An Orchestra of Minorities

by Chigozie Obioma

  “Obim, why are you crying?”

  She hugged him and placed her head on his chest, against his beating heart.

  “Because I am sad for them, Nonso. And I am sad for us, also. Like them I am crying inside because we don’t have power against those who are against us. Mostly, against you. You are nothing to them. Now you will leave me and go somewhere I don’t even know. I don’t even know what will happen to you. You see? I am sad, Nonso, I am very sad.”

  Chukwu, it struck him now, in this distant country of sky and dust and strange men, that what she feared that day had now happened to him. A poultry farmer named Jamike Nwaorji, having groomed him for some time, having plucked excess feathers from his body, having fed him with mash and millet, having let him graze about gaily, having probably stanched a leg wounded by a stray nail, had now sealed him up in a cage. And all he could do now, all there was to do now, was cry and wail. He had now joined many others, all the people Tobe had listed who have been defrauded of their belongings—the Nigerian girl near the police station, the man at the airport, all those who have been captured against their will to do what they did not want to do either in the past or the present, all who have been forced into joining an entity they do not wish to belong to, and countless others. All who have been chained and beaten, whose lands have been plundered, whose civilizations have been destroyed, who have been silenced, raped, shamed, and killed. With all these people, he’d come to share a common fate. They were the minorities of this world whose only recourse was to join this universal orchestra in which all there was to do was cry and wail.

  AKWAAKWURU, the fathers say that a smoldering fire can easily be mistaken for one that has been extinguished. My host had walked aimlessly for nearly one more hour, hungry, thirsty, drenched in sweat and tears, when he found himself at a crossroads. One headed northwards into a road that appeared interminable, another forked into a dead end, another led back the way he’d come, and all of them were channeled in these directions by a roundabout he could see from a distance, almost a kilometer away. The ferocity of the sun that shone here was something he’d never encountered before. People have talked about the hotness of Ugwu-hausa, the north of Nigeria—even his father, who’d once lived in Zaria. His father had told him that farther north, in the Saharan desert, the sun made the living appear like they were dead.

  He had now been walking for close to two hours since the taxi dropped him, drenched in sweat and slightly drunk. Moments after he stepped out of the taxi, he’d dropped the drink gently by the side of the road, between a clot of dry grass, as if hoping that someone like himself would find it and finish it. And now he reached a large tract of land covered in low grass on which was a house under construction. Two black people stood amongst the dust-colored workers, sweating in the flesh-killing sun. He trod on, his tears now dried, the freedom of stagnancy, of not knowing what to do next or what would happen next, offering him unaccustomed peace. He was again thinking of Ndali and the chickens and of his last day in Umuahia, and of the sound of her voice when he’d called her earlier, when from the road near the roundabout he heard a loud sound like something exploding. He looked on and about him but saw nothing. He walked on between two big buildings and came into a clearing, at the edge of which was a main road. He saw then from the distance the source of the sound he’d heard: about two stone throws from him was a car, upturned, covered in smoke. He heard rushed voices behind him, from the way he’d come, and saw the construction workers from the big building he’d passed earlier running towards him.

  He gazed now at the field, his face painted with dust like the uli patterns worn on the faces of the dibias amongst the old fathers, and saw that up the field, the dust had settled. He saw more clearly, and the damaged car was now surrounded by people in various states of distress. Up close now, he saw the fate of the other car in the accident. It was a minivan, now facing the roundabout, pressed almost in half. When he came to the car on the field, one of the black construction workers, whom my host reckoned was a son of the affluent fathers by virtue of his accent, turned to him.

  “Terrible, terrible,” the man said. “In that other car, no one survived. In this one, two girls in the back of the car, eh. Chai! They are the ones screaming.”

  My host, too, had heard the screams. His compatriot stepped back, as did others in front of him. A police car had arrived, and a policeman was ordering them to turn back. In the distance, an ambulance was speeding towards the scene. My host, afraid because of the presence of the police, stopped short of reaching the scene. For in Alaigbo, this mysterious office of men who have the power to punish others is feared. He reached for his phone to see what the time was, but his pocket was empty. He touched his pants about. He retraced his steps with hurried feet and found it a few meters back, the way he had come. He blew dust off its face and saw three missed calls from Tobe. He remembered that they were to go and find a place together and it was now long past noon—2:15. Egbunu, so much had happened since the last time they’d spoken. He’d called Ndali but did not speak to her. He had been chased out of a taxi by an angry driver. He had drunk and thrown away some drink. Yet even more things had happened. He had been mobbed by street children. He had cried. He had been almost killed by a car. His misery had deepened. The hope that in the previous night still crawled, despite being gravely wounded and covered in blood, had now been struck a death blow, and in falling, expired. These things were excuses enough for his failure to return to Tobe. In fact, they were too strong.

