old.

A few days later, i overheard my aunt talking on the phone. She was telling somebody about a house that had been hit and a man that had died. I told Judith about it and this time when she asked Aunt Martha, she wouldn't let it go when the answers felt wrong.

They told us that our house had been destroyed. That there was a war. That they had not heard from my parents but that the person who we had known as our gateman back home had died when they bombed the house. They told us that our country was at war. That some people did not like other people and so they were fighting each other. They told us that we were safe here with them and that they were doing the best they could to find where our parents went.

I remember that i did not sleep in the days that followed. Every time my aunt left our room in the night, Judith would climb into my bed and hold me as she prayed and cried. I found that i couldn't cry, but i saw that Judith cried enough for the both of us.

On TV one day, the man said that people's bodies all the way from our country were being picked up from the lake here. That they had been in the water for many days. That was when i stopped eating fish. I didn't know if fish wouldn't eat people and i did not want to eat a fish that ate a man.

I remember one day, my cousin Gerald said that he had been told at school that they were finding little pieces of people in the mouths of fish from the lake. My Uncle who i had never seen react to anything, grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him to the kitchen. My uncle was a giant of a man. I always felt safe around him because i thought nothing would touch the people who were under his cover. That day, i knew Gerald was in trouble.

About two weeks later, my aunt came shouting her thanks to God and screaming our names. She said my father had gotten in touch with her and he was safe. We, off course, were excited, but when i asked if our mother was okay, she went quiet. She told us after a while that he was not with her.

They had not left the country together fearing that if they were caught, they would both be killed and we would be orphaned. She had gone through one border and he had gone another side. I didn't understand.

It was another week before my mother got in touch.

Even then, i never understood it. How they could leave each other. How my father would leave my mother to find her way in a place that was very dangerous. I didn't ask the question but Judith, always my voice, did.

My mother said it was because they were thinking of us. That it was so terrible they were not sure that they would get out safe.

You see, my father was that group of people that many people did not like. My mother was from the privileged group and she was more assured of safety than he. I had never known that one of them was more privileged than the other. It had been his idea that they separate. It was so that if he was found, she would not be in trouble because of him. But she had never agreed to it. He had sneaked out at a certain point when they were none the wiser.

She said she knew what he had done the minute they started to look around for him in the building they were hiding in. She said at that time, you couldn't even cry, you only had to pray and focus on living. That to say goodbye to someone then was as though it was for forever. That people didn't say goodbye. They just turned and walked away.

When we asked about the neighbors, she said they didn't go to them. They hid from as many people as they could because the few who saw them looked at my father as though he were a curse. My mother, her sister and brother had travelled together. My father had been alone.

The first time i saw him, when he came to us at Aunt Martha's house, he was small and he had a large scar on his face. Judith told me later that she had seen his back and that there were cuts there. I do not know what happened to him. What he survived and what he saw.

We all live together now. We have never gone back to our country. My father says it turned its back on him and he will never go back but my mother has gone to visit twice. She wants us to go with her next week so that we can light a candle and visit the graves of her parents. I do not know if my father will go with us.

It is eighteen years later but i still cannot eat fish.