Homecoming of the gods

by Frank Achebe

  Two evenings later, they were in the raven’s tavern. The request was that he dig up information as regards the missionary in question.

  ‘Whatever you can find.’ Was the request and Thaddy was obliged. Thaddy was one of such people who could make ‘findings’ about people and things. That was the core of his personality. Zach knew him as such and there was no other person he would have asked.

  The two had met only twice since after Zach had returned from Del Mundo’s islets. Thaddy had heard the news as it had happened to the details and was impressed even though he hid whatever he had found interesting and impressive behind his unbelief. For those two times, it was not in their discussion. Now they had the chance to discuss it. Or something else.

  They exchanged greetings and sat down each astride a round table.

  # # #

  Thaddy observed him for a while with a mischievous smile in his face. ‘I like the beards.’

  Zach nodded shyly. He had been keeping his beards. ‘So what have you got for me?’ he asked changing the direction of the dialogue.

  ‘Well,’ Thaddy began enthusiastically, ‘the boy’s name is Silas Ańgō. He is twenty-four or so. The town is Nānti. It’s far south. The girl is the last daughter of the mayor of the town. She is a beauty too.’ He said and showed him photos that he’d cut from magazines and newspapers. ‘So what about him?’

  Zach stopped at the photos, looked at him for an awkward moment before answering. ‘I’m going after him.’

  Thaddy was not surprised. He had expected it. ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t tell, at least not yet.’

  ‘Doubt if it will change anything. I mean, the dude is as guilty as hell or don’t you think so? Have you not met worse missionaries? I could give you names.’

  Zach shook his head at that. He was not interested in the names. It was followed by a moment of awkward silence.

  ‘You don’t believe he did it, do you?’ Thaddy asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if he did.’

  ‘Really?’ Thaddy said, his cynicism rising. ‘How do you even do all that?’

  ‘What?’

  Thaddy gestured as he answered: ‘Play the hero? Save people?’

  ‘That is not what it is.’ He answered after hesitating for a while. He wanted to parry the question, pretend that he did not understand but be sure did.

  ‘It sure is. Looks like it, sir. And that is good for you anyway and good for them. But what does it matter after all? I mean, the young man could be guilty after all.’

  Zach stared at him.

  ‘Convince me that it is not then.’

  Zach shook his head.

  This time, he chuckled sardonically though not intentionally letting the silence between them linger. He was ready to have the conversation.

  Thaddy had always wanted Zach to preach to him. Or to even try. He wanted to ask for it. But at the same time, he could not. He could not understand why he was not letting him have it.

  After another while of silence passed, he gave up.

  ‘Try. Tell me that Jesus was born by a virgin. Tell me that he lived sinless and that he died…tell me all those stuffs you tell people.’

  Thaddy waited.

  ‘What would it matter, Thaddy? You know more about anything than I do.’

  ‘Why’d you never tried converting me? At least, prove something to me. I have met tons of preachers, Zach and you are a bit unlike most of them. They are always eager to prove everything. Or try at the least. I think it is a religious duty or so. Maybe they recently made it so.’

  ‘Thaddy, there are things about ourselves; about our world that we may never understand…especially if we don’t want to understand. I always want to understand, that’s all.’ Zach said, not interested in pursuing the part about him being unlike other preachers.

  Thaddy nodded before adding: ‘What do you mean by want to understand?’

  ‘I’d say that we often see not the things there are but the things we want to see.’

  ‘Go on, preach to me, sir. Help me understand.’ Thaddy said, more cynicism rising.

  I must say that Thaddy desperately wanted the conversation to hold. He actually wanted to understand. Then he could not stand understanding. Many other things were always standing in his way of understanding and he could not sacrifice those things.

  ‘You have probably read the Holy Book more times than I have.’ Zach told him with honesty in his voice.

  ‘I don’t know Zach, it’s the facts that I see. If there’s something else to see, please do show me.’

  ‘There are questions I can’t answer. And if you live to see the things I have seen, you will realize that about yourself too.’

  ‘Then why do you believe?’

  ‘Not sure I can answer that one either.’

  There was another round of silence. Zach never felt like he should live up to his profession as a preacher to Thaddy. There was nothing that he could tell Thaddy that could get him to see other than the ‘facts’ as he had called them. But at the same time, he did not completely give up hope that someday, he would see.

  ‘So what have you been up to lately?’ Zach asked. It was not because he did not want to face Thaddy in his scepticism. It was only that he doubted his abilities at winning that obstinate soul. He even feared that Thaddy could turn something in his head and he was right in that fear.

  Thaddy exhaled as he felt in the question a real chance to express his doubts in Zach’s hearing. It was not that he expected him to capitulate to them anyway. He wanted him to do like the other college boys he had met – try to defend or prove something.

  ‘Well, went to India on some job. While there, something was brought to my attention.’

  ‘What?’ Zach asked honestly curios.

