Kabu Kabu

by Nnedi Okorafor

  “I need you,” he said. His eyes were wet.

  I was flying backwards, back through clouds and then leaves, till my feet hit the red dirt, my small feet from long ago. Back when my father would always look at me whenever he came into my room in the morning to check on my sisters and me. My feet were always caked with long dried mud. I’d say that I hadn’t washed them the day before. That I’d been stomping on ants and traipsing around in the forest. But he was a smart man and he’d then ask me why the mud was so dry. And my mother would ask me why I was smiling so big as I spoke. They knew what I was doing, that I could do what I was doing.

  Few people within my bloodline could fly. We forget more every generation. But I was born with a memory strong as the oldest trees. And the moment I became comfortable with it, I said goodbye to my parents and sisters and flew away to see the world. I pause. Or was it to look for him? My parents knew I’d eventually leave. I was born with dada hair. I emerged from my mother with seven long locks flopping on my head, each lock black as onyx. And I wailed when my mother tried to cut them. Somewhere else, he was wailing. When a Windseeker enters the world again, so does the twin of her soul, however many hundreds of miles away. And neither soul leaves until both have died. But I disregard tradition. I want to travel the skies alone. But he is like the rain to my body of cracked dry barren earth.

  Arro-yo awoke with a start. Then a red dull ache. Her satchel and his rucksack were some feet away, as where their clothes. Ruwan was warm, curled close to her, his arm around her waist. His two-sided blade was held tightly in his hand. She stared at it for a moment, absolutely shocked. Even in his sleep she could see how he clutched the knife, with surety, finality. The blades shined, reflecting the skin of his arm. The same shade as her skin. She started to slowly get up and winced. When she looked at his hand, she saw blood dribbling underneath. Her abdomen ached but not unbearably. During their stalemate, his blade had jabbed her deeper than she realized.

  The pain was a blessing. For she could easily have been the one who woke up with a knife to her throat. And he wouldn’t have hesitated, as she didn’t. Her machete was sharp and she sliced fast, her arm muscles working. Skin tearing. Veins and arteries severed open. The blood flowed fast and hard to the beat of his heart. If she had thought about it, she wouldn’t have done it. And if she didn’t do it, he would have killed her the minute he awoke, for he was like her. Halfway through slicing his throat, blood pooling in her lap, his eyes opened but his strength had followed the course of his blood and he was weak. His body shuddered three times, then he simply lay looking at Arro-yo, blood coating the very lips she had kissed not an hour ago. Her hands shook as she finished, a mixture of her own and Ruwan’s blood on them.

  Arro-yo knelt close to Ruwan’s face, her locks dragging in the soil around him. His eyes held her until he was gone. I’ve killed myself, she thought. When her face started to crumple, her chest started to hitch and her eyes started to sting, she let his head drop to the ground. She stood up, swallowing the wail that wanted to erupt from her lips and shake the clouds in the sky. She looked down on him for a moment. She glanced at the blood on his hands, the same blood that coated her belly and her crotch. She shuddered. Then she mechanically gathered her clothes, slipping into her blue dress, not bothering to wipe off the blood. She quickly took to the air.

  She’d return to Africa for a while, maybe Madagascar where she could rest in the trees and the people were open to someone like herself. Where she could possibly get back to who she was before, the fearless Arro-yo. But deep in the back of her mind, she knew this would be a waste of her time. This time he had changed her. Or maybe he had changed her back in Australia. Though she pushed it way back in her heart, the grief she felt threatened to consume her. And as she flew, her tears mixed with the condensation of the clouds. Never had she felt so alone. Grief.

  When she got a chance, she’d wipe her tears. On a moonless night, she’d break a kola nut, dip it in peanut sauce and alligator pepper and set one half at the foot of a palm tree and eat the other half. Afterwards, she’d soothe her senses with freshly tapped palm wine and spend the rest of that night looking to the sky. Then she’d sit and sharpen her machete, for when she returned to Ginen. The third time was always the most charmed and she had to be ready.

  Bakasi Man

  Hunchbacks are very expensive. But this was not why we killed Bakasi. And what happened to him after his death was part of some darker politics.

  You must understand, hunchbacks are not normal people. Even when they die, security has to be stationed at the gravesite for at least the first year, to prevent robbers from digging them up. It’s the hump that people want. A hunchback’s hump is said to be the source of his or her great power.

  So you see why the evil man we call Bakasi was so feared yet respected. Not only was he bent over, his twisted spine snaking up into a profound hump, but he had one green eye. Green as the treetops during rainy season. In a place where eyes are always brown, Bakasi’s green eye was a thing of much talk.

  Rumor has it that when he was young, he was always at the top of his class. Some say his powerful hump bestowed this great intelligence upon him. Others believed his teachers gave him the highest scores because they were terrified of him. Whatever the reason, Bakasi went on to study medicine, specializing in midwifery and endocrinology.

  I cannot imagine such a man bringing babies into the world and curing skin ailments but apparently he was a different man back then. I have a few friends who were delivered by him, one of them who is even Agwe (the very tribe he’d come to despise so much). People say he was full of love and had excellent bedside manners.

