Great expectation tempered his hurried walk from Ashi Park, Vidya Valley’s apex bus stop, to the Brotherhood on the crest of the eastern slope of the fast growing suburb. Thoughts ran wild in his mind. Who were those on retention at the Brotherhood? Would he be as welcome as he had always been? Had time altered the alchemy of his significance in the Brotherhood?
Netu’s visit to the headquarters of the Brotherhood in Danabi City fourteen days prior had tested his popularity as yet unequalled. But the red carpet reception he toyed with in his head would not be as expected if newbreed inmates had taken over affairs now in the Brotherhood at Vidya Valley. These newbreed may not be aware of his sterling record there.
Of course, his joy would soar if providence availed the sort of people he had dreamt of seeing again, especially Pa Nyto Smand. From Smand’s point of view, Netu glared as a promising, indispensable spiritual protégé: the anointed one, soon to bear the weight of the human tree as the next Manu. He seldom made this point clear, but Netu knew the direction of Pa Smand’s Waji conscience and proverbial chatter. Would Pa Nyto Smand, his spiritual adviser, be there?
Their meeting during his visit to the Brotherhood in Danabi City had been brief. There were ample tidings to tell the old man now, and wisdom to glean from the sage too.
The climb up the steep road to the eastern apex of Vidya Valley on foot with the sun high up in the sky bored Netu. Nonetheless, he made it to the crest of Vidya Valley aided by the force of deep inspiration.
By now, the residents at the main guard post of the Brotherhood had identified his gangling form heading up the steep. He could tell the creasing semblance of warm smiles on their faces even in the slight distance. Doubts that assailed his mind vanished. He realized their grimaces and amiable dispositions meant they still welcomed him.
Tifan Fiko, the stout, dark-skinned, apple-faced man in his early thirties, extended a crushing handshake, grinning in the self-aggrandizing fashion of his Baruyo pedigrees. Netu had to apply as much pressure to save his hand under the impact of Tifan’s sinews.
"Howdy!" exclaimed Tifan, admiring his ex-colleague like a well-dressed mannequin in a highbrow boutique.
"Fine. And how are you?" responded Netu slapping Tifan affably on the chest.
"Ah, well, we are okay." Tifan said.
"Look who’s here!” beamed Rebono Bulem, the temperamental electrician, an indigene of Barlaca from the southeast of Riagena. He pushed past the swing door of the guard post and came to gasp next to Netu smiling and encircling his huge arms around Netu’s frail body in a bear hug. "I knew I’ll see you soon after the last time at Danabi City."
Netu winced from the import of the hug on his spine. "Of course, but I got tied up somehow," he replied, extricating himself from the Rebono’s strong arms.
"Boy, glad to see you!" quipped Tifan the debonair resident from the Baruyo extraction.
"I’m glad you are still around keeping the old flame alive!" Netu said.
"We want to see more of you - you are a source of inspiration you know!" Rebono said.
Netu smiled. "Well, I’ll remember that!"
"I hope this isn’t one of your disappearing acts?" humored Tifan, gesturing like a comedian in a circus.
"Would you rather I was tied down to some immobile pole?" countered Netu, winking and flashing his neat set of teeth.
"I didn’t mean that," argued Tifan, sensing Netu’s guffaw.
"And I didn’t think you would,” replied Netu. “By the way, who are the residents posted here? Is Pa Smand around?"
"Yes, he is," Rebono said. "You’ll find him on his haunches at the usual place inside. The old man is having a swell time."
"I can imagine."
Tifan smiled. "And there’s Dullab too. He is in charge here."
“Dullab? By God! Where is he?”
"Inside - in his office. The one before Father Manu’s."
"All right, I’ll get along pals. I have to do a little catch up with Dullab and Pa Smand."
"You’re welcome!" Rebono said.
From behind the high walls of the Brotherhood, cheerful voices pitched against the gentle rustle of the evening breeze. Netu flinched in recognition. He thought the lilting voice from the din with the highest note sounded familiar - a young lady’s voice. The sweet tone of the voice lingered in his head as he swirled free of the guard post towards the entrance.