  He could see, as he walked, that one of the doors of the upturned car had been opened and the screaming and shouting had increased. Everywhere, on the adjoining roads, cars were lined up. I wanted to come out of my host, to see if the passengers had all died and to commune with their chis and find out if this tragic fate that has befallen their people could be avoided for mine. What had these people done to have died this way? What answers could their guardian spirits give? We often ask this, too, after things have happened. Was there a way, for instance, that I could have engaged Jamike’s chi and found out the intents of its host’s heart? Even if I’d found his location and gone there, I may not have gotten it to come out, for it is difficult to persuade a chi out of the body of its host. I did not, however, leave my host this time, because I was afraid of leaving him while in a broken state. As he drew close to the scene, pulled only by curiosity to witness a tragedy in this strange land, a feral epiphany jumped out of the smoke towards him: that he was not meant to come to this country, that if he stayed here much longer he might die.

  When he reached the spot, men in white coveralls were loading a bloodied man into the back of an ambulance. On the ground, the body of a girl lay bleeding from the side, where there was a deep gash, her blond hair colored with blood. People were gathered around her, and a man was pushing others back. He saw on the sparsely leafed part of the clearing near the accident scene a patina of flesh lying on a tray of flattened grass where the hospital people had lifted a man who’d been thrown from one of the cars. And the grass about this spectacle was stained with thick blood, so that it appeared as if it were covered with red phlegm. As he watched, one of the nurses broke from the group and walked frantically from person to person, saying something in the language of the country. In what seemed like a response to the words of this woman, a man wearing a blue visor stepped up. Another, an elderly woman. The nurse nodded, wagged her fingers as if to say the woman could not do this. As the white woman talked, his stomach rumbled. He turned back to go, to find some water at least.

  “Mister, mister,” the nurse called after him.

  As she made to speak, someone called at her in the strange language. She turned to say a word to the man. Then she faced my host again, moving swiftly towards him with the disposition of extreme anguish. “Excuse me, can you please donate blood? We need blood for the victims. Please!”

  “Er?” he said, and slammed his hand on his leg to free it from shaking. He was trembling slightly.

 
“Blood. Can you donate blood? We need blood for the victims, please.”

  He turned as if to ask someone behind him for an answer, then looked back at the woman. “Yes,” he said.

  “Okay, thank you, mister. Come with me.”

  AGUJIEGBE, among the old fathers, it was said that in wrestling bouts, rarely was a man thrown because of inferior strength. Men of weak or small bodies did not attempt egwu-ngba. So how did they throw men—the great wrestler of Nkpa, Emekoha Mlenwechi, the sleek snake; Nosike, the cat; Okadigbo, the Iroko tree? It was either by a trick or resilience. In the latter case, the opponent slugs it out with the great wrestler for so long that his muscles become weak, his limbs tired. He caves, relaxes his grip, and in a flash, he is lifted like an empty drum and thrown in defeat.

  This can apply in any situation beyond the field of wrestling. If a man has contended for too long with an unrelenting enemy, he may cave in submission and say to the trouble that had come to him: “Here, did you ask for my cloak? Take my turnip, too.” If such a man has been asked to go a mile, he may say, “Did you say you want me to go a mile with you? Okay, here, let us go two miles.” And if such a man, after just escaping death, has been asked to donate blood, he would not reject the request. He would follow the nurse who has made such a request of him—a stranger, a man of black and foreign skin—to the hospital and do just as he has been asked. And after such a man has donated blood to one victim, he would say to the nurse—who has drawn his blood and dabbed a wool, the like of which the old mothers made into fabric, on the spot to stanch the bleeding pore—that he wanted to donate to a second victim.

  “No, mister, one is enough. Believe me.”

  But the man would insist. “No, take more for the victims. Take more, please, ma.”

  He would insist despite his chi speaking into his mind that he should desist from this, because blood is life itself, and it is the thing that leaves the body in protest against an injury done to it. He would insist despite his chi saying that suicide is an abomination to Ala, and that there was nothing broken at this point that could not be repaired, and that there was nothing the eyes can see that can cause them to shed blood in place of tears. But the host, a man broken, defeated, possessed by the silent tyranny of despair, would pay no heed. The woman, visibly astonished, would stop in her tracks.

  “Are you sure about this?” the woman would say, and he would say, “It is so, ma. I am very very sure. I want to give blood for them. I have enough blood. Enough.”

  Still staring at him, as one would regard a madman on a pulpit, the woman would take up another syringe, tap it three times, and then, wiping his left arm with a piece of wet cotton wool, draw his blood again.

  Afterwards, he rose, weak and tired, hungry and thirsty, and in his mind was the question: what was to be done next? The past three days had upended any philosophy he had about life, and he now resolved that it was better not to plan anything. No, how foolish to think that a man who leaves his house and says to his friend, or even to himself, “I am going to school,” that such a man would in fact get to his destination. Such a foolish man might find himself in a hospital instead, giving blood to people he does not know. How foolish to think that because one has boarded a taxi and given the driver the right address, one would end up at the right place. Such a fool might find himself walking only a few moments later towards an unfamiliar destination very far away from the school, thronged and hectored by a mob of boys.

  So no need to plan. What he could do was thank the woman who had drawn his blood, then go his way. He must step into the day, into the sun, and go—perhaps to the temporary accommodation. And this, Egbunu, was what he did. For after he’d said, “Thank you, ma,” he walked out, both his hands curved up to hold the moist cotton to the needle spots.