  Bakasi even came to be called the Man with the Magic Hands. I don’t know what happened to him along the way but whatever it was made him more crooked than his spine. It must have been the fact that his truest passion was the most crooked business of all: politics.

  He got his chance to pursue his dream when the elections for state secretary came around. He was also a great orator. Wherever he spoke a large crowd would gather. Some came to see his great hump, hoping to glimpse its magic. Many believed that if the sun shined directly on it, you could see green sparks softly popping from it. Others came to hear his deep resonating voice. It was so strong that even with the largest audience, he never needed a microphone.

  Others came because he spoke of lifting up the community, bettering the schools and hospitals, instilling methods that would bring more business to the community. His goals sounded so logical and realistic that people would leave his speech glowing as they did after a spirit-filled Sunday mass. He wasn’t scapegoating us Agwes in the beginning. He was elected and promptly began to work toward a better Ndi State.

  His work as secretary must have shown him how powerful my people are. Well, not powerful but hardworking, resourceful, and organized. There are few of us but we are ambitious and industrious. There is nothing cruel, clannish, or greedy in our ways, not more than any other group of people’s. If no one will stick up for us, I will.

  When Bakasi decided to run for Ndi’s Head of State, his speeches took on a different flavor, a flavor that reflected what many in the greater community of Ndi State were thinking. Suddenly the Agwe became his reason for all of Ndi State’s problems. We were greedy, miserly, nepotists, the scourge of Ndi State. We were few, so our votes amounted to little. He won by a landslide and that was when the trouble really began.

  Bakasi had come to hate us and began to openly say so. And his hate was contagious. To make a long story short, things became very bad for my people.

  You will never understand what it’s like to walk in my shoes. You will never be in my shoes.

  My father and I often sat up late at night talking about him. Always, in the room at the center of our house is the most secure place, where no one can hear our hushed voices. For if any of the Bakasi Boys or their many spies heard how we spoke of Bakasi, they’d have burned down our house, murdered our loved ones, and slandered
the names of our ancestors and future children in the newspapers and market.

  Bakasi the Hunchback had become a murderer, a worker of black magic, a dictator.

  Three days ago, he gave a speech.

  We knew he would because there were riots three days prior at one of the state’s biggest markets. It would have looked bad for him to stay quiet. What happened at those riots? Some Agwe were fed up and went crazy. Ten people were killed, even more injured.

  It was time.

  There were five of us.

  Me, Rosemary, Effiong, Ralph, and Victor. There are more of us now but we were the soul of it. We were the ones who took it into our hands first. I don’t know what we started but I believe my father when he said it was inevitable . . . though this fact does not absolve the guilt I feel.

  I was there. I was a part of it. No one saw it coming, except us. But we couldn’t have predicted how severely things would explode.

  Bakasi gave his speech at the university auditorium. He should have known there would be trouble where adult students dwelled. Where people like Rosemary flourished hidden between books and exams. Rosemary was Agwe but she was tall, beautiful, and tactfully quiet. Bakasi’s people were aware of her as they were aware of all Agwe students at the university but she was left untroubled because she didn’t seem like a threat. It was Rosemary who scoped out the auditorium and planned what we did.

  She, Victor, Effiong, and Ralph had snuck in two nights ago with sacks of food, among other items. We all had mobile phones to stay in contact. Thus they had everything inside before Bakasi’s security came and started checking people for weapons at the door. The security people were not thorough, or they would have checked the entire auditorium before letting people in. Bakasi was arrogant.

  I came a few hours before the speech and was stationed in the front. I melted into the huge crowd waiting outside to see him. If you saw how spectacular his entrance was, you’d understand why so many gathered here.

  The street was cleared of all cars and hawkers and pedestrians were banned from touching the roads. It was believed that the roads were like Bakasi’s fingers, that he could touch anyone who touched them. Bakasi, it was said, liked to clear his mind before a speech, so it wasn’t a good idea to be on roads that he planned to travel. Those of us in the crowd stood in the grass.

  I knew he was coming when the black shiny Mercedes started to pull up. One every minute for ten minutes. They’d park next to the auditorium until the entire place was surrounded by polished black chrome and metal. Then the green Hummer came up the road, driving slowly, like a gigantic careful chameleon. By this time my legs were aching and I was breathing heavily with anticipation. Finally I’d see what this man looked like up close. This man who had turned our state upside down.

  “Here he comes,” I said to Rosemary on my phone.

  “Okay, Issa, time to stand true,” she said. I could hear the smirk on her lips.

  “I’m ready, are you?” I said.

  “I’ve been ready since this man had my brother expelled, my mother’s fruit stand burned, and my father beaten in the damn streets.”

  I nodded, though she couldn’t see me.

  “Once the door is open, Rosemary, we won’t be able to close it.” But I didn’t say this with fear.

  “Like my mother always says, ‘He who digs a pit for others will inevitably fall into it.’ ”

  Then she hung up and I was alone.

