Season of Anomy

by Wole Soyinka

  “There is only the Lunatic Yard after this.” He hesitated. “I apologise for that disturbance.”

  “I don’t see why you should. It must happen sometimes even in the calmest setting.”

  “It is most unfortunate that it should occur while you are here,” the man insisted.

  “I am not planning a report, if that’s what bothers you. I am not a Government official or a journalist.”

  Karaun appeared about to speak, turned his face away and suddenly increased his pace. They were pursued by racking coughs from the subdued gladiators. There had indeed been moments when they appeared to be gladiators in a freak circus, with clubs that seemed integrated into their bodies, battle-scarred from the long struggle against cannibalistic foes, elbows used as terrible vises in whose grip the victim was mostly powerless…it was probably those choked victims whose retching sounds pursued them. Ofeyi cast a quick look backwards just before the yard vanished completely from sight. A few remained on the ground, still to writhing. A form hung over the fence, retching into the yard of the Condemned.

  And now it seemed as if the commotion had gathered wings and was flying above their heads preceding them in the general direction in which they were bound. The infection of violence had spread. Beside him, Karaun checked, the frown of worry now deepening on his face. “It’s a strange business” he murmured, “but this sort of thing has a way of spreading. If it gets to the Lunatic Yard we will have to take some very harsh measures.”

  “Why is that?” Ofeyi asked, and immediately felt it a foolish question. It was one thing for Suberu to wade in among the lepers, discarding even the long-range water deterrent, glaring murder through his compacted head and ripping apart the struggling mass with bare hands. Plucking them out individually like maggots from a festering lump of meat. As each layer was peeled off the next felt the exposure, rolled away or cringed from the poised blow, burrowed into deeper recesses of a fetid heap. What however would the lunatics understand of such tactics? Ofeyi recalled scenes of mindless mob viciousness in public places. In market places where a lunatic, besieged, stoned, tormented with every cruelty by a mob would charge again and again, insensible to the superior strength of his assailants. Would they be any different within walls?

  He looked anxiously at the diminutive figure beside him, hurrying towards the new source of noise. “How many are in the lunatic ward?” he asked.

  “Enough to create outright disaster” the man answered shortly, beginning to puff from the exercise. “We would have to beat them senseless.”

  “Where is Iriyise?”

  There was no reply forthcoming from him.

  “Is there a woman’s ward beyond the Lunatics?”

  “The rest of the prison is beyond these first three compounds we’ve come through Mr. Ofeyi. I thought I had already explained that to you.”

  “But the self-imprisoned fugitives are camped before these ‘first three.’ We came through them as we left your office….”

  “The lady is ill, very ill….”

  “The clinic was behind your office. Where the work-gang were cutting the grass before you drove them away. I saw it through the window, distinctly marked.”

  Keeping pace with his amazingly quick steps Ofeyi tried now to read into the man’s face. It seemed suddenly important that he find out where and why Iriyise was hidden in the convoluted bowels of Temoko before another step brought him nearer the physical revelation. But there was only the twisted smile on the face of the man, one that he could not interpret beyond a bureaucrat’s testiness at the presumption of an outsider. Again Ofeyi tried to force an answer, demanding, “Where exactly are you taking me? Inside or outside these walls?”

  “You seem to know the geography of the place better than I” Karaun mocked. “You know where the clinic is, where the fugitives are housed, you seem to know the place better than I.”

  Ofeyi began to speak but he silenced him. “Listen to that!”

  Differing from the slippery, squirming growls that were wrung from the embattled lepers, a cacophony of assorted sounds had welled up ahead and was rolling back towards them like cans and tins and fragmented rubble before the wind. Simultaneously a squad of guards in close formation swept past them, rushing towards the new source of the noise, armed with riot shields and preceded by batons at the ready.

  A now chronic constriction commenced in his guts. Ofeyi experienced an urgent need to vomit as intuition overcame all hope and turned the world a sickening purple pottage that cloyed his throat. He hardly knew at what moment his hands took the small man by the shoulders and bore him round to face him, trembling.

