David Manuel

These are the first few pages of Once Upon a Famine, a title destined to be changed, I suspect. It sets the scene in famine-ravaged Salimia. The principal character isn't introduced until chapter 2. I fear this beginning violates most of the guidelines laid out in the readings as well as common sense. But that's why I signed up for this event, to learn.

 

Chapter 1

Victims

 

She didn’t know how long she had been walking. Days certainly, perhaps weeks. Because of the heat, she traveled mostly at night, resting during the hottest part of the day. But some travel by day was necessary because there was little chance of finding something to eat at night. Not that chances were much better during the day.

She had wanted to leave their farm as soon as word came of bandits close by. They could go to the city. Some of the other women in the village said there were white men in the city, rich white men who gave food away for free. She had told her husband that they should go there while they were strong and able to make the journey.

“If a man has land and animals, he is a man. But if he leaves his land, what is he? No, we must stay here. The rains have been good, the river is full, the animals are strong.”

“But the men with guns will come. The women in the village say they are robbing the farmers in the lower valley. If they come, they will take all we have and we will die. We should go where the white men are. They will feed us and protect us.”

“Foolish woman. You spend too much time listening to women’s talk. Why would white men give us food? If they have come, it is to rob us as they robbed us before. Better to stay with our land. While we have the land we can feed ourselves.”

They had stayed. But the men with guns had come. They killed the goats that gave milk. They killed the ox that pulled the plow. And again she told her husband they must leave.

“But I have planted the maize, and although it will be hard without the animals, there will be a good harvest. To leave this place where we can feed ourselves is foolish, woman.”

“But they will come back. They will steal the maize and we will have nothing.”

“What profit for them to drive the farmers from the land? They need our maize, yes, but they need us to stay, to plant more crops. They will not take everything. They will leave us enough to survive and plant again.”

But the men with the guns were not that wise. They had stolen everything. And when her husband tried to fight them, they killed him. And then she had begun the journey, she and the children. But now they had no animals for milk, no maize, nothing.

Her stomach ached constantly from emptiness, but she had eaten several days ago. She had happened upon two men by the road, men with guns feasting on a goat they had killed and roasted. They gave her some, an unusual act of charity these days. She had expected them to rape her, but they hadn’t been interested. Perhaps they’d had their fill of that, too. They were of the same tribe that had killed her husband. How long ago, she wondered. Weeks? Years? She couldn’t remember.

“Where are you going, woman? It’s not safe to wander around these parts.”

She was surprised at the man’s concern. “I heard there was food at Paqsohsa. There was none left where I come from.”

“You have no family? No husband? Children?”

“All dead.” She didn’t know that this was true. The eldest son had left a few days after her husband was killed. Perhaps he had joined one of the gangs; he was strong and might have become a fighter. But the rest were dead. The eldest daughter had died by the road. The baby weeks ago, after her milk had stopped. And all the rest. She couldn’t remember when and where. They lay scattered along the road, too weak to survive a journey without food. One of the older women in the village had talked long ago of famine. The children die first, because they are weak. Wasn’t that what the old woman had said? But it seemed like a dream, now. All memories of her life before had faded, pushed aside by the quest to find food.

“It’s a long way to Paqsohsa. And Baisheed’s men are there.” The man touched his rifle, as if the mere mention of the name meant immediate danger. She had heard Baisheed’s name before, a powerful warlord feared by many of the people of her village. It was said that he would one day kill or enslave all the people of the whole world. But none of the armed men who had looted their village had ever claimed loyalty to him. She wondered how his tribe could be any worse than the others. But it was said they were the most terrible of all.

“But if I stay here I will starve. Like my children. And they say there are white men at Paqsohsa who bring food for the needy.”

“Yes. I have heard that.” He stared at her for a moment, as if weighing the hopelessness of either option. Then he returned his attention to the fire. There was nothing else to discuss.

“Thank you for the meat. God rewards the charitable.”

