419

by Will Ferguson

"And don't swerve for goats like that," Joe said. "Go through them. It's the only way. We can hose off the grille later, but if we tip this rig on a swerve, all is lost."

  The road began to undulate, rising and falling over hill and gulley, unspooling upward across the plateaued heights of the Middle Belt. With the altitude, the air grew cooler, and Nnamdi's ears popped. Then popped again.

  "Tiv country," said Joe, pointing out the crops and slow movement of cattle below. "Farmers. They hop when they dance."

  Nnamdi waited for something more, but that was it. That was Joe's full summation of Tiv culture.

  "I'm going to sleep," said Joe, and he crawled up into the bunk, pulled the curtain across.

  Trails of smoke were rising from the Tiv settlements. "Are they peaceful people?" Nnamdi shouted back at Joe as he wrestled the wheel around a slow bend.

  "The Tiv? I suppose," Joe replied. "Too busy hopping." He stretched out and was soon asleep.

  From the thin air of the Middle Belt, Dreams Abound began its slow descent. Nnamdi could feel the immense weight of the fuel behind him, pushing the cab forward, and he fought against it, riding the brake pads, gearing down.

  Joe was awakened by the strain of the truck fighting its own momentum.

  "Don't use the brakes," he said, crawling back out of the bunk.

  "I told you, they'll only slow you down."

  The outer savannah opened up, with rocky outcrops and a terrible emptiness stretching out in front of them. On the far horizon, a cloud the colour of dried blood had darkened the sky.

  "Harmattan," said Joe. "We better find cover."

  It was a race against the weather—and it was a race they lost, as the sands swept in, bringing the Sahel with it, turning day into dusk, dusk into night. They cranked up the windows and turned on the wipers, but the water that sprayed across only smeared the grit, didn't clean it off.

  "Paraga and ogogoro," said Joe as he unscrewed a mason jar, rolled down his window and hung out, into the storm, sand stinging his eyes as he reached to splash a chug of his mixture across Nnamdi's driver-side windshield. The dust slid away, left clear streaks in its path. "More than one use!" Joe cried with a laugh as he swung himself back inside. "Would'a been worse come rainy season. Dust is still better than mud.''

  Nnamdi wasn't so sure. The motor was gumming up; he could feel it growing sluggish. Harmattans and motor oil didn't mix well.

  They entered Abuja city in the grip of a dust storm, headlights on, wipers flailing. Nigeria's national capital was clouded in a red haze, the government buildings outlined in rust. Nnamdi pulled over. "I can't do this. I'm driving blind."

  Joe crawled across, took Nnamdi's place. The truck rolled down a wide boulevard strafed with grit till Joe found a motor park. It looked like a Bedouin camp, with vehicles shuttered and food stands closed tight.

  "We'll wait out the storm here," said Joe. "And make Kaduna city tomorrow morning." His voice was strangely flat. Any elation he might have felt over their impending payday was lost in a sea of foreboding. "In and out," he said. "We don't linger. There's no drinking in the sharia states, you know. No taking of harlots or gambling."

  Nnamdi said, "I wasn't planning on taking harlots. Or gambling. And I can go a night without drinking."

  Joe grinned. "Well, I'm not one for gambling." He finished off the last of the paraga. "And just because it's not permitted doesn't mean it's not allowed. It's just—you have to skulk about so, like a common criminal in among the riff-raff and ruffians of the Sabon Gari."

  "The Sabon Gari?"

  "The Christian quarter. Every city in the north has one."

  "Sabon means Christian?"

  "Sabon means stranger."

  The cab was rocking on the wind, sand hissing across the glass.

  Another round of checkers, another round of ayo—

  "We should have been playing for money," said Nnamdi. "I would be a rich man by now."

  Joe climbed up into the bunk.

  "You're cheating. I don't know how, but you are."

  "It is not cheating. It is cleverness."

  "Cleverness is just another form of cheating. And anyway, if we played for money, that would be gambling, and gambling is forbidden up here." Joe rolled himself over and into sleep.

  Tomorrow Nnamdi would clean the worst of the gunk from the motor. They would deliver their cargo of fuel, and then beat a hasty retreat, cash in hand. Nnamdi felt as though he had crossed an ocean, had reached the edge of the map, had climbed the tallest oil palm in the Delta.

  As the storm outside thinned, he watched a red moon burn its way through the dust. And he smiled.

  CHAPTER 67

  Fires were burning on the road to Kaduna. Vehicles, set alight. The fuel riots had spread, and mobs were smashing storefront windows and being truncheoned into submission. Broken glass formed diamond-dust patterns on the sidewalks, and a haze of smoke and harmattan dust hung over the city. The few filling stations still open were backlogged with cars, horns blaring their anger and frustration. Another riot seemed imminent.

  "Let's hope they don't storm our truck, drain the tank," Joe said as they rolled down the debris-strewn boulevard. He tried to laugh, but it came out as a nervous giggle.

  "They probably think it's empty," said Nnamdi.

  "Let's hope."

