by Wole Soyinka
Suberu nodded obedience, otherwise there was no change of expression. Karaun attempted an approving pat on the stiffened shoulders but his hand reached only as high as Suberu’s crude sash. “Anyway you are happy here aren’t you? You don’t really want your liberty do you? You’ve been so far out of the wicked world outside you wouldn’t know how to cope with it.” He turned to Ofeyi. “My good friend here barely escaped the rope. Since then he has made himself the pillar of our little society. He’s happy, very happy. Each time his release papers come through he refuses to sign them.”
“Well then!” He sat on the edge of the table and beamed down on Ofeyi. “The news” he said at last, “is positive.”
“You have information?”
“Come with me Mr. Ofeyi.”
* * *
—
They approached the narrow gate through lines of whitewashed stones. Like an outing of lizards in the sun the fugitives gathered on the sparse grass tufts on quadrangles, waiting in uncertainty. The work-gangs had moved to the perimeter of the walls, their flexible cutlasses slashing through the weeds to the accompaniment of a metallic beat which bounced directly off the walls, filling the yard in the timbre of a pathetic defiance. Nothing could quite transcend the close-cropped hollowing of their skulls, nothing relieve the sychophantic humour which deferred to the guards’ whiphand, even at the most caustic flights of their lyrics.
“Do you understand the words?” Karaun enquired of his companion, limping as if in deliberate counterpoint to the rhythm of the gong.
“No” Ofeyi lied. “What are they saying?”
The cripple laughed. “And you keeper, and me prisoner; both are one and the same.” He looked slyly up at Ofeyi. “Do you think there is some truth in it?”
“It is a consoling point of view. What else do they sing?”
“Mostly unrepeatable stuff” Karaun answered. “But I never interfere in their composition. As long as it gets the work done.”
“Yes. I suppose that is all that matters.”
Turning a calculating eye on Ofeyi, he continued, “Another of their popular wisdoms goes like this: Me today, you tomorrow; Mister Mercedes, welcome home. Champagne bucket, latrine bucket; don’t be shy sir, take your turn….” Karaun’s eye grew misty with laughter from some hidden joke. “I suppose” he giggled, “you wouldn’t know what they mean by that?”
Ofeyi confessed he would not.
“Ah,” putting back on his glasses. “I hope you never find out. They tend to administer their own justice among themselves and they have very strange ideas of punishment.” He grimaced. “I watched them once at what they call their Assizes. Of course they didn’t know I was watching. I do secret rounds in the night from time to time, keeps the guards on their toes naturally. It’s the only way one can see what’s going on.”
“You don’t trust your guards?”
“They are only human” Karaun sighed. “Don’t forget the chant of the work-gang. Those felons are not complete fools you know.”
One fenced-in yard led to another. A chamber of horrors revealed its nature slowly, without warning. The gongs and chanting of the work-gang had long faded when Ofeyi found himself face to face—a mere few yards between himself and the nearest of them—with a scattering of inmates who struck him instantly as being—this was his first definition—incomplete. A wide-sweeping glance described a canvas of missing parts; a moment later he realised that he was in a yard of lepers. Instinctively he shrunk closer to the boundary of the fence.
The guard who had opened the gate followed close behind. Ofeyi remarked that Karaun walked through these creatures without flinching, with a gait no different from that which he used in his office. So did Suberu who emerged from a hut beneath whose shadow the majority of the lepers were clustered, pushing checkers on a board with the stumps of their hands, even weaving baskets. Smoke issued forth through mere holes on one severely ravaged face. Perched on a trestle on which planks were still laid from a recent flogging a putty-faced object surveyed the scene through lidless eyes, shoved a parcel of obvious contraband under his rags as the visitors approached. From one came a mock obsequious bow, snuffing out even the attempt to shout his “Afternoon oga sah” through non-existent lips.
