by Frank Achebe
‘Go away.’ The man finally blurted out as if he were speaking to a lost child. ‘The mayor is not available.’ He finally added in a more respectable, but yet still mean tone.
‘When will he be?’
The man stopped and looked blankly again. ‘I don’t know.’ He turned back inside and disappeared past the iron gates.
Inside, the mayor yelped loudly and harshly at his weeping daughter one more time before walking away.
# # #
Zach returned to the hospital ward. He had judged the man’s behaviour as a reflection of the general snobbish nature of the townspeople towards strangers. Maybe the man had even heard of him from the rumours. Though he did not think his approach was wrong or deserving of such contemptuous treatment, he felt certain in a way that he could find a way around all of that and accomplish his primary purpose of coming to the town.
He would return to the mayor’s place the next morning. He would be more pleading, or whatever it would take him. He would just have to find a way. Hopefully he will be on the other side of the river by midday the next day. Today and tomorrow were still very much the same. That summarised his hopes with which he consoled himself. He was already getting enough of the town.
He seemed certain of those hopes in a quaint way and rehearsed them in his mind.
Much of his walk back to the wardroom was in trying to gather himself together. On returning to the wardroom, he found one of the beds empty. Pûjó was gone. He looked around and asked around leaving the nurses sneering at him.
Zach was embarrassed and confused at the same time. Maybe his good-heartedness was not at all warranted. Maybe he was overdoing it after all. Maybe he had put the boy into more trouble that he had saved him from it. Maybe the boy was of the same snobbish stock as the rest of the townspeople.
These thoughts and many others left him confused as to what he would do with himself—look for the boy or just hang in for the night and seek out the mayor very early the next day. He seemed certain that he would be seeing the mayor the next day.
But where would he spend the night after all? What about the boy? He could have had enough of his unsolicited goodwill. Where—
His anxieties were rising; a sombreness was slipping into his mind….
Where—?
This one thought occupied his mind as he made his way out of the health centre and into the dark and cold road. He was totally oblivious of every other thing that moved on the same road. They were hardly any though. If they were, he would not have noticed them. A long journey and a day later, he hadn’t even cleaned up for once. He was beginning to feel his sweaty coat sticking to his body at the collar, under the armpits and at the wrists. His underpants were becoming itchy.
It was drizzling and he was certain that it would rain and all of that would compound his troubles.
Zach kept to the road that led up to the centre of the town. That was the only familiar place. From there he would find a way to one of the churches. He guessed that at least one would be open to a stranger like him. He could manage a pew at least for the night. There could be more though and he would be grateful.
But he despaired at the same time over a certain hidden presentiment, the very presentiment that had led him on to the journey and he was beginning to be frustrated with it. He was confident and encouraged by the hope that by this time the next day, it would all be over—regardless of what this presentiment had to say.
He continued the walk, his hands in the pockets of his coat. The rain was picking up pace, he would have to look for a shade. It was as he hastened up the road, looking right and left for any shade, that he noticed that someone was following him. He needed no extra manoeuvres. He knew that he was being followed.
He continued his walk only imagining the worst. He remembered seeing the conspicuous steeple of a Catholic church somewhere from the centre of the town. He was confident that if he could make it to the boulevard that he could find the steeple again and follow it.
# # #
Hééb was taken by the stranger in almost a mystical way. It was as if he instantly knew who he was and what he was about. These sensibilities were very minute even atomic but there are those who could make sense of them in more tangible ways. And Hééb was one of such men of great sensibilities. He had an abundance of experiences that had sharpened those sensibilities.
He was a stout man with a long nose and large ears. He could pass as a goblin if a few feet were taken from his height. He had a stare in his eyes, a deep and daring stare. There was something about the way he carried himself, something that suggested arrogant self-possession. He had served the mayor from when he was a boy. He hadn’t gone to school but there was no way he would not have been exposed to the best and most civilized ways of life living with a man of the highest breeding.
He had followed Zach from the gate trying hard to keep at a little distance from him. He had turned from going home to following the stranger his heart pumping with aversion and curiosity. Zach had first stopped at the hospital and so had he. When after less than ten minutes, he had reappeared, the valet had shelved his plans of slyly interrogating the nurses about the stranger.
He had initially adjudged Zach to be one of the wretched favour-mongers but as the man turned and left. Something about the man seemed to threaten him. He was astounded at his own interest in this stranger and angered by it. He swore to himself that he would snap his own neck if his instincts towards this man turned out to be wrong. But he knew he wouldn’t have to do that. He trusted his instincts enough to follow them. And he was following them.
He had no harm in mind though. He only wanted to be aware.
# # #
In a while, Zach almost forgot that someone was on his trail. His pace was faster but steadier as the rain reduced its pace. Ten more minutes, he was standing on the boulevard. On his right stood the row of taverns. It was not at all deserted but the townspeople went to roost quite early. That was a fact.
There were still lights in places. The quiet regardless was full. He was still trying to make out the steeple and follow it when he heard the sound of beating and throaty screaming on his two o’clock. For the first time in a long while, Zach did not know what to do, follow the instinct that drew him towards the noise or the one that drove him away from it.