“Yes, God’s will be done. Go with God.”

 

She could tell she was close to Paqsohsa. There were now hundreds of people on the road with her, mostly women. Some still had children with them. Some of the children had survived. But no babies. She hadn’t noticed at first, then had started looking, perhaps hoping to see one nursing at its mother’s breast, to remind her of her own lost child. But there were none. There were no women left with milk to feed them.

They walked in silence, without speaking, without crying. Their fate had been decided by God, and there was only to walk to find food or death by the road. Walk until God’s will was revealed. And many dropped by the road to die in silence. But still she walked.

And then they saw them spread across the road in front of them. Men with guns, blocking the way to the village. Some of the women were allowed to continue into Paqsohsa, but most were turned away. As she watched, one old woman tried to ignore the gunmen, walk on without permission. A man—no, a boy, without even a beard—shouted at her, but she walked on. He chased her down and clubbed her with his rifle. The old woman fell and did not move.

She reached the place where the armed men blocked the road. For a moment she stopped, stood staring at them. Then she tried to proceed. The young one stepped in front of her.

“No. There is no place for you here. Go back.”

She looked where the old woman had fallen. Her skull had been split open. Blood and brains spread across the road.

She left the road and sat down among some others who had been refused. She was very tired now and lay down.

“Sleep now.” Did she speak these words or were they spoken to her? She could not tell. She closed her eyes and soon was dreaming of maize-filled fields and laughing children and her husband working, smiling to her from the rich river land.

Act of Story Statement

Andrew Matthias’ career as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Department of State is in trouble. His boss hates him. He’s been relegated to covering one of the poorest, most obscure countries on Earth, anarchic, famine-ridden Salimia. Then the U.S. president decides a robust effort to lead international relief to the starving Salimians will help resurrect his sagging poll numbers in an election year. Suddenly Andrew finds himself at the center of a massive foreign policy initiative staffed by aid workers, soldiers, and bureaucrats, all committed to giving their president the success he needs but lacking any expertise on the target of their largesse. Will Andrew take the opportunity presented by being the sole country expert of America’s new number 1 policy objective to resurrect his career, or will he instead be consumed by what may well become a disaster of epic proportions?

 

Other protagonists appear throughout the story: a priest running a feeding center in the first chapter; aid workers facing frustration as they try to arrange famine relief shipments; a U.S. Air Force pilot tasked with flying bags of grain to an isolated village; U.S. Marines thrust into the role of peacekeepers; an ambitious analyst finding herself dropped in the middle of a combat zone; special forces operators with an impossible mission; a famous journalist caught in the crossfire.

 

Hey, it’s an epic. Sort of.

 

Antagonist

Fenton Wickberg, Unit Chief of the East Africa Analysis Team in State Department’s Intelligence Division, seethes that his managerial career has been derailed by bad analytic judgments made by his subordinates. At least, that’s how he sees things. Now, managing a backwater is the latest indignity, worsened by having insolent and incompetent Andrew Matthias in his department. If he could, he would fire the young analyst, but bureaucracy requires years of building a case through bad performance reviews. And just as he sees his goal in sight, events transpire to make Matthias indispensable. Forced by circumstance to employ Matthias’ dubious expertise, Wickberg remains determined to make the analyst as miserable as possible.

 

Despite their mutual animosity, Wickberg and Matthias are quickly consumed by the demands of dealing with the most important antagonists of this story, Salimian factions vying for power in their anarchic homeland and resisting international efforts to treat starvation brought on by the fighting. Of course, ambitious American political actors only add to the difficulties by offering inappropriate solutions based on misapprehensions and poor judgment, to the frustration of both Wickberg and Matthias.

 

The story is populated with antagonists: General Baisheed, Salimian warlord convinced his destiny is to rule his fractured country; Steven Farkus, head of State Department’s Office for Overseas Famine Assistance pursuing one failed policy after another; a corrupt Salimian interim president; various Salimian gunmen working for rival factions or hired as security for aid organizations and journalists. Yet each character is simply pursuing their own interest or destiny or just trying to survive. There are no villains in this story. Only victims.