Ofeyi’s eyes swept over the remnants of human bodies. Even in their varying degrees of physical curtailment they managed to run the familiar gamut of the sullen and gentle, viperous and chastened, predatory and hunted. They stared at the small procession with uniformly curious eyes, an initial expectancy doused early as the governor’s pace indicated that he was not coming to break the monotony of their existence with any drastic announcement. From within the long hut a single altercatory noise died away in response to the knowledge—transmitted mysteriously—that Authority was within the premises. They traversed the yard in silence. Suberu rushed forward, knocked on the next gate and the guard on the other side pushed it open.
Karaun entered smoothly into his role of courier on guided tour. “We have just come through the Leper’s yard.” He smiled with a complacent sense of shrewd organisation. “This one contains the Death Cells. Our people have such a horror of lepers that most prisoners would think twice before trying to escape through their quarters. It is the best form of security.”
“But the warders…” Ofeyi began.
“There isn’t all that risk” Karaun assured him. “And anyway we submit them to frequent examination. Quite unnecessary. Not one of them has ever been infected. They are just as scared you see. You won’t catch any of them moving too close to the occupants of this yard.” He chuckled. “The ideas about leprosy are mostly old-fashioned. So the prison doctor tells me anyway and I believe him.”
Defensively alert, Ofeyi turned to take a last look at the leper’s ward before passing through the gate, saw two obscene gestures from fingerless hands freeze in the air. They had, he had no doubt, been directed at Suberu’s retreating back. He bowed under the low gate as Karaun stood aside to let him pass. He also apparently caught the gestures.
“They hate my trusty of course. Because the warders will not get to grips with them if they make trouble they tend to be difficult. Fortunately Suberu can be called upon to deal with them in any situation. He has absolutely no fear of the disease.”
“He was nearly hanged you said?” Ofeyi lowered his voice even though Suberu was already far ahead.
“Oh yes. Commuted to life. Not the kind of man any of those petty criminals would care to fool around with.”
Ofeyi had the uncomfortable feeling, as Karaun looked at him to say this, that a warning had been directed at him. He shrugged off the presentiment; it was overtaken by the thought that Iriyise had been brought through this planned barrier of disease and physical revulsion. Again he experienced a disbelief in the existence of men who had planned this, minds which had brought it about. He forced down the bile in his throat to demand:
“Was it necessary to bring…was there no other place except through here?”
Karaun patted his back in an effort at kindliness that only galled him. “She saw nothing of this” he assured him. “It was night-time, and in any case she was not conscious.”
The feeling of desecration remained. His mind seethed in a cauldron of futile vengefulness through which he sought to surface into a clearer purposeful air and the hundred decisions that awaited him outside the walls. What broke through from beyond his mind was an animal snarl, a guttural noise through twisted lips and words which approximated to: “Beast of no nation!”
The shout had come from the Leper’s Ward where it was now feeding time. They turned to see a hoard of aluminium bowls, the food ready served in them, resting on a long work table. Three figures stood by the board, one the figure Ofeyi had observed, his nose eaten away, left only with tiny gobs of clay stuck on by a bored child in a kindergarten modelling class. The second figure was nearly blind. A thir
d had rested his mud-padded crutch against the wall and was clutching at a bowl with both hands. Stumps, in strict accuracy.
They were smooth as the ends of the guards’ riot batons, but they fastened to the sides of the bowl more tenaciously than any ten fingers. The noseless one was intent on pulling it away; it was clearly he who had snarled the fighting words, “Beast of no nation!”
With a sudden jerk that nearly cost him his balance, Stumps snatched away the bowl, regained his crutch and, tucking the prize under an armpit hobbled away to a safe seat. The brief conflict seemed over. Gob-nose watched his disputant for a while, watched him as he burrowed under his rags and emerged with a spoon which he dug, using both stumps, into the mess and proceeded to eat. The others approached the trestle in comparative order and assumed their portions. Ofeyi observed what appeared to be some form of barter. A spoonful of food or a special lump within the bowl changed ownership. Something emerged from within caches and changed hands. Bargains were proposed, silently concluded.
