by Frank Achebe
Zach took note of that as he had taken note of the ‘shut up!’
‘It never occurred to me that he was going to take his own life instead of give it to another person. The next morning, I went to his room and he was hanging from the ceiling fan. I was taken by the grief but I remembered in that moment that he had told me not to let anybody know. I tied him down and laid him on his bed. I then went out and reported his death.’
Zach was amazed.
‘My brother never gave up on a fight. But this was too much for him. He could have done it long ago. But he knew the scandal would destroy our family. Here suicide is an abomination. People that take their lives around are not given the normal burial rites. Even requiems are hardly said for them. They are just placed in the earth and no one mourns them. So he slipped away quietly and proudly.’
She was now standing, dabbing at the tears that now covered her face that had reddened. In a short while, she gathered herself together and sat back down. There was more.
‘His twin brother fell ill that morning. Until today, he has not been diagnosed. There is no explanation for his condition. He’s been taken to all hospitals around the world…. But he’s lying half-dead, half-alive in the health centre.’
Zach adjusted himself on the boy’s bed where he had folded himself. It was that other boy with a death face who had shared the wardroom with Pûjó.
‘He does not have the will to fight. He is the gentlest thing I have seen in my life. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, not one that tried to bite him. But his submission has not helped either.’
‘To whom?’
‘To his own fate. There is no other explanation for it. Not one that we know.’
‘Your father? Is he…’ Zach hesitated, ‘I mean, the situation, has it affected his mind? I mean, on a critical level.’
‘You want to ask if he is mad?’
‘Not that but something like that.’
‘What do you expect of a man who has lost everything that he once held dear to heart? He may be close to it, undoubtedly. But he still has his mind with him. His valet wants him and every other person to accept that his mad and that he can no longer make sound judgements. That is the only way he can control the man.’
‘What does he stand to gain?’
‘Everything. Everything. With my only brother certain to be gone, he would share in the holdings of his master. If he can get the man to accept that he is mad, he can trick him into making a bad decision. After all, he was the one that chased Silas away.’
‘Your other brother could be saved. Does he believe in God?’
‘He does, in a charming way too. My father and I, we all do. But I doubt if that will help much now.’
‘Why not?’
‘We have prayed. Masses have been said. Silas stayed up many nights praying and reading scriptures. He would read the story of Lazarus to me any time he got the chance. My father is now the angrier at everyone, including God. You wouldn’t blame him. He is frustrated. Hééb seems to have his own plans.’
‘Like?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Who else knows about your other brother?’
‘Silas…and my dad. I have not heard him say it. But I know that he knows. He loved that boy. He looked upon him as his true heir. And now he is certain to lose his only son.’ She broke off and Zach took over.
‘I would go to the health centre from here. I might be able to help in some ways. But you need to save your father.’
‘How?’
‘Reassure him. Comfort him.’
‘With what do I comfort him?’
‘Talk to him of the child as often as you can. Just anything. I would pay him another visit.’
‘Thank you. My name is Kuniā. Christened Joyce. It means ‘princess’. This is a great town. The love their princess to death and they have forgiven her.’
With that, she stood and Zach walked her onto the road where a Volvo car was waiting with a driver.
In the distance, a group of children stood watching the car.
As he watched the car drive away and the children begin to chase after it, he thought he should have asked her whether she believed in the story of Lazarus.
He wondered if she did.
Chapter Nineteen: Why Is A Raven Like a Writing Desk?
When the hunter in a drunken frenzy, had gone about town talking of the man that had identified him as a gentleman, a twenty-eight year old man was hooked. It was as if he needed the same man to identify him as a ‘gentleman.’ His name was Alright.
The man they called ‘Alright’ was a failed attempt at bleaching one’s skin from chocolate to fair. His face was marked with red patches of irregular shapes mixed with thick black pockmarks. The bleaching had turned him pink with a lot of thick black pockmarks than it had made him fair. He was despised for this one thing. The children called him ‘Paintbucket’ or ‘Michael Jackson’. Realizing his failure, he began wearing long sleeve dresses. With his curled hair, he could have passed as a Dutch if the bleaching had worked on him well.
He had an undergraduate degree in sociology and taught in a secondary school in Noiā. Since it was the long vacation for teachers and students, he was holidaying in Nānti with his elder sister and her family. He was a native and they knew him very well. They despised him for haven tried to change his skin colour. It was betrayal to them—whatever he sought to prove by that.
The children of Nānti had a different opinion about him. They had reasons to do so for Alright was a very intelligent young man. His abilities at imparting his knowledge was even greater than his knowledge. Now he was organizing holiday lessons for the school kids. Their parents had been reluctant at first but with news of his teaching abilities, he had managed to win them over. They had even begun to forgive him though they still called him names.
He would give out storybooks to his students and they would read and pass around among themselves. He had given them Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Roald Dahl’s Danny, the Champion of the World, C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—and George Orwell’s Animal Farm. He had also managed a children’s edition of The Pilgrim’s Progress. But the one that had held their interest at the time was Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland.