  Even in crisis, there was opportunity. Young boys moved through the angry mobs selling plastic baggies of water and packets of kola nuts. Black-market stands offered cloudy gasoline of dubious quality in plastic jugs and two-litre bottles. "Just enough to get to the next stand," Joe joked. "We are not selling ours on the black market, though. We are selling it right back to the government."

  He turned the rig onto a wide side street, aimed it toward a fuelling depot ringed with razor wire and towering chain-link fences. "Illegal fuel to a legal depot." This was the brilliance of the Turk's scheme.

  And it worked.

  They handed over their paperwork, joined a queue of tanker trucks inching forward until it was, at last, their turn. Workers climbed up, opened the hatch and pushed a metal pole deep inside, drew out a sample to make sure they hadn't arrived with kerosene floating on top of well water. When their cargo had been filtered and confirmed, the coveralled workers threaded in a drainage hose, started up the pump. The sides of Dreams Abound rattled and banged as the fuel inside was emptied into underground reservoirs.

  Escaping fumes created a wavering mirage above the tanker trucks.

  "We are rich," Joe whispered to Nnamdi.

  They counted their money twice, couldn't stop grinning. By this point, dusk was settling over the city. "We don't want to be on the highway with this payroll," said Joe. He peeled off some bills for the night ahead, then wrapped the rest in a plastic bag and pushed it under the floor mat, in the space where the emergency brake had once been. "I had them remove it before I picked up the truck," he explained. "It was just taking up space." He slid the floor mat back in place. "Perfect!"

  Once they'd manoeuvred the truck into the Sabon Gari motor park, Igbo Joe headed out for the night. Nnamdi stayed to watch the moon; by the time Joe returned, it had arced halfway across the sky.

  Nnamdi was outside, sitting on the bonnet, leaning against the windshield, when he heard Joe coming, staggeringly drunk and singing loud. Joe was holding a bottle of gin above him like the head of a slain enemy. Shirt unbuttoned, belt the same. Nnamdi watched as he stumble-walked toward the truck; his legs appeared to be moving at different speeds. He proceeded to fall upward, into the cabin, if such a thing were possible, and then upward again, into the bunk.

  Nnamdi had to laugh; how could he not? Igbo Joe—in defiance of every known law of gravity. Other truck drivers had been celebrating nearby, though not with quite the wholehearted abandon Joe had shown, his unease at spending time in the north having proven fleeting at best. The other truckers sat shoulder to shoulder around glowing coals, eating lamb off the bone and toasting their good fortune with millet beer. Nnamdi heard snatches
of Yoruba in among the conversations, and he watched as the flames flickered out and the men fell away, one by one. He wanted the moon to tell him a story. "Egberiyo," he whispered into the night, let his request float up and disappear.

  The night before, Nnamdi had thrown stones while Joe lay sleeping. The message was as clear as it was confusing: Something is coming. But nothing happened.

  The world was asleep when Nnamdi finally climbed down and came around the side of Dreams Abound.

  Asleep, but not quite. Something was moving through the shadows.

  Nnamdi stepped out from between trucks, smiled.

  "What do we have here?" he asked.

  A girl, eyes afraid at the sight of him, startled and searching for a way to escape. She'd been creeping toward the fire pit, and she backed up as he came nearer.

  In the moonlight: scars, delicate and decorative, drawn across her forehead, framing the edge of her mouth, radiating outward from her eyes.

  "Fulani?" he asked.

  She shook her head.

  "Hausa?" he said.

  No. How to explain that she was of the Hausa, but not Hausa, that she came from a small band of horse riders who had once crossed deserts with gold and spices, salt and slaves, incense and myrrh. How to explain that walls had once been built to keep them out.

  "Ina so in ci," she whispered, backing up farther as he came closer. "Ruwa. Shinkafa. Ina so in ci... "

  "Sorry-o, I don't speak... Kedu ka idi? Do you understand Igbo?" If Hausa was the language of the north, Igbo was still the language of trade, and Nnamdi knew enough to scrape together a query. "Kedu afa gi? Aham bu Nnamdi. "

  She shook her head again. "Ban fahimta ba." And then:

  "Hausa?"

  "No, no. Sorry-o."

  "Franfais?"she asked. "Moi, unpetitpeu."

  He shook his head. "English?" His accent had softened during his time among the Shell Men. "English?" he asked. "Do you speak it?"

  A small nod. Her voice, still faint. "A little, some."

  His smile turned into a grin. "So, the King's it is! Are you hungry, miss?" She was younger than he was, but calling her "sistah" seemed too familiar, "madam" too formal. "Are you hungry?" he asked again, making a gesture with his hand as though pinching off a piece of dumpling and then eating it. "Food? Yes?"

  She said nothing, but he could see she was famished, and he climbed into the cab and dragged down his Ghana-Must-Go, rummaged through it. "I think I have some... You know piti? It's from the Delta. My mother makes them much better, but—Here.

  Take it, take it. I was saving them, now I know why."

  He handed it over to her. Mashed corn and plantain, wrapped in leaves. "These are a little old. I bought them in the Down Below before I left, but still. Please, sit, sit." He waved for her to join him on the running board.