The wrought-iron gate cringed ajar at that moment and a swarthy guy of about twenty-five, a resident in the Brotherhood who Netu had known as a rough diamond of character, huddled out of the gate, almost bumping into Netu. Startled by the familiar gait of Netu, he stepped aside at the gate’s edge and looked at the visitor.
"Mine, oh mine!" Timoni gasped as his vagrant mind returned from a long flight to acknowledge his comrade standing by the door. "Netu! Netu! I’ll be damned! You’ve changed quite a bit," he quipped extending his large palm for a handshake. "Where the damn hell did you go to all this while?"
Netu placated in a friendly undertone. "Nowhere in particular, Timoni. I’ve been around. Perhaps I should be asking you the same question. My dear Timoni, where have you been all this while?"
Timoni grimaced undecidedly. His beady eyes found anchor skyward. "Here and there - you know the damn routines here. This moment you are busy there, the next moment you are here. The lengthiest respite one ever gets is the brief moments between meals and the long boring trips of routine postings."
Timoni lapsed into a sustained laugh after which he glanced behind him and called out to someone in the outer sections of the reception. "Hey, Fiara, see who we’ve got here, Netu Deo! He’d changed so much in so short a time."
Netu craned his head and saw the lady Timoni referred to as Fiara. She looked frail but had a shiny dark complexion capable of stirring a man’s heart. Her eyes twinkled like beads, accentuated by a sweet face, which like the lens of a powerful electronic microscope, revealed the deepest of a man's heart. She rose from her seat in the outer reception and peered at the man Timoni conducted toward her.
"Ah, Netu!" Fiara exploded, jumping happily around her desk like a cooing dove. The ponytail of her dark brown hair swished about her shoulders coloring her sensuality in innumerable shades over pink silk organza blouse and black gabardine skirt.
Netu had never seen excitement as wanton as Fiara’s or anyone so happy for his sake. It made his heart explode with joy too.
Fiara had smiled and jumped a dozen times before Netu got to the large glass encasement, the lodgment arm of the reception where visitors’ valuable items were kept on their way to the amphitheatre. Fiara held out her arms through the open window and admired him, trembling with elation.
"Good to see you. Netu, you’re looking brighter and finer each day!" she said, her slim hand straying to tease the stubble on his chin.
Netu winced, astonished. Emotions of this kind were not allowed in the Brotherhood, yet Fiara had put old-fashioned notions in their right rungs of history, daring to show some degree of affection without the inhibitions her resident status had induced on her human nature.
“Uhmn, you look cool just as ever!" Netu said. "Fiara you are the one that amazes me with such radiance.”
Fiara grinned and held onto his hand tenderly, sending sensual messages through his being. She remembered something of a sudden.
"Now, don’t you dare move, I have a surprise for you! Hold on now," she said and rushed off to the far edge of the glass encasement on the right, turning there to the right and into an inner chamber. She came out blushing seconds afterward with another lady of a lithe build in tow.
Fiara tried shielding the lady behind her with widespread arms. "Netu, guess who is behind me."
Netu looked beyond Fiara anticipating her surprise package and saw Pere, one of his closest female colleagues in the Brotherhood. Pere smiled, waved and bustled past Fiara to the lodging ar
ea. She took Netu’s hand with the delicate care an egg deserves as she reached him from behind the wooden desk-like divide of the glass encasement.
"It seems like ages you know,” she said in a soft, impassioned voice. “Missed you greatly."
"Pere, I miss you too. Every one of you good friends," Netu said, his heart pumping faster.
Pere Mejeli had aged beyond her thirties from Netu’s reckoning. Gaunt looking now, her once full cheeks had shrunk like smoked bull's hide etching visible lines of stress around her eyes. Her once sexy dark eyeballs, which always wrenched his control and ensnared his emotion in a slavish sense, were now dull and seemed to be fed with a fast waning ardor. Her beauty had suffered from the transformation on her face. She seemed like a woman of fifty, though there was nothing to suggest the kind of senile posture peculiar to those within that age range in the agile way she held his arms, and in the brusque way she had rushed pass Fiara to the wooden desk-like divide of the encasement. Her trademark grins were still evident, her veins livid with Shani blood and her gaped teeth were impeccably white.