  As Bakasi’s vehicle approached, a woman next to me fainted, a man on the other side of me began to babble and snicker, several people looked at each other with wide eyes. There were hundreds of us all standing there feeling more emotional than we’ve ever felt, for different reasons. Most loved and revered Bakasi, a few certainly must have hated him. I wondered how many people were Agwes. At least two of us were, judging from the stern look on a woman’s face a few feet away.

  The closer Bakasi’s truck got, the quieter everyone grew. Soon all you could hear was the soft purr of the truck’s engine. It had green and white flags planted in the front and back of the vehicle, snapping softly as the breeze blew.

  The vehicle pulled up to the front of the auditorium. It stopped and from nowhere, five men in military uniform and olive green berets ran up with a green carpet. They unrolled it before the car. By this time, it was completely silent. Even the people waiting inside the packed auditorium had quieted, somehow aware of Bakasi’s presence. One of the military men opened the door.

  A long large shapely leg extended out. It was like the leg of a giant, a female one. She wore gold stockings that disappeared as the rest of her stepped out of the Hummer covered by her long green and gold rapa. So so tall. And her gold head wrap made her two feet taller! Bakasi’s wife was a giant and I wondered how she could even fit into that vehicle.

  She was beautiful in her largeness, fat off of the suffering of others; her chubby dark brown face carrying the most striking eyes and her lips were like upside down hearts. She stood next to the vehicle with a slight smirk on her face, her bejeweled hands clasped at her ample belly. Then a black shiny shoe peeked out of the vehicle. It was slightly turned inward. Bakasi was pigeon-toed. Bakasi’s hump was so big that he did not step out of the vehicle as his wife did. He rolled out!

  It happened so fast and with such agility that the entire crowd gasped. Then he stood up as straight as he could, which wasn’t straight at all. He wore an all green caftan and pants, hemmed with gold. Specially made to suit his magically evil hump. There were gold hoops in his ears and his black shoes were also tipped with gold.

  Then there he stood, pushed forward by his glorious hump that controlled all he did, including his body. I didn’t see any green sparks flying from his hump but I knew this man had power. His face was smooth skinned and he was oddly pretty. His eyes washed over all of us. I especially noticed his one green eye and it felt as if he was looking at me in particular. That eye was so so knowing. As if it could look into a forest and see the past, present, and future. As if it could see where we all came from and where we all would end up. I shivered, positive he would look right at me and know what the five of us planned. We would be thrown in jail and quietly executed, our bodies covered with lime and thrown in shallow graves. But no such thing happened. Somehow he did not see what lay shortly ahead.

  He grinned arrogantly, tenderly taking his wife’s hand. They walked into the auditorium through the back entrance. He was surrounded by twelve of his uniformed guards. Bakasi Boys. As they entered, those of us still outside heard the people inside burst into applause. I, along with everyone else, ran inside through the main entrance.

  As I entered the auditorium my heart leapt. But Rosemary was right, the guards were so focused on Bakasi inside now that they had stopped checking people for weapons at the door. It was hot and stuffy and the air was heavy with the smell of people’s armpits and oily brows. Minutes passed before Bakasi stepped up onstage to speak after. There was a long introduction from the chancellor of the university, so I had enough time to push and shove my way near the front. I wasn’t as close as Effiong, Rosemary, Victor, or Ralph but I was close enough.

  “People of Ndi State, welcome,” he said. His voice vibrated through the entire building. As always, he needed no microphone. “Fellow people, we give praise and honor to God Almighty for this day specially appointed by God Himself. Everything created by God has its destiny and it is the destiny of all of us to see this day. You the good people of Ndi State elected me, a man who had walked through the valley of the shadow of death, as your Head of State, to head this administration. I believe that this is what God Almighty has ordained for me and for my beloved Ndi State.”

  I bit my lip with irritation. My hands were sweating. I knew where each of them were. I could see them. I waited.

  “I have found it necessary to address you once again in the course of our nation’s history. In view of the unfortunate development three days ago, I’m in touch with our armed forces and they have all pledged their
unflinching support and loyalty to the state government.

  “Three days ago there was sporadic looting and rioting by a few disloyal and misguided and sad Agwes in some isolated parts of three Ndi State markets, followed by an embarrassing radio broadcast stating that my soldiers opened fired on innocent civilians.”

  My hand twitched near my pocket. Wait, I told myself. Not long now.

  “Fellow people, you will all agree with me that the reasons given for this grave misconduct of these few civilians are significantly motivated by greed and self-interest. The Agwes involved decided to make themselves into a state security nuisance for no other cause than base avarice. I promise . . . ”

  I saw her stand up and heard her at the same time. Her voice was loud and clear, like Bakasi’s.

  “No more promises! We all know that your promises are death to our community in disguise!” Rosemary shouted from Bakasi’s right. She didn’t wait and neither did the rest of us.

  Click click, bam bam bam!

  I was rushing forward as I aimed and shot at Bakasi on stage. My aim was certainly not perfect but it was good, Effiong had taught me well. Before me, Bakasi looked as if he had small roses blooming on his chest and legs. He was still standing, although around him everyone moved away. Even his magnificent wife. In the end of life, you’re always alone.