by Wole Soyinka
“Well, one day came the big surprise. A little girl in our compound was suffering from stomach cramps. There she was writhing on the pavement with no one able to help her. She was a playmate, my own age, so you can imagine what I suffered watching her agony. Then our madman arrived. At first he did nothing, just stood there watching. Then his eyes lightened up, he smiled—it was an awe-inspiring, beatific smile, he smiled as if everything had become clear to him. It was the smile of enlightenment. And he walked over to a grass verge, plucked up a tuft of grass, returned and bent over the girl, held the grass to her navel and began his familiar incantation of figures. Only there was a difference. He wasn’t reading his usual electricity bills and water rates or any such familiar pattern. The style was still the same effortless recital, the skin off the surface of some deep cultic fount of figures but it was, in some indefinable way, somewhat different from what we were accustomed to hearing. Two minutes later perhaps, maybe less, the girl’s thrashing stopped, she grew quiet and in another minute she was fast asleep.
“He sat beside her on that pavement while she slept fifteen, maybe thirty minutes. Maybe an hour. Time has rather different dimensions in one’s childhood. The girl woke, saw him, screamed and ran away just as she used to. Some of the children were really afraid of him. But he only smiled, got up, dusted his trousers and said he must be away. Then he remained on his feet for a long stretch of time. He looked slowly up and began to stare at the stars while I waited to invite him to the house. I liked him and wasn’t afraid of him, I believed in fact that he was my very special property. So I invited him into the house. But he said, oh no, not tonight, and began to move off. I ran after him and asked how he did it. Was it magic, I wanted to know. He smiled and said no, anyone can do it. I said, even I? Can I do it? He stopped, took my hands in his and looked at them for a long time. We both stood completely still under the starlight, he calm and still and filled with a remote self-assurance, I with my heart pounding fit to burst. And he gave that sweet-sad smile again and said, Oh yes, you especially. Now run back home.
“That was the last I ever saw of him, I or anyone else. He simply never came back. Now first tell me what you make of it and I’ll tell you my own theories…Zaccheus!”
Zaccheus snored on.
Morosely Ofeyi remembered that bad news exhausted the bearer much faster than good. If anything good tidings was a shot of adrenalin; on Zaccheus it would even act as a compound jab of hormones and the purest essence of caffeine. A lucky fact that, it had forced him to centre his feelings on that never before encountered image of the band-leader, sorry and bedraggled, an orphaned chicken, the lone survivor of a flood-swept brood. One look at him, and Ofeyi had braced himself.
Drawn by memories from her dark intuitions, he had returned to the same room on his return from Aiyéró and lain on the bed, feeling his apprehensive thoughts change course towards an affirmation of loss. And when it came he found himself strangely prepared, even welcoming. He watched it enter her room on Zaccheus’ hesitant feet; the pressure on the doorknob and the silent opening door seemed part of the response to that cumulative apprehension that lay within. The sunlight pencilled thinly along the floor, widened to a yellow frame for that intuition to materialize. Zaccheus turned his back on the room, his big sheepish hands fumbled to re-lock the door, he stood on one leg and wished to turn back in flight, every phrase rehearsed a hundred times on the long journey back clean vanished from his mind. When he turned round again the jacket seemed to sag down his shoulders of its own impatient will, shabbily portentous. The door was not well shut; as it swung open again Ofeyi raised his hand to shield his eyes from the widening glare so Zaccheus took his cue from that, glancing briefly at the jar of cocoaine on a chair by the bedside.
“Hangover?”
“No. Come in and shut the door.”
Again Zaccheus took so long that Ofeyi had time to watch him grope for words. So he sank back into bed and tried to return his mind to the mood of self-preparation that had assailed him since he woke up after the long journey back from Ahime’s tale of catastrophe in Cross-river. His eyes had opened to the red ether of her room and he came out of sleep muttering, the world is dead and I am sole survivor…nothing left but shadows, nothing but shadows….