 

Title Alternatives

A Feast of Famine

This is the title I used originally. I don’t like it.

Once Upon a Famine

My first thought for the reboot of this novel. Meh.

No Good Deed

“No good deed goes unpunished” is perhaps the best summation of this book and my experiences that led to it.

 

Genre/Comparables

This is a work of historical fiction. The story is based on actual events. The names have been changed to protect … the incompetent?

 

The Drifters, James Michener

I read this book as a teenager and it’s stayed with me all these years. I read a lot of Michener back then, but this was my favorite. Multiple characters traveling the world, experiencing all sorts of exciting adventures during the sixties. Counter-culture, hip kids, drugs, running of the bulls. Made me long to go out and experience the world. Years later, I have, and boy, was I (and Michener) naive.

 

Blackhawk Down, Michael Bowden

This is actually history, not fiction. The events Bodwen relates occur in the last section of my novel. Bowden interviewed dozens of veterans of the whole Somali misadventure. He never interviewed me, however. I consider this something of an oversight on his part given that I was, at the time, the principal intelligence analyst on the country and widely known by intelligence officers, diplomats, and military personnel involved as “Mr. Somalia.” Fame is fleeting.

 

One could pitch this book as Blackhawk Down written like a Michener novel. Personally, I prefer Nashville meets M.A.S.H.

 

Hook Line (no sinker)

When the president of the United States decides to intervene in famine-stricken Salimia, State Department analyst Andrew Matthias finds himself in the center of high-level policy decisions that could resurrect his flagging career–if he can navigate a malevolent boss and hapless bureaucracy intent on frustrating him, not to mention a Salimian landscape beset by violent armed gangs battling aid workers, international organizations, and the U.S. military.

 

Other Matters of Conflict

Conflict abounds throughout the novel, primarily characters battling incompetence all around them while struggling with their own inadequacies. That and trying not to get killed when they wind up in Salimia is a thread throughout. By the way, some don’t succeed. Mostly I have tried to portray a large number of characters from widely different background dealing with frustration and conflict, both from professional rivalries and the actual ballistic sort.

 

I realize this doesn’t really address this assignment. Honestly, I’ve reread that section many times and am still at a loss how to capture what’s in my novel. I’ll keep trying.

 

Setting

Scenes alternate between East Africa, primarily Salimia, and Washington DC. Salimia, a semi-arid country bordering the Indian Ocean and Red Sea, has been home to nomadic clans for generations. After years as a Soviet client state, then a U.S. ally, the political system collapsed amid civil war by more than a dozen armed factions, all possessing modern weaponry supplied by Soviet Russia, the United States, and various neighboring countries meddling in Samilia’s internal affairs for decades. Salimia’s capital, Puqslido, is riddled with bombed-out buildings and artillery-cratered streets. Despite the destruction, the city remains heavily populated, more the result of Samilia’s desolate interior than any urban commerce. Both the port and airport remain functional. Scattered throughout Puqslido are isolated compounds in better condition than the surrounding rubble, easily identified at night by the light pools from working generators. Even in one of the most impoverished places on Earth there are islands of relative wealth.

 

But it is in Washington where decisions are made that will decide events in famine-ridden Salimia. The “corridors of power” one often envisions are actually clusters of shabby cubicles where analysts compete to gain the favor of managers in slightly less shabby offices looking to impress loftier management, all in the pursuit of some elusive policy success that will bring the ultimate pat on the head from an all-important policymaker. When the president himself casts his gaze in a particular direction, cubicles and shabby offices become focal points of frenzy.

 

A biographical note: the happiest day of my then young existence was arriving in war-torn Somalia for a few-weeks respite from that Washington cubicle frenzy.