In the Shadow of War

“His father had brought the old Grundig cheaply from a family that had to escape the city when the war broke out. He had covered the radio with a white cloth and made it look like a household fetish.” 

Omovo and his father listen to the German-made radio to learn the latest news of their country’s civil war. In their rural village, the family radio serves as a symbol of information and news itself, and of widespread connection in a war-torn country. The radio’s description as a “household fetish,” as a talisman or object believed to have supernatural powers underscores the reverence it is given for the significant information it shares.

“At that hour, for the past seven days, a strange woman with a black veil over her head had been going past the house. She went up the village paths, crossed the Express road, and disappeared into the forest.” 

This is how the narrator introduces the veiled woman, and the only information Omovo has of her. A veil shrouds obscures her face, symbolic of the mystery surrounding the woman’s identity and her actions.

“Omovo’s father wiped the sweat off his face with his palm and said, with some bitterness: ‘As if an eclipse will stop this war.’ ‘What is an eclipse?’ Omovo asked. ‘That’s when the world goes dark and strange things happen.’” 

Omovo’s father’s bitter response to the forecasted eclipse shows a sense of hopelessness regarding the country’s civil war: Even a cosmic event with supernatural effects is not enough to put an end to it. This moment also foreshadows the night’s horrific events that Omovo later witnesses.