Zaccheus, as a first confirmation was literally a shadow of himself. Ofeyi felt a little stronger and smiled. The musician turned on his padded, considerate feet and lifted a chair out from under the table without disturbing a dust mote. He was a large apologetic figure of pathos, moving about the febrile dark like a fat powdery moth. And then he flapped his wings down his side suddenly and bellowed,
“That was hell man, hell!”
Ofeyi spun out the moments, pushed the jar a little way on the chair and Zaccheus had to lean over sharply to save it from tipping over. He grasped it gratefully and gulped, cradled the jar on his knee against a heaving paunch. Egbo fastened his gaze on the film of amber in the glass, waiting. He watched Zaccheus take his time, glad now that he had chosen to wait there, in the room which was so uncompromisingly hers. Strangely he felt protected, even tightly sheathed against the impact of disaster. It was a sheath of her own colours, scents, sounds and textures. At first it had all but choked and constricted him, then it merely settled over him, lightly and evenly. Awaiting what he knew Zaccheus had come to say he consoled himself that if he had to be sucked into the vortex of loss it should be from within this sheath, he would measure out the desolation cup by cup and dilute it in her yet fluid essence, drown himself in it. In the region of his stomach he felt the beginning of anxious contraction and recognized in it the need to adjust to a yawning emptiness.
Since Zaccheus appeared to have finally lost his voice he asked, “Where is she?”
Then the words rushed out. “We didn’t know a thing until it hit us. We didn’t know the town was already soaking in blood and we just went on playing. Then they hit us. Not just the mob. It wasn’t the mob that did for us, it was the soldiers themselves. The club is some way off the main road and that’s why we didn’t know a thing. We were right in the middle of a number when they broke in. From nowhere and everywhere. They just burst in man and the bullets began to fly. I had never been that close to those things man, I just didn’t know what was going on. It was every man for himself. I’m telling you the straight thing man, call me what you like. I didn’t remember nobody. Nobody, not even Celestial. I didn’t remember God to pray to. Man, I just ran. The noise! You didn’t see a thing with that noise going, don’t let anyone tell you noise doesn’t affect the eye.”
“So you don’t know what happened to her.”
There was a long silence from Zaccheus, finally he looked straight at him. “Ofe, I do.”
He swallowed, shifted about in the chair and swore. “Listen, when I got out of that hall—I don’t really recall how, but I found myself running on the driveway—I found myself heading for a group of those bastards and they were heading straight for me. I plunged right into the bushes on the side and—don’t ask me why, maybe I just thought it was the safest place, but I just began to shin up a tree. Maybe it was the right thing to do but they didn’t pay much attention to me, just let loose a couple of hundred shots at the tree and moved on. Maybe they didn’t see how I could survive that blast. I don’t see how I did, come to think of it ’cause thick branches were falling in shreds all around me. They must have thought I was part of the crashing wood or something. Anyway I was still there, much higher up when the whole group ran back. They had Iri with them and she was scratching and cursing and kicking like you know how she can. They threw her into the Land Rover still screaming the town awake. Well I’m not a brave man Ofe, just the band is my whole life but, well I don’t know how, but I couldn’t let Celestial down. I shinned down that tree fast and ran to where B-Sharp was parked and drove after them. They were too busy sitting down on Celestial to keep her down to pay any attention to the big car following
them.”
Zaccheus swallowed nervously, got up and slammed the open wardrobe door against the wall. “Calm down” Ofeyi said. “Just tell me what happened; you already did more than most men would have done so stop kicking yourself.”
“Well it petered out man, that’s where it all petered out. I saw her carried into a house. Big house with high barbed wires and a large gate. I hung around for the rest of the day from a long distance. It was guarded by those wild men. Later I found that it belonged to some business man from down here. Some officer had taken it over for his quarters.”
“The owner, do you know what happened to him?”
“Guess man. They split his family open before his eyes then dragged him live through the streets tied him to their Land Rover. I saw the rest of him where they tossed him. Two days and he still wasn’t dead Ofeyi. His eyelids move, but that’s all. The flies on him were more alive.”