  ‘They say that there are more cows than there are humans in that country.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well, it has to do with Hinduism so if Christ was an Indian, he would have been probably Cow of God instead of Lamb of God.’

  Zach found it funny and laughed heartily. He took no offense in that as he did not think there was any.

  ‘But then, he happens to be a Jew, and Jews like lambs too, don’t they?’ continued Thaddy. He had found in it a chance to make his views audible in Zach’s hearing.

  I have mentioned that Thaddy disliked Christianity in particular and religion in general, mostly because he could not understand. It offended his intelligence. But more than that, the Jewish principle behind Christianity seemed to smack at him. He more than just rejected it, he loathed the taste of it. As a man that saw only the ‘facts’, it was one of the ‘facts’ beyond which he could not see any other thing.

  ‘Are you into animal rights now?’ Zach asked and the laughter returned on the other side. Zach knew that he was in no way ‘into animal rights’.

  Thaddy had something he wanted to tell Zach. It was not at all mindless. He had thought about it many times. It did not necessarily make him feel ‘superior’, it was something he would have told any other person in Zach’s shoes—something he had told many others.

  ‘You sure have read the Old Testament and of course the New.’, he began. And if not for any other thing, there is blood, blood everywhere. You can almost smell it reeking from the bible pages. The history of the Jews is a history written by blood. The Holocaust, the Levitical Order, the Cross… The Lamb of God all express this bloodiness. You must realize that I am merely being honest.’

  ‘What about it? What are you getting at then?’ Zach asked after catching his breath. He did not know that the history of the Jews were in no way different from the history of every other people of the world for history is written by blood. In reading history and in living through it, we have always screamed: blood, blood everywhere.

  ‘I can’t understand why any of that would have anything to do with “salvation”’, Thaddy continued. ‘They are not symbols of salvation per se, not as you and others preach it; they are
symbols of survival. Nothing else. Evolution and everything to modern science has become the modern man’s symbol of survival, a purified version of the Jewish code of survival. We need people to see that they can survive by this symbol. And think about it, a generation of men have survived by this symbol. And many generations have survived by the different symbols of ‘salvation’ and survival that they have made for themselves. I myself, as a modern man, I believe in science. I believe in things that are believable.

  ‘But the Jews are a special case, their model of survival, as far as modern history is concerned, is grand and I must admit this. This is why they have outlived many other nations. If it is salvation, then, of course it is survival. Period.’

  ‘I still do not understand.’

  ‘When a man rose from the dirt to become one of the most influential men of his generation—mind you, this is typical Jewish success story—, and was betrayed by it, the Jews who admired him consecrated this life into the same religious symbols of survival created by their poets and prophets of old – son of God, Messiah, etc. They badly needed this man to outlive them. When he died, they made sure he resurrected. When they ‘resurrected’ him, they spoke of his ‘second coming’….Now, this man has outlived them as a symbol of Jewish posterity. This is the meaning of ‘salvation’ for the Jews. This is the only means through which they could strive against the deteriorating power of time. This is admirable. But what Christianity and Islam has done is take this for granted. This is the trick that the Jews have played on the world in general. Science, philosophy have replaced the old forms, they have demystified the meaning of the Jewish idea of survival. Talks of lambs and pigeons and cows and crosses as symbols of man’s salvation is far too archaic if not senseless,—if not Jewish—not for a man who has demystified how to outlive himself. And certainly not for a man who understands that the old forms was indeed a ‘shadow’ of things that has come. We can no longer hold on to the shadows of the old forms for the sake of religion now that we have their palpable realities.’

  There was another moment of silence between the two. Zach still was not getting at what his friend was trying to send across.

  ‘They are God’s people,’ Zach heard himself sputter out. ‘That was the reason they have outlived all other nations of their own time.’

  ‘That is too simple an answer.’ There was scorn in his voice. ‘They are their god’s people. Very much like in every other nation and with every other people; they placed themselves at the centre of the religious experience of their god. I’ve told you what you need to know about them.’

  ‘Do you hate the Jews?’

  Thaddy laughed aloud. ‘Do I? I certainly do not and you must forgive my constant reference to them. The Jews are the capitalist principle of the modern world. If you are a capitalist, you’ll love the Jews. If you are not a capitalist, you will hate them. I’m neither. I’m a free spirit, I hate nobody.’

  ‘How come you know all these things?’ Zach asked after a short period of more awkward silence. He was impressed.

  Thaddy caught his chance right at that. ‘That is the problem with you Zach. I think a lot. I want to demystify things. You take things for granted. We are different. You just believe everything they tell you. You speak of wanting to understand but wanting to understand is not the same as understanding. Things are not always what they seem. You are a good man but you are way too simplistic in your assessment of reality. I may be an unbeliever but I’m not a simpleton. And Za, this is going to be your downfall. The world may not forgive you for your simplicity.’

  That was just what he had always wanted to tell his friend. And haven said it, he felt relieved. There were no hard feelings to it.