  “In the yard of lunatics, is that it?”

  A stream of explanations, self-extenuation from the governor. Ofeyi could not grasp the coherence of all or part, if any, while the man fluctuated between terror and power. The warders were fully engaged in quelling the riot and Suberu was nowhere to be seen. His voice rose and fell from scream to whimper. “Believe me, that annexe is isolated. She has no contact with the lunatics, none at all!”

  “Among the lunatics!” Ofeyi’s demented shouts surmounted the din that raged about them. He shook the governor like a rag doll, saw tears come to his eyes.

  “Those were my directives Mr. Ofeyi. Please stop being hysterical.”

  Ofeyi dropped him suddenly, began to race through the battleground, bawling. The crumpled form of a woman had come flying through the flail of batons. He plunged through and stooped to lift her up. Was she ever in his arms—the feel? Warmth? Breath? There came the sudden crumpling of his knees. A casual corner of his eye had remarked Suberu’s approach but failed to convey a warning. Until the numbness in his skull, eyes closing on a twilight sky.

  XV

  Was this what they fought against, abdication of the will, resignation, withdrawal or enforced withdrawal—what did it matter?—the half-death state of inertia, neither-nor, sensing but unaffecting, the ultimate condition of the living death? Looking beyond her body for consolation he glanced through a barred window, through restricted openings at a handkerchief firmament. A few stars pocked the sky and he wondered whose constellation they might be, the detached movement of worlds which transgressed his present stagnation from one corner of the window to another, right over the edge of void.

  He did not move from the spot where he had regained consciousness, he lay still on the hard floor, his eyes turned towards the camp-bed onto which Iriyise had been restored. No sign of the female nurse. Or was she simply a female warder? He could remember nothing of what uniform she wore, nothing beyond a blur of the frightened woman, cowering beside a tree.

  Time? It had to be at least midnight for the stars to make so bold on the tiny patch of blue. In reality it might be earlier still. He gave up that problem too. There were things to remember quickly, as, for instance…

  What?

  The figure was very real on the camp-bed. What could those lunatics know of this object which the servants of the Cartel had brought and hidden in the annexe? In the contagious rampage they had broken through the nearest fence, broken into the hut and flung out the contents, chair, cupboard, medicaments, table, bed and the patient. That much he had seen. And the relief on seeing that Iriyise landed on soft soil, short-lived, because she did not move….

  Then picking up the limp form, or trying to. He recalled the approach of Suberu, the last-minute warning. Then flat on his back, a last moment of consciousness as his gaze picked out the stars in the twilight sky and his mind, true to form, repeating—like a long-legged fly upon the stream…her mind moves upon the silence….Were those his last thoughts? On the cold cement floor where someone—surely Suberu—must have moved him, he wondered if he had meant the stars or the warm stillness of the woman in his arms.

  He raised his eyes again to the barred window. A feeling grew on him now that it was nowhere close to midnight, that the evenin
g had just begun. True the stars invaded the visible patch with a bold definition. Plough? Big Dipper? Even the sky was a circus of indifference, the thought provided some consolation.

  Seared forever on his mind was the sight of that body flying through the air in the same whirlwind as propelled the net and the bed and what else?

  Clubfoot? Where is that man of directives? Gone for more of the same? Ofeyi sat up suddenly as rationality seeped through and he realised that his situation was all too temporary. Unless, yes, unless in their ultimate plans, whatever these were, his presence in that annexe was unimportant, he would be moved, and soon. The self-made, self-promotions man was probably about it now. Ofeyi stopped abruptly. Why have I been shown in here at all except…? Thinking was difficult. His head split with the effort and he realized that he was merely evading the issue. Comatose women tell no tales. Nor dead men.

  He rose painfully, sat on the bed and prised open her eyelids with his fingers.