He stood with his legs pulling him towards the sound. But he did not move. For each passing second, the noise seemed to be getting nearer. In no while, he could make out what it was about. There had been another stealing and a post-stealing beating up.
The culprit kept running and towards him. It was then that Zach decided to move…towards the man. The man appeared in the distance, wobbling on his knees, dusting his coat, with muffled groanings…. He was now alone, growling on the floor.
‘I didn’t do it. I did not steal anything. I was merely looking for the man from yesterday.’ The man reeled off like a tape almost breathlessly. He sounded close to tears.
Zach remembered the man. He had not seen his face the night before. But the signature alcohol smell was still there as was that throaty voice he had heard at the tavern. The man was still in the old and torn tweed coat as from yesterday. Zach was certain that the man was sober to an absolute degree.
‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘The gentleman from the tavern.’
At the word ‘gentleman’, the man, stood and began to dust himself. When he was done, his two hands went behind his back in fashion. He stood and looked on as if to say: ‘There you go chief.’
Zach took the man’s cue and said with a smile. ‘Nice to meet again, sir.’ Zach addressed him with a held-out hand. The man hesitated before taking it. ‘I am looking for the boy, Pûjó.’
‘I saw him a while ago, sir. This way please.’
# # #
In the dark, Hééb nodded. He had gotten it. He was the bastard that everyone at Madam Békhtèn’s place was talking about.
He was welcome to Nānti.
Chapter Ten: The Face of God
The two arrived at what was a shack of rusted roofing sheets. The journey, which took a little less than ten minutes, was in silence. The man who led the way had a lot to say but he was too busy impressing his follower with his efficiency in fulfilling his request to either take note of the pains in his body or the one in his soul.
Othí, whose nickname meant ‘bullet’ was in a mood of suppressed excitement as he led the way. He had feared that last night had been a dream or one of the many alcohol-induced frenzies. Just after leaving the tavern, he had traversed the town telling everyone he saw in a drunken frenzy that someone had called just addressed him as a gentleman. He was known in the town as a frustrated man, a good-for-nothing more or less, who took out his frustration—and his good-for-nothingness—on the green bottles of beer and the brown ones of locally made gin, having no one else to take it out on. Usually, his drunken-talk was about how his wife, Yānda, use to whip him in front of his children and how she had threatened to drown him in the Nānti River. Or how no one would understand how much he had suffered in the world.
No one paid attention to him as he bumped into people telling them and shouting at them as loud as he could: ‘I could still be a gentleman. Yes, I could still look like one of those men inside Madam Békhtèn’s colour television. Look at my coat. Is it because I just took seven more bottles. It is just because of my suffering. You have no idea.’
The drunkard had tired out by the time they had thrown him out of Madam Békhtèn’s hall—where he had gone to tell his story—and had fallen asleep on the steps that led up to it. He had woken the next morning to a feet kicking hard at his side and cursing him loudly and coarsely. His head was throbbing with violent headache.
The memories of the night before flashed in his face. And as usual, he fell into a state of guilt as he saw two kids, a boy and a girl make their way past him with jars of water on their heads. They reminded him of his children and his wife and of how much hurt he caused them on account of his loud frenzies.
One of the most torturing images was once upon a time when his little eight-year old son had found him lying in a gutter after he had gotten into his drunken bouts. The boy had gone home and gotten a wheelbarrow and had carried his father home. His wife had refused him bringing the drunkard into the house and the man had slept outside in the open. When the next day, his wife had railed him reminding him that he was a ‘bag of filth lying around in gutters…look at you, it was your son that took our neighbour’s wheelbarrow to bring you home. Idiot! Good-for-nothing! Animal! Fool! Let thunder fire you from high heavens!’ With those words, Yānda had chased him away with a broom.
It was typical of her to do so. And there was no one in the town who did not sympathize with her. In fact, they were the ones who gave her the courage to do more than just rail at the drunkard.
He had gone away but now challenged by his son’s kindness, he had changed and had gotten back to being a hunter. But the change did not last because Yānda was never satisfied. She wanted out of Nānti. She wanted to move to the ‘big cities’. He was trying his best, couldn’t she see it? They had an argument. He had gotten drunk that night from the frustration. And many more nights after that.
He used to fancy that his boy, now ten Mwāi, would one day be a priest. ‘He has an angelic soul. The world will not corrupt him for me as it has corrupted me. I am a sinner. I shall go to the depths of hell but he will go to heaven. He is a saint. He shall see the Face of God, I shall not. There, I shall have prayers said for my soul, for my rising, for my redemption.’ In a moment, he would fall into despair. ‘What if he forgets his father? I have not been good to him.’ He would hold his face in his hands and weep like a child.
