I'm reading the new novella by Nigerian novelist Chris Abani, Song for Night (NY: Akashik Books, 2007). It is an almost unbearably beautiful book. Beautiful because of how it's written, the style but also the truth and tenderness of the writing; unbearable because of the story it tells - that of a fifteen year old boy soldier in Nigeria who has witnessed atrocities which take your breath away (his whole family is dead), and committed some, too, under duress or by accident. The landscape of war- ravaged villages, rivers full of corpses, etc. is described in short limpidly narrated scenes, but it's enough - any more would be too much, would shelter us from the realities described. (In this it reminds me of the stunning short stories of Ida Fink about the Holocaust in Poland.)The novel's narrated by the boy, but it's not quite as simple as that. For starters, the chapter titles describe a sign language, which I found myself acting out more as I got farther in:
Silence is a Steady Hand, Palm Flat.
Night is a Palm Pulled Down Over the Eyes.
Death is Two Fingers Sliding across the Throat.
Imagination is a Forefinger between the Eyes.
Dawn is Two Hands Parting before the Face.
Love is a Backhanded Stroke to the Cheek.
Fish is a Hand Swimming through the Air.
Ghosts are a Gentle Breath over Moving Fingers.
Truth is Forefinger to Tongue Raised Skyward.
Mercy is a Palm Turning Out from the Heart.
Child's Play is a Forefinger Pointing to the Sky
while the Whole Body Gyrates.
Shelter is Hands Protecting the Head.
Music is Any Dance You Can Pull Off.
Night is a Palm Pulled Down Over the Eyes.
Death is Two Fingers Sliding across the Throat.
Imagination is a Forefinger between the Eyes.
Dawn is Two Hands Parting before the Face.
Love is a Backhanded Stroke to the Cheek.
Fish is a Hand Swimming through the Air.
Ghosts are a Gentle Breath over Moving Fingers.
Truth is Forefinger to Tongue Raised Skyward.
Mercy is a Palm Turning Out from the Heart.
Child's Play is a Forefinger Pointing to the Sky
while the Whole Body Gyrates.
Shelter is Hands Protecting the Head.
Music is Any Dance You Can Pull Off.
Perchance you found yourself miming them too...
Why sign language? Along with other children recruited to defuse landmines by a rebel army - the smaller and lighter the child, the better - his training ended with the cutting of his vocal chords so that when - almost inevitably - a child was blown up, its cries would not frighten the others. The children in his platoon communicate by a kind of telepathy anchored in this sign language. The book communicates in this telepathic way, too, and as a reader whose hands have shaped these words, you become part of an experience of extraordinary intimacy. The fact that the narrator may be dead - I haven't finished the book, some people he encounters have been treating him like a ghost, and a priest has told him that when people's souls are blown far from their bodies by an explosion their souls wander about in confusion, not even knowing they are dead - only adds to the strange power and terrible intimacy.
The conceit (though based in reality) of a silent (silenced) narrator allows Abani to evoke and convey horrors which defy language, even as he uses language. A marvel.