Netu still recognized her as the Pere Mejeli of those good old days of his in the Brotherhood. Yet, he reckoned she had not learnt to adjust to the changing times. Netu admitted also that if she had changed with the times as expected, perhaps time itself had exhorted its pound of flesh from the way she looked, pale and dejected.
"Hey, what went wrong with those plump cheeks and good looks of yours? You look pale and forlorn. Were you sick?" Netu asked in a lowered voice. "Or you’ve abandoned thoughts of beauty care and...?”
Netu acknowledged the flustered look on Pere Mejeli. His words stung her like a thrashing whip. The impact on her skin appeared gentle but it left tremendous pain searing through her being. He noticed her eyes drooped for a moment and he pitied her feeble struggle with self-pity.
A sad grin reared on Pere’s face. "I was sick all right," she said lamely, "but I guess I'm fine now." She then gazed at him in a bold, determined pose.
"I thought as much," Netu consoled. "It’ll be nice to have you back in your usual bloom though - a stunner that shape is any day!"
"Don’t flatter me, Netu.”
"Ok, if you won’t accept a deserved compliment."
"Some other time perhaps. Obviously a blind man could tell the ghost in human apparel standing before you."
"Don’t be ridiculous Pere. By God, you’re still a marvel! Lots of rest and a little food will fill out all the deep hollows."
"You need to see Pere eat - man it’s like a feast of a thousand famished elephants,” Fiara intruded.
"Don’t mind Fiara and her robust humor. I eat moderately," Pere argued with pride.
The ensuing peal of laughter washed off the inflections of health and the suggested remedies.
"Timi is here as well. Have you seen her?” Pere chipped in.
"No, I just arrived," Netu said. "It’s a whole family then?"
Pere nodded affirmation. "Log in your items while I help spread the news to her and others. She’ll join you in a minute," she said and bounced out of the encasement. She came out to the terrace through an annex of the reception, grinned and swaddled her frail body towards the residential quarters of the Brotherhood out of bound to non-residents.
Fiara lodged in Netu’s big brown envelope in euphoria noting the sparse contents. “You’ll collect the envelope on on your way out.”
“That’s fine by me, Fiara.”
Just when Netu turned away from Fiara to begin to explore deeper into the confines of the Brotherhood, Pere returned stealthily with Timi.
From another section of the Brotherhood emerged three young ladies and two young men, residents of the Brotherhood who were close to Netu at various times. On sighting Netu they cooed and twirled like drunken wild Newlanders with joy and gratitude to the purveyor of all known and unknown human actions for the return of the prodigal son.
The whole of Netu’s being ruptured; an infinite lifting of spirit to profound realms in his nervous stead as they hugged, touched and looked him over.
The claws of his doubts still lurked in the realm of his thoughts despite this beautiful feeling he felt in the presence of the female residents of the Brotherhood. Nothing they did seemed to erase his fear or his whiff of suspicion bordering on Pere and the other sisters. He sensed they were at Vidya Valley, probably, to induce pressure on his psychic space and haul him straight back to the Brotherhood with the subtlety spiritual warfare demands.
The fact that Pa Smand, Dullab, Tifan, Rebono and the sisters were at the same place at the same time was enough reason for him to suspect foul-play. The curious nature of his Waji spirit spelt intrigue.
Of course, his fears soon found vindication in the words of Timi his presumed spiritual mother when they had a moment of privacy.
"When are you coming back, son?" she whispered, gazing down at her feet, nibbling with the fingers of his hands in hers.
Netu observed a foreboding gleam in her drooped gaze. It made him uncomfortable. "I can’t say when - perhaps it’ll never happen. Perhaps it is best I don’t come back at all. I don’t have the courage anymore to...” he murmured and broke-off.