Gob-nose continued to stare at Stumps. Soon only his bowl was left on the board.
Karaun looked nervously round, snapped his fingers. But Suberu had outpaced them and was already across the yard in which they now stood, waiting for them at the next gate.
Stumps looked up only once, saw that his challenger had not moved from his position. He tried to spoon some more of the food but grew nervous, got up and hobbled to a safer distance on legs of pestle. His watcher picked up his bowl, began to follow him at a slow deliberate pace. Neither was aware that the governor was still within sight, staring at them through the barbed-wire fence and showing concern. The yard was filled with sounds of slurping, scraping, grunts and hisses of discontent. A figure walked over to a fence and threw his food, bowl and contents over the fence, returned to his position and pulled out a wrapping from his anus. From within it he produced a cigarette stub and lit it. His face at first lit up with content, then he began to curse, slowly, deliberately, beginning with the prison cook and climbing up the ladder of an arbitrary hierarchy of his tormenters.
Ofeyi asked, “Is there going to be trouble?”
“It seems to be over,” Karaun murmured rather dubiously. Again he clicked his fingers in the direction Suberu had gone as if by using his voice he would exacerbate the situation on the other side of the fence.
“But why are lepers kept in the same institution with normal prisoners?”
Karaun, still slightly absent, unable to take his eyes from the unresolved clash beyond the fence muttered impatiently that they committed crimes like normal beings. “They are human aren’t they? And don’t go wasting your sympathy on them. They take advantage of the fact that most people are afraid to touch them. That one over there, just by the fence. His speciality was frightening young hawkers into dropping their wares and running off. Then he took possession of what he called abandoned property. Believe it or not that was the term he used in court—abandoned property!” The tension had eased and Karaun had regained his good humour. He resumed his progress through the compound. “One was arrested with over three hundred pounds on him, hidden among his rags. It turned out to be part of the proceeds from a bank robbery. Seems he acted as look-out man for the more active bandits—there he is. Take a look at the sly rogue.”
Moving towards the communal tap was the look-out man, walking with legs apart on stilts encased in canvas shoes. He walked jerkily, one ramrod planted in the ground before the next. An eye had vanished into a mess of flesh, pocked and chewed. But the shoulders appeared filled with immense power, his far too small tunic was bunched up at the shoulders, threatening to burst.
“He’s in for ten years,” Karaun continued. “But not for the bank jobs. They never convicted him on that. It was rape that brought him here. He was able to afford the best lawyer over the charge of being accessory to the robberies. Got off quite easily. In fact that came up in the first place only when he was charged with rape. That was when the money was found on him.” Again Karaun gave one of his chuckles. “Oh the things we have to put up with here you can’t imagine. That creature has actually sent a petition to the governor asking to be set free. Now Mr. Ofeyi, I give you three guesses. On what grounds do you think he demanded his freedom?”
Ofeyi thought for some moments. “Humanitarian grounds?”
“No. Try again.”
Karaun stood in the middle of the Yard of the Condemned, both feet planted square, looking up at Ofeyi and enjoying his secret. Ofeyi looked back on the human refuse across the fence, observed that the original protagonists appeared to have vanished into or behind the hut. Turning back to his inquisitor he admitted defeat.
“No, I can’t think of any reasons.”
“No, I didn’t think you could. I’ll tell you. I have the duplicate in my office. Let me see if I can quote some of it…yes, listen to this…Sir, your Excellency, I wish to ask for full remission of my remaining sentence because I was charged on rape and now I hear that the Army have been taking young girls, raping them and sending others to leper colonies to be raped by lepers like me. So I respectfully ask you to send me back to one of these leper colonies because there is no justice in the world if I should be kept here any longer while everybody is enjoying himself and raping is no longer a crime…and so on in that tone for over two foolscap sheets. Well, what do you think of it my friend?”