  The food was sweet and glutinous and she ate desperately, with two hands, not caring.

  "Piti, " he said and smiled. "You like it?"

  "Nagode, ''she whispered. Thank you.

  He opened a bottle of Fanta for her, and she sipped it slowly to avoid cramping.

  "Nagode, "she said again.

  "Where I'm from, in Ijawland, we say Noao. It means hello and thank you." He smiled. "Saves time. You know the Ijaw Delta?"

  She shook her head.

  "You know the pipeline? The oil?"

  She nodded. She'd walked alongside it on the way into Kaduna, that pale green rope running low across the scrublands.

  "Well," said Nnamdi. "Follow that line all the way south, and you will find my village. I live at the other end of that pipeline."

  "Akwai nisa?" She should have known. His face had the dark sheen of oil, as though it had soaked into his skin. Just as hers had the colour of old clay, of dust, of sand and savannah.

  "You still are hungry, I think," said Nnamdi. "I have some

  akara, too. You know akara? It's sweet bean cake. We eat it in the Delta. Wait a moment, I'll find some."

  When she'd eaten her sweet bean and finished the last sip of Fanta, she returned the can and bowed her thanks to him, eyes averted as was proper. But when she got up to leave, the stiffness in her back and the slowness in her walk betrayed her. For the first time, he noticed the size of her belly, so out of proportion with the brittle thinness of the rest of her.

  The Igbo believe we are born with two souls. Nnamdi had learned this from his father. It was similar to Ijaw beliefs. One soul leaves us when we die, the other walks onward. This second soul will attach itself to someone else, will protect them and in turn be protected. Nnamdi looked at the girl's feet, leathery and grained with dirt.

  "Do you have a family?" he asked. "A husband, father?"

  She shook her head. Only uncles.

  "Where will you go?"

  "Ina so in je...,"she began, then reworded it in English. "I need—I need be going far."

  "I can take you there," he said, "to far away. Child, you are so tired. Why don't you rest? Come."

  When she hesitated, he smiled at her. "No bad things will happen, I promise."

  He had a beautiful smile, this boy. Even if he did have the sheen of the oil creeks about him. It was a smile one might risk trusting.

  Nnamdi opened the truck door, swung himself in. She hung back.

  "What do they call you?" he asked.

  "Amina," she said, taking her name from the Queen of Zaria and the walls that had been built there.

  "And my name is Nnamdi. See? We are not strangers anymore, so you may enter. You can have my spot, here on the seat. The springs are a bit soft, but still comfortable." He pushed aside empty bottles of Fanta and food-is-ready wrappers, embarrassed at the mess. "I must apologize. We don't get many visitors. We are bachelors, both, you see. Untidy by nature." He straightened out the frayed blanket he'd been using. "Here, child. Rest." Nnamdi poked his head through the curtain. "Joseph, move over!"

  She stiffened at this. She hadn't realized there was someone else in the truck.

  Nnamdi looked back and saw the concern on her face. "Don't worry. He's dead drunk." He made a drinking gesture, thumb like a baby's bottle, chugging it down, then pretending to burp. "Drunk, you know?"

  He was trying to make her smile, but all she looked was worried.

  She held back, near the door, ready to run.

  "Don't worry, he is a peaceful person." Then to Joe: "Move over, Joseph!"

  A grumbled complaint, nothing more.

  "Igbo Joe, move over-oh!"

  "Drink my piss." Joe rolled onto one side.

  "Mind your language, there is a lady present."

  "A lady?"

  "Yes, Joe. A lady."

  "I'm too tired, you have her. And name's Joshua, not Joseph.

  And'm Ibo, not Igbo."

  Nnamdi eventually managed to push Joe far enough over to squeeze in beside him. And with a whispered "Good night" to the girl, he pulled the curtain across.

  "Noao, "she whispered back, though Nnamdi didn't hear.

  She planned to rest for just a moment and then slip away, perhaps with the blanket, certainly with a few more bottles of Fanta, but sleep engulfed her, pulled her down. Her limbs became heavy and her belly grew still. The child inside was sleeping too.

  CHAPTER 68

  Nnamdi and Joseph woke face to face, with Joe reeking of sour nights and sin.

  Nnamdi winced, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

  Joe blinked, slowly realized Nnamdi was beside him.

  "What in Chukwu..." He crawled over his friend, pulled the curtain aside, and was about to climb down when he saw the girl asleep on the seat below.

  He kicked Nnamdi awake. "What is this! You don't bring them back with you like some night-riding mugu!" Joe stepped out over the girl's sleeping form, checked under the floor mat from the driver's side. The money was still there, so Nnamdi would be spared a pummelling over that. "Nnamdi!" he yelled. "Pay the girl and send her gone!"

  The girl stirred. The blanket had slid off, and even with her lay
ered robes Joe could see the swell of her belly. It stirred up images of other bellies, other travellers in the night, other shelters, other strangers—and he cursed his Sunday school teachers with hellfire damnation and every manner of punishment. Couldn't kick her out, couldn't take her with them. She was going to cause them trouble, he could tell.

  She woke, sat up, kept her eyes lowered.