  # # #

  Zach listened, never taking those words too personal, never feeling offended for indirectly being called a ‘simpleton’. He couldn’t even say he truly understood. It would be much that he would understand more deeply the meaning of what Thaddy had told him at the raven’s.

  He did not have answers for any of those things and he could not pretend that he did. There were those who could, those who had the degrees and the pedigrees. As for him, he valued his experiences—and naively so—more than any other thing else. He indeed had a simplistic view of reality. It was not that he did not have his own questions like every other person. It was also not that he thought it blasphemous to ask them. He had very few answers as well. As to the Book, he read it like one would read a book written by fishermen and shepherds—with the same simplicity with which they wrote it. Sometimes he slept on it. Other times, he admitted that there were things that puzzled him in the letters, things that no matter how he tried at understanding, he could never understand.

  # # #

  They talked a bit more about other trivial things and parted.

  Zach was sure that he could in no way convince Thaddy about anything and so he never bothered trying. Thaddy was far more intelligent that he was. In fact, he had other things to worry about. And he worried about them.

  This feeling was not one of defeat and it was also not one of disparagement. It was honest and friendly.

  As for Thaddy, he felt a bit of guilt about himself watching Zach leave.

  He knew none of his words meant anything to his friend. Not anything significant, nothing of influence.

  The impression that Zach made on him was unlike that of many others. It was not vengeful. It was not even anything close to contemptuous and he was sure that Zach was not playing the philosopher by keeping quiet. The man may be simple in his outlook on life but was not one to strive with another.

  Chapter Three: The Market Women - A Nightmare

  The meeting did nothing to temper Zach’s feeling about the young man whose indiscretion had made the news. As to playing the hero, it could not have been it. He was self-sacrificing but then anything he did for others, he did for himself.

  He could not even tell why he had such a feeling nor did he have any ideas as to what it would lead him into. He only recognized it as something that he should respond with the required urgency and anxious concern – as he would have expected others to do for him.

  There was nothing special about that feeling per se. It was most normal to him. It could not have been anything other than customary for him to respond in such a way, even if such a response was the most he could give in sympathy.

  With that being said, I should add that he was urged on by something other than mere sympathy and association with the said missionary. As to the Jews and his ‘simplicity’, he had forgotten everything about them by the time he reached home.

  His mind could not find a place in it for them and they were abandoned. It was filled with thoughts about this one missionary and his desire to ‘understand’.

  # # #

  His wife, Ruth was pregnant and heavily close to the labour room. She would never have stood in his way of anything; it was just that the fact of her being pregnant gave him something to be anxious as every expectant parent would. He and his father were the only family that she had and being away for a few days during the last month of her pregnancy was something to be anxious about. But she obliged him. It was nothing, she had told him. She could take care of herself. If anything happened, she will go to the nearest hospital. The women that were friends to Zach mother would be more than willing to help on the notice of a telephone call.

  More about that was said in a bid to soothe his anxiety.

  Since after he had returned from Del Mundo’s islets after spending three years with Biyar and his people, Zach had spent the time waiting on destiny to find him like it had the first time. He had no idea where to go or what to do next and he could not manufacture any either. He had no such courage or initiative.

  He missed ‘the people’ and Biyar but then he had moved on as they had too. As to the months that had passed by him, he had spent it with the woman he had come to love. He read books, gained a few pounds, cooked when it was his ‘turn’ to do so, prayed, stayed away from the
newsmakers, saw old friends and made new ones, went to church as occasion demanded, played with his wife, talked with his father, learnt to play the piano alongside a few other trivial things.

  Nevertheless, in all those, he still felt strangely absent from himself. There was still something missing, something absent in those things.

  Ruth never would have stood in his way for anything. She believed in him and let him understand that not even his responsibilities to her would stand in his way. She understood more than anyone else the estrangement that the man had from himself and never tried to pretend that she could make him forget himself in her. There was no doubt that he loved her, and found a part of himself in being her husband and best friend, but then she knew him too well. He was one of those birds who belonged to the wild. Their feathers are so bright, their songs too sweet and their ways too deep that even if you succeeded in caging them, it will not take you so long to realize that they did not belong to you and that they never will. And that you could not live with the guilt of haven imprisoned them.

  She knew this and was the more anxious for him to find himself again.

  When he came to him and told him about the young missionary of Nānti, she had understood his grief. And like a few women who saw a little too deeply, she saw where it would lead him.

  # # #

  Silas Ańgō lived about a day’s journey from Zach Bādu’s Noiā. He got a late ticket and took the night train hoping to arrive his destination the next morning.

  The third class coach had a number of women whom he identified as market women moving their wares out of town. There were about eight in all with a few men.

  Zach did not know why he had chosen the third class. It was not that he could not afford the more exquisite suites. He just couldn’t tell and soon, he abandoned all thoughts of it. When they settled in and the train blasted off, Zach hopeful for a sleep leaned back, stretched his legs, gathered his coat to himself and waited for sleep.