The discussions they held about the characters and their analyses of the stories were not unlike the ones they had on a normal day. For instance, they would delve into arguments about airplanes when one flew overhead. A group would be of the opinion that ‘there are invisible tarred roads for those airplanes high up in the air. Just because you can’t see it does not mean they are not there.’ The other group would argue that there was none. They would argue about the roundness/flatness of the earth. Every one of them seemed to agree that the earth was flat because it indeed looked flat.
There was no doubt that they really wanted to know the world.
All arguments were always resolved in Alright’s class. He was their conscience when it came to intellectual matters. What he said stood.
Now, he too was regretting why he had given out his Alice’s Adventures for the children were bothering him with the meaning of the riddle: Why is a raven like a writing desk?
The intelligent man had judged that his credibility and popularity among them would certainly reduce if he told them anything but the answer. Even Paintbucket was not allowed to not say: ‘I don’t know’. He also could not ask for more time. They had put him on that pedestal and to save himself and them, he had told them: ‘The person to find the answer gets a gift from me.’
‘What gift?’
‘Another book. The sequel actually, Through the Looking Glass.’
That had put the school kids that attended his holiday lessons on their toes. It did not seem as if they were ready to give up even when their answer: ‘It has two legs’ was rejected by Alright. ‘It couldn’t be the answer. Our writing desk has four legs. I suppose none of you have seen a raven before. Yo
u don’t expect to just get my book for that.’
That Monday, as they returned from the lessons, which lasted till eleven and sometimes noon, they were at it again.
# # #
The band of eight boys from Alright’s lessons that had tried to chase the navy blue Volvo car, returned to the same spot, their attention switching from the car to the shack.
They stood at the junction where the road cut into the footpath that led to the vegetable boy’s shack. They were shocked, angry and curios at the fact that the vegetable was getting a visitor like the mayor’s daughter. They stood and looked on in silence. Their leader, a haughty boy with black-rimmed spectacles, shared in their perplexity not knowing whether to lead them to the shack or away from it.
It was not certain what held their attention, whether the shack or the fact that the vegetable had visitors who drove Volvo cars.
As they stood there and watched, Zach returned carrying his coat. He was on his way to the health centre to see the boy. Zach stopped in his tracks. The boys had cleared it. They seemed to regard him with some respect.
He stood there for a minute longer regarding them as they regarded him—both parties in silence. The leader of the pack wanted to say something but with each try, the words would drop off at the tip of his tongue and he would put it back. The rest did not have any ideas.
Zach took a step forward and into the path they’d made for him, still wondering what it was they were thinking as they stood there watching him. They held their eyes on him as he hit the road and went off.
# # #
‘We didn’t know Pûjó had a brother.’
‘Shut up. It’s not his brother.’
‘How do you know it’s not his brother?’
‘Pûjó can’t ever have a brother. He’s a vegetable.’
‘Then what was that man doing in his house?’
‘And the mayor’s daughter?’
‘Did you see his beards?’
‘Maybe they are sleeping together.’
‘How is anyone of us supposed to know?’
In time, the discussion slipped back to the raven.
‘I told my dad last night and he told me that the writing desks they use in London has two legs.’
‘How does he know, has he gone to London before?’
‘In his dreams?’
‘On his motorcycle?’
‘What about your own dad, does he even know what a writing desk is?’
‘Forget it, I made up some riddles. Let’s play riddles in the dark. It’s day though. What has legs but cannot walk?’
‘A table.’
‘A chair.’
‘A lame person.’
‘Alright, alright. All correct.’
‘Give us something harder…’
‘What has eyes but cannot see?’
‘A blind person, of course.’
‘That’s lame.’
‘You’re lame.’
‘No, no, a needle.’
‘A person from Moscow is called a…’
‘Mosquito…’
Laughter.
‘Muscovite.’
‘What is to the face what the scabbard is to the sword?’
‘Cap.’
‘No. Mask.’
‘When I’m young, I walk with four legs. When I grow a bit older, I walk with two legs and when I grow very old, I walk with three. What am I?’
‘Even Bilbo couldn’t get that one.’
‘A human being.’
‘Why is it so? I’ve never seen a human being walking on three legs.’
‘As a child, you crawl on all fours. When you grow older, you walk with your two legs and when you get very old, you need a walking stick.’
‘Not every old person in our town walks with a stick.’
‘But your grandmother does.’
‘Whatever.’
‘A thief in your house is worth two in…’
‘A prison?’
‘No. The Cross of Calvary. Jesus was crucified between two thieves.’
‘But there are still thieves in prisons though.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘A riddle can have more than one answer.’
‘Go tell that to Sméagol.’
‘Ponds and ducks, ducks and tails, tails and…?’
‘That’s easy. There are a thousand ducks in our town. The answer is feathers o’course.’
‘I have one eye. I weep at night. Where I am, you cannot write. What am I?’
