We drive into a circular clearing, where the men disembark from the trucks, open the back doors, and demand we get out. They corral us in the middle of the circle and tell us to sit. We do, huddled together, and wait.
Paul appears from a building dressed in an army-green shirt and camo pants with black combat boots. It is the basic uniform of the men here. He looks fresh, rested, and clean from the bath he undoubtedly took, while the rest of us wallow in filth. Attah Walrus and Kwabena flank him.
He begins, “I believe in being transparent about what comes next for you.” He paces in front of us, while Kwabena stands at attention and the Walrus looks bored, swatting flies and spitting on the ground.
“You are scared, of course. Understandable. But life for you can be relatively easy.” He grins. “If you follow the rules. No trying to flee, no fighting us, no wishing you’ll be saved.” His minions laugh around him. “There is no saving. This, my dears, is your new reality. Embrace it.”
The girls with me are the same ones from school. Lived in homes next to mine. Socialized with me just yesterday. We were playing a guessing game about which boys we would marry—boys probably burned to crisps now. It seems eons ago. Childish and superficial.
“N’nkakuwe is gone. It was unfortunate, true. However, there is no use dwelling over—what do Americans say—spilled milk?” The chuckling around him increases.
Raping, pillaging, beheading, hacking people to pieces is not spilled milk.
Paul continues his sales pitch. “When you leave here, you will be sold—”
Sold! My heart thumps violently in my chest, and my fingers go numb. My mind reels. Like slaves! A murmur rises from the abducted, the blasphemous word awakening us like the paddle of a defibrillator.
“—to the highest bidder. Take care of yourselves.”
The grounds of the Compound resemble a bull’s-eye, the clearing at its center. Surrounding it is medical, the mess hall, the latrines, and Paul’s quarters. He stays close to the main and perimeter gates, which are the only real ways in or out. The next ring consists of our quarters, small, cramped one-level buildings. Tin roofs that jut out and connect to the buildings on either side cover them. We are lucky to have small windows in our quarters, so at least there is that.
Behind our quarters is a lower chain-link fence that serves more to slow any attempted escapes than to stop them. Behind that fence are the guard quarters, and behind those are the perimeter gates and the walls with those strategically placed guard towers. Beyond them are the carports housing the trucks used to transport us. Every inch reaffirms there is no getting out and no going back.
Paul continues to pace, slowing in front of me, hands on his hips. “Behave. Keep clean and be presentable.”
I zoom in on the dark stain on his boot toe, wondering if it is blood from when he poked Papa’s head.
“Because if you break any of those rules, we will kill you.”
We are nothing but entertainment for the men, who are cruel, gluttonous children. The Compound is their candy store, with a bounty of young, nubile confection ready for selection every night.
Our quarters consist of maybe ten to twelve girls. We speak infrequently and only in whispers. We abhor attention because it brings nothing good. Every night, we are listening for approaching boot steps, knowing when the door bangs open, an intruder, maybe two, will be there to peruse the candy aisles.
While he does, we hold our breaths, guiltily hoping his eyes fall on someone else, not us. We try to avert our eyes without looking obvious, because the men tend to pick the girls who look like they want to be chosen the least. When the selection is made, they drag one or more of us kicking and screaming from the room. They pull us past the chain-link fence, into one of their quarters. They return us before daybreak and threaten death if we do not clean ourselves well enough so Paul does not know they have sampled the merchandise.
The day of my selection, the guard remembers who I was before and takes extra pleasure in having a chieftain’s daughter. He finishes, spent and lying next to me as if we are lovers, and that is when he makes a grievous error.
“Your father’s head sounded like a bowling ball when it dropped. Bamp! Like that. Off with his head, o.” He cackles at his pun, his breath foul like refuse. He is still laughing when my arm shoots across my chest, fingers curled.
I claw at his cheek, my nails digging deeply into his flesh, intending to tunnel into his mouth so I can rip out his tongue. I roll onto him, biting his ear, all thought blotted from my mind. I grind my teeth until they connect, determined to take his ear off. He screams bloody murder, bucking beneath me.