“You could find your way back to the house?”
“Sure Ofe but…wait a minute man, what are you thinking of?”
Ofeyi gestured to writing materials on the table. “Draw me a map how to get there.”
Zaccheus stared at him for a long time. “You’re crazy man.”
“I said, draw me a map!”
“Nothing doing man.”
“Zaccheus!”
The band-leader squared his shoulders stubbornly. “I’m not helping you to commit suicide so get it out of your head. What do you think man, just what do you think? I’ve lost my band. One-third died in the first rain of bullets, a third are dying or crippled in hospitals and the rest are scattered by now over the corners of the earth. I found our driver in the bush, not far from where the car was parked with all his stomach gone. Just what are you going to do with a map you tell me that.”
Ofeyi stood up and began to put on his clothes. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to find such a house anyway.”
Zaccheus flopped down on the chair and rocked to and fro. “God help me, I thought you had more sense. I thought you had more sense man or I would have scattered myself all over the globe like the rest of my band sooner than come to you. I didn’t have to, shit man I didn’t owe you no bad news. I’ve been giving you eyewitness man, not something I picked up in the market. I’ve seen women’s bodies lying there with the breasts cut off and children with their brains smashed on walls. What do you think I’m telling you man? Why do you want to go and get yourself killed? You think they don’t know you there? You think they are not waiting for you?”
Ofeyi stood behind him, kneading his shoulders to calm him down. The plump figure blubbered like a child, Ofeyi gently forced his head forward as he worked the tensed muscles of his neck. The tears ran down unchecked, soaking his trousers at the thighs. “Damn you man, damn you to hell! Why can’t you just let it break your heart like any decent man and go away and get it over with. I know what they are and I’m telling you even if she isn’t dead by now…”
Ofeyi clamped a hand over his mouth. “Don’t say any more Zack. I am trying hard to shut off my mind. Either help me or shut up.” He released the imprisoned mouth slowly, turned back to fasten his shirt.
Zaccheus sighed. “I am not trying to be gloomy. But while I was there Ofe, a fly couldn’t step out of doors to feed on the bodies without risking a bayonet or bullet in the guts.”
“How did you get back?” Ofeyi asked him.
“By train, how else? B-Sharp is stuck out there, I don’t want to see it ever again, no sir, not with the ghosts of all those boys hanging loose among the seats. Second Trumpet. Bass Guitar. You go out in the streets with a plate number which says you came from down this side of the river and man, you go right over the other side of that much wider river. After the first day of foolishness I just parked it some steps off the main road and forgot all about it. I didn’t want B-Sharp for my hearse when it came to the point, although if anyone had asked me before I would have said, Sure, bury me in B-Sharp, I don’t need no coffin.” Minutes later he added, “It would be cheaper than a coffin anyway.”
“You couldn’t dig a hole big enough to contain it,” Ofeyi countered.
“Who said anything about digging a hole? Have you seen some of those ravines up that way? They would swallow a liner, no trouble!”
Ofeyi gave him a little more time to collect himself. “Are you going to draw me that map?” he again demanded, making it obvious that he had asked for it for the last time.
Zaccheus shook his head with equal defiance. “Forget it man. I know she was something special to you. She was with me too, with all the boys, with anyone who had eyes on the skin. I know it was like falling for the way dawn breaks after an all-night stand. You think your marrow is all dried up and then the blood comes rushing up again when you see Celestial. What I’m trying to tell you Ofe is, this dawn won’t ever break again….”
“Will you draw the map?”
Zaccheus shook his head. “What I had in mind when I came down on the train was, Ofe’s got to have connections, even among the khaki thugs. You can get hold of one of them and make him handle it. It’s the only way man….”
Ofeyi sat on the bed and faced him. “That also Zaccheus, that too. But you must know I can’t stay here, not for one moment. Just draw me the map and I’ll ask no more of you.”
