The house, two long rooms, was furnished only with three rows of uneven shelves, some metal and others wood, all empty. The floor was of packed dirt. Belano explained the situation we were in. According to the soldiers, the Krahn who were surrounding Brownsville and the men who'd attacked us at Black Creek were the advance troops of General Kensey's force, and Kensey was positioning his people to attack Kakata and Harbel and then march toward the neighborhoods of Monrovia that Roosevelt Johnson still controlled. The soldiers were planning to leave the next morning for Thomas Creek, where, according to them, one of Taylor's generals, Tim Early, was stationed. The soldiers' plan, as Belano and I soon agreed, was desperate and would never work. If it was true that Kensey was regrouping his people in the area, the Mandingo soldiers wouldn't have the slightest chance of making their way back to their own side. The civilians, who, unusually for Africa, seemed to be led by a woman, had come up with a much better plan. Some planned to stay in Brownsville to wait and see what happened. Others, the majority, planned to head northeast with the Mandingo woman, cross the Saint Paul, and reach the Brewerville road. The plan, the civilians' plan, that is, wasn't outrageous, although in Monrovia I'd heard talk about killings on the road between Brewerville and Bopolu. The lethal stretch, however, was farther east, closer to Bopolu than Brewerville. After listening to them, Belano, Jean-Pierre, and I decided to go with them. If we managed to reach Brewerville, we were saved, according to Belano. A ten-mile walk through old rubber plantations and tropical jungle lay ahead of us, not to mention the river crossing, but when we made it to the road we would only be five miles from Brewerville and then it was only fifteen miles to Monrovia along a road that was surely still in the hands of Taylor's soldiers. We would leave the next morning, shortly after the Mandingo soldiers went off in the opposite direction to face certain death.

I didn't sleep that night.

First I talked to Belano, then I spent a while talking to our guide, and then I talked to Arturo again, and López Lobo. This must have been between ten and eleven, and by that time it was difficult to move around the house, which was plunged into utter darkness, a darkness broken only by the glow of the cigarettes that some people were smoking to stave off fear and insomnia. In the doorway I saw the shadows of two soldiers squatting, keeping guard, who didn't turn when I went up to them. I also saw the stars and the outline of the hills and once again I was reminded of my childhood. It must have been because I associate my childhood with the country. Then I moved back into the house, feeling my way along the shelves, but I couldn't find my spot. It was probably twelve when I lit a cigarette and prepared to sleep. I know I was happy (or I know I thought I was happy) because the next day we would start back to Monrovia. I know I was happy because I was in the middle of an adventure and I felt alive. So I started to think about my wife and my home and then I started to think about Belano, how well he looked, what good shape he seemed to be in, better than in Angola, when he wanted to die, and better than in Kigali, when he didn't want to die anymore but couldn't get off this godforsaken continent, and when I'd finished the cigarette I pulled out another one, which really was the last, and to cheer myself up I even started to sing very softly to myself or in my head, a song by Atahualpa Yupanqui, my God, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and only then did I realize that I was extremely nervous and that if I wanted to sleep what I needed was to talk, and then I got up and took a few blind steps, first in deathly silence (for a fraction of a second I thought we were all dead, that the hope sustaining us was only an illusion, and I had the urge to go running out the door of that foul-smelling house), then I heard the sound of snoring, the barely audible whispering of those who were still awake and talking in the dark in Gio or Mano, Mandingo or Krahn, English, Spanish.

All languages seemed detestable to me just then.

To say that now is silly, I know. All those languages, all that whispering, simply a vicarious way of preserving our identity for an uncertain length of time. Ultimately, the truth is that I don't know why they seemed detestable, maybe because in an absurd way I was lost somewhere in those two long rooms, lost in a region I didn't know, a country I didn't know, a continent I didn't know, on a strange, elongated planet, or maybe because I knew I should get some sleep and I couldn't. And then I felt for the wall and sat on the floor and opened my eyes extrawide trying and trying to see something, and then I curled up on the floor and closed my eyes and prayed to God (in whom I don't believe) that I wouldn't get sick, because there was a long walk ahead of me the next day, and then I fell asleep.

When I woke up it must have been close to four in the morning.

A few feet from me, Belano and López Lobo were talking. I saw the light of their cigarettes, and my first impulse was to get up and go to them. I wanted to share in the uncertainty of what the next day would bring, join the two shadows I glimpsed behind the cigarettes even if I had to crawl or go on my knees. But I didn't. Something in the tone of their voices stopped me, something in the angle of their shadows, shadows sometimes dense, squat, warlike, and sometimes fragmented, dispersed, as if the bodies that cast them had already disappeared.

So I controlled myself and pretended to be asleep and listened.

López Lobo and Belano talked until just before dawn. To transcribe what they said is in some way to detract from what I felt as I listened to them.

First they talked about people's names and they said incomprehensible things, their voices like the voices of two conspirators or two gladiators, speaking softly and agreeing on almost everything, although Belano's voice dominated and his arguments (which I heard in bits and pieces, as if half of what they said was carried away by some sound current inside that long house, or blocked by randomly placed screens) were belligerent, raw, it was unforgivable to be called López Lobo, unforgivable to be called Belano, that sort of thing, although I might be wrong and the subject of the conversation might have been something else entirely. Then they talked about other things: the names of cities, the names of women, the titles of books. Belano said: we're all afraid of going under. Then he was quiet and only then did I realize that López Lobo had hardly said anything and Belano had talked too much. For an instant I thought they were going to sleep, and I prepared to do the same. All my bones hurt. The day had been overwhelming. Just at that moment I heard their voices again.

At first I couldn't understand anything, maybe because I had changed position or because they were speaking more softly. I turned over. One of them was smoking. I made out Belano's voice again. He was saying that when he got to Africa, he too had wanted to be killed. He told stories about Angola and Rwanda that I already knew, that all of us here more or less know. Then López Lobo's voice interrupted him. He asked (I could hear him perfectly clearly) why he'd wanted to die back then. I couldn't hear Belano's answer, but I guessed it, which isn't so impressive, since in a way I already knew. He had lost something and he wanted to die, that was all. Then I heard Belano laugh and I imagined that he was laughing about what he'd lost, his great loss, laughing at himself and other things, things I knew nothing about and didn't want to know anything about. López Lobo didn't laugh. I think he said: well, for God's sake, something like that. Then they were both silent.

Later, though how much later I can't say, I heard López Lobo's voice, maybe asking the time. What time is it? Someone moved beside me. Someone stirred restlessly in his sleep and López Lobo spoke a few guttural words, as if he were once again asking what time it was, but this time, I'm sure, he was asking something else.