  He’d walked past the long aisle of people, past the offices, and out into the motor park when he heard, “Mr. Solomon.”

  He turned.

  “You forgot your bag.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  The woman came up to him.

  “Mr. Solomon, I am worried. Are you all right? You are a kind man.”

  Before he could think, his mouth said, “No, I am not fine, ma.”

  “I can see that. Can you talk? I’m a nurse, I can help you.”

  He gazed past her at the sun, now in the sky, peering at him.

  “Leave the sun,” she said, pulling him back under the awning attached to the hospital’s facade.

  “You tell me, I can help you.”

  15

  All the Trees in the Land Have Been Removed

  BAABADUUDU, I have spoken at length about the longest day in the life of my host—a day of rain, and hail, and pestilence. But I must tell you also that it ended with a drop of hope. I must therefore hasten to say that he returned to the temporary apartment he shared with the man who had been his companion the previous day. He was climbing the stairs up to the apartment, holding the bottle of drink the nurse had bought him, when it struck him to call Ndali again. The idea came to him as a whiplash on his mind, and with true surprise, he wondered why he’d dithered for so long. He began to key in her number, then he remembered he had not added a plus. So he erased it and began again. When it started to ring, he turned off the phone so frantically that it made the sound of a clap. He must approach her with the utmost geniality and great care, he told himself. He must tell it from the beginning, from how much he had missed her and how much he loves her. This would disarm her.

  So, standing with one leg on the stairs and one hand on the banister, he dialed again.

  “Mommy! My mommy!” he shouted into the phone. “Nwanyioma.”

  “Oh God! Nonso, Obim, I have nearly gone mad from worrying about you.”

  “Oh, it is network. Bad network. It is—”

  “But, Nonso, not even a call, not even an ordinary text message? Er? I have been worried. In fact, someone called me and I was speaking, shouting hello, hello, but the person could not hear me, and my spirit told me it was you, Nonso. Did you call me today?”

  Egbunu, he was trapped for a moment between the truth and falsity, for he feared that she would suspect something had happened to him. In his hesitation, her voice came again—“Nonso, are you still there? Can you hear—”

  “Yes, yes, Mommy, I can hear you,” he said.

  “Did you call me?”

  “Oh, no no. I wanted to call you when everything is fine so you don’t worry.”

  “Hmm, I see…”

  She was still speaking when a Turkish voice came over the line followed by another speaking in the language of the White Man, informing him that his credit was exhausted, and his call terminated.

  “Oh-ooh! Which kind of nonsense is this? Er? The credit I just bought.” It surprised him, after he uttered those words, that he had bothered about something as trivial as a phone credit. For the first time in days, he was not gazing at the battered image of himself before the mirror in his head and gasping at the gashes, the swollen eyes, the pulp on the lips, and the masks of his great defeat.

  He rang the bell at the door of the apartment and heard the sound of feet in the house.

  “Solomon, wa!”

  “My brother, my brother,” he said, and embraced Tobe.

  “What, where have you been—”

  “Mehn, thank you for yesterday,” he said as he sat down on one of the couches in the living room.

  “What happened?”

  “Many things, my brother. Many things.”

  In the same mood of joy, he told Tobe about all he’d done that day, the accident, and the nurse, up to the point I have just testified to you and the hosts of Eluigwe and beyond.

  Egbunu, it would have been futile, even stupid to have planned anything after his blood was drawn. If he had planned to go back to the campus, for instance, reality would have again shown its wrinkled face on the screen of his consciousness, laughing at him with its toothless mouth, as it had been doing relentlessly for the past four days.
So he had done the wise thing and allowed himself to float, be carried by time wherever it willed. An hour after his blood had been drawn, he remained with the nurse, having told her his whole story, and was seated in the passenger seat of a small gray car, riding back to Girne! Yes, Girne, where he’d been told a few hours before that he would never find Jamike by those who would have been with the man. But how could he know he’d return here, where his hope had been struck with a death blow the same day?

  “It will take about forty minutes, so you can sleep, okay, lie down maybe, and sleep, if you want.”

  “Thanks, ma,” he said.

  So relieved was he that he wanted to cry. He threw his head back against the seat and closed his eyes, hugging his bag closer to his body. Some of the vegetables from the kebab she’d bought him were still stuck between his teeth. He pushed them to the top of his tongue and spat them out noiselessly.

  “I think I must tell you about my troubles, too, Solomon,” the nurse said.

  “Okay, ma.”

  “I have already told you, please call me Fiona.”

  “Okay.”

  He heard her laugh—a laugh between everything she said.

  “When I moved here from Germany, and married my husband, I gave up everything, too, except my German citizenship. The government said I could keep both because Cyprus is not a real country. One year, two years, it was good. Whatever. Then, everything, everything, began to explode. Now, we live together like two strangers. Total strangers.” He heard a laugh, her voice cracking slightly. “I don’t see him; he doesn’t see me. But we are husband and wife. Very weird, right?”

  He did not know what to say, and he did not know what the word weird meant. Even though I, his chi, knew, it would have been an overreach to tell him, so I didn’t. All he thought was that the people here—like him and his people back in Nigeria—have problems, too.