Zaccheus accepted what he had feared all along. Ofeyi would prove ultimately unreasonable, and he could not let him go on his own. He shrugged his shoulders, said, “Okay, let’s go.” Ofeyi hesitated a fraction, then nodded, planning to dislodge him just before they left town. Zaccheus guessed his intentions from the speed of his acquiescence, refused to quit the motorcar when Ofeyi began his round of pretexts.
* * *
—
Ofeyi thought hard while Zaccheus slept. It could have been just another raid. A private club, especially if frequented mostly by aliens in Cross-river would be a natural target for spoliation, yet his mind returned again and again to Aristo and his thoughtless, perverted antics. Once Ofeyi had asked him for his business card. Pleased and unsuspecting the salesman whipped one out of a breastpocket with practised flourish. Ofeyi knew what was on it; under the salesman’s real name was printed, in gold cursive, his own self-imposed title: Aristocrat of Salesmen. Ofeyi took out a pen and scratched off Salesmen, substituting it with Ponces. Aristo knew what he meant when Ofeyi returned the card to him. Unabashed he laughed and boasted Iriyise would be riding in some big man’s Buick before the year was out. “What do you want with her man, what does she mean to you? Nothing. Dames like her need to make it while the going is good. Don’t mess up her chances, she’s not your type.” Then he changed tactics, placed a confidential arm around Ofeyi’s shoulders and tried to pull him aside. “I’ll make a deal with you. You go on taking your slice off the dame and I’ll see that Sugar Daddy doesn’t suspect a thing.”
Ofeyi had done nothing to him. If he flattened him he would have picked himself up, dusted his Tyrolean hat and “mentioned” the incident to his client….That’s what we suffer Chief, that’s what we get out of bringing two people together who need each other. You need her, she needs you. But does that dog in the manger know it? No. And when you try to tell him he bites…Something would change hands then, a token “danger allowance” in the line of duty. Aristo would weigh it casually, absent-mindedly, shove it in his coat-pocket with a—Yah, maybe I can use it to bribe one of the bandboys to take my messages. Saves me getting tangled up with that gorilla again. Ofeyi reflected often on the extended menace of the Aristos of his generation. A refusal in them to accept the mysterious nature of values, a sense of being personally threatened by a hint of such values which they had never entered and could not. They needed to deny the possibility, destroy it by levelling the threat with whatever was most recognizably corrupt. Their potential menace was unlimited because they failed to recognize the context of their actions beyond immediate benefit, benefit t
hat was not even always tangibly material. No, there was only the pleasure of being associated with an act of desecration in order to buttress their own unreasoned denial with spurious grandeur. So Ofeyi responded by offering him Iriyise for himself—you take her, yes, why don’t you pursue her for yourself? That makes more sense to me. Or don’t you want her? And for once he saw Aristo lose his nerve, stare at him as he would a madman and take to his heels.
When Zaccheus woke up he asked him who had arranged their itinerary.
“Aristo of course. It’s his new sales beat. We were there to do the usual for his sales drive. You know the routine.”
“Yes of course. But was he there that night?”
Zaccheus thought hard, his eyes grew larger. “Hey, what are you thinking man? You surely don’t think…”
“Aristo is a fool. He never knows quite what he gets himself into.”
“No no I’ve told you. You’ve got it all cock-eyed there. It was a general no-favourite no-exception craze. He couldn’t have brought those swine on us.”
“Aristo is a thoughtless opportunist.”
Zaccheus shook his head in firm rejection. “No man, not this time. You are way way off. When we get there you’ll see what I mean. Not a ghost in the streets Ofe. Just the flies and the vultures and the bully-boys raking every movement with their bullets. Aristo couldn’t move fast enough to exploit that situation.”
“Maybe you’re right. But they did come for her. They didn’t just come to raid an enemy hang-out and maybe capture a beautiful slave. They came for her and were ready to kill the lot of you even without your standing in the way. They did not want any witnesses. Look Zack, they knew she was there. Whoever organized it knew where to find her.”