  I am…trying to…break through…

  Surely some such phrase, some such message must be uppermost in her mind. There would be a strain exerted against the present tyrannical hold. She must be conscious of my presence here! Leaden arms perhaps, a sensation of slow congealment, a memory left on the shore of consciousness among discarded clothing, a slowing pulse…even so there must be the invisible near-titanic strain against the gluttonous maul, a fight to free the mind from its fly-paper trap of silence. If a marriage of feelers could be effected by one magic moment, by a simultaneous evocation of the many thoughts they had shared…he tried to concentrate on his actions which were one with what she symbolized. He stressed his mind with the effort of concentration. But she lay still.

  He continued to stare into the eyes held open by his fingers, tuning himself into a universal receptor, probing with a million antennae, sieving out distracting atmospherics, terrified to move lest he loose one sigh of pain, one silent anguish of the disordered world contracted into one camp-bed. Helpless, he looked up through the window and found that he had to struggle against the hynotic eye of the moon now drifting slowly past the window. Letting his head drop sharply back from weariness he winced from pain and located at last where the giant must have hit him. He hung the head forward in turn to relax the sore muscle, only to be rewarded again by a blur and a white blinding flash. The giant must have hit him more than once. Even so he could not remember struggling.

  Or could it be that, while he lay flat dizzily counting the stars, some other warder had booted him in the head? It seemed to explain why he had failed to shake through the first dizzying blow which had knocked him down.

  Rising to his feet a locomotive ran briefly round the rails which someone had placed in his skull, ran off the circular rails and plunged sizzling into some indeterminate pool somewhere in the base of the skull. He decided that there was something seriously wrong with his whole body. He let himself gently down, flat on his back, with his hands to cushion his head against the cold floor. The moon tugged him upwards, filled the sockets in his head and etched him cruciform on the floor. On its way towards him, it picked out the figure of Iriyise in cold relief. Ofeyi turned on his side to face her fully, shuddering at the thought of what ravages had induced this deep refuge in her volatile self.

  Voices…voices…but through it all there was the clarity of events. Only the sequence was a little uncertain. Of course he had scooped up Iriyise in his hands…yes…and there was that volcano of loss against which the silly bureaucrat had tried to stand. What swept him under? Surely not he. There was of course his voice suddenly gone thin and insecure, uncertain how to relate the definitive consequence to the simple though devious manipulations that preceded it.

  How strange the man was, choosing that moment to say to him, “I know you Mr. Ofeyi. And not just as the mastermind of the cocoa campaign. You brought the men of Aiyéró to Cross-river….”

  “She’s dead!” Yes, he recalled saying that, softly, insistently. And the little man reiterating, “She’s not dead. I tell you she has been in a coma.”

  Was it that possibility which made the governor hysterical? There was that sudden highpitched scream that came from him: “I had nothing to do with it. You saw how it happened. It spread. Just like an epidemic Mr. Ofeyi, just like an epidemic….”

  Just like the spread of the outer plague. He read that on his face.

  “She is dead.” He recalled that monotonous phrase, dripping from his lips.

  Strange, the little functionaire had barred his way. If she was dead, if she was alive, but in a coma, she was his to take away, far from the madness and general contagion. Far from curtailed bodies and minds who slugged one another over half-chewed meat and buried their teeth in pestilent carrion. So what was he saying, this little man, what did he mean? But Karaun barred his way even as he whined and uttered gibberish, barred his path while the guards were engaged in quelling the madness in that compound, beating the lunatics senseless.

  “You can see the gap yourself Mr. Ofeyi…they broke through that fence and tackled the guard from behind. Then they forced their way into the room where she was isolated. I swear to you she was well guarded, please believe me. No one could have predicted the sudden riot. And anyway no harm was done to her. She remained unconscious, just as you found her.”

  Barring his way just the same. This was what he could not understand. Oh yes, he had made one accusation, just that one: “You put her here. You kept her here. She is dead.” Yes, he remembered that. And the functionaire’s confident rebuttal.