‘I don’t know anyone one-eyed person in our town.’
‘Candle, you fool.’
‘I am three persons in one and one in three. What am I?’
‘Trinity!’
‘No. Egg! The shell, the yolk and the abdomen!’
Loud laughter.
‘Idiot, it is albumen.’
‘Never mind, that was a slip of the tongue.’
‘Trinity is also correct.’
‘Correct your head.’
‘The head is also correct. The scalp, the skull and the brain.’
‘Coconut is also correct. The husk, the shell, and the nut.’
‘I live in water but I am not a fish. What am I?’
‘Whale. The whale is not a fish but it leaves in water.’
‘By fish, I meant everything that lives in water.’
‘That’s absurd. That is not a true riddle.’
‘A foetus.’
‘Oh, you said it.’
‘I am not a woman. I am a tree but I have breasts. What am I?’
‘There are no such trees.’
‘Coconut.’
‘Yeah, you got it.’
‘When you touch me, I fall. When the sun touches me, I rise.’
‘Let’s play another game.’
‘Is that your answer?’
‘I’m home. What does it matter?’
‘Mimosa.’
In all this, the leader of the pack, that bespectacled haughty boy was quiet as they walked, though he tried not to show his pensiveness. He seemed to want to get away from those other boy to a place where he could garner his thoughts to himself and make something of them. He still had the Volvo car, that other bearded man, the mayor’s daughter and the vegetable boy on his mind. They had given him another mystery to solve in addition to Lewis Carroll’s riddle.
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Chapter Twenty: On the Veranda
Zach arrived the health centre not only full of wonder at the riddle, which was by far harder than Dodgson’s but anxious at the fact that he had a place in it.
He was met by the other stout and fat nurse at the reception. This time, she was silent, pouring her spite and hostility into a long and deep sneer. Zach did not bother checking himself with her. He just walked past her and headed to the ward. The boy was not there.
Now he had questions. When had he left? Or rather, who had taken him away?
He returned to the reception. The stout nurse still had her sneer on so he could not approach her with his questions. He took one of the benches and pretended to be waiting for someone. His relief came a few minutes later when the smiley nurse, the one at the Holiness Church walked in. She had a smile for him.
‘What do you mean you can’t find the boy?’ was her own question.
With that, they both headed to the wardroom. As if to see with her own eyes, the half-dead boy was not there.
‘Mr.?’
‘Zachariah.’
‘I wouldn’t say he is my responsibility. But it’s all the better for me that he is gone wherever. Why do you want to see him?’
‘His sister, she directed I do.’
She nodded. ‘I’m sorry Mr Zachariah. I suppose you wouldn’t be seeing him. But if I may ask, why do you want to see him?’ She asked as if she had not heard him the first time.
He answered her who instead of the why.
‘I think I could help.’
She smiled. ‘You have a reputation alread
y—of ‘helping’. If I were you, I’d stay away or keep at a distance. It’s a whole different world here. If you will excuse me, I have a patient to attend to.’
Zach stood there. He wanted to tell her that it was the ‘world out here’ that was drawing him into its business not the other way.
He had come so far.
# # #
Zach then turned towards the mayor’s place. Maybe they had taken the boy home after all. But it was all absurd that they would do so, not after they had disposed him. Flashes of Hééb and his face as he gave his the advice about not taking the mayor’s words came to his mind’s eyes in quick swish pans. Then came those of the boys he’d seen on his way. Then was the face of Kuniā as she told her story. Pûjó’s face was by now, seared into his mind, as had the framed photo of Mother and Child. Truth Is Life, the tormented boy screaming ‘shut up!’ the Reverend screaming judgement, the nurse hiding a potent anguish behind her smiles,… they all bumped across his mind. Following them from behind was the story of Lazarus. He had a mental photo of it as told by the many children’s bible he was raised with as a preacher’s kid. He could see Lazarus wrapped in ribbon-size roles of white cloth. He could see the stone tomb behind him and he could see Jesus’ weeping.
In time, he arrived at the mayor’s house and the boy from yesterday received him. Now he needed no introduction for the boy even bowed before him. He was led up to the living room where he waited for fifteen minutes before Kuniā came down to meet him.
She was distraught at the news and showed it. ‘What could have happened to him? Where could he have gone? Could he have killed himself? No, he wouldn’t. Is it that he has found his healing? What is happening?’
The thought of it being his healing was more comforting and so she held to it. ‘Pray it be.’
But Zach did not think so. ‘I think someone took him away from the hospital.’ He announced. The thought had come to him in a flash. ‘The boy certainly could not have left on his own. Somebody must have taken him away.’
‘Who could that be?’
Zach had no idea. The lady was now pacing in front of him.
‘Hééb! But what will he be doing with that thing? You know, I still have nightmares about that face.’ It was the nightmares that had led her to Silas. She had slipped into the room they had given him one night on the trail of the nightmare. He had tried comforting her and….