“Did you forward it?” Ofeyi asked.
Karaun looked surprised at the question. “Of course. We are obliged to do so. I can censor or repress their letters to family and friends but we are duty bound to forward all petitions to the Authorities. He dictated it to one of my clerks who took it down and typed it out in triplicate.” He winked in sly amusement. “The only problem came when he had to place his fingerprint over his name.”
Ofeyi did a double take, then smiled in spite of himself. “Yes, and how did you get over that?”
“Oh, I signed for him. Even if he had his fingers I don’t think headquarters would have appreciated receiving a letter touched by a leper no matter what their own appointed doctors say. We are still a most superstitious lot Mr. Ofeyi, never mind what it says in the prison handbook.”
A scream halted them in their tracks once again. They heard a violent shout: “Leave my meat!” A figure emerged from behind the hut, followed by another supported by a crutch. It was the same pair who had struggled for the bowl at the very start of feeding-time. Held between the half-thumb and single-jointed fingers of his palm the contentious lump of meat was clearly discernible, snatched clean off the bowl of the other during the hidden duel that had taken place behind the hut.
Gob-nose spun round and stood his ground. “You took my cigarette yesterday and promised me your meat ration for today.” And he turned round to the others to bear him out. Opinion seemed divided. Without further ado he shoved the meat in his mouth.
The robbed man leapt straight at him, casting aside his crutch, sank his teeth into his arm. The attack took Gob-nose by surprise and he yelled in pain. The part-chewed disputed meat appeared in the opening of his mouth and the next moment it was gone. Stumps had snatched it back and simply swallowed it whole. Gob-nose was now incoherent with rage, he seized his opponent by the throat and shook him, throwing him off balance. From nowhere a bowl of stew came hurtling through the air, contributed by one of the others whose sole aim was to expand the area of conflict and prolong the diversion. Some of its contents splashed over the rapist who stared in disbelief at his clothes. He looked round in a general appeal shouting,
“You see my jumper wey I wash only yesterday?”
Gob-nose now sank his teeth into his opponent’s shoulder while he lay on the ground, worrying the flesh in his mouth as if determined to tear off weight for weight the amount of meat of which he had been robbed. The rapist assumed that the bowl had come from them and stumped towards the pair, lifted each head apart and banged them together. They s
lumped down and lay still. But by now the riot had spread. Bowls, crutches, spoons and checkers boards flew across the yard. Doors were rattled open, slammed, the dust-bins set up a din and improvised missiles flew across the fence in every direction. A chain of deliberate pandemonium had been forged. It was a sudden, violent contagion and in a few moments all discrimination was lost as the inmates sought to assuage their accidental injuries on the nearest and weaker prospect at hand. The smooth-ended stumps became vicious weapons, the heads were transformed into battering-rams.
Panic whistles blew from guards in the neighbouring yards and Suberu came sprinting towards the scene with no further prompting. A guard appeared from nowhere shouting, “Get the buckets! Buckets!” Other trusties had also appeared in what seemed a familiar exercise. They formed a chain and passed water-filled buckets to Suberu who had placed himself at the head, dousing the combatant in cold water and applying the bucket directly on the heads of individual heads which proved obdurate. When that failed he tore them apart with his own hands. More pails arrived, another line was formed, but Suberu alone was at the head of both, weaving fearlessly through the now promiscuous battleground, shouting down with a counter ferocity the demented noises which rose from the throats of the lepers. Single-handedly he began to herd them into their cells. A warder threw him a baton but it was hardly necessary. Once or twice Ofeyi heard its crack on a stubborn knuckle but that was rare. He mostly used his feet. More often it was the voice alone and the effect of his sudden appearance above a whirl of rags and flesh.
Ofeyi looked once at his guide. Karaun appeared shaken by the sight. “It’s under control” he snapped suddenly. “Let’s go.”
“Are we close to where we’re going?”