“To come back? To face all the pains of the Brotherhood you mean?" Timi interjected with a frown. "Are you going to leave me here all alone to fight this war? Your brother is gone to the beyond, you’re the only one left, and you still insist I go alone?" Her voice trembled and her hands against his were a nervous wreck.
"Your other son - my spiritual brother - is gone I know. It hurts even to acknowledge the fact that he’s no longer here with us, but you see it is difficult for me now. The situations are not the same as they used to be. I’d like to be back like everybody says but I just can’t help forgetting the trauma of the times I’ve seen in and outside the Brotherhood. I’ve got to get my bearings straight, be responsible for whatever actions I take about my life."
Netu every so often felt disadvantaged when Jare Nom’s name came up in his discussions with members of the Brotherhood. Such recollections were akin to a reversal of the clock of his life to the sad moment when he wrestled ineffectually with death in defense of his friend Jare Nom. How he wished death had spared his friend’s life.
Netu had watched helplessly the torment of the young man, a little older than him. The groaning and rather fierce remonstrations Jare Nom had with sneaky death, the last emboldened yet laborious battle to dispel the grotesque hands of the illness that snatched his life, were memories that still haunted Netu. The name Jare Nom, threw up now the stark reality of his own fate and made him surrender like a coward. He would not let Timi, the human bridge between him and Jare Nom use their perceived spiritual filial bond to blackmail him into undue submission.
Timi had the quizzical, despairing look on her face again. "Can’t you see the evidence of the trauma we are all passing through? I’m worst hit. Take a good look, son. The war as you see it is still at its infant stage – I’m as traumatized as you are. I heard all the gory stuff, which stole you away from us - but your father, the Manu, loves you so much. He wants you back. He wouldn't just stop saying it. He too has had it rough with the forces of the dark but he had to continue to lead us. If he should relent in his effort and retire, who will champion the cause we’ve fought so hard for all these years? Son, please, I need you. We need you," she pleaded at the verge of tears.
Timi Liati’s supple chocolate brown skin had stretched unevenly in the harsh bouts of anxiety in the Brotherhood. Perhaps from the attacks of the vile spiritual elements she hinted of. Netu imagined it along the lines of cindered earth. Though she still retained the luster of her dark gray eyes and fullness of lips, her bust had shrunk. She seemed a caricature of her former voluptuous self. Netu wondered what had eaten her up and made her so fragile and yet so ardent in terms of her faith?
"The epidemic has hit you no doubt," Netu admitted withou
t deep emotion, "but you are still on the inside, that makes the difference. It’s a world apart."
“What’s the meaning of that?”
"It’s better, safer, not to leave the Brotherhood in the first place. Once you’re out, you’re simply out. You hear a new rhythm, a different song, different dancers and audience. And here you are in the thick of it all trying to make meaning out of the nonsense you perceive all around. And you begin to see things you never would have seen, and you hear baubles of all kinds that you never dreamt of, and you wonder what it all boils down to. Timi, I really want to do as you wish but the rhythm doesn’t seem to strike twice with me. Please, do understand. I know you will."
That much he could let himself say. He would allow none to plunder the treasure of his heart no matter the bond between them. His fate and the things already agreed upon between him and his mentor Father Manu were secrets better kept sealed.
Timi retrieved her hands from his and gestured in a cold, ominous way with them. Her down swept gaze rose now to level with his stubborn, unyielding stare.
"I won’t bother you anymore if you carry on with this headiness. But don’t be too far away from us while you contemplate your return. My heart would be gladdened if I know you are within reach. Think about it son. Here is home. Our home. Your father is waiting anxiously," she entreated, putting back some warmth into her pale look.
Netu forced himself into a meaningless, dry and raucous laugh as if it were his last. Affected in a grand way by his wiles, Timi did not know when she joined in laughing her deep-seated fears away. Her first real laughter in a long while.
They met Pa Nyto Smand lounging alone with a light heart by the indoor swimming pool of the stucco for residents when Timi Liati guided Netu to the poolside. The stucco had several adjoining apartments, bordering the sweeping lawns of the farthest western spread of the Brotherhood.
Titan Race Page 27