  “She is not! You can’t blame me for what happened. She was kept quite safe. A female guard and nurse looked after her. The doctor visited her every day.” And yak yak scream bang…

  His recollection was clear enough. Iriyise in his arms, he at the gate to the yard of the Death Cells and the thick lenses of the man darting from him to the battle behind him and back again, speaking fast and saying much. Until it penetrated his mind that the man kept talking for a purpose, that he was merely waiting, waiting. But his mind was one huge cocoon of grief from which no chrysalis of reason could emerge. What had he said in that immense span of time, this cannonball head which effectively blocked his path? Strangely it was Suberu’s face that came in between, whenever a glimmering commenced in his mind of the dwarf’s long sermon. Suberu appearing from nowhere. Something had penetrated that cocoon of deadness at last and Ofeyi had turned; perhaps it was the glint in Clubfoot’s eyes, a sudden expansion of his iris which bore no relation to the words that flowed from his mouth. Yes, it could have been no one else. Suberu had hit him in the back of the neck, and he had woken up on the hard floor of the annexe to the Lunatic Ward. Stretched on a camp-bed on the other side of the room was the inert form of Iriyise.

  A barred window, high up on the wall on that side let in the moonlight, a full moon though it was still early evening. It had been midday when he first passed through the gates of Temoko.

  What next? And why that belated accusation? He had after all been with the man in his office most of that day and there had been no mention, no hint of Aiyéró. He had come on a simple Missing Persons Inquiry. Why, in the midst of a freak riot and with the lifeless form of his quest dangling in his arms had he picked that moment to shout: “Well blame yourself! You brought the men of Aiyéró to Cross-river. Did we invite you?”

  Ofeyi sat up with a jerk. A long peal of laughter had broken through his mind’s meanderings. Slowly, carefully, he propped himself along the wall and came to the window. He listened. More voices. A hectoring voice, then a commanding thump as though by an auctioneer’s gavel. And a smooth, methodical voice, marshalling arguments.

  He climbed on the camp-bed and looked out.

  The scene that lay below set him blinking hard and praying for sanity. Seated in a ring were the inmates of the lunatic yard. The ring was not quite complete. At its open end sat a portentous figure with a blanket round hi
s shoulders and a headgear, clearly improvised to resemble a turban or a judicial wig—looking down it was impossible to be certain. A standing figure held his audience in rapt attention, full of urbane gestures and flourishes, bowing from time to time to that authoritative figure decked out in the regulation blanket. At the extreme end of the fence stood two guards, half-attentive to the scene. Prostrate before the bench—for the format had by now become even clearer—was another of the inmates, the victim or simply actor of whatever charade was afoot. A few moments’ attentiveness left his interpretation in no further doubt; in that last hour before they were locked in for the night, the lunatics were holding court!

  A bright moon. Each figure in the circle clearly delineated, every twitch of the face and conspiratorial glance. The abjectness of the accused and the proud oratorical mastery of the prosecutor lifting his face to the gallery somewhere on the lunar rim as he made a resonant summation. The circle cheered. The judge remained solemn, lifting his face in grave rebuke at any excess. Ofeyi found himself drawn into the sedate lunacy of the circle, losing himself so completely that it was a long while before he became conscious of the soft barrage of missiles that fell against the wall, penetrating the gaps between the bars to enter the cell. The sound had reached him for a while but it seemed part of the mad collisions of sausage flies and other winged insects, attracted by the lone bulb in the yard.

  The persistence struck him at last and he looked closely at the seated ring, watching them for any surreptitious motion. But their eyes were fixed on the leading actors of the evening rites. Finally he looked along the fence until he reached the outside wall with its crown of bottle-tops and barbed-wire tunnels. A shea-butter tree rose over and dominated the wall from without. Unable at first to believe the apparition, he traced the moon face of Zaccheus, partly camouflaged by the leaves. Seeing himself perceived at last Zaccheus grinned from ear to ear, signalled to Ofeyi to wait at his post. His face disappeared only for a few moments; when it returned, he dangled a step-ladder a few inches over the wall, shook it gently and drew it back again. Ofeyi signalled that he understood, came down from his perch and sat down to think.