The next day, he had gone looking for the man who had called him a ‘gentleman’. He was not very good with people. Being a notorious drunkard meant that children would make fun of him whenever they had the chance. They would even make chants for him: ‘One green bottle standing on his head… if one green bottle accidentally opens…’
As he thought upon what had happened the night before, he would fall in and out of despair as his mind would torture him by telling him things like: ‘It was not real. Just one of your dreams of being like the gentleman in Madam Békhtèn’s hunch-back colour television.’ He would be joyful for once as a part of him would assure him that it was all real. And so, he decided to retrace his steps. He spent the whole day trying to find out what exactly had happened. Just as the day was ending, he heard the story, by chance, of the ‘bastard’ who was calling drunkards ‘gentlemen’ and checking ‘madmen’ into hospitals.
He had gone to the hospital but Zach was at the Mayor’s just when he had arrived. He had gone to Truth Is Life, where the man, more from spite against Zach than against the drunkard had accused him of trying to steal from his shop and had the men who had gathered beat him up. All on Zach’s account.
But as he walked with Zach following him, all of that seemed to disappear. The feeling was the same as that he had experienced at the tavern. It was like the same feeling that he had the day he had heard of his boy’s kindness to him.
His sobriety only made him more self-aware of that rare feeling.
###
The two men stopped and stood in front of the house made of rusting roofing sheets. Around it was a wide clearing as was the small footpath that led up to it from the main road. The boy had made those himself. Behind the batcher house were wider bushes with a row of paw-paw trees and a few mangoes.
The rain which was now harder in its drizzling was noising off the sheets which were stuffed in with metal scraps in some corners and dried leaves on the roof. On its left was an uncompleted building that was overgrown with low grass and the walls with algae and ferns.
Zach did not actually see all of that and more until the next day.
The low door was open before them. Othí stopped at the door and Zach followed him in stopping. They looked at each other in the dark. Zach, not knowing what to expect took the lead and entered through the low door. His charge followed behind him.
The boy lay on what was a bed made out of bamboo sticks laid over cement blocks. The bedspread consisted of rags that had been pieced together. The room was a low-head one. The roofing sheets that formed the roof had rusted away, now replaced by dried leaves that had been treated with engine oil and tar to make them waterproof. The room was a little more than six feet on both sides. There was a table in a corner that held few old and dog-eared books. On top of the table was a framed photo of the Holy Mother and Child and a prayer bead over-hanging the wooden cross laid at the bottom of the photo. In front of the table was a rickety chair that the boy had made from pieces of wood he had taken from the site. It had aged and was only being supported by cement blocks as the bed. There was no wall hanger, the boy’s clothes were suspended from nails that had been made into the framework of the shack—which the people called ‘batcher house’ because it was originally used to house the batchers used on construction sites. There were about six of such nails. Just four of them held clothes.
There was nothing else, not anything serious enough to hold their attention—except for a machete and a hoe and a small unlit fire pot. The floor of the room was covered with fine sand that was overlaid with a layer of engine oil. The room was thoroughly neat. The rest of the floor space was uncovered. Huddled against the wall adjacent to the door were cement blocks that had been stacked to look like seats.
The two of them stood there looking at the boy who was sleeping soundly on the bed. Zach did not know what to do next. He just stood there staring at the boy.
‘It would be nice if I put fire to the pot.’ Othí said and set about it. That was their break and it was a good way to start. In no time, they were warming up seated on the cement block seats, their backs resting on the fragile wooden framework that held the shack together.
Othí was mostly in discomfort. He seemed to have a lot to say only hardly knowing how to start. He seemed to have forgotten why
he was looking for the man who had addressed him as a ‘nice gentleman’. He stood after an awkwardly long moment passed between the two in silence and announced: ‘I should be going now. I should be going now. Thanks to you for yesterday.’ Without waiting for Zach to say anything in reply, he walked out of the shack.
Not more than five seconds after that, he was back at the door. He was all acting excited and nervy for what Zach could not understand.
He finally got his release when Zach motioned him to come in. He came in and sat down again. Observing that Zach was looking at the aged photo of the Holy Mother and Child, which had become dimly visible in the light, he folded his hands to his chest and began his verbal eruption. Zach listened to him with rapt following every word he spoke, picking out every undertone, and the emotions that weighted each of them.
‘Have you seen the Face of God?’ he asked and without waiting for Zach to answer, he continued again. ‘I could never stand It. I would be dead in an instant. I am even tortured by the thought of It. But you know, there are those who have indeed seen the Face of God. They are His saints. Sinners ought not to pray to God. We pray to the saints and they, in their kindness and in their goodness take our prayers to God. They and only they can stand the Face of God. But you have seen the Face of God, haven’t you?’
He now waited on Zach to answer. Zach did not know what to answer and only wanting to hear the man more, he just nodded in the dark.
Othí took that as a yes to his question and continued. ‘I do not even look upon the face of the Mother at the grotto of our parish. I cannot stand it. I let the world and my sufferings corrupt me but She, in her greatness and goodness did not. I am only ashamed of myself at the sight of Her. I have suffered indeed but you see, we are all without excuses for our evils, not in her presence. But you know, she never judges the frail ones among Her children. She welcomes us all and takes our prayers to Her Son whose face we cannot stand.’